Death at the Opera
( Mrs Bradley - 5 )
Gladys Mitchell
Death At The Opera
Gladys Mitchell
Mrs Bradley 05
1934
A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0
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Contents
foreword
chapter i: dispersal
chapter ii: rehearsal
chapter iii: death
chapter four: facts
chapter v: interrogation
chapter six: disclosures
chapter vii: eliminations
chapter eight: theories
chapter ix: evidence
chapter x: aunt
chapter xi: admirer
chapter twelve: sweetheart
chapter xiii: fog
chapter xiv: hero
chapter fifteen: deduction
chapter xvi: solution
appendix: mrs. bradley’s conclusions
DEATH AT THE OPERA
The staff of Hillmaston School are gathered to choose the next production to be performed by the Musical, Operatic and Dramatic Society. After some argument they agree on The Mikado and, to everyone’s surprise, the meek and self-effacing Arithmetic Mistress Miss Ferris offers to finance the production. In acknowledgement of her generosity she is offered the part of Katisha, which she readily accepts.
The performance starts well, but half-way through Act One it is discovered that ‘Katisha’ is missing. And when she is found dead in the water-lobby it appears that she has been murdered. Mrs. Bradley, the well-known psychoanalyst, is called in to investigate, whereupon she discovers to her surprise that Miss Ferris had quite a number of enemies—all with a motive for murder…
First published 1934
by
Grayson & Grayson
This edition 1992 by Chivers Press published by arrangement with the author’s estate
ISBN 0 86220 835 1
Foreword copyright © Clare Curzon, 1992
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available
All the names mentioned in this story are those of purely fictitious persons
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Redwood Press Limited, Melksham, Wiltshire
To
FLORENCE H. BRACE
FOREWORD
^ »
In any gathering of crime fiction enthusiasts, mention of Gladys Mitchell (1901-1983) will produce an instant reaction. ‘Ah, Mrs Croc!’ will be purred in delight, or in rarer cases gasped in exasperation, on recall of her central serial character. She is a writer one devours with an exuberance responsive to her own, or who has one marvelling at the lengths to which imagination can be stretched within the whodunnit’s recognized limits. Her roller-coaster storylines touch peaks of creative genius and depths where one wonders how she dare demand of her readers such suspension of disbelief.
Death at the Opera, published in 1934, is a teasing title seeming to promise the brilliance of Covent Garden or the Scala, Milan. It concerns instead a young woman teacher found dead during her school’s pre-Christmas production of The Mikado. To an on-stage cast of suspects, delicately caricatured and readily recognizable from real life, the Headmaster, suspecting murder but fearful of further scandals, introduces as private sleuth Mrs (later, Dame) Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, Home Office Psychiatrist, formidable, eagle-eyed and a monstrosity of healthy extroversion.
The school background offers the author an opportunity for gently sly observations on the educational climate, on disapproval of competition, on the problem of mixed-sex staff-rooms and classes. As in depicting her main character, Gladys Mitchell happily equates ‘freaky’ with ‘fascinating’. At thirty-three, she herself is in her thirteenth year as a secondary school mistress teaching history, with English and some games.
With two short breaks from school life, she pursued parallel careers until retirement from teaching at sixty, then continued writing until her death in 1983, producing in all a prodigious sixty-eight crime novels under her own name, six as Malcolm Torrie, five as Stephen Hockaby, almost a dozen children’s books and over two dozen short stories.
Death at the Opera was her sixth crime novel and already displayed many of the characteristics of the superb series of her later years, when the eccentric Dame Beatrice’s shrewd intelligence was balanced by the good-humoured practicality of her Scots companion-secretary Laura Menzies, a young woman of physical toughness and laconic delivery, with a taste for the great outdoors. Laura was to marry a rising CID officer in London’s Met, conveniently adding a further authoritative dimension to their cases.
In Death at the Opera, however, the inventive Gladys had yet to supply Laura and a supporting cast of chauffeur, chef and personal maid. Here, instead of the later semi-royal progress by limousine, the psychiatrist-sleuth visits distant witnesses by train and taxi, but already calling on the willing services of her extensive family and young friends.
Behind a front of witch-like posturings, her method consists of mixing freely with the disconcerted staff and pupils to list those ‘temperamentally capable of the crime’, her angle more Behaviourist than Freudian. It is then that, beset by countless apparent irrelevancies and complications, she consults her copious notes to consider the practical factors of opportunity and means.
It is tempting to speculate how far the outrageous persona of Mrs Beatrice Lestrange Bradley represented a natural exuberance which in everyday life her schoolmistress author was obliged to suppress. Not that the liberated, elderly psychiatrist ever quite becomes a creature of farce. Apart from her ‘eldritch screech’, ‘harsh cackle’, and ‘hoots of laughter’ which greet the wilder opinion of those whom she interrogates, her voice is rich and deep; her manner can be dangerously persuasive. Her smile—which, due to her peculiar cast of features, becomes a leer—is not so sinister as to mask her energetic intention to set right things which have clearly gone wrong.
