The Strangling on the Stage (23 page)

‘No problem at all,' said Carole.

He sat down, shook his head and said, ‘It doesn't seem right, Elizaveta not being involved in this
Devil's Disciple
production.'

‘Really?'

‘Well, you wouldn't know, Jude. Nor you, Carole, only just having joined the society.'

‘And having paid my subscription, after what almost amounted to harassment from Mimi Lassiter.'

‘Oh yes.' Gordon chuckled. ‘She does take her job a bit seriously. No, but what I was saying, you wouldn't know because you're new, but SADOS without the Dalrymples just doesn't seem right. I mean, it was bad enough when Freddie passed away, but now with Elizaveta not being involved … well, it doesn't seem right.' He couldn't think of another way of saying it.

‘I heard from Storm Lavelle,' said Jude, ‘that Elizaveta walked out of
The Devil's Disciple
because Ritchie Good was so rude to her.'

‘Well, I think that was part of it …'

‘You mean there was something else?' demanded Carole, instantly alert. She had now caught on to Jude's reasons for agreeing to come in for a drink. It was an investigation opportunity.

‘Well, she didn't seem to be getting on so well with Davina.'

‘Oh?'

‘They'd always seemed to be great mates. You know, Freddie took quite a shine to Davina when she first joined SADOS. He thought she had potential as a director, so he was very helpful to her, and gave her opportunities to get the directing going.'

‘You don't mean,' asked Carole, ‘that he “took a shine” to her in any other way?'

Gordon looked puzzled for a moment before he understood what she meant. ‘Oh, good heavens, no! There was never anything like that with Freddie. He and Elizaveta were always the most devoted couple. A lot of the younger actresses in the society kind of hero-worshipped him, but he was never the type to take advantage.'

He shook his head again. ‘No, but something really seemed to have gone wrong between Elizaveta and Davina. I think that may have been the real reason Elizaveta wanted out of the production. Ritchie's rudeness just gave her a good excuse.'

‘But you've no idea what the problem was?'

‘No. Here, Jude, let me top you up.' She didn't need more, but he was drinking faster than her and wanted to justify refilling his own glass.

Gordon sat back down again and said gloomily, ‘A rift like that could spell the end of SADOS.'

‘Do you really think so?'

‘Yes. Now Freddie's gone, Elizaveta is so much the dynamo of the society. Without her, it would be …' The prospect seemed too dreadful for him to put into words.

‘You've been with SADOS for a long time, have you?' asked Jude gently.

He nodded. ‘Since my mother died. Elizaveta and Freddie sort of took me in. They needed someone with engineering skills and, though I'd never had anything to do with the theatre, I have got quite a practical mind. Till I retired I worked for a firm that fitted kitchen cupboards, so I was quite used to building stuff and …' He looked very forlorn. ‘If I hadn't got the SADOS, I don't know how I'd fill the time.'

‘I was interested,' said Carole, moving the conversation along, ‘in what you were saying at Elizaveta's about the two nooses on your gallows …'

‘Oh yes?'

‘… and how they got mixed up.'

There was a new caution in his expression as he said, ‘What about it?'

‘You said you had some thoughts of people who might have switched them round, but then Elizaveta interrupted you.'

Gordon Blaine was silent. He looked from one woman to the other. ‘Are you thinking that what happened to Ritchie might not be an accident?'

‘The thought had occurred to us, yes.'

‘Hm. The police were very interested in that possibility when they talked to me.'

‘But presumably they did come down on the side of accidental death?'

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Well, they've ended their investigation.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I've just assumed it,' said Carole. ‘Jude told me there've been no more enquiries. And they released Ritchie's body for his funeral.'

‘That's true.' Gordon spoke as if he hadn't thought of it before.

‘You sound relieved.'

‘Well, I suppose I am in a way.'

‘Why?'

‘Because the gallows are my work. I built them. If there was anything unsafe about the design, it'd be my fault. And I've been worried about the police coming back to me at some point. So if their investigation is really over, that's quite a relief.'

