Death on the High C's Read online

  ‘Oh my God,’ he wept. ‘Don’t do it. Help me. Don’t do it. Father. Oh my God, my God.’

  CHAPTER XIII

  Bass-Baritone

  The rehearsal was still proceeding at five-thirty. Owen Caulfield had been taken off by Bob Whittaker, the new stage-door-keeper, and plied with coffee in one of the dressing-rooms. After observing him and listening to him for fifteen minutes Bob had phoned for an ambulance and had him taken to hospital. He came and told Mike Turner what he had done, and the news sent a frisson of fascinated, slightly guilty interest through the assembled company. But they soon got down, with a sense of relief, to rehearsing under Simon Mulley, who had been put in temporary charge by Mike. Giulia Contini’s threat of withdrawal had not been acted upon, and she now seemed to have forgotten all about it. Simon praised, demonstrated, advised, and in general created a relaxed atmosphere, which meant that more useful work was done in half an hour than in five hours of Owen’s uncreative tension. Even Barbara Bootle, after a little weep at her own daring and its result, started walking across the stage in a natural manner, and though she still looked more like a transport café waitress than an Italian tart, still everyone agreed it was a step in the right direction.

  Superintendent Nichols had earlier had a whispered consultation with PC Lyme about the results of his foot-slogging, and had listened with interest to his impressions and deductions. He determined to interview Hurtle in the theatre and watch his reactions, and when he arrived, on the dot of five-thirty, he certainly seemed interested in what was going on on stage. He draped himself across three seats next to Nichols and watched the quartet being performed for the third time that day.

  ‘Jeez, was that Gaylene’s part?’ he said. ‘I think she’d have put more into it.’

  ‘Yes, I gather her stand-in is having her problems,’ said Nichols.

  ‘Following Gaylene was always a bit of a problem,’ said Hurtle, conjuring up visions of Gaylene trailing clouds of anti-climax in her wake. ‘You can say what you like about the chap that did it, but he certainly had nerve!’

  ‘Some people would say that you would be the type that had the nerve,’ said Nichols, watching him closely. ‘And the motive.’

  ‘Sure they would,’ said Hurtle genially. ‘If I’d thought she was serious about the engagement—well, Jeez, one of us would have had to go!’

  ‘But you didn’t?’

  ‘Think she was serious? Don’t make me laugh! Only thing that worried me was, I thought she might be having difficulty finding men, because that would be the only thing that would make her actually get married. I said so to this Owen bloke, but he said “I believe not” in that stiff pommie way. That put my mind at rest. It wasn’t funny thinking I might be the straw she was clutching at!’

  Something clicked in Nichols’s mind. Owen had professed to be ignorant as to whether Hurtle knew about Gaylene’s sleeping habits. It seemed clear that Hurtle knew, and Owen knew he knew. Nichols merely said: ‘You give the impression this engagement was news to you.’

  ‘Too bloody right. But I played along for the newspapers. I thought to myself that Gaylene must have her reasons, and we Aussies stick together when we’re abroad, you know.’

  ‘You didn’t envisage continuing the engagement after you left Manchester?’

  ‘Jeez, no! I’ve got three nice little typists from Melbourne lined up in Cardiff. Sharing a bedsitter. Even old Gaylene couldn’t have competed with that!’ He grinned in promiscuous anticipation.

  ‘But theoretically you could have done all the attempts and the actual murders. You have no real alibi.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Hurtle, with unabated geniality. ‘Except I was in Southampton the night she was gassed. I suppose you’ll have checked on the trains?’

  ‘Yes. It’s pretty unlikely, but just possible. It wouldn’t have done your game any good.’

  ‘Scored three tries next day,’ said Hurtle complacently. ‘How was I supposed to get into the theatre, on the night of the actual murder?’

  ‘There was a small window leading on to a side passage.’

  ‘How small?’ asked Hurtle, surveying his enormous bulk with considerable self-satisfaction. Nichols gave up that line of thought.

  ‘Or you could have told Harrison you were fetching something for Miss Ffrench,’ he said.

  ‘Do you think I’m a complete nong?’ said Hurtle scornfully.

  Nichols paused.

