Death on the Air (8 page)

‘I know,' said Mike earnestly. ‘It's most frightfully sweet of you. That's how I feel about it.'

Alleyn took him away and shoved him into an old and begrimed raincoat, a cloth cap and a muffler. ‘You wouldn't deceive a village idiot in a total eclipse,' he said, ‘but out you go.'

He watched Mike drive away and returned to his wife.

‘What'11 happen?' she asked.

‘Knowing Mike, I should say he will end up in the front stalls and go on to supper with the leading lady. She, by the way, is Goralie Bourne. Very lovely and twenty years his senior so he'll probably fall in love with her.' Alleyn reached for his tobacco jar and paused. ‘I wonder what's happened to her husband,' he said.

‘Who was he?'

‘An extraordinary chap. Benjamin Vlasnoff. Violent temper. Looked like a bandit. Wrote two very good plays and got run in three times for common assault. She tried to divorce him but it didn't go through. I think he afterwards lit off to Russia.' Alleyn yawned. ‘I believe she had a hell of a time with him,' he said.

‘All Night Delivery,' said Mike in a hoarse voice, touching his cap. ‘Suitcase. One.'

‘Here you are,' said the woman who had answered the door. ‘Carry it carefully, now, it's not locked and the catch springs out.'

‘Fanks,' said Mike. ‘Much obliged. Chilly, ain't it?'

He took the suitcase out to the car.

It was a fresh spring night. Sloane Square was threaded with mist and all the lamps had halos round them. It was the kind of night when individual sounds separate themselves from the conglomerate voice of London; hollow sirens spoke imperatively down on the river and a bugle rang out over in Chelsea Barracks; a night, Mike thought, for adventure.

He opened the rear door of the car and heaved the case in. The catch flew open, the lid dropped back and the contents fell out. ‘Damn!' said Mike and switched on the inside light.

Lying on the floor of the car was a false beard.

It was flaming red and bushy and was mounted on a chinpiece. With it was incorporated a stiffened moustache. There were wire hooks to attach the whole thing behind the ears. Mike laid it carefully on the seat. Next he picked up a wide black hat, then a vast overcoat with a fur collar, finally a pair of black gloves.

Mike whistled meditatively and thrust his hands into the pockets of Alleyn's mackintosh. His right hand fingers closed on a card. He pulled it out. ‘Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn,' he read, ‘CID. New Scotland Yard.'

‘Honestly,' thought Mike exultantly, ‘this is a gift.'

Ten minutes later a car pulled into the kerb at the nearest parking place to the Jupiter Theatre. From it emerged a figure carrying a suitcase. It strode rapidly along Hawke Street and turned into the stage door alley. As it passed under the dirty lamp it paused, and thus murkily lit, resembled an illustration from some Edwardian spy story. The face was completely shadowed, a black cavern from which there projected a square of scarlet beard, which was the only note of colour.

The doorkeeper who was taking the air with a member of stage staff, moved forward, peering at the stranger.

‘Was you wanting something?'

‘I'm taking this case in for Mr Gill.'

‘He's in front. You can leave it with me.'

‘I'm so sorry,' said the voice behind the beard, ‘but I promised I'd leave it backstage myself'

‘So you will be leaving it. Sorry, sir, but no one's admitted be'ind without a card.'

‘A card? Very well. Here is a card.'

He held it out in his black-gloved hand. The stage door-keeper, unwillingly removing his gaze from the beard, took the card and examined it under the light. ‘Coo!' he said, ‘what's up, governor?'

‘No matter. Say nothing of this.'

The figure waved its hand and passed through the door.

‘'Ere!' said the doorkeeper excitedly to the stage hand, ‘take a slant at this. That's a plainclothes flattie, that was.'

‘
Plain
clothes!' said the stage hand. ‘Them!'

‘'E's disguised,' said the doorkeeper. ‘That's what it is. 'E's disguised 'isself.'

‘'E's bloody well lorst 'isself be'ind them whiskers if you arst me.'

Out on the stage someone was saying in a pitched and beautifully articulate voice: ‘
I've always loathed the view from these windows. However if that's the sort of thing you admire. Turn off the lights, damn you. Look at it
.'

‘Watch it, now, watch it,' whispered a voice so close to Mike that he jumped.

