What Dread Hand?

by Christianna Brand

  ‘At any rate, you took him down to the station?’ said Cockie, sickened by all this gratuitous mystificating. ‘On the strength of what the girl had suggested?’

  ‘What that was is, of course, quite clear to you?’

  ‘Well, of course,’ said Cockie.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said the old man angrily. He shrugged. ‘At any rate—it served as an excuse. It meant that I could take him, and probably hold him there, on a reasonable suspicion: it did him out of the alibi, you see. So off he went, at last, with a couple of my men; and, after a moment, I followed. But before I went, I collected something—something from his dressing-room.’ Another of his moments had come; but this time he addressed himself only to Inspector Cockrill. ‘No doubt what that was is also clear to you?’

  ‘Well, a pot of theatrical cleansing cream, I suppose,’ said Inspector Cockrill; almost apologetically.

  The old man, as has been said, was something of an actor himself. He affected to give up. ‘As you know it so well, Inspector, you had better explain to our audience and save me my breath.’ He gave to the words ‘our audience’ an ironic significance quite shattering in its effect; and hugged to himself a secret white rabbit to be sprung, to the undoing of this tiresome little man, when all seemed over, out of a secret top hat.

  Inspector Cockrill in his turn affected surprise, affected diffidence, affected reluctant acceptance. ‘Oh, well, all right.’ He embarked upon it in his grumbling voice. ‘It was the slap across the girl, Bianca’s, face. Our friend, no doubt, will tell you that he paid very little attention to whatever it was she said to him in the corridor.’ (A little more attention, he privately reflected, would have been to advantage; but still…) ‘He was looking, instead, at the weal on her face: glancing in through the door, perhaps, to where Leila Dragon sat unconsciously clasping her stinging right hand with her left. He was thinking of another hand he had recently seen, with a pink mark across the palm. He knew now, as he says. He knew why they had been so appalled when, forgetting herself, she had slapped the girl’s face: because it might suggest to his mind that there had been another such incident that night. He knew. He knew what they all had been waiting for, why they had been marking time. He knew why they had scrambled back into stage costume, they had done it so that there might be no particularity if James Dragon appeared in the dark make-up of Othello the Moor. They were waiting till under the stain, another stain should fade—the mark of Glenda Croy’s hand across her murderer’s cheek.’ He looked into the Great Detective’s face. ‘I think that’s the way your mind worked?’

  The great one bowed. ‘Very neatly thought out. Very creditable.’ He shrugged. ‘Yes, that’s how it was. So we took him down to the station and without more delay we cleaned the dark paint off his face. And under the stain—what do you think we found?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Inspector Cockrill.

  ‘Exactly,’ said the old man, crossly.

  ‘You can’t have found anything; because, after all, he was free to play Othello for the next three weeks,’ said Cockie, simply. ‘You couldn’t detain him—there was nothing to detain him on. The girl’s story wasn’t enough to stand alone, without the mark of the slap: and now, if it had ever been there, it had faded. Their delaying tactics had worked. You had to let him go.’

  ‘For the time being,’ said the old man. The rabbit had poked its ears above the rim of the hat and he poked them down again. ‘You no doubt will equally recall that at the end of three weeks, James Dragon was arrested and duly came up for trial?’ Hand over hat, keeping the rabbit down, he gave his adversary a jab. ‘What do you suggest, sir, happened in the meantime?—to bring that change about.’

  Inspector Cockrill considered, his splendid head bowed over a couple of walnuts which he was trying to crack together. ‘I can only suggest that what happened, sir, was that you went to the theatre.’

  ‘To the theatre?’

  ‘Well, to The Theatre,’ said Cockie. ‘To the Dragon Theatre. And there, for the second time, saw James Dragon play Othello.’

  ‘A great performance. A great performance,’ said the old man, uneasily. The rabbit had poked his whole head over the brim of the hat and was winking at the audience.

  ‘Was it?’ said Cockie. ‘The first time you saw him—yes. But that second time? I mean, you were telling us that people all around you were saying how much he had aged.’ But he stopped. ‘I beg your pardon, sir: I keep forgetting that this is your story.’

