Fault in the Structure

CHAPTER 18

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The anxiety of continual questioning

The inquest was fixed for the following Thursday, but before it could take place there was a police enquiry in which the whole cast, the stage-hands, the electricians and Dame Beatrice herself were involved.

‘What caused you to go straight away behind the scenes, ma’am?’

‘I was sitting in the front row of the auditorium and heard Mr Farrow, who was playing a part which took place in front of the curtain, exclaim: “Good God! Look out!” ’

‘What did you make of that?’

‘I realised that a fairly heavy property, which was behind the curtain and was mounted on wheels, must have got loose. I could hear the sound of it as clearly as could the two actors.’

‘What happened then?’

‘One of the actors had his legs taken from under him by the force of the impact and was precipitated off the front of the stage. I am a qualified medical practitioner, so I went forward to see whether he was hurt.’

‘But then you went backstage.’

‘Yes. I realised that we had been witnessing an unrehearsed effect—’

‘How did you know that?’

‘I had been present at one of the rehearsals. I wanted to find out whether the actor who had been standing on the cart had suffered injury.’

‘And he had, of course.’

‘Yes, indeed. He was dead within moments of my arrival.’

‘Further medical evidence indicates that he died of cerebral suboxia. Would you agree?’

‘Certainly, although I think, in any case, he might have died of shock.’

‘As the doctor first on the scene of the accident, you will be required to give evidence at the inquest.’

The next persons to be questioned were the two students who had been in charge of the cart.

‘Did you not realise the possible danger of slipping a running noose over a pinioned and blindfolded man’s head?’

‘We only did what the stage manager had told us to do. We’d never done the job before. We didn’t know it ought to have been just a loop and not a running noose. Somebody boobed, but it wasn’t us.’

‘You put the white hood over the actor’s head, pinioned his arms behind his back and adjusted the rope around his neck. What else did you do?’

‘We held on to the cart and helped him mount.’

‘Why did you need to hold on?’

‘Well, we didn’t really think we needed to, because we’d been along to make sure the cart was securely fastened.’

‘And was it?’

‘Well, it seemed to be, but we weren’t asked to test the fastenings. They looked all right.’

‘So why did you hold on to the cart?’

‘Well, rope gives a bit when you put any strain on it, and the cart wobbled a bit when he mounted it.’

‘And after he had mounted it?’

‘We left the stage, as we’d been told to do.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘Oh, well, over the road to get a quick one before the pub closed. When we came back to help with the clearing up, there was all this schemozzle – people talking, girls crying and the poor chap done for.’

That seemed to be all from the two students. The police then turned their attention to Ernest Farrow.

‘Wasn’t it a risky thing to entrust the safety precautions to two inexperienced students, Mr Farrow?’

‘But I didn’t!’ exclaimed Ernest, too indignant at this suggestion to feel alarmed by the presence of police. ‘I never liked that cart and the noose. The opera doesn’t call for it and I’ve always been against any tampering with the text. Still, the producer wanted it that way, so, as stage manager, I was bound to carry out his orders.’

‘So you really tested the safety measures yourself?’

‘Certainly I did. The cord which anchored the cart was perfectly secure. The person to blame for this regrettable affair is the practical joker who hid our wedges and untied the cord which fastened the cart to the back of the stage. I only hope his conscience is giving him hell. All the same, I can’t understand what could have happened. The wedges were only an extra precaution, after all. We had held more than one rehearsal without them, and the rake of the stage isn’t enough to send the cart careering away like that.’

‘Why, then, did you decide to use them?’

‘One of the girls – the ladies – got nervous, so I had them made just to pacify her.’

‘But at that last performance they were missing?’

‘Yes. We couldn’t hold up the opera looking for them, so we carried on, but I assure you, Detective-Superintendent, that the cart was perfectly safe when I left it. I secured it myself and inspected my fastenings just before I had to go on in front of the curtain for my last bit of dialogue.’

‘The cord was knotted to secure it?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Are you an expert on knots, Mr Farrow?’

‘I wouldn’t claim that, but I was a Scout and knowing about knots was part of Scout training.’

‘So what kind of knot did you use to secure the cart?’

