Fault in the Structure mb-52

by Gladys Mitchell

‘So there’s no suggestion he could have been present at the town hall on Saturday?’

  ‘Ask the hospital!’

  Young Tom Blaine came next on the list, but as it was clear, from Ernest Farrow’s evidence, that the mischief with the fastenings of the cart must have been done not earlier than a few moments before Ernest’s own last dialogue with the Player in front of the curtain, young Tom was able to alibi himself without difficulty.

  ‘I was supposed to have a short scene with Lockit – that’s Mr Haynings – in Act Three,’ he said, ‘but Dr Denbigh cut it out because it’s a bit rude. It’s about…’

  ‘Never mind what it’s about, lad. Where were you during the last scene, where, as I understand it, Mr Farrow and one of the students have a short dialogue in front of the curtain?’

  ‘I was in the porters’ room playing backgammon with Mr Caxton until my mother took him home, then I played with one of the porters. You can hear the applause from the porters’ room, so that was my cue to get into the corridor with the other principals ready to take our curtains. The porters, both of them, came with me, because it was their job to hand the bouquets. They get pretty good tips, you see, for staying late and seeing to the bouquets.’

  As both porters vouched for all this, there was no more to be said. Granted, however, that Lawrence’s death was the result of a practical joke which had misfired, there was one aspect of it which dangled – almost literally – in the Superintendent’s mind. This was the running noose, instead of a knotted loop, in the hangman’s rope. He tackled Ernest Farrow again.

  ‘When you tested your knots which anchored the cart, sir, did you also take a look at the noose?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t. We left it in position from one night to the next, you see. It was fastened to one of the iron girders so that it dropped straight down, forming, as it were, a plumb-line from near the roof, the weight of its knot, where the noose was, holding it pretty steady, and all the stage-hands had to do was slip it over Macheath’s head.’

  ‘At what point in the proceedings would they do that, sir?’

  ‘It was after they had pinioned and blindfolded him and helped him up on to the cart. They had a small step-ladder – one of those ladder-stool things which ladies use in the kitchen – to get up to reach the noose, and then they just put it lightly round his neck.’

  ‘So he himself wouldn’t have been aware that on that last evening it had a running noose instead of a knotted loop in it?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Ernest, unhappily. ‘You know, Detective-Superintendent, I’m wondering whether, by some oversight – and don’t think I don’t blame myself, because I do – I’m wondering whether that slip-noose could have been there all the time.’

  ‘All the time, sir?’

  ‘Yes, for the dress rehearsal and all three performances. We didn’t use the noose at the dress rehearsal, and the Thursday and Friday nights went off without a hitch, so it never occurred to me to check the noose. I’d checked it at the pre-dress rehearsal —’

  ‘What exactly was that, sir?’

  ‘You may well ask,’ said Ernest, his voice rising in remembered anguish. ‘You never saw such a fiasco in your life. We were at it until half-past twelve at night. My poor mother was convinced that I must have met with an accident until I phoned her at midnight and told her I’d be home as soon as I could.’

  ‘But you inspected the noose on that occasion, sir?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Not that we ever got around to that last scene on that occasion. We were all so tired and wretched that we didn’t finish the opera.’

  ‘At what point during that rehearsal did you inspect the apparatus, sir?’

  ‘At the first interval. The porter at the town hall, under my directions, had climbed up and looped the rope over the girder and I myself had inspected the noose to make certain that it was perfectly safe. The other end of the rope was slung over the girder, not fastened in any way. If the cart had, for any reason, begun to move, the rope should have slid off the girder and fallen on to the stage, thus averting any possible danger to Macheath.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the police officer grimly, ‘it should have slid off the girder, but it didn’t, and the question is, if not, why not? I may as well tell you, sir, that I’ve climbed up to take a look at that rope myself. It’s fastened securely. The porter must have mistaken your instructions if they were as you say. I’ll see what he has to tell me.’