  It had been the old man’s story—for years it had been his best story, the pet white rabbit out of the conjurer’s mystery hat; and now it was spoilt by the horrid little boy who knew how the tricks were done. ‘That’s all there is to it,’ he said sulkily. ‘She made this threat about exposing the prison sentence—as we learned later on. They all went back to their dressing-rooms and changed into every-day things. James Dragon, as soon as he was dressed, went round to his wife’s room. Five minutes later, he assembled his principals in the Green-room: Glenda Croy was dead and he bore across his face the mark where she had hit him, just before she died.

  ‘They were all in it together; with James Dragon, the company stood or fell. They agreed to protect him. They knew that from where he sat the door-keeper might well have seen the shadow-show on her dressing-room blinds, perhaps even the blow across the face. They knew that James Dragon must come under immediate suspicion; they knew that at all costs they must prevent anyone from seeing the mark of the blow. They could not estimate how long it would take for the mark to fade.

  ‘You know what they did. They scrambled back into costume again, they made up their faces—and beneath the thick greasepaint they buried the fatal mark. I arrived. There was nothing for it now but to play for time.

  ‘They played for time. They built up the story of the lover—who, in fact, eventually bore the burden of guilt, for as you know, no one was ever convicted: and he could never be disproved. But still only a few minutes had passed and now I was asking them to change back into day dress. James created a further delay in refusing to have his arms examined. Another few moments gone by. They gave the signal to the girl to go into her pre-arranged act.’

  He thought back across the long years. ‘It was a very good act: she’s done well since but I don’t suppose she ever excelled the act she put on that night. But she was battling against hopeless odds, poor girl. You see—I did know one thing by then; didn’t I?’

  ‘You knew they were playing for time,’ said Inspector Cockrill. ‘Or why should James Dragon have refused to show you his arms? There was nothing incriminating about his arms.’

  ‘Exactly: and so—I was wary of her. But she put up a good performance. It was easier for her, because of course by now she was really afraid: they were all afraid—afraid lest this desperate last step they were taking in their delaying action should prove to have been a step too far: lest they found their “solution” was so good that they could not go back on it.’

  ‘This solution, however, of course you had already considered and dismissed?’

  ‘Mr. Cockrill, no doubt, will be delighted to tell you what the solution was.’

  ‘If you like,’ said Mr. Cockrill. ‘But it could be only the one “solution”, couldn’t it? especially as you said that she stuck to what she’d earlier said. She’d given him an alibi—they’d all given him an alibi—for the time up to the moment the light went out. She dragged you out into the corridor and she said…’

  ‘She said?’

  ‘Well, nothing new,’ said Cockie. ‘She just—repeated, only with a special significance, something that someone else had said.’

  ‘The Clown, yes.’

  ‘When he was describing what they were supposed to have seen against the lighted blinds. He said that they saw the man pounce down upon the woman: that the light went out and they heard the noise of the window being thrown up. That James, his son, rushed out and that when they followed, he was bending over her. I suppose the girl repeated with direful s
ignificance: “He was bending over her.”’

  ‘A ridiculous implication, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Inspector Cockrill, readily. ‘If, which I suppose was her proposition, the pounce had been a pounce of love, followed by an extinction of the lights, it seemed hardly likely that the gentleman concerned would immediately leave the lady and bound out of the nearest window—since she was reputedly complacent. But supposing that he had, supposing that the infuriated husband, rushing in and finding her thus deserted, had bent over and impulsively strangled her where, disappointed, she reclined—it is even less likely that his own father would have been the first to draw your attention to the fact. Why mention, “he was bending over her”?’

  ‘Precisely, excellent,’ said the old man: kindly patronization was the only card left in the conjurer’s hand.

  ‘Her story had the desired effect, however?’

  ‘It created further delay, before I demanded that they remove their make-up. It was beyond their dreams that I should create even more, myself, by taking James Dragon to the police station.’

