Pageant of Murder

vowel sound. I was obliged to gaff her.”

Dame Beatrice cackled, but her sharp black eyes and beaky little mouth became stern again as she said:

“I am prepared to concede that my common denominator is a figment of my imagination, and I could not think of drawing the attention of the local police to it, but, in order, as you would put it, to leave no stone unturned, we will find out where to contact the man who was Edward III. Did an Edward III actually take part, by the way?”

“Oh, yes. He was in the pageant on one of the floats with Queen Philippa and the burghers of Calais.”

“And no Alice Perrers?”

“And no Alice Perrers.”

“Then that may break our sequence.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. Falstaff and Henry VIII were shown up, so to speak, in the midst of their sins, but Edward III—yes, I do see what you mean. All the same, there’s something so haywire and unnecessary about these murders that I still think we might drop a word in season. You see, it’s not as though these two dead men were the real Falstaff or the real Henry VIII. They were only amateur actors. The thing doesn’t really make sense.”

“No,” agreed Dame Beatrice meekly, “I can see that it does not.”

Laura snorted at this display of humility and then said, “All the same, I should like to contact old Kitty and find out where Gordon, this Edward III chap, hangs out, and tip him the wink.”

“I am not entirely sure that that will be necessary. Do you not think that, after the two violent, unexplained deaths, the members of the drama club will be sufficiently alert to the possibility of their own danger?”

“I’d rather leave no stone unturned,” said Laura. “You don’t mind if I get on to old Kitty?”

“Do so, by all means.”

“Before you do that,” said Gavin, “let’s get all the facts clear in our minds and, to the facts, I’ll add the conclusions the police have arrived at, and then Dame Beatrice can sift the lot, if she’s a mind to, and let us have her deductions, if any.”

“Go ahead,” said his wife.

“Well, as you probably know, there was more than a bit of stress and strain between members of the drama club. The members, interviewed individually by the police, have been pretty cagey about the quarrels, except for Gordon and Spey, who asserted, at more than one official interview, that neither of them had any personal quarrel with any other member, but that the atmosphere had become so tense and disagreeable with the continual carping and wrangling that they had taken counsel with one another and had almost made up their minds to resign from the club as soon as the play and the pageant were over.”

“I don’t blame them,” said Laura. “Nothing gets on my nerves like bickering and general unpleasantness.”

“Didn’t know you had any nerves. However. The rows seem to have started over the choice of play and then over the casting. All the same, nothing that was said or done gave a motive for murder, therefore the police have washed out the quarrels—as a matter of fact, I gather that the shock of Luton’s death did that—and are looking elsewhere for the cause of the crime.”

“I shouldn’t think Falstaff was the type to have pinched somebody else’s girl-friend, and, from what we know of him, he couldn’t have been a blackmailer,” said Laura.

“How do you know?”

“Well, he was a Sunday School Superintendent.”

“Norman Thorne was a Sunday School Teacher and so was his murdered fiancee. Thorne didn’t scruple to kill her, and there’s no doubt she was trying to blackmail him into marrying her.”

“Yes, but Falstaff wasn’t like that. He was a most meek and inoffensive little man.”

“So are lots of people, no doubt—Crippen, for one. All the same, there is some reason why the death, even of meek little men, will benefit somebody, so they get bumped off just the same.”

“All right, I give in. Go on. You mean that the police haven’t found the cause of the crime, any more than we have.”

“Correct. Now, apart from the death itself, there is an unexplained circumstance which needs to be cleared up.”

“I can do that one, I think. The police would like to know who borrowed the sword with which the deed was done.”

“You are right, but only up to a point. Nobody seems to know who borrowed the sword. The chaps who played Ford and Page would seem to be the obvious choices, since they were the only people to require swords.”

“Falstaff ought to have had a sword, I should have thought. After all, he was a knight and therefore entitled to one, I suppose. The professional Falstaffs always seem to sport a sword.”

“Well, Luton didn’t have one. Everybody is certain about that. Ford and Page vigorously deny having borrowed a sword, both declare—and there are witnesses to it—that during the interval both took off their swords. They say they left them on chairs in the dressing-room, and there are witnesses to that, too, and nobody seems to have touched them. Page went on to the stage to supervise the setting-up of the scenery for the second part of the play, and was helped by Dr Caius, a chap named Spenning, while Ford nipped across to the pub, accompanied by Sir Hugh Evans (real name Griffiths) and Justice Shallow, otherwise Bence, the other men in the cast. They found Gordon and Spey already there, and also the two comedians who had completed their act nearer the beginning of the programme.”

“So what it all boils down to is that everybody in the cast except the two women has a watertight alibi, but only if the murder was committed during the interval. If it was committed before the interval…”