  What the porter had to tell him was simple and conclusive.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Mr Farrow wasn’t too keen on climbing high ladders, so he give me his instructions about looping the rope over the girder. Myself, I didn’t think it would hold, that girder being unpainted iron and of a circular nature; still, I done as I was told. Well, they has this rehearsal what looked like going on till all hours, so at ten-thirty I packs it in. Firstly I finds Councillor Haynings and puts it up to him as ten-thirty were closing time. He says the rehearsal is a right mess, so they couldn’t give up yet, but as how I could go off dooty, him taking full responsibility.’

  ‘So he locked up the town hall that night instead of you doing it?’

  ‘Me leaving him my keys, which he returned personally on the Sunday morning, directly he come from church, to my own house. Well, I unlocks on the Monday morning, as usual, and has a look round and sees as the rope, as I knowed it would, had slid off the girder and was on the stage, so I phones up Councillor Haynings, me having his number because of him being chairman, and tells him. So he says, “Well, fix it, man, fix it.” So I gets me ladder again and fixes it, that’s all. I never done nothing wrong. Orders is orders, that’s what I allus says.’

  CHAPTER 19

  « ^

  We have drawn the curtain across an empty stage

  ‘But you don’t go along with the verdict at the inquest, do you?’ said Laura.

  ‘Death by Misadventure? It is an interesting choice of words,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Wouldn’t Accidental Death have done as well? Not that I believe it, any more than you do.’

  ‘In the present case, Accidental Death may be ruled out, I think. There were far too many coincidences for this to have been an accident, and the coroner’s jury seem to have shown an intelligent grasp of the niceties of language in phrasing their verdict.’

  ‘In other words, they suspected it was murder, and we know it was murder, but where’s the proof?’

  ‘I shall find it. I am not in favour of punishment – none of us should be authorised to punish any other of us…’

  ‘All miserable sinners, you think?’

  ‘Well, the casting of stones is, perhaps, a hazardous operation, for it is undeniable that we all live in glass houses.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Society, we are told, must be protected. Why, I hardly know.’

  ‘Protected from Clarice Blaine?’

  ‘Why Clarice Blaine?’

  ‘Well, she was the only person who would have wanted to muck up our show.’

  ‘With her son taking part in it? Have you no conception of a mother’s love?’

  ‘Well, I’ve two children of my own, but is that germane to the issue?’

  ‘No, it is not, but if Clarice Blaine had decided to muck up our show, as you term it, why should she wait until the very end of the opera? The press had attended, had scribbled down their opinions and had left in order to get their copy into the local papers in time for next week’s editions. The “mucking up” came too late to be effective. If I read Mrs Blaine aright, she is not a woman to waste her sweetness on the desert air.’

  ‘Very true. Besides, although I wouldn’t put much past her, I don’t see her going as far as murder but, of course, to be fair, murder may have been the last thing anybody intended.’

  ‘Let us look at the facts.’

  ‘Well, the basic fact is that Lawrence was hanged.’

  ‘It seems to me that the other facts are these: as we are certain that this unfortunate man wa
s murdered…’

  ‘You call him unfortunate? He got away with murdering poor old Sir Anthony.’

  ‘There is not, and there never will be, any proof that he murdered Sir Anthony.’

  ‘But look at what he gained by that old man’s death! Anyway, what do you think happened on the last night of The Beggar’s Opera?’

  ‘Ah, there we are on less controversial ground.’

  ‘I wouldn’t agree. Everybody seems able to produce a watertight alibi. In fact, they can all alibi one another.’

  ‘There is one possible exception, I think, but first let us look at those whom we might suspect of wanting Lawrence out of the way.’

  ‘Hamilton Haynings, for one. He badly wanted to play Macheath. James Hunty did, too, but he’s the easy-going type and Peachum is a pretty fat part, anyway. I can’t think of anybody else and, besides, the argument about Mrs Blaine applies to everybody else in the cast. The time to have got Lawrence out of the way so that someone could pinch his part would have been at the dress rehearsal, not at the very end of the last performance.’