Mitchell’s clothing of a quick and humorous mind in a grotesquely witchlike figure with hands that are ‘yellowed claws covered in rings’, who dresses ‘in queer but expensive garments’ of clashing colours, and is frequently likened to various toothy amphibians—is less likely to repel than to make one embrace her eccentricity with the delight of a child in a beloved stuffed cayman. The test of the reader’s sympathy is whether that eternal child’s response is there to be invoked.
As Mrs Bradley makes each fresh discovery, suspicion swings like a ship’s lamp on a stormy sea. But in Gladys Mitchell’s skilled hands the storyline sails us safely home with no nerves shredded, no sensibilities overshocked. The fun trip has been brisk, an entertainment full of the unexpected, and certainly exercising for the mind. If the sceptical reader is afterwards conscious of strained credulity, this is met by Mrs Bradley’s confident claim: ‘Nobody can say without fear of contradiction that any motive for murder is too trivial.’ And, considering life around us, can you fault her?
Clare Curzon
Clare Curzon has written over thirty novels, half of them under her earlier pseudonyms of Rhona Petrie and Marie Buchanan. All, except a few concerned with paranormal psychology, are works of crime fiction. She lives in South Buckinghamshire, where the Thames Valley Force provides inspiration for her police procedurals with serial detectives Superintendent Mike Yeadings and DI Angus Mott.
THE BLACK DAGGER CRIME SERIES
The Black Dagger Crime series is a result of a joint effort between Chivers Press and a sub-committee of the Crime Writers’ Association, consisting of Marian Babson, Peter Chambers and Peter Lovesey. It is designed to select outstanding examples of every type of detective story, so that enthusiasts will have the opportun
ity to read once more classics that have been scarce for years, while at the same time introducing them to a new generation who have not previously had the chance to enjoy them.
chapter i: dispersal
« ^ »
i
The Headmaster shook his head and smiled ruefully.
“There is nothing for it but Shakespeare,” he said.
“Dull,” suggested the Senior Science Master, grimacing, Puck-like, at the Senior English Mistress, who had played at the Old Vic.
“Quite,” the Headmaster agreed meekly, and waited for further suggestions.
“The parents won’t come,” said the Junior Music Mistress, sadly. She liked lots and lots of the parents to come. She waylaid them in corridors and places where parents get lost and, guiding them to the main hall, booked orders for their offspring to take Extra Music. The fees for Extra Music were heavy, and the Junior Music Mistress received twenty per cent of them. “I’m sure they’ll think Shakespeare too boring.”
The Senior History Master did not agree. The parents would come, whatever the Musical, Operatic and Dramatic Society produced, he thought. The parents would come to see the children act and to hear them sing. The parents did not care whether it was Shakespeare or a revue. At least, that was his opinion, and it was based on a twenty years’ experience of parents and their peculiar psychology.
At this point the Senior Mathematics Master wanted to know whether they could not produce a revue. Surely, with so much talent on the staff…?
The Headmaster replied cordially that if the staff thought they could collaborate in the production of a revue, he should be delighted to assist them by any means in his power. A brisk discussion followed, but the idea was dropped. As the Junior English Master put it: “It sounded something like work.”
“What about another comic opera?” suggested the Arithmetic Mistress. “I am sure everybody enjoyed The Gondoliers.”
“I think that was the Head’s point, wasn’t it, sir?” said the Junior English Master, blending carefully the deference due to the Headmaster with a certain amount of youthful contempt for the Arithmetic Mistress. “We can’t afford to tackle another opera this year.”
“We lost thirty pounds, one shilling and ninepence on The Gondoliers,” said the Headmaster; “and that in spite of the fact that we had a full house.”
“I would put up the money,” said the Arithmetic Mistress. She spoke breathlessly, out of nervousness. All eyes were upon her. She was shabbily dressed, heavy-faced and almost inarticulate except in the classroom. She taught the lower forms only.
The school was an expensive experiment in co-education. It was a private concern, and the Headmaster, who had spent a fortune on it, was chairman of the board of directors. None of the staff held shares, and it was against the terms of their engagement for them to do so. They were well paid, and were expected to be something more than merely efficient teachers, for the social side of school life was catered for as carefully and thoroughly as the educational.
Games for the girls and boys were of secondary importance to hobbies. Corporal punishment was never resorted to. There was no prefect system. English was the most important subject. In short, it was a freak school. The staff came to weep, and remained—wondering at themselves as they did so—to rejoice. All the senior members of the staff, both men and women, were married, although the Headmaster was a bachelor.
There were the usual friendships and enmities, but nearly everyone united in tolerating the Arithmetic Mistress, for she was the mildest and most inoffensive of persons: self-effacing, meek, quietly contented with her lot. All looked at her in surprise, and some in alarm, however, as she made the offer to finance the production of a comic opera. The Head broke the pause.
“But, really, you know, Miss Ferris—” he said. The Arithmetic Mistress interrupted him.
“I know how much it would cost,” she said. “I could afford it, Mr. Cliffordson. I should like it to be a little present to the school. I have been”—she gulped, and her dull eyes filled suddenly—“I have been so happy here.”
