Killer Dolphin

by Ngaio Marsh

“Well, I must say!”

  “—there’s no reason why I shouldn’t ask you to consider under what circumstances the boy, still clutching his booty, could have fallen from the circle with his face towards the balustrade and as he fell have clawed at the velvet top, palms down in such a posture that he’s left nail-tracks almost parallel with the balustrade but slanting towards the outside. There are also traces of boot polish that suggest one of his feet brushed back the pile at the same time. I cannot, myself, reconcile these traces with a nose-dive over the balustrade. I can relate them to a blow to the jaw, a fall across the balustrade, a lift, a sidelong drag and a drop. I also think Jay’s objections are very well urged. There may be answers to them but at the moment I can’t think of any. What’s more, if the boy’s the thief and killer, who unshot the bolts and unslipped the iron bar on the little pass-door in the main front entrance? Who left the key in the lock and banged the door shut from outside?”

  “Did someone do this?”

  “That’s how things were when the police arrived.”

  “I—I didn’t notice. I didn’t notice that,” Peregrine said, putting his hand to his eyes. “It was the shock, I suppose.”

  “I expect it was.”

  “Jobbins would have bolted the little door and dropped the bar when everyone had gone and I think he always hung the key in the corner beyond the box-office. No,” Peregrine said slowly, “I can’t see the boy doing that thing with the door. It doesn’t add up.”

  “Not really, does it?” Alleyn said mildly.

  “What action,” Mr. Greenslade asked, “do you propose to take?”

  “The usual routine, and a very tedious affair it’s likely to prove. There may be useful prints on the pedestal or the dolphin itself but I’m inclined to think that the best we can hope for there is negative evidence. There may be prints on the safe but so far Sergeant Bailey has found none. The injuries to the boy’s face are interesting.”

  “If he recovers consciousness,” Peregrine said, “he’ll tell the whole story.”

  “Not if he’s responsible,” Mr. Greenslade said obstinately.

  “Concussion,” Alleyn said, “can be extremely tricky. In the meantime, of course, we’ll have to find out about all the members of the company and the front-of-house staff and so on.”

  “Find out?”

  “Their movements for one thing. You may be able to help us here,” Alleyn said to Peregrine. “It seems that apart from the boy, you and Miss Dunne were the last to leave the theatre. Unless, of course, somebody lay doggo until you’d gone. Which may well be the case. Can you tell us anything about how and when and by what door the other members of the cast went out?”

  “I think I can,” Peregrine said. He was now invested with the kind of haggard vivacity that follows emotional exhaustion: a febrile alertness such as he had often felt after some hideously protracted dress-rehearsal. He described the precautions taken at the close of every performance to insure that nobody was left on the premises. A thorough search of the house was made by backstage and front-of-house staff. He was certain it would have been quite impossible for anybody in the audience to hide anywhere in the theatre.

  He related rapidly and accurately how the stage-crew left the theater in a bunch and how Gertrude Bracey and Marcus Knight went out together through the auditorium to escape the wet. They had been followed by Charles Random, who was alone and used the stage-door, and then by Emily, who stayed offstage with Peregrine.

  “And then,” Peregrine said, “Destiny Meade and Harry Grove came out with a clutch of friends. They were evidently going on to a party. They went down the stage-door alley and I heard Harry call out that he’d fetch something or another and Destiny tell him not to be too long. And it was then—I’d come back from having a look at the weather—It was then that I fancied—” He stopped.

  “Yes?”

  “I thought that the pass-door from stage to front-of-house moved. It was out of the tail of my eye, sort of. If I’m right, and I think I am, it must have been that wretched kid, I suppose.”

  “But you never saw him?”

  “Never. No. Only heard him.” And Peregrine described how he had gone out to the front and his subsequent interview with Jobbins. Alleyn took him over this again because, so he said, he wanted to make sure he’d got it right “You shaped up to chasing the boy, did you? After you heard him catcall and slam the stage-door?”

