“Yes, dear, forget it. Do we get anything to eat before we leave your flat again for the Town Hall?”
“Well, it’s terribly early for dinner, so we’re only going to have snacks and drinks and then a cold collation when we get home tonight. Whatever happens, we’ve got to be at the Town Hall in good time. There are sure to be umpteen things to see to.”
They got to the Town Hall an hour before the Tossington Tots were due to open the proceedings. The Tots themselves had not arrived, but the formation team were there, busily rehearsing on a stage which had been newly swept by the caretaker. The combined school choirs had also turned up and were accommodated in the balcony, from which they could watch the proceedings. This arrangement had been insisted upon by Kitty, to the irritation of the special sub-committee, who claimed (rightly) that it would considerably reduce the number of tickets for sale.
“Sixty good seats up there,” the chairman had complained. “We could charge half-a-crown a time.”
“And I’m putting a hundred kids into those sixty seats,” Kitty had retorted. “If we permit a hundred assorted offspring to mill about behind the scenes until they’re wanted, we shall have murder on our hands. I’m sticking them where an eye can be kept on them, and where they can see and hear the rest of the performance. If you don’t know what kids are capable of when they’re left at a loose end for a couple of hours, well, I do. What are sixty half-crowns if, otherwise, the house is set on fire?” She had canvassed Laura’s opinion of the arrangements and had found her judgment completely upheld.
The drama club turned up at the same time as the Tossington Tots, and the two comedians arrived five minutes later, when Kitty had given them up for lost. They had looked upon the wine when it was red, and were so beerily bonhomous that Kitty confided to Laura that she was not at all certain whether it would be justifiable to allow them to take the stage.
“You’ll have to,” said Laura. “I wouldn’t, personally, argue with lads in their condition. Why not stick them on first and so get rid of them?”
The comedians, when this suggestion was mooted, turned it down flat. The house, they explained, had to be warmed up for a cross-talk act. You couldn’t go on “cold.”
“Got to get the applause going,” the slightly less inebriated of the two explained. Kitty gave in and went into the Tots’ dressing-room to find out how matters were going there. One of the Tots had lost its top-hat and another had mislaid a shoe, but otherwise there was nothing untoward. The fact that the whole dressing-room was in a state of yelling chaos troubled Kitty not at all. She exchanged a blithe nod for a cold stare from the Tots’ manageress, informed her in a bellow, loud enough to rise above the vociferations of the children, that the company was “on” in twenty minutes, and went off to round up the ballet and The Merry Wives.
The former were listening, with uneasy docility, to the screamed objurgations of their ballet mistress. The latter were ominously quiet. Their stage-manager enquired whether the Council workmen were prepared to put up the scenery and, upon being assured that they were in the auditorium and already briefed, produced detailed sketches of the set for the second scene and observed that of course it was a great pity he had had to abandon the rehearsal on the previous night, as the scenery for the second excerpt was heavy, elaborate and might not fit the stage.
Kitty told him briefly that the council workmen would take care of everything, went in front to see how the audience was settling in, found some small change for an attendant who had been offered a pound note for a threepenny programme, stopped for a word with Laura and then went backstage to warn the Tots’ supervisor that the National Anthem would precede the show “as we’re mostly doing musical items”, and that its termination would be the signal for the children to be ready in the wings.
The Tots fought their way through a series of popular love-songs and other unsuitable routines, followed by impersonations, tap-dancing and acrobatics. They went off, kissing their hands in acknowledgment of the good natured applause of most of the audience and the cat-calls, whistles and unkindly laughter of youths in the back rows of the (so-named) stalls. They were followed by the inebriated comedians. These managed better than Kitty had thought they would. Their jokes were stale rather than blue and although, at one point, one of them fell down, the audience concluded that this was part of the act and received it well. Kitty went backstage to find out whether first-aid was required. There she paid off the comedians and was extremely thankful to see the back of them.
