Death in the Spotlight

by Robin Stevens

  ‘Goodness!’ cried Daisy’s voice from somewhere above me, a few moments later. ‘Hazel, you poor thing!’ She knelt over me, her knee pressing on my hand.

  ‘Ow!’ I hissed at her.

  ‘Excellent work, Watson!’ she whispered back. ‘I have the information we need! Now, pretend to be better. There’s somewhere we need to go.’

  I sat up and blinked, and told everyone that I was feeling so much better, thank you – no, really I was.

  ‘I shall take her somewhere to sit quietly,’ said Daisy, and pulled me towards the stairs – but, instead of going upwards to our dressing room, she dragged me down, through several twists of the staircase, to the underbelly of the theatre.

  As we descended, Daisy whispered encouragingly to me.

  ‘See? Of course you can act, Hazel. You can do anything you put your mind to. And anyway, acting is all about belief. Believe you are a character and you will be. So. I went to Miss C.’s office to find the number for the printer, and then telephoned them to ask about the order. The printer told me that Theresa had ordered the correct posters for Romeo and Juliet a few days ago, but then there was a call yesterday afternoon from someone who said they were Martita, changing the order to the posters we all saw. Martita came in today, Friday, to collect them, paid and rushed out again without opening the parcel.’

  ‘That doesn’t prove anything!’ I said.

  ‘Of course it does!’ said Daisy. ‘Why would Martita call up and give her own name if she was behind it? No, someone pretended to be Martita on that second telephone call! As you know, it’s terribly hard to hear anything properly on the telephone – all you have to go on most of the time is the name the other person gives. We’re surrounded by actors, too – anyone at the Rue might have faked it, even one of the men. The person at the printer’s thought it was a woman they spoke to, but they weren’t terribly sure. Honestly, the general public are so unobservant.’

  ‘I still think it’s most likely to be Martita!’ I said.

  ‘It’s least likely to be her!’ said Daisy swiftly. ‘She’s not stupid, Hazel. She was the one who collected the posters, so the obvious culprit. None of the other threats can be traced back to anyone, so why is this one different?’

  ‘She might have made a mistake!’ I said. Daisy sighed.

  ‘I shan’t keep trying to convince you,’ she said. ‘But you’ll see. I do not suspect Martita. Now, haven’t you guessed where we’re going yet? We’re off to observe the scene of the crime!’

  ‘But there isn’t a scene of the crime!’ I protested.

  ‘That is simply not true,’ said Daisy, raising an eyebrow at me. ‘The posters were very clear: someone is plotting to hurt Rose, and the plot will involve a well. And, as we know perfectly … well, there’s one at the bottom of this theatre. We must assume that this well is therefore important, and we would be remiss if we didn’t pay it a visit. Don’t you see? It might not be the scene of the crime yet, but everything tells us it will be, soon enough! Oh, Hazel, this is why I’m still the President of the Detective Society, despite all that business in Hong Kong.’

  Daisy really is still quite cross about Hong Kong.

  Of course, as soon as she mentioned the well, I realized she was correct. I felt rather foolish not to have thought of it. Perhaps I am still not as good a detective as Daisy. Perhaps …

  But then I remembered that Daisy and I are a brilliant detective double act because we notice different things. There are many things I have seen that Daisy never could have – it’s no good either of us trying to measure up to each other.

  And I knew that I needed Daisy at that moment. We had come out into the low dark under-corridors of the Rue, stuffy and hot as I breathed in. Around us were the enormous hulking shapes of the theatre’s boilers and generators, spiderwebbed and casting jumpy shadows behind shadows as we turned the pocket torches we always carry on them. I reached out and seized Daisy’s hand.

  ‘It’s all right, Hazel,’ she murmured. ‘You know perfectly well that I shall kill anyone who tries to hurt either of us.’

  I felt comforted.

  At last we came to the dark doorway that led down into the well room. We had to turn, one by one, and climb down a short ladder into the room itself. The rusting iron of it scratched my hands and left them stinging, and as I climbed I could feel the quiet space of the room at my back. It seemed to be waiting for me.

