Death at the Opera

Mrs. Bradley tore the sheet off, and laid it with the others. Then she rang for milk and biscuits, and began to write a letter:—

“My Dear Friend,” she wrote,

“I should like to come and see you if I may. I have solved the mystery of Calma Ferris’s death, and I think you might be interested to hear my conclusions. As I know your motive for removing the poor woman from the cast of The Mikado, I am convinced that you have committed your last crime against society in the interests of your art. I admire an artist, and one who is so consistently and integrally on the side of the Muses as to commit murder in their defence seems to me worthy to have been born in a less decadent and squeamish age than this in which we live. I admit myself to be decadent and squeamish in that, while I appreciate your motive, I deprecate the cruelty of robbing that inoffensive woman of her life.

“My difficulty in finding a solution to the problem has been the fact that one person besides yourself possesses most of the characteristics necessary for the commission of this particular—I was about to say ‘crime,’ but, perhaps, I had better say ‘wilful act.’ The murderer, it seemed to me, had to possess courage, willpower, initiative and tremendous self-control. I ought to have seen sooner that Miss Camden, whom I suspected for weeks, did not sufficiently possess this last characteristic. She is not particularly self-controlled. She is reckless, extravagant, unstable, and would have given herself away to everybody if she had committed the deed. No. Everything points to you. You killed Miss Ferris —I see it more clearly every minute—because you are essentially an artist. You saw Alceste Boyle perform the part of ‘Katisha’ at the dress-rehearsal. You observed that she is a particularly fine actress. You had already seen poor Calma Ferris bungle the part hopelessly. You are an old woman, and you wanted to see the part played once more—perfectly. You removed Calma. Alceste, as you foresaw, had to take the part.

“You had not premeditated the crime. Nobody could have foreseen that Mr. Smith was going to charge down the corridor, break Miss Ferris’s glasses and cut her face. You went into the water-lobby after her, I think—nobody appears to have seen you—to see whether you could be of any assistance. You saw her bending over the basin. Then Miss Camden came along the corridor, and you slipped into the nearest doorway, I suppose, and left her to render first-aid. But the little cut was deep, and when Miss Ferris had been attended to, she had to return to the dressing-room so that her make-up could be replaced.

“You took care to re-open that small, deep cut. She had to go again to the water-lobby to bathe it. This time you went along with her. You had a lump of modelling-clay for the purpose of broadening Mr. Smith’s nose, when you made him up as the ‘Mikado.’ This lump of clay you thrust into the waste-pipe. Poor Miss Ferris, blind as a bat without her glasses, did not notice what you were doing. Then you pressed the tap with one hand, dabbed her face (with Hurstwood’s handkerchief) with the other, and kept up a flow of easy, interesting, amusing chatter. Oh, that chatter! How it bothered me to think who, among those teachers or those children, could so easily have held the victim enthralled—so enthralled that she did not heed the basin filling… filling…

“It was beautifully done. And I congratulate you. You slipped into your seat—your nice seat in the middle of the third row—and you saw the first entrance of ‘Katisha.’ You felt justified in what you had lately come from doing. During the interval you touched up faces, adjusted wigs, chattered and laughed, an actress in every sense of the word. Then you returned to the audoritium for the Second Act, while that inoffensive woman—you told me yourself that she was an inoffensive woman!—do you remember?—lay out in the lobby dead.

“But to murder her because she was an inoffensive woman seems to me almost a divine gesture. She was too inoffensive to play the part as you felt it should be played, and so you murdered her, and had Alceste Boyle instead to entertain you in the character of ‘Katisha.’

“I remain for always your sincere admirer,

“Beatrice A. L. Bradley.”

She addressed the letter to Madame V. Berotti.

appendix: mrs. bradley’s conclusions

« ^

1. Smith, Donald.

Capable of murder.

Is a teacher.

Is an artist.

Loves Alceste Boyle.

Does not hate Calma Ferris.

Relieved his feelings by stamping on his ruined clay model. Spent a considerable amount of time during Act One of The Mikado in conversing with the electrician. The electrician was a bogus electrician. He was not sent by the firm. He did not understand electrical appliances. He may have been Cutler. Mrs. Hampstead, a dipsomaniac, is drowned. As soon as Mrs. Hampstead died, Hampstead was free to marry Alceste Boyle. Was Mrs. Hampstead murdered? Did Cutler murder her? If Cutler murdered her, it was for gain. Would Cutler consider a promise of ?250 sufficient inducement to commit murder? If he thought it worth while to steal a watch and a small sum from the school caretaker—yes.

The Artist. Smith borrowed the money from Alceste Boyle to pay the price of her freedom.

The Teacher. Smith deputed another person to perform the messy manual labour of murder.

Proof presumptive but not proof absolute that Mrs. Hampstead was murdered by Cutler at the instigation of Smith.

The Murder of Susie Cozens

Cutler murdered Cozens.

He did not murder her for pecuniary gain.