Death on the Pier, page 21
Hugh was sitting on a stool at a tall table, tucked away in one of the corners of The King and Queen public house. The pub had recently undergone a rebuilding in mock Tudor style. It somehow made the place both new and old at the same time. The daylight outside had almost faded completely and the stained-glass windows were lit only by a dim glow. The gloom of the bar, accentuated by its dark wood floors and large black timber beams, seemed to reflect his current state of mind.
On their way to the pub, Bertie had disappeared back to his hotel room to retrieve his bag. He had just returned and Hugh could see him across the room with his foot resting on the wrought-iron rail, waiting to be served at the bar. He hoped that the bag Bertie had brought with him would contain some good news.
Hugh returned to his own thoughts. To him, the case seemed impossible. He reflected on the advice that he had given Bertie previously: be patient, gather as much information as possible and, given time, the solution will eventually present itself. Now he had to admit that his own patience was wearing thin. Could it be that his own crime-solving methodology was going to fail him for the first time? Up until now, it had been foolproof.
Ordinarily, there would have been something that emerged from the information they’d gathered. A feeling or an idea that stood out as being different, something that didn’t quite fit or sit right among everything else. Sitting here today, each one of his thoughts seemed as incomprehensible as the last. Each theory he tested was as impossible as the one that preceded it. In any normal case, he would be concerned, but now he felt a tinge of embarrassment. This time, he had an accomplice working alongside him, although that shouldn’t have made any difference. Not only did Hugh need to figure out the case for his superiors and make sure that justice was done, but there was also something else. He found himself with an overwhelming desire to impress Bertie.
Two dimpled glasses were set down on the table with a dark beer contained within – not too dissimilar in colour to the dark brown varnish of the table. They were followed shortly by a sheaf of papers, which landed with a loud thunk on the table, snapping Hugh out of his muddled thoughts.
‘Two pints of their best mild,’ said Bertie with enthusiasm. ‘If I’m going to think like a policeman, I may as well drink like one.’
‘I’m not sure thinking like a policeman will help all that much. This policeman is still getting nowhere with the case.’ Hugh’s expression remained fixed somewhere between concern and despair. He forced a smile to his face. ‘Cheers,’ Hugh added, as he held up his beer glass. Bertie returned the gesture, before taking a small sip from the glass.
‘That…’ said Bertie, with a cocked head and surprised expression on his face, ‘is not as bad as I was expecting, quite frankly!’
Hugh laughed and nodded towards the pile of papers on the table. ‘What’s that then?’ he asked. ‘More clues?’
‘Well, I can’t be sure, but there just well may be,’ Bertie replied.
He flipped the inch-thick document over, revealing the front cover. It was bound with – what had once been – two shiny brass fasteners. They had dulled and tarnished with age. In the top right-hand corner, written in a hand that Hugh recognised, were the words “Rehearsal Draft”. Further down the page, in typewritten text, it read:
ASSOCIATION WITH DEATH
By Bertie Carroll
‘Your handwriting hasn’t changed much since school, has it?’ said Hugh.
‘Unreadable, you mean?’ Bertie joked back. ‘No, not really.’
‘So, what’s this, then?’ asked Hugh. ‘Your version of the script?’
‘Yes, the final rehearsal draft. This is my copy, with all my notes.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘It means that this script is the last version I ever wrote,’ Bertie explained. ‘Now, there are always changes in rehearsals, things that get cut or tweaked. All of those bits are what has been written in the margins or lines that have been crossed out.’
Hugh flipped through a few pages of the script. There, just as Bertie had described, was text with lines drawn through them or additions added in pencil.
‘Any major re-workings of a scene get sent off for re-typing, but I like to keep the original as it is for my own records,’ Bertie continued. ‘If there any big re-writes or new scenes that get added, I put them at the back.’ Bertie thumbed through the last few pages of the script. ‘Although in the case of this show, it looks like there were just a couple…’
‘I’m sure even Shakespeare didn’t get it right on the first try,’ commented Hugh with a smile. ‘So how does this help us?’
