Vintage Murder Page 6

“I thought I said no one was to come out here. What were you doing, sir? Didn’t you understand—”

  “I just thought—” began Alleyn with that particular air of hurt innocence that always annoyed him when he met it in his official capacity. “I just thought—”

  “I’ll have your full name and address, if you please,” interrupted the inspector, and opened his notebook. “Allan, you said. First name?”

  “Roderick.”

  “How do you spell—” The inspector stopped short and stared at Alleyn.

  “A-l-l-e-y-n, Inspector.’

  “Good God!”

  “New Scotland Yard, London,” added Alleyn apologetically.

  “By cripes, sir, I’m sorry. We’d heard you were—we didn’t know—I mean—”

  “I shall call at headquarters when I get to Wellington,” said Alleyn. “I’ve got a letter somewhere from your chief. Should have answered it. Very dilatory of me.”

  “I’m very, very sorry, sir. We thought you were in Auckland. We’ve been expecting you, of course.”

  “I changed my plans,” said Alleyn. “All my fault, inspector—?”

  “Wade, sir,” said the inspector, scarlet in the face.

  “How do you do?” said Alleyn cheerfully, and held out his hand.

  “I’m very very pleased to meet you, Chief Inspector,” said Inspector Wade, shaking it relentlessly. “Very very pleased. We had word that you were on your way, and as a matter of fact, Superintendent Nixon was going to look in at the Middleton as soon as you came down. Yes, that’s right. The super was going to call. We’ve all been trained on your book. It’s—it’s a great honour to meet the author.”

  “That’s very nice of you,” said Alleyn, easing his fingers a little. “I should have called at your headquarters on my arrival but you know how it is in a new place. One puts off these things.” He glanced through the wings on to the stage.

  “That’s right. And now we meet on the job as you might say. Ye-ees.”

  “Not my job, thank the Lord,” said Alleyn, “and, look here. I want to hide my job under a bushel. So—if you don’t mind—just don’t mention it to any of these people.”

  “Certainly, sir. I hope you’ll let the boys here meet you. They’d be very very pleased, I know.”

  “So should I—delighted. Just tip them the wink, if you don’t mind, to forget about the C.I.D. And as I’m a layman, I suppose you want to ask me a few questions, Inspector?”

  The New Zealander’s large healthy face again turned red.

  “Well now, sir, that makes me feel a bit foolish but—well—yes, we’ve got to do the usual, you know.”

  “Of course you have,” said Alleyn very charmingly. “Nasty business, isn’t it? I shall be most interested to see something of your methods if you will allow me.”

  “It’s very fine of you to put it that way, sir. To be quite frank I was wondering if you would give us an account of what took place before the accident. You were in the party, I understand.”

  “A statement in my own words, Inspector?” asked Alleyn, twinkling.

  “That’s right,” agreed Wade with a roar of laughter, which he instantly quelled. His two subordinates, hearing this unseemly noise, strolled up and were introduced. Detective-Sergeants Cass and Packer. They shook Alleyn’s hand and stared profoundly at the floor. Alleyn gave a short but extremely workman-like account of the tragedy.

  “By cripes!” said Inspector Wade with great feeling, “it’s not often we get it like that. Now, about the way this champagne business was fixed. You say you made a sketch of it, sir?”

  Alleyn showed him the sketch.

  “Ought to have worked O.K.,” said Wade. “I’ll go up and have a look-see.”

  “You’ll find it rather different, now,” said Alleyn. “I ventured to have a glance up there myself. I do hope you don’t mind, Inspector. It was damned officious, I know, but I didn’t get off the ladder and I’m sure I’ve done no harm.”

  “That’s quite all right, sir,” said Wade heartily. “No objections here. We don’t have Scotland Yard alongside us every day. You say it’s different from your sketch?”

  “Yes. May I come up with you?”

  “Too right. You boys fix up down here. Get the photographs through and the body shifted to the mortuary. You’d better ring the station for more men. Get a statement from the stage-manager and the bloke that rigged this tackle. You can take that on, Cass. And Packer, you get statements from the rest of the crowd. Are they all in the wardrobe-room?”

