McGonagle cleared his throat.
“Where is Lancaster now?”
“For goodness’ sake! He is on the stage. I told you ... Oh, please, please do not arrest him until after the final curtain. There is only a quarter of an hour. Then all will be over.”
McGonagle was about to make a retort. Spike, however, intervened.
“I think we should accede to Mr. Levinson’s request. After all, there is no reason why we should create unnecessary fuss. And the end is so near ... ”
McGonagle looked at his friend sharply.
“Very well then, begorra!”
Spike smiled, showing white teeth.
“But perhaps,” he said, “Mr. Levinson would direct us to the wings. I’d like to watch the last scene.”
In distress Mr. Levinson wrung his hands again and again.
“This is awful — awful — awful ... If you wish, Dr. Dorrance, I shall show you to the wings.”
He led them through dimly lit corridors, where dusty props lay scattered. The shadows leaped about them and Spring’s throat was dry. Far to the left they could hear the actors speak, words ringing out into the auditorium. They could sense the hush of anticipation which clung to the audience during the final unfolding of the magnificent tragedy ... Spring imagined, from the sound of the actors’ voices, that the play had reached that part in which Emilia dies by the treachery of her husband.
And at last Mr. Levinson pointed to a passage leading down to the left. At the end of it there stood four scene-shifters and a dark-haired youth with a script of Othello in his hand. The five men seemed to be peering out into a blaze of light.
Spike turned to the little Jew.
“How many exits are there at the moment? From the stage, I mean.”
“Three.”
“Thank you. I thought that was the number ... Will you please guide Inspector McGonagle to the exit on the opposite side of the stage? As you pass, point out to Sergeant Spring the exit at the rear ... ”
He hesitated before speaking quietly to his faithful henchmen.
“And by the way, my merry lads, don’t be afraid to show yourselves to Lancaster while he is actin’. We mustn’t let him escape now ... Mr. Levinson — you’ll warn your commissionaires that our quarry may try to escape through the theatre?”
“Yes.”
Followed by McGonagle and Spring the manager of the theatre moved off. Spike strolled down the short passage, nodded to the prompter and stage-hands and coolly positioned himself in the exit.
Invisible to the audience, he looked out upon the stage. He saw Lancaster, face black, dressed in rich raiment, standing by the bed. He saw Miss Senga de Montfiore, a radiantly lovely Desdemona, shamming death. By her side lay Emilia, stabbed by Iago. Near Othello Gratiano listened to the tumbling words of the Moor.
*
“Cold, cold, my girl!
Even like thy chastity.
O cursed, cursed slave! Whip me, ye devils
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead?
Dead? O! O! O!”
*
Spike heard a sigh in the audience like a breath of wind in a grove of trees. He noticed McGonagle appear at the opening directly opposite. He glanced to the right and saw Spring standing uncomfortably in the rear exit.
Then several actors brushed past Spike. He recognized Lodovico, Montano, Cassio in his chair and two officers holding Iago prisoner. And as from the stage he glanced naturally towards the newcomers, Lancaster saw the head of Department Q7. For half a dozen seconds the actor stood stock still. His hand went to his waist where the dagger lay concealed. The prompter began to whisper urgently, thinking that Othello had forgotten his lines.
Presently, however, Lancaster was again acting his part, though the whites of his eyes roved backwards and forwards. Spike knew that the murderer had seen McGonagle and Spring; that he had observed, too, the three uniformed servants of the theatre move up slowly towards the footlights.
Spike smiled to himself.
Madly terrified though he might be, Lancaster continued to play with consummate artistry. Members of the audience were almost upon their feet with excitement.
But Spike only smiled.
The handsome Cassio cried out with great earnestness, speaking of Iago and of Desdemona’s handkerchief:
*
“I found it in my chamber:
And he himself confess’d, but even now,
That there he dropp’d it for a special purpose,
Which wrought to his desire.”
*
Lancaster buried his face in his hands.
“O fool!” he groaned. “Fool! Fool!”
There was more talk. The play was almost at an end. But the highlight of the whole performance was still to come. Othello was working up to the grand climax.
*
“Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one, that lov’d not wisely, but too well;
Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex’d in the extreme; of one, whose hand,
Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe; of one, whose subdu’d eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum: Set you down this:
And say, besides — that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk
Beat a Venetian, and traduc’d the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him — thus.”
*
Like a flash the Moor had taken the dagger from the folds of his attire. It was part of the play. No one looked upon the action as odd. Like a flash Lancaster had thrust it into his body.
Spike continued to smile.
The Moor staggered in a most realistic fashion towards the bed; but he did not fall upon Desdemona as Shakespeare had instructed. He lurched sideways and went crashing to the boards.
Lodovico sent a hand to his forehead.
“O bloody period!” he cried and ran to Othello’s side.
And in a moment, accompanied by thunderous applause, the curtain came down. It did not rise again that night.
When McGonagle and Spring rushed out upon the stage, they found Lancaster surrounded by his fellow actors. He was quite dead.
Someone tried to explain to McGonagle that the dagger employed by the Moor had been one in which, by touching a spring, the blade receded into the shaft. Lancaster, continued the inspector’s informant, must have forgotten, on this occasion, to touch the spring ...
Spike still smiled. He gave Peter Todd a succinct account of the case when the newspaperman, five minutes later, appeared on the scene.
*
Inspector McGonagle and Sergeant Spring went back to the Yard alone.
“McGonagle,” muttered Spring as they strode along the Embankment, “there’s something mighty strange about to-night’s business. First of all, Spike holds us up for hours in old Percy’s room. I never heard him speak so much in my life. Then we have to take dinner. ... Just before the suicide scene we have to place ourselves around the stage where Lancaster can see us.
“Do you remember, too, how Spike hated Stranger and how he was always harping on the fact that the murderer, being mad, would escape the gallows? You’d almost think that he —”
McGonagle shook his head.
“Forget it!” advised the inspector. “You’re too young to understand.”
At almost the same moment, Spike took Joan in his arms, kissed her tenderly and happily, and began to explain to his fiancé and Aunt Margaret the unfortunate accident which had brought Konrad Featherstone’s career to an abrupt conclusion.
>
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Table of Contents
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
PART I
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
PART II
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
INTERLUDE
CHAPTER XVI
PART III
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
PART IV
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
Flowering Death Page 24
