Night at the Vulcan

Chapter VII DISASTER

The fact of Bennington’s death had the effect of changing the values of other circumstances in the theatre. One after another the members of the company had said what they could to Helena Hamilton, and she had thanked them. She was very tremulous and uncertain of her voice, but she did not break down at any time and seemed, Martyn thought, to be in a kind of trance. At first they were all uncomfortably silent but, as the minutes slipped by, they fell into muted conversation. Most of what they said was singularly aimless. Matters of normal consequence were forgotten, details of behaviour became ridiculously important.

The question, for instance, of where they should assemble exercised the whole company. It was almost eleven o’clock and the stage was beginning to grow cold.

Clem Smith had rung up the police as soon as Dr. Rutherford said that Bennington was beyond recovery, and within five minutes a constable and sergeant had appeared at the stage-door. They went into the dock with Rutherford and then to Bennington’s dressing-room, where they remained alone for some time. During this period an aimless discussion developed among the members of the company about where they should go. Clem Smith suggested the Greenroom as the warmest place, and added tactlessly that the fumes had probably dispersed and if so there was no reason why they shouldn’t light the fire. Both Parry Percival and Gay Gainsford had made an outcry against this suggestion on the grounds of delicacy and susceptibility. Darcey supported Gay, the A.S.M. suggested the offices and Jacko the auditorium. Dr. Rutherford, who appeared to be less upset than anyone else, merely remarked that “All places that the eye of heaven visits are to a wise man ports and happy havens,” which, as Percival said acidly, got them nowhere.

Finally, Poole asked if the central-heating couldn’t be stoked up and a stage-hand was dispatched to the underworld to find out. Evidently he met with success as presently the air became less chilled.

They waited in the last-act set, much as they had waited when Poole summed up at the dress rehearsal. In this final scene, which was painted on gauze, Jacko had, by the use of grotesque perspective and exaggerated emphases, achieved a distortion of the second set, which itself was a distortion of the first. The walls and staircase seemed to lean over the actors, crushing them into too small a compass. Martyn became very much aware of this and disliked it.

The resemblance to the dress rehearsal was heightened by Jacko, who had fetched Helena’s dressing-case from her room. Again she removed her make-up on the stage, but this time it was Jacko who held the glass for her. He had brought powder and her bag for Martyn and a towel for each of them. With only a spatter of desultory conversation, the players sat about the stage and cleaned their faces. And they listened.

They heard the two men come back along the passage and separate. Then the central door opened and the young constable came in.

He was a tall, good-looking youth with a charming smile.

“The sergeant,” he said, “has asked me to explain that he’s telephoning Scotland Yard. He couldn’t be more sorry, but he’s afraid he’ll have to ask everybody to wait until he gets his instructions. He’s sure you’ll understand that it’s just a matter of routine.”

He might have been apologizing for his mother’s late arrival at her own dinner-party.

He was about to withdraw when Dr. Rutherford said: “Hi! Sonny!”

“Yes, sir?” said the young constable obligingly.

“You intrigue me. You talk, as they say, like a book. None sine dis animosus infans. You swear with a good grace and wear your boots very smooth, do you not?”

The young constable was, it seemed, only momentarily taken aback. He said: “Well, sir, for my boots, they are after the Dogberry fashion, and for my swearing, sir, it goes by the book.”

The Doctor, who until now had seemed to share the general feeling of oppression and shock, appeared to cheer up with indecent haste. He was, in fact, clearly enchanted. “Define, define, well educated infant,” he quoted exultantly.

“I mean that in court, sir, we swear by the book. But I’m afraid, sir,” added the young constable apologetically, “that I’m not much of a hand at ‘Bardinage.’ My purse is empty already. If you’ll excuse me,” he concluded, with a civil glance round the company, “I’ll just—”

He was again about to withdraw when his sergeant came in at the O.P. entrance.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” the sergeant said, in what Martyn, for one, felt was the regulation manner. “Very sorry to keep you, I’m sure. Sad business. In these cases we have to do a routine checkup, as you might say. My superior officers will be here in a moment and then, I hope, we shan’t be long. Thank you.”

He tramped across the stage, said something inaudible to the constable and was heard to go into the dock. The constable took a chair from the Prompt corner, placed it in the proscenium entrance and, with a modest air, sat on it. His glance fell upon Martyn and he smiled at her. They were the youngest persons there and it was as if they signalled in a friendly manner to each other. In turning away from this pleasant exchange, Martyn found that Poole was watching her with fixed and, it seemed, angry glare. To her fury she found that she was very much disturbed by this circumstance.

They had by this time all cleaned their faces. Helena Hamilton with an unsteady hand put on a light street make-up. The men looked ghastly in the cold working-lights that bleakly illuminated the stage.

Parry Percival said fretfully: “Well, I must say I do not see the smallest point in our hanging about like this.”

The constable was about to answer when they all heard sounds of arrival at the stage-door. He said: “This will be the party from the Yard, sir,” and crossed to the far exit. The sergeant was heard to join him there.

There was a brief conversation off-stage. A voice said: “You two go round with Gibson then, will you? I’ll join you in a moment.”

The young constable reappeared to usher in a tall man in plain clothes.

“Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn,” he said.

Martyn, in her weary pilgrimage round the West End, had seen men of whom Alleyn at first reminded her. In the neighbourhood of the St. James’s Theatre they had emerged from clubs, from restaurants and from enchanting and preposterous shops. There had been something in their bearing and their clothes that gave them a precise definition. But when she looked more closely at Inspector Alleyn’s face, this association became modified. It was a spare and scholarly face with a monkish look about it.

Martyn had formed the habit of thinking of people’s voices in terms of colour. Helena Hamilton’s voice, for instance, was for Martyn golden, Gay Gainsford’s pink, Darcey’s brown and Adam Poole’s violet. When Alleyn spoke she decided that his voice was a royal blue of the clearest sort.

