Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 6: Opening Night, Spinsters in Jeopardy, Scales of Justice. Ngaio Marsh
Hamilton, when she came off for her changes, spoke of nothing but the business in hand and said little enough about that. She was indrawn and formal in her dealings with her dresser. Martyn wondered uneasily how much Poole had told her of their interviews, whether she had any strong views or prejudices about her husband’s niece or shared his resentment that Martyn herself had been cast as an understudy.
The heat radiated by the strong lights of the dressing-rooms intensified their characteristic smells. With business-like precision Miss Hamilton would aim an atomizer at her person and spray herself rhythmically with scent while Martyn, standing on a chair, waited to slip a dress over her head. After the end of the second act when she was about this business in the star-room, Poole came in: ‘That went very nicely, Ella,’ he said.
Martyn paused with the dress in her hands. Miss Hamilton extended her whitened arms and, with a very beautiful movement, turned to him.
‘Oh, darling,’ she said. ‘Did it? Did it really?’
Martyn thought she had never seen anyone more lovely than her employer was then. Hers was the kind of beauty that declared itself when most simply arrayed. The white cloth that protected her hair added a Holbein-like emphasis to the bones and subtly turning planes of her face. There was a sort of naïvety and warmth in her posture: a touching intimacy. Martyn saw Poole take the hands that were extended to him and she turned her head away, not liking, with the voluminous dress in her arms, to climb down from her station on the chair. She felt suddenly desolate and shrunken within herself.
‘Was it really right?’ Miss Hamilton said.
‘You were, at least.’
‘But – otherwise?’
‘Much as one would expect.’
‘Where’s John?’
‘In the circle, under oath not to come down until I say so.’
‘Pray God he keep his oath,’ she quoted sombrely.
‘Hallo, Kate,’ Poole said.
‘Kate?’ Miss Hamilton asked. ‘Why, Kate?’
‘I suspect her,’ said Poole, ‘of being a shrew. Get on with your job, Kate. What are you doing up there?’
Miss Hamilton said, ‘Really, darling!’ and moved away to the chair. Martyn slipped the dress over her head, jumped down and began to fasten it. She did this to a running accompaniment from Poole. He whispered to himself anxiously as if he were Martyn, muttered and grunted as if Miss Hamilton complained that the dress was tight, and thus kept up a preposterous dialogue, matching his words to their actions. This was done so quaintly and with so little effort that Martyn had much ado to keep a straight face and Miss Hamilton was moved to exasperated laughter. When she was dressed she took him by the arms. ‘Since when, my sweet, have you become a dressing-room comedian?’
‘Oh, God, your only jig-maker!’
‘Last act, please, last act,’ said the call-boy in the passage.
‘Come on,’ she said, and they went out together.
When the curtain was up, Martyn returned to the improvised dressing-room on the stage and there, having for the moment no duties, she listened to the invisible play and tried to discipline her most unruly heart.
Bennington’s last exit was followed in the play by his suicide, offstage. Jacko, who had, it seemed, a passion for even the simplest of off-stage stunts, had come round from the front of the house to supervise the gunshot. He stood near the entry into the dressing-room passage with a stage-hand who carried an effects-gun. This was fired at the appropriate moment and as they were stationed not far from Martyn in her canvas room, she leapt at the report which was nerve-shatteringly successful. The acrid smell of the discharge drifted into her roofless shelter.
Evidently Bennington was standing nearby. His voice, carefully lowered to a murmur, sounded just beyond the canvas wall. ‘And that,’ he said, ‘takes me right off, thank God. Give me a cigarette, Jacko, will you?’ There was a pause. The stage-hand moved away. A match scraped and Bennington said: ‘Come to my room and have a drink.’
‘Thank you, Ben, not now,’ Jacko whispered. ‘The curtain comes down in five minutes.’
‘Followed by a delicious post-mortem conducted by the Great Producer and the Talented Author. Entrancing prospect! How did I go, Jacko?’
‘No actor,’ Jacko returned, ‘cares to be told how he goes in anything but terms of extravagant praise. You know how clever you always are. You are quite as clever tonight as you have always been. Moreover you showed some discretion.’
Martyn heard Bennington chuckle. ‘There’s still tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I reserve my fire, old boy. I bide my time.’
There was a pause. Martyn heard one of them fetch a long sigh: Jacko, evidently, because Bennington as if in answer to it said: ‘Oh, nonsense.’ After a moment he added: The kid’s all right,’ and when Jacko didn’t answer: ‘Don’t you think so?’
‘Why, yes,’ said Jacko.
On the stage the voices of Helena Hamilton and Adam Poole built towards a climax. The call-boy came round behind the set and went down the passage chanting: ‘All on for the Curtain please. All on.’
Martyn shifted the chair in the dressing-room and moved noisily. There was a brief silence.
‘I don’t give a damn if she can hear,’ Bennington said more loudly. ‘Wait a moment. Stay where you are. I was asking you what you thought of Gay’s performance. She’s all right. Isn’t she?’
‘Yes, yes. I must go.’
‘Wait a bit. If the fools left her alone she’d go tremendously. I tell you what, old boy. If our Eccentric Author exercises his talent for wisecracking on that kid tonight I’ll damn well take a hand.’
‘You will precipitate a further scene, and that is to be avoided.’
‘I’m not going to stand by and hear her bullied. By God, I’m not. I understand you’ve given harbourage, by the way, to the Mystery Maiden.’
‘I must get round to the side. By your leave, Ben.’
‘Plenty of time.’
And Martyn knew that Bennington stood in the entry to the passage, barring the way.
‘I’m talking,’ he said, ‘about this understudy-cum-dresser. Miss X.’
‘You are prolific in cryptic titles.’
‘Call her what you like, it’s a peculiar business. What is she? You may as well tell me, you know. Some ancient indiscretion of Adam’s adolescence come home to roost?’
‘Be quiet, Ben.’
‘For twopence I’d ask Adam himself. And that’s not the only question I’d like to ask him. Do you think I relish my position?’
‘They are getting near the tag. It is almost over.’
‘Why do you suppose I drink a bit? What would you do in my place?’
‘Think before I speak,’ said Jacko, ‘for one thing.’
A buzzer sounded. ‘There’s the curtain,’ said Jacko. ‘Look out.’
Martyn heard a kind of scuffle followed by an oath from Bennington. There were steps in the passage. The curtain fell with a giant whisper. A gust of air swept through the region back-stage.
‘All on,’ said the stage-manager distantly. Martyn heard the players go on and the curtain rise and fall again.
Poole, on the stage, said: ‘And that’s all of that. All right, everyone. Settle down and I’ll take the notes. John will be round in a moment. I’ll wait for you, Ella.’
Miss Hamilton came into the improvised room. Martyn removed her