Night at the Vulcan Read online

  Poole said gently: ‘All right, Ella, you shall. It looks as if Ben locked himself in after his exit and then turned the gas-fire off—and on again. When Clem unlocked the door and went in he found Ben on the floor. His head was near the fire and a coat over both. He could only have been like that for quite a short time.’

  ‘This theatre,’ she said. ‘This awful theatre.’

  Poole looked as if he would make some kind of protest but after a moment’s hesitation he said: ‘All right, Ella. Perhaps it did suggest the means but if he had made up his mind he would, in any case, have found the means.’

  ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why has he done it?’

  Dr Rutherford growled inarticulately and went out. They heard him open and shut the dock doors. Poole sat down by Helena and took her hands in his. Martyn was going but he looked up at her and said: ‘No, don’t. Don’t go, Kate,’ and she waited near the door.

  ‘This is no time,’ Poole said, ‘to speculate. He may be saved. If he isn’t, then we shall of course ask ourselves just why. But he was in a bad way, Ella. He’d gone to pieces and he knew it.’

  ‘I wasn’t much help,’ she said, ‘was I? Though it’s true to say I did try for quite a long time.’

  ‘Indeed you did. There’s one thing you must be told. If it’s no go with Ben, we’ll have to inform the police.’

  She put her hand to her forehead as if she was puzzled. ‘The police?’ she repeated and stared at him. ‘No, darling, no!’ she cried and after a moment whispered. ‘They might think—oh, darling, darling, darling, the Lord knows what they think!’

  The door up-stage opened and Gay Gainsford came in, followed by Darcey.

  She was in her street clothes and at some time during the evening had made extensive repairs to her face which wore, at the moment, an expression oddly compounded of triumph and distraction. Before she could speak she was seized with a paroxysm of coughing.

  Darcey said: ‘Is it all right for Gay to wait here?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Helena.

  He went out and Poole followed him saying he would return.

  ‘Darling,’ Miss Gainsford gasped. ‘I knew. I knew as soon as I smelt it. There’s a Thing in this theatre. Everything pointed to it. I just sat there and knew.’ She coughed again. ‘Oh I do feel so sick,’ she said.

  ‘Gay for pity’s sake what are you talking about?’ Helena said.

  ‘It was Fate, I felt. I wasn’t a bit surprised. I just knew something had to happen tonight.’

  ‘Do you mean to say,’ Helena murmured, and the wraith of her gift for irony was on her mouth, ‘that you just sat in the greenroom with your finger raised, telling yourself it was Fate?’

  ‘Darling Aunty—I’m sorry. I forgot—darling, Ella, wasn’t it amazing?’

  Helena made a little gesture of defeat. Miss Gainsford looked at her for a moment and then, with the prettiest air of compassion, knelt at her feet. ‘Sweet,’ she said, ‘I’m so terribly, terribly sorry. We’re together in this, aren’t we? He was my uncle and your husband.’

  ‘True enough,’ said Helena. She looked at Martyn over the head bent in devoted commiseration, and shook her own helplessly. Gay Gainsford sank into a sitting posture and leant her cheek against Helena’s hand. The hand, after a courteous interval, was withdrawn.

  There followed a very long silence. Martyn sat at a distance and wondered if there was anything in the world she could do to help. There was an intermittent murmur of voices somewhere offstage. Gay Gainsford, feeling perhaps that she had sustained her position long enough, moved by gradual degrees away from her aunt by marriage, rose and, sighing heavily, transferred herself to the sofa.

  Time dragged on, mostly in silence. Helena lit one cigarette from the butt of another, Gay sighed with infuriating punctuality and Martyn’s thoughts drifted sadly about the evaporation of her small triumph.

  Presently there were sounds of arrival. One or two persons walked round the set from the outside entry to the dock and were evidently admitted into it.

  ‘Who can that be, I wonder?’ Helena Hamilton asked idly, and after a moment, ‘Is Jacko about?’

  ‘I’ll see,’ said Martyn.

  She found Jacko off-stage with Darcey and Parry Percival. Percival was saying: ‘Well, naturally, nobody wants to go to the party but I must say that as one is quite evidently useless here I don’t see why one can’t go home.’

