Murder in the Title

by Simon Brett

  ‘But there have been crimes committed!’ Charles insisted, rising involuntarily from his chair with fists clenched.

  Donald gave him a cool appraisal. ‘If you were to hit me, that would be a crime. And I would see that you were charged with it.’

  Charles subsided, trying to calm himself. Slow down, slow down, stick to the one crime he could prove. ‘What about those forged references? Those are real enough. They’re proof against you.’

  ‘Okay.’ The General Manager still refused to be ruffled. ‘So what would that be – a charge of False Pretences, maybe? Might get a few months for that I suppose.

  ‘Yes,’ said Charles, with a hardly adequate feeling of minor triumph.

  ‘If, of course, you could find anyone to charge me . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Listen. As you have so cleverly worked out, I was infiltrated here to put this theatre out of business. I think I’ve done pretty well. With this new offer coming in from Schlenter, with Shove It causing public demonstrations, with the Artistic Director committing suicide under a cloud, the whole set-up looks pretty shaky. Not a great deal of faith around Rugland Spa in the Regent’s management. Do you think that that faith would be increased by the revelation that that very management appointed as their General Manager someone with forged references?’

  Slowly Charles let this sink in, and felt the full crushing power of its logic. The one charge that could be proven against Donald Mason would never be brought.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE FRUSTRATION WAS total. It was even more frustrating than when he couldn’t make sense of the case. Now he could, now he had arrived at the truth, only to find that truth brought no resolution. It was like chatting up an apparently avid girl all evening only to have her favours abruptly denied.

  Charles fumed, because he knew Donald was right. He had been planted to bring down the theatre and the revelation of the subterfuge would only hasten its collapse. If there were someone strong around to handle the exposure it might work, but there wasn’t. Tony had found the pressure too much and was no longer available. And Councillor Inchbald wasn’t going to publicize the way he had been manipulated by his ‘friend’, Lord Kitestone.

  If only there were something else, some actual crime that could be proved against Donald Mason. He had as good as admitted to engineering Gordon Tremlett’s accident, but in the full confidence that no proof could ever be produced. Maybe he had also been responsible for the stabbing Charles had so narrowly escaped. It didn’t seem in character, too rash an action for someone who planned so cold-bloodedly, but it was possible Donald had arranged it as another random act of sabotage, another incident to get the anti-theatre councillors baying for enquiries.

  But, even if that had been the case, evidence of Donald’s implication remained as elusive for the stabbing as for the hanging.

  Charles’ fury was increased by the General Manager’s arrogant confidence. He had taken the job knowing that it would end in collapse and presumably had some fatly-paid post lined up with Schlenter Estates for when he finally left it. And he had done what was required very efficiently, without a moment’s hesitation on moral grounds. Driving Tony Wensleigh to suicide was clearly a feat he regarded as a major professional coup, not an action affecting the life of a fellow human being.

  Tony, Donald had said, had been stupid. Stupid for showing normal human qualities like trust, stupid for giving people the benefit of the doubt, stupid for letting the pressure get to him.

  No doubt Donald would apply the same adjective to Charles. Everyone in the world was stupid to Donald, because he knew he could run circles round any of them. A person with no moral sense at all is capable of much greater efficiency than those trammelled by doubt and benevolence.

  And Charles could see no way of unsettling Donald Mason’s evil complacency.

  He stumped round the now-hateful streets of Rugland Spa, waiting for the pubs to open.

  On the dot of five-thirty he went into the one behind the theatre. He had vague thoughts of seeing the old lady again, asking her more about the young winkler who had made her life a misery. He didn’t know what he hoped to find out. It was all so long ago. To prove criminality at such a distance and after so long would be virtually impossible.

  Anyway, the old lady hadn’t appeared, so the idea was academic. Charles settled down to an evening of heavy drinking which might, in time, induce oblivion. He didn’t drink beer; he went straight on to the Bell’s.

