Chapter IX

THE SHADOW OF OTTO BROD

Parry stood inside the door and pinched his lips as if he realized they were white and hoped to restore their colour.

“I don’t know anything about finger-prints,” he said. “I never read about crime. I don’t know anything about it. When I came off after my final exit I went to my room. I was just going back for the call when I smelt gas. We’re all nervous about gas in this theatre and anyway the room was frightfully hot. I turned the thing off. That’s all.”

“This was after Bennington tripped you up?”

“I’ve told you. It was after my last exit and before the call. It wasn’t—”

He walked forward very slowly and sat down in front of Alleyn. “You can’t think that sort of thing about me,” he said, and sounded as if he was moved more by astonishment than by any other emotion. “My God, look at me. I’m so hopelessly harmless. I’m not vicious. I’m not even odd. I’m just harmless.”

“Why didn’t you tell me at once that you noticed the smell of gas?”

“Because, as I’ve tried to suggest, I’m no good at this sort of thing. The Doctor got me all upset and in any case the whole show was so unspeakable.” He stared at Alleyn and, as if that explained everything, said: “I saw him. I saw him when they carried him out. I’ve never been much good about dead people. In the blitz I sort of managed but I never got used to it.”

“Was the smell of gas very strong in your room?”

“No. Not strong at all. But in this theatre — we were all thinking about that other time, and I just thought it was too bad of the management to have anything faulty in the system considering the history of the place. I don’t know that I thought anything more than that: I smelt it and remembered, and got a spasm of the horrors. Then I felt angry at being given a shock and then I turned my fire off and went out. It was rather like not looking at the new moon through glass. You don’t really believe it can do anything but you avoid it. I forgot all about the gas as soon as I got on-stage. I didn’t give it another thought until I smelt it again during the Doctor’s speech.”

“Yes, I see.”

“You do, really, don’t you? After all, suppose I — suppose I had thought I’d copy that other awful thing — well, I’d scarcely be fool enough to leave my finger-prints on the tap, would I?”

“But you tell me,” Alleyn said, not making too much of it, “that you don’t know anything about fingerprints.”

“God!” Parry whispered, Staring at him. “You do frighten me. It’s not fair. You frighten me.”

“Believe me, there’s no need for an innocent man to be frightened.”

“How can you be so sure of yourselves? Do you never make mistakes?”

“We do indeed. But not,” Alleyn said, “in the end. Not nowadays on these sorts of cases.”

“What do you mean these sorts of cases!”

“Why, I mean on what may turn out to be a capital charge.”

“I can’t believe it!” Parry cried out. “I shall never believe it. We’re not like that. We’re kind, rather simple people. We wear our hearts on our sleeves. We’re not complicated enough to kill each other.”

Alleyn said with a smile: “You’re quite complicated enough for us at the moment. Is there anything else you’ve remembered that you think perhaps you ought to tell me about?”

Parry shook his head and dragged himself to his feet. Alleyn saw, as Martyn had seen before him, that he was not an exceedingly young man. “No,” he said. “There’s nothing I can think of.”

“You may go to your dressing-room now, if you’d like to change into — what should I say? — into plain clothes?”

“Thank you. I simply loathe the thought of my room after all this but I shall be glad to change.”

“Do you mind if Lamprey does a routine search before you go? We’ll ask this of all of you.”

Parry showed the whites of his eyes but said at once: “Why should I mind?”

Alleyn nodded to young Lamprey, who advanced upon Parry with an apologetic smile.

“It’s a painless extraction, sir,” he said.

Parry raised his arms in a curve with his white hands held like a dancer’s above his head. There was a silence and a swift, efficient exploration. “Thank you so much, sir,” said Mike Lamprey. “Cigarette case, lighter and handkerchief, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Right. Take Mr. Percival along to his room, will you?”

Parry said: “There couldn’t be a more fruitless question, but it would be nice to know, one way or the other, if you have believed me.”

“There couldn’t be a more unorthodox answer,” Alleyn rejoined, “but at the moment I see no reason to disbelieve you, Mr. Percival.”

When Lamprey came back he found his senior officer looking wistfully at his pipe and whistling under his breath.

“Mike,” Alleyn said, “the nastiest cases in our game are very often the simplest. There’s something sticking out under my nose in this theatre and I can’t see it. I know it’s there because of another thing that, Lord pity us all, Fox and I can see.”

“Really, sir? Am I allowed to ask what it is?”

“You’re getting on in the service, now. What have you spotted on your own account?”

“Is it something to do with Bennington’s behaviour, sir?”

“It is indeed. If a man’s going to commit suicide, Mike, and his face is made up to look loathsome, what does he do about it? If he’s a vain man (and Bennington appears to have had his share of professional vanity), if he minds about the appearance of his own corpse, he cleans off the greasepaint. If he doesn’t give a damn, he leaves it as it is. But with time running short, he does not carefully and heavily powder his unbecoming makeup for all the world as if he meant to go on and take his curtain-call with the rest of them. Now, does he?”

“Well, no sir,” said Mike. “If you put it like that, I don’t believe he does.”

By half past twelve most of the company on the stage seemed to be asleep or dozing. Dr. Rutherford on his couch occasionally lapsed into bouts of snoring from which he would rouse a little, groan, take snuff and then settle down again. Helena lay in a deep chair with her feet on a stool. Her eyes were closed but Martyn thought that if she slept it was but lightly. Clem had made himself a bed of some old curtains and was curled up on it beyond the twisting stairway. Jacko, having tucked Helena up in her fur coat, settled himself on the stage beside her, dozing, Martyn thought, like some eccentric watch-dog at his post. After J.G. silently returned from the Greenroom, Gay Gainsford was summoned and in her turn came back — not silently, but with some attempt at conversation. In the presence of the watchful Mr. Fox this soon petered out. Presently she, too, fell to nodding. Immediately after her return Parry Percival suddenly made an inarticulate ejaculation and, before Fox could move, darted off the stage. Sergeant Gibson was heard to accost him in the passage. Fox remained where he was and there was another long silence.

Adam Poole and Martyn looked into each other’s faces. He crossed the stage to where she sat, on the left side, which was the farthest removed from Fox. He pulled up a small chair and sat facing her.

“Kate,” he muttered, “I’m so sorry about all this. There are haresfoot shadows under your eyes, your mouth droops, your hands are anxious and your hair is limp, though not at all unbecoming. You should be sound asleep in Jacko’s garret under the stars and there should be the sound of applause in your dreams. Really, it’s too bad.”

Martyn said: “It’s nice of you to think so but you have other things to consider.”

“I’m glad to have my thoughts interrupted.”

“Then I still have my uses.”

“You can see that chunk of a man over there. Is he watching us?”

“Yes. With an air of absent-mindedness which I’m not at all inclined to misunderstand.”

“I don’t think he can hear us, though it’s a pity my diction is so good. If I take your hand perhaps he’ll suppose I’m making love to you and feel some slight constabular delicacy.”