  When we were both down, Daisy and I turned and played our torches around the crumbling stone walls of the room. There was nothing on them but a few unlit candles in sconces. Everything smelled of damp, and the walls breathed cold. I shuddered. On the floor we saw a few smudged footprints, and discarded cigarette butts that showed that people had been here – but we couldn’t tell who. And there was the covered well itself sitting in the middle of the room, dark and low down like something crouching.

  Of course, Daisy went scampering up to the very lip of the well and pushed aside its wooden cover to peer down. She leaned out over it and I had to bite my tongue to stop myself calling out to her to be careful.

  ‘Nothing in here,’ said Daisy, her voice booming out hollowly. ‘Apart from— Oh look, some cigarette butts floating in the water—’

  ‘Come away!’ I said at last, because she was leaning further and further down. ‘I don’t want to have to get you out!’

  ‘It would be terribly difficult,’ agreed Daisy, mercifully leaning back again and sitting down on the chilly stone floor. ‘In fact, I think that if I did fall in you would be unlikely to get me out alive again. It’s very narrow – I should be stuck!’

  ‘Daisy!’ I cried. ‘Stand up and let’s go. I don’t want to be here any longer. There’s nothing to see.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Daisy, rolling her eyes. ‘I like it here. It really would make the perfect place to commit a murder, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘NO!’ I said. ‘I hope we never come here again.’

  But, as it turned out, Daisy was quite right. And we did come back, just a few days later.

  2

  I almost don’t want to get to what happened, because I am still reeling from what Daisy and I saw – what we found – but of course I know I must. I have to get past the part where the murder is real and let it become a problem to be solved. When I write things down, they become mine, my puzzle, like something Aunt Lucy might set me to work on; not horror but logic. Daisy made me the Detective Society Secretary because she thought it was not as important as being President, but she didn’t realize then that writing something down makes you the most important person in the story.

  She has discovered it by now, but I am still the person who writes all our murder cases. Now I have started, not even Daisy could make me stop.

  The most bothersome thing (as Daisy would say) is that for once we were not on the spot during the crucial time. We had left the Rue Theatre last night – Saturday – as had most of the rest of the cast. Which means that for this murder case, although we know much more background than the policeman who has been called in, we have to rely on the word of all our suspects. And all our suspects are people who invent themselves for a living.

  First I will note down everything we did see at the Rue yesterday. We were there all afternoon, for Daisy and I are both in the first act. The actor playing Benvolio was still ill, and so Theresa (who was back at the Rue) came and stood on the stage, reading lines, for Romeo and Mercutio to speak their parts at. Simon went leaping around her like a demon, reciting Mercutio’s wild speech about the fairy queen Mab, and something about that contrast gave the rehearsal a disjointed, creepy feeling.

  The whole theatre seemed to be at odds with itself. There was a feverish atmosphere seeping into every corner of the Rue, as though the whole cast was sickening for something. I didn’t even have to mention it to Daisy – we both knew that something was brewing.

  Theresa did not look at all well. Her skin had a yellowish tone to it, and she swayed about, glassy-eyed, but refused to go h
ome.

  ‘I’m quite all right,’ she said, waving us all away. ‘Don’t you worry about me.’

  Inigo was directing the rehearsal like a particularly angry deity, Rose and Martita were sniping at each other furiously – Rose was still loudly convinced that Martita was behind the posters – and Rose and Lysander seemed to have had yet another argument. They said all their lines about falling in love beautifully, but they clasped hands as though they wanted to do violence to each other.

  Then, when Rose went to change her clothes before the second act (it was part of Inigo’s vision that actors should rehearse in their costumes in the last few weeks of rehearsal, to help them inhabit their parts), she cut her foot on a bit of broken glass on her dressing-room floor.

  We all heard her scream. I had a moment of feeling quite calm, as though I’d been waiting for rain and at last it had begun to pour.

  But, when we ran into the dressing room, we found Rose perfectly all right, and only bleeding from a long, deep cut on her right heel. Annie rushed to get the medical kit from Wardrobe, dabbed Rose’s foot with brown iodine and wrapped it tightly in soft white gauze.

  After that, Rose limped about, shooting furious glares at everyone out of the corner of her eyes.

  ‘It was you who left that glass lying around, I know it was,’ I heard her hiss at Lysander.

