Death at the Dolphin. Ngaio Marsh

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       CHAPTER 3

       Party

      ‘A year ago,’ Peregrine thought, ‘I stood in this very spot on a February morning. The sun came out and gilded the stage tower of the injured Dolphin and I lusted after it. I thought of Adolphus Ruby and wished I was like him possessed. And here I am again, as the Lord’s my judge, a little jumped-up Cinderella-man in Mr Ruby’s varnished boots.’

      He looked at the restored caryatids, the bouncing cetaceans and their golden legend, and the immaculate white frontage and elegance of ironwork and he adored them all.

      He thought: ‘Whatever happens, this is, so far, the best time of my life. Whatever happens I’ll look back at today, for instance, and say: “Oh that was the morning when I knew what’s meant by bliss”.’

      While he stood there the man from Phipps Bros came out of Phipps Passage.

      ‘Morning, guvnor,’ he said.

      ‘Good morning, Jobbins.’

      ‘Looks a treat, dunnit?’

      ‘Lovely.’

      ‘Ah. Different. From what it was when you took the plunge.’

      ‘Yes: indeed.’

      ‘Yes. You wouldn’t be looking for a watchman, I suppose? Now she’s near finished-like? Night or day. Any time?’

      ‘I expect we shall want someone. Why? Do you know of a good man?’

      ‘Self-praise, no recommendation’s what they say, ainnit?’

      ‘Do you mean you’d take it on?’

      ‘Not to deceive yer, guvnor, that was the idea. Dahn the Passage in our place, it’s too damp, for me chubes, see? Something chronic. I got good references, guvnor. Plenty’d speak up for me. ‘Ow’s it strike yer? Wiv a sickening thud or favourable?’

      ‘Why,’ said Peregrine. ‘Favourably, I believe.’

      ‘Will you bear me in mind, then?’

      ‘I’ll do that thing,’ said Peregrine.

      ‘Gor’ bless yer, guv,’ said Jobbins and retired down Phipps Passage.

      Peregrine crossed the lane and entered the portico of his theatre. He looked at the framed notice:

      DOLPHIN THEATRE

      REOPENING SHORTLY

      UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT

      It hung immediately under the tatter of a Victorian playbill that he had seen on his first remarkable visit.

      THE BEGGAR GIRL’S WEDDING

      In response to

      Overwhelming Solicitation!! –

       Mr Adolphus Ruby

      When the painters cleaned and resurfaced the façade, Peregrine had made them work all round that precarious fragment without touching it. ‘It shall stay here,’ he had said to Jeremy Jones, ‘as long as I do.’

      He opened the front doors. They had new locks and the doors themselves had been stripped and scraped and restored to their original dignity.

      The foyer was alive. It was being painted, gilded, polished and furbished. There were men on scaffolds, on long ladders, on pendant platforms. A great chandelier lay in a sparkling heap on the floor. The two fat cherubim, washed and garnished, beamed upside-down into the resuscitated box-office.

      Peregrine said good morning to the workmen and mounted the gently curving stairs.

      There was still a flower-engraved looking-glass behind the bar but now he advanced towards himself across shining mahogany, framed by brass. The bar was all golden syrup and molasses in colour. ‘Plain, serviceable, no tatt,’ Peregrine muttered.

      The renovations had been completed up here and soon a carpet would be laid. He and Jeremy and the young decorator had settled in the end for the classic crimson, white and gilt and the panelling blossomed, Peregrine thought, with the glorious vulgarity of a damask rose. He crossed the foyer to a door inscribed ‘Management’ and went in.

      The Dolphin was under the control of ‘Dolphin Theatres Incorporated’. This was a subsidiary of Consolidated Oils. It had been created, broadly speaking, by Mr Greenslade, to encompass the development of the Dolphin project. Behind his new desk in the office sat Mr Winter Morris, an extremely able theatrical business manager. He had been wooed into the service by Mr Greenslade upon Peregrine’s suggestion, after a number of interviews and, he felt sure, exhaustive inquiries. Throughout these preliminaries, Mr Conducis had remained, as it were, the merest effluvium: far from noxious and so potent that a kind of plushy assurance seemed to permeate the last detail of renaissance in The Dolphin. Mr Morris had now under his hand an entire scheme for promotion, presentation and maintenance embracing contracts with actors, designers, costumiers, front of house staff, stage crew and press agents and the delicate manipulation of such elements as might be propitious to the general mana of the enterprise.

      He was a short, pale and restless man with rich curly hair, who, in what little private life belonged to him, collected bric-à-brac.

      ‘Good morning, Winty.’

      ‘Perry,’ said Mr Morris as a defensive statement rather than a greeting.

      ‘Any joy?’

      Mr Morris lolled his head from side to side.

      ‘Before I forget. Do we want a caretaker, watchman, day or night, stage-door-keeper or any other lowly bod about the house?’

      ‘We shall in a couple of days.’

      Peregrine told him about Mr Jobbins.

      ‘All right,’ said Mr Morris. ‘If the references are good. Now, it’s my turn. Are you full cast?’

      ‘Not quite. I’m hovering.’

      ‘What do you think of Harry Grove?’

      ‘As an actor?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘As an actor I think a lot of him.’

      ‘Just as well. You’ve got him.’

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