"Not altogether your fault, but it would have been better if you'd kept your relief with you. Sure Hickson went in here?"
"Yes, sir. I had to leave this gate unwatched while I got the constable to come round. It's a long way round, too, but it wasn't more than eight minutes. I hope Hickson's still inside."
"Stay here. Don't move unless you hear my whistle. Come on, Fox."
He put his foot on the gate handle and climbed up. For a moment his silhouette showed dark against the sky. Then he disappeared. Fox followed him. The yard was strewn with indistinguishable rubbish. They picked their way cautiously towards the wall in front of them, and turned a corner, where the yard narrowed into an alley-way behind a low building. Here they found the open window. Alleyn noticed the old and broken shutter and the hole in the pane that would allow access to the catch. With a mental shrug at the watchman's idea of a burglar-proof theatre, Alleyn put his hands on the sill, wriggled through, and waited for Fox, who soon stood beside him. They took off their shoes and stayed there in the dark, listening.
Alleyn's eyes became accustomed to the murk; he saw that they were in a small lumber-room of sorts, that its only door stood open, and that there was a wall beyond. The place smelt disused and dank. He switched on his torch for a moment. From the room they went into a narrow stone passage, up half a dozen steps, and through another door. They took a right-angled turn and passed a row of doors, all of them locked. The passage turned again and grew lighter. Alleyn touched Fox on the hand and pointed to the side and then forward. Fox nodded. They were in country they knew. These were the dressing-rooms. They moved now with the utmost caution and came to the elbow in the passage where Alleyn and Nigel had met Simpson on the night of the murder. There was Gardener's dressing-room and there on the door beyond it hung the tarnished star. A thin flood of light met them. Props had turned on a lamp, somewhere beyond, where the stage was. Alleyn crept forward hugging the wall. He held up his hand. From somewhere out on the stage came a curious sound. It was a kind of faint sibilation as of two surfaces that brushed together, parted, brushed together again. They stayed very still, listening to this whisper, and presently thought it was accompanied by the echo of a creak.
"Scenery," breathed Fox. "Hanging."
"Perhaps."
Alleyn edged down the passage until he could see part of the stage. Nothing stirred. It was very ill-lit out there. He thought what light there was must come from the pilot-lamp above the book in the prompt corner. They waited again for some minutes. Alleyn could see through one of the stage entrances that the curtain was up. Beyond, in the darkness, two of his men must be waiting. Round on his left in the stage door passage, yet another man stood and listened, and a fourth had come in at the back door and was motionless, somewhere in the shadows across the stage. He knew they must all be there, as silent as himself and as silent as Props.
At last he went out on to the stage. He went to the stage door passage and stood there, knowing his man must see him against the light. Presently a hand touched his arm.
"Nobody here or in the dock, sir."
Fox was out on the stage and had crossed through the wings. Alleyn gave him a few minutes longer, and then made his way to the prompt corner. He went out by the footlights, where he knew the men in the stalls would see him. He pointed his torch out into the house and switched it on. A face leapt out of the dark and blinked. One of his own men. He hunted round the stage which was set as he had left it. His stocking foot trod on a piece of glass that must have been left there from the broken chandelier. All this time the faint, sibilant noise and the intermittent creak persisted. He now realised that they came from above his head.
Perhaps Props was back in his perch up there in the grid. Perhaps he waited with a rope in his hands ready to loose another bulk of dead weight. But why should Props let that noise go on up there? There was no draught of air.
From the centre of the stage Alleyn spoke aloud. He was conscious of a dread to hear his own voice. When it came it sounded strange.
"Fox!" he said. "Where are you?"
"Here, sir." Fox was over near the prompt corner.
"Get up that little iron ladder to the switchboard. If he's here he's lying low. Give us all the light in the house. I refuse to play sardines with Mr. Hickson."
Fox climbed the ladder slowly. From down in front one of the constables gave a deprecatory cough.
Click. Click.
The circle came into view, then the stalls. The constables were standing in the two aisles.