Reminding herself that this was no time to indulge this freakish habit of classification, she gave him her full attention.

“You will, I’m sure,” he was saying, “realize that in these cases our job is simply to determine that they are, on the face of it, what they appear to be. In order to do this effectively we are obliged to make a fairly thorough examination of the scene as we find it. This takes a little time always, but if everything’s quite straightforward, as I expect it will be, we won’t keep you very long. Is that clear?”

He looked round his small audience. Poole said at once: “Yes, of course. We all understand. At the same time, if it’s a matter of taking statements, I’d be grateful if you’d see Miss Hamilton first.”

“Miss Hamilton?” Alleyn said, and after a moment’s hesitation looked at her.

“I’m his wife,” she said. “I’m Helena Bennington.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Yes, I’m sure that can be managed. Probably the best way will be for me to see you all together. If everything seems quite clear there may be no need for further interviews. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have a look round and then rejoin you. There is a doctor among you, isn’t there? Dr. Rutherford?” Dr. Rutherford cleared his throat portentously. “Are you he, sir? Perhaps you’ll join us.”

“Indubitably,” said the Doctor. “I had so concluded.”

“Good,” Alleyn said and looked faintly amused. “Will you lead the way?”

They were at the door when Jacko suddenly said: “A moment, if you please, Chief Inspector.”

“Yes?”

“I would like permission to make soup. There is a filthy small kitchen-place inhabited only by the night-watchman, where I have waiting a can of prepared soup. Everyone is very cold and fatigued and entirely empty. My name is Jacques Doré, I am dogsbody-in-waiting in this theatre and there is much virtue in my soup.”

Alleyn said: “By all means. Is the kitchen-place that small sink-room near the dock with the gas jet in it?”

“But you haven’t looked at the place yet!” Parry Percival ejaculated.

“I’ve been here before,” said Alleyn. “I remember the theatre. Shall we get on, Dr. Rutherford?”

They went out. Gay Gainsford, whose particular talent from now onwards was to lie in the voicing of disquieting thoughts which her companions shared but decided to leave unspoken, said in a distracted manner: “When was he here before?” And when nobody answered, she said dramatically: “I can see it all! He must be the man they sent that other time.” She paused and collected their reluctant attention. She laid her hand on J.G.’s arm and raised her voice. “That’s why he’s come again,” she announced.

“Come now, dear,” J.G. murmured inadequately, and Poole said quickly: “My dear Gay!”

“But I’m right,” she persisted. “I’m sure I’m right. Why else should he know about the sink-room?” She looked about her with an air of terrified complacency.

“And last time,” she pointed out, “it was Murder.”

“Climax,” said Jacko. “Picture and Slow Curtain! Put your hands together, ladies and gentlemen, for this clever little artist.”

He went out with his eyes turned up.

“Jacko’s terribly hard, isn’t he?” Gay said to Darcey. “After all, Uncle Ben was my uncle.” She caught sight of Helena Hamilton. “And your husband,” she said hurriedly, “of course, darling.”

The stage-hands had set up in the dock one of the trestle-tables used for properties. They had laid Clark Bennington’s body on it and had covered it with a sheet from the wardrobe-room. The dock was a tall echoing place, concrete-floored, with stacks of old flats leaning against the walls. A solitary unprotected lamp bulb, dust-encrusted, hung above the table.

A group of four men in dark overcoats and hats stood beside this improvised bier, and it so chanced they had taken up their places at the four corners and looked therefore as if they kept guard over it. Their hats shadowed their faces and they stood in pools of shadow. A fifth man, bareheaded, stood at the foot of the bier and a little removed from it. When the tallest of the men reached out to the margin of the sheet, his arm cast a black bar over its white and eloquent form. His gloved hand dragged down the sheet and exposed a rigid gaping face encrusted with greasepaint. He uncovered his head and the other three, a little awkwardly, followed his example.

“Well, Curtis?” he said.

Dr. Curtis, the police surgeon, bent over the head, blotting it out with his shadow. He took a flash lamp from his pocket and the face, in this changed light, stared out with an altered look as if it had secretly rearranged its expression.

“God!” Curtis muttered. “He looks pretty ghastly, doesn’t he? What an atrocious make-up!”

From his removed position Dr. Rutherford said loudly: “My dear man, the make-up was required by My Play. It should, in point of fact, be a damn sight more repellent. But — vanitas vanitatum. Also: Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens. I didn’t let them fix him up at all. Thought you’d prefer not.” His voice echoed coldly round the dock.

“Quite so,” Curtis murmured. “Much better not.”

“Smell very noticeable still,” a thickset, grizzled man observed. “Always hangs about in these cases,” rejoined the sergeant, “doesn’t it, Mr. Fox?”

“We worked damn hard on him,” Dr. Rutherford said. “It never looked like it from the start. Not a hope.”

“Well,” said Curtis, drawing back, “it all seems straightforward enough, Alleyn. It doesn’t call for a very extensive autopsy, but of course we’ll do the usual things.”

“Lend me your torch a moment,” Alleyn said, and after a moment: “Very heavy make-up, isn’t it? He’s so thickly powdered.”

“He needed it. He sweated,” Dr. Rutherford said, “like a pig. Alcohol and a dicky heart.”

“Did you look after him, sir?”

“Not I. I don’t practise nowadays. The alcohol declared itself and he used to tallk about a heart condition. Valvular trouble, I should imagine. I don’t know who his medical man was. His wife can tell you.”

Dr. Curtis replaced the sheet. “That,” he said to Rutherford, “might account for him going quickly.”

“Certainly.”

“There’s a mark on the jaw,” Alleyn said. “Did either of you notice it? The make-up is thinner there. Is it a bruise?”

Curtis said: “I saw it, yes. It might be a bruise. We’ll see better when we clean him up.”

