Fault in the Structure

‘Let us look at the facts.’

‘Well, the basic fact is that Lawrence was hanged.’

‘It seems to me that the other facts are these: as we are certain that this unfortunate man was murdered…’

‘You call him unfortunate? He got away with murdering poor old Sir Anthony.’

‘There is not, and there never will be, any proof that he murdered Sir Anthony.’

‘But look at what he gained by that old man’s death! Anyway, what do you think happened on the last night of The Beggar’s Opera?’

‘Ah, there we are on less controversial ground.’

‘I wouldn’t agree. Everybody seems able to produce a watertight alibi. In fact, they can all alibi one another.’

‘There is one possible exception, I think, but first let us look at those whom we might suspect of wanting Lawrence out of the way.’

‘Hamilton Haynings, for one. He badly wanted to play Macheath. James Hunty did, too, but he’s the easy-going type and Peachum is a pretty fat part, anyway. I can’t think of anybody else and, besides, the argument about Mrs Blaine applies to everybody else in the cast. The time to have got Lawrence out of the way so that someone could pinch his part would have been at the dress rehearsal, not at the very end of the last performance.’

‘There was a reason why the murder could not have been committed at the dress rehearsal. If you care to cast your mind back, I think you will see what that reason was.’

Laura wrinkled her nose in thought.

‘I don’t get it,’ she said.

‘Then, as the patient schoolmaster said to the ill-behaved boy, I fear we do not see you at your best.’

‘Ah!’ exclaimed Laura. ‘The deed couldn’t have been done at the dress rehearsal because the wheels were off the cart. Anyway, the rope which carried the noose should have slipped off the girder as soon as the cart began to move.’

‘As it demonstrated when it slipped off the girder of its own accord after the pre-dress rehearsal was over. I wonder how many of the cast and, of course, the stage-hands, knew that the porter had secured the rope to the girder?’

‘All the stage-hands were students. We can discount them. The point is that we come back again to Hamilton Haynings. We know he knew about the rope because he was the one who told the porter to fix it. On the other hand, he’s ruled out, you think, because of the time the deed was done and, of course, unless there was some private difference between the two men of which we know nothing, the comparative weakness of the motive.’

‘I am wondering whether the murder may have had nothing to do with the opera itself at all. You are going on the assumption that this was a man’s crime. I think we might do well to take a look at some of the women in the cast.’

Laura looked troubled.

‘If you’re thinking of Melanie,’ she said, ‘I can assure you that once we’d dragged her off the stage she was too far gone to have climbed back on again. She smacked Crashaw’s – Lawrence’s – face and then, to all intents and purposes, was a spent force.’

‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and there’s another thing. I looked at the tilt of the stage – the rake, do they not call it? It is obvious, but slight. Too slight, in any case, to account for the velocity with which that comparatively light vehicle careered towards the curtain.’

‘Somebody gave it a pretty hefty shove, you think, and that couldn’t have been Melanie for the reason given. There were plenty of people milling about behind the backdrop, though. There’s a passage-way through from the O.P. to the Prompt side because there’s only one flight of steps from the dressing-rooms on to the stage.’

‘The dressing-rooms, yes,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘How many were in use that night?’

‘Four. Hamilton, James and Lawrence shared one; Melanie, Sybil and I had another, and Marigold was in and out of it most of the time when she wasn’t in the wings. The other two were used by the chorus.’

‘Miss Tench took over Miss Cardew’s part.’

‘When Melanie got too sozzled to go on, yes.’

‘Well, I cannot allow matters to rest. The first person I want to see is the porter who secured the rope to the girder. Please put me in touch with Councillor Haynings. He will know which porter it was.’

‘I wonder whether he has found those wedges? They would have saved the situation.’

‘That is one of the things I shall speak to him about.’

An unhelpful bit of information, but one which cleared up a very minor mystery, came through on the telephone call to Hamilton Haynings. He gave the porter’s name and then said, ‘I’ve just had Denbigh on the ’phone. Two of his students – he’s been grilling them mercilessly, he tells me, because of the seriousness we all attach to the disappearance of those wedges – two of the youngsters have confessed to removing the wheels from the cart. Wanted to put them on a contraption of their own so that they could take part in some fancy race on the College sports ground. Said they put them back in plenty of time for the Thursday performance and, of course, they did.’

‘And the wedges?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘They swear they know nothing about the wedges and Denbigh believes them. He points out that to borrow the wheels put us only to temporary inconvenience – hardly that – but to take away and hide the wedges could have been dangerous, and it was. I blame Farrow. He was stage manager and should have provided substitutes for the wedges.’

‘He would hardly have had time or opportunity for that. He appears to have relied upon the fact that the cart