‘Well, this isn’t the script that the current cast is working from. They’re using the published script, which is different. That version of the script is as it was first performed, the one produced from the prompt-copy. If there were any changes or cuts that had been made, they wouldn’t have been included in the published version.’
‘So…’
‘So,’ Bertie continued, ‘I’m afraid I got something wrong earlier.’
‘You did?’ said Hugh, sounding a little surprised. In his opinion, Bertie hadn’t put a foot wrong in the entire investigation.
‘Yes, and it’s been bothering me ever since,’ Bertie admitted. ‘It’s when we were talking to Arthur. One of the lines from the show.’
‘You got it wrong?’
‘Not quite,’ Bertie explained. ‘I’m pretty sure I quoted a line that was never in the show at all!’ He flipped open the script and flicked through the pages towards the back. ‘There is it,’ said Bertie, pointing out the line in the script.
PARKER: We will find our murderer before the night is out!
‘Parker? Not the most imaginative name for a butler, is it? You came up with that all by yourself, with no help from anyone?’ Hugh joked. He looked back at the page again, scanning the lines, and then turned to Bertie with a quizzical look. ‘But it’s crossed out?’ he said.
He was right. A neat pencil line stretched through the middle of every letter in the sentence.
‘That’s right,’ confirmed Bertie. ‘It was cut. It was never in the show. Thank God, quite frankly. It would have been a bit over the top. Still, I was young and foolish back then, but perhaps that’s why it stuck in my mind; that’s why it came back to me when we were talking to Arthur.’
‘So, what’s this all about?’ asked Hugh, who was trying to follow Bertie’s thought process.
‘Well, if it was never in the show, it was never in the published script. That’s what I was checking when we were at Robert’s digs. I wanted to look at his script to see if that line had made it in,’ Bertie explained. ‘It hadn’t. It wasn’t there. If it was never in the script, that means that no one involved in this show should have ever heard it before. Including…’
‘Including Arthur,’ agreed Hugh. ‘He would have never heard it.’ Hugh thought for a moment more, then added excitedly, ‘He would never have committed it to memory!’
‘Exactly,’ Bertie continued. ‘Remember, we’re talking about someone who knows the script well enough to pick up the part of the butler and do it off-book with next to no notice. When I quoted that line from Act Two, why didn’t he correct me?’
Hugh nodded in thought. ‘Perhaps he was just being polite?’ he said. ‘I mean, you are the writer, after all. Isn’t it rude to correct the author?’
‘I suppose it’s possible,’ mused Bertie, ‘but that isn’t the impression I got. He just categorically agreed with me. You’d think if it was a line you didn’t recognise, you might look confused for a moment, at the very least?’
‘Perhaps he didn’t know the second act as well at the first act?’ Hugh continued, thinking out loud. ‘The second half of the performance never took place, so we don’t know what would have happened. Perhaps his performance in the second act wouldn’t have been so impressive? Maybe he would have had to take the book on with him?’
‘That’s right,’ said Bertie, with a glimmer of recognition. ‘The second half never took place,’ Bertie repeated under his breath. He sat for a while with his own thoughts before Hugh interrupted them.
‘Well, that seemed to set the machinery whirring,’ commented Hugh. ‘Have you had an idea?’
‘I have,’ said Bertie. ‘Only an idea… But if I pull on that thread, it opens up a whole new set of possibilities. What was it Teddy said earlier? About the gun? He didn’t go near it before, during or after the show. Before, during or after,’ Bertie repeated to himself.
‘What do we know about the gun?’ he continued. ‘It only had two sets of fingerprints on it. Jenny and Charlie’s. For a while, we thought there might have been more than one gun – maybe a gun with a silencer. But what if we discount that idea? What if there really was only one gun? Where else could it have been? Who else would have had access to it?’
‘We know the gun was under Charlie’s watchful eye for pretty much the whole performance, don’t we?’ said Hugh, working through the idea.
