wasted your time. When I read in the papers that you were in residence here and learned of your official position, I’m afraid I took it for granted that you were here to assist the members of the cast.”
“But not to look for anonymous letter-writers, Mr Rinkley.”
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I rather put my foot in it there. I thought, well, psychiatry and all that, you know. Did you notice, by the way, that I spoke of
“The writers of anonymous letters are more often women than men. You indicated, I think, that the letters asked questions, but did not utter threats. Was there a hint of blackmail in any of the questions?”
“Blackmail? Good gracious, if there was, I did not recognise it as such. How could anybody attempt to blackmail
“If you do not know, you can hardly expect me to put forward any suggestions. Did I not hear that your wife has an antiques business?”
“She isn’t my wife any longer, and if you think there is any tie-up between her shop and that stupid business of the substitute dagger—Oh, hey, now! Wait a minute! That must be what one of the letters was hinting at. Oh, well, it’s quite a ridiculous surmise on somebody’s part. I’ll show the police that particular letter and they can go to the shop and turn darling Veda inside out. That ought to settle matters. The very last thing she would do is to aid and abet me in getting rid of Bourton. Besides, I thought Jonathan was to be my stand-in, so owing money to Bourton wouldn’t enter into it.”
The next contact which Dame Beatrice had with members of the cast did not take place at Jonathan’s temporary home, but at the house of Brian and Valerie Yorke. After dinner, for which Yolanda, in primrose-coloured silk and a simple gold pendant belonging to her mother, had been allowed a seat at table, the child was packed off and the adults settled down to coffee, brandy and gossip.
The talk turned inevitably to Bourton’s death and Yorke remarked that Barbara had had a bad time of it, what with police and reporters and the morbid curiosity of everybody who knew her, whether intimately or only by sight.
“I’ve had a fairly sticky time myself since they adjourned the inquest,” went on Brian. “That’s why Val and I are glad of a word with Dame Beatrice.”
“We’ve had our share, too,” said Jonathan. “You wouldn’t think people would have the nerve to infiltrate our garden and look for the spot marked X, but they have. I’m thinking of asking for a policeman with a dog. Aunt Adela has had problems, too.”
“Not problems,” said Dame Beatrice. “I have merely been faced with the necessity for practising a certain amount of Pontius Pilatery.”
“Washing your hands?” said Valerie Yorke, trying not to look disapproving of this reference to Holy Writ. “But of what?”
“Anonymous letters. Some of your acquaintances seem to confuse psychiatry with necromancy and imagine that I can summon spirits from the vasty deep and find out from them who writes the letters.”
“I expect Barbara has had some,” said Valerie. “She gets all the money, you know. May I ask—?”
“Certainly. I also had a visit from Mr Rinkley.”
“He came here,” said Brian, “and did everything except actually sob on my neck. Mind you, to be fair to the chap, I’m sure he is genuinely upset by Bourton’s death. The very last thing he would have anticipated, he said, and the dagger which did all the damage could have been intended for him. The awkward part of it is that, disentangling what he
This opinion, carefully repeated by Brian while Valerie, Dame Beatrice noticed, sat forward in her chair with her hands twisting together, was that the exchange of daggers had been affected by Susan Hythe and Caroline Frome acting in collusion. Both had had good and legitimate reason for approaching the tables which held the properties, both had a grievance against Rinkley for his sharp comments on their acting and against Bourton for his embarrassing advances to them off-stage during the earlier rehearsals. “So they could have plotted against him, I suppose,” Yorke said in conclusion.
“I don’t believe it,” said Deborah. “Two young office girls? The most they would have plotted was to make Rinkley look a fool when he drew out the wrong dagger and realised he dared not use it on himself the way he had rehearsed. I don’t believe they would have thought even of that, as a matter of fact.”
“Brian had to speak to Bourton about his conduct off-stage. The girls complained,” said Valerie.
“They also complained about Rinkley’s comments on their acting,” said Brian. “Mind you, he was justified, in a way. They made very inferior stooges for a man with his dramatic ability. The fellow ought to be a professional. I don’t believe those girls really had anything against Donald. Girls may get scared and rear up a bit when an older man makes a determined pass at them (although I should hardly think it would worry them nowadays), but they must feel a bit flattered, all the same. The sort of reaction they would have when their reading of the script was unkindly knocked by a chap who, after all, was neither the director nor the producer, would be a very different matter and might go very deep indeed. Don’t you think so, Dame Beatrice? I am referring to Rinkley’s comments on their acting.”
“It might settle the matter if Dame Beatrice would have a word with the girls,” said Valerie. “She may disclaim an ability (which I am sure, all the same, she possesses) to track down the writer of anonymous letters, but I am sure a psychiatrist of her eminence can turn two gormless girls inside out in the space of a single interview.”
“You flatter me, Mrs Yorke,” said Dame Beatrice, “but now that the police have co-opted me officially—I was informed of this a day or two ago—I have my own reasons for finding a talk with Miss Hythe and Miss Frome desirable. I wonder, Mr Yorke, whether you will assist me in a small matter? First, were the properties arranged on the trestle tables in exactly the same way at all three performances?”
Brian assured her that they were. He had tried to have no halts between scenes except for what he called ‘the children’s interval’ during which the fairies were taken out of their costumes, dressed in their own clothes and returned by Signora Moretti and her helpers to their mothers, either to sit out the remainder of the performance or to be taken home.
“So after Bottom returns to Quince’s house (a bit we had to leave out on the last night), the workmen had to snatch up their bits of gear, Pyramus had to make a change of tunic and get his armour on, Thisbe had to get into her skirt and mantle, and the whole set of them had to cross behind the backdrop and get themselves on to the prompt side so that the court party could enter from the O.P. side. Of the court party, only Valerie, as Hippolyta,
