by Anne Morice
“If you ask me,” Anthony said, “whoever’s responsible for this business must not only be spiteful, but also half-witted if it hasn’t sunk in yet that their effect on Philip has been practically negligible. So far, there hasn’t been the whisper of a whirlwind from that quarter.”
“You can bet your life there will be though, darling, when her ladyship gets to hear about the latest outrage. She only agreed to hold her horses on condition that no more letters turned up. Think he means to tell her about this new one, Tessa?”
“With any luck, he may not. I suggested that it would only distress her and that there was nothing to be gained by it.”
“Did he agree?”
“Seemed to. That’s what really staggers me about Philip’s whole attitude.”
“Taking it so coolly, you mean?”
“Not only that, but he doesn’t seem to recognise any connection between cause and effect, or the possibility of a bad thing leading to a worse. So far as he’s concerned, it seems to resolve itself into the simple question of whether or not to inform the police. Apparently, it hasn’t occurred to him that there could be any real threat behind it, or that his life might actually be in danger.”
“And you consider that to be over-optimistic?”
“I honestly don’t know, Anthony. It was one of the things I specially wanted to ask Robin about. Whether threats of this kind usually mean business, or whether they’re more likely to be an end in themselves.”
“And what was his answer?”
“More or less on the lines of your guess is as good as mine. He said it was mostly the second, but there were enough instances of letters being followed up by murder, or attempted murder, never to rule it out. And I may say that, if I were Philip, the odds wouldn’t be long enough for me.”
“So, after all, you’re on her ladyship’s side?” Clarrie said, “You think he should be given some kind of protection and blow all the rumpus when the news got around?”
“Not necessarily, because I don’t see how that kind of protection could be effective. Since it’s now accepted that Anon is one of us, then obviously the one place where he should be safe, which is inside the theatre, becomes the one where he is most vulnerable.”
“Quite so,” Anthony agreed, “and, furthermore, if I were Anon, which I sometimes think I may be when I look at Philip, and were planning to put words into deeds, I know the precise moment I should choose for it. The fact that Anon appears to have the same idea is not very heartening for me.”
“I suppose you mean that scene in the play where Philip falls asleep and has to be shaken into life? I agree that it ties in very neatly with Anon’s latest message, but I shouldn’t let that worry you. I’m sure you’re not the only one who has realised that, if someone were really out to finish off Philip and the play all in one swipe, that would be the most effective way to do it.”
“I may not be the only one who’s thought of it, but it still leaves me in a rather special position.”
“How do you work that out?”
“Well, you see, I am not only the one who pours out his cold tea in the scene which comes before that one, but what more satisfactory suspect than the poor old understudy?”
“No, that won’t do at all, Anthony, not in your case. Everyone knows you’d be bored out of your mind if you had to wade through a part like that eight times a week. And even if you had been fooling us all these years and nursing secret ambitions to become the big star, you know very well that wouldn’t be the way to go about it. The curtain would come down half way through the first act, never to rise again. So you not only wouldn’t step into dead man’s shoes, you’d be out of a job and might even be forced into putting one of those hunters up for sale.”
“Besides, how about me?” Clarrie asked in a complaining voice, evidently resentful at being left out of this game. “You’ve both forgotten me, I suppose?”
“No, dear, certainly not. How could one ever do that? Do you need more wine?”
“No, but perhaps I’m a schizo too, unbeknownst to everyone, including myself. Not only retreating back into my guilt-laden childhood and chucking Biblical quotes around, but just ask yourselves this? Who is it in the play who is finally exposed as the one who’s been sending anonymous letters and who does the exposing?”
“Yes,” Anthony agreed thoughtfully, “that’s a damned interesting theory and I can see the force of it. You have become so divorced from reality that you have ceased to distinguish between your theatrical identity and the real one? It would appear to be taking the Method rather to extremes, but what would that matter to someone as mixed up as you now tell us you are?”
“And just think how well placed we shall be,” I reminded them, “if we do get a murder! Here we are with no less than two prime suspects making out two irrefutable cases against themselves before it has even been committed. That must be quite rare in the annals of crime.”
“Have we overdone it, darling?” Clarrie asked anxiously. “She wouldn’t be beginning to take us seriously, would she? I shall deny every word, you know, Tessa, if someone does have a go.”
“So shall I,” Anthony said. “On my word of honour, as an actor and a gentleman!”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I assured them. “No-one understands better than I do that this flippancy is simply a way of relieving the nervous tension, because at heart you’re both dead scared, like everyone else, with the exception of Philip, that something terrible is waiting for us round the next corner. Besides, if it’s any comfort to you . . .”
“Oh yes, almost anything could be counted as a comfort just now. What have you got for us?”
“If it should come to the worst, I already have a much more promising culprit lined up than either of you two.”
Fortunately, perhaps, since this grandiose claim was based simply on a casual remark of Toby’s, neither of them seemed disposed to take it any more seriously than what had gone before, nor were they at all eager for me to enlarge on it and a few minutes afterwards we all went our separate ways, to reassemble at six o’clock for the dress rehearsal.
