At the interval, Blount and Nigel went out for a breath of fresh air. They walked round the building toward its southeast corner, Blount checking the vigilance of the police at each entrance; even at this stage there must be no relaxing.
“Well,” he said presently, “I think we’ve made it. D.V. But I hope I’ll never—”
“Blount! What’s this?” Nigel’s voice was shaky. He was stooping down over the pavement. He straightened up, holding out on the palm of his hand a thin, faintly violet-colored disk. Blount grabbed it, smelled it.
“Threw it away as he came in. The artists’s entrance,” said Nigel.
“Is he the only man in the world who sucks these things?” demanded Blount angrily over his shoulder. But he was already on his way in. The policemen at the door swore that no unauthorized person had entered, nor anyone who answered to the description of Jameson Elmer.
“A faked pass,” muttered Blount, brushing past them. “You could carry an arsenal in some of those damned instrument cases.”
He found an attendant, demanded to be taken instantly to the conductor.
“But Sir Malcolm is changing,” expostulated the man, deeply shocked. “It’s quite out of the question to—”
“I don’t care if Sir Malcolm is doing handstands in his birthday suit. I’m seeing him, this instant. Superintendent Blount, of the C.I.D. Get cracking, blast you!”
The attendant scattered like chaff before Blount’s explosive violence. Nigel followed them into the conductor’s room. Blount introduced himself, gave a rapid explanation of the trouble.
“Afraid I may have to ask for the second half of the concert to be delayed, Sir Malcolm. I’ve got to make inquiries among the orchestra.”
“I quite understand,” said the conductor with a courtly gesture of the hand. “There’s the choir too, my dear fellow: hundreds and hundreds of them. I’ll just come with you, and explain, shall I? Then I must be getting back. The P.M. is bringing round some of our Russian friends to see me in a minute.”
In the band room, the members of the orchestra were engaged, after the manner of their kind, in ferocious games of poker and even more ferocious gossip. Sir Malcolm found the leader, entrusted Blount to his hands, and withdrew. Here, and later in the six dressing rooms which accommodated the choir, Blount asked if anyone had seen a man, or a woman—for the gunman had already disguised himself once that way—who was not one of their members, coming in at the artists’ entrance before the concert; if so, he would like a description.
Highly disciplined in the performance of their art, orchestral players are apt to be tough, skeptical, contumacious individuals outside it. Dozens of pairs of eyes were fastened upon Blount, with the same unencouraging expression as they were wont to turn upon a nervous young guest conductor. Nigel could almost see these instrumentalist calculating how much overtime pay they should get for answering questions during their sacrosanct interval. Blount, too, was aware of a certain lack of co-operativeness.
“I’ve greatly enjoyed your performance, gentlemen,” he briskly remarked, “and I’m looking forward to the second half. But I’m afraid we shan’t be able to start till I’ve found out this fellow who’s been masquerading as a musician.”
The orchestra recognized that note of authority. There was also the unthinkable possibility of having to catch a later-than-usual train home.
“It’s not on, chum,” volunteered an intellectual-looking trombone. “Somebody’d have noticed any stranger coming in at our entrance. We all know one another.
“Too bloody well,” remarked a viola, who had just been fleeced at poker by the last speaker….
The conductor was deep in musical discussion with the Soviet Foreign Minister. Sir Rudolf and Lady Durbar were there, among the organizers of the concert. The Prime Minister was chatting to Sir Edward. An attendant whispered in the latter’s ear—Superintendent Blount would like a word; he made his apologies and went out.
“I have greatly enjoyed our conversation,” said the Russian Minister presently. “You must bring your orchestra to my country one day. They are good, very good. A little roughness in the second violins, perhaps. But there is nothing perfect—” his quick smile flashed out—“not even in Soviet Russia.”
“It’s been a privilege to play for you. I believe you will find the Walton interesting. And it’s an excellent choir, though we could do with some of your Russian basses.”
“Now, Sir Malcolm, I expect you want to get rid of us.”
“Not a bit, sir. In fact, we may be a little delayed.” The conductor lowered his voice. “It seems there is a possibility that some unauthorized person got into the hall. And the police—”
“Ah, the police! They do fuss, don’t they?” The Minister laughed heartily, his eye lighting upon three stocky compatriots who stood by the door. “It will give my bodyguard something to do. They are so bored, poor fellows. I’m afraid they do not care greatly for music.”
Sir Rudolf, who had been within earshot of this conversation, politely took his leave, Hesione with him.
