Night at the Vulcan ra-16

by Ngaio Marsh

  Finally, Poole asked if the central-heating couldn’t be stoked up and a stage-hand was dispatched to the underworld to find out. Evidently he met with success as presently the air became less chilled.

  They waited in the last-act set, much as they had waited when Poole summed up at the dress rehearsal. In this final scene, which was painted on gauze, Jacko had, by the use of grotesque perspective and exaggerated emphases, achieved a distortion of the second set, which itself was a distortion of the first. The walls and staircase seemed to lean over the actors, crushing them into too small a compass. Martyn became very much aware of this and disliked it.

  The resemblance to the dress rehearsal was heightened by Jacko, who had fetched Helena’s dressing-case from her room. Again she removed her make-up on the stage, but this time it was Jacko who held the glass for her. He had brought powder and her bag for Martyn and a towel for each of them. With only a spatter of desultory conversation, the players sat about the stage and cleaned their faces. And they listened.

  They heard the two men come back along the passage and separate. Then the central door opened and the young constable came in.

  He was a tall, good-looking youth with a charming smile.

  “The sergeant,” he said, “has asked me to explain that he’s telephoning Scotland Yard. He couldn’t be more sorry, but he’s afraid he’ll have to ask everybody to wait until he gets his instructions. He’s sure you’ll understand that it’s just a matter of routine.”

  He might have been apologizing for his mother’s late arrival at her own dinner-party.

  He was about to withdraw when Dr. Rutherford said: “Hi! Sonny!”

  “Yes, sir?” said the young constable obligingly.

  “You intrigue me. You talk, as they say, like a book. None sine dis animosus infans. You swear with a good grace and wear your boots very smooth, do you not?”

  The young constable was, it seemed, only momentarily taken aback. He said: “Well, sir, for my boots, they are after the Dogberry fashion, and for my swearing, sir, it goes by the book.”

  The Doctor, who until now had seemed to share the general feeling of oppression and shock, appeared to cheer up with indecent haste. He was, in fact, clearly enchanted. “Define, define, well educated infant,” he quoted exultantly.

  “I mean that in court, sir, we swear by the book. But I’m afraid, sir,” added the young constable apologetically, “that I’m not much of a hand at ‘Bardinage.’ My purse is empty already. If you’ll excuse me,” he concluded, with a civil glance round the company, “I’ll just—”

  He was again about to withdraw when his sergeant came in at the O.P. entrance.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” the sergeant said, in what Martyn, for one, felt was the regulation manner. “Very sorry to keep you, I’m sure. Sad business. In these cases we have to do a routine checkup, as you might say. My superior officers will be here in a moment and then, I hope, we shan’t be long. Thank you.”

  He tramped across the stage, said something inaudible to the constable and was heard to go into the dock. The constable took a chair from the Prompt corner, placed it in the proscenium entrance and, with a modest air, sat on it. His glance fell upon Martyn and he smiled at her. They were the youngest persons there and it was as if they signalled in a friendly manner to each other. In turning away from this pleasant exchange, Martyn found that Poole was watching her with fixed and, it seemed, angry glare. To her fury she found that she was very much disturbed by this circumstance.

  They had by this time all cleaned their faces. Helena Hamilton with an unsteady hand put on a light street make-up. The men looked ghastly in the cold working-lights that bleakly illuminated the stage.

  Parry Percival said fretfully: “Well, I must say I do not see the smallest point in our hanging about like this.”

  The constable was about to answer when they all heard sounds of arrival at the stage-door. He said: “This will be the party from the Yard, sir,” and crossed to the far exit. The sergeant was heard to join him there.

  There was a brief conversation off-stage. A voice said: “You two go round with Gibson then, will you? I’ll join you in a moment.”

  The young constable reappeared to usher in a tall man in plain clothes.

  “Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn,” he said.