  ‘Well, no,’ he said. ‘Actually, I’d have said you put on a pose—of amiable dimness, if you’ll excuse the expression. But that you’re really rather sharp.’

  Hurtle’s face lit up in an enormous beam.

  ‘Put it on for the Poms,’ he said. ‘We all do. They expect it.’

  • • •

  The rehearsal was at last nearing its end. Simon Mulley was crooning over the rotund sack in which was the body of his daughter, and Giulia Contini was floating some delicious high notes as she prepared to go and join her mother in heaven. She was at last giving some indication of how she had made her reputation. Nichols suspected that she was one of those Italians who thrived on a good blow-up row.

  ‘That’s a real nice sound,’ said Hurtle, and stayed on to listen.

  When it was all over, and the stage-hands prepared to dismantle the dingy Mantuan inn and erect a spick-and-span Neapolitan café for the nights Così, Nichols slipped down and had a word with Mike Turner. Mike clapped his hands, and using a volume of voice and a natural authority Nichols would not have thought him capable of he called the whole cast together and told them Nichols would like a word with them. Then he set them an example and hopped over into the stalls himself.

  As the others drifted in Nichols noted the ones he knew and one or two he didn’t. Bridget he recognized from the first scene; that middle-aged piece of self-effacement must surely be Mr Pettifer. The attitudes of the company as they came in were various: some showed frank interest, some bewilderment, some a concealed apprehension. Some had removed their make-up already, some were still crudely over-coloured for their parts, and Jim McKaid was already costumed and made up for the part of Don Alfonso in Così, and looked the elderly cynic to the life.

  When they saw that Hurtle was in the theatre, one or two went over to him to express sympathy. Nichols watched in amusement. They didn’t know how to do it, and Hurtle certainly didn’t know how to receive it. Amiable dimness was of no help to him now. After a few moments he managed to put the subject behind him, and then he got into an animated conversation with Mike Turner and Giulia Contini. When they had all got into the stalls and were standing around in rather awkward little groups Superintendent Nichols jumped up on to the podium that Mike Turner had just vacated and cleared his throat. Like well-trained schoolchildren, everyone turned towards him and put on expressions of polite interest. No doubt they were in fact genuinely interested, but it seemed to Nichols that with theatrical people even when an emotion was felt, it had also to be assumed.

  ‘I’d like to thank you, first of all, for your cooperation in telling us your movements on the various dates which . . . which we needed to check up on,’ he said, thinking how banal every thing he said sounded after the heightened passions that had just been issuing from the stage. ‘All the information you’ve given us has been very useful.’

  But it hadn’t. Not very. And that was what he had to take up with them now.

  The problem is,’ he said, ‘that the murder and the attempts could have been set up at almost any time—in each case, there’s a long period within which it must have been done. This means it’s difficult or impossible for any of you to cover yourselves. The . . . business in Miss Ffrench’s dressing-room, for example, could have been done at any time after it was vacated the night before almost up until Miss Ffrench put her hand on the door-knob. Then again, the gas-fire could have been turned on at more or less any time during the night or early morning. It’s very difficult for anyone to get any sort of reliable alibi for that length of time. And in ca
se any of you are still not taking those early attempts very seriously, I’d ask you to remember Sergeant Harrison.’

  At once all the faces surrounding him in the stalls went grave in unison, again like school-children.

  ‘That murder is a rather different kettle of fish,’ said Nichols, ‘because there we can fix a fairly exact time. But confining ourselves for the moment to the attempts on Miss Ffrench, and coming to this difficult question of alibis, it seems as if, almost without exception, the whole cast of Rigoletto who had been rehearsing with her, and who are naturally among the first we think of, could have rigged up the device whch killed her. Or, for that matter, perpetrated any of the potentially fatal attempts. This doesn’t make our job any easier.’

  Did he imagine it, or was there a unanimous relaxation of facial muscles? Did they not want him to find the murderer? Or perhaps they all did Gaylene in, as in that silly film his wife had dragged him along to last month.