  “Yes. But Jobbins pointed out he’d be well on his way. So we said goodnight and—”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve just remembered. Do you know what we said to each other? I said: ‘This is your last watch,’ and he said: ‘That’s right. Positively the last appearance.’ Because the treasure was to be taken away today, you see. And after that Jobbins wouldn’t have had to be glued to the half-landing.”

  Greenslade and Fox made slight appropriate noises. Alleyn waited for a moment and then said: “And so you said goodnight and you and Miss Dunne left? By the stage-door?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it locked? Before you left?”

  “No. Wait a moment, though. I think the Yale lock was on but certainly not the bolts. Hawkins came in by the stage-door. He had a key. He’s a responsible man from a good firm, though you wouldn’t think it from his behaviour tonight. He let himself in and then shot the bolts.”

  “Yes,” Alleyn said. “We got that much out of him. Nothing else you can tell us?”

  Peregrine said: “Not as far as I can think. But all the same I’ve got a sort of notion that there’s some damn thing I’ve forgotten. Some detail.”

  “To do with what? Any idea?”

  “To do with — I don’t know. The boy, I think.”

  The boy?”

  “I fancy I was thinking about a production of The Cherry Orchard, but — no, it’s gone and I daresay it’s of no consequence.”

  Mr. Greenslade said: “I know this is not your concern, Alleyn, but I hope you don’t mind my raising the point with Jay. I should like to know what happens to the play. Does the season continue? I am unfamiliar with theatrical practice.”

  Peregrine said with some acidity: “Theatrical practice doesn’t habitually cover the death by violence of one of its employees.”

  “Quite.”

  “But all the same,” Peregrine said, “there is a certain attitude—”

  “Quite. Yes. The — er — ‘the show,’ ” quoted Mr. Greenslade self-consciously, “ ‘must go on.’ ”

  “I think we should go on. The boy’s understudy’s all right. Tomorrow—no, today’s Sunday, which gives us a chance to collect ourselves.” Peregrine fetched up short and turned to Alleyn. “Unless,” he said, “the police have any objection.”

  “It’s a bit difficult to say at this juncture, you know, but we should be well out of The Dolphin by Monday night. Tomorrow night, in fact. You want an answer long before that, of course. I think I may suggest that you carry on as if for performance. If anything crops up to change the situation we shall let you know at once.”

  With an air of shocked discovery Peregrine said:

  “There’s a great deal to be done. There’s that—that—that—dreadful state of affairs on the half-landing.”

  “I’m afraid we shall have to take up a section of the carpet. My chaps will do that. Can you get it replaced in time?”

  “I suppose so,” Peregrine said, rubbing his hand across his face. “Yes; Yes, we can do something about it.”

  “We’ve removed the bronze dolphin.”

  Peregrine told himself that he mustn’t think about that. He must keep in the right gear and, oh God, he mustn’t be sick.

  He muttered: “Have you? I suppose so. Yes.”

  Mr. Greenslade said. “If there’s nothing more one can do—” and stood up. “One has to inform Mr. Conducis,” he sighed, and was evidently struck by a deadly thought. “The press!” he cried. “My God, the press!”

  “The press,” Alleyn rejoined, “is in full lurk outside
the theatre. We have issued a statement to the effect that a night watchman at The Dolphin has met with a fatal accident but that there is no further indication at the moment of how this came about.”

  “That won’t last long,” Mr. Greenslade grunted as he struggled into his overcoat. He gave Alleyn his telephone numbers, gloomily told Peregrine he supposed they would be in touch and took his leave.

  “I shan’t keep you any longer,” Alleyn said to Peregrine. “But I shall want to talk to all the members of the cast and staff during the day. I see there’s a list of addresses and telephone numbers here. If none of them objects I shall ask them to come here to The Dolphin, rather than call on them severally. It will save time.”

  “Shall I tell them?”

  “That’s jolly helpful of you but I think it had better be official.”

  “Oh. Oh, yes. Of course.”

  “I expect you’ll want to tell them what’s happened and warn them they’ll be needed, but we’ll organize the actual interviews. Eleven o’clock this morning, perhaps.”

  “I must be with them,” Peregrine said. “If you please.”

  “Yes, of course,” Alleyn said. “Goodnight.”

