Death on the High C's Read online

  The mind boggled at the thought of Mr Pettifer having a Mr Hyde side to his character which he needed to keep hidden from the likes of Sergeant Harrison, but Nichols had taken his point. In fact the more he thought over his words, the more completely did they make sense.

  When he had mulled over Mr Pettifer’s words yet again, Nichols turned to Sergeant Chappell and said: ‘Well, one thing I’m sure about is that we’re right to keep on with the theatre and the people in it. That has always seemed most obvious. It has to be someone who knew which was Gaylene’s dressing-room, and knew about the attacks on her—the supposed attacks, I should say. I don’t think we need go sniffing around Harrison’s private life—not yet anyway.’

  ‘At least that means we haven’t been slogging away entirely in vain,’ said Sergeant Chappell.

  ‘And that being so,’ continued Nichols, trying to put his thought processes into an orderly progression, ‘one person stands out as the obvious candidate, though one could easily make a mistake there. And even if I’m right, there’s no shadow of a motive, so far as I can see . . . ’ He thought for a bit. ‘I wonder if it’s worth . . . ’

  He picked up the phone, got on to Headquarters, and rapped out a series of questions for an early reply. When he put down the phone he saw a pair of questioning eyes on him.

  ‘Of course, it’s only a vague possibility,’ he said, ‘one of many. All I’m trying to do at the moment is to get my thoughts in some kind of order, now that the case seems to have turned itself upside down. Now, even if we take it that Pettifer is right, there’s still one thing that doesn’t fit, and bothers me.’

  ‘Something connected with the earlier attacks?’

  ‘No—as I see it, everything fits completely into place there. They must have been the work of Gaylene herself. The girl was ravenous for publicity, she was very stupid, and hardly bothered to make the second one convincing. Anyone else would surely have had the sense to make the gesture of calling the police, but not her. No, all this seems to me to fit completely into place, and granted what we know of the girl it’s by far the best and most convincing explanation there is. Remember that she was an athlete, as well as an actress of sorts, so there wouldn’t be any problem in falling downstairs without getting badly hurt. No, what worries me is the electrocution attempt.’

  ‘The attempt that worked? Why?’ asked Sergeant Chappell.

  ‘Precisely because it seems to me that it couldn’t be relied on to work. If one was going to take advantage of the attempts on Gaylene to kill Sergeant Harrison, surely one would choose a completely fool-proof method. But this was far from a sure-fire thing—nothing like a gun to the head or a knife in the ribs—what he eventually got, poor bugger. Quite simply, it’s a damned dicey way of doing anyone in. Why on earth adopt that method when in your next attempt you’re willing to stick a knife into him?’

  ‘Well,’ said Sergeant Chappell, ‘it seems to tie in with the others—rather jokey, “theatrical” I suppose you might call them. A bit far-fetched and not certain to succeed.’

  ‘Exactly. And I suppose that must be the reason that method was chosen—to fit in with the others. But I’m just wondering if there might be an outside chance that it was immaterial to the murderer whether Harrison actually died or not.’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’ asked Chappell, perplexed. ‘Surely in view of the actual knifing . . . ?’

  ‘But that was after someone had been killed. You might as well get life imprisonment for a sheep as for a goat. And in fact the point might be that once Gaylene had been killed the murderer might have known that Sergeant Harrison would be bound to have suspicions that could lead us to the murderer, so he had to be killed, not incapacitated. But earlier—couldn’t it be that the jokey method was adopted partly because it fitted the pattern, but also because the important thing was that Harrison had to be out of the way for a bit, and it didn’t greatly matter whether he died or was pretty severely shocked, in both senses of the word. In other words—it wasn’t something he knew or suspected, but something he had, or something that could only be done with him away. Do you think that could be a remote possibility? Does it make any sense?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sergeant Chappell, trying not to let his dubiousness get into his voice. ‘It makes sense if you can think of a reason why.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the point,’ said Nichols. ‘Now, I’m just meditating aloud, but let’s try and think this thing through. Now, what would be the major consequences of Sergeant Harrison being put out of action for a bit?’

