by Simon Brett
‘Alex.’
‘Charles, you shouldn’t have come.’ Alex Household shivered and the words tumbled out unevenly.
‘I’m your friend.’
‘J-j-j-judas was a friend,’ the filthy skeleton managed to say. ‘Why not just let me take my chance? If the police find me, that’s one thing. But for you to make the trip just to turn me in . . .’
‘I haven’t come to turn you in.’
‘Of course you have. Don’t pretend. You all think I’m a murderer.’ The old light of paranoia showed in the feverish eyes.
‘No,’ said Charles. ‘I know that you didn’t shoot Michael Banks.’
‘What?’ Alex Household’s body suddenly sagged. He slipped down the door-post to the ground. When Charles knelt to support him, he saw tears in the sick man’s eyes.
‘You’re ill, Alex.’
The shaggy head nodded, and then was shaken by a burst of vomiting.
‘When did you last eat?’
‘I’d left some stuff here. From the summer. Tins and . . . With the gun, too. This place was always my last line of defence, when they – when they came to get me . . .’ Again the paranoia gleamed. ‘But I finished all the food . . . I don’t know, two days ago, three. Of course, I still had water from the stream, and then . . . the earth’s plenty . . .’ He gestured feebly around at the hillside.
‘You mean grass and . . .’
Alex nodded. ‘Yes, but it . . .’ He made a noise that might have been a giggle in happier circumstances ‘. . . made me ill. Ill.’ He retched again.
‘I must get you to a doctor. Quickly.’
Alex shook his head. ‘No, Charles, please. Just let me die here. It’s easier.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I can’t spend my life in some prison. If I’m alive, I need to be free.’
‘But you will be.’
‘No, Charles. Everyone thinks I killed Micky Banks. Go on, be truthful. They do, don’t they?’
He couldn’t help admitting it. ‘But I know you didn’t, Alex.’
‘Clever old you.’ This was accompanied by the weakest of smiles. ‘What do you think happened then?’
‘I’ll tell you. Stop me when I’m wrong.’
‘Oh, I will, Charles. I will.’
‘This is what I think happened that night. I’ll grant you were in a bad state, which was hardly surprising after all the business with losing your part and then Lesley-Jane going off with Micky – incidentally, there was less in that than you thought, but that’s by the way. O.K., so you had all the motives, you even had the gun, but you didn’t do it.
‘The gun stayed in the pocket of your jacket in the Green Room until well into the second act. It was taken from there by the murderer, while you were still in the wings, in your shirt-sleeves, feeding Micky his lines through the deaf-aid. The murderer came into the wings with the gun and with the firm intention of shooting someone.
‘But this is the bit that took me longest to work out. It’s been screaming at me for days, but I just couldn’t see it.
‘The murderer had no intention of shooting Micky Banks. You were the target.’
‘When you saw the gun pointing at you, you realised the murderer’s intention and begged for mercy. You said, ‘Oh Lord! No. No, put it down. You mustn’t do that to me. You daren’t. Please. Please . . .’ I should have realised that from the fact that Micky said “Oh Lord” – an expression incidentally, that wasn’t in the script of the play and that he had never used in his life – before he turned round from the Hooded Owl and looked into the wings. So it wasn’t a reaction from him. He was merely relaying what he heard over his deaf-aid.
‘I should have realised it earlier. I’ve been working with the deaf-aid for over a week, for God’s sake, and I realised how much I rely on it. When you’re using it, you just repeat the words you hear, regardless of the sense. I got caught last week because I got fed the wrong line. Even if it’s nonsense, you still repeat it.
‘Which is what Micky Banks did. He just kept repeating what you were saying. He knew there was something odd, which was why he turned round to look into the wings, hoping for some signal from you.
‘By then I reckon you had your back to the stage and were facing the barrel of the gun. At the moment the murderer squeezed the trigger, you threw yourself sideways, the bullet missed you, but hit Micky Banks, who was standing directly behind you.