“And mind how you go,” she warned them kindly. “There’s a slip-way to the river and this side-door opens on to it, so walk uphill, whatever you do, and you’ll reach the high street all right.”
“And the pub,” they said. “Cheerie-bye!”
The formation team, still not very happy about the division of their squad, gave place, after ten minutes or so, to The Merry Wives. Before the actors took the stage, Kitty appeared in front of the curtain to announce that there would be a ten-minute interval between the two scenes.
“After all,” Laura had urged, “you’ve to get those hundred choristers down from the balcony and on to the stage, as well as giving time for that scenery to be changed. I think you’re wise. You don’t want all that clatter in the middle of one of the acts, and the audience will only stampede if you keep them waiting while those hundred kids get into position.”
“The drama club are pleased, thank goodness, and I expect the choirmaster will be, too. The ballet are not so happy, as it means an extra ten minutes’ wait for them, but they’re a mild lot and won’t create, I hope, although I can’t say the same about that awful old Jezebel who bosses them,” said Kitty, when she returned to her seat beside Laura. “I daresay the Mayor thinks he ought to be asked to speak during the interval, but I’m not having any. He’s spoken twice today, once when the procession reached Squire’s Acre this morning and again when there was a lull in the jamboree this afternoon. He’ll have to be content with that.”
The Merry Wives played their first scene rather breathlessly, but displayed more liveliness than they had done on the previous night at the rehearsal.
“Let’s hope the rows are a thing of the past,” said Laura, as the curtain came down and the house lights went up. “I notice that Mr Ford and Mr Page are both wearing swords, so that disposes of that little disagreement. Falstaff got into the clothes-basket with unnecessary daintiness, I thought, but he seemed to have no difficulty in tucking himself away.”
“Well, I thought they managed very well. Actually, he’s rather exceptionally thin and light. They picked him because he’d be easy to carry out in the basket, so he told me. He made some sort of joke about being carried out feet first. I wish he hadn’t. I’m terribly superstitious about that sort of thing,” said Kitty.
The interval ended. The school choirs had descended to the ground floor. People were back in their seats. The house lights went out and there was a polite hush, broken occasionally by a boorish laugh from the back rows, as the audience waited for the curtain to rise on Scene Two of The Merry Wives. Nothing of the sort happened. The back rows began a slow handclap. Kitty muttered under her breath and rose from her seat. She soon appeared on stage again and said in loud, clear tones, “Could we have the lights on, please? Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to say that one of the cast has been taken ill, so we shall be obliged to leave out the next scene. Les Hirondelles will now dance for us an original ballet entitled, Spring in Squire’s Acre…”
“Jump in Squire’s Pond!” suggested an uncultured voice.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” said Kitty.
There was the amount of sympathetic applause usually offered by an audience on disappointing occasions at concerts and in the theatre, the lights were lowered again, and, in a creditably short time, the ballet company had taken the stage, which had been hastily cleared of scenery by the workmen. The next performance, as Laura said later, was earnest and painstaking rather than graceful and adept, but the a
udience received it kindly and the ballet danced off, at the end, looking extremely pleased with themselves.
As soon as they had closed the curtain, Laura began to wonder what had happened to Kitty, who had not returned to her seat. She slipped in beside Laura, however, just as the school choirs began a spirited rendering of Jerusalem. Laura waited until this was over, and then asked,
“Anything happened? Is it serious?”
“Well, I don’t know. Nobody’s ill. I just thought that was the simplest thing to say. The fact is, they’ve lost Falstaff,” Kitty replied.
“Lost him. You don’t mean…?”
“Oh, no, he isn’t dead. At least, I do hope it’s nothing like that! It’s just that he was carted out in the basket of dirty laundry, and it appears that nobody’s seen him since.”
“Must have lost his memory, or remembered a date with his girl-friend,” said Laura. “Or is he still stuck in the pub? There’s one just across the road.”
