The Strangling on the Stage

TWENTY-SIX

‘Who is this speaking?’ asked the elocuted voice at the other end of the line.

‘Jude.’

‘Jude? Oh yes, Jude!’ said Elizaveta Dalrymple.

‘I was just ringing to say thank you so much for the party last night.’

‘Oh, hardly a party, Jude darling. Just one of my little “drinkies things”.’

‘Well, it was much appreciated, anyway. I really enjoyed it. And I’m sure Carole will be in touch soon to say thank you too.’ Though, actually, knowing Carole, she was much more likely to post a graceful note of thanks than use the telephone.

‘It was a pleasure to see you both. I do like to keep up with the new members of SADOS … even though I’m not involved in the current production.’

‘But presumably you’ll be back for others,’ suggested Jude, ‘now that Ritchie Good’s no longer around to insult you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, darling. I’m not as young as I was.’

‘You’re still looking very good,’ said Jude, shamelessly ingratiating.

‘Yes, well, of course I am lucky to have the bone structure. If you have the bone structure, the ravages of time are not quite so devastating. But,’ she concluded smugly, ‘so few people do have the bone structure.’

Jude, whose face was too chubby for much bone structure to be discernible, made polite noises of agreement. Then she said, ‘Carole and I took Gordon Blaine back to his place yesterday.’

‘Really?’ Elizaveta sounded affronted. She didn’t like people in her coterie doing things she didn’t know about. ‘Why was that?’

‘His Land Rover had broken down.’

‘No surprise there. I must say, for someone who’s supposed to have engineering skills, dear Gordon is astonishingly inept.’

‘He showed us his workshop.’

‘Oh, that glory hole. He used to keep dragging Freddie down there to show him the development of his latest bit of stage wizardry – frequently rather less than wizard, I’m afraid. At times Gordon has qualities of an overeager schoolboy.’

‘Maybe. When he was talking yesterday he seemed to be worried about the future of SADOS.’

‘Oh?’

‘Well, if you were not involved, he thought there was a danger the whole thing might pack up.’

‘Really? I hope not.’ But Elizaveta’s voice betrayed her attraction to the idea. ‘SADOS is more than one person, just as it was more than two people while Freddie was still alive. I owe it to his memory to keep the society going.’

‘Gordon seemed worried that, with you having walked out of The Devil’s Disciple, there might be—’

‘I did not walk out of The Devil’s Disciple. Ritchie Good’s behaviour put me in a position where I could no longer stay as part of the production.’

‘Well, however you put it, Gordon seemed worried that you might be so angry that you wouldn’t come back for another show.’

‘Oh, he shouldn’t have thought that. Of the many things I may be, Jude, vindictive is not one,’ Elizaveta lied. ‘If the right part comes up, and if I’m lucky enough to pass the audition, then I’m sure I’ll be back for the next production.’

‘And what is that? I haven’t heard yet.’

‘The autumn show’s going to be I Am A Camera.’

‘Isn’t that the play on which the musical Cabaret is based?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Based on the book by Christopher Isherwood.’

‘I’ve no idea who wrote it. I just know it wouldn’t have been my choice, but now Neville Prideaux’s on the Play Selection Committee all kinds of weird stuff’s getting through. If there really is a threat to the future of SADOS, it’s much more likely to be Neville Prideaux’s choice of plays driving the audiences away.’

‘But you will audition for it, Elizaveta?’

‘Oh, I suppose I’ll have to. I mean, Sally Bowles is meant to be quite a mature character.’

Jude only just stopped herself from voicing her disbelief and saying, Oh, for heaven’s sake, there’s mature and there’s far too old for the part. But she didn’t want to break the confidential mood between them.

‘Last night Gordon was talking about his gallows and what had gone wrong with them.’

‘Oh, I’m sure he was. Gordon can be a very tedious little man.’

‘We were discussing how the two nooses might have got switched.’

‘Incompetence on his part, I would imagine.’

‘I wonder …’

‘What do you mean by that, Jude?’

‘Well …’

‘Are you suggesting the nooses might have been switched deliberately?’

‘It’s a thought, isn’t it? Which would have meant someone in the Devil’s Disciple company really had it in for Ritchie Good.’

There was a silence. Jude could sense Elizaveta assessing her response. Then the older woman said, ‘Well, if you’re looking for that person, Jude, you might do a lot worse than remember what I said to you last night.’

‘Davina?’

‘You said it.’

Both Carole and Jude were required for the rehearsal that Sunday afternoon. Rather boldly, the director had announced that they were going to do the whole play for the first time, ‘which, given the fact that we open in a month’s time, should put the fear of God into all of you.’

If that was the sole aim of the exercise, it certainly worked. The unreadiness of the entire company was made manifest, and no one seemed less ready than Olly Pinto. His lines were still all over the place, and Carole as prompter had one of the busiest afternoons of her life.

Olly’s incompetence seemed to infect the others like some quick-spreading plague. Even Jude, who’d always been rock solid on her lines, found herself stumbling and mumbling. And she was by no means the worst. By the time they got to the end of the play, the whole thing was a complete shambles. The final scene, the near-hanging of Dick Dudgeon, had never been rehearsed properly with all of the extras who were meant to populate the town square, and they milled around like sheep in search of a shepherd.

As Davina’s mood grew increasingly frayed, Carole and Jude found themselves watching the director closely and trying to reconcile her with the suspicions raised by both Elizaveta Dalrymple and Neville Prideaux. What he had said did make a kind of sense. Until that Sunday afternoon Davina had been more relaxed in rehearsal without the presence of Ritchie Good. In Olly Pinto she’d got a much less convincing Dick Dudgeon, but a considerably more biddable actor. She seemed to revel in bawling him out, in a way she never would have done with Ritchie.

