Vintage Murder (10 page)

“No. I went into my dressing-room on the way.”

“What for?”

“To get my overcoat. I was shivering.”

“How long were you in the dressing-room?”

“About five minutes.”

“Five minutes to fetch a coat?”

“Well — Branny was there.”

“Who’s he?”

“Brandon Vernon — the heavy. I told you we share the dressing-room. Branny had a flask there. We had a nip. Needed it. Frankie came in later and had one, too. Then we all went to the wardrobe-room.”

“To get to the dressing-room, you passed the iron ladder that goes up to the platform?”

“What platform?”

“I think it’s called the grid,” said Alleyn diffidently. “Or is it the flies?”

“Oh,” said Broadhead. “Yes. I suppose we did. It’s just by the dressing-room passage, isn’t it?”

Wade shifted his position and became elaborately casual.

“You didn’t happen to glance up towards the platform at all, I suppose?”

“Good Lord, I don’t know. Why should I?”

“You didn’t get the impression anyone was up there?”

“I didn’t get any impression at all.”

“Did you all leave the stage together — the whole company, I mean, and the guests?”

“Pretty well. Everyone was very quiet. The guests just petered away as soon as they could. We stood for a moment by the entrance to the passage to let Miss Dacres go first. Then we followed.”

“All together?”

“We didn’t make a football scrum of it,” said Broadhead crossly. “It’s a narrow passage.”

“When you got to the wardrobe-room, was everyone there?”

“I wasn’t the last.”

“Who came in after you, Mr. Broadhead?”

“Oh, Lord!” said Broadhead again. “Let’s see. Well, Gascoigne was after me, and Mr. Mason. Susan and Hailey Hambledon came in just before that, I think, with Miss Dacres, I’m not sure. No, by George, Mr. Alleyn was last.”

“Quite right,” agreed Alleyn. “I was a bad last.”

“Well,” said Wade, “I think that’ll be all, sir. If you’ve no objection, I’ll get you to sign these notes later on when they’ve been put into longhand. We’ve got your address. Perhaps you’d look in some time tomorrow morning at the station.”

“Where is it?”

“Hill Street, Mr. Broadhead. Top of Ruru Street. Anyone will direct you.”

“I suppose so. I could ask a policeman. At least he would know that.”

“Good night, Mr. Broadhead,” said Wade coldly.

“I wish I knew,” said Alleyn when Broadhead had gone, “whether to give myself a kick in the neck or a slap on the back.”

“How’s that, sir?” asked Wade.

“After the main body had retired to the dressing-rooms, Mr. Mason, Mr. Gascoigne, Dr. Te Pokiha, the chief mechanist and I were left on the stage with the body. Until then I had imagined the whole show was simply a ghastly accident, but almost automatically I had suggested that none of the company left the theatre. The official mind must have functioned — reaction to sudden death or something. If I
had
suspected homicide, I should have done my best to keep them all on the stage. I don’t think I would have succeeded without producing the Yard. But at that stage I didn’t actually suspect, although I suppose I asked myself the routine question—‘Homicide or Accident?’ Well, as soon as we were alone the unhappy Bert gave tongue. He protested many times and with sanguinary monotony that there had been some funny business. So did Mr. Gascoigne. They were all for going up aloft to take a look at the tackle. From being almost official I now became quite officious. I said: ‘No, no, gentlemen; we must leave this for our wonderful police.’ ‘Scale not the heights,’ the old man said, and they heeded and gave over.”

“Quite right, too.”

“But was it? Suppose they had gone aloft? They would have found the tackle as it was when the bottle fell. They would have found it as I found it a few minutes later when I snooped up the ladder. Now what would have been the effect of this discovery on the murderer? If the murderer is not Mr. Mason, or Mr. Gascoigne, or Te Pokiha, or Bert, he would presumably have come out of his hole, found the stage empty, heard voices on the grid, and gone back into his hole. He would never have tidied up.”

“That’s so. But we’ve got your evidence, anyway,” objected Wade.

“Yes, we have. We’ve caught him out in a bit of elaboration,” agreed Alleyn. “If — If—” He rubbed his nose vexedly. “I usually welcome elaborations. ‘Beware of fancy-touches’ should be neatly printed and hung above every would-be murderer’s cot. But this time I feel that, as far as we’re concerned, there’s a catch on it. Well, now, if our man is Te Pokiha, or Mason, or Gascoigne, or Bert, he would still have been unable to tidy up. By preventing the inspection of the tackle I made possible the alteration.”

“Well, sir, according to your way of looking at it, that’s all to the good. The alteration was a blunder, as it turned out.”

“And we should never have found the tiki.”

“That’s two blunders.”

“Is it?” said Alleyn. “I’ve got my doubts about that.”

“I don’t get you there, sir. Surely we ought to trace the tiki?”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Alleyn, screwing up one side of his face. “We’ll have to try. What did Hambledon and Mason have to say about it?”

