Vintage Murder. Ngaio Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ this tour’s concerned—’

      ‘Finish!’ said Gascoigne.

      ‘We’ve got to do something about it, Ted,’ said Hambledon quietly.

      ‘We built it up between us,’ said Mason suddenly. ‘When I first met Alf he was advancing a No. 4 company in St Helens. I was selling tickets for the worst show in England. We never looked back. We’ve never had a nasty word, never. And look at the business we’ve built up.’ His lips trembled. ‘By God, if someone’s killed him – you’re right, Hailey. I’m – I’m all anyhow – you fix it, Ted. I’m all anyhow.’

      Dr Te Pokiha looked at him.

      ‘How about joining the others, Mr Mason? Perhaps a whisky would be a good idea. Your office—?’

      Mason got to his feet and came down to the centre of the table. He looked at what was left of Alfred Meyer’s head, buried among the fern and broken fairy lights, wet with champagne and with blood. The two fat white hands still grasped the edges of the nest.

      ‘God!’ said Mason. ‘Do we have to leave him like that?’

      ‘It will only be for a little while,’ said Alleyn gently. ‘I should let Dr Te Pokiha take you to the office.’

      ‘Alf,’ murmured Mason. ‘Old Alf!’ He stood there, his lips shaking, his face ugly with suppressed emotion. Alleyn, who was accustomed to scenes of this sort, was conscious of his familiar daemon which took little at face value, and observed so much. The daemon prompted him to notice how unembarrassed Gascoigne and Hambledon were by Mason’s emotion, how they had assumed so easily a mood of sorrowful correctness, almost as if they had rehearsed the damn’ scene, and the daemon.

      They got Mason away. Te Pokiha went with him and said he would ring up the police. The unfortunate Bert, the stage-hand who had rigged the tackle under Meyer’s and Gascoigne’s directions, was hanging about in the wings and now came on the stage. He began to explain the mechanics of the champagne stunt to Alleyn.

      ‘It was like this ’ere. We fixed the rope over the pulley, see, and on one end we fixed the bloody bottle and on the other end we hooked the bloody weight. The weight was one of them corner weights we used for the bloody funnels.’

      ‘Ease up on the language, Bert,’ suggested Gascoigne moodily.

      ‘Good-oh, Mr Gascoigne. And the weight was not so heavy as the bottle, see. And we took a lead with a red cord from just above the weight, see, and fixed it to the table. So when the cord was cut she came down gradual like, seeing she was that much heavier than the weight. The weight and the bottle hung half-way between the pulley and the table, see, so when she came down, the weight went up to the pulley. It was hooked into a ring in the rope. We cut out the lights and used candles so’s nothing would be noticed. We tried her out till we was sick and tired of her and she worked corker every time. She worked good-oh, didn’t she, Mr Gascoigne?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Gascoigne. ‘That’s what I say. There’s been some funny business.’

      ‘That’s right,’ agreed Bert heavily. ‘There bloody well must of.’

      ‘I’m just going aloft to take a look,’ said Gascoigne.

      ‘Just a moment,’ interrupted Alleyn. He took a notebook and pencil from his pocket. ‘Don’t you think perhaps we had better not go up just yet, Mr Gascoigne? If there has been any interference, the police ought to be the first on the spot, oughtn’t they?’

      ‘I think I’ll go and see how Carolyn is,’ said Hambledon suddenly.

      ‘They’re all in their dressing-rooms,’ said Gascoigne.

      Hambeldon went away. Alleyn completed a little sketch in his notebook and showed it to Gascoigne and Bert.

      ‘Was it like that?’

      ‘That’s right, mister,’ said Bert, ‘you got it. That’s how it was. And when she cut the bloody cord, see …’ he rambled on.

      Alleyn looked at the jeroboam. It had been cased in a sort of net which closed in at the neck, and was securely wired to the rope.

      ‘Wonder why the cork blew out,’ murmured Alleyn.

      ‘The wire was loosened a bit before it came down,’ said Gascoigne. ‘He – the governor himself – he went aloft after the show specially to do it. He didn’t want a stage-wait after it came down. He said the wire would still hold the cork.’

      ‘And it did till the jolt – yes. What about the counterweight, Mr Gascoigne? That would have to be detached before the champagne was poured out.’

      ‘Bert was to go up at once and take it off.’

      ‘I orfered to stay up there, like,’ said Bert. ‘But ’e says “No,”, ’e says, “you can see the show and then go up. I’ll watch it.” Gawd, Mr Gascoigne—’

      Alleyn slipped away through the wings. Off-stage it was very dark and smelt of theatre. He walked along the wall until he came to the foot of an iron ladder. He was reminded most vividly of his only other experience behind the scenes. ‘Is my mere presence in the stalls,’ he thought crossly, ‘a cue for homicide? May I not visit the antipodes without elderly theatre magnates having their heads bashed in by jeroboams of champagne before my very eyes? And the answer being “No” to each of these questions, can I not get away quickly without nosing into the why and wherefore?’

      He put on his gloves and began to climb the ladder. ‘Again the answer is “No.” The truth of the matter is I’m an incurable nosy parker. Detect I must, if I can.’ He reached the first gallery, and peered about him, using his electric torch, and then went on up the ladder. ‘I wonder how she’s taking it? And Hambledon. Will they marry each other in due course, provided – After all, she may not be in love with Hambledon. Ah, here we are.’

      He paused at the top gallery and switched on his torch.

      Close beside him a batten, slung on ropes, ran across from his gallery to the opposite one. Across the batten hung a pulley and over the pulley was a rope. Looking down the far length of the rope, he saw it run away in sharp perspective from dark into light. He had a bird’s-eye view of the lamplit set, the tops of the wings, the flat white strip of table; and there, at the end of the rope in the middle of the table, a flattened object, rather like a beetle with a white head and paws. That was Alfred Meyer. The other end of the rope, terminating in an iron hook, was against the pulley. The hook had been secured to a ring in the end of the rope, and the red cord which Carolyn had cut was also tied to the ring. The cut end of the cord dangled in mid-air. On the hook he should have found the counterweight.

      But there was no counterweight.

      He looked again at the pulley. It was as he had thought. A loop of thin cord had been passed round the near end of the batten and tied to the gallery. It had served to pull the batten eighteen inches to one side. So that when the bottle dropped it was slightly to the right of the centre of the table.

      ‘Stap me and sink me!’ said Alleyn and returned to the stage. He found Ted Gascoigne by the stage-door. With him were two large dark men, wearing overcoats, scarves, and black felt hats; a police officer, and a short pink-faced СКАЧАТЬ