  ‘Well, said Sergeant Chappell, furrowing his brow, ‘I don’t think it would make all that much difference. I suppose Bob would take over as stage-door-keeper.’

  ‘Yes—and what would the consequences of that be?’

  ‘Everything run on a looser rein, as far as we’ve heard.’

  ‘Yes. In other words, there must have been some things that could be done with Bob in charge which couldn’t have been done with Harrison poking his sergeant-major’s nose into everything.’

  The phone rang, and Nichols was on to it in a trice.

  ‘Yes . . . fast working . . . You’ve nothing concrete on them . . . so it’s no more than suspicion really . . . no . . . I see, and where does she live? . . . Well, I want her followed—just as soon as you can get on to it . . . Right . . . Keep me posted about that, won’t you, and about anything else you dig up . . . Thanks, and keep at it.’

  He put down the phone, and as he did so his absorption in the information he had just been given caused him to blink his eyes as he reawoke to his surroundings, as if he wondered where he was. But as he looked around, and came back to the real world, an expression of dubious enlightenment spread over his face.

  ‘I’ll tell you what.’ he said, turning to Sergeant Chappell, ‘one thing you could do with Harrison out of the way that you couldn’t do otherwise would be to get in here.’

  • • •

  The woman walked off the boat, casual but business-like, and made her way through the dock area towards the waiting bus. She was a well-preserved forty, and handsome in a hard, determined, nice-as-pie-until-you-cross-me sort of way. She carried herself and her suitcase as if she was used to travelling independently, and she hardly glanced at her fellow-passengers or at the uniformed police dotted around the dock area. Nor did she give any sign of having noticed the two men in the nondescript fawn and white shirts, the casual trousers and the yesterday’s hair-styles who detached themselves from the newspaper kiosk and followed her out into the sunlight. Nor did she notice, when she got on the bus to the station, that they stood downstairs some feet away from her, though they very easily could have gone and sat upstairs. In fact, she gave the impression of having something else to think about, for though she sat looking ahead, apparently calmly, she occasionally allowed the suspicion of a frown to furrow her smooth South Sea Island mask of a face. Her oblivion to most of what was going on around her lasted through the transition from bus to train, and through the train journey to Manchester, though the two men with the nondescript shirts were in the next compartment to her, and one or other frequently went out into the corridor to smoke, or to gaze out at the dreary townscape, which would seem to the outsider to offer naught for anybody’s comfort.

  At her journey’s end, she took her suitcase down from the rack, and unhurriedly waited her turn to get into the corridor and out on to the platform. She similarly seemed in no hurry for her taxi, indulged in none of the usual dodges of the impatient traveller, and stood patiently in the queue. She did not appear to notice that the men from the bus and the train, far from waiting in the queue, had placed themselves some way away, though through the co-operation of a waiting constable they secured a taxi just before her, told it to wait a few moments, and then rolled out of the station immediately behind her.

  There were too many taxis around the station for the woman to get the idea that she was being followed. Her journey was only a ten-minute one, and when she pulled up outside a deca
yed and unattractive late-nineteenth-century house of few pretensions she paid no heed to the other taxi which coasted by the end of the street and let its passengers off around the corner. She got out, paid the driver, took her suitcase in her hands, and with barely a glance at the house of her destination, proceeded up the front steps. So that by the time the casual trousers and last-year’s haircuts came round the corner, she was already closing the front door and proceeding down the hallway.

  By that time, too, a message was going through to police headquarters from the central taxi switchboard, and a police operation of some magnitude was being set in motion.

  • • •

  Sergeant Chappell was still dubious, but it didn’t do to express his dubiety too obviously. Rank still meant something in the force, and experience told him that it was no better to be sceptical and right than to be sceptical and wrong.

  ‘It’s a thought,’ he said, as Nichols, having had his thought, looked pensively around the room. He had always found that a particularly useful phrase.

