The Ballet of Dr Caligari

by Reggie Oliver

  Falconer gives a shriek and tries to escape by leaping over the footlights into the auditorium, but he does not jump far enough and he falls into the orchestra pit where he lies moaning and babbling and grasping a broken ankle. It is all as good as a play.

  ***

  ‘It was of course,’ said Davenant, draining his first glass from the bowl of Smoking Bishop that we had ordered, ‘your observation of the pot boy, Peter, that finally began to put the pieces together in my mind, that and the discovery of the straw in Hawtrey’s dressing room.’ We were in a private parlour of the Black Dog Inn. The handsome supper that we were just finishing and the bowl of punch on which we were embarking had come to us courtesy of a grateful Commissioner Brooks.

  ‘I am still somewhat in the dark,’ I said.

  ‘Then let me illuminate,’ said Davenant, taking out a cheroot and lighting it, smiling as he did so at the play upon words.

  I said: ‘Hawtrey was locked into a room sober, with no drink. His door is unlocked and he is found dead, poisoned with the smell of brandy on his lips, having made an appearance on stage and then locked himself in again. It made no sense to me.’

  ‘Nor to me neither, till you mentioned the pot boy and the straw.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I know that somehow Hawtrey was managing to get brandy into his system despite being locked in. I smelt it on his breath during the second act dance the night before he died.’

  ‘Precisely. How was it done? Well, at first I thought it must have been Vhokes, but that would not do for various reasons. Hawtrey had the pot boy come into the theatre with a flask of brandy and to evade the notice of Vhokes at the stage door.’

  ‘But the door was locked.’

  ‘Hence the straw. Men in the grip of a passion can be very cunning. Hawtrey told the pot boy to bring a straw, then to feed the straw through the keyhole while one end was in the brandy flask. Mr Hawtrey could then suck the brandy via the straw through the keyhole. I have known men in the grip of drink do stranger things.’

  ‘So the brandy was poisoned, but by whom? Not the pot boy surely.’

  ‘No. Poor Peter was an entirely innocent party, if one can excuse him, as one surely can, the venial sin of feeding for money a drunkard’s craving. No doubt the landlord would have had something to say had he refused. The murderer had found out about Hawtrey’s little scheme and paid Peter to give him a bottle of brandy that he had infused with poison.’

  ‘How did you discover who that murderer was?’

  ‘I had various thoughts. I even considered Maria Falconer. Poison, after all, has often been the lady’s weapon of choice, and Hawtrey was beginning to be more of a nuisance than a lover, but this was an insufficient motive. Besides, had she tried to suborn young Peter in the Black Dog, it would have been noted. You don’t see many women on these premises, except behind the bar. Another choice was Vhokes, but that made no sense, quite apart from the fact that he too was dead from poisoning.’

  ‘Was that a deliberate killing too?’

  ‘No. That was an accident. As soon as I realised that the connection between Hawtrey’s death and Vhokes’s might be purely accidental, I began to see daylight.’

  ‘How could it be accidental?’

  ‘My conjecture is that while Peter had managed to get into the theatre without being detected by Vhokes, he had been caught coming out. The flask of brandy was found on the boy with some of the brandy still in it. That is why the straw was found inside the dressing room. I suspect that the poison was so strong that it had begun to take effect before Hawtrey had got half way through the flask. He had fallen away from the door taking the straw with him and Peter, assuming, Hawtrey to have finished his potations for the night had left, only to be waylaid at the stage door by Vhokes. Vhokes took the brandy off the boy who made good his escape, though fearful of retribution. Then Vhokes drained the brandy flask and suffered the inevitable consequence.’

  ‘But no bottle or flask was found on or near him.’

  ‘Precisely. The murderer, thinking either to allay suspicion or merely to “baffle”, removed the bottle. It was a mistake of course, because it meant only one person could have done it. We now know who.’

  ‘I saw Falconer going through Vhokes’s pockets. I thought he was looking for the key to Hawtrey’s dressing room.’

  ‘But he must have known it to be on the hook behind the hallkeeper’s door. That observation of yours confirmed my suspicions. A slight error of judgement on Falconer’s part but a significant one.’

