Full Dark House

∨ Full Dark House ∧

57

A LIFE IN THE THEATRE

“Because I need you to help us,” said Sergeant Forthright, pausing at the top of the stairs and making sure that the coast was clear.

“I don’t know anything about detective work,” Alma Sorrowbridge complained. “I’m a landlady, for heaven’s sake. I’m better on beds.”

“Mr Bryant reckons that any respected person with common sense and an analytical mind could be recruited, so I’m recruiting you.”

“I thought you’d resigned.”

“I never technically left. Although I’m still hoping they’ll throw me a party.”

“But why me?”

“Because you’re the most enormous person we know. You weigh what, about seventeen stone, don’t you?”

“Sixteen and a half. There’s nothing wrong with my weight. It’s my height, I’m too short.”

“The point is, Alma, you’re strong.”

“I’m not that strong.”

“How do you clean behind your mangle?”

“I lift it out.”

“Exactly. What I want you to do is wait at the top of these stairs and don’t let anyone – anyone – get past you.”

“What if the audience starts leaving? How can I stop them?”

“They won’t be turning out for a while yet. I think you’d better have this, though.” The sergeant handed her Bryant’s swordstick and showed her how to unscrew the pewter top.

“I’ve never used a sword before,” said Alma hopelessly. “I’m more at home with a mop.”

“Hopefully you won’t have to run anyone through.” Forthright struck a pose with the sword, then resheathed it. For a moment she looked like Douglas Fairbanks in drag. “If anyone comes this way, just sort of – spread out. And scream blue murder. Someone will come to assist you.”

“This is beyond the call of my duties,” sighed Alma, practising with the stick. “Wait a minute, how did you get this?”

“Arthur.” Forthright grinned. “He’s back.”

“You mean he’s here?”

“Right here in the theatre. He’s been staying up in North London with that mad girl from the Camden Town Coven, the one who came to dinner and got poltergeists everywhere. She insisted on saying grace, only she read from the wrong book and we had manifestations. She told him someone’s going to die tonight in a UXB explosion. Mr Bryant reckons that whatever happens, he’ll make an arrest before the end of the show.”

“Nice of him to tell me where he’s been living. He didn’t even take a change of underpants.”

“I’m sure Maggie Armitage has been taking good care of our boy.”

“Well, I never did.”

Forthright gave her an old-fashioned look. “No, but you wish you had.”

“I’ve got a soft spot for him, that’s all.” She waved the stick. “OK, bring on this phantom of yours. I’m ready for anything.”

♦

“What do you mean, he’s here?” whispered May. He was wedged in his usual position at the side of the stage, in a black-painted brick inlet provided for quick changes. “You’re telling me he’s back?”

“He’s figured it all out and is going to make an arrest,” said Biddle excitedly. “I can help. I was a boxing champion at school.” He took an experimental swing with his left fist. “I put my geography teacher in the hospital. He shouted at me about alluvial deposits so I decked him.”

“Really? I’m seeing another side to you,” May replied, alarmed. “I hope violence won’t be necessary. We’re the police, we don’t thump people.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it? I thought I was more interested in the paperwork side of the job, but it turns out I much prefer the chase.”

“What does he want us to do?” asked May.

“Who?” Biddle took another practice swing.

“Mr Bryant, you idiot.”

“Oh. He said to go to the foyer of the theatre at exactly half past the hour.”

“What time do you make it?”

Biddle tilted his watch to the light. “Twenty-nine minutes past.”

May shoved at him. “Well, let’s go, then!”

They filed through to the end of the corridor and dropped down to the pass door, making their way along the dark tiled halls to the front-of-house area.

“I don’t suppose Bryant told you who he was planning to arrest, did he?”

“He didn’t want anyone to know in advance.” Biddle hobbled on ahead. “He told me to tell you no mythology this time. He said he needed our help because it wasn’t one person.”

“What do you mean?” asked May.

Biddle shrugged. “He said there are two of them.”

♦

Arthur Bryant checked the buttons on his smart scarlet waistcoat and straightened his scarf. Forthright was bound to have put some constables in the auditorium. If things turned nasty, he hoped they would get here in time.

He checked his watch again. There could be no more mistakes. His nervousness receded as he walked confidently forward to the box-office window. His knock on the glass echoed in the eerily empty foyer.

Elspeth Wynter suddenly appeared from behind the counter. She was holding Nijinsky, her tortoise. “Oh, it’s you, Arthur.”

“I wonder if I could have a word with you, Elspeth.”

“Of course.” She smiled sadly, then set the tortoise back in its box. “Look, Arthur, I know what you’re going to say, and I’m flattered by the attention you’ve given me, but I don’t think it would work out between us.”

For a moment Bryant was flummoxed. This wasn’t what he had come to discuss.

“I thought you were – lonely.” He knew by the look on her face that he had chosen the wrong word.

“Whatever you thought we had in common, I don’t – I mean to say, I’m not as free as you. I can’t leave this place.”

“I realize that.”

“No. I mean I really can’t leave.”

