‘Why?’
‘Why
not?’
Phryne
smiled
enigmatically,
smoothed down her velvet top, and refused to explain further. Robinson refrained from comment and opened his notebook. ‘Well, this is what I’ve got. I spoke to Mr West, the stage electrician –
they call them ‘‘technicals’’. He explained how the lighting worked, most ingenious. He says that he saw nothing but he’s in the lighting box and wouldn’t notice anything short of a grenade.
Unfortunately I sent Naylor to talk to Mr Brawn the carpenter and he got nothing out of him before the regrettable incident.’
‘Why haven’t you got rid of that bruiser, Jack?’
asked Phryne.
‘What can I do with him? If I let him out on the street he’ll be inside in a month for manslaughter.
Best to keep him under discipline.’
‘Get him to join the army,’ suggested Phryne.
‘Army discipline is stricter than the police. He’d spend all his time in an army jail and that’s not a fate I would wish on anyone.’
‘But he hit one of my staff!’ protested Sir Bernard.
‘Yes, I know he did. I’ll think of something,’
sighed Robinson. ‘What else? Ah, yes. I talked to the stage manager, Mr Loveland-Hall. He says that he saw Mr Copland drinking from a small bottle as he stood in the prompt corner, ready to go on. He did not think it his business to comment because the drinking never affected Mr Copland’s performance. To the best of his recollection, Mr 123
Copland gave the bottle to someone standing beside him in the wings.’
‘Who?’
‘He didn’t see. There was a crowd of people there – the bucks and blades, he says, and the sailor Dick Dauntless.’
‘Gwilym Evans,’ said Phryne.
‘Yes.’
‘Surely even Gwil would not be so stupid!’ protested Sir Bernard.
‘He wanted to play the lead very badly,’ Phryne reminded the manager. ‘And he is a Celt, you know.’
‘But he was willing to wait until the booze caught up with Walter. You talked to him, Phryne darling. He’s a rotter but I can’t believe he would poison anyone.’
‘Where do you get laudanum?’ asked Phryne.
‘It’s a scheduled drug under the Poisons Act,’
said Robinson, who had looked it up. ‘It’s not often used these days, being addictive, and mostly replaced by morphine and cocaine as a pain killer, or so that nice Dr Fielding tells me. You can get it from a chemist but you have to sign for it. Old people still use it for headaches and the like. I’m sending Naylor to search the Poisons Register in every chemist in the city and then, if we don’t find it, in Carlton. That’s where most of the company are staying. That will, with any luck, keep Constable Naylor out of mischief.’ He smiled grimly.
‘Anything I can do for you, Miss Fisher?’
‘No, Jack, I don’t think so. I’ve got a lot of 124
ideas but not one provable fact so far. See if the bottle is in that sack, and test it for fingerprints.
I want to know who handled the one with the poison.’
‘So do I. What are you working on?’
‘The murder of Dorothea Curtis, among other things.’
Bernard leapt to his feet. ‘What?’
‘Look at the story you told, Bernard dear.
Analyse it. You described Dorothea as beautiful, heartless and vain. Didn’t you? A proud beauty with great talent and a sordid background. Even if Dot Mobbs had a heart to start with, she couldn’t have got to be principal singer with the Savoy company unless she had abandoned it pretty early. Everyone exploits the poor. If she had been prone to falling in love she would have been a dolly-mop in a bloodtub theatre, bearing a child a year, going down hill until she was singing in the street. Eh? Isn’t that what happened to the girls with hearts of gold in the good old days?’
‘Yes, well, yes, I suppose so,’ muttered Sir Bernard, shocked by Phryne’s plain speech.
‘So. To get to that eminence in her career she must have fought off or indulged innumerable managers – sorry, Bernard – and used her beauty like a weapon. Yes?’
‘Yes, though not the Savoy. Any manager who tried that in the Savoy would have been instantly flung into the street. Mr Gilbert was very particular.’
125
‘All right, but earlier. She went through how many companies before the Savoy noticed her?’
‘Three at least. She seldom talked about those days. But I know she was on the music hall when she was seventeen, and she used to sing in pubs before that.’
‘Right. So your Dorothea had a heart of stainless steel. You said that she agreed to marry you.’
‘Yes, Phryne, but I didn’t come! Sheffield burned the note!’