  ‘No more than that,’ said Nichols honestly. ‘But it would explain why the electrocution attempt was such a hit-or-miss sort of set-up. Whether the man died, or whether he was just badly shocked, the murderer could rely on his being away for the next few days, so that this room would be more open and accessible.’

  ‘Except that we moved in.’

  ‘Exactly. Pure chance—no credit to us for that. What thundering asses we’ll feel if we’ve been sitting a few feet away from the solution all this time.

  ‘But does that mean, do you think, that he hasn’t been able to do whatever he wanted to do?’ asked Chappell.

  ‘It’s a distinct possibility,’ said Nichols, ‘granted that I’m on the right lines. Of course there’s the time between the murder discovery and our arrival—there’s the whole of the morning, in fact. But would he have done it then? Putting myself in his place, I’m pretty sure I’d have aimed to be away from the theatre at the time it was likely to happen, and to take advantage of it later. Psychologically that seems the most likely thing.’

  ‘So, if you’re right,’ said Chappell, ‘he must be on the rack, and just itching for us to get out.’

  ‘Yes—unless the removal of Harrison removes much of the danger. The point is—what was the big attraction of a free run of this room? Was he looking for something?’

  ‘Mail, for example?’

  ‘Could be. Someone else’s mail it would have to be, presumably. That seems a bit over-complex, though. How would he know what was about to arrive? What about a key? Harrison would be sure to be a stickler about something like that if he was stuffy about mail and lost property. So the only chance of getting hold of one, if you needed it, would be to get him out of the way.’

  ‘A key to some other part of the theatre, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. What could it be—a cupboard, a storeroom? Nothing springs to mind that would make it worthwhile to risk a murder rap. Money seems the obvious thing. There wouldn’t be any around here, but there could be a key to the box-office safe, or wherever they keep it.’

  ‘But surely even this Bob character wouldn’t leave a key like that lying around here for anyone to pick up?’ interposed Sergeant Chappell.

  ‘No, you’re right. He’d either keep it with him twenty-four hours of the day, or he’d keep it very well hidden. The thought of Sergeant Harrison’s wrath would make sure of that. Still, money seems to be the most likely of the things we’ve considered so far.’

  ‘I suppose Harrison would have had a lot of papers of one sort or another around here, wouldn’t he?’ said Chappell vaguely. ‘You don’t think they could tell us anything?’

  Nichols rummaged around in the desk he was sitting at, and came up with a handful. He riffled through them sceptically.

  ‘Schedules of various kinds. Rehearsal times and places—for chorus, orchestra, principals. Details of the Pitford Methodist Hall rehearsals and who would be there. Details of who would have which dressing-room on which night. Here’s Gaylene down for number five for the seventh—that’s right. That room seems to have been kept for the principal mezzo: the girl playing Dorabelle had had it the night before, when Così Fan Tutte was being performed. It’s all done in a very orderly and shipshape fashion, Sergeant Harrison was all of a piece—he hangs together, so to speak.’

  ‘More than the rest of this lot do,’ said Sergeant Chappell. ‘You can see old Pettifer’s point about needing to have a bit of order in the midst of chaos. It would drive you mad otherwise. Look at the way he’s stored up that lost property, for example.’

  Superintendent Nichols allowed his eyes to stray in the direction of the racks at the far end of the room. At one end of the top shelf was a pile of scarves, and next to it a pile of gloves, and next to that a pile of hats three deep, divided into male and female hats, with a few hats of undeterminate sex in the middle. On the next shelf were handbags, shoulder-bags, shopping bags and briefcases. Below that books, newspapers and assorted odds and ends which it needed an imagination of some vivacity to fathom why on earth they should be taken into a theatre at all. By the side of the racks was a neat stack of umbrellas.

  ‘The military mind at work.’ murmured Nichols. ‘You don’t think it could conceivably . . . ’

  ‘Wouldn’t those things have been left by members of the general public?’ asked Chappell.

  ‘Not necessarily. I imagine anything left in any part of the theatre would find its way here.’

  ‘If it was lost by a member of the cast, why didn’t they just come in and ask him for it?’