Click.
The footlights sprang up in a white glare. Then the proscenium was cinctured with warmth. The lamp on the stage suddenly came alive. The passages glowed. A blaze of light sprang up above the stage. The theatre was awake.
In the centre of the stage Alleyn stood with his eyes screwed up, blinded by light. The two constables came through the wings, their hands arched over their faces. From the switch-board Fox said:
"That's light enough to see an invisible man."
Alleyn, still peering, bent over the footlights. "You two in front," he said, "search the place thoroughly—offices upstairs—cloak-rooms—everything. We'll deal with this department."
He turned to the men on the stage.
"We'll go about this in pairs. He's a shell-shocked man and he's a bit desperate. Somewhere or another in this rabbit warren he's hidden. I think he'll be in his own department behind the scenes. We'll wait till these fellows in the front of the house come back."
They lit cigarettes and stayed uneasily on the stage. The sound of doors shutting announced the activities of the men in front.
"Rum sort of place this, when there's nothing doing," said Fox.
"Yes," Alleyn agreed. "It feels expectant."
"Any idea why he came here, sir?"
"Unfortunately I have. A particularly nasty idea."
The others waited hopefully.
Alleyn stubbed his cigarette on the floor.
"I think he had a rendezvous," he said. "With a murderer."
Fox looked scandalised and perturbed.
"Or murderess as the case may be," added Alleyn.
"Cuh!" said one of the plain clothes men under his breath.
"But," said Fox, "they're all under surveillance."
"I know. Thompson's man gave him the slip. There may be another of our wonderful police who's lost his sheep and doesn't know where to find it. Not a comfortable thought, but it arises. What's the time?"
"Eleven-twenty, sir."
"What the devil is that whispering noise?" asked Alleyn restively. He peered up into the flies; a ceiling-cloth was stretched across under the lowest gallery and the grids were hidden.
"I noticed something of the sort the night of the murder," said Fox. "There must be a draught up there making the canvas swing a bit."
Apparently Alleyn did not hear him. He walked across to the ladder by which Props had descended. He stood there, very still, for a moment. When he spoke his voice sounded oddly.
"I think," he said, "we will begin with the grid."
The two men returned from the front of the house. Alleyn walked over to the proscenium door, which was locked. The key hung on a nail beside it. He opened the door. It emitted a loud shriek.
"So much for Bathgate's theory," murmured Alleyn.
The men came through.
"Wait here," said Alleyn. "I'm going into the grid."
"Not on your own, sir," chided Fox. "That chap may be sitting there ready to dong you one."
"I think not. Follow me up if you like."
He climbed the iron ladder that ran flat up the wall. Slowly the shadow of the ceiling-cloth enfolded him. Fox followed.
The other four men stood with their faces tipped back, watching. Alleyn's stocking feet disappeared above the ceiling-cloth. The ladder vibrated slightly.
"Wait a moment, Fox."
Alleyn's voice sounded eerily above their heads. Fox paused.
Alleyn's dulled footsteps thumped on
the gallery overhead. The cloth quivered and sagged. He had unloosed the ropes that fastened it. Presently, with a sort of swishing sigh, the border fell away and the whole thing collapsed in a cloud of dust on to the tops of the wings.
When the dust had settled, the men who looked upwards saw the soles of a pair of rubber shoes. The shoes turned slowly to the right, stopped, turned slowly to the left. The canvas having been taken away they no longer fretted it with a sibilant whisper, but every time they swung, the rope round Props's neck creaked on the wooden cleat above.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
This Ineffable Effrontery
INSPECTOR FOX was accustomed to what he termed unpleasantness, but for a moment he nearly lost his grip on the iron ladder.
"Props," he said slowly. "So Props was the man, after all."
"Come up here," said Alleyn.
They stood together on the first gallery. Their faces were on a level with the shoulders of the swinging body. The rope that had hanged him was a slack end of the pulley that had suspended the chandelier. It was made fast to a cleat on the top gallery. Fox leant out and touched the hand.