“Right. I’ll look at the room,” Alleyn said. “Who found him?”

“The stage-manager,” said Rutherford.

“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind asking him to come along when you rejoin the others. Thank you so much, Dr. Rutherford. We’re glad to have had your report. You’ll be called for the inquest, I’m afraid.”

“Hell’s teeth, I suppose I shall. So be it.” He moved to the doors. The sergeant obligingly rolled them open and he muttered “Thankee,” and with an air of dissatisfaction went out.

Dr. Curtis said: “I’d better go and make professional noises at him.”

“Yes, do,” Alleyn said.

On their way to Bennington’s room they passed Jacko and a stage-hand bearing a fragrant steaming can and a number of cups to the stage. In his cubby-hole, Fred Badger was entertaining a group of stage-hands and dressers. They had steaming pannikins in their hands and they eyed the police party in silence.

“Smells very tasty, doesn’t it?” Detective-Inspector Fox observed rather wistfully.

The young constable, who was stationed by the door through which Martyn had made her entrance, opened it for the soup party and shut it after them.

Fox growled: “Keep your wits about you.”

“Yes, sir,” said the young constable and exhibited his note-book.

Clem Smith was waiting for them in Bennington’s room. The lights were full on and a white glare beat on the dressing-shelf and walls. Bennington’s street-clothes and his suit for the first act hung on coat-hangers along the wall. His make-up was laid out on a towel, and the shelf was littered with small objects that in their casual air of usage suggested that he had merely left the room for a moment and would return to take them up again. On the floor, hard by the dead gas fire, lay an overcoat from which the reek of gas, which still hung about the room, seemed to arise. The worn rug was drawn up into wrinkles.

Clem Smith’s face was white and anxious under his shock of dark hair. He shook hands jerkily with Alleyn and then looked as if he wondered if he ought to have done so. “This is a pretty ghastly sort of party,” he muttered, “isn’t it?”

Alleyn said: “It’s seems that you came in for the worst part of it. Do you mind telling us what happened?”

Fox moved behind Clem and produced his notebook. Sergeant Gibson began to make a list of the objects in the room. Clem watched him with an air of distaste.

“Easy enough to tell you,” he said. “He came off about eight minutes before the final curtain and I suppose went straight to this room. When the boy came round for the curtain-call, Ben didn’t appear with the others. I didn’t notice. There’s an important light-cue at the end and I was watching for it. Then, when they all went on, he just wasn’t there. We couldn’t hold the curtain for long. I sent it up for the first call and the boy went back and hammered on this door. It was locked. He smelt gas and began to yell for Ben and then ran back to tell me what was wrong. I’d got the Doctor on for his speech by that time. I left my A.S.M. in charge, took the bunch of extra keys from the Prompt corner and tore round here.”

He wetted his lips and fumbled in his pocket. “Is it safe to smoke?” he asked.

“I’m afraid we’d better wait a little longer,” Alleyn said. “Sorry.”

“O.K. Well, I unlocked the door. As soon as it opened the stink hit me in the face. I don’t know why, but I expected him to be sitting at the shelf. I don’t suppose, really, it was long before I saw him, but it seemed fantastically long. He was lying there by the heater. I could only see his legs and the lower half of his body. The rest was hidden by that coat. It was tucked in behind the heater, and over his head and shoulders. It looked like a tent. I heard the hiss going on underneath it.” Clem rubbed his mouth. “I don’t think,” he said, “I was as idiotically slow as all this makes me out to be. I don’t think, honestly, it was more than seconds before I went in. Honestly, I don’t think so.”

“I expect you’re right about that. Time goes all relative in a crisis.”

“Does it? Good. Well, then: I ran in and hauled the coat away. He was on his left side — his mouth — it was— The lead-in had been disconnected and it was by his mouth, hissing. I turned it off and dragged him by the heels. He sort of stuck on the carpet. Jacko — Jacques Doré bolted in and helped.”

“One moment,” Alleyn said. “Did you knock over that box of powder on the dressing-table? Either of you?”

Clem Smith stared at it. “That? No, I didn’t go near it and I’d got him half-way to the door when Jacko came in. He must have done it himself.”

“Right. Sorry. Go on.”

“We lifted Ben into the passage and shut his door. At the far end of the passage there’s a window, the only one near. We got it open and carried him to it. I think he was dead even then. I’m sure he was. I’ve seen gassed cases before, in the blitz.”

Alleyn said: “You seem to have tackled this one like an old hand, at all events.”

“I’m damn glad you think so,” said Clem, and sounded it.

Alleyn looked at the Yale lock on the door. “This seems in good enough shape,” he said absently.

“It’s new,” Clem said. “There were pretty extensive renovations and a sort of general clean-up when Mr. Poole took the theatre over. It’s useful for the artists to be able to lock up valuables in their rooms and the old locks were clumsy and rusted up. In any case—” He stopped and then said uncomfortably: “The whole place has been repainted and modernized.”

“Including the gas installations?”

“Yes,” said Clem, not looking at Alleyn. “That’s all new, too.”

“Two of the old dressing-rooms have been knocked together to form the Greenroom?”

“Yes.”

“And there are new dividing walls? And ventilators, now, in the dressing-rooms?”

“Yes,” said Clem unhappily and added, “I suppose that’s why he used his coat.”

“It does look,” Alleyn said without stressing it, “as if the general idea was to speed things up, doesn’t it? All right, Mr. Smith, thank you. Would you explain to the people on the stage that I’ll come as soon as we’ve finished our job here? It won’t be very long. We’ll probably ask you to sign a statement of the actual discovery as you’ve described it to us. You’ll be glad to get away from this room, I expect.”

Inspector Fox had secreted his note-book and now ushered Clem Smith out. Clem appeared to go thankfully.

“Plain sailing, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Alleyn,” said Fox, looking along the passage. “Nobody about,” he added. “I’ll leave the door open.”