III
“How did it go?” Robin asked me, when I arrived home soon after midnight, then responding to my grimace went on without a pause, “Oh, cheer up! Isn’t there a saying about bad dress rehearsals being the prelude to crackling first nights?”
“If it’s true, this first night is going to crackle so merrily that the circle and gallery will burst into flames.”
“Well, it won’t help to sit here doing the post mortem for a couple of hours. Why not drag yourself upstairs and I’ll bring you a lovely hot drink in bed?
“And at least you were spared the ultimate disaster, I take it?” he said, putting the mug down on my bedside table about ten minutes later, “or did you forget to mention that there’d been a sudden death to add to your problems?”
“No, we all came out of it alive, as it happens; which ought to have been a huge relief, of course, only in a funny way it wasn’t. What did you put in this drink by the way? It’s doing me good.”
“Just hot milk, nutmeg and a dash, maybe two. In what sort of funny way wasn’t it a huge relief?”
“Well, you see, it was as though we’d been holding our breath and bracing ourselves for the moment when Philip’s supposed to fall asleep and for his literally never waking up again. I imagine several others, apart from Clarrie and Anthony and myself, had picked up the idea that, if anything were going to happen, this would be the moment.”
“But nothing did happen?”
“Nothing at all. In fact, for once it went like clockwork. Peter crossed on cue and gave Philip a gentle nudge, you could almost read his mind, poor Peter, whereupon Philip shot up, opened his eyes and went straight into his next line. Getting it right too, which you could say was epoch-making in its way. I’m ashamed to say I was the one who fluffed.”
“Quite understandable. It was the shock that did it.”
“You’re so right! The kind of s
hock which would come from falling from the tenth storey and finding yourself able to get up and walk back upstairs again. It was unforgivable, just the same, because that kind of lapse is contagious and from then on things began falling apart all over the place. It’s hard to describe, but it’s as though it had been the tension which had held us together and, once that was gone, all the stuffing seemed to ooze away.”
“Yes, I can understand that and also why you all regarded that particular scene as the crucial one, but what does puzzle me is why you’d got it so firmly fixed in your minds that tonight would be the night?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? No, of course I didn’t, how stupid! There’d been another letter, you see. It was there when he came in this evening. He and Dolly were the last to arrive. There’d been some mix-up, apparently, about whether she would collect him from the flat, or whether they’d meet at the theatre and, as a result, she arrived first and was the first to see it, so there was no concealing it from her this time. Anyway, it means that anyone at all could have planted it there and we’re as far away as ever from finding out who actually did.”
“And that brings me to something else I don’t understand. Aren’t the rooms locked when they’re not in use?”
“In theory, yes, but not always in practice. Added to which, it wouldn’t have been much trouble to have got hold of a spare key and had a duplicate made. There’s a locksmith round the corner who does them while you wait.”
“And there’s his dresser, of course. He’d have a key, I suppose he must rank fairly high on the list of suspects?”
“Not really, Robin. For one thing, he’s never worked for Philip before, and also he hasn’t been around until quite recently, certainly not during the period when the first letter arrived.”
“I see! And what form did the latest one take? Bible or Shakespeare?”
“Neither. It just said: Curtains tonight. Very down to earth and straight to the point.”
“But, since it didn’t come to the point, doesn’t it sound after all as though this is just some elaborate joke?”
“If so, it’s not giving rise to much mirth, I can assure you. I think what’s depressing us now is knowing that we’ve got to go through the whole dreary business again tomorrow night and perhaps the one after that, and on and on, never able to relax and put it out of our minds. I shouldn’t be surprised if one of us were to murder him, just to put an end to the suspense.”
“Well, try not to worry any more tonight. And don’t forget that if something should happen tomorrow, I’ll be out in front, watching every move and gesture with hawk-eyed attention.”
“Then I’ll get the stage manager to come on and say: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, is there a policeman in the house?’ and you can tear round and sort it out within ten minutes of the crime being committed. So at least your career won’t suffer, even if mine goes into decline.”
“On which consoling note,” Robin said, “I suggest you try and get some sleep now and I shall do likewise. It begins to look as though we may both have a heavy day ahead of us.”
Chapter Five
Always willing and usually able to oblige, I switched off the light and obediently fell asleep for approximately ten hours. It worked wonders too, because by midday on a sunny May morning the world had polished up its image and I had become a born-again optimist.
There was no rational way to account for it, but I was not altogether surprised when I arrived at my place of work to find that other people had been similarly affected. It does not need to be said that, like me, most of them had become rigid with terror, with damp palms, dry mouths and a slight, though perpetual sense of nausea, but first-night nerves are a familiar horror, something to be accepted and lived through by means of well-tried tricks and disciplines. This time, I suspected, I was not alone in welcoming them as old friends, since, by turning up so punctually, they had somehow contrived to push the unfamiliar fears, if not out of existence, at least into perspective. It even crossed my mind that Philip’s extraordinary composure and apparent indifference to the threats which had been made against him was not just another sign that he was losing his grip, but that on the contrary, it proved him to possess more common sense than the rest of us put together.
