The Ballet of Dr Caligari

by Reggie Oliver

  ‘Poisoned! Why? How?’

  ‘I cannot say for certain. Why have you not gone for a constable?’

  I heard no more of this conversation, for Falconer dispatched me at once to fetch a constable which I did, pausing only to note that Peter, the pot boy at the Black Dog was standing outside the back door of the Black Dog Inn (which is almost opposite the stage door) and staring up at the theatre with a queer expression on his face. Would that I had stopped to speak to him. I might have saved his life, but how was I to know?

  I returned from the Police Station with two constables and Superintendent Brooks who, when he heard of the misfortunes at the theatre, insisted on coming too. I gather that it was less out of a sense of professional obligation than the fact that his wife was at the theatre that night and he would ‘never hear the last of it’ if he had not condescended to investigate the matter himself.

  On our return a crowd was gathered outside the stage door, their faces painted with the glare of the gas lamp that hung over the entrance to the theatre. They were hungry faces, suspended in a desire that they barely understood themselves. What did they want: mystery, or a solution to mystery? Both, I suspect. Only one face was different, that of Peter the pot boy of the Black Dog, and on his face was now written simple terror. Again I feel the guilt of noticing and yet not noticing, or rather not acting on a half-realised instinct. We entered the theatre and pausing to contemplate the corpse of Mr Vhokes which some officious person had removed from the floor of his booth and placed in a corridor, we went to the dressing room. I saw Davenant standing outside it. He looked at me and merely nodded.

  In the small dressing room were three people living. Hawtrey’s corpse had been removed to a couch and a cloth had been laid over it. By it stood Mr Murray the physician and a little to one side at the dressing table was Maria, staring stonily but wet-eyed at the shrouded body. She had insisted, Davenant told me, on being returned to the scene of the tragedy. Standing behind her, one hand resting lightly, almost carelessly on her shoulder was Falconer. There was a distant, dreamy expression on his face that I could not fathom. I made to leave but Superintendent Brooks prevented me.

  He ascertained from the physician, Mr Murray that though a full confirmation could only be obtained by a post mortem, his preliminary conjecture was that both Hawtrey and Vhokes had died of strychnine poisoning ingested through brandy because he had smelt it on the lips of both victims.

  ‘And has a brandy bottle been found?’ asked Brooks. Murray shook his head. Brooks instructed one of the constables to search the dressing room, the other to examine Vhokes’s booth for the offending item.

  ‘It is quite impossible. I do not understand,’ said Falconer. ‘Vhokes and I conducted a search of Mr Hawtrey’s dressing room and of his person before the performance when he came into the theatre and found nothing. Then we locked him into his dressing room.’ Embarrassed, he proceeded to explain the reason for this action. Maria covered her face and her body began to heave with sobs. No-one but I appeared to notice. Brooks turned to me.

  ‘Can you confirm this was the practice? Mr Vhokes is not here to tell his own story.’

  I nodded.

  ‘This is all very irregular,’ said Brooks, a man somewhat given to useless pronouncements. Maria began to laugh hysterically and was ushered outside by the constable. ‘When was he locked into his dressing room?’

  ‘Mr Vhokes and I locked Hawtrey in his dressing room when he came into the theatre, shortly before the curtain rose on Chaos is Come Again, our farce.’ said Falconer. ‘We also searched his person and dressing room for strong liquor and found none.’

  ‘Who was to unlock the dressing room so that he might go on stage?’

  ‘Mr Vhokes.’

  ‘But the door was locked, and yet Mr Hawtrey seems to have passed through a locked door to make his first entrance as a ghost and also to have ingested poison to which he had no apparent access.’ Then he added: ‘This is all very irregular.’

  There was a silence, punctuated only by the distant sound of Maria Falconer sobbing in her dressing room.

  ‘Do you keep poison in this establishment, Mr Falconer?’ enquired Brooks.

  ‘I suppose so. For the rats.’

  ‘You do not choose to keep a theatre cat?’

  ‘My wife Maria suffers from a morbid fear of cats.’

