ruled out any possibility of getting to the pub before closing time. But just as he was at the pass door he noticed Christopher Milton going off into the wings and down the stairs to the cellar. Presumably just to have another look at The offending Star Trap. What made it interesting was that Lizzie Dark followed him.
There was another way down to the cellar backstage. Charles moved silently, though there was no one about The cellar was lit by a couple of isolated working lights, but the vertical and horizontal girders of the old stage machinery made forests of shadow through which he could creep to a good spying position. Somewhere over the other side Spike or one of the stage crew was hammering nails into a broken flat, but he paid no attention to the intruders.
As Charles anticipated, Christopher Milton was looking balefully at the Star Trap mechanism. Four wooden beams boxed in the small platform on which the person to be ejected stood. The platform was in the up position, almost flush with the stage underneath the hinged Star top. The locking bar, a solid piece of two by four, was firmly in position, blocking any movement The star slapped it petulantly. He seemed aware of Lizzie Dark’s presence, but, though he spoke out loud, he did not speak to her.
‘Sodding thing. Why we’re stuck with this sort of old-fashioned crap I don’t know. Four people to operate it. You’d think with a system of counterweights, you could make it self-operating. Get this bloody locking bar out and leave it pre-set, so that it’s ready when I am and not when the bloody stage crew are.’
‘But,’ Lizzie hazarded tentatively, ‘if you took out the locking bar and had it down for too long someone onstage might step on and fall through.’
‘Yes, so we’re back relying on incompetents.’ His anger had drained away, leaving him tired and listless.
‘Christopher…’
‘Yes.’
‘I wanted to apologise for tonight.’
‘Eh?’
‘That load of lunatics in the audience. My so-called friends. I’m afraid they did rather misbehave. It can’t have made it any easier for you to concentrate.’
‘Oh, never mind. There are good nights and bad nights.’ His voice was philosophical and very tired. The violent outburst Charles had expected didn’t come. That was what made being with Christopher Milton so exhausting. There was never any indication of which way he was going to jump.
‘Well, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have played up to them. It was a bit unprofessional.’
‘Never mind.’ He put his arm round the girl’s waist affectionately. ‘We all have to learn.’
This avuncular, kindly Christopher Milton was a new one on Charles and he found it unaccountably sinister. The arm stayed round her waist as Lizzie asked, ‘How do you think it’s going, Christopher?’
‘It’s going all right. It’ll be very good — if we all survive to see the first night.’
‘Am I doing all right?’
‘Yes, you’re good. Could be better in bits.’
No actress could have resisted asking which bits.
‘That song in the second half, the romantic one. There’s a lot more to be got out of that.’
‘Yes, I’m sure there is, but the trouble is, David never actually gives any direction and I’m not experienced enough to know what to do myself… It’s difficult.’
‘I’ll take you through it when I’ve got a moment.’
‘Would you?’
‘Sure. When? What’s the rehearsal schedule tomorrow?’
‘The afternoon’s free. We’re all meant to be in need of a rest.’
‘And how.’ The deep weariness in the two words reminded Charles of the intense physical pressure that the star had been under for the past months. ‘But okay. Let’s go through it tomorrow afternoon.’
‘No, I don’t want to take up your time. I…’
‘Here. At three o’clock.’
‘Well, if you really…’
‘I really.’
‘Thank you. I’m sorry, I just feel so amateur in this company. I mean, it’s jolly nice getting good jobs, but I’ve only done a year round the reps and I’ve got so much ground to make up.’
‘Don’t worry. You’ll make it. You’ve got talent.’
‘Do you really mean it?’
‘I do. You’ll be a big star. Probably bigger than me.’
‘Come off it.’
‘I’m serious. It’s a long time since I’ve seen an actress who had your kind of potential. There was a girl I was with at drama school, but no one since then.’
‘What was her name?’
‘Prudence.’
‘And what happened to her?’
‘Ah.’ There was a long pause, during which Charles felt that water, defying the laws of gravity, was being poured up his back. ‘What does happen to talented girls who work with me?’
Christopher Milton moved suddenly. The hand on Lizzie Dark’s waist was brought up sharply to her neck where his other hand joined it. Charles started forward from his hide to save her.
They didn’t see him, which was just as well. Because far from being strangled, as he feared, Lizzie Dark was being passionately kissed. Charles melted back into the shadows. The hammering in the distance continued, but otherwise the cellar was silent as he crept out, feeling like a schoolboy surprised with a dirty book.
The next morning Alfred Bostock took over the case again. For the next part of the investigation it would not do to be recognised and, after the previous night’s unsatisfactory spying, Charles wanted the comfort of disguise.
He’d hung around the stage door until Christopher Milton and Lizzie Dark left the building. They had come out separately and set off in opposite directions. Charles trailed Christopher Milton to the Villiers, his sea-front hotel. (It was so near the theatre that there was no point in having a car, even for a star.) That made him think that Lizzie at least was safe for the night. What had gone on in the cellar after he’d left fed his imagination. It was a good half- hour before they emerged, so most things were possible.
But the urgency of the case was inescapable. The star’s violent outburst, the strangeness of his behaviour with Lizzie, and a vague but unpleasant idea of what had happened to Gareth Warden and Prudence Carr made Charles realise that he could dither no longer. And the most obvious thing to do was to find out what Christopher Milton did during that missing hour in the morning.
Charles was very organised. He got up at five o’clock after a disbelieving look at the alarm clock and started making up as Alfred Bostock.
At six-thirty he rang the Villiers. A night porter answered. Charles said he was ringing on behalf of Dickie Peck, Mr Milton’s agent, and was Mr Milton up, he knew he sometimes got up very early. No, Mr Milton was not up. Yes, he was in the hotel, but he was sleeping. Yes, he was certain that Mr Milton had not gone out, because he’d been on all night. Yes, he thought it would be advisable if the representative of Mr Peck rang back later. Mr Milton normally ordered breakfast in his suite at eight o’clock. And, incidentally, the Villiers Hotel looked forward to Mr Peck’s arrival later in the day.
At eight o’clock the representative of Mr Peck — who incidentally used the accent Charles Paris had used as Voltore in Volpone (‘Lamentably under-rehearsed’ — Plays and Players) — rang again and asked to be put through to Mr Milton. He was connected, but as soon as Christopher Milton spoke, there occurred one of those unfortunate cut-offs which are a feature of the British telecommunications system. Charles Paris, in a phone-booth on the sea- front opposite the Villiers Hotel, knew that his quarry was inside and was determined to follow him wherever he went. He had checked the entrances and exits and, unless Christopher Milton left through the kitchens (which would be more conspicuous than the main door in terms of witnesses), he would have to come out on to the front. Now it was just a question of waiting.
Charles sat in a shelter with a miserable-looking couple of old men who were realising their life-time’s ambition of retiring to the south coast. They depressed him. It was cold. He saw himself with the deadly X-ray eye of a third person. A middle-aged actor play-acting on the front at Brighton. Someone who’d never managed to create a real relationship with anyone, a man whose wife was forced to take solace with a scout-master, a man
