The Strangling on the Stage (24 page)

‘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”.'

T
he members of the
Devil's Disciple
company who trickled over to the Cricketers round half past six looked very subdued. They were not used to Davina Vere Smith bawling them out and the rarity of such behaviour had had a powerful effect. As they bought their drinks and formed into little groups, the laughter was nervous rather than convivial. Facing the reality of
The Devil's Disciple
's unpreparedness
had wiped smiles off quite a few faces.

Davina herself stalked in last of all and there was a silence, not of unfriendliness but rather of trepidation. None of the cast dared to speak to her, afraid that they might again get their heads bitten off. She ordered ‘a large G and T' from Len and stalked across the bar to sit at a table, studiedly alone. The actors shuffled around, talking in low voices, as though there was an unexploded bomb in the room.

This in fact suited Carole and Jude rather well. Since neither of them was involved in the play's final scene, they alone had not felt the wrath of Davina Vere Smith. They felt rather like the class goody-goodies as they picked up their glasses and went across to join the director at her solitary table.

‘How was the second run of the last scene?' asked Jude tentatively.

‘Terrible,' Davina replied. ‘I didn't think anything could be worse than the first run at it, but that lot proved it was possible.' She didn't seem upset. The outburst seemed to have given her increased confidence. There was even a slight twinkle in her eye.

Catching this, Jude said, ‘Did you stage it?'

‘My tantrum? Yes, of course I did.' The twinkle had now become a grin, which Davina was having hard work suppressing. She didn't want her secret to be known to the rest of the company.

‘It's a very effective tactic,' she went on. ‘I know enough about acting to control when I do it. And because I'm normally sweet and chummy to everyone, the effect is devastating.'

‘So you don't do it often?' said Carole.

‘Ooh no. It wouldn't work if I did it often. I ration myself to one tantrum per production – sometimes not even one. The longer I go without throwing my toys out of the pram, the more effective it is when I do. And everyone in
The Devil's Disciple
really did need a kick up the arse. They're all getting very lazy and lackadaisical.'

‘I suppose that's the effect of the long rehearsal period,' suggested Jude.

Davina nodded. ‘Yes, it can seem to drift on forever. Then suddenly you're within days of the Dress Rehearsal and it all gets very scary.'

‘Yes,' said Carole, wanting to move the conversation into investigative mode. ‘Do you think the production would have been in as bad a state if you still had Ritchie Good playing Dick Dudgeon?'

The director shrugged. ‘We might not have to stop as often as we do when Olly cocks up another line, but I don't think it'd make a great difference. There's a kind of rhythm to a production, you know. About a month before the show actually opens, rehearsals always tend to get a bit ragged and chaotic. But the thing with Olly and his words, that is quite serious. I was wondering, Carole, if you wouldn't mind doing a bit of “one-on-one” with him.'

‘I'm sorry?' said Carole stiffly. ‘I don't know what you mean by “one-on-one”.'

‘Just line-bashing.'

‘What?'

‘A sort of extension of your job as prompter. If you could spend an evening with Olly, one night when we're not rehearsing, just going through the text line by line. That might make some of them stick to the Teflon interior of his brain.'

‘Oh. Well, I'd be prepared to have a go, I suppose … if you think it might help.'

‘I can guarantee it would help. I'll tell him to have a word with you. See if you can sort something out.'

‘Very well.'

Jude, also keen to move on to what they really wanted to talk about, said, ‘By the way, Carole and I were honoured yesterday.'

‘Oh yes?'

‘We got invited to one of Elizaveta's “drinkies things”.'

‘Did you? Maybe she's trying to keep up the numbers.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You may have been invited to replace me.'

‘Oh?'

‘Yes, I used to be a regular at those, certainly always went when Freddie was alive. But recently I've become persona non grata, so far as Elizaveta's concerned.'

‘Do you have any idea why?' asked Jude.

Davina grinned enigmatically. ‘I have a few thoughts on the subject.'

Carole went for the bald and bold approach, asking, ‘Do any of them have anything to do with the star pendant that Freddie Dalrymple gave you?'

There was a silence. Davina looked calculatingly from one woman to the other. ‘What do you know about that?'

‘You were wearing it when I met you in the Crown and Anchor.'

‘Ah yes. So I was. Normally, if I'm doing anything to do with SADOS, I keep it covered.'

Jude chipped in, ‘Len here told us what was engraved on the back of it.'

‘Hm.'

‘Just like, presumably, what is engraved on the back of the one he gave to Elizaveta?'

‘Yes. And to who knows how many other of Freddie's “little friends”.' Davina looked rueful, but she made no attempt to deny anything. ‘Freddie Dalrymple was basically rather a dirty old man.'