tampered with.’
‘Yes.’
‘The locking bar was right out of position.’
‘Yes, and someone had scored through the leather hinges with a razor blade. It was a booby-trap, meant for anyone who stepped on it.’
‘I think it was meant specifically for one person.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Never mind. You’ll all know soon enough.’
‘Hm.’
‘Well, this sabotage to the show can’t go on, can it?’
‘You think it’s a connected sequence of sabotage?’
‘Sure of it. And after today I think a police investigation can be started. It’s sad.’
‘Sad?’
‘Sad because we’re dealing with a madman.’
‘Ah.’
There was no point in hiding the facts now. It would all come out soon. ‘Christopher Milton. A good example of the penalties of stardom!’
‘So it was him all along. I wondered.’ There was suppressed excitement in Spike’s voice as if at the confirmation of a long-held suspicion.
‘Yes.’
A pause ensued and in the silence they both became aware of Len’s radio, which was still on. ‘… so all I can say in answer to that question is — I beg yours?’
It was Christopher Milton’s voice. An American female voice came back, ‘Well, on that note, thank you very much, Christopher Milton.’
A hearty male voice took it up. ‘Well, there it was — an exclusive for us here in the studio on Radio Brighton — for the past half hour you’ve been listening to Christopher Milton live. And just a reminder that Lumpkin! is at the Queen’s Theatre until tomorrow and it opens in the West End at the King’s Theatre on November 27th. And incidentally the interviewer with Christopher Milton was Suzanne Horse.’
‘Horst,’ said Suzanne’s voice insistently.
Spike went to turn off the radio. Too quickly. He turned back defensively to Charles. The light caught him from behind and only the shape of his face showed. The blurring marks of acne were erased and the outline of his features appeared as they must have done when he was a boy.
Charles recognised him instantly and like the tumblers of a combination lock all the details of the case fell into place and the door swung open. ‘Gareth Warden,’ he said softly.
‘What?’
‘Gareth, if Christopher Milton has just been in the studio at Radio Brighton, he couldn’t have been here tampering with the Star Trap.’
‘He could have done it earlier and left it as a booby-trap.’
‘And released the bar of lights to fall on Lizzie Dark?’
There was a silence. Spike, or Gareth Warden, seemed to be summoning up arguments to answer this irrefutable logic. The ambulance arrived before he had mustered any.
Len fussed around as Charles was loaded on to a stretcher and taken to the ambulance. The doors were about to close when Charles heard Spike’s voice say, ‘I think I’ll come with him.’
The realisation of the true identity of the criminal he had been seeking seeped slowly into Charles’ mind. Strangely he didn’t feel afraid to have the man beside him in the ambulance.
They travelled in silence for some minutes. Then Charles asked softly. Why did you do it all?’
Spike’s voice had lost its hard professional edge and now showed more signs of Ellen da Costa’s painstaking elocution lessons. ‘To show him up. To let people see what he was really like.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I just realised his ambitions. All he ever wanted to do was to get his own way and destroy anyone who challenged him. He was always totally selfish. And yet the public loved him. Look at the Press, everywhere — it always says ‘lovable’ Christopher Milton. I just wanted to show the public what a shit their idol really was. All I did was to put into action what he was thinking. It was wish-fulfilment for him. Everyone who got in his way just vanished. That’s what he wanted.’
‘But he never actually hurt anyone.’
‘But he wanted to, don’t you see? He was never lovable, just evil.’
‘And you hoped to bring public disgrace on him?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how? You must have realised that sooner or later you were going to make a mistake, commit some crime at a time when he had an alibi. Like this afternoon, for instance. He’d never have been convicted.’
‘He didn’t need to be convicted. The disgrace of the allegation would have been enough. Reports of the investigation would have brought up all the rows at rehearsals and showed the kind of person he really was.’
‘But what made you think that there would be an investigation? The management have done everything to keep the whole affair quiet.’
‘Au, but they put you in the cast.’
‘You knew I was there to investigate?’
‘I was suspicious early on and when I saw you with Winifred Tuke’s gin bottle, I was certain. That’s why I fed you so much information, why I planted the clues for you in his car, why I told you to ask Julian Paddon about him.’
‘I see.’ Charles’ detective achievements were suddenly less remarkable. Why did you hate him so much?’
‘I’ve known him a long times He’s always been like this.’
‘No, there’s more to it than that. Has it anything to do with Prudence Carr?’
Spike/Gareth flinched at the name. ‘What do you know about her?’
‘Just that you were all three at stage school together, that she was very beautiful and talented, that nothing has been heard of her for some time, that you and he were both maybe in love with her.’
‘I was in love with her. He was never in love with anyone but himself. His marriage broke up, didn’t it?’
‘But he wasn’t married to Prudence,’ Charles probed gently.
‘No, he wasn’t. He didn’t marry her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He just took up with her, he unsettled her. He… I don’t know
… changed her.’
‘In what way?’
‘He destroyed her confidence. He crushed her with his ego. She could have been… so good, such a big star, and he just undermined her. She never stood a chance of making it after she met him.’
‘A lot of people don’t make it in the theatre for a lot of reasons.’
‘No, it was him. He destroyed her. Because he knew she was better and more talented than he was. She stood in his way.’ His words were repeated in the monotone of obsession.
‘And where is she now?’
‘I’ve no idea. But wherever she is, she’s nothing — nothing to what she could have been.’
‘And you loved her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she love you?’
‘Yes, at first. Then he came along… I wanted to marry her. She refused. Said she loved him. That’s impossible. There is nothing about him to love.’
‘And what happened to you? Why did you give up acting? I know you started at Cheltenham.’
‘My, you have done your homework. Why did I give up acting? I gave it up because nobody wanted to employ me. I’d had a good run as a child star, but it’s difficult to make the break from child to juvenile. And I lost my looks, which didn’t help. I developed this acne, my hair turned darker. Nobody thought I was pretty any more. I had three