  Peregrine thought absently that he had never seen a face so transformed by a far from excessive smile. Quite heartened by this phenomenon he held out his hand.

  “Goodnight,” he said. “There’s one saving grace at least in all this horror.”

  “Yes?”

  “Oh, yes,” Peregrine said warmly and looked at a small glove and two scraps of writing that lay before Alleyn on Winter Meyer’s desk. “You know,” he said, “if they had been lost I really think I might have gone completely bonkers. You — you will take care of them?”

  “Great care,” Alleyn said.

  When Peregrine had gone Alleyn sat motionless and silent for so long that Fox was moved to clear his throat.

  Alleyn bent over the treasure. He took a jeweller’s eyeglass out of his pocket. He inserted a long index finger in the glove and turned back the gauntlet. He examined the letters H.S. and then the seams of the glove and then the work on the back.

  “What’s up, Mr. Alleyn?” Fox asked. “Anything wrong?”

  “Oh, my dear Br’er Fox, I’m afraid so. I’m afraid there’s no saving grace in this catastrophe, after all, for Peregrine Jay.”

  SEVEN

  Sunday Morning

  “I didn’t knock you up when I came in,” Peregrine said. “There seemed no point. It was getting light. I just thought I’d leave the note to wake me at seven. And oddly enough I did sleep. Heavily.”

  Jeremy stood with his back to Peregrine, looking out of the bedroom window. “Is that all?” he asked.

  “All?”

  “That happened?”

  “I should have thought it was enough, my God!”

  “I know,” Jeremy said without turning. “I only meant: did you look at the glove?”

  “I saw it, I told you: the Sergeant brought it to Alleyn with the two documents and afterwards Alleyn laid them out on Winty’s desk.”

  “I wondered if it was damaged.”

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t examine it. I wouldn’t have been let. Fingerprints and all that. It seems they really do fuss away about fingerprints.”

  “What’ll they do with the things?”

  “I don’t know. Lock them up at the Yard, I imagine, until they’ve finished with them and then return them to Conducis.”

  “To Conducis. Yes.”

  “I must get up, Jer. I’ve got to ring Winty and the cast and the understudy and find out about the boy’s condition. Look, you know the man who did the carpets. Could you ring him up at wherever he lives and tell him he simply must send men in, first thing tomorrow or if necessary tonight, to replace about two or three square yards of carpet on the half-landing. We’ll pay overtime and time again and whatever.”

  “The half-landing?”

  Peregrine said very rapidly in a high-pitched voice: “Yes. The carpet. On the half-landing. It’s got Jobbins’s blood and brains all over it. The carpet.”

  Jeremy turned gray and said: “I’m sorry. I’ll do that thing,” and walked out of the room.

  When Peregrine had bathed and shaved he swallowed with loathing two raw eggs in Worcestershire sauce and addressed himself to the telephone. The time was now twenty past seven.

  On the South Bank in the borough, of Southwark, Superintendent Alleyn, having left Inspector Fox to arrange the day’s business, drove over Blackfriars Bridge to St. Terence’s Hospital and was conducted to a ward where Trevor Vere, screened from general view and deeply sighing, lay absorbed in the enigma of unconsciousness. At his bedside sat a uniformed constable with his helmet under his chair and a notebook in his hand. Alleyn was escorted by the ward sister and a house-surgeon.

  “As you see, he’s deeply concussed,” said the house-surgeon. “He fell on his feet and drove his spine into the base of his head and probably crashed the back of a seat. As far as we can tell there’s no profound injury internally. Right femur and two ribs broken. Extensive bruising. You may say he was bloody lucky. A twenty foot fall, I understand.”

  “The bruise on his jaw?”

  “That’s a bit of a puzzle. It doesn’t look like the back or arm of a seat. It’s got all the characteristics of a nice hook to the jaw. I wouldn’t care to say definitely, of course. Sir James has seen him.” (Sir James Curtis was the Home Office pathologist.) “He thinks it looks like a punch.”

  “Ah. Yes, so he said. It’s no use my asking, of course, when the boy may recover consciousness? Or how much he will remember?”