“They’ve looked there, and, anyway, they say he wasn’t the pub type. Well, I’ll have to leave them to track him down. It’s really no business of mine if they lose their actors, is it? Anyway, I’m not altogether sorry, so long as he’s all right. We’re just as well off without Scene Two.”
CHAPTER SIX
The Reclamation of Falstaff
“On one occasion the fat knight was conveyed from Ford’s house concealed in a “buck-basket”, covered over with dirty linen, and ultimately cast into the Thames.”
« ^ »
The first intimation which Kitty had that the missing Falstaff had been found came on the following morning in the form of a call from the Brayne police. It did not come by telephone, but in the person of a young, charming and most disarming plain-clothes officer who asked whether he might come in. Kitty’s maid left him in the hall while she went to enquire.
“What have you been up to?” enquired Laura, when the maid had had instructions to show the officer into the drawing-room. “Parking offence, bouncing through the red lights, tossing rubbish into the reservoir, trying to blow up the gasworks?”
“Oh, dry up, Dog,” said Kitty. “It will be something about that wretched little man.”
“What wretched little man?”
“Falstaff. I bet he’s got himself run over in Brayne high street or something. I had the stage-manager on the telephone this morning to say he hadn’t been traced. Well, now I suppose he has finished up in hospital.”
“Why should they worry you about it?”
“Oh, Dog, because they’ve worried everybody else first, I suppose, and got nowhere.”
This was not a bad guess, as matters turned out. The young detective-constable apologised for bothering Kitty—just a routine enquiry, of course—but the police were trying to find out who might have seen the dead man last…”
“Dead man?” cried Kitty. “What dead man? I thought you’d come about Falstaff.”
“Indeed I have, madam. The gentleman who took the part in a pageant which, we understand, you organised, was a certain Mr Luton. He was found dead in the Thames at the foot of Smith Hill this morning. He had been stabbed.”
“Really? Oh, dear! I am sorry. But when you speak of a pageant, well, that was held yesterday morning. This Falstaff business was the concern of the Brayne Dramatic Society. Apart from billing them when they offered to do their stuff, I had very little to do with them at all.”
“Yes, madam, I see. We understand, though, that you proposed to have an unscripted interval midway between the two scenes of the play in which Mr Luton was the leading character.”
“Quite right. It wasn’t on the printed programme, but it seemed a good idea, so I announced it. You might say that it was more than a good idea. It was really necessary.”
“Could you explain that, madam?”
“Oh, yes. The scenery had to be changed, and we didn’t want a hold-up. Then the choirs had to be got down from the gallery and given time for all the usual things children seem to need to do on these occasions, and we wanted to let people sneak out for a lung-cancerous cigarette or a delirium tremens drink, and so forth. It was a bit of a last-minute decision, as you say, and, of course, we never got around to Scene Two because, by the time the interval was over, they’d lost Falstaff.”
“Yes, indeed, madam. Another routine question, if you don’t mind. Where were you during that interval?”
“I spent it in the auditorium. It wasn’t until there was this hold-up by the drama club that I went backstage and was told that Falstaff was missing.”
“I imagine that there were witnesses to this, madam?—your continued presence in the auditorium, I mean?”
“I sat between my friend Mrs Gavin here, and my husband. A row of Councillors was behind us. The Mayor and Mayoress, the Town Clerk and the vicar and his wife were in the front row with me, and…”
“Thank you very much, Mrs Trevelyan-Twigg. You will appreciate that I am bound to ask these questions. When exactly did you receive the first intimation that Mr Luton was missing?”
“Well, as I told you, at the end of the interval. We were waiting for the curtain to go up on Scene Two, and, of course, it didn’t, so I felt bound to find out why not.”
“I understand that you then went on to the stage and informed the audience that one of the actors was ill. What made you say that? You did not know whether it was strictly true, did you?”
“Well, hang it all,” said Kitty reasonably, “you try standing up in front of the local coshboys and announcing that the chief actor can’t be found! If you can’t imagine the reaction, I can!”
The young detective-constable smiled.