Two minutes later Jameson Elmer, who had not left his box during the interval, heard the deep, resonant voice of his employer talking to someone outside the door.
“Yes, we’re a bit late starting. The police have apparently discovered that some unauthorized person got into the hall…. Well, they may start searching the place again, I suppose. Damned nuisance…. No point waiting. If I were him, I’d disregard the police and fire away at once.”
A nod was as good as a wink to Jameson Elmer.
Sir Rudolf’s acquaintances outside understood the last remark to refer to the conductor. Elmer knew better. A lot of dames in white dresses, like Aimee Semple McPherson’s “angels,” were climbing onto the tiers behind the orechestra. The killer’s cold excitement welled up in him. He was not doing this for a cause, for a belief; the international repercussions of the act meant nothing to him; even the big money he would get for it weighed little with him now. His mind’s eye was pinpointed upon the spot he would aim at, just below the grizzled hair on the left temple—aim at, and hit—he hadn’t the slightest doubt about that. Then a quick getaway. The guy Gray knew the timing had been changed, he presumed. Well, with Gray or without him he’d make it. Have to move fast; but he reckoned he could get to the nearest exit before news of the assassination reached it. Might have to shoot his way out. So what? These Keystone cops in Britain weren’t even armed. Elmer reached down for his rifle: a small, deadly, high-velocity job, one expanding bullet, curtains.
Superintendent Blount was at a loss. If Jameson Elmer had entered the hall, no member of the orchestra or choir had noticed him. Worse still, one of the latter admitted to a penchant for violet cachous; she did not think she had—hem—discarded a a cachou at the artists’ entrance, but she could not be absolutely sure. It was all so maddeningly, frighteningly vague: a ridiculous mare’s nest, or a deadly menace. Sir Edward, appealed to, decided that they could not hold things up any longer. He would advise the Soviet Minister to sit well back in the box, out of sight of the audience, during the rest of the concert, and to have his bodyguard packed round him when he moved forward to acknowledge the applause at the end of it. Afterward, they would clear the passage and the approaches to the hall before the official party left.
So the choir and orchestra filed back onto the platform. The sounds of tuning up could be distantly heard. Blount and Nigel were ascending the stairs from the artists’ rooms when they heard footsteps hurrying behind them. They turned. It was the leader of the orchestra, and with him a nervous, white-faced man. The latter had felt ill at the start of the interval, gone to the bar for a brandy, and then walked about outside to get some fresh air; so he had not been present when Blount interviewed the orchestra. Yes, he had seen a man whom he did not recognize as a member of it, coming in just before him—a smallish man with a drooping moustache and a violin case. He had not noticed him particularly, or thought any more about him; he was percussion himself,
and he knew the strings were being augmented for tonight’s concert.
Blount waited to hear no more. The Soviet Minister should be safe enough for the present, if he stayed within the covered lobby of the ceremonial box. The danger would come later, when he would have to show himself to the audience. In the meantime, the police must check once again those danger spots from which a marksman could enfilade. They knew what to look for now, at any rate—unless some other disguise had been substituted for the drooping mustache.
As they went to find Blount’s second-in-command, they heard the applause greeting the conductor’s entry, and the first notes of Belshazzar’s Feast. Blount and the Inspector held a rapid conference, to alter the disposition of their forces. The handful of police who were armed had to be collected, and four of them picked out for the search party. Blount was taking no risks with a gunman of Elmer’s reputation….
Jameson Elmer arranged the curtain at the right-hand side of his box, so that he could peer through the chink; the muzzle of his rifle, steadied against the wall, would be invisible. Everything was set. Everything except the target. The god-damn Russki—where had he got to? Those guys in tuxedos, those crummy babes in white were bawling their heads off; the band was playing fit to burst. In all this shenanigan the whip-crack of a small, high-velocity rifle would never be heard. He could pick off every stuffed shirt in that box, and no one know but they’d fallen dead with heart attacks.
The Soviet Minister’s frosty eyes sparkled. This was music. The barbaric exhilaration, the clash and bray and blare, the riptide rhythms thrusting, conflicting, throwing up great shimmering sprays of notes—this was after his heart. He was a man who reveled in combat no less than in fine music: a fighter. Lost to everything but the glorious ferocity of the Walton, he edged forward to the front of his box. He liked to see an orchestra at work, the bows and slides and fingers sleekly or strenuously moving, like the components of some immensely elaborate machine, manufacturing sound. A hand was laid on his sleeve, but impatiently he shook it off.
