Lovers Make Moan

Chapter 7

Bare Bodkin

“Ah, me, for pity!—what a dream was here!”

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It was well after midnight before the actors were able to leave, but all was over at last and the body removed to the mortuary. Deborah offered Barbara Bourton a bed, but she, calm and poised as ever, politely declined the offer. Her sister and her sister’s husband, she said, had been in the audience and would still be waiting to drive her home.

“Are they staying with you?” Deborah asked.

“Oh, yes. Please don’t worry. I shall be all right.” So Deborah let her go and walked up to the house with Jonathan. At last they were alone and in their own drawing-room. Jonathan opened one of the bottles of champagne which had been destined for the celebrations and, having poured out two glassfuls, sat down and stared at the electric fire which, finding Deborah shivering, he had switched on.

“But how could the wrong dagger have got into that sword-belt?” she asked.

“Very easily,” he replied. “It almost happened when I was in College, although the circumstances were not quite the same. We were doing Hamlet and some of the chaps were fooling about in the dressing-room and somebody picked up the wrong dagger and went lunging about with it, thinking it was a harmless one. Luckily somebody caught his arm before he could do any damage, otherwise we might have had just the same sort of horrible accident as we’ve had here tonight. People really should be more careful, even with theatrical properties they think are safe to handle.”

“I suppose it was an accident?” said Deborah.

“An accident? What else could it have been?”

“I don’t like accidents which kill people.”

“Who does? But they happen every day.”

“Yes, crashed cars and falls and burns in people’s homes and old people and young children knocked down crossing the street, but this was quite different and it could only have happened to Donald.”

“How do you mean?”

“If Rinkley had not been taken ill, Donald would not have played Pyramus.”

“So?”

“Well, don’t you think that the minute Rinkley drew it out, he would have known it was the wrong dagger? Don’t you remember how nervous he was about the right one until he had convinced himself it was harmless? He had used it at rehearsals, remember. There’s such a thing as the kinaesthetic sense, you know, in all of us. The very first feel of the dagger as he handled it would have warned him. He would never have risked using it on himself. I suppose there will have to be an enquiry to find out what led to the daggers being changed, and we shall have the police and the reporters and goodness knows what number of gaping sightseers. Oh, God! What an ending to the play!”

“Yes. Well, that can’t be helped. Naturally there will have to be an official enquiry, even although the death was accidental.”

“Are you trying to convince yourself that it was? Quite a number of people may not have liked Donald, you know.”

“I was one of them. He was far too forthcoming with you to meet with my approval.”

“And he was a lot more forthcoming with some people than ever he was with me. And, although I wouldn’t say this to anybody but you, his Barbara wasn’t altogether overwhelmed by his sudden death, you know.”

“Suffering from shock, but the whole realisation of what happened hadn’t hit her.”

“That could be so. Very well, I’ll be charitable. Drink up and let’s go to bed. There will be plenty to do tomorrow and the next day. For one thing, Marcus Lynn’s workmen will be here on Monday to dismantle the set-up and take away the amplifiers and the lights and the painted scenery. Oh, and I expect someone will come along tomorrow to collect Ganymede and Lucien. Jeanne-Marie let them sleep on instead of waking them and taking them home.”

This someone turned out to be Dr Jeanne-Marie herself. She did not work on Sundays, she explained, except to answer emergency calls. She accepted a drink and came out with a direct reference to the tragedy of the previous evening.

“That was a very bad thing,” she said. “Is there any chance, do you think, that one of the small children who were in the play—I am thinking of the little boys rather than of the little girls—that one of them could have been playing with the weapons, probably before the performance began?”

“It took a little girl to sneak the bloodhounds away, so children can get at the props,” said Deborah.

“So I am right about the children?”

“Not a chance,” said Jonathan. “At the dress-rehearsal we had a bit of trouble, but of a very different kind. Supervision was not very strict and our two, Rosamund and Edmund, contrived to purloin the two bloodhounds and take them to bed. They were severely scolded—I put Rosamund as the organiser of the enterprise—and Signora Moretti was asked to keep a particularly vigilant eye on her charges during the actual performances.”

“Nobody would manage to elude that old lady, as I think you will agree,” said Deborah. “Besides, the properties were not put out until the children were being dressed up. I know that for a fact, and once the performance started there were always people in the wings. No child could have got away with touching anything on the props tables.”

