Death on the High C's Read online

  ‘Well, if it will make you feel any better, go and ring the hospital and see if there’s any point in our going. There’s no reason to get steamed up about it before we know that.’

  Calvin, still vaguely unhappy, went out, leaving Bridget gingerly trying on her wig. As he went down the corridor on the way to the phone he passed Nichols, and was surprised to see the stolid, capable-looking policeman start at the sight of him. Then he remembered he was already ‘whited up’ for the part of the Duke of Mantua. A bitter quip at Nichols’s expense rose to his mind, but after relishing it for a second, he put it aside: the last time he had tried to put the Superintendent into a stereotyped mould, he had leapt rather spectacularly out of it. And he must look odd, with his deadly white colouring and negroid lips. Not so odd as some Otellos, though, he told himself.

  He put his money into the pay phone near the stage door that company members were supposed to use. The hospital was efficient and sympathetic, but not very hopeful.

  ‘For the moment, sir, we feel there wouldn’t be much point in encouraging visitors. There has been family come, of course, but he doesn’t recognize anybody. If you’d like to ring in a day or two, we can tell you then whether or not there’s any change.’

  Calvin put the phone down. He was sorry to find that he was glad that he need not see Owen. He told himself it would be better for all concerned if they went to visit him after the first night.

  • • •

  Raymond Ricci was pleased with himself. Very obviously pleased with himself. His lips were itching to smile in triumph, and his eyes sparkled with self-satisfaction.

  ‘Right, then,’ he said to Nichols and Chappell, once again sitting in their armchair, but this time entirely at his ease. ‘Here are the details. I was sleeping with Giulia Contini.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nichols, ‘I thought it would have something to do with sleeping.’

  ‘She’s staying at the Metropole. I went to her room at ten—skulked would be a better description, I think. Playing Sparafucile you get very good at skulking. Anyway, I was in her bedroom with her all night, and about six forty-five I skulked out again.’

  ‘I see, sir. And Miss Contini will be willing to confirm your statement, will she?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘I don’t quite understand all the secrecy and skulking, and the pretending to go to Oslo. You don’t usually seem to feel the need to cover up your activities in this way.’

  ‘No—well, the problem, you see, was Signor Pratelli. He seems to see himself as a sort of Horatius keeping the bridge of Giulia’s virtue. I gather he’s sworn an oath by the nine gods to Giulia’s parents that their daughter shall remain pure and spotless even though her career takes her to flashy vice-spots such as Manchester. He’s like an eighteenth-century duenna, only even more unattractive and snuffly. So you see, we decided that if we were going to get married—’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Yes, married, Superintendent—if we were going to get married, we ought to sort of try things out first, and to do that we had to put old Pratelli off the scent first. He’d marked me down as a lady-killer, I don’t know why.’ Smirk. ‘So he was on his guard against me, and though we snatched a few meetings here and there, he kept his beady little eyes trained on me, and mostly spotted me coming a mile off. Then when I announced that I was on my way to Oslo, he relaxed.’

  ‘And then . . . ’

  ‘Then Giulia said to him that she had to go to bed early on account of the dress rehearsal the next day, then I popped in to the hotel, and hey, as they say, presto.’

  There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘Of course your personal affairs are nothing to do with me,’ said Nichols, ‘but isn’t marriage rather a new departure for you, sir?’

  ‘Rather,’ said Raymond Ricci with a lazy smile. ‘But we Italians always come to it in the end, you know. And when we do, we prefer the homely type to the sex-kittens—we keep them as side-dishes. Now that’s exactly what Giulia is—a nice, comfortable girl. And when she’s sung herself out-say four or five years, because her reputation is inflated already, and won’t stand the breath of international competition—we’ll settle down on the proceeds, and raise a lot of little Riccis. And all the boys will have splendid bass-baritone voices, and they’ll be able to interchange as Don Giovanni.’

  ‘I see,’ said Nichols, who did all too well. Giulia was destined for a life of domestic slavery. ‘So Miss Contini can vouch for you all night—not that it matters.’