Alleyn cubbed his nose. “It looks like plain sailing, Fox, certainly. But in view of the other blasted affair we can’t take a damn thing for granted. You weren’t on the Jupiter case, were you, Gibson?”

“No, sir,” said Gibson, looking up from his notebook. “Homicide dressed up to look like suicide, wasn’t it?”

“It was, indeed. The place has been pretty extensively chopped up and rehashed, but the victim was on this side of the passage and in what must have been the room now taken in to make the Greenroom. Next door there was a gas fire backing on to his own. The job was done by blowing down the tube next door. This put out the fire in this room and left the gas on, of course. The one next door was then re-lit. The victim was pretty well dead-drunk and the trick worked. We got the bloke on the traces of crepe hair and greasepaint he left on the tube.”

“Very careless,” Fox said. “Silly chap, really.”

“The theatre,” Alleyn said, “was shut up for a long time. Three or four years at least. Then Adam Poole took it, renamed it the Vulcan and got a permit for renovation. I fancy this is only his second production here.”

“Perhaps,” Fox speculated, “the past history of the place played on deceased’s mind and led him to do away with himself after the same fashion.”

“Sort of superstitious?” Gibson ventured.

“Not precisely,” said Fox majestically. “And yet something after that style of thing. They’re a very superstitious mob, actors, Fred. Very. And if he had reason, in any case, to entertain the notion of suicide—”

“He must,” Alleyn interjected, “have also entertained the very very nasty notion of throwing suspicion of foul play on his fellow-actors. If there’s a gas fire back-to-back with this—”

“And there is,” Fox said.

“The devil there is! So what does Bennington do? He re-creates as far as possible the whole set-up, leaves no note, no indication, as far as we can see, of his intention to gas himself, and — who’s next door, Fox?”

“A Mr. Parry Percival.”

“All right. Bennington pushes off, leaving Mr. Parry Percival ostensibly in the position of the Jupiter murderer. Rotten sort of suicide that’d be, Br’er Fox.”

“We don’t know anything yet, of course,” said Fox.

“We don’t, and the crashing hellish bore about the whole business lies in the all-too-obvious fact that we’ll have to find out. What’s on your inventory, Gibson?”

Sergeant Gibson opened his note-book and adopted his official manner.

“Dressing-table or shelf,” he said. “One standing mirror. One cardboard box containing false hair, rouge, substance labelled ‘nose-paste,’ seven fragments of greasepaint and one unopened box of powder. Shelf. Towel spread out to serve as table-cloth. On towel, one tray containing six sticks of greasepaint. To right of tray, bottle of spirit-adhesive. Bottle containing what appears to be substance known as liquid powder. Open box of powder overturned. Behind box of powder, pile of six pieces of cotton-wool and a roll from which these pieces have been removed.” He looked up at Alleyn. “Intended to be used for powdering purposes, Mr. Alleyn.”

“That’s it,” Alleyn said. He was doubled up, peering at the floor under the dressing-shelf. “Nothing there,” he grunted. “Go on.”

“To left of tray, cigarette case with three cigarettes and open box of fifty. Box of matches. Ash-tray. Towel, stained with greasepaint. Behind mirror, flask — one-sixth full — and used tumbler smelling of spirits.”

Alleyn looked behind the standing glass. “Furtive sort of cache,” he said. “Go on.”

“Considerable quantity of powder spilt on shelf and on adjacent floor area. Considerable quantity of ash. Left wall, clothes. I haven’t been through the pockets yet, Mr. Alleyn. There’s nothing on the floor but powder and some paper ash, original form undistinguishable. Stain as of something burnt on hearth.”

“Go ahead with it then. I wanted,” Alleyn said with a discontented air, “to hear whether I was wrong.”

Fox and Gibson looked placidly at him. “All right,” he said, “don’t mind me. I’m broody.”

He squatted down by the overcoat. “It really is the most obscene smell, gas,” he muttered. “How anybody can always passes my comprehension.” He poked in a gingerly manner at the coat. “Powder over everything,” he grumbled. “Where had this coat been? On the empty hanger near the door, presumably. That’s damned rum. Check it with his dresser. We’ll have to get Bailey along, Fox. And Thompson. Blast!”

“I’ll ring the Yard,” said Fox and went out.

Alleyn squinted through a lens at the wing-taps of the gas fire. “I can see prints clearly enough,” he said, “on both. We can check with Bennington’s. There’s even a speck or two of powder settled on the taps.”

“In the air, sir, I dare say,” said Gibson.

“I dare say it was. Like the gas. We can’t go any further here until the dabs and flash party has done its stuff. Finished, Gibson?”

“Finished, Mr. Alleyn. Nothing much in the pockets. Bills. Old racing card. Cheque-book and so on. Nothing on the body, by the way, but a handkerchief.”

“Come on, then. I’ve had my belly-full of gas.” But he stood in the doorway eyeing the room and whistling softly.

“I wish I could believe in you,” he apostrophized it, “but split me and sink me if I can. No, by all that’s phoney, not for one credulous second. Come on, Gibson. Let’s talk to these experts.”

They all felt a little better for Jacko’s soup, which had been laced with something that, as J. G. Darcey said (and looked uncomfortable as soon as he’d said it), went straight to the spot marked X.

Whether it was this potent soup, or whether extreme emotional and physical fatigue had induced in Martyn its familiar complement, an uncanny sharpening of the mind, she began to consider for the first time the general reaction of the company to Bennington’s death. She thought: “I don’t believe there’s one of us who really minds very much. How lonely for him! Perhaps he guessed that was how it would be. Perhaps he felt the awful isolation of a child that knows itself unwanted and thought he’d put himself out of the way of caring.”