  By this time, Commissioner Brooks, a limited man but perhaps not a complete fool, was looking thoroughly bewildered. He shook his head several times and there were further mutterings about ‘irregularities’. ‘Perhaps, Mr Falconer,’ he said finally, ‘you would be good enough to show me where the poison is kept.’

  ‘Mr Ketterridge will show you. He has the key, I believe.’ Ketterridge nodded vigorously, a man eager to please.

  Just then, one of the constables who had been examining the dressing room and had in the process made an examination of the floor straightened up and said: ‘Found this, sir. Just by the door.’ He held up what looked to me liked the cut stem of a blade of wheat, yellow and so from last year’s crop.

  ‘Well, what is it, Constable?’ said Brooks.

  ‘Looks, like a wheat straw, sir. Would have been under the body.’

  ‘And what was it doing there?’

  Nobody answered the question. Everyone looked blank except for Murray, the physician who wrinkled his brow and seemed about to speak but then said nothing.

  ‘Very well, constable,’ said Brooks. ‘You’d better make a note of it, I suppose. Murray, you believe that the poison may have been strychnine.’

  ‘From the facial contortions of the victim, the smell of bitter almonds. It is to be found in rat poison.’

  ‘And how long does it take to act?’

  ‘Depending on the strength of dose from half an hour up till three.’

  ‘Which means he must have ingested it in his locked dressing room—somehow.’

  Commissioner Brooks wiped his brow with a large bandana handkerchief. I suspected that but for the presence of many of us in the company, he might have been more vocal in his expression of utter mystification. The constables took brief statements from the other members of the company and we were released at about midnight. Davenant joined me at the stage door.

  ‘Let us walk back together to our lodgings,’ he said. ‘Are you tired, Dobbs?’

  ‘There is too much in my head at the present for me to feel tired. Too many questions.’

  Davenant laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘Precisely so,’ he said, ‘it’s a deuced mystifying business. Perhaps it would relieve your mind if you were to give me an account of all that you remember from this last night, while it is fresh in your mind. Tell me everything, however trivial.’

  Almost before I had begun, Davenant stopped me and pointed upwards. We had come round to the front of the theatre. There was a half moon in the sky which was clear but for a few gauzy veils of cloud and the street gas lighting was reasonably adequate in that part of town, so we could see well enough. Davenant indicated a plume of black smoke coming from one of the theatre’s many chimneys. It was thick and heavy, obscuring our view of some stars and the silvery wisps of cloud from which they hung.

  ‘What can they be burning at this time of night in the Theatre Royal? This is a damned odd business. Proceed with your narrative, my dear Dobbs.’

  Davenant listened intently, only occasionally asking a brief, and to me seemingly inconsequential question. All I know is that I was so absorbed in my narrative that I barely remember when and how we arrived back at our lodgings, nor how I found myself finishing my story in the front parlour with a mug of hot gin and water in my hand. Had it been concocted by Davenant or Mrs Perrott, our long-suffering landlady? I have no recollection.

  There was a silence when I had finished. ‘You notice damned well, Dobbs,’ said Davenant. ‘You have a good mind and good instincts. But is there anything else on your mind? Something that you recall which struck you in any way as singular?’

  It
was then that I told Davenant about the pot boy at the Black Dog. As soon as I mentioned him, he became alert. It was by now past one o’clock and even he had been flagging.

  ‘The pot boy! The pot boy! Do you know, Dobbs, I believe he holds the key to this whole infernal business. We must find him at once! He may be in great danger.’

  He sprang from his chair with enormous energy. Though I was beginning to flag I had no choice but to follow him and soon a combination of night air and my friend’s galvanic enthusiasm had wrested all thought of sleep from me.

  The streets of Bradford, lit by fitful hissing gas lanterns were all but deserted. Only a few ragged figures lurked in the shadows, either swaying from some alcoholic consolation or slumped in despairing exhaustion against a doorway. We pressed on through the streets which now were glistening from a thin shower of rain. The Black Dog was shut, but there was a dim light coming from the front parlour. Without a moment’s hesitation Davenant began to hammer on the door. After some while we were confronted by the enormous red face and the equally vast body of the landlord. He thrust a candle in our faces.

  ‘What do you want, you devils? Because you won’t get it.’