‘The same as I would use to secure a boat – a round turn and two half-hitches. You can’t have anything much more secure than that.’

‘What, in your opinion, then, caused this fastening to come undone and release the cart?’

‘Human agency, as I said, Detective-Superintendent. A stupid, thoughtless, pinheaded practical joke by one of the students. I only wish Denbigh could find out which one.’

‘We’ve inspected the stage, sir. As you say, it slants gently down towards the footlights. Is that usual?’

‘Yes, I think so. It gives a better view of the people coming on-stage from near the back.’

‘Is the stage at the College where, I understand, the earlier rehearsals took place, similarly tilted?’

‘No. It’s just a flat platform. It’s not the College stage; just a big dais in the music room.’

‘So a student might not have realised the danger at the town hall. Thank you, sir. I think that’s all. Oh, one more thing.’

‘Yes? I may tell you, Detective-Superintendent, that the thriller programmes put out by the BBC have familiarised me with that particular gambit.’

‘Sir?’

‘This business of pretending you’ve finished with a witness and then suddenly throwing a question at him, thinking him to have been disarmed.’

‘Oh, dear me, sir, we don’t work along those sort of lines, I assure you. Still, if you feel like that, I will save my question for another time.’

‘No, no. Out with it, please. I am not a nervous man, but I dislike being left on tenter-hooks.’

‘Very well, sir. You are an officer of your operatic society, I believe?’

‘I’m the honorary treasurer, yes.’

‘I notice that you are inclined to place the blame for what has occurred on the College, sir. I suppose you’re quite sure none of your members might have had a spite against the gentleman?’

‘Enough to murder him? Good heavens, no, of course nobody has!’

‘I had no thought of murder in mind, sir, but, suppose the accident had not ended fatally, could it not have made this Mr Crashaw look rather ridiculous, with his cart running away from him and he left hanging on to the backdrop, or something of that sort?’

‘The cast would know how dangerous that would be,’ said Ernest, after a pause for thought. ‘His hands weren’t really tied, of course – the bonds were just looped over – but even so, taken by surprise, he might not have had time to release himself and clutch at the halter round his neck to save himself from strangulation. Oh, and that’s another thing! That halter was never meant to have a slip-knot. Everybody in the cast knew that, and we are all mature, responsible people, all old enough to know better than to play stupid practical jokes such as changing a fixed loop into a running noose.’

‘Even the schoolboy, Thomas Blaine, sir?’

‘I assure you, my dear chap,’ said Dr Philip Denbigh, ‘that my students are not involved. I have instituted, in collaboration with the principal of the College, the senior staff and the head students, man and girl, the strictest and closest enquiries. You yourself have done the same. There is no student who was present at the performance who cannot be accounted for by witnesses. Apart from that, the students in question are third years. They have sat their final examinations and are intending to teach children. They all know better than to play dangerous practical jokes, I do assure you.’

‘Mr Farrow tells me the same about his members. Your students are young and high-spirited, though, sir, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Certainly they are, but they are not dangerous lunatics, Superintendent.’

‘One or other of them took the wheels off that cart at the dress rehearsal, sir.’

‘You have no proof of that.’

‘And somebody hid those wedges which were supposed to be put under those same wheels on the last night of the performance. Even if somebody had accidentally or deliberately pushed against the cart, the wedges would have held it.’

‘You must look elsewhere for your culprits. My students are not responsible for the tragedy which has occurred.

‘Perhaps you can suggest who is responsible, then, sir.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘No offence, sir, but you, as producer of this opera which, I understand, has been in rehearsal for several weeks, must have had your finger on the pulse, so to speak. Were there any little rifts, for example, between the deceased and anybody else in the cast? Clashes of temperament, jealousies, quarrels?’

‘Not so far as I am aware. Mr Crashaw was not my first choice for the part, but when I gave it to him there was little or no ill-feeling among the others.’

‘What happened to your first choice, then, sir? Couldn’t he fill the bill?’

‘Oh, it was nothing like that. He was fooling about on a trampoline at his school – he’s a teacher – fell off it awkwardly and was taken to hospital with a fractured leg. It was a very nasty crack, I believe, silly young ass!’

‘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.’