‘You played Cordelia, I suppose?’ said MacGregor, doing a bit of showing off as he reached for the photograph.
‘Cordelia!’ trilled Miss Doughty, drawing herself up in full majesty. ‘Damn it, darling boy, I played Lear!’
Awe-struck MacGregor looked at the photograph. Beneath the Father Christmas beard and woolly eyebrows, the face was undoubtedly Miss Doughty’s. ‘How very, er, interesting,’ he gulped.
‘There are no star parts for women in Shakespeare, darling boy. Sarah Bernhardt knew that – you’ve heard of her, I suppose? No, if a real actress wants to do Shakespeare she’s got to do it in tights.’ She chose another photograph. ‘That’s me as Macbeth. Tartan trews, you see. Very fetching. And this is me as Richard the Third. Not my part, really. I’ve far too good a figure to play a hunchback. And this is me as’ – she laughed archly – ‘ Othello. What you might call a black-face part, eh? And this is me as Hamlet. How’s that for a calf? James Agate called my performance as the Dane the most astonishing thing he’d ever seen in forty years of theatre going. How’s that for a compliment?’
‘You concentrated on the tragedies, did you?’ asked MacGregor, clutching frantically at the photographs which were being showered upon him.
‘Had to, darling boy,’ said Miss Doughty ruefully. ‘That’s me as Antony in Antony and Cleopatra. There were only five of us, you see. You can’t possibly do a Shakespearian comedy with only five actors. Be reasonable, darling boy!’
‘I should have thought it was pretty difficult to do a Shakespearian tragedy,’ said MacGregor.
‘Practically impossible, darling boy! Couldn’t be done in these days, not with these so-called actors you see preening themselves in the soap advertisements. Catch them playing eleven parts in one evening, but that’s what dear Ethel did, night after night. That’s her playing Juliet to my Romeo.’ MacGregor accepted yet another photograph. ‘ Oh, it took some doing, I can tell you. We had to cut the play down to its bare essentials but we were true to the spirit. I always insisted on that. That’s me as Coriolanus. We did that for ENSA in 1942. Do you know, a soldier boy came up to me after the performance with tears in his eyes. He could hardly speak, the poor child. He said that for the first time since the war began he really knew what he was fighting for. Wasn’t that sweet? A corporal in the Pay Corps, I think he was.’
Dover’s stomach rumbled. He yawned widely, scratched his head and took over. ‘Hamilton,’ he said. ‘ What’s all this about a green van on the night he was chopped up?’
‘Oh, you’ve come about Hamilton, have you?’ Miss Doughty’s deep voice sank into black tragedy. ‘Such a tedious business.’
‘What exactly did you see?’ asked Dover. ‘There’s no need to go into detail. Just give us the essential facts.’
Miss Doughty assumed a doleful expression. Then she smiled. ‘How about a little snifter, darlings, just to keep our peckers up? You fetch the glasses and the tonic from the kitchen, darling boy. I’ve got the gin here.’ She gave the little table by her elbow a coy tap.
MacGregor dutifully played the part of a waiter. ‘Tonic for you, Miss Doughty?’
‘No, thank you, darling boy, I’m slimming.’ Miss Doughty dispensed a generous quantity of gin for herself and considerably less for her guests. ‘Bottoms up, darlings!’
‘The green van,’ prompted Dover wearily.
‘Ah, yes.’ Miss Doughty fortified herself with another draught from the tumblerful of gin, sat up straighter in her chair and gazed into the middle distance. ‘ Usually I sleep like a log, darlings, but on this particular night my slumbers were somewhat disturbed,’ she declaimed. ‘About four o’clock. I arose to make myself a warm drink. Instead of returning to bed I took my drink and sat in a chair by the window, thinking to refresh my soul with the sight of the dawn breaking over the roof tops. Imagine my surprise when, glancing down into the street below, I saw a small green van coming towards me down the street. Usually at night we have virtually no traffic in this quiet backwater.’
Dover caught MacGregor’s eye and nodded.
Unobtrusively the sergeant got up and went to the window. ‘You were sitting here. Miss Doughty?’
Miss Doughty flapped his question aside. ‘Don’t interrupt me, darling boy’, not when I’m in full spate. Now, where was I? … coming towards me down the street. Usually at night we have virtually no traffic in this quiet backwater. Naturally, there being nothing else to watch, I watched the van. It stopped just about by the Hamiltons’ house. All the lights were put out on the van and then I saw both doors open and two men got out. They went round to the back of the van and opened the rear doors. I couldn’t see clearly what happened then but I had the impression that they carried something heavy out of the back of the van and put it over one of the garden walls. I couldn’t tell which one. Then the men got back in the van and it drove off. I did not make a note of the number. The van was small and green and I did not see any writing on the side of the van.