Blount and his armed party were moving along the corridor behind the uppermost tier of boxes, with an attendant to open them, scrutinizing the occupants of each in turn. Glancing into one box, Blount noticed Alec Gray, with his party, leaning forward on the ledge; Gray did not even look round; he knew nothing of what had happened in the interval—Durbar had not thought it advisable to communicate with him, for there would be plain-clothes men about. Gray would hear the shot, or at least see its result, and that would be a signal for him to take the requisite action in respect of Jameson Elmer.
Releasing a hiss of breath, Elmer raised his rifle, cuddled the butt to his cheek, and peered over its sights, through the gap between wall and curtain, downward to his right, where the target had at last gone up. A tiny circle of skin and gray hair. The Russki had liquidated plenty; now it was his turn. Allow for deflection. Wait for the band to go into its next paroxysm, drowning the shot. Only one shot—he’d never needed more. Then a deep breath, another deep breath, a gentle loving squeeze of the trigger.
Taking the key from the attendant, Blount quietly unlocked the door of a box. A wild burst of music flooded through. His back to Blount, only a few feet away from him in the little lobby, a man was standing.
The solid fifteen stone, which had so often butted its way through enemy packs at Murrayfield, launched itself, and Blount’s lowered head came like a cannon ball at the chest of the man within, who that instant, hearing the door open, had dropped his rifle, whipped round, and was just reaching inside his jacket. The impact sent Elmer staggering back against the wall of the lobby. He seemed to writhe, then rear up, like a striking snake. He was fast all right, very fast indeed. But, as the hand flicked out with a revolver, Blount gave the man a bear-like clout under the right ear which dropped him senseless. There were scandalized mutters and shushings from the two adjacent boxes, as Blount looked out toward the ceremonial box. The Soviet Foreign Minister was there, in full view, leaning forward; his fingers were tapping to the music’s rhythms on the plush-covered ledge. Blount heaved a great sigh. They had been just in time.
“Get that man!” came Nigel’s voice from outside. There was a scuffle, a groan of pain. Alec Gray had emerged from his box, to investigate the sound he had heard from Elmer’s. He saw the back of a policeman, standing at the door, and Strangeways in the corridor beyond him. He turned on his heel, kicked atrociously in the groin the plain-clothes man who tried to intercept him, and ran for it. At the end of the corridor, he saw police mounting the stairs below him. He swung round and raced upstairs instead, with a vague idea of getting into the gallery and losing himself, if only for a breathing space, among the audience there. But the doors at many stairheads in the Albert Hall are locked during performances, to prevent dishonest members of the audience slipping down and occupying better seats than they have paid for. Gray had got into one of these dead-end stairways. On each landing he found a locked door, and the police were hard at his heels.
They got him right at the top of the building. He was battering with his fists at a door which, had he known it, gave onto the balcony running round the outside of the building. They pounced on him and handcuffed him. He looked like a surly, spiteful boy, the degenerate he was. One policeman, who had seen what Gray did to the plain-clothes man below, raised a large hand, contemptuously ruffled Gray’s smarmed, flaxen hair, and said, “Quite a pretty little gentlemen, isn’t he? I could fancy him for my butterfly collection.”
When Belshazzer’s Feast had ended, Sir Edward put in his head at the Durbars’ box and lisped a gentle request for a few words with Sir Rudolf. The latter had seen nothing of the incidents on the upper tier; he assumed the gunman had failed to understand his message, or had lost his nerve and made good his escape from the building. It was vexatious; but surely not catastrophic. He would have to make other arrangements. Already his powerful, unbalanced mind was dissociating itself from the whole abstract pattern in which Jameson Elmer and Alec Gray had so darkly figured.
“Just a bit of trouble,” Sir Edward was saying, apologetically. “I thought, as an organizer of this—er—show tonight, you should be consulted.” His voice tailed away. He led Sir Rudolf to a dressing room under the platform, opened the door, and stood aside for him to enter. Gray and Elmer were sitting close together on hard chairs, handcuffed to each other, police on guard over them with revolvers.
“God bless my soul! Alec? What are you doing here? And who’s this fellow?” said Sir Rudolf.
Jameson Elmer’s cold, obsidian eyes dwelt upon Sir Rudolf. After what seemed a long, long pause, he said, “No, bud. You’re not getting away with that.”
“I fancy Durbar will not be getting away with anything, ever again,” came Sir Edward’s voice. “Superintendent Blount, charge this man, if you please, and remove him with the other prisoners.”
Sir Rudolf knew at last that from this bad dream there would be no waking.
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