  ‘So Falconer never intended to kill Vhokes.’

  ‘No. It must have been an unpleasant shock to him to discover that Vhokes had taken some of the brandy, all of which was intended for Hawtrey. This put his plans awry in several ways, but he adapted to the situation quite competently.’

  ‘But you still have not explained the appearance of the ghost. If it was Hawtrey—?’

  ‘Which, of course, it was not.’

  ‘Then, unless—’

  ‘No, it was no ghost, any more than it was at our rehearsal today.’ I contained myself and did not interrupt. ‘It was Falconer. He had a second identical ghost costume in his wardrobe which had been made when a slightly taller actor had taken over the role of the ghost in Hamlet. I confirmed this with the wardrobe mistress. I also confirmed that this extra costume had disappeared. That was why we saw thick smoke coming from the theatre chimney. I went up to Falconer’s office this morning and found some charred remnants of cloth in the grate, sufficient to convince me, and the good Commissioner that Falconer was responsible for that strange charade.’ From his pocket he produced a rag of silver silk gnawed by fire at its edges. ‘Here are the remains of our ghost.’

  ‘But why this elaborate trick?’

  ‘Falconer wished to disguise the time of the murder. The poison he used, strychnine, does not always cause instant death. Its effects may be subverted up to an hour after ingestion. Moreover he wanted simply to cause confusion and deepen the mystery. It served his cause; it flattered his vanity. Remember how he savoured the word “baffled”.’

  ‘He risked being discovered in the subterfuge. I saw his wife Maria look at the ghost that night with a peculiarly real terror on her face. Had she found him out?’

  ‘Perhaps she suspected, but that would only have enhanced her terror of him which was what Falconer wanted. It was vanity, vanity, not love that drove him. He loved his wife only in the sense that he wanted her to be under his total dominion. Hawtrey was an insult to his vanity, and when he was found to be nothing but a drunken sot, he imperilled the success of his theatre as well as the loyalty of his wife. He wanted to be the sole possessor of Maria, just as he wanted the Theatre Royal to be the only theatre in Bradford.’

  ‘Has he confessed to the fire?’

  ‘The ruffians whom he hired have come forward, hoping to forego punishment by naming the guilty man, now he is found to be a murderer.’

  ‘How did Falconer contrive to get on and off stage as the ghost without attracting attention before his entrance and exit through the vampire traps?’

  ‘He was well disguised and well made up. When people expect a ghost, they see one. Besides, and here I salute the man’s ingenuity, in talking so much about the celebrated vampire traps, everyone had forgotten the other trap doors which were there all the time. Falconer had the off stage entrances to the vampire traps placed close to two other traps in the floor of the stage which he could operate by means of a lever. Thus he could gain access to the stage and leave it via these trap doors to the under stage and barely be noticed at all. I made use of them myself when, thanks to your effects of thunder, lightning and smoke I made my own exits and entrances as the ghost of his murdered victim.’

  ‘I knew it was you, but I was still alarmed.’

  ‘I thank Providence that I have used my acting skills in the service of Justice for once rather than mere amusement or even art. The skull mask, I own, was something of an inspiration. I found a property skul
l for Hamlet in the wardrobe and made use of it. Brooks allowed me to use Hawtrey’s clothes and his stage wig. Putting them on was not a pleasant thing, but we actors are to some extent immured to stepping into dead men’s raiment.’

  ‘How could you know that you would strike at Falconer’s guilty heart and make him confess?’

  ‘It was a risk, but I counted on the conjecture that once Falconer knew he was discovered he would collapse. Had he been calmer, I might have hesitated, but he was febrile and exultant. You yourself noticed that nervous habit of drumming on his knee. His brashness, his vanity made him fragile. I think he might have been harder to ruin if he had not felt compelled to kill the pot boy. If Vhokes had not waylaid the boy and killed himself in the process, thus rendering the murder more inexplicable, he might not have felt the necessity of strangling the poor unfortunate. You see, Vhokes was meant to go and unlock Hawtrey’s dressing room, but he failed to do so because he was poisoned.’