"He's still warm."
"It happened," said Alleyn, "just before Thompson rang up the Yard."
He stood with his hands clenched to the rail of the gallery, gazing, as if against his will, at the body.
"I should have prevented this," he said. "I should have made the arrest this afternoon."
"I don't see that," said Fox in his ponderous way. "How could you have foretold—"
"This ineffable effrontery," finished Alleyn. "Poor Props."
"That sort's very liable to suicide."
"Suicide?" Alleyn turned to him. "This is not suicide."
"Not—?"
"It's murder. Come up to the gallery here."
They climbed the upper length of the ladder. Alleyn paused when his head and shoulders were above the top gallery and switched on his torch.
"Swept!" he said, with a kind of triumph. "Now, my beauty—I've got you!"
"What's that, sir?" asked Fox from below.
"The gallery's been swept. Do suicides tidy up the ground when they set about it? Thick dust farther along. The typewriter was too tidy and so's this gallows. There'll be no prints, but the mark of the criminal is all over it. We can take the body down now, Fox. I'll stay here a moment. You go back."
They had to draw the body in to the first gallery and then get it down the ladder—no easy job. At last Props lay on the stage in his accustomed surroundings. In answer to Fox's whistle the others had come in from the doors. Thompson was white about the gills and couldn't speak. Alleyn turned to him.
"We've had ill luck to-day, Thompson," he said. "I should have made more sure of him."
"It's my fault, sir."
"No," said Alleyn; "the poor devil was too quick for you."
"I still don't see how it was worked."
"Suppose I said I'd meet you here. Suppose I'd killed a man and you knew it. I get here first. I go up there to the platform, put a noose in that rope, and make the other end fast. Then I climb down again. You come in, very nervous. You've been followed, you say, but you've shaken them off. We start to talk. Then I say I can hear someone coming along that passage. 'By God, they're after us,' I say. 'Come on up this ladder. Quick.' I go up first, past the lower landing. He follows. I get to the top landing and wait with the noose in my hands. As his head comes up, I drop it over. One fierce tug. He loosens his hands and claws his neck. Then a heavy thrust and—That's how it worked."
"My oath!" said Fox.
"Yes, but I've left a broom up there because I know my stockinged feet will leave prints in the dust—the thick dust. So while Props is jerking in the air I sweep away the dust. He's hidden by the ceiling-cloth. He won't be missed until to-morrow. It's an old building—some more dust will have fallen then. They may not find him at once, and if they do it looks like suicide. So I take the broom down with me and leave it on the stage in its usual place. Then I run down those nightmare passages into the little store-room. Thompson is in the yard outside. I wait. Presently I hear him go off to get his man from the front of the theatre. That's my chance. When he comes back—I'm not there."
"I see," said Fox heavily. "Yes. I see."
"Now, look here." Alleyn bent over the body. "The head and shoulders are covered in dust. It was there while he was still hanging. It was swept off the top gallery. Analysis will prove it. We've got to come all over scientific, Fox."
"It can't be Saint and it wasn't Props. That's two people cleared away in favour of your theory, sir."
"It is."
"What do we do now, then?"
"Get hold of the men who were watching the rest of the party."
"I'll ring up the Yard. Reports should have come through by now."
"Yes," said Alleyn. "Do that, Fox. I'm especially anxious for the report from Cambridge."
"Yes."
"And from—who's that fellow? Oh, Detective-Sergeant Watkins. Find out if he's been relieved, and if he has tell them to get hold of him and send him round here."
"Very good, sir."
"And ring up Bailey. He'll be in bed now, poor creature, but we'll have to beat him up. And the divisional surgeon. Oh, Lord—here we go again."
Fox disappeared through the proscenium door. Alleyn went back along the stone passages. He turned up the lights and examined the floor and walls carefully. He walked, hugging the wall, all the way to the room with the broken window. Here he examined the floor, the walls, the window-sill and the yard outside. He turned his torch on the gate, climbed it, and scrutinised the top meticulously. Here he found a tiny scrap of black cloth which he preserved.