‘That sort of woman would never die of despair, Bernard,’ said Phryne gently. ‘Dorothea might sit all night waiting in order to perfect her rage and plot revenge. She would not kill herself. She might kill you,’ she added, ‘but Dorothea had made herself and would not mar her own creation. She would know that all she had to do was to let go of her standards and she’d be in the street in six months. It’s different now. I come from those same origins but I had a choice. Dorothea had no choice. She had to keep going up or crash. Do you agree?’
‘Yes, yes, I agree.’ Sir Bernard took out his handkerchief.
‘So either Dorothea is back, ranging for revenge like Caesar’s ghost,’ said Phryne, ‘or someone is trying to recall her to mind. Did she sleep with you, Bernard?’
Sir Bernard turned plum coloured and choked.
Phryne and Robinson waited for his answer.
Phryne said impatiently, ‘Bernard, this is no time to go all reticent about a lady’s honour. She’s been 126
dead for thirty years, dammit! Now answer the question. I need to know.’
‘You really think that someone murdered her?’
he whispered.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well, all right, Phryne, I’ll tell you. The dear girl graced me with her regard for almost a year in 1896. Happiest year of my life.’
‘She left you?’
‘Yes. No explanation. She just packed her traps and left. She was missing for almost two months, then up she popped again. Refused to explain where she had been. No one knew. She wouldn’t tell me. Must have been a new man, lucky devil.
But I never knew who it was. No one in the theatre, anyway.’
‘What time of year?’ asked Phryne.
‘Summer – height of summer. June and July, 1897.’
‘Good. Now, I want to look at the contracts,’
said Phryne.
‘I never married, you know,’ said Bernard sadly.
‘Never found another woman to come up to my Dorothea. You know, Leila is a dead spit and image of her. Temper and all.’
‘The contracts, Bernard,’ reminded Phryne.
Bernard unlocked his safe and laid a heavy bundle of papers on the desk without speaking.
‘Well, I’m going to catch some of the performance,’ commented Robinson. ‘Coming, Sir Bernard?’
‘Yes. I want to see how my new Sir Ruthven is 127
getting on,’ said Bernard, recalled to his duty. ‘I’ll be back after the show’s over, Phryne.’
Phryne nodded and was left alone.
The documents were tied around with a blue ribbon. They were standard forms, committing the actor to six months’ work with the company at a standard rate of wages, allowing for release in the case of illness and providing draconic penalties for breach. Phryne wished that she had paid attention when her lawyer friend Jilly was talking about contracts and leafed through them rapidly, looking for particular information and noting that the chorus had to buy their own make-up and stockings.
After twenty minutes she heard the closing song which marked the end of the first act and stared at her scribbled notes.
‘Damn,’ she said quietly, reordering the papers and tying the blue ribbon with a packing knot. She thrust them back into the safe and closed the door, spinning the combination lock. ‘The only one who qualifies is bloody Gwilym Evans.’
The chorus flowed past the office on their way to their room and Phryne stowed the notebook and joined them.
The chatter was strained. This chorus was nervous. The young men separated from the young ladies at the second corridor and went into their own room. Phryne followed the girls. Dupont the chorus master stood outside their door, smoking a cigarette. He had a large, comforting bourgeois presence.
128
‘
Bonsoir
,’ said Phryne and introduced herself.
Monsieur Dupont, it seemed, wished to display his excellent English.
‘Mademoiselle, I am delighted that you are here.
You may be able to solve these mysteries and render the theatre calm again. My chorus is very nervous.’
‘I have a question. What are your relations with Miss Esperance?’
He did not even blink. ‘Of course, you must ask these things. And I shall not deny that there was . . . an attraction. But the young woman has no heart, only beauty – very great beauty – and that fades, does it not? In any case I believe that she is in love with Evans, and there I cannot compete.’ He seemed very relaxed for someone who had been cut out, and by a younger and prettier rival, so Phryne asked, ‘And were you very upset by that?’
‘At the time, yes. He gave me a mouthful of abuse and I lost my temper. But I did not hit him, for that would have led to my dismissal. And I have
formed
another
attachment,’
he
said
complacently.
‘Oh? With whom?’
‘Mellicent Hyland. She is young and has a good voice. With more training it may be great, a strong contralto suitable even for grand opera. She is willing to learn. I believe that she will go far – with me as her manager and, in time, her husband.’
‘I’ll come and see you at Covent Garden,’ promised Phryne.
129
‘La Scala,’ corrected the chorus master. ‘La Scala, Milan.’
She left him dreaming of future glories and went into the dressing room.