“Oh, same story as young Broadhead. Mr. Hambledon said he took it from Mrs. Meyer soon after you gave it to her. He says he had a look at it and handed it on to someone else — thinks it was old Mr. Vernon, but isn’t sure. Mr. Mason says he can’t say who gave it to him, but he handled it and remembers giving it back to Mrs. Meyer just before you all sat down to supper.”

“And Mrs. Meyer?”

“Thinks she remembers he gave it to her and fancies she put it down on the table somewhere. There you are!”

“Yes,” said Alleyn, “it’s wide open.”

“Mrs. Meyer—” began Wade and stopped abruptly. “Look here, sir, what
do
I call the lady? Mrs. Meyer or Miss Dacres?”

“Miss Dacres, I fancy.”

“Seems hardly nice in some ways. Well, then, Miss Dacres seemed a bit surprised when I asked her about the tiki. She gave me a look.”

“That’s because I had already spoken to her about it.”

“Is that so? Did you get the same answer?”

“More or less. She looked in her bag and then said she didn’t know what had become of it. All the same—”

“Well — there it is,” said Wade without noticing Alleyn’s hesitation. “Better get a move on, I suppose. Who’ll we take next, sir?”

“If I might suggest, I think it would be as well to ask Gascoigne, the stage-manager, if he knows who was the last person, officially, to examine the apparatus.”

“Good enough,” said Wade, and sent for Gascoigne.

Gascoigne said that the last official inspection took place just before the end of the third act.

“Mr. Meyer came round from the front of the house. He was as fussy about it as if it’d been a first night in town,” said Gascoigne. “He asked me if everything was all right. I’d been up myself and seen it and we’d rehearsed it God knows how often. But to humour him I sent Bert up again and I’m blessed if the governor didn’t climb up after Bert. It was then that he loosened the wire, I think. He was in a great flutter. By God, you’d almost think he knew something would happen. That was actually just before the last curtain. I remember they came down the ladder after we’d run down.”

“Which of them came first?”

“Bert. He came to me in the prompt-box and said it was all O.K. Mr. Meyer went off to the front of the house, I think.”

“And what did you do?”

“Me?” said Gascoigne, looking surprised. “I got the staff to work setting the stage for the party. Bert and the local men did it.”

“Did you notice anyone go up the ladder after that?” asked Wade without hope.

“Of course I didn’t. Wouldn’t I be asking you to go after them if I had? Look here, Inspector, had that gear been interfered with? I’d like to go up and take a look at it.”

“You’d find no difference, Mr. Gascoigne,” said Wade.

“But I tell you,” said Gascoigne violently, “there must have been some funny business — there must have been.”

“Now listen, sir,” said Wade. “When everybody left the stage at Chief-Inspector Alleyn’s suggestion—”

“What! Chief-Inspector how much?” ejaculated Gascoigne.

Wade explained.

“Here!” said Gascoigne. “Is there anything fishy about our company? Have you been tailing round after us, Mr. Alleyn? What’s the idea of all this?”

“I’m on a holiday,” explained Alleyn apologetically, “and I’ve not been tailing anybody at all, Mr. Gascoigne.”

“So you say,” muttered Gascoigne.

“It’s true,” said Alleyn. “S’help me.”

“Now, Mr. Gascoigne,” continued Wade doggedly, “when they all left the stage after the accident, what did you do?”

“I stayed put. I wanted to go up and look at the gear, but Mr. — Inspector — Alleyn said wait for the police. Why didn’t you tell us who you were then?”

“It would have been in doubtful taste, don’t you think?” asked Alleyn. “You remained on the stage until the arrival of the police, I think?”

“Yes, I did,” said Gascoigne.

Wade glanced at Alleyn.

“Well, Mr. Gascoigne, I think that’s all I want to know just now. You’re staying — where?”

“The Railway Hotel.”

“Good-oh, sir. Perhaps you’d look in at the station to-morrow. The inquest—” Wade shepherded Gascoigne out and came back looking worried.

“I reckon,” he said, “we can cross him off unless there’s been any collusion. He met us at the door and you left him on the stage. He never had a chance to go up into the grid. Seems to me that the point we want to get at is what they all did when they left the stage. Isn’t that right, sir?”

“I think so,” agreed Alleyn. “Between the event and the time you and I went aloft, someone managed to climb one of the ladders and put things straight. It seems to me, Wade, that the most likely moment for this would be when they all left the stage. Off-stage it was quite dark. It would be a perfectly easy matter for one of them to slip aside behind the scenery, snoop round to the ladder at the back, and climb up. Whoever it was probably took off his or her shoes. Now, if this person went up during the time of the general exodus, he was probably hiding up there when I made my first visit. He’d want to get the job done as soon as possible and before the police arrived. It sounds more risky than it actually was. If he
had
been spotted he’d have said he was damn’ well going to have a look at the gear and have made a song about it’s having been interfered with. We know Gascoigne could not have done this.”

“Nor Broadhead either, if Brandon Vernon agrees that they went together to the dressing-room,” said Wade.

“Right. Now let’s look at the other half of the picture, shall we? The first visit, when the murderer cut the weight off the rope and moved the pulley. Again Broadhead says he and Vernon went together to the dressing-room, after the final curtain. That is, after Bert came down and reported the tackle all correct. If Vernon gives the same account, that lets both of them out. If Bert and his mates say Gascoigne was with them while they got ready for the party, that lets him out.”