  ‘That,’ said Nichols, getting up, ‘is the question. If there is something among that junk that somebody couldn’t well come in and ask for, then we might have found the answer to the whole question—the reason for the electrocution. Or do you think I’m completely up the wall?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ protested Sergeant Chappell, as in duty bound. ‘But it’s only a hunch, isn’t it?’

  ‘Less than that, less. But this pile of rubbish seems the only thing left in the room we haven’t been through yet, and, apart from the keys, it seems as likely as anything.’

  Nichols stopped by the rack and surveyed it. Ignoring the hats and scarves, he fixed his eye on the middle shelf, where the bags and cases were. Over most of them the dust was thick: it was a long time since people had been able to take such things into a theatre. Nichols took out gingerly a bulky shopping-bag, and Chappell followed suit. Together they began working along the row. Methodically they checked through the extraordinary collection of things people in an affluent society are apparently willing to leave in a theatre and not bother to reclaim: library books, perishable foods; gramophone records; clothes still gift-wrapped from the shop; old sweaters doffed because of the heat; small bogus antiques of one sort or another; the army lists for 1876; a signed photograph of David Frost.

  Slowly they worked their way through, Nichols’s less-than-hunch seemed frailer and frailer with every bag. Finally Nichols took down the last of the line of briefcases, saying: ‘We’d better go back to the handbags, I suppose, just to say we’ve done the job properly.’

  He opened the large briefcase. It was less dusty that the rest. Inside was nothing but a music-score. He was just shutting it when he paused, and slowly raised the bag to his nose. He took a long sniff.

  ‘Good God,’ he said to Chappell, handing him the bag. ‘Here, take this away from all this musty stuff and get a whiff. Do you smell what I smell?’

  Chappell sniffed. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘Do you remember what I said when we first walked into this room?’ asked Nichols. ‘ “It smells military,” I said.’

  ‘Didn’t it bloody ever,’ said Chappell. ‘It smelt of explosives.’

  CHAPTER XVIII

  First Night

  The Northern Opera Company had had several first nights, both in Liverpool and Manchester, during their first year, but they had had none to match
the first night of their second season. It was not quite glamorous, but it was definitely smart. There were several possible reasons for this. The opinion had been gaining ground, fostered by a series of articles and interviews in papers like the Guardian, that Mike Turner’s plaything was not just a worthy enterprise, but a fine company in the making. This impression had been strengthened by the accession to the company this season of a singer of Simon Mulley’s stature, and by the brilliant debut of Bridget Lander. Then again, Mike Turner had had the bright idea of upping considerably the prices of seats for the Rigoletto first night—always a bait for the foolish. The murder had naturally done much more good than harm, and it was a fair bet that a delicious frisson would go through the house every time Sparafucile fingered his blade. And last but far from least, Royalty was staying with friends in Lancashire, and the rumour had somehow got around that it would be attending. This proved an irresistible incitement to glitter and dressiness.

  So, for one reason and another, the beauty and fashion of the Manchester district gathered for the premiere: plump matrons in their fifties, with bare, freckled arms and long satin dresses edged with spangly braid; heavy gentlemen, veterans of innumerable business lunches, their stomachs conducting a perpetual border warfare with the waistbands of their trousers, their complexions fiery, their eyes dulled; hard middle-aged women who were nearly there but not quite, dragging with them to assert their claims to social eminence husbands who looked as if they were tiring of the struggle; and then the younger set—minor gentry with southern accents and manners learnt God knows where. All were there to see and be seen, to sneer and be sneered at.

  In the foyer and bars in the half-hour before curtain-up, they exchanged heavy jokes about the art of opera which had been elderly in Melba’s prime, they looked at what their husband’s partner’s wife was wearing, and priced it; they kept a weather eye open and a loyal smile at the ready, in case of Royalty; and they talked about the murders, retailed true and erroneous press stories, passed on gossip which they claimed to be from their domestics and employees, who had relations working at the theatre, discoursed with great technical expertise on electrocution as a method of murder, and indulged in delicious speculation about what their reaction would be if murder were to be done on stage that very night.