‘I really don’t see your point,’ said May.
‘My point, dear fellow, is that these murderous acts went unwitnessed by any audience, in a place where people come expressly to revel in sensation. Come on, let’s see what we’ve got.’
Charles Senechal’s body had been removed to an ambulance parked in Romilly Street. The stage had been cleared of all flats and cloths except the cotton duck and hessian frames that stood in the up-centre area against the gaudy crimson cyclorama of Hades. The great blue globe lay where it had fallen, sparkling beneath a profile spot and a pair of par lights.
‘What’s it made of?’ Bryant asked Mr Mack, the head carpenter, whose first name nobody seemed to know. Bryant walked round the globe, his fingers trailing lightly across its surface as if trying to divine some inner purpose from its topography.
‘Plaster, built around a central wood core. It weighs a bloody ton. Took three of us to get it up there. I hope it ain’t cracked.’
May followed the arc of the planet back up to the raised iron platform on the right side of the flies, the area above the stage where much of the scenery and lighting equipment was suspended. ‘How was it held in place?’
‘Two steel cables attached at forty-five-degree angles, locked in by bolts. One of the wires must have broken at the top end. The rest of the cable is still attached.’
‘So the right-hand wire snapped, leaving the globe to swing down on the left wire like a wrecking ball. Ever seen an accident like this before?’
‘Never, and this is my forty-third production,’ Mr Mack replied. ‘Those cables can take a lot of weight. Go up there and take a look.’
Bryant wasn’t thrilled by the idea of climbing along the gantry. He ascended the narrow steps leading to the first of the stage bridges like a man condemned. From where he stood he could see a large steel hook screwed into the wall. About two feet of wire hung limply down from it. ‘In order to be sure of catching someone, you’d have to keep them on their mark from when the wire was cut until the globe hit,’ he said absently.
‘What do you mean, their mark?’ asked May.
‘The prearranged spot you reach onstage, where you stand in any scene. All stages are divided into nine squares: up right, centre right, down left and so on. Sometimes there’s a front extension, an apron that makes a tenth area. Performances are spatially three-dimensional, and have to be learned accordingly, like chess moves.’ Taking a deep breath, Bryant reached over the catwalk railing and pulled up the wire, examining the end. ‘Tell me about the compasses, Mr Mack.’
‘They’re just pieces of pressed tin,’ the carpenter explained, ‘but each arm is four feet long, and we had to put a sharp point on the end of one because it didn’t look like a real set of compasses without a needle.’
‘Who told you to do that, the set designer?’
‘No, I answer to Geoffrey Whittaker, the stage manager. He takes care of my practical needs. Raymond leaves the materials up to me. He’s only concerned about the look of the stage once it’s lit, although he’ll tell you the difference between hardwood and composition board by the way light bounces off it.’
‘Raymond Carrington is the lighting chief,’ May pointed out.
‘The only access to the wire is from this gantry,’ said Bryant. ‘And you saw no one.’
‘No. This stage is narrow as working areas go, but it’s deep and we’re capable of producing a lot of mechanical effects. That’s why it gets the big song and dance shows; there are more scene changes in musicals, and more scenery has to be flown in. You can bring someone up from any part of the floor, lift whole sections of the stage, do revolves, put in a lot of filler flats and wing divisions, drop dozens of backdrops, scrims and props from above. The lighting is handled from a master board in one of the dress boxes, so there’s more room backstage for physical effects. Even I get confused up there sometimes, trying to figure out where each part of the scenery is.’
‘It’s not your job to fly them in and out?’
‘No, the stagehands do that, but I have to check and repair them all the time. Scenery gets damaged after virtually every performance.’
‘Had you repaired the globe recently?’
‘We’ve had no dress rehearsals yet, so there’s been no need to.’
‘You don’t think a stranger could have come in from the street after the siren sounded, climbed up the right-side gantry and waited for Mr Senechal to walk across the stage?’
‘I don’t see how,’ said Mr Mack, scratching the top of his head. ‘The only time the side bay doors are open is when we’re bringing scenery into the dock, and there’s always someone manning the stage door whenever the theatre’s being used. Besides, the gantries are in virtual darkness. There’s no way of easily climbing along them unless you know exactly where the footholds are.’