“What must have happened, I think,” said Jonathan, “was that either Yorke or one of the Lynns, who carried the things down and laid them out on the tables, dropped the daggers out of the belts quite by accident and put the wrong dagger into the belt meant for Pyramus. There were four daggers and two swords. Yorke had a sword and, as Oberon, Bourton had one, but the swords don’t come into it. I myself had a dagger, so had Tom Woolidge. We found them less troublesome than swords. Then young Yolanda Yorke as Philostrate carried one in her belt, but only in the hunting scene and, even then, hers was only a very short sgian dhu, the little knife Highlanders carry stuck into their stockings, not the one she was first given.”

“The blade which killed Mr Bourton was six inches long. I was present when the police surgeon took it out,” said Dr Jeanne-Marie.

“What I don’t understand,” said Jonathan, “is how those two fellows, Lynn and young David Lester, who dumped Bourton on that stretcher and carried him off-stage, did not see that there was something very seriously wrong with him.”

“There was nothing to see except the hilt of the dagger protruding from his body.”

“Blood, surely?”

“No. The only person who might have suspected something was the girl who found that she could not immediately pull the weapon out.”

“But I thought stab wounds bled like the very dickens, Doctor.”

“It depends in what part of the body the wound is made. In this case the most that would be noticed would be some blood from the nose and the mouth, but this could be attributed by a non-medical person to the patient’s having had a nose-bleed. Actually, there was not even this symptom on Mr Bourton when we examined him, neither should I have expected it.”

“But poor Donald died of the wound!” exclaimed Deborah. “Could you explain what you mean, Doctor?”

“Why not? It will come out at the inquest. It depends on the position the body is in when the blow is struck. I was in the front row of the audience and saw what happened. Of course, until I was called to the side of the stage, I had no idea that the weapon was anything but a theatrical toy, although I did think that Mr Bourton was a very good actor. To stab himself he first raised his head and shoulders a little off the ground, but not enough to make any real difference to the prone position in which he had been lying, then he stabbed himself and fell flat again. He would have lost consciousness immediately and was dead by the time Mr Lynn and young Mr Lester had carried him off the stage, but there was no outward sign of bleeding.”

“Lord, yes,” said Jonathan. “I read about it in Professor Keith Simpson’s autobiography. What poor Bourton gave himself when the dagger went in was an internal haemorrhage. The blade must have gone in between two ribs and may not have pierced the lung. The blood would have seeped into the cavity of the chest and there might have been no outward sign at all except the hilt of the dagger sticking out of him.”

When Dr Jeanne-Marie had collected her sons, and Rosamund and Edmund had been sent to play in the garden, Marcus Lynn called to confirm that his demolition squad would be coming next day and, under the eye of their employer, would make short work of the clearing up. Marcus stayed for sherry. He was gloomy.

“That was one hell of an ending to the show,” he said. “I’ve been to the hospital and it seems it was simply one of those things. If the poor chap had struck on a rib instead of the dagger going between two of them, there might have been some chance of saving him. As it was, there was no hope at all. Emma is terribly distressed and I suppose there will be every sort of a hooha about how the daggers got changed over.”

“That reminds me,” said Jonathan. “Is it known what happened to the theatrical dagger?”

“Oh, yes. It was the first thing I thought of when it was obvious that the poor chap was dead, so when Yorke and I gathered up the properties after the police surgeon had authorised the removal of Bourton’s body, I checked, with Yorke standing by. The retractable dagger must have slid out of the belt as the props were placed on the tables. I can’t think why none of the three of us noticed—Jasper helped Yorke and myself to carry the stuff down—but, of course, the lights were not put on until the performance began. Anyway, the dagger had got kicked under the table and all I can think is that some well-meaning busybody (who, of course, will never own up to it now) noticed that the belt was empty and shoved a dagger into it.”

“The one and only objection to that theory,” said Deborah, “is that whoever did it must have been able to lay his hands on another dagger, unless he had brought one with him and the whole thing was done out of malice aforethought.”

“In which case the dagger couldn’t have been meant for Bourton, but for Rinkley,” said Jonathan, “but all this is idle speculation. All the real evidence will come out at the inquest. Have you spoken to any of the others, Marcus?”

“No. I think better not. It will be better to leave all that to the police. No blame can attach itself to anyone. Nobody could possibly have known that Rinkley would have been taken ill and an understudy put on, and if Rinkley had accidentally got the wrong dagger, he would have known as soon as he drew it out.”

“Or perhaps even before that, because of the weight of the thing when he slung the belt over his shoulder,” said Deborah. Later she added to her husband, “I’d like to get Rosamund and Edmund out from here for a bit, away from all the publicity. There won’t only be the police. There will be the reporters and the sightseers, as I said before.”