  ‘Where is your pot boy?’

  ‘What do you want with my pot boy, you damned villains? You’re from the theatre, ain’t you? Be careful with me, you devils. I can be a very angry man.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He usually sleeps under the bar counter, the little varmint.’

  ‘Is he there now?’

  ‘If he were I would have said, wouldn’t I? You cursed theatricals; there’s no blessed reason in you. He didn’t come in this night after the business at the Theatre Royal.’

  ‘Then where might he be?’

  ‘How should I know? They come and go, these pot boys.’

  ‘His life might be in danger.’

  ‘It’s a dangerous world, man. He may go to the devil for all I care. And so may you!’

  ‘Has he no parents, no relatives in the city?’

  ‘He came in from the country; that’s all I know, and his name was Peter Davey. If you find him, give him a cuff behind the ear and send him back to my bar. I bid you good morning!’ And with that he slammed the door.

  ‘What do we do now?’ I asked Davenant.

  ‘Why, the boy is in danger. We must find him. He may be nearby, but it is a bad gamble. All’s not well about my heart, as the bard says.’

  I would have asked him why he was so sure that Peter the pot boy was in danger, but Davenant was in no mood to discuss the matter. We searched the streets and byways around the theatre in the drizzling rain, some faintly-lit by gas, some so dark and dismal that we could only have discovered him by stumbling over his body. Grey light was beginning to show in the sky over the glistening Bradford streets and we were thinking of abandoning the search when we saw in a doorway down a narrow alley west of the theatre a small, crumpled figure. I identified him as Peter Davey, the pot boy at the Black Dog. His head lolled over his chest. There were red marks around his neck. The child had been garrotted so fiercely with a knotted cord that his neck had been broken. Davenant stood over the body while I went to fetch a constable.

  After the police had come and we had been interrogated Davenant spent a long time in conference with Commissioner Brooks. We barely had time to return to our lodgings to be given breakfast by the good Mrs Perrott before we were summoned to the theatre. As we were making our way there through the now crowded but damp streets of Bradford, Davenant was silent. He said only: ‘Say nothing to anyone about the pot boy.’

  We were the last of the company to arrive. Maria Falconer was the only one seated and she had her maid and dresser in attendance. She was pale and wore the aspect of a tragedy queen on her features. I did not doubt that the grief was genuinely felt, nor that it was deliberately displayed. The rest of the company stood about in little groups and eyed each other. One or two went over to Mr Ketterridge in the prompt corner, but he merely shook his head in answer to their questions.

  Presently we heard the double doors at the back of the auditorium swing open. Mr Falconer entered with Mr Goole hurrying behind him carrying a bundle of papers. He mounted the steps at the side of the orchestra pit and strode into the midst of us. There was a confidence and swagger in his movements that I had seen before, but never to this degree. It seemed ill-suited to the circumstances in which we found ourselves. I was conscious that the man was also in his way an actor.

  He spoke about the ‘melancholy circumstances’ of the night before, and how utterly baffling they were both to the police and to everyone here present. He repeated the word ‘baffling’ to his evident satisfaction until Maria let out a gasping sob. At that Falconer looked over at his wife with an impassive expression and gave an all but imperceptible nod in her direction. I glanced at Davenant who was watching the proceedings intently with a stillness which was one of his most salient qualities as a stage actor.

  Falconer went on to say that it would have been the wish of both Mr Hawtrey and Mr Vhokes that the great success of Ruthven, or The Vampyre of the Isles should continue in their regrettable absence, and that in three days time a benefit night would be held in aid of Mr Hawtrey’s widow and ‘two young infants’. This elicited another gasping sob from Maria and considerable astonishment from the rest of us. None of us even knew that he was married. Again I noted how satisfied Falconer appeared to be that he had achieved what he would undoubtedly have called ‘a sensation moment’. He went on to say that Mr Verschoyle, a minor member of the company, one of our ‘walking gentlemen’ had agreed to take over the role of Ronald, though in view of the very brief rehearsal period available Hawtrey’s former part had been greatly reduced.