  ‘Of course it wasn’t me, you madwoman!’ cried Lysander. ‘You’re quite desperately unhinged, I tell you. No one left anything in your room.’

  ‘Poor Rose,’ murmured Simon. His words were kind, but somehow I didn’t think he sounded kind at all. He was watching Rose with a small smile that was quite unlike his usual friendly grin.

  Later that day, Martita was having trouble with her Nurse costume, so Annie came into our dressing room and deftly pinned it and sewed it up, talking in a cheerful stream that I caught and lost and caught again. Daisy was reading Enter a Murderer, and I was trying to do the crossword, but mostly doodling in the margins.

  ‘What a lovely figure you have,’ Annie said to Martita. ‘I have to watch mine, you know. With all these stories in the papers, it’s so terribly hard to know what to eat. Do you take vitamins, Martita?’

  ‘Vitamins are an English piece of nonsense,’ said Martita coolly.

  ‘Well, I’m sure you don’t need to bother. You’d look lovely in a bathing costume. I never bathe any more now that I know how dangerous it can be, but I had a lovely costume from Woolworths when I was a girl and I used to go to the seaside with my family. Yellow and blue it was – it always made me think of the sea, and how my brother and I used to bury our feet in the sand. Feet are a funny thing, aren’t they? So ugly, really, mine especially. Poor Rose, cutting her foot!’

  ‘Feet are very funny,’ said Martita, and I could tell she was trying not to laugh. Annie’s needle flashed in her left hand and the gas jets popped and glowed. It was all rather soothing, and I breathed it in. I was finding it difficult to concentrate. I was thinking about Rose, and about the posters, and the hothouse blooms with their strange notes.

  Annie went on, talking about feet and sand and swimming and mothers and fathers and families and babies and birthmarks and bathing costumes again.

  ‘I liked it so much, I almost didn’t want to get it wet. That’s why I was there in the first place. My parents told me how silly it was, not wanting to get a bathing costume wet! I am so lucky to have them. My parents, I mean,’ said Annie, in one of the odd leaps she was prone to.

  ‘Oh really? I think parents are a tragedy,’ said Daisy, looking up from her book. I could feel my heart racing. Somehow the conversation had ended up in a place that Daisy and I usually avoid more than anything. ‘Families are simply dreadful.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Annie, looking rather upset. ‘Mine are a wonderful support. My mother—’

  ‘Most parents are dreadful people,’ said Martita. ‘Mine are quite awful. They hate me.’

  Annie dropped her needle with a little gasp.

  ‘What are you all talking about?’ asked Rose, sticking her head round the open door. Something about her expression made me wonder how long she’d been standing outside.

  ‘Nothing, Rose darling,’ said Annie quickly.

  ‘We’re talking about how awful parents are. Did you hate your parents too?’ asked Martita, laughing.

  Annie breathed in sharply. Rose stepped backwards out of sight and slammed the door.

  ‘You shouldn’t have said that!’ whispered Annie. ‘You know!’

  Martita shrugged. ‘She’s said worse to me and Simon before,’ she said. ‘And anyway – families can be horrible. Even the families you make yourself – they betray you. Sometimes you have to protect yourself.’

  I saw her hands in the mirror clench together. I knew she was thinking of Miss Crompton, and I suddenly got rather a chill.

  3

  That evening the company would be rehearsing Act Two. The cast who wouldn’t be needed were given the rest of the night off – those of them who hadn’t already gone home ill. I waved goodbye to them and went to sit at the side of the stage with Daisy as Simon, Lysander, Rose and Martita readied themselves to go onstage. Bridget would be on her way to collect us soon, but Daisy and I both wanted to watch Rose for as long as we could.

  Scene One begins with Romeo pining after Juliet, and Mercutio and Benvolio joking together about Rosaline. Theresa put Simon and Lysander into their positions, fed Lysander his first line, and then fainted dead away stage left.

  Lysander stepped backwards with his hands up defensively, but Simon caught her as she fell.

  He lowered her to the shining boards of the stage and knelt beside her as we all rushed over.

  ‘Hey there,’ he said quietly. ‘Theresa, hey, wake up.’

  Theresa sat up with a gasp, and then began to cough. Her skin had gone waxy and she was shivering all over.