‘You then looked round in shock to see him fall. At that moment Lesley-Jane saw your face – she told me you “looked over your shoulder at her”, but I didn’t at the time realise that meant you must have been facing away from the stage. Anyway, Lesley-Jane jumped to the conclusion that everyone else has since jumped to – that you shot Micky – and screamed.
The murderer was meanwhile standing, shocked at what had happened, but still holding the gun. Rather than risk the danger of another shot, you followed your natural instinct to run. You grabbed your jacket from the Green Room and rushed out of the theatre.
‘It was probably only when you got outside that you realised how much circumstances looked against you. All your recurrent fears of the world ganging up on you came to the surface, and you ran away. Somehow you got down here, where you have been since, quietly starving and poisoning yourself to death.
‘After you had gone, the murderer went backstage, abandoning the gun on the way. The hue and cry started for you, but you could not be found. Rumours spread that you had committed suicide. This was all good news for the murderer. So long as you didn’t reappear, or if, when you did reappear, you were dead, there was no danger of the police looking for any other killer.
‘The accidental shooting of Michael Banks must have been a shock, but, as time passed, the murderer must have begun to feel very secure from the danger of discovery.’
Charles looked at Alex’s haggard face, which now glowed with a new light. ‘How’m I doing so far?’
‘Bloody marvellous, Charles. That’s exactly what happened.’ A shadow passed over his face. ‘But how you’re ever going to convince anyone else that’s what happened, I don’t know . . .’
‘If we explain to the police.’
Alex shook his head. ‘Come on, Charles. The police are not notorious for their imagination. Everything is stacked against me, you have to admit. I bet the gun was even covered in my fingerprints.”
Charles had to admit that it was.
‘So I know. And now, thanks to a very neat bit of deduction, you know. But I don’t see that either of us could produce a shred of evidence to support our extremely unlikely thesis, so I don’t see that we’re much further advanced. If I give myself up, I’ll be charged with murder.’
‘Hmm,’ said Charles. ‘Then what I’ll have to do is to get a confession from the real murderer.’
Alex snorted hopelessly. ‘Good luck.’
‘I think it may be possible. And that, of course,’ said Charles, ‘brings me to the identity of the real murderer.
‘Very difficult to work that out at first. So long as I was looking for someone who might want to murder Michael Banks, I was getting nowhere. But once I got the right victim, finding the right murderer became easier.’
‘Who do you think it was then?’ asked Alex. Charles told him.
‘Dead right,’ said Alex.
Charles looked a mess when he got back to the car, but Frances made no comment. Nor did she mention the fact that she’d been sitting there for nearly three hours.
‘How’s Anna Karenina?’
‘Fine. She is now living with Vronsky as if they were married.’
‘Good for her. Mind you, it’ll end in tears.’
‘And how are you?’
‘Fine.’
‘Anything I can do for you?’
‘There are three things, actually.’
‘Name them and I’ll see if I can help.’
‘Right. First, I would like you to drive me to Taunton, so that I can catch a train back to London, in order to be
at the Variety Theatre this evening for – among other things – a performance of Th e Hooded Owl.’
‘That’s possible.’
‘Second, I want you to buy blankets, food, a portable heater and some sort of stomach medicine, and come back here.’
‘Right here?’
‘Yes. Then I want you to follow instructions I will give you to a small derelict hut, where you will find a very sick man, who needs looking after.’
‘Shouldn’t I get a doctor too?’
‘No. Not for the moment. I promised him I wouldn’t involve anyone official until I’ve . . . sorted something out for him.’
‘And how long am I likely to have to play Florence Nightingale? When will you have sorted this something out for him?’
‘I’ll do it tonight. Then I’ll let the emergency services know and someone will come out for him.’
‘I see. Well, that sounds a jolly way to spend a half-term. And, if I may ask, what was the third thing?’
‘To give me another chance.’