  Martyn, in her weary pilgrimage round the West End, had seen men of whom Alleyn at first reminded her. In the neighbourhood of the St. James’s Theatre they had emerged from clubs, from restaurants and from enchanting and preposterous shops. There had been something in their bearing and their clothes that gave them a precise definition. But when she looked more closely at Inspector Alleyn’s face, this association became modified. It was a spare and scholarly face with a monkish look about it.

  Martyn had formed the habit of thinking of people’s voices in terms of colour. Helena Hamilton’s voice, for instance, was for Martyn golden, Gay Gainsford’s pink, Darcey’s brown and Adam Poole’s violet. When Alleyn spoke she decided that his voice was a royal blue of the clearest sort.

  Reminding herself that this was no time to indulge this freakish habit of classification, she gave him her full attention.

  “You will, I’m sure,” he was saying, “realize that in these cases our job is simply to determine that they are, on the face of it, what they appear to be. In order to do this effectively we are obliged to make a fairly thorough examination of the scene as we find it. This takes a little time always, but if everything’s quite straightforward, as I expect it will be, we won’t keep you very long. Is that clear?”

  He looked round his small audience. Poole said at once: “Yes, of course. We all understand. At the same time, if it’s a matter of taking statements, I’d be grateful if you’d see Miss Hamilton first.”

  “Miss Hamilton?” Alleyn said, and after a moment’s hesitation looked at her.

  “I’m his wife,” she said. “I’m Helena Bennington.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Yes, I’m sure that can be managed. Probably the best way will be for me to see you all together. If everything seems quite clear there may be no need for further interviews. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have a look round and then rejoin you. There is a doctor among you, isn’t there? Dr. Rutherford?” Dr. Rutherford cleared his throat portentously. “Are you he, sir? Perhaps you’ll join us.”

  “Indubitably,” said the Doctor. “I had so concluded.”

  “Good,” Alleyn said and looked faintly amused. “Will you lead the way?”

  They were at the door when Jacko suddenly said: “A moment, if you please, Chief Inspector.”

  “Yes?”

  “I would like permission to make soup. There is a filthy small kitchen-place inhabited only by the night-watchman, where I have waiting a can of prepared soup. Everyone is very cold and fatigued and entirely empty. My name is Jacques Doré, I am dogsbody-in-waiting in this theatre and there is much virtue in my soup.”

  Alleyn said: “By all means. Is the kitchen-place that small sink-room near the dock with the gas jet in it?”

  “But you haven’t looked at the place yet!” Parry Percival ejaculated.

  “I’ve been here before,” said Alleyn. “I remember the theatre. Shall we get on, Dr. Rutherford?”

  They went out. Gay Gainsford, whose particular talent from now onwards was to lie in the voicing of disquieting thoughts which her companions shared but decided to leave unspoken, said in a distracted manner: “When was he here before?” And when nobody answered, she said dramatically: “I can see it all! He must be the man they sent that other time.” She paused and collected their reluctant attention. She laid her hand on J.G.’s arm and raised her voice. “That’s why he’s come again,” she announced.

  “Come now, dear,” J.G. murmured inadequately, and Poole said quickly: “My dear Gay!”

  “But I’m right,” she persisted. “I’m sure I’m right. Why else should he know about the sink-room?” She looked about her with
an air of terrified complacency.

  “And last time,” she pointed out, “it was Murder.”

  “Climax,” said Jacko. “Picture and Slow Curtain! Put your hands together, ladies and gentlemen, for this clever little artist.”

  He went out with his eyes turned up.

  “Jacko’s terribly hard, isn’t he?” Gay said to Darcey. “After all, Uncle Ben was my uncle.” She caught sight of Helena Hamilton. “And your husband,” she said hurriedly, “of course, darling.”

  The stage-hands had set up in the dock one of the trestle-tables used for properties. They had laid Clark Bennington’s body on it and had covered it with a sheet from the wardrobe-room. The dock was a tall echoing place, concrete-floored, with stacks of old flats leaning against the walls. A solitary unprotected lamp bulb, dust-encrusted, hung above the table.