It was a shock to Martyn when Helena Hamilton suddenly gave voice to her own thoughts. Helena had sat with her chin in her hand, looking at the floor. There was an unerring grace about her and this fireside posture had the beauty of complete relaxation. Without raising her eyes she said: “My dears, my dears, for pity’s sake don’t let’s pretend. Don’t let me pretend. I didn’t love him. Isn’t that sad? We all know and we try to patch up a decorous scene but it won’t do. We’re shocked and uneasy and dreadfully tired. Don’t let’s put ourselves to the trouble of pretending. It’s so useless.”

Gay said. “But I did love him!” and J.G. put his arm about her.

“Did you?” Helena murmured. “Perhaps you did, darling. Then you must hug your sorrow to yourself. Because I’m afraid nobody really shares it.”

Poole said: “We understand, Helena.”

With that familiar gesture, not looking at him, she reached out her hand. When he had taken it in his, she said: “When one is dreadfully tired one talks. I do, at all events. I talk much too easily. Perhaps that’s a sign of a shallow woman. You know, my dears, I begin to think I’m only capable of affection. I have a great capacity for affection, but as for my loves, they have no real permanency. None.”

Jacko said gently: “Perhaps your talent for affection is equal to other women’s knack of loving.”

Gay and Parry Percival looked at him in astonishment, but Poole said: “That may well be.”

“What I meant to say,” Helena went on, “only I do sidetrack myself so awfully, is this. Hadn’t we better stop being muted and mournful and talk about what may happen and what we ought to do? Adam, darling, I thought perhaps they might all be respecting my sorrow or something. What should we be talking about? What’s the situation?”

Poole moved one of the chairs with its back to the curtain and sat in it. Dr. Rutherford returned and lumped himself down in the corner. “They’re talking,” he said, “to Clem Smith in the — they’re talking to Clem. I’ve seen the police surgeon, a subfusc exhibit, but one that can tell a hawk from a handsaw if they’re held under his nose. He agrees that there was nothing else I could have done, which is no doubt immensely gratifying to me. What are you all talking about? You look like a dress rehearsal.”

“We were about to discuss the whole situation,” said Poole. “Helena feels it should be discussed and I think we all agree with her.”

“What situation pray? Ben’s? Or ours? There is no more to be said about Ben’s situation. As far as we know, my dear Helena, he has administered to himself a not too uncomfortable and effective anaesthetic which, after he had become entirely unconscious, brought about the end he had in mind. For a man who had decided to shuffle off this mortal coil he behaved very sensibly.”

“Oh, please,” Gay whispered. “Please!”

Dr. Rutherford contemplated her in silence for a moment and then said: “What’s up, Misery?” Helena, Darcey and Parry Percival made expostulatory noises. Poole said: “See here, John, you’ll either pipe down or preserve the decencies.”

Gay, fortified perhaps by this common reaction, said loudly: “You might at least have the grace to remember he was my uncle.”

“Grace me no grace,” Dr. Rutherford quoted inevitably, “and uncle me no uncles.” After a moment’s reflection, he added: “All right, Thalia, have a good cry. But you must know, if the rudiments of reasoned thinking are within your command, that your Uncle Ben did you a damn shabby turn. A scurvy trick, by God. However, I digress. Get on with the post mortem, Chorus. I am dumb.”

“You’ll be good enough to remain so,” said Poole warmly. “Very well, then. It seems to me, Helena, that Ben took this — this way out — for a number of reasons. I know you want me to speak plainly and I’m going to speak very plainly indeed, my dear.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Please, but—” For a moment they looked at each other. Martyn wondered if she imagined that Poole’s head moved in the faintest possible negative. “Yes,” Helena said, “very plainly, please.”

“Well, then,” Poole said, “we know that for the last year Ben, never a very temperate man, has been a desperately intemperate one. We know his habits undermined his health, his character and his integrity as an actor. I think he realized this very thoroughly. He was an unhappy man, who looked back at what he had once been and was appalled. We all know he did things in performance to-night that, from an actor of his standing, were quite beyond the pale.”

Parry Percival ejaculated: “Well, I mean to say — oh, well. Never mind.”

“Exactly,” Poole said. “He had reached a sort of chronic state of instability. We all know he was subject to fits of depression. I believe he did what he did when he was at a low ebb. I believe he would have done it sooner or later by one means or another. And in my view, for what it’s worth, that’s the whole story. Tragic enough, God knows, but, in its tragedy, simple. I don’t know if you agree.”

Darcey said: “If there’s nothing else. I mean,” he said diffidently, glancing at Helena, “if nothing has happened that would seem like a further motive.”

Helena’s gaze rested for a moment on Poole and then on Darcey. “I think Adam’s right,” she said. “I’m afraid he was appalled by a sudden realization of himself. I’m afraid he was insufferably lonely.”

“Oh, my God!” Gay ejaculated, and having by this means collected their unwilling attention she added: “I shall never forgive myself. Never.”

Dr. Rutherford groaned loudly.

“I failed him,” Gay announced. “I was a bitter, bitter disappointment to him. I daresay I turned the scale.”

“Now in the name of all the gods at once,” Dr. Rutherford began, and was brought to a stop by the entry of Clem Smith.

Cem looked uneasily at Helena Hamilton and said: “They’re in the dressing-room. He says they won’t keep you waiting much longer.”

“It’s all right, then?” Parry Percival blurted out and added in a flurry: “I mean there won’t be a whole lot of formalities. I mean we’ll be able to get away. I mean—”

“I’ve no idea about that,” Gem said. “Alleyn just said they’d be here soon.” He had brought a cup of soup with him and he withdrew into a corner and began to drink it. The others watched him anxiously but said nothing.

“What did he ask you about?” Jacko demanded suddenly.

“About what we did at the time.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, yes. He — well, in point of fact, he seemed to be interested in the alterations to the theatre.”

“To the dressing-rooms in particular?” Poole asked quickly.

“Yes,” Clem said unhappily. “To them.”

There was a long silence, broken by Jacko.