  ‘The only exception,’ he went on, ‘is Mr Ricci. As you know, on the night before Miss Ffrench’s death Mr Ricci was singing in Oslo. And he didn’t arrive back in Manchester until after Miss Ffrench’s death. This is something we’ve checked with Oslo, of course, and they have confirmed that Mr Ricci did indeed sing in—’ he paused, as if not quite sure how to pronounce it—‘Don Giovanni that evening, and that he was seen off on the plane at Fornebu airport the next morning at nine by the deputy manager of the Norwegian Opera. Of course we will have to go carefully into the question of chartered planes, but that seems very unlikely, and since there is no other way Mr Ricci could have got to Manchester and then back to Oslo between the end of the performance there and being picked up by the Norwegian gentleman the next morning, I think we can say that he—and he alone of the company—is in the clear.’

  The heads all looked in Raymond Ricci’s direction, and there played around the edges of his lips the tiniest suspicion of a smile.

  ‘There is only one thing that puzzles me,’ said Nichols. The smile evaporated from the corners of the mouth, and Ricci expressed with his large Italian eyes a polite interest in what was to come. ‘You showed me a copy of the review of your performance in the Oslo Morgenbladet. Of course I don’t read Norwegian, and nor do you, but still I rather gathered from puzzling over the few words that were clear, that the writer declared that your Giovanni was vocally in the tradition of Brownlee and Gobbi, isn’t that so?’ Nichols was gratified to see that all heads in the theatre turned towards Ricci with a puzzled expression on their faces. ‘Brownee and Gobbi rather than Pinza and Siepi, wasn’t that what the writer said? Well, actually, I know it was, because that’s another thing I’ve checked up on with our opposite numbers in Oslo. Now, I find that very puzzling, you know. Because as of course you all know, the role of Don Giovanni can be sung by a baritone voice or by a bass—in fact people dispute which is the most suitable, isn’t that right?’

  The heads nodded, still looking at Ricci.

  ‘Now Pinza and Siepi are among the best-known bass Giovannis, and Brownlee and Gobbi, are or were both baritones. And yet you, who are indisputably a bass as I have had the pleasure of hearing this afternoon, are classed by the critic as being firmly in the baritone tradition. Of course I am very much the amateur enthusiast where opera is concerned—could you tell me if I am completely off-beam?’

  CHAPTER XIV

  Etta Giammai M’Amo

  ‘THAT’S Così Fan Tutte. Mozart, you know.’ Calvin was remembering his words to Nichols. Condescending oaf that I am, he thought. How he must have been laughing at us all, assuming he was pig-ignorant. He flushed with embarrassment as he thought: what a steam I would have got up if someone had done the same to me!

  • • •

  ‘Mozart, you know. Lovely little piece.’ McKaid was remembering his words to Nichols. And all the time the cunning little bastard was an opera buff, a canary fancier. Probably an LP collector with a little padded cell to listen to his records in, or earphones to keep the children’s noise out. Probably a teenage galleryite grown up—used to go to all the touring Sadler’s Wells performances, and have little arguments with his friends in the interval about opera in English versus opera in the original. Underhand little shit. I’ll have to change my tone to him. Geniality—‘you really had us fooled there’—that sort of tone. Only thing to do in the circumstances. Not that it matters.

  • • •

  ‘I’m not going to make a fool of myself by sitting here and explaining what you know already,’ said Raymond Ricci, sprawling in a chair in the stage-door-keeper’s office later in the evening, with the strains of Così Fan Tutte penetrating now and then as Bridget’s voice, seeming to gain in fullness and beauty every performance, soared over the others in the big ensembles. Ricci was oblivious of the sounds, occasionally drumming his fingers and looking at Nichols with a not-entirely-confident smile.

  ‘Not know—suspect,’ said Nichols, none too friendly. ‘I suspect, then, that your brother went to Oslo and sang Giovanni, and that you stayed here.’ Ricci nodded. ‘You relied on us not checking too closely who was actually singing in Oslo. In fact, I was already suspicious, and Lyme’s report of your landlady’s conversation made me even more so. Now—why?’

  ‘He’s a good singer. He’s sung a few small parts here, and understudied some larger ones, but he’s never quite got the chances he deserves. I thought I might be holding him back, overshadowing him, in a way. I don’t suppose it’s helped him that I’m not the most generally loved member of the company, though recently dear Gaylene has stolen my thunder there. Robert had sung Giovanni at college, and with a few semi-amateur groups, so he knew the part well. When the telegram came I decided to send him off in my place.’