There was an awkward pause, then the Headmaster cleared his throat and pronounced his benediction on the scheme.
“In that case—a present to the school—very kind indeed of you. Well, now, what about parts? We ought to decide them before the holidays, I think, and then we can get on with the rehearsals next term. Any suggestions? Let me see—what are the parts?”
“Hadn’t we better settle what opera we are going to do?” inquired the Junior Music Mistress demurely. She was very young and very pretty, and happened to be the Headmaster’s niece.
“Which opera? Oh, that’s settled. We must do The Mikado, mustn’t we? ” said the Headmaster. “I’ve wanted to do it for years.”
There was applause.
“Yourself the ‘Pooh-Bah,’ sir, of course,” said the Junior English Master.
“I think I should like to attempt it,” replied the Headmaster. He patted his waistcoat affectionately, imagining a Japanese silk sash.
“Miss Cliffordson will do ‘Yum-Yum,’ I take it,” the Junior English Master continued. He was a self-assertive (and as yet unpublished) novelist, and habitually rushed in where angels feared to tread.
“I should think so. Oh, yes,” the Headmaster agreed, smiling at his niece. “And the funny little chap—the Lord High Executioner—what’s-his-name? Oh, you know—”
“ ‘Ko-Ko,’ ” said the Junior English Master. He irritated the Headmaster, but was blissfully unconscious of the fact.
“My boy, you will have to produce this opera,” said the Headmaster, the more kindly since he felt that his irritation was not altogether justifiable. “ ‘Ko-Ko,’ certainly. Mr. Poole’s part, I think.”
The Mathematics Master, a spry, black-haired, good-humoured little man, laughed and began to hum under his breath.
“Who else is there?” asked the Headmaster.
“Well, there’s the ‘Mikado’ himself, sir,” said the Art Master. “You know—the name-part. The only part I ever remember in Gilbert and Sullivan, as a matter of fact. Sings a jolly good song or something, doesn’t he?”
“Ah, your part, Smith. Your part, without a doubt,” said the Headmaster. The Art Master grinned. “And isn’t there a redoubtable lady related to him? I seem to remember— Of course, it’s years since I saw the thing done…”
“ ‘Katisha,’ ” said several voices.
“Ah!” The Headmaster looked at the large semi-circle, and came to a sudden decision.
“Do you sing, Miss Ferris?” he inquired of the Arithmetic Mistress. The Arithmetic Mistress blushed and fumbled with her handkerchief. She had never been in the limelight since she had first come before the board of governors at her interview, when she was engaged to teach arithmetic to the lower forms. She had been longing for years to be offered a part in one of the school productions. Now that she was actually being offered one, her nerve failed her.
“It isn’t a long part,” said the Junior Music Mistress, who, now that her own part was settled, was perfectly willing to help settle the other women’s parts, and had some reasons of her own for wishing to spite the Physical Training Mistress, who was the obvious choice for the part of ‘Katisha.’ “It doesn’t really start until the Second Act.”
“ ‘Katisha ’ makes an important appearance, and a very effective entrance, towards the end of the First Act, Miss Cliffordson,” contradicted the Junior Science Master, who was in love with the Physical Training Mistress, although she was four years his senior and called him to his face a precocious little boy.
“Yes, but the bulk of the part is in Act Two,” the Junior Music Mistress insisted. “And I do think,” she continued, taking full advantage of her position as niece of the Headmaster, “that we owe Miss Ferris the refusal of the part. After all, if she is financing us…”
There was polite applause. Miss Ferris, astonished at herself, accepted the part. She glanced stealthily at the Physical Training Mistres
s. That lady, part of whose training had consisted in learning to smile most sweetly when she was most bitterly defeated, smiled sweetly and frankly at her. Miss Ferris, taking the smile at its face value, smiled in return.
“Then there are the other little Maids, sir,” said the Junior English Master abruptly. One of his most unlovable qualities, from the Headmaster’s point of view, was his businesslike abruptness.
“Little Maids? Ah, yes. Well, what about Miss Freely for one?” said the Headmaster, smiling at the youngest member of the staff.
The Junior Geography Mistress was really as pretty as Miss Cliffordson, and was far more popular with the girls and with the women members of the staff. She said simply :
“Ah! Good. Bags I ‘Pitti-Sing,’ please.”
Everybody laughed, and the Headmaster wrote it down. Miss Ferris, who happened to be sitting next to her, whispered: “Good! How nice!”
“What about the youngsters?” said the Senior History Master. He was the father of a family and felt it incumbent upon himself to pretend to a paternal sentimentality which in reality he was far from feeling.
“I do think we might have a boy for ‘Nanki-Poo,’ ” said Miss Cliffordson. “What about Hurstwood? He was in The Gondoliers, and did awfully well.”
“Hurstwood for ‘Nanki-Poo’? A very good idea,” said the Headmaster, writing it down. “And what about Moira Malley for the third little Maid?”
“You mean ‘Peep-Bo,’ sir?” said the Junior English Master, with unnecessary helpfulness. The Headmaster restrained himself visibly.
“Certainly. ‘Peep-Bo,’ yes. And now, does that settle it?” he said.
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