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.”
“So, Miss Betts was in the wing looking for a carpenter with a cigarette. Miss Wynter was there with her retrieved tortoise. Miss Penn, Mrs Thwaite and Miss Parole were all in the process of heading to the basement, as were Harry, Mr Woolf and Mr Varisich. Up until the siren sounded, Mr Woolf had been watching the front entrance from the box office, and the stage door keeper – ”
“Stan Lowe. He has an assistant called Mouse. I s’pose he has a real name but I don’t know what it is – ”
“ – was still in his booth at the base of the stairs, and neither of them saw anyone enter or leave. You were by the bay doors, which were locked. And there’s no other way in or out.”
“I wouldn’t quite say that,” said Mr Mack. “There is a pair of exits on to the roof, and they’re unlocked from the inside because of the current ARP regulations.”
“You can get out of the building via the roof?”
“Yes, but you can’t get in from them, and you can’t go very far once you’re out. Sometimes we have firewatchers stationed out there, but not today. They have to prop open the door with fire buckets when they go up because we’ve not enough keys.”
The Palace Theatre was one of the few London theatres standing in grand isolation. Its facia overlooked Cambridge Circus, but its sides were separated by Shaftesbury Avenue and Romilly Street. Only the rear section touched any other buildings, a short row of houses in the lower part of Greek Street, and the Palace roof stood considerably higher than those.
“So no one entered or left during the rehearsal. See here, John.” Bryant held the end of the wire aloft. “Even with my hopeless eyesight I can tell this was cut. A clean shear. There is no way that you could arrange it in advance.”
He carefully made his way down onto the stage to examine the wires that had been drilled into the globe. Corinne Betts, the comedienne playing Mercury, had been sedated by her doctor. Chorus girls were talking in shocked whispers in the wings.
“Where would I find a copy of the design for the globe?” asked Bryant.
“The prop designs and stage plans are all in use,” said Helena Parole, walking into the light thrown by one of the Fresnel spots. “They’re changed and updated all the time, so they’ll be scattered about in different offices. We mimeograph copies of everything and work from those.”
“What do you do with the originals?”
“They go up into the archive room. They’ll be clearly labelled.” The lack of concern in her voice bothered May. “Do you want me to send someone for them?”
“John, I wonder if you would oblige?”
“Of course.” May left the stage and went to the company office for the keys. He took the lift to the fifth floor, pulled open the trellis doors and stepped out into a dingy hall. The boarded-up end windows prevented light from entering, but the pairs of defunct gas mantles at either end of the hallway would have done little to dispel the creeping gloom, which was deepened by chestnut walls and threadbare brown carpets.
May flicked a brass switch at the head of the corridor, but nothing happened. According to Helena, there was barely a time when the electrics functioned correctly. The faint glow from the electroliers in the main stairway allowed him to make out the doors to his left, but none of them was labelled. He checked the first door but found that it had been fitted with a Yale. The key he had taken from the company office was a long-handled Victorian affair, scabbed with rust.
He located the theatre archive in a room at the darkest turn in the corridor. Within the cramped suite were dozens of overstuffed boxes and damp cardboard files cataloguing productions and stars. Dim light was provided by the bare bulb overhead. He glanced across the titles on the lids of the boxes and pulled out some of the Palace’s monochrome publicity photographs. Buster Keaton performing with his father, the pair of them bowing to the audience in matching outfits. The jagged profile of Edith Sitwell, posturing her way through some kind of spoken- word concert. A playbill for W.C. Fields starring in a production of
The dust on the lower boxes betrayed an even earlier age. The infamous Sarah Bernhardt season of 1892; Oscar Wilde’s
An accordion folder labelled
The anguished cry that tore its way along the corridor made his scalp tingle. It was the call of a human in terrible pain. May jumped to his feet and ran outside, but there was nothing to be seen. He heard it again, softer and more in sorrow this time, but the acoustics were so dead that it was impossible to pinpoint the location of the sound. The other doors along the corridor were all sealed. Some looked as if they had not been opened for many years. Panic crawled over his skin, sending him back to the lift and the light.
He had just pulled the trellis door shut when he heard the cry again, a miserable low bellow that reverberated in the lift shaft. May jammed his thumb on the descent button and the cage dropped down through the building, recalling him to life and safety. He was nineteen and impressionable. The city was blacked out every night, and the dark held hidden terrors. In years to come, his dreams would vividly recall his haunted week at the Palace.
“You imagined it,” said Bryant, poking about in the pockets of his battered gaberdine raincoat for a Swan Vesta. “Nothing to be ashamed of, old chap. We’re all a bit jumpy. This building hasn’t seen daylight since the start of the war.” He lit his pipe while May unfolded the sheet of paper he had removed from the archive. “So this is the original design for the globe and compasses?” Bryant asked Mr Mack as May smoothed the stage plan flat on a workbench.
“It looks the same as the finished model,” commented May distractedly. He was still thinking about the deep cry echoing in the corridors.
“Does it? Would you say that the compasses occupy the same position as they do in the drawing, Mr Mack? Do you have a first name?”
“Mr Gielgud always calls me Mr Mack because of his memory,” explained the carpenter. “We used to talk about table tennis.” He spat a mouthful of chewing tobacco into his handkerchief and examined the plan. “Blimey, you’re right. The point of the needle is higher on the full-scale version by about a foot.”
“Who told you to raise it?”
Mr Mack studied the drawing in discomfort. “It’s not like me to make a mistake. There should be a master