“Elspeth, I have to talk to you about Jan Petrovic.”

“Oh, I see.” He heard the relief in her voice. “Have you found her?”

“No, but I have a good idea where she is.” Bryant tried to sound nonchalant.

“You do? Where is she? Is she safe?”

“She’s fine. She’s in Dublin.”

“Dublin? I don’t understand.”

“Petrovic wanted to get out of the show but had an unbreakable contract, so someone suggested a way that she could escape. That was you, wasn’t it?”

Her shoulders slumped wearily, and she placed a hand over her face. For a moment he thought she was going to cry.

“I know the truth, Elspeth. I’m sorry. I spoke to Phyllis, her flatmate. She told me Jan came to see you. She didn’t think anything of it at the time, because Jan told her you worked at the theatre.”

Wynter raised her head and studied his eyes intently. “I just suggested that with these murders going on, there was a way she could easily leave. I told her, it’s just a bit of theatre, that’s all. Break a window, give yourself a little nick on the thumb, leave a drop of blood and people will think that the Palace has claimed another victim. She’s a Hungarian Jew, Arthur. Her parents are waiting for her in Ireland before the family heads for America. She desperately wanted to go and join them.”

“But why would you do that?” asked Bryant. “Why would you give the police even more cause for concern?” He held her gaze steadily, and in that moment, she knew that he knew. “I’ve never made an arrest before, Elspeth. I’m afraid you’re going to be my first. You see, this time, I know I’ve got the right person. I know it’s you.”

“Arthur, please – ”

“I know you’ve spent your whole life in the theatre,” said Bryant quietly. “Raising him and looking after yourself. I can’t blame you for wanting to be free. But you chose the wrong way to do it.”

She unlocked the box-office door and closed it behind her with infinite care. “So you really do know.”

“The other pass door,” he explained. “There are no coats of paint holding it shut, just a lock. Nobody ever thought to check it. You told Stan it was sealed, and he told everyone else. I knew that if it could be opened, somebody must have a key. I found it in your tortoise box.”

“So you unlocked the door and discovered the room. I wonder if we could sit down.” She looked around, her hands knotted together.

“Of course.” Bryant ushered her to a small alcove with a velvetcovered bench seat.

“I thought we were fine,” Elspeth explained. “It was such a big building, that was the thing. Nobody even knew he was there. Oh, one or two of the girls sat with him when he was small, but they all moved on. I hadn’t even realized I was pregnant, Arthur. I was fifteen years old. Nobody told me the facts of life. A painful two-minute act in the dark of a dressing room with a man I had never seen out of villainous stage make-up. I was frightened out of my wits. The show closed and he left with it. I gave birth just as my grandmother had, here in the theatre. The difference was I was unmarried. There was no one I could go to for help.”

A look of overwhelming misery settled on her. “I knew I would have to raise the boy alone. They wouldn’t let me stay in my lodgings, not in my condition. It was a respectable boarding house. So I moved in here with him. Nobody knew – why would they? There are whole floors barely used. That’s when I found the other storeroom behind the pass door. We slept there and were happy enough. My boy stayed quiet. He was as good as gold. There were members of staff in whom I confided. They all moved on. The shows came and went, just as they always had. We would still have been in lodgings, sharing a room. There was so much homelessness. You started to see people sleeping in the parks. We were better off here. Then my boy began to grow restive. He spent too much time alone. Something went wrong in his head.”

“What did you expect?” asked Bryant. “You can’t lock a child up, away from the real world, away from light and friends, no matter how much love you give him.”

Elspeth appeared not to have heard. “He was always playing with the costumes and props, you see. Trying on the masks. He especially loved the Greek ones, but the comedy face got broken and he was left with the mask of tragedy. It got so I couldn’t get him to take it off. He seemed happier behind it. We would eat together, and I would leave him playing or asleep while I went to work, just as always. But he kept the mask on more and more. I tried to pretend that things were normal. Then he became ill and started acting oddly, and I finally took the mask off.” She bit her knuckle, tears welling in her eyes. “At first I couldn’t remove it. He’d cut himself, you see, and the cut was infected. The mask was papier mâché. It was damp from his face all the time. It went rotten. It did something awful to his flesh. I treated it as best I could, but there were terrible scars. It was too late for a doctor. I knew they would send me to gaol. My poor boy. The skin dried all shiny and stretched. He started to remind me of men who’d been in the Great War, the ones who’d been burned, who stand on street corners selling matches. I didn’t know what to do. I decided it was time to leave. This place had become our prison. But when I went to go – ”

“You found you couldn’t leave.”

“I couldn’t even set a foot outside the door.” She shook the memory from her head. “I looked up at the sky and felt sick. Had to sit on the step to stop myself from vomiting. The sun burned my eyes. The cars, the traffic, the noise. I didn’t know there was a word for it.”

“Agoraphobia. It’s hardly surprising, the amount of time you spent in this dimly lit building.”