  So the wheel of his Rugland Spa drinking had come full circle. It had started badly, even to the extent of his being hopelessly drunk on stage; then he had reformed; and here he was deliberately going back to the bad ways.

  Then came the unwelcome thought of what had started him drinking the first time. Frances. Frances and her announcement of her new lover. He was still shocked by how much that had affected him.

  But the previous night he had seen her, had spent with her. The confrontations of the day had pushed that to the back of his mind. But it had been good. They had so much together. He couldn’t just let her slip out of his life.

  In his increasingly maudlin state he made various resolutions. He must get Frances back. David he dismissed as an irrelevancy. Surely, if he really asked her to, Frances would come back to him, permanently. Of course, he’d have to reform, he knew that. Moderate the drinking, though that wasn’t what really annoyed Frances; she had always been pretty tolerant about that. No, it was other women. She really didn’t like him being unfaithful. And he had always found it hard to resist the appeal of a young actress. That had been the root of the trouble, that and the long separations caused by his work.

  But he was fifty-five now and his prospects with young actresses waned further with each passing day. No more, he decided virtuously. Concentrate on Frances. Concentrate on getting Frances back. She was the only woman who really mattered to him, she was the only one who could cope with his low moods. He needed her.

  ‘Charles Paris, isn’t it?’

  A Welsh voice broke into his earnest resolutions.

  ‘Yes.’ He looked up into Frank Walby’s bibulous baby face ‘Hello. Can I get you a drink?’

  He spoke with enthusiasm. Having taken the decision to get drunk, he knew it would be more pleasant to have a companion in his excesses, and also knew that Frank Walby was probably the most suitable candidate for that role in all of Rugland Spa.

  The journalist accepted the offer with equal enthusiasm, specifying ‘a pint of Old and Filthy – they’ll know what you mean’.

  Charles got himself another large Bell’s and the two sat down and toasted each other.

  Frank Walby emitted a long, lugubrious sigh. ‘Who was it who described his life as a long disease?’

  ‘Alexander Pope, I think.’

  The journalist nodded. ‘Sounds right. And somebody else said it was incurable.’

  ‘That, I happen to know, was Abraham Cowley.’

  Frank Walby mimed clapping. ‘Oh, go to the top of the class, that boy. Very good.’

  ‘I seem to have a knack of remembering depressing quotations.’

  ‘Oh, you should do a book of them I can see it – The Oxford Book of Depressing Quotations, edited by Charles Paris. “Ideal bedside reading for all would-be suicides.” Sell like hot cakes, that would.’

  Charles grinned. Maybe the evening wouldn’t turn out so badly after all.

  ‘You’ve heard you’ll have to wait a bit to review Shove It?’

  ‘Yes. Friday, isn’t it?’

  ‘Uhuh. Should be. Are you going to do another of your swingeing notices?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I don’t know that the last one really did the theatre much good. And, God knows, it needs all the help it can get at the moment.’

  ‘Yes.’ With his new knowledge of Donald Mason, Charles now realized that the appeal for Walby to judge the Regent’s productions more rigidly was just another cynical device to weaken the theatre further. ‘No, I think you should go b
ack to your old cosy style.’

  ‘You may be right. Will I like Shove It?’

  ‘Well, don’t let me prejudice you in any way, but I think you’ll hate every minute of it.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Walby groaned. ‘I can imagine exactly what I’ll write The bold decision to stage that controversial play, Shove It, was fully justified at the Regent Theatre last night. A splendid cast did more than justice to . . .’ Pap, pap, pap.’

  ‘But generous to an ailing institution.’

  ‘Yes. And at least it won’t get me any threatening letters.’

  ‘Why? Did the last one?’

  ‘Oh yes. Didn’t I show you this?’ He pulled a crumpled letter out of an equally crumpled jacket and handed it over.

  Charles skimmed the contents. ‘. . . filthy abuse of my work . . . showing your total ignorance of the theatre . . . not the sort of thing I take lightly . . . would advise you to be careful walking round after dark . . . not the first time I’ve had to defend myself from bastards who attack my work . . .’ He looked up. ‘It’s not signed.’