  ‘Well, she slept a bit, naturally.’

  ‘The point’s not vital. You could have fixed up the electrocution in the early morning.’

  ‘True. I didn’t, but true.’

  ‘At any rate, that’s all I need to know for the moment. I suppose I should wish you every happiness, sir.’

  If Nichols had been a theatrical person, he would have spoken that last sentence through his teeth. But Ricci did not appear to notice the reluctance of his benevolent hopes.

  ‘A bit premature, as yet,’ he said airily. ‘Nothing’s final, you know. When it is, dear old Pratelli will get the push, and things’ll be a whole lot easier.’

  Ricci got up. ‘And that, then,’ he said, ‘is the story of how my little brother got his big chance. All For Love, or Oslo well lost.’

  ‘I still don’t like that smarmy bugger,’ said Chappell as he closed the door.

  ‘Not my idea of the perfect lover either,’ said Nichols.

  • • •

  Simon Mulley was late preparing for the final dress rehearsal, and would infinitely have preferred not talking to Nichols at all. But finally he sat down in the corner of his dressing-room and let him ask away as he prepared himself for the performance. In his everyday clothes Simon Mulley was a good-looking middle-aged man, whose sad eyes oddly contradicted the touch of dandyism in his dress. In his costume, even Rigoletto’s jester’s costume, he took on an air of utter seriousness and dedication. His manner was reasonable, courteous in a rather old-fashioned way, but there were moments when Nichols caught a glimpse of the iron determination, of the rigid artistic standards which made it so difficult for him to compromise and which had meant a career infinitely less full of plushy acclaim and inflated fees than those of many less gifted contemporaries.

  ‘You mustn’t think of this as an unpleasant or unfriendly company to work with, full of rows and ructions,’ he said, smoothing down the ruff around his scarlet costume, and looking at himself critically in the mirror. ‘It’s probably sounded like that to you, but of course all you’ve been interested in has been the things that have happened since Gaylene Ffrench’s arrival.’

  ‘Certainly I seem to have been hearing about an awful lot of nastiness and petty spite,’ said Nichols.

  ‘I guessed you would have. But in point of fact we’d been an exceptionally united and serious little company until she arrived. In fact, we’d had the sort of unflashy, hard-working spirit that you don’t often get in opera houses. Until she came, there was nobody in the company who was trying to push himself forward, and in fact everybody—or nearly everybody, because I’m not saying things were perfection—nearly everybody was trying to get a good company performance. I was reminded of Sadler’s Wells in the old Tucker days, when I was a young man. I sang some performances of Tosca for Turner last season in Liverpool, and I was so impressed I agreed at once to join as a regular company member for this season. I’m doing Rigoletto now, and there are some Papagenos and some di Lunas coming up later in the season. It’s just been sad from my point of view that the atmosphere so far has been so different from what it was earlier.’

  ‘You’ve regretted agreeing to join the company?’

  ‘Regretted? I don’t know about that. One shouldn’t make up one’s mind too hastily—I’ve made enough bad snap decisions in my time to be sure of that. But certainly this Gaylene Ffrench was a poisonous influence, a real thug. And her influence spread wider and wider. Caulfield, the producer—well, he’s not a
stable type at the best of times I’d guess, but these last few weeks he has seemed to get tenser and tenser. Cross, who’s got real talent and feeling for opera—she could put him off his stride by a flick of the eyelid. Oh yes, it’s not the same company as it was last year. Though luckily we seem to be getting back to normal now, as far as that’s possible with a murder investigation going on around one.’

  ‘You didn’t have any brushes with Miss Ffrench yourself?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Simon Mulley smiled. He had made up his face and it was now the face of a bitter, worn elderly man, so the smile came out bitterly, but Nichols had the odd impression of seeing two different faces at once, and he thought the smile underneath the make-up was comparatively untroubled. Simon went on: ‘Occasionally I used my position as distinguished senior company member to put her in her place. But I fear it didn’t work. Respect for position, or age, or incapacity, or anything like that wouldn’t stop that miss saying something if she wanted to say it. She was the complete child of nature, untouched by any of the finer feelings of the civilized. It made one think that children of nature have been much over-rated. Anyway, when I tried to rebuke her, it fell abysmally flat, because she was far too stupid to understand.’