‘I’m Phryne Fisher,’ she said to the crowded room. ‘Can I have a word?’
‘Oh, Miss Fisher,’ cried one tall girl in bridesmaid’s clothes, ‘you’re the private detective. Have you found out who poisoned Walter yet?’
‘No, but I’m on the trail.’ She sized up the ten girls. They ranged in size and weight from tall and thin to short and plump. Tea was being drunk and make-up repaired and there was an overwhelming waft of sweat and perfume.
‘What about the theft of the bag and the torn-up telegram?’
‘Could have been anyone. Miss Esperance is
. . . well, she’s a bit hard to get along with,’
explained the tall girl. ‘I’m Jessie. We’ve talked about it, but we really don’t know. None of us have a reason to go to her room and we wouldn’t anyway.’
‘Do you know who the telegram was from?’
‘Selwyn Alexander, I think.’
‘Good. And the bag?’
‘Herbert’s supposed to keep an eye out backstage,’ said Jessie, who appeared to be a spokes-woman. ‘But he’s often busy and he’s a lazy little rogue, always hanging about in the wings watching the show. Tom the doorkeeper is supposed to make sure that no one gets in, but he goes to sleep in his little booth. Someone could have come in 130
from the street and pinched the bag. It needn’t have been one of us.’
‘Whose bag was it?’
‘Mine,’ said a plump blonde, ‘I’m Melly.’
‘Ah.’ Phryne struggled to frame a question, and Melly blurted, ‘Yes, I was in love with Gwil – with Mr Evans. And he did leave me for Marie-Claire.
Marie and I were upset at the time, but then he dumped her for Miss Esperance, who is a cold-hearted bitch and will give him all he deserves so it’s all right. And now I’m going to marry Monsieur Dupont and be an opera star and I don’t love Gwil any more.’ She burst into contradictory tears and was comforted by a press of bridesmaids.
Marie-Claire, a slim dark girl, identified herself. It was on her shoulder that Mellicent was reclining.
‘Yes, it is true, he is a scoundrel. But we did not go too far with him and we now loathe him so we have no reason to attack him, and anyway it was Mr Copland that was attacked,’ she said carefully.
‘Did anyone see Mr Copland eat or drink anything?’
‘No, he entered from the other side of the stage.
We are stage right – he’s stage left,’ explained Jessie. ‘The boys might have seen him. He did drink, you know. Poor man. Pity he was so hard to feel sorry for. Never had a kind word for anyone, Mr Copland.’
And that appeared to wrap it up for Mr Copland. Phryne decided to watch from the wings as the overture to the second act began and the bridesmaids stubbed cigarettes, gulped their tea, 131
and flowed down the steps and into the wings.
Phryne found Sir Bernard in the wings, watching Gwilym Evans talking to his ancestors.
‘Dammit,’ she heard him mutter. ‘Dammit, he is good. He is damned good.’
Evans brought to the downfall of Ruthven Murgatroyd youth and freshness. He was not the standard melodrama villain, as the role was commonly played. The heedless confidence of Dick Dauntless was suppressed and in its place was a lurking horror; he was the epitome of a respectable young man finding out that his heredity was lethally compromised.
‘The secret of G and S is that it has to be played perfectly straight; no winks, no asides, no ‘‘look how funny I am’’, no ‘‘see how absurd this is’’. It’s very comic if it’s played as though all the ridiculous conventions are true,’ instructed Sir Bernard.
‘And that’s what that devil of a Welshman is doing.’
Sir Roderick Murgatroyd announced himself as the ghost of his father, and Gwilym dropped to his knees and sang on a pure double tone, ‘Alas, poor ghost!’ The attitude and the bent head conveyed pity and fear. It was stagecraft at its best. Phryne had to agree. Gwilym Evans, drat him, was a consummate Sir Ruthven.
Sir Bernard remained glued to his place in the wings, the ancestors sang about the ghost’s high noon, and Phryne considered the stage.
132
The wings were situated in a gap perhaps four paces wide between two box sets. These were made of painted canvas over deal frames, held up by large brackets weighted down with sandbags.
They were crowded. Standing beside Phryne was Prompt, who had a book and a subdued light.
Beside her was the stage manager, biting his beard because the orchestra was a beat out and gesturing furiously for a stage hand to get a broom and remove the sand leaking from one of the bags, which crunched underfoot. The call boy Herbert was staring fascinated at the stage, where Sir Roderick Murgatroyd was complaining that his portrait had been hung in a bad light.