  ‘No, but it’s obvious who it comes from, isn’t it?’

  ‘Leslie Blatt?’

  ‘Yes.’ Walby chuckled. ‘Out to murder me – and presumably anyone else who disparages his magnum opus.’

  Charles stared. His mind was racing. ‘He hasn’t made any attack on you?’

  ‘No,’ Walby replied with a grin. ‘I wait in fear and trembling.’

  ‘Maybe you should,’ said Charles slowly.

  He pieced it together. Perhaps there were two parallel but unconnected sequences of crimes. The crimes against the theatre, perpetrated by Schlenter Estates’ cuckoo in the nest. And crimes against individuals, perpetrated by a crazed failed writer.

  First, the stabbing . . . Leslie Blatt had thought ‘young Mr Smartypants’ was in the cupboard. And Rick Harmer had constantly derided the quality of The Message Is Murder.

  Then the hanging . . . Gordon Tremlett, in his unthinking way, had spoken to the author of his ‘rubbishy old play’.

  And Antony Wensleigh, in his letter to Leslie Blatt, had said what he thought of it in no uncertain terms. And Antony Wensleigh had died.

  For the first time, Charles wondered whether it really had been suicide.

  Frank Walby was looking at him, rather puzzled by his silence.

  ‘Frank, total change of subject – Tony’s death . . .’

  ‘Yes. What about it?’

  ‘You covered it for the press, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Even made the nationals – just.’

  ‘You think it was for real, don’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That it really was suicide?’

  ‘Oh, you want it to be a murder, do you?’ The journalist chuckled. ‘High drama that would be, wouldn’t it? No, I’m sorry, Charles. It was obviously intentional. He left this note. The police showed it to me.’

  ‘Who was it addressed to?’

  ‘Nothing written on the envelope. Just an ordinary Regent Theatre one.’

  ‘Can you remember the exact wording?’

  ‘Don’t know, but I wrote it down.’

  The crumpled jacket yielded an equally crumpled shorthand notebook. Frank found the place and handed the book over.

  The words Charles read he had seen before.

  ‘SORRY ABOUT THE TOTAL COCK-UP OF EVERYTHING. NO EXCUSES. YOURS ABJECTLY, TONY.’

  Charles rushed into the theatre. His mind had done a complete U-turn, but was picking up speed in its new direction.

  He was no longer thinking of Tony’s apparent suicide as the work of Leslie Blatt. His suspicion had returned firmly to Donald Mason.

  The coincidence was too great. Tony wouldn’t have couched his suicide note in exactly the same words as his apology of the rehearsal room booking mix-up, though to someone who had not seen the letter in its original context, it could well read that way. Donald Mason had recognized that ambivalence and its potential future value when he had pocketed the note. And forgotten that Charles Paris had witnessed his action.

  Nella Lewis was in the Green Room, sorting through some Shove It props. She looked mournful, bereft of Laurie Tichbourne and knowing that she was pretty unlikely ever to see him again. But Charles had no time for chat and sympathy. He just waved and went on stage to the ladder to the gallery.

  He tried to remember exactly what Tony Wensleigh had said on the evening he died. He had been manic, nearly hysterical, but certain points had emerged both in his conversation with Charles and in his phone-call to his wife.

  One was that he reckoned he definitely had an enemy within the Regent Theatre set-up. Charles could now confidently identify that person as Donald Mason.

  The second point was that, after a long period of confusion, Tony implied that he had at last made some breakthrough, perhaps found actual proof of his enemy’s malpractices.

  Third, he intended to confront his enemy. And, perhaps already suspicious of his opponent’s ruthlessness after the accident to Gordon Tremlett, he wanted to have the gun with him when he made the confrontation.

  Charles had rushed out of the prop store when Tony fired at him (a firing he now felt sure had been unintentional). Tony hadn’t followed him, but had locked the back door and gone out at the front into the administrative office. Before the details of the suicide came out, Charles had assumed that the Artistic Director had gone to confront his General Manager.