‘I don't think you need worry any more,' said Jude. Gordon looked pathetically grateful. Clearly the anxiety had been weighing on him. ‘Where are the gallows now?' she asked.

‘People seemed a bit spooked by having them still there in St Mary's Hall. So I brought them back to my workshop – that was in the brief period when my bloody Land Rover was working. I've been doing a bit of fine tuning on them.'

‘Where is your workshop?' asked Carole.

‘Would you like to see it?' The excitement in his voice showed that he very much hoped they would.

And indeed, when they assented, there was a trace of schoolboy glee in the way he led them through to the back of his tiny kitchen. And once through the door they could understand why the front two rooms of the house seemed so cramped. The house must originally have had a sitting room at the front with an equally large dining room and kitchen behind it. But this space had been opened out and the wall to the garage taken down to create an extended working area. The slightly makeshift black-painted plasterboard walls suggested that Gordon had done the conversion himself.

The bright overhead lights revealed something on the lines of a mad professor's lab. There had clearly been attempts to impose order on the chaos. On the walls were rows of neat racks, but the tools that should have been stowed there lay on the floor or on work benches, along with paint pots, piping, rolls of wire netting, offcuts of wood and plastic. There was a musty smell of sawdust, oil and paint.

The
Devil's Disciple
gallows were there, but in the midst of a huge selection of other stage props. Papier mâché rat masks had perhaps featured in a SADOS pantomime, plywood battlements adorned a Shakespeare production. And the chairs with cut-out trees on the back were probably the famous ones designed for
As You Like It
.

Also on the floor were car tyres, jacks and other automobile impedimenta. Clearly this was where Gordon had replaced the engine of his Land Rover. A procedure which, as Carole and Jude had cause to know, hadn't worked properly. There hung about the workshop the aura of a great many things that hadn't worked properly.

‘Wow,' said Jude as they looked around the space. ‘So this is where you work your magic.'

The beam on Gordon Blaine's face showed that it had been exactly the right thing to say. Carole recognized rather wistfully that it was the kind of thing she'd never have thought of saying in a million years.

‘Would you mind showing us,' Jude went on, ‘how the noose gets changed on the gallows?'

‘It's very easy,' said Gordon, more confident in his own environment. ‘Simple design. I always go for simple, no point in faffing around with stuff that's more complicated than it needs to be.'

He picked up a noose from a workbench, clattered a pair of metal stepladders over the floor to the side of the gallows and climbed up. There was already a noose in position hanging from the beam. ‘This is the doctored one,' said Gordon, slicing down on to the loop with his hand and causing the Velcro joint to swing apart. ‘You see, as soon as that takes any weight, it gives way … greatly to the delight of the Health and Safety boyos.

‘But what holds it up, you see,' he said, reaching to the top of the beam, ‘is this hook … from which the doctored noose can be simply removed –' he matched his actions to his words – ‘and the real one hooked on … threaded through … and left to dangle … ready for its next victim.'

‘So the whole process,' said Carole, ‘takes less than thirty seconds.'

‘Yes,' Gordon agreed, as though accepting a compliment.

‘And anyone could work out how to do it?'

‘I would think so. Certainly anyone who'd watched me do the switch.'

‘Or someone who'd heard you describe how to do the switch,' said Jude.

‘Sorry?' He looked down in puzzlement from the ladder. ‘Don't know what you mean?'

‘Well, we just heard, earlier this evening at Elizaveta's, how you described the working of your gallows in meticulous detail at another of her “drinkies things”.'

‘Oh yes, I remember that. Elizaveta seemed very interested in it. Which was unusual. Usually she shut me up when I got on to the details of the technical stuff. “Gordon darling,” she'd say, “I'm an actress. I deal with the emotional side of putting on a play. I can't be expected to understand the nuts and bolts of the business.”'

‘And that particular “drinkies thing”,' said Jude, ‘was three weeks ago.'

‘Was it really? I can't remember.'

‘Three weeks to the day.'