  ‘You didn’t sleep with her?’ asked Nichols.

  ‘Good God, no. I’d rather have slept with a sperm whale.’

  Simon was sitting back in his chair to take a longer view of his make-up, and he certainly gave no indication that Nichols’s question had ruffled his gentlemanly composure.

  ‘I see,’ said Nichols. ‘On the other hand, Miss Ffrench seemed interested in your personal life, sir.’

  ‘Really?’ For the first time a note of tension seemed to enter Simon Mulley’s voice. ‘How is that?’

  ‘She apparently told one of her bed-partners that you were a bigamist.’

  There was a long pause. Simon finished looking at his make-up and wig, and reached round to the armchair. He took up a hard, pointed lump with a series of s raps attached. Deliberately he pushed it up the back of his jester’s costume, and began pulling the straps carefully over his shoulders.

  ‘I suppose I might have guessed she would get hold of that story,’ he said finally. ‘And get it wrong.’

  Nichols didn’t hurry him, and when Mulley finally turned round to tell him the story, his hump was in position, and he had only to pick up his stick with bells on the end to be the complete Rigoletto. Again Nichols had the odd sensation of seeing two men, related but separate.

  ‘A long time ago,’ Simon Mulley said sadly, gazing at the floor, but still carrying with him that touch of theatricality which was perhaps second nature, ‘when I was much younger, but still old enough to know better, I decided to leave my wife. For no better reason than that it was the end of the season, and I thought I was in love with a little girl in the theatre ballet: she was a slip of a thing, lovely, very silly, and only nineteen. I left a note for Margaret, in the classic fashion, and we got into the car one morning, and drove to Scotland.’

  He paused, and absent-mindedly adjusted his hump.

  ‘We never got there. We were fooling around in the front seat when a truck rammed us from behind. I had concussion, and a lot of cuts and bruises . . . and a burden for life. She . . . the slip . . . had severe brain damage. A hopeless case. Since then she’s never been anything more than a vegetable. She had no close family who were in a position to look after her. So I did. We did.’

  ‘Your wife and you?’

  ‘My wife and I. Margaret was so good it . . . shames me . . . pains me to think about it. The burden has been more on her than on me, because she has it every hour of the day, whereas I can put it out of my mind . . . nearly. When I think of it, of her, I . . . loathe myself.’

  ‘So she lives with you?’

  ‘Yes, she always has done, since—’

  ‘And yet the story is more or less secret?’

  ‘Secret? Well, it’s not exactly that. I imagine people gossip about it readily enough, in London. But we’ve only recently taken a house up here, and most of the company is new-ish. It may be that someone had heard a whisper, and the story has grown in the telling—or someone has just got it wrong. Probably Gaylene heard of it during one of her guest appearances with one or other of the companies. I expect she either twisted it deliberately, or quite likely just got it fouled up in her mind, because as I say she was none too bright.’

  ‘It seems likely, I admit,’ said Nichols.

  ‘And now,’ said Mulley, his face twisting into a smile which seemed to bring together his own self and Rigoletto’s, a smile of utter self-loathing, of hatred of all the world, now, I’ve bared my soul enough. I can only hope you’ve managed to put me in the mood for my role. Good afternoon, Superintendent.’

  Only a theatrical person could dismiss a superintendent in such a grand manner. The upper classes had lost the knack long ago. Nichols went quietly.

  • • •

  The opening chords of Rigoletto were sounding from the orchestra pit for the final dress rehearsal as Nichols and Chappell let themselves into their little office, and depressedly surveyed the collection of junky lost property and the mess of paper and alibi cards that were the evidences of their own days of investigation. It didn’t add to the attractions of the scene that they seemed likely to be settled in there for a long time to come. Because he didn’t want to talk about that Nichols let the door stand open a little and nodded in time to the music. But after a bit he dragged himself over to his untidy desk and sat down, looking all too obviously depressed.