Inevitably, the see-saw began to tilt the other way as soon as the curtain was up, for that was the signal for the other queasiness to start draining away and, to some extent, to be replaced by the nebulous fears of the past few days. Even so, they did not return with the same force as during the dress rehearsal, because long before we got to the dreaded scene where the young man made his impassioned appeal to the sleeping grandfather we had sensed that things were going well, with laughs coming in unexpected places, and nothing can quite subdue the exhilaration which bubbles up at times like these. Furthermore, although I could not see him, I could judge to within inches where Robin was sitting and this also contributed to my soaring confidence. It was just as well that I had a lot of smiling and crowing to do when I made my entrance, pointed out to my brother-in-law that he had been wasting his oratory and then stood by, watching him wake up his grandfather. Nothing had ever gone more smoothly and Philip, who had got a round of applause when he first came on, timed it to perfection.
All good things must come to an end, however and the first intimation that the pendulum was beginning to swing the other way came about twenty minutes after the final curtain, when Clarrie came bursting into my dressing room. Two or three gushing friends had come and gone, but Robin was still there and our cosy, self-congratulatory session came to an abrupt end when we saw that she was wearing a kimono, still had her stage make-up on and that it did nothing at all to mask her fury and mortification.
“Anything wrong?” I asked, pouring her a drink from the bottle which Robin had thoughtfully had sent round to the theatre a few hours earlier.
“Just that I’ve been stood up, humiliated and abandoned, if you call that wrong.”
“By Pete?”
“Who else?”
“You mean he’s reclining in someone else’s dressing room tonight?”
“Well, he certainly isn’t reclining in mine. Not much fun, is it? I’m sick to death of it, as Philip would say. Here am I, all strung up like a guitar, waiting to be smothered by praise and made a great fuss of and what happens? Damn bloody all! Not so much as a kind word and a pat on the back.”
“Was he in front?”
“No, he and her ladyship are saving themselves for the first night.”
“Oh well, don’t worry, in that case. He’ll be here in a minute. Probably got caught up in a traffic jam.”
“If so, he was travelling in the wrong direction. You don’t know how lucky you are to have Old Reliable here,” Clarrie said, giving Robin a seductive smile, either to compensate for having forgotten his name, or because the wine was getting her back to normal.
“What did you mean by ‘travelling in the wrong direction’?” he asked her.
“Well, you see, darling, if he’s in a traffic jam, he must be driving away from the theatre and not coming towards it. It follows as the night the day.”
“Meaning that he was here earlier?”
“Oh, he’s a bright one, isn’t he, Tessa? Yes, that is what I mean. He was here in the interval and he was still here when I did my change in the second half. Now he’s gone. Fine thing, isn’t it?”
Before we could tell her whether it was or not, there was a knock on the door and when I shouted “Come In!” it opened just wide enough for Pete to put his head round.
“Sorry to intrude, Tessa, but you wouldn’t happen to know where . . . Oh, there you are, Clarrie! I was afraid I’d lost you.”
“Another five minutes and you would have.”
“Terribly sorry, darling. The silly thing is that I got stuck in a traffic jam.”
“Oh, yes? And have you anything else to tell me before we part for ever?”
“No, really, love, it’s the truth. Oh, hello, Robin,” he said, coming al
l the way in now, “do excuse all this. The fact is, Clarrie dearest, I bought you a little pressie this afternoon. I meant to give it to you after the show, but then I realised that, like a fool, I’d gone and left it on my desk at the shop. So I thought I’d just have time to retrieve it and be back before you came off. I would have too, if Shaftsbury Avenue hadn’t been blocked from end to end. There was some charity show coming out, with one of the Royals there and I got held up for over twenty minutes.”
“What sort of present? Ice cream?”
“No, no, something a bit more solid.”
“I just wondered why it wouldn’t have kept until tomorrow?”
“Oh well, you see, darling, I’d left it in full view on my desk and I was afraid it might have gone away by tomorrow. Some of those cleaning ladies we get now are not all they might be.”
I could tell that Robin was reaching the limits of boredom and irritability at having to sit through yet another of their wrangles, so I said in my Nanny voice: “Never mind! All’s well that something or other, so why not buzz along and open your present, Clarrie, and see if it’s worth the price of your forgiveness?”
“And let you two get off home, is what you mean? Okay, love, see you in the morning, and make sure you don’t get held up in the traffic. Thanks for the drink. Come on, you bastard, let’s leave them in peace.”
It was certainly an evening for people getting mislaid, because when Pete opened the door and stood aside to let Clarrie go first, she found her way was blocked by Philip on the other side of it. He was red in the face, with mouth hanging open and he said in a bemused voice: “Oh, Clarrie . . . is this your room? Sorry, darling, made a mistake. It was Tessa I wanted.”
Not daring to look at Robin, I called out: “Come in, Philip! Is anything the matter?”