  ‘There was a reason why the murder could not have been committed at the dress rehearsal. If you care to cast your mind back, I think you will see what that reason was.’

  Laura wrinkled her nose in thought.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ she said.

  ‘Then, as the patient schoolmaster said to the ill-behaved boy, I fear we do not see you at your best.’

  ‘Ah!’ exclaimed Laura. ‘The deed couldn’t have been done at the dress rehearsal because the wheels were off the cart. Anyway, the rope which carried the noose should have slipped off the girder as soon as the cart began to move.’

  ‘As it demonstrated when it slipped off the girder of its own accord after the pre-dress rehearsal was over. I wonder how many of the cast and, of course, the stage-hands, knew that the porter had secured the rope to the girder?’

  ‘All the stage-hands were students. We can discount them. The point is that we come back again to Hamilton Haynings. We know he knew about the rope because he was the one who told the porter to fix it. On the other hand, he’s ruled out, you think, because of the time the deed was done and, of course, unless there was some private difference between the two men of which we know nothing, the comparative weakness of the motive.’

  ‘I am wondering whether the murder may have had nothing to do with the opera itself at all. You are going on the assumption that this was a man’s crime. I think we might do well to take a look at some of the women in the cast.’

  Laura looked troubled.

  ‘If you’re thinking of Melanie,’ she said, ‘I can assure you that once we’d dragged her off the stage she was too far gone to have climbed back on again. She smacked Crashaw’s – Lawrence’s – face and then, to all intents and purposes, was a spent force.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and there’s another thing. I looked at the tilt of the stage – the rake, do they not call it? It is obvious, but slight. Too slight, in any case, to account for the velocity with which that comparatively light vehicle careered towards the curtain.’

  ‘Somebody gave it a pretty hefty shove, you think, and that couldn’t have been Melanie for the reason given. There were plenty of people milling about behind the backdrop, though. There’s a passage-way through from the O.P. to the Prompt side because there’s only one flight of steps from the dressing-rooms on to the stage.’

  ‘The dressing-rooms, yes,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘How many were in use that night?’

  ‘Four. Hamilton, James and Lawrence shared one; Melanie, Sybil and I had another, and Marigold was in and out of it most of the time when she wasn’t in the wings. The other two were used by the chorus.’

  ‘Miss Tench took over Miss Cardew’s part.’

  ‘When Melanie got too sozzled to go on, yes.’

  ‘Well, I cannot allow matters to rest. The first person I want to see is the porter who secured the rope to the girder. Please put me in touch with Councillor Haynings. He will know which porter it was.’

  ‘I wonder whether he has found those wedges? They would have saved the situation.’

  ‘That is one of the things I shall speak to him about.’

  An unhelpful bit of information, but one which cleared up a very minor mystery, came through on the telephone call to Hamilton Haynings. He gave the porter’s name and then said, ‘I’ve just had Denbigh on the ’phone. Two of his students – he’s been grilling them mercilessly, he tells me, because of the seriousness we all attach to the disappearance of those wedges – two of the youngsters have confessed to removing the wheels from the cart. Wanted to put them on a contraption of their own so that they could take part in some fancy race on the College sports ground. Said they put them back in plenty of time for the Thursday performance and, of course, they did.’

  ‘And the wedges?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

  ‘They swear they know nothing about the wedges and Denbigh believes them. He points out that to borrow the wheels put us only to temporary inconvenience – hardly that – but to take away and hide the wedges could have been dangerous, and it was. I blame Farrow. He was stage manager and should have provided substitutes for the wedges.’

  ‘He would hardly have had time or opportunity for that. He appears to have relied upon the fact that the cart was secured to the back of the stage.’

  ‘Yes, by a method which, although secure enough in itself, can be untied in a twinkling.’

  ‘But not by accident, Mr Haynings.’

