Vintage Murder

‘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 workmanlike 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 OK,’ 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 there,’ 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 CID 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.’

‘Extraordinary 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 scenery, down he came pussy-foot, by the back-stage ladder, and mixed himself up with the crowd. Conjecture, perhaps—’

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