“I find nothing remarkable in this,” he said. “Helena has shown us the way with great courage and Adam has spoken his mind. Let us all speak ours. I may resemble an ostrich but I do not propose to imitate its behaviour. Of what do we all think? There is the unpleasing little circumstance of the Jupiter case and we think of that. When Gay mentions it she does so with the air of one who opens a closet and out tumbles a skeleton. But why? It is inevitable that these gentlemen, who also remember the Jupiter case, should wish to inspect the dressing-rooms. They wish, in fact, to make very sure indeed that this is a case of suicide and not of murder. And since we are all quite certain that it is suicide we should not disturb ourselves that they do their duty.”

“Exactly,” Poole said.

“It’s going,” Darcey muttered, “to be damn bad publicity.”

“Merciful Heavens!” Parry Percival exclaimed. “The Publicity! None of us thought of that!”

“Did we not!” said Poole.

“I must say,” Parry complained, “I would like to know what’s going to happen, Adam. I mean — darling Helena, I know you’ll understand — but I mean, about the piece. Do we go on? Or what?”

“Yes,” Helena said. “We go on. Please, Adam.”

“Helena, I’ve got to think. There are so many—”

“We go on. Indeed, indeed we do.” Martyn felt rather than saw the sense of relief in Darcey and Percival.

Darcey said: “I’m the understudy, Lord help me,” and Percival made a tiny ambiguous sound that might have been one of satisfaction or of chagrin.

“How are you for it, J.G.?” Helena asked.

“I know it,” he said heavily.

“I’ll work whenever you like. We’ve got the weekend.”

“Thank you, Helena.”

“Your own understudy’s all right,” said Clem.

“Good.”

It was clear to Martyn that this retreat into professionalism was a great relief to them, and it was clear also that Poole didn’t share in their comfort. Watching him, she was reminded of his portrait in the Greenroom: he looked withdrawn and troubled.

A lively and almost cosy discussion about re-casting had developed. Clem Smith, Jacko and Percival were all talking at once when, with her infallible talent for scenes, Gay exclaimed passionately:

“I can’t bear it! I think you’re all awful!”

They broke off. Having collected their attention, she built rapidly to her climax. “To sit round and talk about the show as if nothing had happened! How you can! When beyond those doors, he’s lying there, forgotten. Cold and forgotten! It’s the most brutal thing I’ve ever heard of, and if you think I’m coming near this horrible, fated, haunted place again, I’m telling you here and now that wild horses wouldn’t drag me inside the theatre once I’m away from it. I suppose someone will find time to tell me when the funeral is going to be. I happen to be just about his only relation.”

They all began to expostulate at once, but she topped their lines with the determination of a robust star. “You needn’t bother to explain,” she shouted. “I understand only too well, thank you.” She caught sight of Martyn and pointed wildly at her. “You’ve angled for this miserable part, and now you’ve got it. I think it’s extremely likely you’re responsible for what’s happened.”

Poole said: “You’ll stop at once, Gay. Stop.”

“I won’t! I won’t be gagged! It drove my Uncle Ben to despair and I don’t care who knows it.”

It was upon this line that Alleyn, as if he had mastered one of the major points of stage technique, made his entrance up-stage and centre.

Although he must have heard every word of Gay’s final outburst, Alleyn gave no sign of having done so. He and the young constable came in and, as if he had walked into somebody’s flat, he took off his hat and put it on a table near the door. The young constable looked round and then went off-stage, returning with two chairs which he placed, one in a central position for Alleyn, and one in the O.P. corner for himself. To Martyn he had fantastically the air of an A.D.C. As he settled himself he gave her another of his friendly smiles.

Clem and Parry had got uncomfortably to their feet and now sat down again in a faintly huffy manner. With the exception of Dr. Rutherford, the company reorientated itself, unobtrusively, on Alleyn.

“Well, now,” he said, “I’m afraid the first thing I have to say to you all won’t be very pleasant news. We don’t look like getting through with our side of this unhappy business as quickly as I hoped. I know you are all desperately tired and very shocked and I’m sorry. But the general circumstances aren’t quite as straightforward as, on the face of it, you have probably supposed them to be.”

A trickle of ice moved under Martyn’s diaphragm. She thought: “No, it’s not fair. I can’t be made to have two goes of the jim-jams in one night.”

Alleyn addressed himself specifically to Helena Hamilton.

“You’ll have guessed — of course you will — that one can’t overlook the other case of gas poisoning that is associated with this theatre. It must have jumped to everybody’s mind almost at once.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “We’ve been talking about it”

The men looked uneasily at her but Alleyn said at once: I’m sure you have. So have we. And I expect you’ve wondered, as we have, if the memory of that former case could have influenced your husband.”

“I’m certain it did,” she said quickly. “We all are.” The others made small affirmative noises. Only Dr. Rutherford was silent. Martyn saw with amazement that his chin had sunk on his rhythmically heaving bosom, his eyes were shut and his lips pursed in the manner of a sleeper who is just not snoring. He was at the back of the group and, she hoped, concealed from Alleyn.

“Have you,” Alleyn asked, “any specific argument to support this theory?”

“No specific reason. But I know he thought a lot of that other dreadful business. He didn’t like this theatre. Mr. Alleyn, actors are sensitive to atmosphere. We talk a lot about the theatres we play in and we get very vivid — you would probably think absurdly vivid — impressions of their ‘personalities.’ My husband felt there was a — an unpleasant atmosphere in this place. He often said so. In a way I think it had a rather horrible fascination for him. We’d a sort of tacit understanding in the Vulcan that its past history wouldn’t be discussed among us, but I know he did talk about it. Not to us, but to people who had been concerned in the other affair.”

“Yes, I see.” Alleyn waited for a moment. The young constable completed a note. His back was now turned to the company. “Did anyone else notice this preoccupation of Mr. Bennington’s?”