  ‘You were justified,’ said Cockie, indulging in a little kindly patronization on his own account. ‘Believing what you did. And having received that broad hint—which they certainly had never intended to give you—when Leila Dragon lost her head and slapped Bianca’s face…’

  ‘And then sat unconsciously holding her stinging hand.’

  ‘So you’d almost decided to have him charged. But it would be most convenient to do the whole thing tidily down at the station, cleaning him up and all…’

  ‘We weren’t a set of actor-fellows down there,’ said the old man defensively, though no one had accused him of anything. ‘We cleaned away the greasepaint enough to see that there was no mark of the blow. But I dare say we left him to do the rest—and I dare say he saw to it that a lot remained about the forehead and eyes… I remember thinking that he looked old and haggard, but under the circumstances that would not be surprising. And when at last I got back to the theatre, no doubt the same thing went on with “Arthur” Dragon; perhaps I registered that he looked young for his years—but I have forgotten that.’ He sighed. ‘By then, of course, anyway, it was too late. The mark was gone.’ He sighed again. ‘A man of thirty with a red mark to conceal: and a man of fifty. The family likeness, the famous voice, both actors, both familiar with Othello, since the father had produced it: and both with perhaps the most effective disguises that fate could possibly have designed for them…’

  ‘The Moor of Venice,’ said Inspector Cockrill.

  ‘And—a Clown,’ said the Great Detective. The white rabbit leapt out of the hat and bowed right and left to the audience.

  ‘Whether, as I say, he continued to play his son’s part—on the stage as well as off,’ said the Great Detective, ‘I shall never know. But I think he did. I think they would hardly dare to change back before my very eyes. I think that, backed up by a loyal company, they played Cox and Box with me. I said to you earlier that while his audiences believed their Othello to be in fact a murderer—he was: and he was not. I think that Othello was a murderer; but I think that the wrong man was playing Othello’s part.’

  ‘And you,’ said Inspector Cockrill, in a voice hushed with what doubtless was reverence, ‘went to see him play?’

  ‘And heard someone say that he seemed to have aged twenty years… And so,’ said the Great Detective, ‘we brought him to trial, as you know. We had a case all right: the business about the prison sentence, of course, came to light; we did much to discredit the existence of any lover; we had the evidence of the stage door-keeper, the evidence of the company was not disinterested. But alas!—the one tangible clue, the mark of that slap, had long since gone: and there we were. I unmasked him; I built up a case against him: I brought him to trial. The jury failed to convict.’

  ‘And quite right too,’ said Inspector Cockrill.

  ‘And quite right too,’ agreed the great man graciously. ‘A British jury is always right. Lack of concrete evidence, lack of unbiased witnesses, lack of demonstrable proof…’

  ‘Lack of a murderer,’ said Inspector Cockrill.

  ‘Are you suggesting,’ said the old man, after a little while, ‘that Arthur Dragon did not impersonate his son? And if so—will you permit me to ask, my dear fellow, who then impersonated who? Leila Dragon, perhaps, took her brother’s place? She had personal grudges against Glenda Croy. And she was tall and well-built (the perfect Rosalind—a clue, my dear Inspector, after your own heart!) and he was slight, for a man. And of course she had the famous Dragon voice.’

  ‘She also had a “well-rounded bosom”,’ said Inspector Cockrill, ‘exposed, as you told us, by laced bodice and low-cut gown. She might have taken her brother’s part: he can hardly have taken hers.’ And he asked, struggling with the two walnuts, why anybody should have impersonated anybody, anyway.

  ‘But they were… But they all… But everything they said or did was designed to draw attention to Othello, was designed to gain time while the mark was fading under the make-up of—’

  ‘Of the Clown,’ said Inspector Cockrill: and his voice was as sharp as the crack of the walnuts suddenly giving way between his hard brown hands.