  “I think they will be there by now,” said Alleyn. “The guests have gone, with the exception of a Mr. Gordon Palmer and his cousin Mr. Weston who, I believe, are still here. Mr. George Mason, the business manager, has a list of the names and addresses. The guests simply came behind the scenes for the party and are casual acquaintances of the company. Mr. Palmer and his cousin came out in the same ship as the company. I—I suggested that perhaps they might be of use. They were,” said Alleyn dryly, “delighted to remain.”

  “Good-oh,” said Wade. “Get to it, you boys. Are you ready, Mr. Alleyn?”

  He led the way up the iron ladder. When he reached the first gallery he paused and switched on his torch. “Not much light up here,” he grunted.

  “Wait a moment,” called Alleyn from below. ‘There’s a light-border. I’ll see if I can find the switch.”

  He climbed up to the electrician’s perch and, after one or two experiments, switched on the overhead lights. A flood of golden warmth poured down through the dark strips of canvas.

  “Good-oh,” said Wade.

  “It is extraordinary,” thought Alleyn, “how ubiquitous they make that remark. It expresses anything from acquiescence to approbation.”

  He mounted the iron ladder.

  “Well now, sir,” said Wade, “it all looks much the same as your sketch to me. Where’s the difference?”

  “Look at the rope by the pulley,” suggested Alleyn, climbing steadily. “Look at the end where the counterweight should be attached. Look—”

  He had reached the second platform where Wade sat, dangling his legs. He turned on the ladder and surveyed the tackle.

  “Hell’s gaiters!” said Alleyn very loudly. “They’ve put ’em back again.”

  A long silence followed. Alleyn suddenly began to chuckle.

  “One in the eye for me,” he said, “and a very pretty one, too. All the same it’s too damn’ clever by half. Look here, Inspector. When I came up here twenty minutes ago the counterweight was not attached to the rope over there, and the pulley had been moved eighteen inches this way by a loop of cord.”

  “Is that so?” said Wade solemnly. After another pause he glanced at Alleyn apologetically. “It’d be very dark then, sir. No lights at all, I take it. I suppose—”

  “I’ll go into the box and swear my socks off and my soul pink,” said Alleyn. “And I had a torch, what’s more. No—it’s been put right again. It must have been done while I was in the dressing-room. By George, I wonder if the fellow was up here on the platform when I came up the ladder. You had just got to the theatre when I went down.”

  “D’you mean,” asked Wade, “d’you mean to tell me that this gear was all different when we came in and someone’s changed it round since? We’d have known something about that, Mr. Alleyn.”

  “My dear chap, but would you? Look here, kick me out. I’ve no business to gate-crash on your job, Inspector. It’s insufferable. Just take my statement in the ordinary way and I’ll push off. Lord knows, I didn’t mean to buck round doing the C.I.D. official.”

  Wade, whose manner up to now had been a curious mixture of deference, awkwardness, and a somewhat forced geniality, now thawed completely.

  “Look, sir,” he said, “you don’t need to make any apologies. I reckon I know a gentleman when I meet one. We’ve read about your work out here, and if you like to interest yourself—well, we’ll be only too pleased. Now! Only too pleased.”

  “Extraordina
ry nice of you,” said Alleyn. “Thank you so much for those few nuts and so on. All right. Didn’t you stay by the stage-door for a bit, when you came in?”

  “Yes, that’s right, we did. Mr. Gascoigne met us there and started some long story. We didn’t know what was up. Simply got the message, there’d been an accident at the theatre. It took me a minute or two to get the rights of it and another minute or two to find out where the body was. You know how they are.”

  “Exactly. Well now, while that was going on, I fancy our gentleman was up here and very busy. He came up under cover of all the hoo-hah on the stage some time after the event. He was just going to put things straight, when he heard me climbin’ up de golden stair, as you might say. That must have given him a queasy turn. He took cover somewhere up here in the dark and as soon as I went down again he did what he had to do. Then, when you were safely on the stage and shut off by the walls of the scenery, down he came, pussy-foot, by the back-stage ladder, and mixed himself up with the crowd. Conjecture, perhaps—”

  “I’ve just been reading your views on conjecture, sir,” said Wade.