Davina was dressed that day in jeans and a bright coral jumper with a high collar. Jude observed that she always seemed to wear high collars. She wondered whether this was a vanity thing, disguising the age-induced stringiness of her neck.

And Jude tried, without success, to think of Davina Vere Smith as a murderer. It just didn’t fit, didn’t seem right.

When the last line of the play had finally been spoken, at just before six o’clock, the director indulged herself in a major tantrum. This was all the more effective for being unexpected. Up until then in rehearsal, except for her regular verbal assaults on Olly Pinto, Davina had been conciliatory and friendly to the rest of the cast. So they all looked shocked to hear her finally losing her rag.

‘The whole thing was complete rubbish! I don’t know why I’ve been wasting my time with you lot for the last three months! This afternoon was an example of absolutely no one showing any concentration at all! OK, this is just an amateur production, and if you’ve come along for the ride and don’t care about the quality of the show and just want to have a giggle at rehearsals, then fair enough. I think you should leave now. We can very happily manage without you.

‘But I have certain standards I want to maintain. SADOS has certain standards it wants to maintain, and on the evidence of what I’ve seen this afternoon, we aren’t achieving any of them. But for the fact that the box office is already open and tickets have already been bought for The Devil’s Disciple, I would pull the plugs on the whole production now!

‘So …’ Davina paused for a moment to gather her breath and her thoughts. The Devil’s Disciple company were too shocked to say anything, as she continued, ‘I know it’s six o’clock and you’re all gasping to go to the Cricketers, but I’m afraid I’m not going to let anyone go until we’ve had another look at the blocking of that last scene. It’s a complete dog’s dinner and we need to do a bit of basic work on it.

‘So those of you who aren’t involved can go. Jude, obviously, since Mrs Dudgeon is long dead. And Carole, you can go. I’ll be concentrating on the movements not the words for this bit. But the rest of you … will you please all pull your bloody socks up and concentrate for the next half-hour!’

It was a measure of the effect Davina’s unwonted outburst had had that nobody moaned about being kept from their liquid refreshment in the Cricketers. All of the company looked very chastened as Carole and Jude slipped out to the pub.

‘I was idly thinking about Davina’s neck,’ said Jude, as they settled down with their large Chilean Chardonnays. The pub was virtually empty, just Len behind the bar reading the Mail on Sunday. Again she wondered how the Cricketers would keep going without the regular custom of SADOS members.

‘Davina’s neck? What on earth do you mean?’ asked Carole.

‘Well, every time I see her at rehearsal she’s wearing these high collars. I assume it’s because – as happens at our age – her neck is getting a bit stringy and her cleavage a bit wrinkled.’

‘What do you mean – “as happens at our age”?’ Carole was quite put out. ‘I don’t believe I’m getting either stringy or wrinkled.’

‘No, but you’re so thin no wrinkle would dare to sully your skin.’

Carole looked beadily at her neighbour, unsure whether she was being sent up or not. Eventually she decided that what she’d just heard was probably a compliment. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘Davina’s cleavage is in very good condition.’

‘Oh? When have you seen it?’

‘First time I met her. First time I met her properly, that is. In the Crown and Anchor, when she tried to persuade me to take over as prompter.’

‘She not only tried to persuade you. She succeeded in persuading you.’

‘Well, all right. Anyway, on that occasion she was wearing a purple cardigan, unbuttoned to show quite a lot of cleavage. And, as I say, the cleavage in question was in very good condition.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Then I wonder why she always wears high collars at rehearsal?’

‘Up to her, I would have thought.’

‘Sure.’

‘Incidentally, I don’t want you to get the impression that I make a habit of staring at other women’s cleavages.’

When Carole made remarks like that, Jude could never be quite sure whether she was serious or not. Deciding on this occasion she probably was, Jude said, ‘Thought never occurred to me.’

‘The reason I noticed it on that occasion was that Davina was wearing a rather distinctive pendant.’

‘Oh?’

‘Silver. Shaped like a star.’

This prompted a much less casual ‘Oh.’ Jude’s brown eyes sparkled with excitement as she asked, ‘Was it like the one Elizaveta wears?’

‘I’ve never noticed Elizaveta wearing any particular jewellery.’

‘But she showed it that first evening in here. After we’d delivered the chaise longue.’

‘What? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Jude.’

‘Oh, of course you weren’t in the group with Elizaveta, were you? You were being bored to death by Gordon Blaine.’

‘I still don’t understand a word you’re saying. I just …’

But Jude was already out of her seat, crossing to the bar and snatching the landlord’s attention away from his Mail on Sunday. ‘Len, do you remember the silver pendant that got left here after a pantomime rehearsal?’

‘Oh yes. What about it?’

‘I remember, first time I ever came in here you asked Elizaveta Dalrymple if it was hers. And when she said it wasn’t, you said you’d keep it behind the bar until someone claimed it.’

‘Uh-huh,’ he agreed.

‘Well, did anyone ever claim it?’

‘Yes. Only a few days later. I can’t remember whether it was the Tuesday or the Thursday, but she came in early for rehearsal and said it was hers.’

‘Who did?’

‘Davina.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I remember particularly because she was the only person in the pub, and she very specifically asked me not to tell Elizaveta that she’d claimed it.’

‘And so you didn’t tell her?’

‘No. Mind you, the wife might have done.’

‘Why did your wife know about it?’

‘Because I mentioned the engraving on the back of the pendant to her.’

‘Engraving? What did it say?’

‘“YOU’RE A STAR – WITH LOVE FROM FREDDIE”.’