“I don’t think you need worry. The death will be declared accidental and the papers won’t give it more than a mention, if that. Besides, where should we put the kids? Everybody must have had a bucketful of minding them by now.”

“Try Aunt Adela and Laura. They only had them for a week instead of the promised fortnight. A week will see us in the clear, I should think.”

So Deborah telephoned the Stone House which was on the edge of the New Forest and contacted Laura.

“Deborah here.”

“Hullo. How did the last night go?”

“That’s why I’m phoning. I’d rather tell you about it when we meet. A dreadful thing happened and I want the children out of here for a day or two. Could you possibly have them again while we get things sorted out?”

“I’ll ask the boss, but I’m sure we can. Are you and Jonathan all right?”

“Oh, yes, perfectly all right, the children, too.”

“Good show! Hang on while I contact the fountain-head.” Laura was back on the telephone in less than a minute with an assurance that Dame Beatrice would be delighted to have the children again. “She says would it help if we came over and fetched them? She thinks you may be in a bit of a spot. Would it help?”

“Oh, Laura, it most certainly would! Could you make it quite soon? I want them out of the house before all the fun begins.”

“The fun being what?—or mustn’t I ask until we meet?”

“The police, we think, and the reporters, will be here.”

“We’ll be right over.” Laura was as good as her word and her arrival with Dame Beatrice coincided with that of the police. While Jonathan was interviewed by them, Deborah presented the children. They were ready to leave, Rosamund clutching the Victorian posy which she had been given for her performance and from which she refused to be parted, Edmund with the dog-collar Peter Woolidge had begged from Tom to give him.

“It’s awfully good of you to take them off our hands,” said Deborah to Dame Beatrice, leading her relative by marriage out of earshot while Laura was coping with an enthusiastic account of the play from the children. “We had a serious accident here on the last night, and there will have to be an inquest and the children will be far better out of the way.”

“What happened?”

“There was a mix-up of props and the stand-in who was playing Pyramus picked up the wrong dagger and stabbed himself to death. Jon says it’s the sort of accident which can easily happen, but in this case I don’t think that’s true.”

“How would it be if we sent the children off with Laura and I stayed to hear the details of the story? I was present at the first performance of the play, as you know, so I shall have no difficulty in following your account of what occurred.”

“Oh, if you would stay and help us out, it would be a tremendous relief to me.”

“So what happened exactly?” asked Dame Beatrice again when Laura had gone off with the children.

“Mr Rinkley, the man who played Bottom the Weaver, was taken ill about three-quarters through the play and was rushed to hospital with suspected food poisoning. I must ring them and find out how he is.”

“So the understudy took his place—”

“Well, we don’t have understudies the way the professionals do. We have to find somebody else in the cast who can fill in, and in this case it had to be Donald Bourton. He was playing Oberon and was off-stage when Rinkley collapsed, so he was free to play in the Pyramus and Thisbe scene.”

“But surely Oberon comes on again at the end of that scene?”

“Yes, but we cut the fairy ending. As it was, we were running late, so nobody minded. We wouldn’t have had the fairies, anyway, because the children were all in bed or asleep on their parents’ laps in the auditorium, so the scene would have lost a lot of its attraction, anyway.”

“Yes, I noticed the absence of the fairies at the end of the performance I attended. So you had to substitute Mr Bourton for Mr Rinkley.”

“Yes. What happened after that is still a mystery, but perhaps the inquest will clear it up. Well, actually, of course, we know what happened, but we don’t know how such a mistake could have been made. You remember that Pyramus is supposed to stab himself? Well, in some extraordinary way the daggers got mixed up. Instead of using the retractable thing which had been provided, and which was harmless, poor Donald pulled a real dagger out. Where it came from and how it got into the pocket in the sword-belt is an absolute mystery. Somebody put it there, but I doubt whether there is going to be any owning-up.”

“Could any of the children—there were a dozen or more in the fairy scenes, I noticed—have had access to the properties and played with them?”

“Well,” said Deborah, “of course I’ve thought of that, but, honestly, I don’t believe it’s the answer. Yolanda Yorke, the eldest of the children—she took Philostrate—was with her parents all the time except when she went to the summerhouse to see that the bloodhounds were all right, but the summerhouse is in a clearing in the woods and quite a long way from the tables on which the props and things were laid out.”

“But she was not under her parents’ eye the whole time.”

“I’m sure Yolanda wouldn’t have meddled with anybody else’s things. She is a most serious, responsible little girl, although she is only nine. In any case, as I say, I can’t see that she would have had the opportunity. There were people in the wings all the time.”