‘What if I look at this as a writer? When I look at the whole thing as if I was writing one of my plays, it doesn’t work, dramatically speaking. Jenny is far too obvious a suspect, so who else could I pin it on?’
‘I thought in plays and movies, it was always the least likely person?’ commented Hugh, joking.
‘That’s not always true, Hugh,’ chuckled Bertie. ‘And that’s something I try hard to avoid. But if Jenny is too obvious, that’s because someone wanted to try to pin it on her. And if someone went out of their way to make it look that way, it means that the actual murderer must have been someone else. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
‘Before, during or after,’ Bertie repeated. ‘I think we’ve been distracted all this time. We’ve been focussing on the wrong things. We’ve been focussing on the moment of the murder, the shooting in the play. What happens when we look either side of that moment? Where was everybody? What were they doing? Where was the gun?’
‘We know that the gun was locked away until the performance started,’ Hugh commented. ‘And Charlie had it in sight the whole time. He saw it when it went on stage for the murder scene and when it came back off again.’
‘But then what happened after that?’ said Bertie. ‘What happened after Celia Hamilton was shot? When you think about that, more possibilities open themselves.’
‘They do?’ asked Hugh, who was confused by Bertie’s reasoning.
‘Yes. Things start to make more sense. They start to fall into place.’
‘So who did it?’ questioned Hugh eagerly.
‘I’m not sure,’ admitted Bertie. ‘I don’t know, at least I don’t know for certain. Not yet. There are a few more questions that need to be answered.’ His face lit up with a moment of realisation. ‘And the most important of those questions is, why does Constance have a photo of herself in her dressing room?’
‘It is?’
‘Absolutely!’ exclaimed Bertie. ‘On the night of the murder, you were an excellent policeman. You are very good, aren’t you?’
‘If you say so,’ Hugh replied, his modesty getting the better of him.
‘I mean, you didn’t let anyone leave the stage without being searched. The stage, the set, the crime scene. It’s been completely undisturbed. Nothing could have left the theatre or been removed from it.’
‘That’s right, we searched everyone before we left the set. No one had anything of importance, did they?’
‘No, they didn’t,’ Bertie agreed. ‘And the stage has been guarded this whole time?’
‘Yes, there has been a constable stationed there, making sure no one can interfere with anything on the stage or in the theatre.’
‘We never found a bullet,’ said Bertie. ‘But I think that maybe we were looking in the wrong place. We never found a second gun, and that’s because there never was one. But we never found a silencer either?’
‘Suppressor,’ corrected Hugh, out of habit.
‘Right,’ said Bertie. ‘We never found a suppressor, yet there must have been one!’
‘Must there?’ quizzed Hugh, struggling to follow Bertie’s train of thought. ‘I thought we just ruled out a second gun?’
‘I have an idea, just an idea, mind, but I need your permission. Tomorrow morning, I think we should open up the crime scene again, say we’re done with it. Allow everyone in the company to come back to the theatre and collect their belongings, then send them home.’
‘And you think that will help us?’ asked Hugh, a little sceptically.
‘Help us?’ repeated Bertie. ‘I think it’s going to tell us exactly who the murderer is.’
‘Take me through it. Step by step,’ said Hugh.
‘I will,’ replied Bertie, glancing down at his wristwatch. ‘But first I need to make a call to a newspaper. And Hugh?’
‘Yes, Bertie?’
‘I think we’re going to need more than just one beer!’
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was raining again. One by one each member of the company filed in through the stage door and set off in the direction of their dressing rooms. They did so sombrely and silently, ready to pack up their belongings. Charlie headed in the direction of the stage and Bertie followed closely behind.
‘Give us a hand with this, would you?’ asked Charlie, indicating a large rectangular wicker basket at the corner of the stage.
Bertie nodded, picking up one side of the basket by its rope handle, leaving Charlie to lift the other end. Between them, they carried it over and set it down in front of the props table. Charlie flipped open the top of the basket to reveal a pile of blankets and old newspapers inside. He watched closely as Charlie retrieved a stack of the newspapers and set about wrapping the props up carefully, placing them neatly in the basket to be protected by the blankets during travel.
