“Dear me! Rosamund
“Innocently, as always. She thought they were rehearsing their love scenes. My guess is that the so-called rehearsals were confined to pretty brief and relatively chaste encounters. They wouldn’t have dared be away from the rest of the company for any length of time. This is a funny old business. Nothing that, between us, we know seems to add up to a motive for murder, and yet I can’t get away from the idea that Bourton’s death was no accident. The only point at issue is whether the ‘accident’ happened to the right person, the one for whom it was intended.”
“What do we know ‘between us’, as you put it?”
“That Bourton was a womaniser, Rinkley was a heel, Mrs Yorke a bit of a shrew, Jonathan a strong-arm man with a beast of a temper (which we knew), Tom Woolidge probably Barbara Bourton’s fancy man, and (rather important, I think) that, in whatever way those daggers got changed over, it was not because children had been meddling with the things on the ‘props’ tables.”
“An admirable summing up. ‘Proceed, moon.’ ”
“That’s another thing. The woman who was Moonshine had three things to pick up from the table. She would have had the chance to fiddle with the sword-belts and switch the daggers if she had so desired.”
“You postulate that Bourton’s death was no accident, and I agree with you.”
“Yes, and if it wasn’t an accident, then the lethal dagger obviously was meant for Rinkley.”
“The one person who would have been certain there had been a substitution, whether intentional or otherwise, and would not have used the dagger on himself.”
“I suppose,” said Laura, “it couldn’t have been suicide?”
“On Mr Bourton’s part? You mean
“Or on Rinkley’s. It could cut either way. If you’re right, and the daggers were changed over before the play opened on the third night, Rinkley could have done it. He seems a nasty bit of work and may have had problems we know nothing about. On the other hand, Bourton may have got himself into a mess over some woman and chosen a way out. In that case, he could only have changed over the daggers when he knew he’d got to take over the part. He would have had an easy opportunity, with all the fuss over Rinkley’s collapse going on.”
“The daggers were changed over before the third performance began,” said Dame Beatrice. “I am sure about that. There were far too many people within sight of all the properties for any undetected substitution to have been possible, even after Mr Rinkley was taken ill.”
“Then who was the lethal dagger meant for? Rinkley’s illness couldn’t have been faked. Dr Jeanne-Marie would have spotted a malingerer at once.”
“Whoever changed over the daggers may not have bargained for Dr Delahague. All the same, you are quite right to raise doubts. All would be clearer if we knew which of three men was supposed to use the dagger on himself.”
“
“Certainly. The original suggestion was not that Bourton, but that Jonathan, should understudy Rinkley.”
“And Jonathan had thumped Rinkley in the stomach and made him sick, and Rinkley had eaten mussels and no doubt washed them down with strong waters and made himself sick—oh, but there’s a flaw in that. Everybody would have known that Bourton was to be the stand-in and not Jonathan.”
“I doubt whether the changeover had been broadcast. Nobody, least of all the understudy, ever thinks a principal will be laid low. I doubt whether either Jonathan or Mr Bourton ever gave the matter another thought.”
“And nobody could have known that Rinkley was going to make himself ill on the third night and be unable to play Pyramus.”
“Nobody except Rinkley himself, perhaps. He may have had his own reasons for opting out.”
The medical practitioners, Dr Fitzroy and Dr Jeanne-Marie, his wife, had a surgery in the old part of the town, but lived in a large modern bungalow facing the bay. The bay was almost an inland sea and it covered a vast area bounded on one side by marshy tracts of flat land through which a broad river meandered from its water-meadows into the lake-like harbour, and on the opposite side by an opening to the English Channel not more than a fifth of a mile across. A ferry service connected both arms of the bay and led to a waste of low-lying country divided from the open sea by the only road across what was virtually a large island. On this side, heavy loose sand gave way in time to steep chalk cliffs which ran inland to form a long, low range of hills from which a view of the entire bay could be obtained.
The Delahagues’ bungalow was one of a number of widely spaced dwellings which had an uninterrupted view of the harbour and only its own front garden, the road, and another stretch of sand, which was covered at high tide, to separate it from the flotilla of yachts and small cruisers which were anchored in the shallow waters.
Dr Jeanne-Marie, apprised of a visit from Dame Beatrice, welcomed her with regal courtesy and then said, with inconsequential naivety, “I have to attend surgery in half an hour. Will you be staying long?”
“No, I assure you. I would like to ask one question, if I may. You remember the man, a Mr Rinkley, who was taken ill at the third performance of last Saturday’s play,
“Of course I remember. When he said he had eaten mussels I thought maybe he had been poisoned by myelotoxin and I got him to hospital.”
“And was he poisoned by myelotoxin? I believe not.”
“You are right, but one always takes precautions. If he was poisoned at all, it was by an excess of alcohol. As for the other, it is always as well to be on the safe side, although I have not come across a case of myelotoxin which was fatal. They will keep him under observation for a few days and he will suffer no permanent ill-effects from his collapse.”
“Did he think he had been poisoned by the mussels? I think there was more than that and alcohol to