  “For the Lord’s sake, Wade, don’t bring my own burblings up against me, or I shall look the most unutterable ass. Conjecture or not, I think you’ll find traces of this performance if you look round up here.”

  “Come on, then, sir. Let’s go to it.”

  “Right you are. Tread warily, I would. Damn’—it’s slatted.”

  The gallery turned out to be a narrow stretch of steel-slatted platform extending from the prompt corner to the back wall, round the back wall, and along the opposite side of the O.P. corner. It was guarded by a rail to which the ropes that raised the scenic cloths were made fast. They began to work their way round, hugging the wall and taking long steps on the tips of their toes.

  “There’s plenty of dust in these regions,” said Alleyn. “I had a case that hung on just such another spot. Hung, by the way, is the right word. The homicide swung his victim from the grid.”

  “You mean the Gardener case, sir? I’ve read about that.”

  “Bless me, Inspector, if you’re not better up in my cases than I am myself. Stop a moment.”

  They had moved out of the area of light, and switched on their torches. Alleyn swung his towards the rail.

  “Here, you see, we are opposite the pulley. Now when I came up here before, a piece of cord had been passed round the batten on which the pulley is rigged. That beam, there. The rope to the beam stopped it from slipping and it was made fast to this cleat on the rail here. The effect was to drag the pulley eighteen inches or so this way.”

  “What for, though?” asked Wade.

  “In order that the jeroboam of fizz should fall, not into the nest of ferns and fairy lights, but on to the naked pate of poor Alfred Meyer.”

  “Geeze!”

  “And here, I think, I very much suspect, is the piece of cord. Neatly rolled round the cleat. Clever fellow, this. Keeps his head. What? Shall we move on?”

  “I’ll collect that cord on the way back,” grunted Wade. “On you go, sir. After you.”

  “There are any number of footprints in these damn’ slats. The stage hands have been all over the place, of course.”

  “Not much chance of anything there,” agreed Wade, “but we’ll have to see. If you’re right, sir, the suspect’s prints will be on top.”

  “So they will. Here’s the back wall. Another ladder here, you notice. I daren’t look down, I’m terrified of heights. Round we go. This, no doubt, is where he crouched with blazing eyes and bared molars while I climbed the ladder. Dramatic, ain’t it? Also remarkably grubby. Bang goes the old boiled shirt. Hullo! Another ladder going down to the back of the stage. That’ll be the one he used, I should think. Turn the corner gently. Now we’re on the last lap.”

  “And there’s the pulley again.”

  They had worked round to the O.P. gallery and were close by the pulley which hung within easy reach from its batten.

  “Yes,” said Alleyn, “and there hangs the counterweight on the hook. I understand the weight is one of the sort that is used in the second act, to lead the ship’s funnel down to the right spot. They’ve got several of them. Look. There is the funnel with the weight on it, just above our heads. And here, along the side, are several spare weights. Different sizes. You’ll notice that the ring at the top of the hook would serve as a chock and prevent the rope whizzing through the pulley when the weight was removed. The weight hung exactly half-way, so there would be no slack rope on the table.”

  “And you say there was no weight on this rope when you looked up here before?”

  “There was no weight. The rope with the cut end of red cord simply hung in the pulley.”

  He flashed his light on the beam. “You’ll notice the whole thing is within arm’s length of the gallery. The table was placed well over to the side for that reason.”

  “Well, I’ll test the batten for prints,” said Wade, “but it’s a bit hopeless. Anyway he’d use gloves. Don’t you reckon it’s a mistake, sir, the way they’ve advertised the finger-print system? Any fool crook knows better than to forget his gloves, these days.”

  “There are times,” said Alleyn, “when I could wish the penny Press-lords in the nethermost hell. Yet they have their uses, they have their uses. Nay, I can gleek on occasion.” Sensing Wade’s bewilderment he added hurriedly: “You’re right, Inspector, but of course they have to come out in evidence. Prints, I mean. I grow confused. It must be the smell of fizz.”

  “It was certainly a high-class way of murdering anybody,” said Wade dryly. “Dong him one with a gallon of champagne. Good-oh!”