  A group of four men in dark overcoats and hats stood beside this improvised bier, and it so chanced they had taken up their places at the four corners and looked therefore as if they kept guard over it. Their hats shadowed their faces and they stood in pools of shadow. A fifth man, bareheaded, stood at the foot of the bier and a little removed from it. When the tallest of the men reached out to the margin of the sheet, his arm cast a black bar over its white and eloquent form. His gloved hand dragged down the sheet and exposed a rigid gaping face encrusted with greasepaint. He uncovered his head and the other three, a little awkwardly, followed his example.

  “Well, Curtis?” he said.

  Dr. Curtis, the police surgeon, bent over the head, blotting it out with his shadow. He took a flash lamp from his pocket and the face, in this changed light, stared out with an altered look as if it had secretly rearranged its expression.

  “God!” Curtis muttered. “He looks pretty ghastly, doesn’t he? What an atrocious make-up!”

  From his removed position Dr. Rutherford said loudly: “My dear man, the make-up was required by My Play. It should, in point of fact, be a damn sight more repellent. But — vanitas vanitatum. Also: Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens. I didn’t let them fix him up at all. Thought you’d prefer not.” His voice echoed coldly round the dock.

  “Quite so,” Curtis murmured. “Much better not.”

  “Smell very noticeable still,” a thickset, grizzled man observed. “Always hangs about in these cases,” rejoined the sergeant, “doesn’t it, Mr. Fox?”

  “We worked damn hard on him,” Dr. Rutherford said. “It never looked like it from the start. Not a hope.”

  “Well,” said Curtis, drawing back, “it all seems straightforward enough, Alleyn. It doesn’t call for a very extensive autopsy, but of course we’ll do the usual things.”

  “Lend me your torch a moment,” Alleyn said, and after a moment: “Very heavy make-up, isn’t it? He’s so thickly powdered.”

  “He needed it. He sweated,” Dr. Rutherford said, “like a pig. Alcohol and a dicky heart.”

  “Did you look after him, sir?”

  “Not I. I don’t practise nowadays. The alcohol declared itself and he used to tallk about a heart condition. Valvular trouble, I should imagine. I don’t know who his medical man was. His wife can tell you.”

  Dr. Curtis replaced the sheet. “That,” he said to Rutherford, “might account for him going quickly.”

  “Certainly.”

  “There’s a mark on the jaw,” Alleyn said. “Did either of you notice it? The make-up is thinner there. Is it a bruise?”

  Curtis said: “I saw it, yes. It might be a bruise. We’ll see better when we clean him up.”

  “Right. I’ll look at the room,” Alleyn said. “Who found him?”

  “The stage-manager,” said Rutherford.

  “Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind asking him to come along when you rejoin the others. Thank you so much, Dr. Rutherford. We’re glad to have had your report. You’ll be called for the inquest, I’m afraid.”

  “Hell’s teeth, I suppose I shall. So be it.” He moved to the doors. The sergeant obligingly rolled them open and he muttered “Thankee,” and with an air of dissatisfaction went out.

  Dr. Curtis said: “I’d better go and make professional noises at him.”

  “Yes, do,” Alleyn said.

  On their way to Bennington’s room they passed Jacko and a stage-hand bearing a fragrant steaming can and a number of cups to the stage. In his cubby-hole, Fred Badger was entertaining a group of stage-hands and dressers. They had steaming pannikins in their hands and they eyed the police party in silence.

  “Smells very tasty, doesn’t it?” Detective-Inspector Fox observed rather wistfully.

  The young constable, who was stationed by the door through which Martyn had made her entrance, opened it for the soup party and shut it after them.

  Fox growled: “Keep your wits about you.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the young constable and exhibited his note-book.

