Ngaio Marsh - Death at the Dolphin

‘A new departure for V.M.C.’ this personage said. ‘We were all astonished,’ (who were ‘we’?) ‘Still, like the rest of us, one supposes, he must have his toys.’

Peregrine wondered if it would have been possible for him to have heard a more innocently offensive comment.

‘It’s a matter of life and death to us,’ he said. The personage looked at him with amusement.

‘Is it really?’ he said. ‘Well, yes. I can see that it is. I hope all goes well. But I am still surprised by the turn of V.M.C.’s fancy. I didn’t think he had any fancies.’

‘I don’t really know him,’ said Peregrine.

‘Which of us does?’ the personage rejoined. ‘He’s a legend in his own lifetime and the remarkable thing about that is: the legend is perfectly accurate.’ Well-content with this aphorism he chuckled and passed superbly on leaving an aftermath of cigar, champagne and the very best unguents for the Man.

‘If I were to become as fabulously rich as that,’ Peregrine wondered, ‘would I turn into just such another? Can it be avoided?’

He found himself alongside Emily Dunne who helped in Jeremy’s shop and was to play Joan Hart in The Glove . She had got the part by audition and on her own performance, which Peregrine had seen, of Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream . She had a pale face with dark eyes and a welcoming mouth. He thought she looked very intelligent and liked her voice which was deepish.

‘Have you got some champagne?’ asked Peregrine, ‘and would you like something to eat?’

‘Yes and no, thank you,’ said Emily. ‘It’s a wonderful play. I can’t get over my luck, being in it. And I can’t get over The Dolphin either.’

‘I thought you looked as if you were quite enjoying it. You read Joan exactly right. One wants to feel it’s a pity she’s Will’s sister because she’s the only kind of woman who would ever suit him as a wife.’

‘I think before they were both married she probably let him in by the side-window when he came home to Henley Street in the early hours after a night on the tiles.’

‘Yes, of course she did. How right you are. Do you like cocktail parties?’

‘Not really, but I always hope I will.’

‘I’ve given that up, even.’

‘Do you know, when I was playing at The Mermaid over a year ago, I used to look across the river to The Dolphin and then, one day, I walked over Blackfriars Bridge and stood in Wharfingers Lane and stared at it. And then an old, old stagehand I knew told me his father had been on the curtain there in the days of Adolphus Ruby. I got a sort of thing about it. I found a book in a sixpenny rack called The Buskin and the Boards

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