‘OK,' said a second voice somewhere above his head. The lights on the set turned blue.

‘Kill that working light.'

‘Working light gone.'

Curtains in the set were wrenched aside and a window flung open. An actor appeared, leaning out quite close to Mike, seeming to look into his face and saying very distinctly: ‘God: it's frightful!' Mike backed away towards a passage, lit only from an open door. A great volume of sound broke out beyond the stage. ‘House lights,' said the sharp voice. Mike turned into the passage. As he did so, someone came through the door. He found himself face to face with Coralie Bourne, beautifully dressed and heavily painted.

For a moment she stood quite still; then she made a curious gesture with her right hand, gave a small breathy sound and fell forward at his feet.

Anthony was tearing his programme into long strips and dropping them on the floor of the OP box. On his right hand, above and below, was the audience; sometimes laughing, sometimes still, sometimes as one corporate being, raising its hands and striking them together. As now; when down on the stage, Canning Cumberland, using a strange voice, and inspired by some inward devil, flung back the window and said: ‘God: it's frightful!'

‘Wrong! Wrong!' Anthony cried inwardly, hating Cumberland, hating Barry George because he let one speech of three words override him, hating the audience because they liked it.
The curtain descended with a long sigh on the second act and a sound like heavy rain filled the theatre, swelled prodigiously and continued after the house lights welled up.

‘They seem,' said a voice behind him, ‘to be liking your play.'

It was Gosset, who owned the Jupiter and had backed the show. Anthony turned on him stammering: ‘He's destroying it. It should be the other man's scene. He's stealing.'

‘My boy,' said Gosset, ‘he's an actor.'

‘He's drunk. It's intolerable.'

He felt Gosset's hand on his shoulder.

‘People are watching us. You're on show. This is a big thing for you; a first play, and going enormously. Come and have a drink, old boy. I want to introduce you—'

Anthony got up and Gosset, with his arm across his shoulders, flashing smiles, patting him, led him to the back of the box.

‘I'm sorry,' Anthony said. ‘I can't. Please let me off. I'm going backstage.'

‘Much better not, old son.' The hand tightened on his shoulder. ‘Listen, old son—' But Anthony had freed himself and slipped through the pass door from the box to the stage.

At the foot of the breakneck stairs Dendra Gay stood waiting. ‘I thought you'd come,' she said.

Anthony said: ‘He's drunk. He's murdering the play.'

‘It's only one scene, Tony. He finishes early in the next act. It's going colossally.'

‘But don't you understand—'

‘I do. You
know
I do. But you're a success, Tony darling! You can hear it and smell it and feel it in your bones.'

‘Dendra—' he said uncertainly.

Someone came up and shook his hand and went on shaking it. Flats were being laced together with a slap of rope on canvas. A chandelier ascended into darkness. ‘Lights,' said the stage manager, and the set was flooded with them. A distant voice began chanting. ‘Last act, please. Last act.'

‘Miss Bourne all right?' the stage manager suddenly demanded.

‘She'll be all right. She's not on for ten minutes,' said a woman's voice.

‘What's the matter with Miss Bourne?' Anthony asked.

‘Tony, I must go and so must you. Tony, it's going to be grand.
Please
think so.
Please.'

‘Dendra—' Tony began, but she had gone.

Beyond the curtain, horns and flutes announced the last act.

‘Clear please.'

The stage hands came off.

‘House lights.'

‘House lights gone.'

‘Stand by.'

And while Anthony still hesitated in the OP corner, the curtain rose. Canning Cumberland and H J Bannington opened the last act.

As Mike knelt by Coralie Bourne he heard someone enter the passage behind him. He turned and saw, silhouetted against the lighted stage, the actor who had looked at him through a window in the set. The silhouette seemed to repeat the gesture Coralie Bourne had used, and to flatten itself against the wall.

A woman in an apron came out of the open door.

‘I say – here!' Mike said.

Three things happened almost simultaneously. The woman cried out and knelt beside him. The man disappeared through a door on the right.

The woman, holding Coralie Bourne in her arms, said violently: ‘Why have you come back?' Then the passage lights came on.

Mike said: ‘Look here, I'm most frightfully sorry,' and took off the broad black hat. The dresser gaped at him, Coralie Bourne made a crescendo sound in her throat and opened her eyes.