  Jacko said: ‘You would be recalled by the police, I dare say, if you went.’

  He caught sight of Martyn who went up to him. His face was beaded with sweat. ‘What is it, my small?’ he asked. ‘This is a sad epilogue to your success story. Never mind. What is it?’

  ‘I think Miss Hamilton would like to see you?’

  ‘Then, I come. It is time, in any case.’

  He took her by the elbow and they went in together. When Helena saw him she seemed to rouse herself. ‘Jacko?’ she said.

  He didn’t answer and she got up quickly and went to him. ‘Jacko! What is it? Has it happened?’

  Jacko’s hands, so refined and delicate that they seemed like those of another man, touched her hair and her face.

  ‘It has happened,’ he said. ‘We have tried very hard but nothing is any good at all and there is no more to be done. He has taken wing.’

  Gay Gainsford broke into a fit of sobbing but Helena stooped her head to Jacko’s shoulder and when his arms had closed about her said: ‘Help me to feel something, Jacko. I’m quite empty of feeling. Help me to be sorry.’

  Above her head, Jacko’s face, glistening with sweat, grotesque and primitive, had the fixed inscrutability of a classic mask.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Disaster

  CLEM SMITH RANG UP the police as soon as Dr Rutherford said that Bennington was beyond recovery and within five minutes a constable and sergeant had appeared at the stage-door. They went into the dock with Rutherford and then to Bennington’s dressing-room where they remained alone for some time. During this period an aimless discussion developed among the members of the company about where they should go. Clem Smith suggested the greenroom as the warmest place and added, tactlessly, that the fumes had probably dispersed and if so there was no reason why they shouldn’t light the fire. Both Parry Percival and Gay Gainsford had made an outcry against this suggestion on the grounds of delicacy and susceptibility. Darcey supported Gay, the ASM suggested the offices and Jacko the auditorium. Doctor Rutherford, who appeared to be less upset than anyone else, merely remarked that ‘all places that the eye of Heaven visits, are to a wise man, ports and happy havens,’ which, as Percival said acidly, got them nowhere.

  Finally Poole asked if the central-heating couldn’t be stoked up and a stage-hand was dispatched to the underworld to find out. Evidently he met with success as presently the air became less chilled. With only a spatter of desultory conversation, the players sat about the stage and cleaned their faces. And they listened.

  They heard the two men come back along the passage and separate. Then the central door opened and the young constable came in.

  He was a tall good-looking youth with a charming smile.

  ‘The sergeant,’ he said, ‘has asked me to explain that he’s telephoning Scotland Yard. He couldn’t be more sorry but he’s afraid he’ll have to ask everybody to wait until he gets his instructions. He’s sure you’ll understand that it’s just a matter of routine.’

  He might have been apologizing for his mother’s late arrival at her own dinner-party.

  He was about to withdraw when Dr Rutherford said: ‘Hi! Sonny!’

  ‘Yes, sir?’ said the young constable obligingly.

  ‘You intrigue me. You talk, as they say, like a book. Non sine dis animosus infans. You swear with a good grace and wear your boots very smooth, do you not?’

  The young constable was, it seemed, only momentarily taken aback. He said: ‘Well, sir, for my boots they are after the Dogberry fashion and for my swearing, sir, it goes by the book.’


  The doctor who, until now, had seemed to share the general feeling of oppression and shock, appeared to cheer up with indecent haste. He was, in fact, clearly enchanted: ‘Definite, definite, well-educated infant,’ he quoted exultantly.

  ‘I mean that in court, sir, we swear by the Book. But I’m afraid, sir,’ added the young constable apologetically, ‘that I’m not much of a hand at “Bardinage”. My purse is empty already. If you’ll excuse me,’ he concluded, with a civil glance round the company, ‘I’ll just—’

  He was again about to withdraw when his sergeant came in at the OP entrance.

  ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ the sergeant said in what Martyn, for one, felt was the regulation manner. ‘Very sorry to keep you, I’m sure. Sad business. In these cases we have to do a routine check-up as you might say. My superior officers will be here in a moment and then, I hope, we shan’t be long. Thank you.’

