“Oh, yes. Mr Lynn wanted to employ me, so I refused the commission, but there is no reason why I should not amuse myself.”
Chapter 12
Six Characters in Search of a Psychiatrist
“Helen, to you our minds we will unfold.”
« ^ »
The first visitor Dame Beatrice received was Barbara Bourton. Her big show, she said, opened in the autumn. Meanwhile there was all this wretched business about Donald.
“I am mobbed, Dame Beatrice, positively mobbed. One might as well be Royalty or the Pope. Everybody wants my opinion as to what happened. As though I should know any more than anybody else! Usually I court publicity because of my art, but this is more like persecution than publicity.”
“Could you leave the neighbourhood for a few weeks? This kind of excitement soon dies down when there is nothing for it to feed on.”
“There are reasons why I can’t go into hiding. There has been a great deal of speculation about my married life and I don’t want to look as though I’m running away from gossipping tongues. Then there is the adjourned inquest. Goodness knows when the police will want to resume it and goodness knows why they wanted it adjourned, but I suppose they know their own business. When it is resumed I suppose I shall be wanted. Another thing is that there is a lot of business to be cleared up in connection with Donald’s turf interests and, of course, his will has to be proved and probate granted.”
“I am interested to hear that you saw no need for the inquest to be adjourned.”
“I was amazed when the police stepped in like that. I am sure the coroner was only too ready to give a verdict of accidental death, because that is all it was.”
“How, then, do you account for the changeover of the daggers?”
“Donald was hasty and careless. It seems to me obvious what happened. The theatrical dagger fell out of the belt when the props were dumped on the trestle tables before the show started and it got kicked under the table when people came milling around to pick up their bits for that last scene. When Donald had to change out of Oberon’s things and get into the white tunic and armour as Pyramus, I suppose he realised there was no dagger in the belt. He saw this extra one on the table and concluded it was the retractable dagger. It wouldn’t occur to him to test it, of course. He always did take things for granted.”
“But there is no evidence that this extra dagger was among the properties. Mr Lynn has declared that it formed no part of his collection.”
“Oh, of course Marcus Lynn will say that now, but at the dress rehearsal he had a whole armoury on show. Why shouldn’t one or two of the things have been gathered up with the rest of the props?”
“Mr Yorke helped to carry the things down from the house to the wings, you know. Would not he or Marcus Lynn have noticed an extra dagger?”
“Oh, Brian Yorke would back up anything Marcus said. He was in the seventh heaven over the money Marcus spilt out on the production, although the play was only meant as a vehicle for poor Emma, the very last woman to want to be in the public eye.”
“Did you feel surprise at being offered the less attractive part of Helena?”
“Oh, that soon put itself right, anyway. No, I didn’t mind accepting Helena. When Marcus first offered it I said that, as a professional, I would have to be paid. He told me to name my own price, which I did, never thinking he would meet it, but he agreed without a quiver. I’d have done him Puss in Boots or the Hunchback of Notre Dame for even half the money, if he’d asked me.”
“I wonder he took the risk of offering you a part which was bound to put his wife in the shade.”
“Oh, I expect he has the most inflated ideas of poor Emma’s capabilities. Dame Beatrice, we are only skating round the reason I asked to come and see you.”
“You used the word ‘persecution’. Was that, perhaps, an exaggerated way of expressing yourself?”
“No, it wasn’t. Apart from being terrified of going outside my own front door because of gaping sightseers, I’ve begun receiving some very personal and unpleasant anonymous letters.”
“Dear me! I sympathise, but that sort of thing is a matter for the police. Turn the letters over to them.”
“I don’t believe they would be interested. The letters contain innuendoes, but not threats. Couldn’t
“Do they all come from the same person?”
“If I knew that, I could deal with them myself, I suppose. I don’t know whether they all come from the same person, but I don’t suppose they do. I could give you some likely names, but I wouldn’t know which of them to pick out. Donald was quite promiscuous, and there might be people who think they have a right to some of his money. The letters all harp on the way I gain by his death.”
“Forgive my asking, but is there any substance in what the letters suggest?”
Barbara Bourton shrugged shoulders which had been admired in Restoration comedy. She spread her hands in a gesture which belonged wholly to the stage.
“People will believe anything about an actress,” she said. “The idea that we’re no better than we should be dies hard.”
“I do not think you have answered my question. I am in much the same position as a defending counsel, you know. Unless the client is prepared to tell me the whole truth, my hands are tied.”
“I thought a psychiatrist could deduce the whole truth, whether she were told it or not.”