  ‘Okay, let’s talk this thing over and try and get some order into our thoughts,’ he said.

  Sergeant Chappell was immensely flattered by the ‘our’, but he didn’t presume on it: he sat waiting expectantly.

  ‘Right. We have four attempts,’ said Nichols slowly, ‘two of them successful. Practically any of them could have wanted to do the girl in, and in fact they all of them admit to feelings ranging from relief to pure pleasure that she has been got out of the way. On the other hand, we have no motive so far stronger than a generalized dislike. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Now, while we’re on the subject of motive, it’s as well to be clear that there are one or two screwballs in the company, notably Owen Caulfield, who seems to have just gone over the edge, for some reason we don’t know or for no reason at all. There are also one or two suspicious things going on—notably Mr Turner and his relationship to his wife’s money, though what connection that could have with Gaylene God alone knows, except that knowing her she could have got wind and begun broadcasting the fact. And then, lastly, and unprofessionally, there are one or two people we two don’t happen to like—notably Mr Ricci, Mr Caulfield, again, and Mr McKaid. Are you with me so far?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And a very short distance it is too. So we come back to the attempts on Gaylene Ffrench’s life. All the cast decided they were faked by the girl herself, probably for publicity purposes, though they all agree that at first she convinced them and they took her seriously. As far as we’re concerned the likelihood is that all four attempts were done by the same person. On the other hand, we ought to keep in mind the possibility that the first two attempts were faked by Gaylene, and that someone took advantage of them—or was given the idea by them, which would be pretty ironic—and made a more serious attempt. The idea that the first attempts were fake is given a bit of colouring, perhaps, by the fact that though Miss Ffrench scurried along to the newspaper offices, she made no attempt to contact the police.’

  ‘And I suppose it’s just possible,’ said Chappell, ‘that someone did the first two as jokes, pretty nasty ones, and then someone else capitalized on the idea and took it for real.’

  ‘True. Perhaps it doesn’t matter too much either way. We’re looking for the chappie who did the second two attempts, not the first two. But some explanation along those lines might explain the rather odd progression in the attempts.’


  ‘Do you mean the fact that they get more and more serious as they go along?’

  ‘Something of the kind, but I’d prefer to put it another way. The first two attempts are really rather childish. The gassing one could just have worked, but it was much more likely just to give the two of them a pretty nasty morning after the night before. But the thread on the stairs really can’t be taken seriously for a moment. No one really expects to kill anybody that way, outside books, and you certainly wouldn’t put an end to a healthy, bouncing girl like Gaylene Ffrench with a piece of cotton and a couple of drawing pins.

  ‘That’s true,’ said Chappell. ‘Either it was Gaylene, or a pretty childish mind thought that one up, you’d think. Then you come to the other two, and suddenly it’s for real.’

  ‘Yes, that how I see it. With the third attempt as somehow transitional. It was quite likely to kill her, and all the conditions were right—the hot day, the doormat, and so on. But still, he could hardly be sure. She might have smelt a rat at the doormat. She might just have been shocked—incapacitated for a bit, but not actually killed. Would he have been satisfied with that? It suggests some psycho who is just out to harm, but doesn’t mind if he kills. Then you come to Harrison, where we guess the murderer felt threatened by something or other the man knew, and in that case he acts as swiftly and ruthlessly as you like.’

  Chappell thought for a bit. ‘You mean it’s not so much a progression, a chap gaining confidence as he goes along, but more like two or three different minds at work.’

  ‘In a way, but that seems absurd. This may not have been as nice a little company before Gaylene arrived on the scene as Mulley would like to make out, but it’s stretching belief to think there could have been two or three different murderers lurking in it. It seems much more likely to be one chap gaining confidence, as you said, and then—in the Harrison case—feeling threatened and having to act quickly. The trouble is, I just can’t see the man who wielded that mean little knife, also fiddling with little bits of thread on a dark stairway.’