  Clem Smith was waiting for them in Bennington’s room. The lights were full on and a white glare beat on the dressing-shelf and walls. Bennington’s street-clothes and his suit for the first act hung on coat-hangers along the wall. His make-up was laid out on a towel, and the shelf was littered with small objects that in their casual air of usage suggested that he had merely left the room for a moment and would return to take them up again. On the floor, hard by the dead gas fire, lay an overcoat from which the reek of gas, which still hung about the room, seemed to arise. The worn rug was drawn up into wrinkles.

  Clem Smith’s face was white and anxious under his shock of dark hair. He shook hands jerkily with Alleyn and then looked as if he wondered if he ought to have done so. “This is a pretty ghastly sort of party,” he muttered, “isn’t it?”

  Alleyn said: “It’s seems that you came in for the worst part of it. Do you mind telling us what happened?”

  Fox moved behind Clem and produced his notebook. Sergeant Gibson began to make a list of the objects in the room. Clem watched him with an air of distaste.

  “Easy enough to tell you,” he said. “He came off about eight minutes before the final curtain and I suppose went straight to this room. When the boy came round for the curtain-call, Ben didn’t appear with the others. I didn’t notice. There’s an important light-cue at the end and I was watching for it. Then, when they all went on, he just wasn’t there. We couldn’t hold the curtain for long. I sent it up for the first call and the boy went back and hammered on this door. It was locked. He smelt gas and began to yell for Ben and then ran back to tell me what was wrong. I’d got the Doctor on for his speech by that time. I left my A.S.M. in charge, took the bunch of extra keys from the Prompt corner and tore round here.”

  He wetted his lips and fumbled in his pocket. “Is it safe to smoke?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid we’d better wait a little longer,” Alleyn said. “Sorry.”

  “O.K. Well, I unlocked the door. As soon as it opened the stink hit me in the face. I don’t know why, but I expected him to be sitting at the shelf. I don’t suppose, really, it was long before I saw him, but it seemed fantastically long. He was lying there by the heater. I could only see his legs and the lower half of his body. The rest was hidden by that coat. It was tucked in behind the heater, and over his head and shoulders. It looked like a tent. I heard the hiss going on underneath it.” Clem rubbed his mouth. “I don’t think,” he said, “I was as idiotically slow as all this makes me out to be. I don’t think, honestly, it was more than seconds before I went in. Honestly, I don’t think so.”

  “I expect you’re right about that. Time goes all relative in a crisis.”

  “Does it? Good. Well, then: I ran in and hauled the coat away. He was on his left side — his mouth — it was— The lead-in had been disconnected and it was by his mouth, hissing. I turned it off and dragged him by the heels. He sort of stuck on the carpet. Jacko — Jacques Doré bolted in and helped.”

  “One moment,” Alleyn said. “Did you knock over that box of powder on the dressing-table? Either of you?”

&nb
sp; Clem Smith stared at it. “That? No, I didn’t go near it and I’d got him half-way to the door when Jacko came in. He must have done it himself.”

  “Right. Sorry. Go on.”

  “We lifted Ben into the passage and shut his door. At the far end of the passage there’s a window, the only one near. We got it open and carried him to it. I think he was dead even then. I’m sure he was. I’ve seen gassed cases before, in the blitz.”

  Alleyn said: “You seem to have tackled this one like an old hand, at all events.”

  “I’m damn glad you think so,” said Clem, and sounded it.

  Alleyn looked at the Yale lock on the door. “This seems in good enough shape,” he said absently.

  “It’s new,” Clem said. “There were pretty extensive renovations and a sort of general clean-up when Mr. Poole took the theatre over. It’s useful for the artists to be able to lock up valuables in their rooms and the old locks were clumsy and rusted up. In any case—” He stopped and then said uncomfortably: “The whole place has been repainted and modernized.”

  “Including the gas installations?”

  “Yes,” said Clem, not looking at Alleyn. “That’s all new, too.”

  “Two of the old dressing-rooms have been knocked together to form the Greenroom?”