  He tramped across the stage, said something inaudible to the constable and was heard to go into the dock. The constable took a chair from the prompt corner, placed it in the proscenium entrance and, with a modest air, sat on it. His glance fell upon Martyn and he smiled at her. They were the youngest persons there and it was as if they signalled in a friendly manner to each other. In turning away from this pleasant exchange, Martyn found that Poole was watching her with fixed and, it seemed, angry glare. To her fury she found that she was very much disturbed by this circumstance.

  They had by this time all cleaned their faces. Helena Hamilton with an unsteady hand put on a light street make-up. The men looked ghastly in the cold working lights that bleakly illuminated the stage.

  Parry Percival said fretfully: ‘Well, I must say I do not see the smallest point in our hanging about like this.’

  The constable was about to answer when they all heard sounds of arrival at the stage-door. He said: ‘This will be the party from the Yard, sir,’ and crossed to the far exit. The sergeant was heard to join him there.

  There was a brief conversation off-stage. A voice said: ‘You two go round with Gibson then, will you? I’ll join you in a moment.’

  The young constable reappeared to usher in a tall man in plain clothes.

  ‘Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn,’ he said.

  Martyn, in her weary pilgrimage round the West End, had seen men of whom Alleyn at first reminded her. In the neighbourhood of the St James’s Theatre, they had emerged from clubs, from restaurants and from enchanting and preposterous shops. There had been something in their bearing and their clothes that gave them a precise definition. But when she looked more closely at Inspector Alleyn’s face, this association became modified. It was a spare and scholarly face with a monkish look about it.

  Martyn had formed the habit of thinking of people’s voices in terms of colour. Helena Hamilton’s voice, for instance, was for Martyn golden, Gay Gainsford’s pink, Darcey’s brown and Adam Poole’s violet. When Alleyn spoke she decided that his voice was a royal blue of the clearest sort.

  Reminding herself that this was no time to indulge this freakish habit of classification she gave him her full attention.

  ‘You will, I’m sure,’ he was saying, ‘realize that in these cases, our job is simply to determine that they are, on the face of it, what they appear to be. In order to do this effectively we are obliged to make a fairly thorough examination of the scene as we find it. This takes a little time always but if everything’s quite straightforward, as I expect it will be, we won’t keep you very long. Is that clear?’

  He looked round his small audience. Poole said at once: ‘Yes, of course. We all understand. At the same time, if it’s a matter of taking statements, I’d be grateful if you’d see Miss Hamilton first.’

  ‘Miss Hamilton?’ Alleyn said and after a moment’s hesitation, looked at her.

  ‘I’m his wife,’ she said. ‘I’m Helena Bennington.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Yes, I’m sure that can be managed. Probably the best will be for me to see you all together. If everything seems quite clear there may be no excuse for further interviews. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have a look round and then rejoin you. There is a doctor among you, isn’t there? Dr Rutherford?’ Dr Rutherford cleared his throat portentously. ‘Are you he, sir? Perhaps you’ll join us.’

  ‘Indubitably,’ said the doctor. ‘I had so concluded.’

  ‘Good,’ Alleyn said and looked faintly amused. ‘Will you lead the way?’

  They were at the door when Jacko suddenly said: ‘A moment, if you please, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I would like permission to make soup. There is a filthy small kitchen-place inhabited only by the night-watchman where I have a can of prepared soup. Everyone is very cold and fatigued and entirely empty. My name is Jacques Doré. I am dogsbody-in-waiting in this theatre and there is much virtue in my soup.’

  Alleyn said: ‘By all means. Is the kitchen-place that small sink-room near the dock with the gas-jet in it?’

  ‘But you haven’t looked at the place yet!’ Parry Percival ejaculated.

  ‘I’ve been here before,’ said Alleyn. ‘I remember the theatre. Shall we get on, Dr Rutherford?’

  They went out. Gay Gainsford, whose particular talent, from now onwards, was to lie in the voicing of disquieting thoughts which her companions shared but decided to leave unspoken, said in a distracted manner: ‘When was he here before?’ And when nobody answered she said dramatically: ‘I can see it all! He must be the man they sent that other time.’ She paused and collected their reluctant attention. She laid her hand on J.G.’s arm and raised her voice: ‘That’s why he’s come again,’ she announced.

  ‘Come now, dear,’ J.G. murmured inadequately and Poole said quickly: ‘My dear Gay!’