  ‘Vhokes might have found Hawtrey dead.’

  ‘Falconer knew that Vhokes merely unlocked the door and banged on it. He had instilled a cold dislike of Hawtrey in his subordinate.’

  ‘It was a curiously complex scheme of murder.’

  ‘It was. No doubt our friend had taken to heart Mr De Quincey’s comic reflections on murder as a fine art, except that he had taken them seriously. It is never a good idea to lack a sense of humour: humour is the balance of a healthy mind. Falconer was a showman, a man of inordinate vanity. I have no doubt that he directed Mr Goole’s writing of the play and the building of the vampire traps with a scheme in mind.’

  ‘So I was an unwitting adjutant to murder. . . .’

  ‘But also an agent of its discovery. Well, it’s late. Deuced late. We have had a long day and tomorrow, we may have to look out for a new engagement, unless Mrs Maria Falconer is made of sterner stuff than I suspect. The stage is a fickle mistress, my dear Dobbs, a lady of many masks, some cruel, some kind. The wise man knows that she will always be a creature of illusion. But the wise man also knows that is through illusion that we can sometimes catch the truth. As we did this day by means of a trap, a Vampyre Trap.’

  My friend Davenant drained his third glass of Smoking Bishop, took a puff on his cheroot, smiled at me and murmured the word: ‘Curtain!’

  THE BALLET OF DR CALIGARI

  ‘Is that Charles May?’ The voice on the telephone was reedy, refined, elderly and somehow familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘This is Daniel Vernon speaking.’ Now I suspected a hoax, but to what purpose? ‘Your name has been suggested to me as a promising young composer. I am looking for someone to write a ballet score for me.’

  It seemed unlikely, but it might just be the real thing. Sir Daniel Vernon was, or had been the country’s foremost choreographer. He had retired as director of the British National Ballet but at seventy five was still active. There were those who saw him as a figure from the past, a ‘spent force’, but I was more than prepared to put any such prejudices aside. The year was 1983: I was young, ambitious, and had not yet had any notable success. A few pieces of mine had been aired in the concert hall, a chamber opera was being performed by semi-amateurs, a film score had been commissioned and then never used: that was the sum of my achievements since leaving the Royal College. A jumble of conflicting emotions must have robbed me of coherent speech.

  ‘You seem rather tongue-tied, young man.’

  ‘Who recommended my name to you?’

  ‘Why do you want to know? I am not a museum relic, you know. I am aware of what is going on.’ The defensiveness surprised me. I was still young enough to think that people as famous and distinguished as Sir Daniel must be strangers to insecurity.

  ‘I didn’t mean to imply—’

  ‘Why don’t you come round to my flat and we’ll discuss it. Come for a drink this evening, about six?’ And he gave me his address in Kensington Church Street.

  I had spent the rest of the day until I was to see him in an absurd fret. What should I wear? Should I bring along some scores of mine? I had no idea what to expect. On the very stroke of six I rang the bell in a narrow doorway, announced myself through the gleaming brass grille of the entry phone and was buzzed up without a word. I wore the only tie that I had in my wardrobe.

  On the second landing the door of his flat, heavy with security locks, stood ajar and just behind it in the passage stood Sir Daniel.

  I had, rather absurdly, expected someone taller, but I recognised immediately the neat, compact form of one who had been a notable dancer of character roles before he became a choreographer. He wore an expensively-tailored, double-breasted blue suit and a bow tie that matched the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. There was a caution about these accoutrements, a lack of flamboyance that gave the impression of neatness and fastidiousness rather than dandyism. His elderly features were similarly well-composed, his silver hair sleek. He shook my hand firmly and formally and I saw his eyes traverse my tie with the faintest hint of distaste.

  ‘Mr May, you come most carefully upon your hour,’ he said, allowing a note of mocking approval to colour his voice. I entered a corridor whose walls were smothered in pictures, many of them photos, drawings and caricatures of Sir Daniel in earlier incarnations. On most of them the expression was the same: self-confident, but watchful, and a little constrained. He had been good looking as a young man, but something in his look denied him real attractiveness. He showed me into a sitting room.