‘Oh, Charles,’ said Frances sadly, ‘I’m not so sure about that.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE TRAIN from Taunton was delayed. It was after the ‘half’ when Charles arrived at the Variety Theatre. The business of getting into costume and make-up and then giving his performance as the father in Malcolm Harris’s The Hooded Owl meant that details like confrontations with murderers would have to wait.
He was on stage for most of the first act, and it was only when the curtain fell for the interval that he could concentrate on anything other than the play.
As soon as he walked into the Green Room, he knew that something was wrong. Actors and actresses, who spend all their professional lives creating fictional atmospheres, do not stint themselves when real opportunities come along.
‘What’s up?’ he asked Salome Search, who was draped over a sofa doing Mrs. Siddons impressions.
‘It’s Lesley-Jane,’ the actress breathed dramatically.
‘What? What’s happened to her?’
‘She passed out in the wings after her last exit.’
‘Good God!’
‘Yes, she was in a dead faint.’
‘Where is she?’
‘She’s been taken up to her dressing room. The St. John Ambulance man’s up there with her.’
‘Do you know what it is?’
‘No. But . . .’ Salome Search’s three years at R.A.D.A. had taught her that the pause before a sensational line can be extended almost infinitely. ‘There was blood in the wings.’
‘Oh, my God!’ Charles turned towards the Green Room door and the stairs to the dressing rooms.
But the doorway was blocked by the figure of Wallas Ward, holding up limp hands for attention.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said the Company Manager, ‘you may already have heard that Miss Decker was taken ill at the end of the first act. It seems that she will not be well enough to proceed with the rest of the play, and so her understudy will be taking over the role. Now it’s not going to be easy for the girl, so I hope you will give her all the support you can. I will be making an announcement to the audience before the curtain rises.’
‘Is she all right?’ asked Charles desperately.
‘Yes, she’s fine. Just weak. We’ve rung for her mother who’s going to come and take her home. The St. John Ambulance man doesn’t reckon she needs to go to the hospital.’
‘What’s wrong with her? Do you know?’
The Company Manager looked embarrassed. ‘Women’s things,’ he said with distaste.
‘Is she on her own up there?’
‘No, the St. John Ambulance man’s still there. And Paul went to see what was up. Oh, and I think Malcolm Harris was one of the ones who helped her up. He may still be up there. So she’s got plenty of people.’
‘I think I’d better go up and see her.’
But before he could, the Company Manager stopped him with an admonitory ‘Incidentally, Mr. Paris . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I gather you were late for the “half” tonight.’
‘Yes. I was in a train that got delayed.’
‘Where were you coming from?’
‘Taunton.’
Wallas Ward tutted, spinster-like. ‘Mr. Paris, you should have left more time. While you are contracted for a West End show, it is very irresponsible to go such a long way. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a clause in your contract forbidding that kind of journey on a performance day. Remember, you are under contract to Scenario Productions and –’
‘I thought I was under contract to Paul Lexington Productions.’
‘No, Paul is now working through a new company.’
‘Why?’
‘That is not at the moment relevant,’ reprimanded the Company Manager. ‘I am talking about your lateness for the “half”.’
‘Yes, all right. Well, I’m very sorry. Won’t do it again. Now if you’d –’
‘And another thing,’ Wallas Ward continued inexorably. ‘The lines in the first act were very sloppy this evening. I had a note from Malcolm Harris who was out front and was very annoyed about it. You got badly lost in the dinner party scene.’
‘Yes, that was because Lesley-Jane was giving me the wrong cues. Her lines were all over the place tonight.’
‘Yes, Malcolm Harris mentioned that, too. Presumably that was because she was unwell. But in your case, when you have every line being repeated in your ear, it’s unforgivable.’
‘But if you get the wrong cues, you have to adjust the lines to make sense of the dialogue.’
