Killer Dolphin (28 page)

“I—no. No, I am well. You insist on questioning me about an episode which distressed me, which was painful, tragic, an outrage to one’s sensibilities.”

“I would avoid it if I could. I’m afraid I must go further. Will you tell me exactly what happened at the moment of disaster: to you, I mean, and to whoever was near you then or later?”

For a moment Alleyn thought he was going to refuse. He wondered if there would be a sudden outbreak or whether Mr. Conducis would merely walk out of the room and leave them to take what action they chose. He did none of these things. He embarked upon a toneless, rapid recital of facts. Of the fact of fog, the sudden looming of the tanker, the splitting apart of the
Kalliope
. Of the fact of fire breaking out

Of oil on the water and of how he found himself looking down on the wooden raft from the swimming pool and of how the deck turned into a precipice and he slid from it and landed on the raft

“Still with the little desk?”

Yes. Clutched under his left arm, it seemed, but with no consciousness of this. He had lain across the raft with the desk underneath him. It had bruised him very badly. He gripped a rope loop at the side with his right hand. Mrs. Guzmann had appeared beside the raft and was clinging to one of the loops. Alleyn had a mental picture of an enormous nose, an open mouth, a mantilla plastered over a big head and a floundering mass of wet black lace and white flesh.

The recital stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

“That is all. We were picked up by the tanker.”

“Were there other people on the raft?”

“I believe so. My memory is not clear. I lost consciousness.”

“Men? Mrs. Guzmann?”

“I believe so. I was told so.”

“Pretty hazardous, I should have thought. It wouldn’t accommodate more than—how many?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Mr. Conducis, when you saw Peregrine Jay’s gloved hands clinging to the edge of that hole in the stage at the Dolphin and heard him call out that he would drown if you didn’t save him—were you reminded—”

Mr. Conducis had risen and now began to move backwards, like an image in slow motion, towards the bureau. Fox rose, too, and shifted in front of it. Mr. Conducis drew his crimson silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and pressed it against his mouth, and above it his upper lip glistened. His brows were defined by beaded margins and the dark skin of his face was stretched too tight and had blanched over the bones.

“Be quiet,” he said. “No. Be quiet.”

Somebody had come into the house. A distant voice spoke loudly but indistinguishably.

The door opened and the visitor came in.

Mr. Conducis screamed: “You’ve told them. You’ve betrayed me. I wish to Christ I’d killed you.”

Fox took him from behind. Almost at once he stopped struggling.

Trevor could be, as Alleyn put it, bent at the waist. He had been so bent and was propped up in a sitting position in his private room. A bed-tray on legs was arranged across his stomach, ready for any offerings that might be forthcoming. His condition had markedly improved since Alleyn’s visit of the day before, and he was inclined, though still feebly, to throw his weight about

The private room was small but there was a hospital screen in one corner of it and behind the screen, secreted there before Trevor was wheeled in, sat Inspector Fox, his large, decent feet concealed by Trevor’s suitcase. Alleyn occupied the bedside chair.

On receiving assurances from Alleyn that the police were not on his tracks Trevor reported, with more fluency, his previous account of his antics in the deserted auditorium, but he would not or could not carry the recital beyond the point when he was in the circle and heard a distant telephone ring. “I don’t remember another thing,” he said importantly. “I’ve blacked out. I was concussed. The doc says I was very badly concussed. Here!
Where
did I fall, Super? What’s the story?”

“You fell into the stalls.”

“
Would
you mind!”

“True.”

“Into the
stalls
! Cripes!
Why
?”

“That’s what I want to find out.”

Trevor looked sideways. “Did old Henry Jobbins lay into me?” he asked.

“No.”

“Or Chas Random?”

A knowledgeable look: a disfiguring look of veiled gratification, perhaps, appeared like a blemish on Trevor’s pageboy face. He giggled.

“He was wild with me, Chas was. Listen: Chas had it in for me, Super, really he did. I got that camp’s goat, actually, good and proper.”

Alleyn listened and absently noted how underlying Cockney seeped up through superimposed drama academy. Behind carefully turned vowel and consonant jibed a Southward urchin. “Goo’ ’un prop-
per
,” Trevor was really saying, however classy the delivery.

“Some of the company are coming in to see you,”

Alleyn said. “They may only stay for a minute or two but they’d like to say hullo.”

“I’d be pleased,” Trevor graciously admitted. He was extremely complacent.