‘The day before Ritchie Good got strangled,' said Carole.

‘W
ho is this speaking?' asked the elocuted voice at the other end of the line.

‘Jude.'

‘Jude? Oh yes, Jude!' said Elizaveta Dalrymple.

‘I was just ringing to say thank you so much for the party last night.'

‘Oh, hardly a party, Jude darling. Just one of my little “drinkies things”.'

‘Well, it was much appreciated, anyway. I really enjoyed it. And I'm sure Carole will be in touch soon to say thank you too.' Though, actually, knowing Carole, she was much more likely to post a graceful note of thanks than use the telephone.

‘It was a pleasure to see you both. I do like to keep up with the new members of SADOS … even though I'm not involved in the current production.'

‘But presumably you'll be back for others,' suggested Jude, ‘now that Ritchie Good's no longer around to insult you?'

‘Oh, I don't know, darling. I'm not as young as I was.'

‘You're still looking very good,' said Jude, shamelessly ingratiating.

‘Yes, well, of course I am lucky to have the bone structure. If you have the bone structure, the ravages of time are not quite so devastating. But,' she concluded smugly, ‘so few people do have the bone structure.'

Jude, whose face was too chubby for much bone structure to be discernible, made polite noises of agreement. Then she said, ‘Carole and I took Gordon Blaine back to his place yesterday.'

‘Really?' Elizaveta sounded affronted. She didn't like people in her coterie doing things she didn't know about. ‘Why was that?'

‘His Land Rover had broken down.'

‘No surprise there. I must say, for someone who's supposed to have engineering skills, dear Gordon is astonishingly inept.'

‘He showed us his workshop.'

‘Oh, that glory hole. He used to keep dragging Freddie down there to show him the development of his latest bit of stage wizardry – frequently rather less than wizard, I'm afraid. At times Gordon has qualities of an overeager schoolboy.'

‘Maybe. When he was talking yesterday he seemed to be worried about the future of SADOS.'

‘Oh?'

‘Well, if you were not involved, he thought there was a danger the whole thing might pack up.'

‘Really? I hope not.' But Elizaveta's voice betrayed her attraction to the idea. ‘SADOS is more than one person, just as it was more than two people while Freddie was still alive. I owe it to his memory to keep the society going.'

‘Gordon seemed worried that, with you having walked out of
The Devil's Disciple
, there might be—'

‘I did not
walk out
of
The Devil's Disciple
. Ritchie Good's behaviour put me in a position where I could no longer stay as part of the production.'

‘Well, however you put it, Gordon seemed worried that you might be so angry that you wouldn't come back for another show.'

‘Oh, he shouldn't have thought that. Of the many things I may be, Jude, vindictive is not one,' Elizaveta lied. ‘If the right part comes up, and if I'm lucky enough to pass the audition, then I'm sure I'll be back for the next production.'

‘And what is that? I haven't heard yet.'

‘The autumn show's going to be
I Am A Camera
.'

‘Isn't that the play on which the musical
Cabaret
is based?'

‘I believe so.'

‘Based on the book by Christopher Isherwood.'

‘I've no idea who wrote it. I just know it wouldn't have been my choice, but now Neville Prideaux's on the Play Selection Committee all kinds of weird stuff's getting through. If there really is a threat to the future of SADOS, it's much more likely to be Neville Prideaux's choice of plays driving the audiences away.'

‘But you will audition for it, Elizaveta?'

‘Oh, I suppose I'll have to. I mean, Sally Bowles is meant to be quite a mature character.'

Jude only just stopped herself from voicing her disbelief and saying, Oh, for heaven's sake, there's
mature
and there's
far too old for the part
. But she didn't want to break the confidential mood between them.

‘Last night Gordon was talking about his gallows and what had gone wrong with them.'

‘Oh, I'm sure he was. Gordon can be a very tedious little man.'

‘We were discussing how the two nooses might have got switched.'

‘Incompetence on his part, I would imagine.'

‘I wonder …'

‘What do you mean by that, Jude?'