‘Katie?' she said.

‘It's all right, my lamb. It's not him, dear. You're all right.' The dresser jerked her head at Mike: ‘Get out of it,' she said.

‘Yes, of course, I'm most frightfully—' He backed out of the passage, colliding with a youth who said: ‘Five minutes, please.'

The dresser called out: ‘Tell them she's not well. Tell them to hold the curtain.'

‘No,' said Coralie Bourne strongly. ‘I'm all right, Katie. Don't say anything. Katie, what was it?'

They disappeared into the room on the left.

Mike stood in the shadow of a stack of scenic flats by the entry into the passage. There was great activity on the stage. He caught a glimpse of Anthony Gill on the far side talking to a girl. The call boy was speaking to the stage manager who now shouted into space: ‘Miss Bourne all right?'

The dresser came into the passage and called: ‘She'll be all right. She's not on for ten minutes.'

The youth began chanting: ‘Last act, please.'

The stage manager gave a series of orders. A man with an eyeglass and a florid beard came from further down the passage and stood outside the set, bracing his figure and giving little tweaks to his clothes. There was a sound of horns and flutes. Canning Cumberland emerged from the room on the right and on his way to the stage, passed close to Mike, leaving a strong smell of alcohol behind him. The curtain rose.

Behind his shelter, Mike stealthily removed his beard and stuffed it into the pocket of his overcoat.

A group of stage hands stood nearby. One of them said in a hoarse whisper: ‘'E's squiffy.'

‘Gam, 'e's going good.'

‘So 'e may be going good. And for why?
Becos
'e's squiffy.'

Ten minutes passed. Mike thought: ‘This affair has definitely not gone according to plan.' He listened. Some kind of tension seemed to be building up on the stage. Canning Cumberland's voice rose on a loud but blurred note.

A door in the set opened. ‘Don't bother to come,' Cumberland said. ‘Goodbye. I can find my way out.' The door slammed. Cumberland was standing near Mike. Then, very close, there was a loud explosion. The scenic flats vibrated. Mike's flesh leapt on his bones and Cumberland went into his dressing rooms. Mike heard the key turn in the door. The smell of alcohol mingled with the smell of gunpowder. A stage hand moved to a trestle table and laid a pistol on it. The actor with the eyeglass made an exit. He spoke for a moment to the stage manager, passed Mike and disappeared in the passage.

Smells. There were all sorts of smells. Subconsciously, still listening to the play, he began to sort them out. Glue. Canvas. Greasepaint. The call boy tapped on the doors. ‘Mr George, please. Miss Bourne, please.' They came out, Coralie Bourne with her dresser. Mike heard her turn a door handle and say something. An indistinguishable voice answered her. Then she and her dresser passed him. The others spoke to her and she nodded and then seemed to withdraw into herself, waiting with her head bent, ready to make her entrance. Presently she drew back, walked swiftly to the door in the set, flung it open and swept on, followed a minute later by Barry George.

Smells. Dust, stale paint, cloth. Gas. Increasingly, the smell of gas.

The group of stage hands moved away behind the set to the side of the stage. Mike edged out of cover. He could see the prompt corner. The stage manager stood there with folded arms, watching the action. Behind him were grouped the players who were not on. Two dressers stood apart, watching. The light from the set caught their faces. Coralie Bourne's voice sent phrases flying like birds into the auditorium.

Mike began peering at the floor. Had he kicked some gas fitting adrift? The call boy passed him, stared at him over his shoulder and went down the passage, tapping. ‘Five minutes to the curtain, please. Five minutes.'

The actor with the elderly make-up followed the call boy out. ‘God, what a stink of gas,' he whispered.

‘Chronic, ain't it?' said the call boy. They stared at Mike and then crossed to the waiting group. The man said something to the stage manager who tipped his head up, sniffing. He made an impatient gesture and turned back to the prompt box, reaching over the prompter's head. A bell rang somewhere up in the flies and Mike saw a stage hand climb to the curtain platform.

The little group near the prompt corner was agitated. They looked back towards the passage entrance. The call boy nodded and came running back. He knocked on the first door on the right. ‘
Mr Cumberland! Mr Cumberland!
You're on for the call.' He rattled the door handle. ‘
Mr Cumberland! You're on
.'