Alleyn watched him and talked to him for a little while longer and then, conscious of making a decision that might turn out most lamentably, he said: “Look here, young Trevor, I’m going to ask you to help me in a very tricky and important business. If you don’t like the suggestion you needn’t have anything to do with it. On the other hand—”

He paused. Trevor gave him a sharp look.

“Nothing comes to the dumb,” he said. “What seems to be the trouble? Come in and give.”

Ten minutes later his visitors began to arrive, ushered in by Peregrine Jay. “Just tell them,” Alleyn had said, “that he’d like to see them for a few minutes and arrange the timetable. You can pen them up in the waiting-room at the end of the corridor.”

They brought presents.

Winter Meyer came first with a box of crystallized fruit. He put it on the tray and then stood at the foot of the bed wearing his shepherd’s plaid suit and his dark red tie. His hair, beautifully cut, waved above and behind the ears. He leaned his head to one side and looked at Trevor.

“Well, well, well,” he said. “So the great star is receiving. How does it feel to be famous?”

Trevor was languid and gracious, but before the prescribed five minutes had elapsed he mentioned that his agent would be waiting upon Mr. Meyer with reference to the Management, as he put it, seeing him right

“We don’t,” Winter Meyer said, eyeing him warily, “need to worry just yet about that one. Do we?”

“I hope not, Mr. Meyer,” Trevor said. He leaned his head back against the pillows and closed his eyes. “Funny how faint I appear to get,” he murmured. “I hope it won’t be kind of permanent. My doctors seem to take a grave view. Funny thing.”

Mr. Meyer said, “You played that line just like the end of Act I, but I mustn’t tire you.”

He tiptoed elaborately away from the bed and, as he passed Alleyn, let droop a heavy white eylid.

Jeremy Jones had made a group of tiny effigies representing the characters in the play and had mounted them on a minuscule stage. “Ever so quaint,” Trevor said. “Ta, Mr. Jones. You
have
been busy. Put it on my tray, would you?”

Jeremy put his offering on the tray. Trevor gazed into his face as he did so. “You
are
clever with your fingers,” he said. “Aren’t you, Mr. Jones?”

Jeremy looked suspiciously at him, turned scarlet and said to Alleyn: “I mustn’t stay too long.”

“Don’t go,” said Trevor. “Yet.”

Jeremy lingered, with one eye on Alleyn and awkwardly at a loss for anything to say. Peregrine tapped on the door, looked in, said: “Oh, sorry,” when he saw his friend and retired.

“I want to see Mr. Jay,” Trevor said. “Here! Call him back.”

Jeremy fetched Peregrine and seized the opportunity, after a nod from Alleyn, to make his own escape. Peregrine, having already done his duty in that respect, brought no offering.

“Here!” Trevor said. “What price that kid? My understudy. Is he going on tonight?”

“Yes. He’s all right,” Peregrine said. “Word perfect and going to give quite a nice show. You needn’t worry.”

Trevor glowered at him. “What about the billing, Mr. Jay? What about the programmes?”

“They’ve been slipped. ‘During your indisposition the part will be played—’ You know?”

“Anything in the press? They haven’t brought me any papers,” the feeble voice grumbled. “What’s my agent doing? My mum says they don’t want me to see the papers. Look, Mr. Jay—”

Alleyn said: “You’ll see the papers.”

Peregrine waited until Charles Random arrived. “If you want me,” he then said to Alleyn, “I’ll be in the corridor.”

Random brought a number of dubious-looking comics. “Knowing your taste in literature,” he said to Trevor. “Not that I approve.”

Trevor indicated his tray. As Random approached him, he put on a sly look. “Really,” he said, “you shouldn’t have troubled, Mr. Random.”

They stared at each other, their faces quite close together—Random’s guarded, shuttered, wary and Trevor’s faintly impertinent.

“You’ve got a bruise on your cheekbone,” Random said.

“That’s nothing. You should see the rest.”

“Keep you quiet for a bit.”

“That’s right.” Random turned his head slowly and looked at Alleyn. “Police are taking a great interest, I see,” he said.

“Routine,” Alleyn rejoined. “Merely routine.”

“At a high level.” Random drew back quickly from Trevor, who giggled and opened his bundle of comics. “Oh, fabulous,” he said. “It’s ‘Slash.’ Z-z-z-z-yock!” He became absorbed.