‘What’s going to happen to all of this?’ asked Bertie, indicating towards the props on the table.
‘Put into storage, probably. I imagine that it will sit around gathering dust somewhere.’
‘And the set?’
‘We’ve got a crew coming in tomorrow to take it down. It’s looking a bit tired now, but with a bit of fresh paint, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it out on tour again.
‘Apparently, the crew here haven’t had to do a get out on a wet day in five years, if you can believe that.’ Charlie smiled. ‘I think their luck is about to change,’ he said, his eyes flicking up to the roof where the gentle sound of rain drumming on the outside could still be heard.
Bertie was distracted by the sound of footsteps descending the stairs from the dressing rooms. He turned to see Arthur coming back down onto the stage. He gave a nod of recognition towards Bertie and Charlie but didn’t say anything. Instead, he wandered through the doorway and onto the set with a sober expression on his face.
‘How about you?’ Bertie said, who seemed to be looking off into the distance, rather than returning his attention to Charlie. ‘What will you do next?’
‘Not another murder mystery, that’s for sure! No offence,’ he added at the end.
‘None taken.’ Bertie turned, allowing himself a smile in Charlie’s direction.
‘I think I’ve had my fair share of murders for a while – real or staged.’
‘Me too. Although, I’ll keep writing them as long as they’re in demand. It’s what pays the bills after all! Look, let me leave you to all this,’ said Bertie, gesturing to the remaining props on the table. ‘I’m just going to pop onto the stage and say my goodbyes to Arthur – to all of you, in fact. Maybe you should let the others know, we’ll all meet up there when they’re done?’
Charlie nodded. Bertie left him to continue with his work and followed Arthur onto the set. When he entered, Arthur had his back towards him and was adjusting the flowers in one of the vases, getting them ready to be packed up.
‘Arthur,’ said Bertie, announcing his arrival. Arthur, slightly startled, turned to face him.
‘Oh, Bertie!’ said Arthur with relief. ‘It’s you.’
‘Nice flowers,’ commented Bertie.
‘They are, aren’t they? I was going to bunch them up, give them to the two girls, Jenny and Constance. I thought it would be a nice touch, or something, after everything that’s happened. Seems such a shame to let them go to waste, wilting here in the dark.’ Arthur gave the flowers in the vase a little wiggle. ‘Of course, it turns out they’re fake! Oh well, it was a nice idea, I suppose. I expect they’ll get packed up with the rest of the props,’ Arthur said with a gloomy expression.
‘I hope you didn’t lose too much, putting on the show?’
‘Well, yes. I did,’ Arthur admitted. ‘I’ll be all right, I suppose. There’s always the next show and then the one after that… One of them might do well enough to cover the losses on this one – unfortunately it’s like that sometimes. You won’t hear many producers telling you this, but producing shows is a terrible way to make money. You have to spend so much money to mount a production in the first place and then earn enough to cover the running costs while it’s open. I’m sure if I’d just left my money in a bank account, I’d be a richer man than I am today.’
‘I thought the first rule of producing is that you never put your own money into a production,’ Bertie commented.
‘This one was more of a passion project, I suppose. It was all on me,’ said Arthur. He looked around the set wistfully.
‘I see,’ said Bertie. ‘That’s why you were trying to do it as cheaply as possible.’
‘Oh yes. Although nothing ever really comes cheap. It always ends up costing you something,’ he added thoughtfully.
At that moment, Teddy walked onto the set. ‘Bad luck, old chap,’ he said in Arthur’s direction. Arthur nodded in response.
Charlie followed in, closely behind Teddy. ‘Maybe I’ll see you on another one, in the future,’ he commented optimistically. ‘We all thought we’d meet up on the stage – Bertie’s idea. You know, give us all a chance to say our goodbyes before we disappear off into the sunset. We’re all free to go now, investigation-wise, aren’t we?’