  It was, as I had expected, elegant: the furniture was Georgian, apart from the main suite of a sofa and two chairs upholstered in pearl grey damask. A Bechstein grand piano occupied one corner of the room; and there were more pictures, some of them valuable. I spotted a Matisse and a Braque among lesser works, mostly framed stage and costume designs. I was aware of Sir Daniel watching me as I stared at his treasures.

  ‘A humble little collection, but mine own,’ he said. I murmured something to reassure him that I was respectfully aware of his false modesty. It seemed to be a necessary formality.

  ‘And what can I offer you to drink? I usually have a glass of Bollinger at this hour. Would that suit you, or does your youthful appetite crave stronger liquor?’

  I said that the Bollinger sounded fine.

  Sir Daniel raised his voice by a fraction. ‘Marda, my dear!’

  Almost at once a door on the other side of the room opened and a slender woman entered. She might have been in her thirties or early forties, it was hard to tell exactly. Though evidently younger, she had the same carefully preserved look as Sir Daniel. Her cheekbones were high and her dark (possibly dyed) hair was scraped back from her forehead. She was handsome in the slightly sexless way of ex-dancers. That ‘ex-dancer’ was a conjecture of mine, but it turned out to be true.

  ‘The boy and I will have champagne, my dear,’ he said. ‘This is Charles May, our budding composer.’ I was twenty-five, and it was some time since I had been last called a boy. Marda made the slightest inclination of the head in my direction and disappeared whence she had come. The soundlessness of her entrance and exit was mildly disconcerting.

  ‘It was Marda who first suggested your name to me.’ I wondered what their relationship was. I had always assumed that Sir Daniel was gay, if I had thought of it at all. ‘Marda is my assistant,’ he added as if answering my thoughts with a deliberate ambiguity.

  Above the fireplace was a portrait in oils of a dancer wearing a long, romantic bell-shaped tutu in an arabesque pose. In the background a moon peeped through scudding cloud and below her outstretched leg a cruciform gravestone was leaning at an angle, partly wreathed in sinuous vegetation. It was competently done in a rather obvious neo-Romantic manner. Zinkheisen perhaps? Laura Knight even? I did not like it. There was something about the expression on the face: effortful and pained, as if the artist, or perhaps the subject herself, were somehow caricaturing her agony. The features were familiar. There was a resemblance to Sir Dani
el’s assistant who had just left the room, and yet . . .

  ‘No,’ he said, again in answer to an unspoken question, ‘that’s not her. But she was also called Marda. Marda de Valli.’ It was the name of Britain’s most famous post war ballerina. He waved a hand towards the portrait without looking at it. ‘That’s Marda de Valli in Giselle, which I choreographed specially for her in 1951.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. The name Marda de Valli was known to me, but little else, except for a vague reminiscence of something I had once read. ‘I am afraid I don’t know . . . Is she still—?’

  ‘Alive? Yes. After a fashion. After her dreadful accident she went into a coma, in which she remains to this day. We still have hopes, you know, even after twenty-three years. I visit her every week, at least.’

  He spoke without any apparent warmth, but with great intensity. I felt a chill in the room and was greatly relieved when Marda entered with the champagne and a cut glass bowl full of salted almonds. Marda poured and handed the flutes of champagne to myself and Sir Daniel who said to me: ‘Do sit!’ As he did so he gestured very specifically to a corner of his sofa. He himself sat in a similarly upholstered armchair on one side of the marble fireplace whose grate was filled with an immaculate display of dried flowers. Marda placed the bowl of salted almonds on a glass coffee table exactly equidistant from both of us. She was about to leave the room when Sir Daniel stopped her, raising his hand, palm outwards with a commanding gesture.

  ‘No. You must stay, my dear.’ Marda sat rather awkwardly on a fine Chippendale carver that had been placed against a wall. She was in the same room, but some distance from us.

  ‘Well, Mr May,’ said Sir Daniel, lifting his glass. ‘Your good health.’