  “I doubt if I shall enjoy even the soundest vintage years for some time to come,” said Alleyn. “The whole place reeks of it. You can even smell it up here. Great hopping fleas!”

  “What’s wrong, sir!”

  Alleyn was staring from the counterweight on the rope to those on the platform.

  “My dear Wade, we have come within an ace of making the most frightful fools of ourselves. Look at that weight.”

  “I am,” said Wade.

  “Well, my dear chap, what’s keeping it there?”

  “The weight of the—Cripey, sir, the cork blew out and half the champagne with it. That weight ought to be on the stage. It ought to be heavier than the half-empty bottle.”

  “Exactly. Therefore it is very much lighter than the full bottle. Therefore it is not the weight they rehearsed with. And what’s more, the original weight must have hung hard by the lower gallery, half-way down to the stage, within easy reach. He didn’t come up here for the first visit. He did his stuff from the lower gallery.”

  “You’re right, sir. And if you hadn’t come up the first time, it would have looked more like an accident and less like homicide.”

  Alleyn pulled in the rope and grasped it above the weight.

  “Nothing like heavy enough,” he said. “It must have been one of the big ones. Well—that’s that. Are we staying aloft, Inspector?”

  “I think we’ll go down now, sir. I’ll send Cass up to collect the stuff here. It’ll need careful handling, and I think had better be done by daylight. I’ll leave a man here, of course. Ye-ees.”

  Footsteps sounded on the stage below, and voices. They looked down and had a bird’s-eye view of a little procession. The police constable, whom Wade had left mounting guard over Meyer’s body, opened the door in the box set. Through it came Dr. Tancred, Dr. Te Pokiha, and two men with a stretcher. The stretcher was laid on the stage. Tancred looked up into the grid, his hand over his eyes.

  “You up there, Inspector?” he called.

  “Here I am, Doctor.”

  “All right if we move the body?”

  “Has Cass got his photos O.K.?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good-oh, then, doctor.’

  They lifted the terrible head. Tancred and Te Pokiha examined it again. It lolled back and seemed to stare up to where the two men wa
tched from above. Pieces of fern were stuck on the face, and it was cut with glass from the broken lights. Te Pokiha brushed the fern away. They hauled the body up from the chair. It seemed to be very heavy. At last they got it on the stretcher and covered it.

  “All right,” said Tancred.

  They carried Meyer away, the policeman holding the door open. Te Pokiha remained behind.

  “Well, we may as well go down,” said Wade.

  Alleyn did not answer. Wade turned to look at him. He was in the act of stooping. His long fingers reached for something that lay between two of the steel slats at his feet. His fingers edged at this little object, coaxed it up, and grasped it. He straightened, glanced down beneath him to where Te Pokiha stood, and then made a slight gesture of warning.

  “What’s up?” asked Wade softly.

  Alleyn stretched out his hand into the light. On the palm lay a small green object of a singular shape. Its head lolled over to one side and it seemed to be grinning.

  “Are you coming down?” called Te Pokiha from the stage.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Wardrobe-Room Muster

  “IT’S A TIKI,” said Wade.

  “Yes. May be of some importance. Wait a moment.”

  Alleyn pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, dropped the tiki on it and folded it over carefully.

  “There you are, Inspector. I’ll give you the history when we get down. In the meantime, if I may make a suggestion, keep it under your hat.”

  They climbed down the O.P. ladder to the stage. Te Pokiha waited for them.

  “If you’ve no further use for me, Mr. Wade, I think I’ll clear out,” he said. “It’s one o’clock.

  “Right-oh, then, doctor,” agreed Wade. “We’ll want you for the inquest.”

  “I suppose so.” He turned to Alleyn. “I had no idea you were the famous Roderick Alleyn,” he said in his warm voice. “It’s strange that this should be your introduction to New Zealand. I have read—”

  “Have you?” said Alleyn quickly. “I’m supposed to be on a holiday for my health. And by the way, I particularly don’t want my identity made public. As far as this affair goes, I’m a layman, Dr. Te Pokiha. Inspector Wade very kindly allowed me to have a look at the pulley up there.”