Buffet for Unwelcome Guests(10)

‘She also had a “well-rounded bosom”,’ said Inspector Cockrill, ‘exposed, as you told us, by laced bodice and low-cut gown. She might have taken her brother’s part: he can hardly have taken hers.’ And he asked, struggling with the two walnuts, why anybody should have impersonated anybody, anyway.

‘But they were… But they all… But everything they said or did was designed to draw attention to Othello, was designed to gain time while the mark was fading under the make-up of—’

‘Of the Clown,’ said Inspector Cockrill: and his voice was as sharp as the crack of the walnuts suddenly giving way between his hard brown hands.

‘It was indeed,’ said Inspector Cockrill, ‘ “a frightened and angry man” who rushed round to her dressing-room that night: after his son had told him of the threat hissed out on the stage. “Something about gaol…. Something about prisoners…” ’ He said to the old man: ‘You did not make it clear that it was Arthur Dragon who had served a prison sentence, all those years ago.’

‘Didn’t I?’ said the old man. ‘Well, it made no difference. James Dragon was their star and their “draw”, Arthur Dragon was their manager—without either, the company couldn’t undertake the tour. But of course it was Arthur: who on earth could have thought otherwise?’

‘No one,’ agreed Cockie. ‘He said as much to her in the dressing-room. “If you’re referring to me…” and, “We were all wild and silly in those days before the war…” That was the 1914 war, of course: all this happened thirty years ago. But in the days before the 1914 war, James Dragon would have been a child: he was born at the turn of the century—far too young to be sent to prison, anyway.

‘You would keep referring to these people by their stage names,’ said Cockie. ‘It was muddling. We came to think of the Clown as the Clown, and not as Arthur Dragon, James Dragon’s father—and manager and producer for Dragon Productions. “I am taking the company to America…” It was not for James Dragon to say that; he was their star, but his father was their manager, it was he who “took” the company here or there… And, “You can come if you like—playing Celia.” It was not for James Dragon to say that: it was for Arthur Dragon, their producer, to assign the parts to the company…

‘It was the dressing-gown, I think, that started me off on it,’ said Inspector Cockrill, thoughtfully. ‘You see—as one of them said, the profession is not fussy about the conventional modesties. Would Glenda Croy’s husband really have knocked?—rushing in there, mad with rage and anxiety, would he really have paused to knock politely at his wife’s door? And she—would she really have waited to put on a dressing-gown over her ample petticoat, to receive him? For her father-in-law, perhaps, yes: we are speaking of many years ago. But for her husband…? Well, I wouldn’t know. But it started me wondering.

‘At any rate—he killed her. She could break up their tour, she could throw mud at their great name: and he had everything to lose, an ageing actor who had given up his own career for the company. He killed her; and a devoted family and loyal, and “not disinterested” company, hatched up a plot to save him from the consequences of what none of them greatly deplored. We made our mistake, I think,’ said Cockie, handsomely including himself in the mistake, ‘in supposing that it would be an elaborate plot. It wasn’t. These people were actors and not used to writing their own plots: it was in fact an incredibly simple plot. “Let’s all put on our greasepaint again and create as much delay as possible while, under the Clown make-up, the red mark fades. And the best way to draw attention from the Clown, will be to draw it towards Othello.” No doubt they will have added civilly, “James—is that all right with you?”

‘And so,’ said Inspector Cockrill, ‘we come back again to James Dragon. Within the past hour he had had a somewhat difficult time. Within the past hour his company had been gravely threatened and by the treachery of his own wife; within the past hour his wife had been strangled and his father had become a self-confessed murderer… And now he was to act, without rehearsal and without lines, a part which might yet bring him to the Old Bailey and under sentence of death. It was no wonder, perhaps, that when the greasepaint was wiped away from his face that night, our friend thought he seemed to have aged…’ If, he added, their friend really had thought so at the time and was not now being wise after the event.