“Looks as if it’s a crack less wide open, sir, when you get at it like that. Now, when I talked to Mason, he said he was in the box-office during the last act. When the people began to come away, he went to his own office — this room we’re in now — to have a word with the deceased. He says deceased left him here, saying he was going round to the stage. Mason says he then made a note of the night’s takings and did one or two jobs here. He went out once, ran along to tell the old chap who stage-door-keeps to show all the guests straight to the stage but to be sure and check up their names in order to keep off any hangers-on who hadn’t been invited. I’ve spoken to old Singleton, the doorkeeper, and he remembers Mason running along the alley to give him this message. He says Mason came back here. So does Mason. The old chap stood by the stage-door looking after him. And to make it a bit tighter, the old bloke says he strolled along to the office a bit later to ask about something, and Mason was there at his desk. Dr. Te Pokiha says he looked in before going to the party — he’d met Mason before — and stayed there yarning for a while, leaving Mason in the office. Now, Mr. Alleyn, the only way Mason could have got behind the scenes without Singleton seeing him is by going through this door into the box-office, out at the front entrance where someone might have seen him, and round the block to the back of the theatre. The door at the back is locked on the inside. Even if he had the key he couldn’t have done it in the time. He couldn’t have got back before Singleton walked across, which he says was about five or six minutes later. That’s that. Mason said he stayed on here — looking up his papers and so on — for a while — not long — and then joined the party. Singleton remembers Mason coming back and swears he didn’t go behind the scenes until the last of the guests were in.”

“I was among the last of the guests,” said Alleyn, “and I overtook Mr. Mason at the stage-door.”

“Did you, sir? Did you, now! Well, I suppose you might say that’s a pretty fair alibi for Mr. Mason. Would he have time to go up aloft after he went in with you, now?”

“Plenty of time,” said Alleyn sadly, “but he didn’t do it. I remember perfectly well that he was on the stage all the time. He stood near me and I talked to him and to Hambledon.”

“That’s what Hambledon said,” agreed Wade gloomily. “It’s a blooming nark, dinkum it is. Still, there’s better alibis than that have gone west before now, and I’m not going to forget this will. Mason’s a whole lot better off by this murder.”

“Was he badly off before?” asked Alleyn lightly.

“That’s what I reckon we’ll have to find out, sir. Do you think the Yard—?”

“Oh, yes. They’ll do it for you if it can be done. We call it making tactful inquiries.
Aren’t
I glad I’m not there.”

“You’re here, though,” said Wade, “and I suppose they know it.”

“I don’t like the way you said that, Inspector,” said Alleyn with a wry smile. “And I know jolly well what you’re thinking.”

Wade grinned sheepishly.

“Well, sir,” he said, “it looks as if it’s an English case more than a New Zillund one, now, doesn’t it?”

“Wait and see,” said Alleyn. “What about your tiki? And talking about the tiki, did you ask Mr. Mason where he went with Dr. Te Pokiha after the event?”

“He was very much shaken and Te Pokiha took him off somewhere to give him a drink.”

“The doctor brought him here. There’s a bottle of whisky and a couple of glasses in that cupboard there. I put ’em away to get Mason’s prints. They seem to have taken it neat.”

“So Dr. Te Pokiha felt a bit groggy, too,” said Alleyn. “He seemed so very sedate and professional at the time. What happened when they’d had their neat whiskies?”

“The doctor rang us up and left Mason here with his grog, when we arrived. Mason says he was still here when we went past. I remember noticing that door was open on the alleyway and the lights in here were up. I fancy I caught sight of him. Anyway, the doorkeeper says he mooched along the yard after we’d come in, saw Mason in the office and talked to him. He says he went along as soon as he’d let us in and stayed until Mason went to the wardrobe-room. They walked along together.”

“That’s right, too, sir,” said the silent Cass unexpectedly. “I was just inside the stage-door when he came through. I sent him along. He was looking horribly crook.”

“Ill?” asked Alleyn cautiously.

“Too right, sir.”

“Crook or not,” said Wade, “I’m not taking anything for gospel where Mr. George Mason’s concerned, by cripey I’m not. Now the D — Miss Dacres hasn’t got even half an alibi for the first stunt — fixing the gear before the murder. She says she went to her dressing-room and was alone there till she came to the party.”

“What about her dresser?”

“Says she sent her off to doll herself up for the party. Now Miss Dacres
could
have slipped round to the ladder at the back, fixed the gear, and then gone to her room. When did she come in to the party, sir?”

“She came in last,” said Alleyn, and up through his mind welled the memory of Carolyn hooting melodiously as she came down the passage, of Ackroyd opening the door on to the stage, of Carolyn making her entrance, of himself going to meet her.

“Last!” exclaimed Wade. “Last of the lot, and alone.”

“No. Not alone. Hailey Hambledon, Mr. Mason and Mr. Meyer went and fetched her.”

“That makes no odds,” said Wade.