“And the younger children?”

“Oh, dear!” In spite of the gravity of the situation, Deborah laughed. “If they could have escaped from Signora Moretti’s eagle eye I should be the most surprised woman in Europe. She assumed complete charge of them. They had cushions they were made to sit on and no chance whatever to escape her vigilance. She had a couple of mothers to help out, and young Peter Woolidge, who was Puck and a wizard with children, was there, whenever he was off stage, keeping them amused and happy.”

“And were Rosamund and Edmund under the same surveillance as the rest?”

“You bet they were, and Ganymede and Lucien, too. When they and the other fairies were not on stage they were all under the very strictest supervision. It’s impossible that they could have tampered with anything on the actual nights of the play.”

“And before the play?”

“All the properties and costumes were locked away and Jon gave the key of the room to Marcus Lynn. When they were taken out, instead of being distributed to the cast in the dressing-rooms, they were put out on the trestle tables at the side of the stage so that they could be picked up by the actors as and when they were needed. It was thought better to keep all the props together until people had to use them. There was just time, you see, for Pyramus to get into his armour and Thisbe her skirt and Wall to hitch on the cardboard fore-and-aft thing representing the lime and roughcast, and all Moonshine had to do was to pick up her lantern, dog and bush of thorns, and Lion only needed to assume the tatty bit of synthetic fur complete with lion’s-head cap. This was all done while the court party were discussing what their evening entertainment was to be.”

“It sounds as though the daggers were changed over before the play began. So far as I remember, there was no point during the actual scenes when only one person was off the stage and so in a position to have sole access to the properties, was there?”

“I can’t think of one. When the court party was ‘on’ at the beginning, the fairies and the workmen were ‘off’, and it went on in a Box and Cox sort of way right through the four acts, but surely nobody would have done such a thing deliberately, although I did have doubts at first. Of course Rinkley himself would not have made a mistake, but somebody unaccustomed to the daggers might have got them mixed up. The theatrical dagger looked very realistic. Marcus Lynn had it copied from a valuable one, I believe.”

“Where did the lethal dagger come from?”

“Oh, Marcus Lynn has rather a good collection of swords and daggers. He brought along a number to the first full rehearsal and let people choose their own. He took the rest away with him, I thought, but there must have been one left over. He himself had the only key to the props cupboard, so I suppose he would know.”

“The police, I suppose, have the dagger with which Mr Bourton killed himself. Is it possible that he committed suicide deliberately?”

“I suppose it’s possible on the grounds of ‘what private griefs they have, alas! I know not’, but I should consider it most unlikely. It’s true that his wife was away from home a good deal—she’s a professional actress and was only ‘between shows’ when she consented to lend herself to us for The Dream—but from what I’ve heard, Donald Bourton usually managed to console himself during her absences. This I’m sure she knew, and, apparently, she did not resent it.”

“How well do you know her?”

“I had never met her until rehearsals began. I mean, she and her husband and the other married couples have been here for drinks, of course. We had to ask the Bourtons because we were having Brian and Valerie Yorke and Marcus and Emma Lynn, so Donald and Barbara seemed the obvious couple to make up the party.”

“What makes you think that she did not object to her husband’s amusing himself while she was in London or on tour?”

“Oh, they were the modern style of husband and wife, you know. ‘You go your way, I’ll go mine, and no hard feelings.’ That sort of thing.”

“Have they any children?”

“Not so far as I know.”

“Did she maintain him out of her earnings?”

“Good gracious, no. He was a partner in a firm of turf accountants with betting shops all over the place. I should think he was doing very nicely. Barbara showed me a bracelet she was wearing and I’d hate to guess what it cost. She said, ‘Donald gave it me when the favourite blew up at Doncaster and came in fifth, and an absolute outsider cantered home’.”

“I suppose the bookmakers take certain risks, though.”

“Minimal ones, I’d say. It’s the punters who drop the money.”

“Like Priscilla Wimbush in Crome Yellow, who dropped it in handfuls and hatfuls on every racecourse in the country.”

“Oh, yes, and then she turned to the occult and the casting of horoscopes and all that kind of thing, didn’t she? Oh, here’s Jon. Have the police gone, darling?”

“Yes, I’ve just seen them off.”

“What did they have to say?”

“Oh, the usual things—how, when and why—but of course I couldn’t really tell them anything. They wanted to see the props, so I’ve sent them round to Marcus Lynn. He collected everything up when he left here this morning. They didn’t seem too pleased about that.”