  “The usual thing is complete loss of memory for events occurring just before the accident.”

  “Alas.”

  “What? Oh, quite. You must find that sort of thing very frustrating.”

  “Very. I wonder if it would be possible to take the boy’s height and length of his arms, would it?”

  “He can’t be disturbed.”

  “I know. But if he might he uncovered for a moment. It really is important.”

  The young house-surgeon thought for a moment and then nodded to the sister, who folded back the bed-clothes.

  “I’m very much obliged to you,” Alleyn said three minutes later and replaced the clothes.

  “Well, if that’s all—?”

  “Yes. Thank you very much. I mustn’t keep you. Thank you, Sister. I’ll just have a word with the constable, here, before I go.”

  The constable had withdrawn to the far side of the bed.

  “You’re the chap who came here with the ambulance, aren’t you?” Alleyn asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You should have been relieved. You heard about instructions from Mr. Fox concerning the boy’s fingernails?”

  “Yes, I did, sir, but only after he’d been cleaned up.”

  Alleyn swore in a whisper.

  “But I’d happened to notice—” The constable — wooden-faced — produced from a pocket in his tunic a folded paper. “It was in the ambulance, sir. While they were putting a blanket over him. They were going to tuck his hands under and I noticed they were a bit dirty like a boy’s often are but the fingernails had been manicured. Colourless varnish and all. And then I saw two were broken back and the others kind of choked up with red fluff and I cleaned them out with my penknife.” He modestly proffered his little folded paper.

  “What’s your name?” Alleyn asked.

  “Grantley, sir.”

  “Want to move out of the uniformed arm?”

  “I’d like to.”

  “Yes. Well, come and see me if you apply for a transfer.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Trevor Vere sighed lengthily in his breathing. Alleyn looked at the not-quite-closed eyes, the long lashes and the full mouth that had smirked so unpleasingly at him that morning in The Dolphin. It was merely childish now. He touched the forehead which was cool and dampish.

  “Where’s his mother?” Al
leyn asked.

  “They say, on her way.”

  “She’s difficult, I’m told. Don’t leave the boy before you’re relieved. If he speaks: get it.”

  “They say he’s not likely to speak, sir.”

  “I know. I know.”

  A nurse approached with a covered object. “All right,” Alleyn said, “I’m off.”

  He went to the Yard, treating himself to coffee and bacon and eggs on the way.

  Fox, he was told, had come in. He arrived in Alleyn’s office looking, as always, neat, reasonable, solid and extremely clean. He made a succinct report. Jobbins appeared to have no near relations, but the landlady at The Wharfinger’s Friend had heard him mention a cousin who was lockkeeper near Marlow. The stage-crew and front-of-house people had been checked and were out of the picture. The routine search before locking up seemed to have been extremely thorough.

  Bailey and Thompson had finished at the theatre, where nothing of much significance had emerged. The dressing-rooms had yielded little beyond a note from Harry Grove that Destiny Meade had carelessly tucked into her make-up box.

  “Very frank affair,” Mr. Fox said primly.

  “Frank about what?”

  “Sex.”

  “Oh. No joy for us?”

  “Not in the way you mean, Mr. Alleyn.”

  “What about the boy’s room?”

  “He shares with Mr. Charles Random. A lot of horror comics including some of the American type that come within the meaning of the act respecting the importation of juvenile reading. One strip was about a well-developed female character called Slash who’s really a vampire. She carves up Olympic athletes and leaves her mark on them — ‘Slash,’ in blood. It seems the lad was quite struck with this. He’s scrawled ‘Slash’ across the dressing-room looking-glass with red greasepaint and we found the same thing on the front-of-house lavatory mirrors and on the wall of one of the upstairs boxes. The one on the audience’s left.”

  “Poor little swine.”

  “The landlady at The Wharfinger’s Friend reckons he’ll come to no good and blames the mother, who plays the steel guitar at that strip-tease joint behind Magpie Alley. Half the time she doesn’t pick the kid up after his show and he gets round the place till all hours, Mrs. Jancy says.”