Swan Song. Edmund Crispin

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      Adam and Elizabeth travelled up to Oxford on a raw, bleak afternoon late in January. The sky was pigeon-grey and the wind chilling. Adam, fretful at the possibility of hoarseness, was wound up in mufflers, but luckily their trains were adequately heated. From Oxford station they took a taxi to the ‘Mace and Sceptre’, where they had reserved rooms. Adam stood about and smoked while Elizabeth unpacked and put away their things. Afterwards they went downstairs to the bar, where they were pleased to find Joan Davis, sipping a dry Martini at one of the glass-topped tables.

      From her Adam learned various details of the Meistersinger production.

      Edwin Shorthouse was to play Sachs; the Walther and Eva were of course Adam and Joan; Fritz Adelheim, a young German, had the part of David, and John Barfield that of Kothner.

      ‘And this man Peacock, who’s conducting,’ said Adam. ‘Have you met him?’

      ‘My dear, yes. Very young but utterly charming. This is his first Big Chance, so you must forget all about what you did under Bruno and Tommy, and cooperate zealously.’

      ‘But is he any good?’

      ‘That remains to be seen. But I don’t think Levi would have put him in if he weren’t. Levi has quite an eye for operatic conductors.’

      ‘Who’s producing?’

      ‘Daniel Rutherston.’

      ‘As melancholy as ever, I don’t doubt. And Karl is régisseur?’

      ‘Yes. Very cock-a-hoop about it. You know what a fanatical Wagnerian he is. Come to think of it,’ said Joan, ‘I shan’t be sorry to get back to Wagner now the war-time interdict has lifted … Why was there an interdict, anyway?’

      ‘It’s a highbrow axiom,’ Adam explained, ‘that Wagner was responsible for the rise of Nazism. If you want to be in the fashion you must refer darkly to the evil workings of the Ring in the Teutonic mentality – though as the whole cycle of operas is devoted to showing that even the gods can’t break an agreement without bringing the whole universe crashing about their ears, I’ve never been able to see what possible encouragement Hitler can have got out of it … But you mustn’t get me on this subject. It’s one of my hobby-horses. You’ve been abroad, Joan, haven’t you?’

      ‘In America. Playing Bohème and dying of consumption five times weekly. As a matter of fact, I nearly died of over-eating. You should go to America, Adam. They have food there.’

      The three of them passed an agreeable evening together and went early to bed. At ten o’clock next morning piano rehearsals began. Beneath an obstinately cinereous sky Adam and Joan walked to the opera-house in Beaumont Street.

      While, in general, the English do not erect opera-houses if they can avoid it – preferring commonly such witty and ennobling occupations as Betty Grable and the football pools – Oxford has recently provided a notable exception to the rule. It stands on the corner of Beaumont Street and St John Street, at the side nearest to Worcester College, and is built of Headington stone. The foyer glows with a discreet, green-carpeted opulence. About it are ranged busts of the greater operatic masters – Wagner, Verdi, Mozart, Gluck, Mussorgsky. There is also one of Brahms – for no very clear reason, though it may perhaps be a tribute to his curious and fortunately abortive project for an opera about gold-mining in the Yukon. The auditorium is comparatively small, but the stage and orchestra-pit are capable of dealing with the grandest of grand opera. The stage equipment is replete with complex and fallible devices, and a menagerie of mechanical fauna inhabits the property-rooms. The dressing-rooms, too, are more luxurious than is usual; the two floors on which they are situated are even served by a small lift.

      With such amenities, however, Adam and Joan were not for the moment concerned. They made their way to the stage door, and thence, directed by an aged janitor, to one of the rehearsal rooms.

      Most of the others had already arrived, and were grouped round the grand piano. Apart from this, and a number of chairs constructed principally of chromium piping, the place was very bare. Its sole concession to aesthetic decorum was a lopsided photograph of Puccini, markedly resembling the proprietor of an Edwardian ice-cream stall.

      Adam was introduced to Peacock, who proved to be a quiet man of about thirty, conventionally dressed, tall, thin, and with a prematurely sparse provision of red hair. Adam liked him immediately. Among the others present were Karl Wolzogen, a wiry little German, preternaturally energetic despite his seventy years; Caithness, at the piano, a dour and laconic Scot; Edwin Shorthouse, exhaling nostalgically the fumes of last night’s gin; and John Barfield, the Kothner. The remainder of the cast were not intimately concerned in the events which followed a fortnight later, and need not be specifically mentioned here. Most of them Adam knew, for the number of operatic singers in England is not large, and they are frequently thrown together.

      The rehearsal went as well as such rehearsals do go, and it was pleasing to find that Peacock knew his business. Edwin Shorthouse took direction with such unaccustomed meekness that Adam became suspicious. He remained uneasy, indeed, as long as the piano rehearsals lasted. Such saintly forbearance as Shorthouse was displaying is rare in any singer, and in Shorthouse, Adam reflected, was positively unnatural. He was not altogether surprised, therefore, at the campaign of obstruction which coincided with the beginning of the orchestral rehearsals.

      None the less, things went quite smoothly in the early stages, and up to the day of the murder only one incident occurred which it is necessary to relate. The protagonists were Shorthouse, Joan Davis, and a young girl named Judith Haynes.

      It was a Monday evening. During the afternoon they had run straight through the last scene of act three, finishing at about six o’clock; and subsequently, Joan Davis remained in the rehearsal-room with Peacock to deal with various loose ends in her own part. Unknown to them, two other people were still in the theatre: Shorthouse, who was drinking heavily in his dressing-room (he had been by no means sober during the afternoon, though, as always, he sang magnificently), and Judith Haynes, a member of the chorus, who had stayed on with a view to altering her costume which fitted badly.

      At seven Peacock left, and Joan went up to her dressing-room to fetch a coat and scarf. In the chorus dressing-room she found Shorthouse, exceedingly drunk, doing his best to remove the clothes from Judith Haynes, who was struggling inexpertly with him. Joan – by no means a puny or a nervous woman – acted with vigour and promptness. In falling, Shorthouse caught his head on the angle of the door, and this contributed a good deal to quietening him. In fact, he lay without moving.

      ‘And that is that,’ said Joan, gazing at his supine form with workmanlike pride. She turned to the girl, who was dealing, scarlet-faced, with buttons and shoulder-straps, Joan saw that she was slender, fair, and young. ‘Are you all right, my dear?’

      ‘Y-yes, thank-you,’ Judith stammered. ‘I – I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t come along. I – He’s not –?’

      ‘No, no,’ Joan reassured her. ‘Breathing stertorously and very much alive. You’d better go home, hadn’t you?’

      ‘Yes. I – I don’t know how to thank you.’ Judith hesitated, and then added with a rush: ‘Please – please don’t tell anyone about this, will you? I should hate anyone to know …’

      Joan frowned slightly. ‘If it weren’t a bit too late to get a substitute, I should see to it that Edwin was kicked out of this production.’

      ‘No, you mustn’t.’ СКАЧАТЬ