‘You’ll see I’m using a blackboard,’ Bryant pointed out. ‘I gave Mr May a chance to explain his audiophonic filing system and it failed to impress me, so I’m falling back on a tried and trusted method.’
‘You didn’t give it a chance, Arthur,’ May pointed out. ‘It’ll work if you just learn how to use the deck.’ He had borrowed the cumbersome tape machine thinking it might help, but Bryant had managed to wipe the tape clean and irreparably damage the recording heads, although quite how he had managed to do it remained a mystery. It didn’t help that he kept magnets in his overcoat pockets.
For Arthur this was the start of a lifelong stand against technology that would one day result in his crashing the entire central London HOLMES database and part of the air traffic control system at Heathrow. The young detective possessed that peculiar ability more common to elderly men, which produces negative energy around electrical equipment, turning even the most basic appliances into weapons of destruction. The more Bryant tried to understand and operate technical systems, the deadlier they became in his hands, until, at some point in the nineteen sixties, just after he had set fire to his hair by jiggling a fork in a toaster, man and machine had been forced to call a truce.
‘So,’ Bryant brandished a chunk of chalk, ‘Runcorn’s mysterious footprints suggest a second person at the death site, but not much else.’
‘We can’t be sure who was in the theatre at the time,’ said May, pulling on the overcoat he had borrowed from his uncle. The office was freezing. The radiators had packed up again.
‘Everyone is required to sign in with—what’s his name?’ asked May.
Bryant consulted his notes. ‘Stan Lowe checks members of the company through the rear stage door. Elspeth Wynter keeps an eye on the front of house. Geoffrey Whittaker sees everyone in the auditorium. Between the three of them they usually know who’s in the building. We’ll have a roll call by the end of the day.’
‘She was a beautiful girl,’ May pointed out. ‘Too beautiful for others to get close to.’ The cast at the theatre had proven reticent on the subject of their friendships with the dancer.
‘But somebody did, though, didn’t they?’ said Biddle fiercely. ‘Maybe she led her boyfriend on, drove him to attack her. It happens all the time.’
‘No, Sidney, ordinary murders do not happen like this. Most occur at home, within the family unit, where the perpetrator is a spouse, sibling or friend. War changes that. Crimes start to happen without reason, because people are upset, or angry, or just frustrated. Acts of violence are squalid, casual, mundane. Contrition, misery, fingerprints everywhere, children in tears. This death was absurdly theatrical, to mutilate someone in the home of Grand Guignol. That’s what makes it unique, that’s why the case has come here.’
‘You think someone in the cast is trying to stop the production?’
‘It’s unlikely to be anyone involved with the show, because they’re the ones with the most to lose. If you were working with Capistrania and had a violent grudge against her, why not wait until she left the theatre for the night? Why draw attention to your own workplace?’ Bryant’s eyes were bright with enthusiasm. ‘There’s enough danger out there on the streets right now, what’s one more casualty? Go on, whack her over the head with a brick and dump her on a bombsite, who would know? Anything can happen in the blackout if you’ve a mind for it—a calculating, egotistical, opportunistic mind. One thinks of the Rosicrucian Robert Fludd and his theories of anti-magnetism, brilliant and deranged. The greatest dangers come from the man without a conscience. Look at the photographs of Hitler at Nuremberg two years ago, the deadness behind the eyes that denies humanity, just as it betrays the true darkness of the soul.’
May felt exhilarated around Bryant. He had always imagined that somewhere out there, away from suburban dullness, ardent young people were allowed to give freer rein to their thoughts. He felt as though he had arrived at a place he had always wanted to be.
‘How can you concern yourself with the mind of the murderer when it’s the victim who’s been done wrong?’ asked Biddle hotly.
‘Because we can do nothing for the victim. John, surely you must agree?’
‘I suppose so, but it’s difficult to set aside sorrow for the death of someone young.’
Over the years, the detectives argued so much that eventually their polarized altercations mellowed into the kind of bickering that passed for daily conversation in married households. Bryant was more receptive to unusual paths of thought. May’s attitude was flexible, but he seemed in a permanent state of surprise. He was warmer, more approachable. He empathized with victims. Bryant was the opposite. He hailed from a sphere of arcane textbooks and borderline beliefs. There was something mad about him, as if he had lived in the city for centuries. Biddle couldn’t imagine how his mind worked, or what had made him place his trust in John May so quickly. Bryant appeared untouched by the horrors of war, except on a level of academic interest, and showed no capacity for kindness. May’s mental processes were easier to follow. Bryant just frightened people. He smelled of some weirdly pungent aftershave and looked like a distracted, misanthropic student. He trusted books more than other human beings.