It was May who saw him first.
Bryant was standing at the spot where his fiancée had died, peering over the edge of the balustrade into the opalescent brown water. He was wearing his favourite gaberdine coat, several filthy scarves and a torn hat. He looked—and, as May got closer, smelled—like a very tired tramp.
‘Arthur, it’s you. It’s really you. I thought you were dead.’
May grabbed his arm and twirled him round for a better look. Bryant had a raw-looking gash on his head which he had tried to bandage with an old tie. He was sporting a set of ridiculous ill-fitting teeth that looked as though they had been made for someone with a much bigger head.
‘Look at me.’ May grabbed his empty face and tilted it up. ‘It’s me, John May. You’re here on the bridge, on Waterloo Bridge where we always go, where Nathalie died. You’re Arthur Bryant of the Peculiar Crimes Unit and you’re my best friend. Look at me.’ He held Bryant’s face steady in his strong hands, but the old detective’s eyes remained impassive.
‘For God’s sake, Arthur,’ May shouted, ‘you’d remember Edna bloody Wagstaff well enough if she was still alive. Well, take a look at this.’ He dumped the carrier bag on the pavement and pulled the stuffed cat from it. Time had not been kind to the Abyssinian. Most of its fur had been eaten away with mange, its remaining eye had fallen out and one of its back legs was missing.
‘You remember Rothschild?’ May thrust the deformed cat carcass in his partner’s face. ‘It was her familiar. Squadron Leader Smethwick used to send messages through it. Edna left it to Maggie Armitage in her will.’
It was the only thing he had been able to lay his hands on that Bryant might recognize. Rothschild had sat on his desk like a moulting familiar for over twenty years. Slowly, very slowly, the light of recognition began to return to the elderly detective’s eyes. Finally, he opened his dry, cracked lips.
‘John, what are you doing here?’
‘It lives! It speaks!’ He turned excitedly to Longbright, who had reached them. ‘Look who this is—Janice is here!’
‘Why are you talking to me as if I’m a child?’ Bryant complained. ‘Is there something wrong with you? Hello, Janice. Have you got anything to eat?’
Then he fainted.
May caught him and sat him against the balustrade while Longbright rang for an ambulance.
59
THE CRUELTY OF THE MOON
‘Sergeant Forthright has got your landlady stationed across the stairs,’ May explained.
‘What on earth for?’
‘She thought we might need reinforcements. We’ve only got Crowhurst and Atherton in the auditorium.’
‘The White Witch of Camden gave me a warning about tonight,’ Bryant cautioned. ‘The killer can’t go back to his lair because I took the key to his room out of the tortoise box.’
‘I think it’s this one.’ May pointed out the brown door that led to the first of the understage areas. ‘What’s been going on?’
‘Well, it struck me that if you removed Jan Petrovic from the victim list, all of the deaths took place in the theatre. Why? I asked myself, knowing there could only be one answer. They happened here because the murderer hardly ever leaves the building. Elspeth Wynter has been trying to close down the show because she needs to be free of this house. But she’s become agoraphobic. I remember her sweating in the restaurant when we went out to lunch. She can’t bear to be trapped in here any longer, but on that day she couldn’t wait to get back. Hiding her boy all these years was easier than hiding her own feelings, but she managed that as well. Hardly surprising, seeing as she’s spent her life in the theatre watching people fake emotions. In a way, she’s more talented than any of them.’
Bryant pulled the door shut behind them and flicked on his torch. Ahead lay a maze of bare wooden walls. Makeshift timber railings prevented them from falling to the lower levels.
‘She couldn’t have killed anyone,’ May pointed out. ‘You only have to look at her, she’s tiny.’
‘She staged the murders for her son to carry out. He’s getting too big for her to take care of any longer, creeping around the theatre frightening the ladies in their dressing rooms. He’s down here somewhere. Elspeth can never have a life, never be close to anyone, never ever leave so long as a production continues. She needs the show to close so she can finally escape. And now it’s all too late.’
He led the way along the wooden bridge that ran round the central dark square. ‘We’re nearly under the orchestra. Look up.’ Above them was the dust-caked wire mesh that indicated the start of the orchestra pit.