It was the girl, Bianca, who cried out—on a note of terror: ‘No!’
‘Hush, be quiet,’ said James Dragon: commandingly but soothingly.
‘But James… But James, he thinks… It isn’t true,’ she cried out frantically, ‘it was the other man, we saw him in there, Mr. Dragon was in here with us…’
‘Then Mr. Dragon will have no objection to showing me his arms.’
‘But why?’ she cried out, violently. ‘How could his arms be…? He had that costume on, he did have it on, he was wearing it at the very moment he…’ There was a sharp hiss from someone in the room and she stopped, appalled, her hand across her mouth. But she rushed on. ‘He hasn’t changed, he’s had on that costume, those sleeves, all the time: nothing could have happened to his wrists. Haven’t you, James?—hasn’t he, everyone?—we know, we all saw him, he was wearing it when he came back…’
There was that hiss of thrilled horror again: but Leila Dragon said, quickly, ‘When he came back from finding the body, she means,’ and went across and took the girl roughly by the arm. The girl opened her mouth and gave one piercing scream like the whistle of a train; and suddenly, losing control of herself, Leila Dragon slapped her once and once again across the face.
The effect was extraordinary. The scream broke short, petered out into a sort of yelp of terrified astonishment. Mrs. Dragon cried out sharply, ‘Oh, no!’ and James Dragon said, ‘Leila, you fool!’ They all stood staring, utterly in dismay. And Leila Dragon blurted out: ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. It was because she screamed. It was—a sort of reaction, instinctive, a sort of reaction to hysteria…’ She seemed to plead with them. It was curious that she seemed to plead with them, and not with the girl.
James Dragon broke through the ice-wall of their dismay. He said uncertainly: ‘It’s just that… We don’t want to make—well, enemies of people,’ and the girl broke out wildly: ‘How dare you touch me? How dare you?’
It was as though an act which for a moment had broken down, reduced the cast to gagging, now received a cue from prompt corner and got going again. Leila Dragon said, ‘You were hysterical, you were losing control.’
‘How dare you?’ screamed the girl. Her pretty face was waspish with spiteful rage. ‘All I’ve done is to try to protect him, like the rest of you…’
‘Be quiet,’ said Mrs. Dragon, in The Voice.
‘Let her say what she has to say,’ the detective said. She was silent. ‘Come now. “He was wearing it when he came back”—the Othello costume. “When he came back.” From finding the body, Miss Leila Dragon now says. But he didn’t “come back”. You all followed him to the dressing-room—you said so.’
She remained silent, however; and he could deal with her later—time was passing, clues were growing cold. ‘Very well then, Mr. Dragon, let us get on with it. I want to see your wrists and arms.’
‘But why me?’ said James Dragon, almost petulantly; and once again there was that strange effect of an unreal act being staged for some set purpose: and once again the stark reality of a face grown all in a moment haggard and old beneath the dark stain of the Moor.
‘It’s not only you. I may come to the rest, in good time.’
‘But me first?’
‘Get on with it, please,’ he said impatiently.
But when at last, fighting every inch of the way, with an ill grace he slowly divested himself of the great sleeves—there was nothing to be seen: nothing but a brown-stained hand whose colour ended abruptly at the wrist, giving place to forearms startlingly white against the brown—but innocent of scratches or marks of any kind.
‘Nor did Iago, I may add in passing, nor did Cassio nor the Clown nor anyone else in the room, have marks of any kind on wrists or arms. So there I was—five minutes wasted and nothing to show for it.’
‘Well hardly,’ said Inspector Cockrill, passing walnuts to his neighbour.
‘I beg your pardon? Did Mr. Cockrill say something again?’
‘I just murmured that there was after all, something to show for it—for the five minutes wasted.’
‘?’
‘Five minutes wasted,’ said Inspector Cockrill.
Five minutes wasted. Yes. They had been working for it, they were playing for time. Waiting for something. Or postponing something? ‘And of course, meanwhile, there had been the scene with the girl,’ said Cockie. ‘That wasn’t a waste of time. That told you a lot. I mean—losing control and screaming out that he had been wearing Othello’s costume “at the very moment…” and, “when he came back”. “Losing control”—and yet what she screamed out contained at least one careful lie. Because he hadn’t been wearing the costume—that we know for certain.’ And he added inconsequently that they had to remember all the time that these were acting folk.