“Oh, yes!” Gay said with mournful emphasis. “I did. He talked to me about it, but when he saw how much it upset me — because I’m so stupidly sensitive to atmosphere — I just can’t help it — it’s one of those things — but I am—because when I first came into the theatre I just knew — you may laugh at me but these things can’t be denied—”

“When,” Alleyn prompted, “he saw that it upset you?”

“He stopped. I was his niece. It was rather a marvellous relationship.”

“He stopped,” Alleyn said, “Right.” He had a programme in his hand and now glanced at it. “You must be Miss Gainsford, I think. Is that right?”

“Yes, I am. But my name’s really Bennington. I’m his only brother’s daughter. My father died in the war and Uncle Ben really felt we were awfully near to each other, do you know? That’s why it’s so devastating for me, because I sensed how wretchedly unhappy he was.”

“Do you mind telling us why you thought him so unhappy?”

J. G. Darcey interposed quickly: “I don’t think it was more than a general intuitive sort of thing, was it, Gay? Nothing special.”

“Well—” Gay said reluctantly, and Helena intervened.

“I don’t think any of us have any doubt about my husband’s unhappiness, Mr. Alleyn. Before you came in I was saying how most, most anxious I am that we should be very frank with each other and of course with you. My husband drank so heavily that he had ruined his health and his work quite completely. I wasn’t able to help him and we were not—” The colour died out of her face and she hesitated. “Our life together wasn’t true,” she said. “It had no reality at all. To-night he behaved very badly on the stage. He coloured his part at the expense of the other actors and I think he was horrified at what he’d done. He was very drunk indeed to-night. I feel he suddenly looked at himself and couldn’t face what he saw. I feel that very strongly.”

“One does sense these things,” Gay interjected eagerly, “or I do at any rate.”

“I’m sure you do,” Alleyn agreed politely. Gay drew breath and was about to go on when he said: “Of course, if any of you can tell us any happenings or remarks or so on that seem to prove that he had this thing in mind, it will be a very great help.”

Martyn heard her voice — acting, it seemed, of its own volition. “I think, perhaps—”

Alleyn turned to her and his smile reassured her. “Yes?” he said. “Forgive me, but I don’t yet know all your names.” He looked again at his programme and then at her. Gay gave a small laugh. Darcey put his hand over hers and said something undistinguishable.

Poole said quickly: “Miss Martyn Tarne. She is, or should be, our heroine to-night. Miss Gainsford was ill and Miss Tarne, who was the understudy, took her part at half-an-hour’s notice. We’d all be extremely proud of her if we had the wits to be anything but worried and exhausted.”

Martyn’s heart seemed to perform some eccentric gyration in the direction of her throat and she thought: “That’s done it Now my voice is going to be ungainly with emotion.”

Alleyn said: “That must have been a most terrifying and exciting adventure,” and she gulped and nodded. “What had you remembered,” he went on after a moment, “that might help us?”

“It was something he said when he came off in the last act.”

“For his final exit in the play?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be very glad to hear it”

“I’ll try to remember exactly what it was,” Martyn said carefully. “I was in the dressing-room passage on my way to my — to Miss Gainsford’s room and he caught me up. He spoke very disjointedly and strangely, not finishing his sentences. But one thing he said — I think it was the last — I do remember quite distinctly because it puzzled me very much. He said: ‘I just wanted to tell you that you needn’t suppose what I’m going to do—’ and then he stopped as if he was confused and added, I think: ‘You needn’t suppose—’ and broke off again. And then Jacko — Mr. Doré—came and told me to go into the dressing-room to have my make-up attended to and, I think, said something to Mr. Bennington about his.”

“I told him he was shining with sweat,” said Jacko. “And he went into his room.”

“Alone?” Alleyn asked.

“I just looked in to make sure he had heard me. I told him again he needed powder and then went at once to this Infant.”

“Miss Tarne, can you remember anything else Mr. Bennington said?”

“Not really. I’m afraid I was rather in a haze myself just then.”

“The great adventure?”

“Yes,” said Martyn gratefully. “I’ve an idea he said something about my performance. Perhaps I should explain that I knew he must be very disappointed and upset about my going on instead of Miss Gainsford, but his manner was not unfriendly and I have the impression that he meant to say he didn’t bear for me, personally, any kind of resentment. But that’s putting it too definitely. I’m not at all sure what he said, except for that one sentence. Of that I’m quite positive.”

“Good,” Alleyn said. “Thank you. Did you hear this remark, Mr. Doré?”

Jacko said promptly: “But certainly. I was already in the passage and he spoke loudly as I came up.”

“Did you form any opinion as to what he meant?”

“I was busy and very pleased with this Infant and I did not concern myself. If I thought at all it was to wonder if he was going to make a scene because the niece had not played. He had a talent for scenes. It appears to be a family trait. I thought perhaps he meant that this Infant would not be included in some scene he planned to make or be scolded for her success.”

“Did he seem to you to be upset?”

“Oh, yes. Yes. Upset. Yes.”

“Very much distressed, would you say?”

“All his visage wann’d?” inquired a voice in the background. “Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect?”

Alleyn moved his position until he could look past Gay and Darcey at the recumbent Doctor. “Or even,” he said, “his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit?”

“Hah!” The Doctor ejaculated and sat up. “Upon my soul, the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. Even to the point where dull detection apes at artifice, inspectors echo with informed breath their pasteboard prototypes of fancy wrought. I am amazed and know not what to say.” He helped himself to snuff and fell back into a recumbent position.

“Please don’t mind him,” Helena said, smiling at Alleyn. “He is a very foolish vain old man and has read somewhere that it’s clever to quote in a muddled sort of way from the better known bits of the Bard.”

“We encourage him too much,” Jacko added gloomily.

“We have become too friendly with him,” said Poole.

“And figo for thy friendship,” said Dr. Rutherford.