“I take your point, madam. You mean you were anxious to save yourself and others embarrassment. Quite. Very sensible and tactful, I’m sure. Well, as you’ll have deduced, we are sure that it must have been during the interval that Mr Luton met his death. Of course, we are keeping an open mind about what actually happened. Would you know anything about two swords which were used in the production?”
“Only that one of them got mislaid at the last rehearsal. But it was all right on the night.”
“I am glad to hear that, madam.”
“So poor old Falstaff was murdered,” said Laura, when the policeman had gone. “It’s what all that added up to. His “glad to hear that, madam”, was a nice bit of irony, you know.”
“Murdered?” cried Kitty, scandalised, “How do you mean—murdered?”
“The swords. Didn’t it ring a bell in your mind when he mentioned them? When he said “stabbed” what he really meant was that somebody must have run Falstaff through with a sword.”
Kitty looked horrified and incredulous.
“But you couldn’t run anybody through with a property sword, Dog,” she said—“or could you?”
“So you didn’t notice that one of the so-called property swords was a real one? I did.”
“Then why on earth didn’t you tell me at the time?”
“There didn’t seem any point in telling you. They didn’t fight a duel with them. I thought nothing of it at all until now, but I bet you Falstaff was killed with the real one.”
“That poor little man! He seemed so utterly harmless.”
“Yes. I wonder how they managed the rest of it.”
“They? Managed the rest of what?”
“Well, all I mean is that two people would have been needed to carry the body down to the river and dump it in the mud.”
“I don’t see that, Dog. He was ever such a slight little man. Even the cushions, to make him look fat, were inflatable and hardly weighed a thing.”
“I suppose the police are asking everybody who was involved with The Merry Wives the same questions as this chap asked you. I’m glad you had an alibi for the time when it must have been done.”
“But why should I want to kill the poor soul?” wailed Kitty.
“Why should anybody want to? That’s one thing the police will have to find out. The means, I would say, a
re pretty obvious, and the opportunity presented itself. All that remains to be discovered, as you so rightly point out, is the motive. The only thing is that I don’t see how it could have been done during the interval.”
“Why not, Dog?”
“Too many people milling about. Think of all those schoolkids! In any case, how many people knew there was going to be an interval before you actually announced it to the audience?”
“Nobody but The Merry Wives cast, so far as I know.”
“Somebody in the cast may have told somebody outside the cast.”
“I wonder where those menservants were—those who carried out the basket. Where were they, and what were they doing, when Falstaff was killed?—because I can’t believe either of them did it. They were the only nice people in the play, except for that little boy,” said Kitty.
“If they didn’t do it, what were they doing, and where were they, with fifty-one pubs in the town—beg pardon, borough—and one of them bang opposite the Town Hall? Oh, Kay, don’t be such a nit-wit! It would have been the work of a moment to dump the basket and make a quick dash across the high street for a pint, and, if they’re innocent, I bet that’s exactly what they did. They’d have had heaps of time, knowing about the interval and everything!”
“But their costumes, Dog!”
“What are overcoats for? Think of the coy members of Toc H when we were waiting for the procession to move off! Besides, everybody in the borough knew about the pageant and about the show at the Town Hall. Apart from a beery jest or two—possibly not even that—I don’t suppose anybody in the pub bothered about what they looked like. Perhaps some sportsman even stood them a drink.”
“What worries me is the thought of that sword—the real one, you know. I ought to have stopped them using it, I suppose, but I simply didn’t notice it was real.” There was silence until Kitty added, “The murder could have been committed during the interval, I suppose. Do you think they all rushed over to the pub?”
“Probably not the women, anyway, and probably not the stage-manager. He’d have had to be on hand to direct the Council workmen who were to put up the scenery for the second scene,” said Laura. “But what I do think is that Page and Ford would have put off their swords during the interval. Cussed things, swords. Get between your legs and trip you up if you’re not jolly careful. Besides, the real sword would have been heavy.”
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