“That being that,” Random said, “I shall bow myself off. Unless,” he added, “the Superintendent is going to arrest me.”

Trevor, absorbed in his comic, said: “You never know, do you? Cheerie-bye and ta.”

Random moved towards the door. “Get better quick,” he murmured. Trevor looked up and winked. “What do
you
think?” he said.

Random opened the door and disclosed Miss Bracey on the threshold.

They said, “Oh, hullo, dear,” simultaneously and Random added: “This gets more like a French farce every second. Everyone popping in and out. Wonderful timing.”

They both laughed with accomplishment and he went away.

Gertrude behaved as if she and Alleyn had never met. She said good morning in a poised voice and clearly expected him to leave. He responded politely, indicated the bedside chair, called Trevor’s attention to his visitor and himself withdrew to the window.

Miss Bracey said, “You
have
been in the wars, dear, haven’t you?” She advanced to the bedside and placed a small parcel on the table. Trevor lifted his face to hers, inviting an embrace. Their faces came together and parted and Miss Bracey sank into the chair.

“I mustn’t stay too long: you’re not to be tired,” she said. She was quite composed. Only that occasional drag at the corner of her mouth suggested to Alleyn that she had fortified herself. She made the conventional inquiries as to Trevor’s progress and he responded with an enthusiastic account of his condition. The worst case of concussion, he said importantly, that they’d ever seen in the ward.

“Like what you read about,” he said. “I was—”

He stopped short and for a moment looked puzzled. “I was having a bit of fun,” he began again. “You know, Miss Bracey. Just for giggles. I was having old Jobbins on.”

“Yes?” said Miss Bracey. “That was naughty of you, dear, wasn’t it?”

“But,” Trevor said, frowning. “You know. You were there, weren’t you?” he added doubtfully.

She looked anywhere but at Alleyn. “You’re still confused,” she said. “You mustn’t worry about it.”

“But weren’t you, Miss Bracey? Down there? In front? Weren’t you?”

“I don’t know when you mean, dear.”

“Neither do I. Not quite. But you were there.”

“I was in the downstairs foyer on Saturday night for a minute or two,” she said loudly. “As I told the Superintendent.”

“Yeah, I know you were,” Trevor said. “But where was I?”

“You didn’t see me. You weren’t there. Don’t worry about it.”

“I was. I was.”

“I’d better go,” she said and rose.

“
No
,” Trevor almost shouted. He brought his small fist down on the bed-tray and Jeremy’s microcosms fell on their faces. “
No
! You’ve got to stay till I remember.”

“I think you should stay, Miss Bracey,” Alleyn said. “Really.”

She backed away from the bed. Trevor gave a little cry. “There!” he said. “That’s it. That’s what you did. And you were looking up—at him. Looking up and backing away and kind of blubbing.”

“Trevor, be quiet.
Be quiet
. You don’t know. You’ve forgotten.”

“Like what you’re always doing. Miss Bracey. Chasing him. That’s right, isn’t it, Miss Bracey? Tagging old Harry. You’d come out of the downstairs lav and you looked up and saw him. And then the office door opened and it was Mr. Meyer and Mr. Knight and you done—you did a quick scarper, Miss Bracey. And so did I! Back into the circle, smartly. I got it, now,” Trevor said with infinite satisfaction. “I got it.”

“How,” Alleyn said, “did you know who he was? It must have been dark up there.”

“Him? Harry? By his flash coat. Cripey, what a dazzler!”

“It’s not true,” she gabbled and stumbled across the room. She pawed at Alleyn’s coat “It’s not true. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. It wasn’t Harry. Don’t listen. I swear it wasn’t Harry.”

“You’re quite right,” Alleyn said. “You thought it was Harry Grove but it was Jobbins you saw on the landing. Grove had given Jobbins his overcoat.”

Her hands continued for a second or two to scrabble at his coat and then fell away. She looked into his face and her own crumpled into a weeping mask.

Alleyn said: “You’ve been having a bad time. An awful time. But it
will
ease up. It won’t always be as bad as this.”

“Let me go. Please let me go.”

“Yes,” he said. “You may go now.”

And when she had gone, blowing her nose, squaring her shoulders and making, instinctively he supposed, quite an exit, he turned to Trevor and found him, with every sign of gratification, deep in his comics.

“Do I have to see the others?” he asked. “It’s getting a bit of a drag.”