  At this Maria looked sharply across at her husband. Verschoyle was a reliable young performer, and about the same height and build as Hawtrey, but ill-favoured and uninspiring in appearance and address. His penetrating but rather highly pitched voice might be heard by the gallery, but was also likely to elicit mockery. There was a murmur among the other members of the company. Verschoyle smiled broadly at this but soon adjusted his features when he saw that his unexpected advancement had pleased no-one but himself.

  Falconer said that we were to reconvene at two o’clock to run through the entire play for the benefit of Mr Verschoyle, and that the performance would take place as billed that night. I looked round to see what Davenant’s reaction was to this, but he had disappeared. I saw him later coming down the front of house stairs from Falconer’s office. He saw me, but only put a finger to his lips and hurried out of the front entrance.

  I returned to my lodgings to catch a bare hour’s sleep before returning to the theatre. The exhaustion of the previous night and morning had caught up with me, and I might have overslept had I not been shaken awake by Mr Davenant.

  ‘My dear Dobbs,’ he said, ‘I cannot explain to you fully, we have no time, but will you do some things for me at the rehearsals this afternoon?’ He then made his requests to which I agreed. He clapped me on the shoulder and said: ‘Deuced good of you, Dobbs, deuced good.’ Then he was gone, leaving me as Mr Falconer would have said, baffled.

  That afternoon, it was not, as usual, Ketterridge who took rehearsals, but Falconer. If anything his febrile excitement and his almost swaggering air of command was even more pronounced than it had been in the morning. He sat in a chair on the very edge of the stage just in front of the footlights and gave commands. Only his mannerism of drumming on his knee with his right index finger was evidence of a certain inner agitation. Even the first scene which, apart from the necessary absence of Mr Verschoyle, now promoted from ‘second demon’ to his new eminence, had no need of alteration, was to be redecorated with refinements in movement and speech by Falconer. Davenant, who was chiefly concerned, took these interferences with an unnatural calm, such that even Falconer seemed slightly put out by it.

  Before the second scene began there was some delay for which I was partly blamed and ca
n now admit full responsibility. However, Falconer’s mood was so exultant, that I got off lightly. So it began in the corridor of Castle Ruthven where Margaret played by Maria is talking to her aged father (played by Mr Goole who, as it happened, was somewhat younger than Maria) about her forthcoming marriage to Ruthven. Ruthven, you remember, has usurped the Earldom of Marsden from his nephew Ronald whom he falsely believes to be dead.

  ‘Ah, my dear father,’ says Margaret. ‘I ought to obey you and rejoice in these forthcoming nuptials, yet the nearer the time approaches when I must meet my husband to be, the more I feel a strange unease about me. Oh, sir, my fate, next to heaven, is in your hands. Do not—do not make your daughter miserable.’

  ‘What means this agitation, Margaret?’ replies her father. ‘Marsden is a most worthy and noble man, and besides—’

  At this point there comes a roll of thunder. All look astonished, for this has not been scheduled. There is a flash and smoke creeps across the stage. Then a figure appears from nowhere. He wears Hawtrey’s clothes, those that were last on his corpse, and the hair is like the wig that Hawtrey wore for the role of Ronald but his face is nothing but a white skull, with dark empty eye sockets and grinning teeth. Maria shrieks, Falconer falls off his chair and almost tumbles into the orchestra pit. The figure glides forward and points a skeletal white finger at Falconer who begins to babble with fright. Then it turns and disappears into the wall opposite. Several of us go into the wings to see where the apparition has gone but there is no sign of it. Mr Verschoyle chooses that moment to enter, somewhat clumsily, through the portrait vampire trap and enquire politely what is the matter.

  He stares astonished at Falconer who is writhing on the stage before the footlights in a state of abject terror. I have not heard everything he has said, but others have, though I catch the words: ‘I never meant to! I never meant to! As God is my witness, I had to! He was destroying me! My theatre, my wife, everything!’ At that very moment from the back of the auditorium come two constables. Meanwhile Commissioner Brooks who has been concealed all this while behind a curtain in the prompt side stage box stands up and in stentorian tones utters the words: ‘Edwin Falconer, I arrest you for the wilful murder of James Hawtrey, William Vhokes and Peter Stavely, pot boy at the Black Dog Inn!’