Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 6: Opening Night, Spinsters in Jeopardy, Scales of Justice. Ngaio Marsh
Gay. His legs were stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles, his hands were in his trouser pockets and his chin on his chest. It was the attitude of a distinguished MP during a damaging speech from the opposite side of the House.
Alleyn said: ‘And we still don’t know when Miss Gainsford left the greenroom.’
‘Oh, lawks!’ Parry ejaculated. ‘This is too tiresome, J.G., you looked in at the greenroom door when we came back for the curtain call, don’t you remember? Was she there then? Were you there, then, Gay darling?’
Gay opened her mouth to speak but J.G. said quickly: ‘Yes, of course I did. Stupid of me to forget. Gay was sound asleep in the armchair, Mr Alleyn. I didn’t disturb her.’ He passed his right hand over his beautifully groomed head. ‘It’s a most extraordinary thing,’ he said vexedly, ‘that I should have forgotten this. Of course she was asleep. Because later, when – well, when, in point of fact the discovery had been made – I asked where Gay was and someone said she was still in the greenroom and I was naturally worried and went to fetch her. She was still asleep and the greenroom, by that time, reeking with gas. I brought her back here.’
‘Have you any idea, Miss Gainsford,’ Alleyn asked, ‘about when you dropped off?’
‘I was exhausted, Mr Alleyn. Physically and emotionally exhausted. I still am.’
‘Was it, for instance, before the beginning of the last act?’
‘N-n-no. No. Because J.G. came in to see how I was in the second interval. Didn’t you, darling? And I was exhausted, wasn’t I?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘And he gave me some aspirins and I took two. And I suppose, in that state of utter exhaustion, they work. So I fell into a sleep – an exhausted sleep, it was.’
‘Naturally,’ Helena murmured with a glance at Alleyn. ‘It would be exhausted.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ said Jacko, ‘it was exhausted.’
‘Well, it was,’ said Gay crossly. ‘Because I was. Utterly.’
‘Did anyone else beside Mr Darcey go into the greenroom during the second interval?’
Gay looked quickly at J.G. ‘Honestly,’ she said, ‘I’m so muddled about times it really isn’t safe to ask me. I’m sure to be wrong.’
‘Mr Darcey?’
‘No,’ J.G. said.
‘Well, my dearest J.G.,’ Parry said, ‘I couldn’t be more reluctant to keep popping in like one of the Eumenides in that utterly incomprehensible play but I do assure you that you’re at fault here. Ben went into the greenroom in the second interval.’
‘Dear Heaven!’ Helena said, on a note of desperation. ‘What has happened to us all!’
‘I’m terribly sorry, Ella darling,’ Parry said and sounded it.
‘But why should you be sorry? Why shouldn’t Ben go and see his niece in the interval? He played the whole of the third act afterwards. Of course you should say so, Parry, if you know what you’re talking about. Shouldn’t he, Adam? Shouldn’t he, Mr Alleyn?’
Poole was looking with a sort of incredulous astonishment at Darcey. ‘I think he should,’ he said slowly.
‘And you, Mr Darcey?’ asked Alleyn.
‘All right, Parry,’ said J.G., ‘go on.’
‘There’s not much more to be said and anyway I don’t suppose it matters. It was before they’d called the third act. Helena and Adam and Martyn had gone out. They begin the act, I come on a bit later and Ben after me and J.G. later still. I wanted to see how the show was going and I was on my way in the passage when Ben came out of his room and went into the greenroom next door. The act was called soon after that.’
‘Did you speak to him?’ Alleyn asked.
‘I did not,’ said Parry with some emphasis. ‘I merely went out to the stage and joined Jacko and the two dressers and the call-boy who were watching from the prompt side, and Clem.’
‘That’s right,’ Clem said. ‘I remember telling you all to keep away from the bunches. The boy called J.G. and Ben about five minutes later.’
‘Were you still in the greenroom when you were called, Mr Darcey?’
‘Yes.’
‘With Mr Bennington?’
‘He’d gone to his room.’
‘Not for the life of me,’ Helena said, wearily, ‘can I see why you had to be so mysterious, J.G.’
‘Perhaps,’ Alleyn said, ‘the reason is in your left trouser pocket, Mr Darcey.’
J.G. didn’t take his hand out of his pocket. He stood up and addressed himself directly to Alleyn.
‘May I speak to you privately?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ Alleyn said. ‘Shall we go to the greenroom?’
III
In the greenroom and in the presence of Alleyn and of Fox who had joined them there, J.G. Darcey took his left hand out of his trouser pocket and extended it palm downwards for their inspection. It was a well-shaped and well-kept hand but the knuckles were grazed. A trace of blood had seeped out round the greasepaint and powder which had been daubed over the raw skin.
‘I suppose I’ve behaved very stupidly,’ he said. ‘But I hoped there would be no need to come out. It has no bearing whatever on his death.’
‘In that case,’ Alleyn said, ‘it will not be brought out. But you’ll do well to be frank.’
‘I dare say,’ said J.G. wryly.
‘There’s a bruise under the deceased’s jaw on the right side that could well have been caused by that straight left Mr Poole talked about. Now, we could ask you to hold your left fist to this bruise and see if there’s any correspondence. If you tell me you didn’t let drive at him we’ll ask you if you are willing to make this experiment.’
‘I assure you that rather than do any such thing I’d willingly admit that I hit him,’ J.G. said with a shudder.
‘And also why you hit him?’
‘Oh, yes, if I can. If I can,’ he repeated and pressed his hand to his eyes. ‘D’you mind if we sit down, Alleyn? I’m a bit tired.’
‘Do.’
J.G. sat in the leather armchair where Martyn and, in her turn, Gay Gainsford had slept. In the dim light of the greenroom his face looked wan and shadowed. ‘Not the chicken I was,’ he said and it was an admission actors do not love to make.
Alleyn faced him. Fox sat down behind him, flattened his notebook on the table and placed his spectacles across his nose. There was something cosy about Fox when he took notes. Alleyn remembered absently that his wife had once observed that Mr Fox was a cross between a bear and a baby and exhibited the most pleasing traits of both creatures.
The masked light above Jacko’s sketch of Adam Poole shone down upon it and it thus was given considerable emphasis in an otherwise shadowed room.
‘If you want a short statement,’ J.G. said, ‘I can give it to you in a sentence. I hit Ben under the jaw in this room during the second act wait. I didn’t knock him out but he was so astonished he took himself off. I was a handy amateur welter-weight in my young days but it must be twenty years or more since I put up my hands. I must say I rather enjoyed it.’
‘What sort of condition was he in?’
‘Damned unpleasant. Oh, you mean drunk or sober? I should say ugly-drunk. Ben was a soak. I’ve never seen him incapacitated but really I’ve hardly ever seen him stone-cold either. He was in his