  ‘And he was able to go? Wasn’t he singing?’

  ‘No, because the chorus in Così, as you are no doubt aware, is very small and has hardly any part to play. He wasn’t scheduled to perform that night anyway.’

  ‘And all this was done out of pure altruism?’

  There was a short silence.

  ‘Do you know, Superintendent,’ said Ricci with a saturnine smile on his face, ‘if I were to tell you it was, I have a suspicion you wouldn’t believe me.’

  ‘Put it down to the cynicism of my profession,’ said Nichols. ‘Now let’s stop fooling and have the whole story out.’

  Again there was a pause.

  ‘This isn’t going to please you, Superintendent,’ said Raymond Ricci at last, ‘but I can’t tell you what I was doing that night.’

  Is he expecting me to say: oh what a pity, well never mind? thought Nichols. He raised his voice a little and looked Ricci straight in the face.

  ‘It’s not really a question of what pleases me, is it?’ he said. ‘Here you are, caught out in a lie to the police about your movements. Inevitably we are suspicious, and more than suspicious, since no reason for the lie suggests itself, except the murder. If you don’t want us to hold you for further questioning, I would suggest it’s very much in your interest to give us as full an account of yourself as possible.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Ricci, who did not seem unduly impressed by this lecture, but whose fingers were still drumming periodically on the side of the chair. ‘And that’s what I’d like to do. The trouble is, I’m not the only one in question. There’s somebody else to be considered. Look—the best I can do is this: I’ll consult with that other person as soon as possible, and if I get the OK I’ll come along with the whole story. Will that satisfy you?’

  ‘It will not,’ said Nichols. ‘I’d need to be quite sure you wouldn’t do a bunk on us. We’d look right fools if we’d had you and let you go on the strength of a flimsy story like that. Especially as, like the rest, you now have no alibi for any of the attempts on Miss Ffrench.’

  ‘True,’ said Ricci, with the beginnings of a triumphant smile on his face. ‘But what about the murder of Sergeant Harrison? That’s another matter, isn’t it?’

  Nichols glanced at the little card which Ri
cci had filled in.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ve been so busy breaking down your Oslo alibi, sir,’ he said suavely, ‘that we haven’t had the time to investigate this. I gather you were performing at some kind of concert.’

  ‘Precisely. A musical evening for the combined C of E and Non-Conformist congregations of Accrington and Oswaldtwistle. Compered by the Mayor, no less. I suppose they invited a Catholic singer as an ecumenical gesture. Now what time was Harrison killed?’

  ‘As far as we can make out, about five past ten. He phoned us about ten to, and promised to come in to speak to us. A bus went past his door at about ten past, and we imagine he’d try to catch that. He was found still warm by a neighbour before quarter past.’

  The smile had not left Ricci’s face.

  ‘Well, then: at five minutes to ten o’clock, before a large and fairly enthusiastic audience of Accringtonians, I began to sing an aria which the chairman of the evening announced as “Ella Jemima Mo”—which made it sound like a Victorian temperance campaigner, or some such type. I hardly need tell you, with your wide knowledge of the subject, which aria he referred to.’ Nichols bent his head gravely. ‘It is, as you know, a longish aria. I noticed the time because it was the last item for the evening, and I had a train to catch. Any questions?’

  ‘None. If you were singing any time after about a quarter past nine you more or less must be in the clear. I presume the Mayor or someone else who was there could vouch for this.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said Ricci confidently. ‘Do go ahead and check.’

  Nichols took up the phone and barked orders. In a couple of minutes he was through and putting his question.

  ‘So he was singing about ten? . . . Yes, a long aria, that’s it . . . Yes, I’m sure he sang it nicely, but I wonder if you could describe him . . . Yes—him personally—what he looks like . . . Yes, it sounds like him, but then, it could equally well be his brother . . . Oh, you’ve seen his brother? He was performing as well, I see . . . Duets . . . Yes, well, I’ll send a photograph just to be sure, but I think that puts Mr Ricci in the clear . . . I’m most grateful for your help, sir.’