Parry Percival sighed ostentatiously and Darcey said: “Couldn’t we get on?” Alleyn looked good-humouredly at Jacko and said: “Yes, Mr. Doré?”

“I would agree,” Jacko said, “that Ben was very much upset, but that was an almost chronic condition of late with poor Ben. I believe now with Miss Hamilton that he had decided there was little further enjoyment to be found in observing the dissolution of his own character and was about to take the foolproof way of ending it. He wished to assure Martyn that the decision had nothing to do with chagrin over Martyn’s success or the failure of his niece. And that, if I am right, was nice of Ben.”

“I don’t think we need use the word ‘failure,’ ” J.G. objected. “Gay was quite unable to go on.”

“I hope you are better now, Miss Gainsford,” Alleyn said.

Gay made an eloquent gesture with both hands and let them fall in her lap. “What does it matter?” she said. “Better? Oh, yes, I’m better.” And with the closest possible imitation of Helena Hamilton’s familiar gesture she extended her hand, without looking at him, to J.G. Darcey. He took it anxiously. “Much better,” he said, patting it.

Martyn thought: “Oh, dear, he is in love with her. Poor J.G.!”

Alleyn looked thoughtfully at them for a moment and then turned to the others.

“There’s a general suggestion,” he said, “that none of you was very surprised by this event. May I just — sort of tally-up the general opinion as far as I’ve heard it? It helps to keep things tidy, I find. Miss Hamilton, you tell us that your husband had a curious, an almost morbid interest in the Jupiter case. You and Mr. Doré agree that Mr. Bennington had decided to take his life because he couldn’t face the ‘dissolution of his character.’ Miss Gainsford, if I understand her, believes he was deeply disturbed by the mise-en-scéne and also by her inability to go on to-night for this part. Miss Tarne’s account of what was probably the last statement he made suggests that he wanted her to understand that some action he had in mind had nothing to do with her. Mr. Doré supports this interpretation and confirms the actual words that were used. This, as far as it goes, is the only tangible bit of evidence as to intention that we have.”

Poole lifted his head. His face was very white and a lock of black hair had fallen over his forehead, turning him momentarily into the likeness, Martyn thought inconsequently, of Michelangelo’s Adam. He said: “There’s the fact itself, Alleyn. There’s what he did.”

Alleyn said carefully: “There’s an interval of perhaps eight minutes between what he said and when he was found.”

“Look here—” Parry Percival began, and then relapsed. “Let it pass,” he said. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Pipe up, Narcissus,” Dr. Rutherford adjured him, “the Inspector won’t bite you.”

“Oh, shut up!” Parry shouted, and was awarded a complete and astonished silence. He rose and addressed himself to the players. “You’re all being so bloody frank and sensible about this suicide,” he said, “You’re so anxious to show everybody how honest you are. The Doctor’s so unconcerned he can even spare a moment to indulge in his favourite pastime of me-baiting. I know what the Doctor thinks about me and it doesn’t say much for his talents as a diagnostician. But if it’s queer to feel desperately sorry for a man who was miserable enough to choke himself to death at a gas jet, if it’s queer to be physically and mentally sick at the thought of it, then, by God, I’d rather be queer than normal. Now!”

There followed a silence broken only by the faint whisper of the young constable’s pencil.

Dr. Rutherford struggled to his feet and lumbered down to Parry.

“Your argument, my young coxcomb,” he said thoughtfully, “is as sea-worthy as a sieve. As for my diagnosis, if you’re the normal man you’d have me believe, why the hell don’t you show like one? You exhibit the stigmata of that water-fly whom it is a vice to know, and fly into a fit when the inevitable conclusion is drawn.” He took Parry by the elbow and addressed himself to the company in the manner of a lecturer. “A phenomenon,” he said, “that is not without its dim interest. I invite your attention. Here is an alleged actor who, an hour or two since, was made a public and egregious figure of fun by the deceased. Who was roasted by the deceased before an audience of a thousand whinnying nincompoops. Who allowed his performance to be prostituted by the deceased before this audience. Who before his final and most welcome exit suffered himself to be tripped up contemptuously by the deceased, and who fell on his painted face before this audience. Here is this phenomenon, ladies and gents, who now proposes himself as Exhibit A in the Compassion Stakes. I invite your—”

Poole said “Quiet!” and when Dr. Rutherford grinned at him added: “I meant it, John. You will be quiet if you please.”

Parry wrenched himself free from the Doctor and turned on Alleyn. “You’re supposed to be in charge here—” he began, and Poole said quickly: “Yes, Alleyn, I really do think that this discussion is getting quite fantastically out of hand. If we’re all satisfied that this is a case of suicide—”

“Which,” Alleyn said, “we are not.”

They were all talking at once: Helena, the Doctor, Parry, Gay and Darcey. They were like a disorderly chorus in a verse-play. Martyn, who had been watching Alleyn, was terrified. She saw him glance at the constable. Then he stood up.

“One moment,” he said. The chorus broke off as inconsequently as it had begun.

“We’ve reached a point,” Alleyn said, “where it’s my duty to tell you I’m by no means satisfied that this is, in fact, a case of suicide.”

Martyn was actually conscious, in some kind, of a sense of relief. She could find no look either of surprise or of anger in any of her fellow-players. Their faces were so many white discs and they were motionless and silent. At last Clem Smith said with an indecent lack of conviction: “He was horribly careless about things like that — taps, I mean—” His voice sank to a murmur. They heard the word “accident.”

“Is it not strange,” Jacko said loudly, “how loath one is to pronounce the word that is in all our minds. And truth to tell, it has a soft and ugly character.” His lips closed over his fantastic teeth. He used the exaggerated articulation of an old actor. “Murder,” he said. “So beastly, isn’t it?”

It was at this point that one of the stage-hands, following, no doubt, his routine for the night, pulled up the curtain and exhibited the scene of climax to the deserted auditorium.