That’s as may be, but Malcolm Harris said –’
‘Look, come on. Every author is obsessed about his lines. You don’t have to –’
‘It is my job as Company Manager,’ said Wallas Ward primly, ‘to listen to points from everyone in the company and the author is just as important as –’
‘I would have thought it was also important for you to keep the author informed of everything that’s going on. Do you know, on the first night, Malcolm Harris didn’t know about the cuts we’d had to make for time. He thought Micky Banks was just randomly slashing great chunks out of his script.’
‘I agree. He should have been told. And he was extremely annoyed that evening when he came round at the interval. But I pointed out to him that Mr. Banks was not making cuts himself – he was merely repeating the lines he heard in his earphone.’
‘And you said that Alex was reading from a cut script?’
‘I didn’t have time to do that. Mr. Harris rushed off in something of a paddy.’
‘I’ve got to get upstairs and see Lesley-Jane!’ hissed Charles.
Wallas Ward stepped aside with mock-deference.
But as soon as his foot was on the first step of the stairs, Charles heard the fatal summons over the loudspeaker.
‘Beginners, Act Two, please.’
He froze. It was rarely that he felt such a direct clash between his twin roles as actor and detective.
But there was no doubt which triumphed. Thirty-two years of professional conditioning left him no alternative.
He turned round and walked towards the stage.
The father was on for the whole of the second act of The Hooded Owl and never had that part of the play passed as slowly as it did that evening. Mechanically going through the motions, repeating his words, hardly aware of the small Monday night audience, hardly aware of the new girl hesitantly feeding him Lesley-Jane’s lines, he was in an agony of apprehension throughout the performance.
But he had to play his part through to the end.
The end of the play, one curtain-call, and then, sod it, he’d risk another slap on the wrist from the arch Mr. Ward. He rushed offstage and up to Lesley-Jane’s dressing room.
He tapped on the door and entered.
There were four people inside.
And one of them was Michael Banks’s murderer.
Lesley-Jane lay o
n the daybed in her kimono. She was drained of all colour and animation, but alive.
Her mother, Valerie Cass, was busying herself, packing things into a small overnight case.
Paul Lexington (now of Scenario Productions) was looking at Lesley-Jane anxiously and asking if he should arrange an ambulance.
Malcolm Harris sat disconsolately in a chair, chewing his fingernails.
‘No, for the last time, she’ll be quite all right,’ said Valerie Cass, in reply to Paul. She looked round to see Charles. ‘Oh, not another man. Really. Just leave us alone, will you, all of you? Lesley-Jane’s quite all right now I’m here. Only a woman can understand what’s wrong, and there’s nothing any of you could do. So thank you for your concern, but will you now please go.’
‘Look, we’re worried about her,’ grumbled Malcolm Harris.
‘If you don’t want me to call an ambulance, I’ll drive her to the hospital, if you like,’ offered Paul Lexington.
‘No, thank you very much. We needn’t involve hospitals.’
‘I think she should be seen by a doctor,’ the Producer insisted. ‘Look, I’m employing her. I have to know how long she’s likely to be out of commission.’
‘Oh, I should think she’d be all right,’ said Charles. And then, deciding that it was time to start dropping bombshells, ‘Some actresses have continued acting well into the eighth month of pregnancy.’
He should have realised it before, but it was only when he had seen Juliet that the obvious had appeared in all its blatancy. The same strained paleness. Even the detail of needing a sleep in the afternoon.
Lesley-Jane herself was the only one who didn’t react. The two men looked at him open-mouthed. But Valerie Cass’s response was the most interesting. She turned to Charles with an almost beatific expression and said, ‘Well done. Yes, the little secret is out. I am to become a grandmother.’
To say ‘Congratulations’ somehow seemed inappropriate. Instead, he asked cautiously, ‘Even after tonight?’
‘Oh yes,’ replied Valerie with breezy gynaecological certainty. ‘That was just a little “show”. Lesley-Jane will be fine if she just rests up for a few days. Exactly the same thing happened to me at the same stage when I was pregnant.’