Then he returned to the stage.
He shook some of the dust from Props's hair into an envelope, sealed it up, and, taking a fresh envelope, turned his attention to the shoulders of the coat. He climbed the ladder to the top gallery, where he took a further sample of dust. Using his pocket-lens and his torch he examined the rope carefully, paying particular attention to the noose and the three or four feet above it. He also scrutinised the rail and floor of the gallery for some distance beyond the place where the ladder came up. He then measured the length of the drop. Returning to the stage he found a broom under the electrician's gallery, and from this also he obtained a specimen of dust. He examined the body, paying particular attention to the hands. Bailey and the divisional surgeon arrived while he was still about this business.
"You'll find no prints except his," said Alleyn.
The surgeon made his examination.
"I hear the verdict is murder," he said. "I don't know your reading of it, inspector, but he died from strangulation and a broken neck. I can see no signs of anything else, except a slight bruise at the base of the neck."
"Could that have been caused by a downward kick from a stockinged foot?" Alleyn asked.
"Yes," said the surgeon. He looked up to where the iron ladder ran into the galleries. "I see," he said.
"What about Watkins?"
Fox, who had returned to the stage, answered:
"He'd gone home but they are turning him out."
"Any news from Cambridge?"
"A long statement from a servant at Peterhouse. They're sending it round with the officer who went down there. The mortuary van's here."
"Right. They can come in now."
Fox went to the stage door and returned followed by two men with a stretcher.
Props was carried out of the Unicorn at exactly midnight.
"I feel like Hamlet when he killed Polonius," said Alleyn.
"Shakespeare," said Fox. "I don't read that sort of thing myself."
But the surgeon stood on the stage and said quietly: "'Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.' I suppose the words have been spoken here before," he reflected.
"Under somewhat different circumstances," said Alleyn harshly.
"Here's Watkins," said Fox.
Detective-Sergeant Watkins
was a stocky, sandy-headed man. He looked worried.
"You want to see me, sir?" he said to Alleyn.
"I want an account of your day, Watkins."
"Very monotonous it was really. The party I was looking after stayed indoors from the time I relieved until the time I came off."
"Are you sure of that?"
Watkins flushed.
"I sat on a bench in the gardens opposite and I stood by the lamp-post. I never took my eyes off the door, sir."
"Who passed in and out?"
"Other people in the building. I saw my party several times—looked out of the window."
"When was the last time you noted that?"
"At fifteen minutes to ten, sir," said Watkins triumphantly.
"Who came out of the building after that?"
"Quite a number of people, sir. Going out for supper-parties and so on. I recognised most of them as residents."
"And that you did not recognise?"
"There was a woman. Looked like a working woman, I thought, and a couple of housemaids, and before them an old gentleman in a soft hat and a dinner suit and a sort of opera cloak. He was a bit lame. The commissionaire got him a taxi. I heard him say 'The Platza Theatre' to the driver. I asked the commissionaire about them just to be on the safe side. He's a dense sort of bloke. He thought the woman must have been doing odd work in one of the flats. The old gent he didn't know, but said he came from the top floor, and had probably been dining there. The housemaids came from the street-level flat."
"That's all?"
"No, sir. One other. A young fellow wearing a shepherd's plaid double-breasted suit, a bowler hat, and a dark blue tie with pale blue stripes, came along. I crossed the street and heard him name our party's floor to the liftman."
"Had he a fair moustache and a carnation in his coat?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did he reappear?" Alleyn asked sharply.
"He came out again after about five minutes and walked off towards the square. That's all, sir. I was relieved at ten-fifteen by Detective-Sergeant Allison. He's still on duty."
"Thank you. That's all, Watkins."
"Have I gone wrong anywhere, sir?"
"Yes. You've mistaken a murderer for an innocent person. I don't know that I blame you. Get one of these men to relieve Allison and ask him to report here immediately."