  ‘I’m quite all right,’ she gasped. ‘Oh, let me be, Simon my boy – stop bothering me!’

  ‘ENOUGH!’ shouted Miss Crompton. She was standing above Theresa, fists on her hips and feet apart. ‘Theresa my love, I cannot work with you if you die. You must go home at once – there’s simply nothing else for it. Martita – no, you’re on soon, aren’t you, dear? All right – Daisy, Hazel. Your maid is coming to collect you in a few minutes, anyway. Take Theresa to the stage door, ring for a doctor and have Jim wait with her for a taxi home. I know perfectly well that Theresa will try to get away if she’s not stopped.’

  ‘I won’t!’ said Theresa weakly. ‘Don’t be silly, Frankie.’

  ‘My dear idiot,’ snapped Miss Crompton, ‘GO HOME.’

  We had learned by now that, when Miss Crompton spoke like that, it was best to obey. So we half walked, half carried Theresa to the stage-door entrance. When we got there, Bridget was already waiting for us. She put down her notebook, took one look at Theresa and refused to leave her. Instead, she hailed a taxi, and we all sat quietly in it as it wound its way through London and over the great rushing river to Lambeth.

  I had perhaps not really understood, or thought about, the fact that Miss Crompton and Theresa lived together until we arrived at their flat. I saw that although it was handsome and well-appointed, with walls covered in actors’ glossy signed photographs, it had only two bedrooms. One of them was filled with Martita’s untidy things (for she really did live with them) and the other was as clean and staid as Miss Crompton and Theresa, a double bed at its centre.

  I noticed it, and noticed Daisy and Bridget noticing it too. Daisy started, folded her arms in embarrassment and stepped out into the corridor as quickly as she could. I was rather embarrassed too, for it was all very grown up, like properly imagining Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy being married.

  Sometimes I have considered being old, twenty-five, and allowed to live on my own with anyone I like, without a matron telling me to eat vegetables and go to bed on time. I cannot really imagine my father approving of it, and so the vision dies, but all the same …

 
Bridget pursed her lips a little, and then sighed as she led Theresa, shivering and pale in the face, to bed.

  ‘I’m all right!’ said Theresa. ‘Don’t you worry about me.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Bridget as she tucked her in efficiently. ‘Don’t be a martyr. Daisy, telephone the doctor, if you please.’

  I felt sorry for Theresa. She looked so small and weak lying in bed, not like a grown-up at all.

  Daisy went to the telephone and I peeked in at Martita’s room. Things were dropped carelessly about on the floor, and there was an explosion of make-up scattered across the dressing table. But I also saw something that gave me pause. There was a half-packed bag on the floor. I remembered what Martita had said about even the families you choose betraying you. Could Martita be planning to leave Miss Crompton’s house and the Rue?

  This felt significant, and I went to tell Daisy. She had hung up the telephone and was hovering in the hallway beside it, her mouth covered with her handkerchief. ‘Breathe through your nose, Hazel!’ she whispered. ‘Detectives must not get ill!’

  ‘I think Martita’s packing up!’ I whispered. ‘I think she’s leaving, Daisy!’

  ‘Where would she go?’ asked Daisy, and I saw the wrinkle appear at the top of her nose above the handkerchief. ‘No, she can’t. That’s idiotic of her!’

  ‘Don’t get upset!’ I said. ‘She’s been awfully hurt by Rose, Daisy, you know that.’

  ‘I know!’ cried Daisy loudly, and then lowered her voice. ‘It’s just that – Martita – she can’t leave the Rue, that’s all. She has nowhere else to go!’

  I stared at her, and under my gaze Daisy flushed and lowered her eyes.

  ‘Daisy—’ I began.

  ‘Daisy!’ called Bridget from the bedroom. ‘Will you telephone your uncle and explain why we’re late?’

  Daisy snatched up the telephone again as though it was a life raft, and she was drowning in the sea. I sighed.

  The operator put her through to Uncle Felix’s flat, and I could hear his low, ironic, rather blurry voice at the other end of the line. I understood what Daisy meant about telephones. I could hear Uncle Felix’s tone, but not much of his accent itself. It would be easy to pretend to be someone else on the telephone, and of course Daisy has done so many times.