“Then the war started. The blackouts. Everything went quiet. Everything was dark. I felt it more with each passing performance, the pressure to leave, it stalked me through the building like a living thing, daring me to go outside. I took my first steps out of the Palace in seventeen years, and was violently sick. Everyone else was in the shelters. The bombers passed overhead but they kept on going. You’ll think this is strange, but it was so peaceful.” She exhaled sadly. “Then they sounded the all-clear and people came out onto the streets again. But the lights stayed off. I knew that if I was ever going to get out of the Palace and back into the world, I would have to leave soon, before the war ended and all the lights came back on.”

She looked at Bryant pleadingly. “But I couldn’t go. How could I go? A new show starting, I’d never missed a performance, never let anyone down in my life. The rehearsals were beginning, they were relying on me. There was no one to take my place. I’m the only one who knows where everything is. There’s Stan Lowe, of course, he’s been here as long as me, but he’s fond of a drink, the place could burn down and he wouldn’t notice. So long as the show stays open, I have to be here.”

“So you decided to close the show.”

“It was my boy, Todd. I called him that after Todd Slaughter, the star of Maria Marten – The Murders in the Red Barn. That was the show his father had been in. Todd was growing up fast. He took a shine to Tanya Capistrania, watching her from the wings while she practised. I thought he might try to do something cruel, something bad. I thought, history’s going to repeat itself if I don’t do something, he’ll become like his father, and I won’t be able to control him. He’s too big for me now. He’s seventeen. He’s already started to slip out during the air-raid warnings, moving under cover of the dark, while everyone’s off the streets. I didn’t want to see Tanya raped and left pregnant with some awful – I thought, if she dies, there’ll be a scandal. They’ll shut the place down and I’ll have to go. I’ll be forced out. It was the only way I’d ever be able to leave.

“No one liked her, no one was close. I didn’t want her to suffer, so I poisoned her. I thought it would just put her to sleep. The hemlock was the easiest thing to get hold of. It grows on the bomb sites, you see. I put it in a sandwich and gave it to her. I thought she’d be able to tell if there was something funny about the flavour, so I got quail, something she’d never eaten before. She trusted me. Everyone trusts me. The hemlock made her fall down, but she wouldn’t die. Todd saw she was sick and got very angry. He tried to pull her out of the lift, and, God forgive me, in my panic I pressed the call button.

“He went crazy when he saw what the lift did to her. He threw the severed parts out of the window in a rage. He wanted me to be caught. They rolled off the canopy and landed somewhere below. When I went to look for them they were gone. Tanya’s body was discovered, and I thought the show would be shut down at once. But no, Mr Renalda kept it going. I’d met Mr Renalda at the start of rehearsals, and instantly disliked him. I read about his family in the papers, all that stuff about him being raised to believe in Greek myths, and I thought, this is perfect.

“A theatrical mind, you see. Plot mechanics. I see them every day of my life. Plots and puzzles and murder mysteries. Faking the way things look, it was second nature to me. I thought, I’ll just keep going until they close us down and someone puts the blame on him. Todd had helped me once, so I got him to help me again. I’m his world, Arthur, he’d do anything for me. I told him to watch certain people and to look for opportunities, things he could do that would make everyone get out of our house.

“I made him wear gloves, the same gloves his father had worn on the stage in his role as a murderer. He knows the theatre better than anyone. He cut through the cable holding the globe, and he pushed the boy over the balcony, and he jammed the stage revolve so that Valerie Marchmont died. I knew if he acted during the raids, no outsiders could come into the theatre and discover him. But whatever he did, it seemed that everyone just became more determined to stay. The Blitz mentality, it’s infected everything.”

“It was you who locked me in the archive room,” exclaimed Bryant. “Why, because you wanted to keep me away from the site of Valerie Marchmont’s murder?”

“No, I was just really annoyed with you.”

“Oh.”

“I thought I was leaving such an obvious pattern, using symbols of the Muses. You were supposed to go and arrest Mr Renalda. The show couldn’t continue without him. But you made it so much more complicated. He slipped out of your hands, the show went on, and I was still stuck here, with Todd upstairs, threatening to expose us, becoming more disturbed with every passing hour.” She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan. “Now you’ll have to take me out of here, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Bryant admitted, “but you’ll be swapping one claustrophobic building for another, I’m afraid.” He looked at his watch. Half past eight. Biddle was supposed to have brought May here by now.

“Where is Todd?” he asked. “What’s planned for tonight?”

“He’s under the stage right now,” said Wynter. “You may already be too late.”

“Bryant! You’re back! So Biddle wasn’t pulling a fast one!” May rushed forward across the foyer, followed by Sidney. He clapped his partner on the shoulder, then looked at Elspeth Wynter and saw that she had been crying. “What’s going on?”

“Come with me,” said Bryant. “There’s not a moment to lose. Sidney, whatever you do, don’t let Miss Wynter out of your sight.”

May fell into step as they headed off along the corridor. “Where are we going?”

“Do you have a torch?”

“Yes, I always carry my Valiant.”

“Good,” said Bryant, pulling his scarf tighter. “Where we’re going, we’ll need it.”