  The porter’s information was a little more helpful, but not much. On the morning of the dress rehearsal quite a number of the cast had turned up at the town hall for various reasons. Mr Farrow was there, fussing about and picking up bits and pieces here and putting them down there and then going back to what he’d first thought of; then there was Mrs Blaine. She had brought young Tom in the car because he had finished his school examinations and she wanted him to help her check something or other in the Council Members’ room to which, of course, she had a key. There was also one of the ladies who spent about an hour sorting over the costumes which were all laid out or hung up in the dressing-rooms and two other ladies were helping her. Mrs Blaine popped on to the stage while he was up the ladder fixing the rope because she had heard somebody trying to play pop music on the harpsichord which, as it was only hired and did not belong to the College or the society, she thought ought to be stopped.

  ‘No, there’s no reason why any or all of ’em shouldn’t have knowed I was up the ladder, ma’am, and as some on ’em must have seen the rope a-laying on the stage where it had dropped and, what is more, heard me ’phoning Councillor Haynings, my office door being open, the weather being warm and my room small, they could have knowed what I was a-doing of and why I was a-doing of it.’

  The harpsichordist? He ‘reckoned as it was the young chap as was with the fellow as was doing the lights’. He had already ‘told ’em both off for misusing of the town hall electricity. Ought to have been at work, and was doing a mike on account they both still worked for Mr Haynings what had also employed ’em in the building trade afore he retired.’

  ‘What does Miss Cardew do for a living?’ Dame Beatrice asked. ‘Do you happen to know?’

  ‘Ah, I do. Got her own ladies’ hairdresser’s business in the high street. My missus and my daughter both goes there. She knows how to charge, too!’

  ‘Do you want me to make a hair appointment for you?’ asked Laura, as they left the town hall.

  ‘That can wait, and may not be necessary. What do we know of Miss Marigold Tench?’

  ‘Marigold? She’s on the staff at Cyril Wincott’s school. Teaches French, I believe. Shows off a bit by introducing French phrases into her conversation.’

  ‘Can you contact the school by telephone?’

  ‘Yes. They used not to be in the book so that parents and tradespeople couldn’t waste the head’s time by ringing up at inconvenient moments, but now that heads have secret
aries to answer the ’phone, the schools are all in the yellow pages. What shall I say?’

  ‘Are you sufficiently well acquainted with Miss Tench to invite her to tea?’

  ‘After helping her cope with Melanie and the demon rum, I think I may be.’

  In the words of Wodehouse, Marigold turned out to be ‘an upstanding light-heavyweight.’ She had a defiant chin, a compelling eye and a facility for speaking in the French tongue which apparently delighted Célestine who, with beaming face, introduced her into the drawing-room as ‘Mademoiselle Souci Tanche’.

  Dame Beatrice cackled greetings in French while Laura stood grinning. Mademoiselle Souci Tanche said that she had spotted that Célestine was a Frenchwoman and that she herself preserved the entente cordiale whenever possible.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Marigold, at a pause in the tea-time conversation, ‘you’ve asked me here for some reason apart from mes beaux yeux.’

  ‘Not to beat about the bush,’ replied Laura, ‘they are rather a secondary consideration at the moment.’ She caught her employer’s eye and Dame Beatrice took up the running.

  ‘I remember you as Lucy Lockit, do I not? she said. ‘A most enjoyable performance until its unfortunate ending.’

  ‘I had to take on the part at a moment’s notice, so I don’t think I did too badly.’

  ‘I would have supposed you to have rehearsed for weeks.’

  ‘Thanks, but no. The girl who had the part – I expect Laura has told you – wasn’t fit to go on.’

  ‘Dear me!’

  ‘Yes, got herself plastered. Personally, I don’t think any man’s worth it.’

  ‘Any man?’

  ‘Oh, yes. She was immersed enough to confide in me. She was expecting to marry that man who was strangled. Crashaw, you know. They’d had a pretty hectic affair, I gathered, and she confidently expected marriage to come of it before the baby arrived. Lucky for her, as it turned out, that she did get tight, or I might have thought that she’d done Crashaw a mischief. He’d just turned her down, you see. That’s why she got sloshed and smacked his face. His was a very funny accident, though, if you ask me.’