  ‘It was indeed,’ said Inspector Cockrill, ‘“a frightened and angry man” who rushed round to her dressing-room that night: after his son had told him of the threat hissed out on the stage. “Something about gaol… Something about prisoners…”’ He said to the old man: ‘You did not make it clear that it was Arthur Dragon who had served a prison sentence, all those years ago.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ said the old man. ‘Well, it made no difference. James Dragon was their star and their “draw”, Arthur Dragon was their manager—without either, the company couldn’t undertake the tour. But of course it was Arthur: who on earth could have thought otherwise?’

  ‘No one,’ agreed Cockie. ‘He said as much to her in the dressing-room. “If you’re referring to me…” and, “We were all wild and silly in those days before the war…” That was the 1914 war, of course: all this happened thirty years ago. But in the days before the 1914 war, James Dragon would have been a child: he was born at the turn of the century—far too young to be sent to prison, anyway.

  ‘You would keep referring to these people by their stage names,’ said Cockie. ‘It was muddling. We came to think of the Clown as the Clown, and not as Arthur Dragon, James Dragon’s father—and manager and producer for Dragon Productions. “I am taking the company to America…” It was not for James Dragon to say that; he was their star, but his father was their manager, it was he who “took” the company here or there… And, “You can come if you like—playing Celia.” It was not for James Dragon to say that: it was for Arthur Dragon, their producer, to assign the parts to the company…’

  ‘It was the dressing-gown, I think, that started me off on it,’ said Inspector Cockrill, thoughtfully. ‘You see—as one of them said, the profession is not fussy about the conventional modesties. Would Glenda Croy’s husband really have knocked?—rushing in there, mad with rage and anxiety, would he really have paused to knock politely at his wife’s door? And she—would she really have waited to put on a dressing-gown over her ample petticoat, to receive him? For her father-in-law, perhaps, yes: we are speaking of many years ago. But for her husband…? Well, I wouldn’t know. But it started me wondering.

  ‘At any rate—he killed her. She could break up their tour, she could throw mud at their great name: and he had everything to lose, an ageing actor who had given up his own career for the company. He killed her; and a devoted family and loyal, and “not disinterested” company, hatched up a plot to save him from the consequences of what none of them greatly deplored. We made our mistake, I think,’ said Cockie, handsomely including himself in the mistake, ‘in supposing that it would be an elaborate plot. It wasn’t. These people were actors and not used to writing their own plots: it was in fact an incredibly simple plot. “Let’s all put on
our greasepaint again and create as much delay as possible while, under the Clown make-up, the red mark fades. And the best way to draw attention from the Clown, will be to draw it towards Othello.” No doubt they will have added civilly, “James—is that all right with you?”’

  ‘And so,’ said Inspector Cockrill, ‘we come back again to James Dragon. Within the past hour he had had a somewhat difficult time. Within the past hour his company had been gravely threatened and by the treachery of his own wife; within the past hour his wife had been strangled and his father had become a self-confessed murderer… And now he was to act, without rehearsal and without lines, a part which might yet bring him to the Old Bailey and under sentence of death. It was no wonder, perhaps, that when the greasepaint was wiped away from his face that night, our friend thought he seemed to have aged…’ If, he added, their friend really had thought so at the time and was not now being wise after the event.

  He was able to make this addition because their friend had just got up and, with a murmured excuse, had left the room. In search of a white rabbit, perhaps?

  12

  Death of A Ghost

  YOU’D THINK NOTHING COULD be more romantic and exciting than to have been just an ordinary young woman, and then to go and marry an Earl: and a young earl at that—Edward’s family seemed to have combined in self-immolation so that he might attain to the title. Even his cousin Hubert had no sooner succeeded than he and Emmeline, his wife, had got into a motorcar and gone out and got killed in a crash.

  Not that Edward cared two hoots about being an Earl; all he thought of was going off exploring in horrible remote foreign places. Intrepid, that’s what Edward was. The newspapers were always saying so. Intrepid young Explorer Earl, Edward Fitzmerrian, as he sets out upon yet another of his perilous voyages… Nowadays, it had changed a bit, Wives must Weep, they said. Lovely Victoria (Vi-vi) Fitzmerrian waves goodbye to Intrepid young Explorer Earl, with tear-filled eyes…