  ‘But I’m all right!’ she persisted. ‘I’m sure I’m right. Why else should he know about the sink-room?’ She looked about her with an air of terrified complacency.

  ‘And last time,’ she pointed out, ‘it was Murder.’

  ‘Climax,’ said Jacko. ‘Picture and Slow Curtain! Put your hands together, ladies and gentlemen, for this clever little artiste.’ He went out with his eyes turned up.

  ‘Jacko’s terribly hard, isn’t he?’ Gay said to Darcey. ‘After all Uncle Ben was my uncle.’ She caught sight of Helena Hamilton. ‘And your husband,’ she said hurriedly, ‘of course, darling.’

  The stage-hands had set up in the dock one of the trestle-tables used for properties. They had laid Clark Bennington’s body on it and had covered it with a sheet from the wardrobe-room. The dock was a tall echoing place, concrete floored, with stacks of old flats leaning against the walls. A solitary unprotected lamp bulb, dust-encrusted, hung above the table.

  A group of four men in dark overcoats and hats stood beside this improvised bier and it so chanced they had taken up their places at the four corners and looked therefore as if they kept guard over it. Their hats shadowed their faces and they stood in pools of shadow. A fifth man, bareheaded, stood at the foot of the bier and a little removed from it. When the tallest of the men reached out to the margin of the sheet, his arm cast a black bar over its white and eloquent form. His gloved hand dragged down the sheet and exposed a rigid gaping face encrusted with greasepaint. He uncovered his head and the other three, a little awkwardly, followed his example.

  ‘Well, Curtis?’ he asked.

  Dr Curtis, the police-surgeon, bent over the head, blotting it out with his shadow. He took a flashlamp from his pocket and the face, in this changed light, started out with an altered look as if it had secretly rearranged its expression.

  ‘God!’ Curtis muttered. ‘He looks pretty ghastly doesn’t he. What an atrocious make-up.’

  From his removed position Dr Rutherford said loudly: ‘My dear man, the make-up was required for My Play. It should, in point of fact, be a damn sight more repellent. But vanitas vanitatum. Also: Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens. I didn’t let them fix him up at all. Thought y
ou’d prefer not.’ His voice echoed coldly round the dock.

  ‘Quite so,’ Curtis murmured. ‘Much better not.’

  ‘Smell very noticeable still,’ a thick-set grizzled man observed. ‘Always hangs about in these cases,’ rejoined the sergeant, ‘doesn’t it, Mr Fox?’

  ‘We worked damn hard on him,’ Dr Rutherford said. ‘It never looked like it from the start. Not a hope.’

  ‘Well,’ said Curtis, drawing back, ‘it all seems straightforward enough, Alleyn. It doesn’t call for a very extensive autopsy but of course we’ll do the usual things.’

  ‘Lend me your torch a moment,’ Alleyn said, and after a moment: ‘Very heavy make-up, isn’t it? He’s so thickly powdered.’

  ‘He needed it. He sweated,’ Dr Rutherford said, ‘like a pig. Alcohol and a dicky heart.’

  ‘Did you look after him, sir?’

  ‘Not I. I don’t practise nowadays. The alcohol declared itself and he used to talk about a heart condition. Valvula trouble, I should imagine. I don’t know who his medical man was. His wife can tell you.’

  Dr Curtis replaced the sheet. ‘That,’ he said to Rutherford, ‘might account for him going quickly.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘There’s a mark under the jaw,’ Alleyn said. ‘Did either of you notice it. The make-up is thinner there. Is it a bruise?’

  Curtis said: ‘I saw it, yes. It might be a bruise. We’ll see better when we clean him up.’

  ‘Right. I’ll look at the room,’ Alleyn said. ‘Who found him?’

  ‘The stage-manager,’ said Rutherford.

  ‘Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind asking him to come along when you rejoin the others. Thank you, so much, Dr Rutherford. We’re glad to have had your report. You’ll be called for the inquest, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Hell’s teeth, I suppose I shall. So be it.’ He moved to the doors. The sergeant obligingly rolled them open and he muttered: ‘Thankee,’ and with an air of dissatisfaction went out.

  Dr Curtis said: ‘I’d better go and make professional noises at him.’