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The powerful lights over the mirror were on and the room still had its look of occupation. The gas fire was against the left hand wall. Alleyn squatted down by it. The tap was still turned on, its face lying parallel with the floor. The top of the heater, the tap itself, and the carpet near it, were covered with a creamish powder. On the end of the dressing-table shelf nearest to the stove was a box of this powder. Further along the shelf, greasepaints were set out in a row beneath the mirror. Then came a wash basin and in front of this an overturned chair. Alleyn could see the track of heels, across the pile of the carpet, to the door immediately opposite. Beside the wash basin was a quart bottle of whiskey, three parts empty, and a tumbler. Alleyn had had about enough and returned to the passage.
“Perfectly clear,” the hovering doctor said again, “Isn’t it?”
“I’ll see the other rooms, I think.”
The one next to Cumberland’s was like his in reverse, but smaller. The heater was back to back with Cumberland’s. The dressing-shelf was set out with much the same assortment of greasepaints. The tap of this heater, too, was turned on. It was of precisely the same make as the other and Alleyn, less embarrassed here by fumes, was able to make a longer examination. It was a common enough type of gas fire. The lead-in was from a pipe through a flexible metallic tube with a rubber co
He glanced round the room, returned to the door and read the card: “Mr. Barry George.”
The doctor followed him into the rooms opposite these, on the left-hand side of the passage. They were a repetition in design of the two he had already seen but were hung with women’s clothes and had a more elaborate assortment of greasepaint and cosmetics.
There was a mass of flowers in the star-room. Alleyn read the cards. One in particular caught his eye: “From Anthony Gill to say a most inadequate ‘thank you’ for the great idea.” A vase of red roses stood before the mirror: “To your greatest triumph, Coralie darling. C.C.” In Miss Gay’s room there were only two bouquets, one from the management and one “From Anthony, with love.”
Again in each room he pulled off the lead-in to the heater and looked at the co
“All right, aren’t they?” said the doctor.
“Quite all right. Tight fit. Good solid grey rubber.”
“Well, then—”
Next on the left was an unused room, and opposite it, “Mr. H. J. Ba
“About the body,” the doctor began.
“We’ll get a mortuary van from the Yard.”
“But—Surely in a case of suicide—”
“I don’t think this is suicide.”
“But, good God!—D’you mean there’s been an accident?”
“No accident,” said Alleyn.
At midnight, the dressing-room lights in the Jupiter Theatre were brilliant, and men were busy there with the tools of their trade. A constable stood at the stage-door and a van waited in the yard. The front of the house was dimly lit and there, among the shrouded stalls, sat Coralie Bourne, Basil Gosset, H. J. Ba
In the manager’s office Alleyn said: “You’re sure of your facts, Mike?”
“Yes, sir. Honestly. I was right up against the entrance into the passage. They didn’t see me because I was in the shadow. It was very dark offstage.”
“You’ll have to swear to it.”
“I know.”
“Good. All right, Thompson. Miss Gay and Mr. Gosset may go home. Ask Miss Bourne to come in.”
When Sergeant Thompson had gone Mike said: “I haven’t had a chance to say I know I’ve made a perfect fool of myself. Using your card and everything.”
“Irresponsible gaiety doesn’t go down very well in the service, Mike. You behaved like a clown.”
“I am a fool,” said Mike wretchedly.
The red beard was lying in front of Alleyn on Gosset’s desk. He picked it up and held it out. “Put it on,” he said.
“She might do another faint.”
“I think not. Now the hat: yes—yes, I see. Come in.”
Sergeant Thompson showed Coralie Bourne in and then sat at the end of the desk with his notebook.
Tears had traced their course through the powder on her face, carrying black cosmetic with them and leaving the greasepaint shining like snail-tracks. She stood near the doorway looking dully at Michael. “Is he back in England?” she said. “Did he tell you to do this?” She made an impatient movement. “Do take it off,” she said, “it’s a very bad beard. If Ca
“Nobody,” Mike stammered, pocketing the beard. “I mean—As a matter of fact, Tony Gill—”
“Tony? But he didn’t know. Tony wouldn’t do it. Unless—”
“Unless?” Alleyn said.
She said frowning: “Tony didn’t want Ca
“He says it was his dress for the Chelsea Arts Ball,” Mike mumbled. “I brought it here. I just thought I’d put it on—it was idiotic, I know—for fun. I’d no idea you and Mr. Cumberland would mind.”
“Ask Mr. Gill to come in,” Alleyn said.
Anthony was white and seemed bewildered and helpless. “I’ve told Mike,” he said. “It was my dress for the ball. They sent it round from the costume-hiring place this afternoon but I forgot it. Dendra reminded me and rang up the Delivery people—or Mike, as it turns out—in the interval.”
“Why,” Alleyn asked, “did you choose that particular disguise?”
“I didn’t. I didn’t know what to wear and I was too rattled to think. They said they were hiring things for themselves and would get something for me. They said we’d all be characters out of a Russian melodrama.”
“Who said this?”
“Well—well, it was Barry George, actually.”
“Barry,” Coralie Bourne said. “It was Barry.”
“I don’t understand,” Anthony said. “Why should a fancy dress upset everybody?”
“It happened,” Alleyn said, “to be a replica of the dress usually worn by Miss Bourne’s husband who also had a red beard. That was it, wasn’t it, Miss Bourne? I remember seeing him—”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “you would. He was known to the police.” Suddenly she broke down completely. She was in an armchair near the desk but out of the range of its shaded lamp. She twisted and writhed, beating her hand against the padded arm of the chair. Sergeant Thompson sat with his head bent and his hand over his notes. Mike, after an agonized glance at Alleyn, turned his back. Anthony Gill leant over her: “Don’t,” he said violently. “Don’t! For God’s sake, stop.”
She twisted away from him and, gripping the edge of the desk, began to speak to Alleyn; little by little gaining mastery of herself. “I want to tell you. I want you to understand. Listen.” Her husband had been fantastically cruel, she said. “It was a kind of slavery.” But when she sued for divorce he brought evidence of adultery with Cumberland. They had thought he knew nothing. “There was an abominable scene. He told us he was going away. He said he’d keep track of us and if I tried again for divorce, he’d come home. He was very friendly with Barry in those days.” He had left behind him the first draft of a play he had meant to write for her and Cumberland. It had a wonderful scene for them. “And now you will never have it,” he had said, “because there is no other playwright who could make this play for you but I.” He was, she said, a melodramatic man but he was never ridiculous. He returned to the Ukraine where he was born and they had heard no more of him. In a little while she would have been able to presume death.