  Suppose, after all, that was what had happened. Tony had bearded Donald in his office and presented him with the evidence of his misdoings. An argument had developed, in the course of which Donald had got hold of the gun and shot his accuser. He then arranged the scene to look like suicide, put the note he had kept in the drawer, and went backstage.

  He would have had plenty of time to do this before Charles arrived. And, while the actor had gone the long way, round the outside of the theatre, Donald could have cut through either the props store or the Wardrobe store. (In fact, Charles reasoned, if he had taken the latter course, he could almost guarantee not to be seen. It would have been towards the end of Act Two, when almost all of the stage staff were busy arranging the hanging of Colonel Fripp, and all of the rest of the cast were on stage.) Donald could then sit in the Green Room with a paper, which was how Charles found him when he broke the news of Tony’s death, and give the impression he had been there for hours.

  But what was the evidence that Tony had produced which so threatened Donald? Perhaps he had found out the Schlenter connection and intended to reveal it at the Extraordinary Board Meeting of the following evening. Though Donald was unworried by exposure after Tony was dead, an attack from the living Artistic Director might ruin his plans and build up sympathy for the Regent’s plight.

  Whatever it was, Charles felt convinced that the key to the secret lay in the props store.

  He opened the door and switched on the light. The nearer bulb, which Tony Wensleigh’s bullet had shattered, had not been replaced, but the far side of the room, which was the part Charles was interested in, was clearly illuminated. He moved across through the bizarre juxtaposition of halberds and croquet mallets, fridges and thrones, wooden lamp-posts and polystyrene boulders.

  He remembered Tony Wensleigh shuffling together a pile of breastplates when Charles had disturbed him. Had he been hiding something?

  Charles started cautiously sifting through the armour. The breastplates were just the top of the pile. Beneath was an assortment of small props – cigar boxes, biscuit tins, ice buckets, jewel cases.

  It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for.

  They were inside a treasure chest. It was crudely painted, like something out of a pirate cartoon, and presumably only got an airing when the right pantomime came up. A fairly safe hiding-place, unlikely to be investigated from one year’s end to the next.

  They were papers, most of them with Antony Wensleigh’s signature. Some meant nothing, but one or two Charles could iden
tify.

  There was a letter to the costume hire company, cancelling the order for a Henry VIII ensemble.

  There was a letter to the caretaker of the Drill Hall, confirming that the Regent Theatre wished to continue their booking.

  There were cheques to settle accounts with wigmakers and scenery builders, cheques that never arrived, prompted reminders and lowered the theatre’s public credibility.

  There were charming letters to actors, which they never received and so added the Regent to the list of unhelpful theatres that didn’t give a damn.

  There was the whole history of the tarnishing of the public image of Antony Wensleigh and the theatre he so loved.

  It must have been so simple. The prop store was directly next to the administrative office. Tony Wensleigh would rush in early, before rehearsal, or late, after rehearsal, and scribble off a few letters. Donald Mason, in the office all day, would have leisure to select which letters could be mislaid to best effect and slip them into his secret cache whenever he wanted to. Then he had only to play on the Artistic Director’s natural abstraction and vagueness to convince him of his omissions, meanwhile maintaining a whispering campaign about his colleague’s inefficiency and perhaps worse.

  But Tony had discovered what was going on and intended to reveal all to the Board at their Extraordinary Meeting.

  First, though, he had confronted his enemy.

  Charles decided to do the same. The discovery of the papers made him so angry that, whatever the risk, he had to satisfy the anger by another confrontation with Donald Mason.

  He braced himself behind the front door of the props store.

  Then he swung it open.

  As he suspected, it opened straight into the administrative office.

  But there was nobody there to confront. The room was empty.

  Back in the props store, he looked again at the papers and realized their worthlessness. They confirmed Donald Mason’s position as saboteur at the Regent, but he had already confessed to that. And that was the crime he would never be charged with.