“Wouldn’t you notice strangers hanging around?”
“That is pretty much a public building. People take tours. We’re used to having visitors around. It’s not unusual to have people standing in the back of the auditorium during rehearsals. They are not disruptive, and we pretend they’re not there.”
“Malcolm Wudbine, how long have you known him?”
“Maybe thirty years off and on, he’s a bit older than me. I worked in the auto industry and got moved around the country a lot. After my parents passed, I shared our cottage with my sister and her family, but there were periods where we didn’t make it here for several seasons. For many decades I knew who he was, but little more. When I got involved in the theatre again, after I got pushed into early retirement, that’s when I had more contact with him.”
“How did you find him, Wudbine?”
“My dealings with him were very limited. He didn’t bother me.”
“Did you have any business or financial dealings with him?”
“No,” Grattan answered. “My contact was here.”
“Do you know anyone who might have a motive to cause him harm?”
“All I know are the rumors and stories, and I don’t even know those very well. I live on my own. I listen to music, read books, walk the shore, and enjoy this place. I do my best to keep away from the noise of other people’s lives.”
18
“Some people thought it was a cruel trick,” said Sterling Shevlin, “casting Malcolm Wudbine as Colonel Protheroe, the most disliked man in St. Mary Mead. And while it is easy to make comparisons between the two, it was no trick, indeed. Malcolm, like he always does, showed up one evening in early June at my cottage with a couple of bottles of Bombay Sapphire. And you see, that’s just the essential Malcolm, far too busy and important to show up and read for a part, but having the time to spend an evening sitting around and talking. And, as usual, before departing, asking if there was a role for him this season.”
Ray looked across at Shevlin as he listened.
“I told him there wasn’t much in Murder at the Vicarage for someone his age. If the people who dramatized the story had stayed closer to Agatha Christie’s book, I would have the perfect part, but as it was in the play, Colonel Protheroe was only a cadaver, and I was planning to use a dummy in the part.
“You can imagine my surprise when he expressed interest in the role. He said it was just perfect. He wouldn’t have to learn any lines, said that was getting harder every year. Malcolm told me he liked being part of the play every year because of the energy he absorbed from other cast members. He liked the tension and excitement and spending time with some of the younger actors. There was also something about that being a replacement for the grandchildren he never had. Malcolm, he was such a bundle of contradictions. There were so many things I liked about him, yet at times over the years, I was the target of his prejudices.”
“Could you elaborate?”
“I used to bring my then companion, Ellis, with me. Malcolm seemed very offended by that. At the time I heard he had started a whispering campaign. He reportedly feared that the colony would become a second Saugatuck. So I confronted Malcolm directly. Ellis and I marched up to his house, the old place before he flattened it and built Gull House. We demanded to talk to him. At first one of his employees said he wasn’t available. I told the young woman that we weren’t going to leave until we had a conversation with Malcolm. She disappeared in sort of a panic. Eventually we were escorted into the library. You can always tell a library created by an interior decorator. None of the books look read, they are just adornments. Eventually Malcolm arrived. I told him what I had been hearing and how offended I was. Well, of course, he denied the whole thing. He was at his most charming, served us sherry, a very good sherry, and told us how much he hated bigotry of any kind. He’s a real chameleon, a lying SOB. But I have to say that after that confrontation, I didn’t hear anything more.”
“Let’s talk about last night,” said Ray. “Were you part of the group that accompanied Tony Grattan down to the theater from the cocktail party?”
“No, I was ahead of the group by 10 or 15 minutes.”
“What were you doing?”
“I have a pre-performance ritual. I love being in an empty theater. I like walking around with just the working lights on. I try to envision how the show should go, and I make a little list of final instructions. I think about each of the main characters and what they have to do to create the necessary tension. Actually, I’ve been doing this from the first rehearsal, but this is my last chance to help people focus. Once you get a cast beyond learning their lines and blocking, it’s all about tone and nuance. Right before they go onstage, I try to remind each of them of one or two things that will make their character more believable.”
“Who else was in the building?”
“Well, I don’t think anyone was. I didn’t see anyone, but this is a big rambling place. It supposedly has a history of being one of the favorite places for teens to have assignations, probably some of their parents, too. In the costume shop and the property area, there are lots of places one, or shall I say two, can disappear. And then there’s the ghost.” Shevlin looked at Ray. “I can tell, Sheriff, you don’t believe in ghosts, but there is one here. I’ve been in this building for years, sometimes alone, at times in the company of others, when I, we, have heard her laughter. It’s never from the same place. I don’t know how to explain it, eerie, almost hysterical, and definitely sexual. Earlier this summer we had a heating and cooling guy working on the ventilators. He was here and heard it several times. He told me he’d never work here again.”
“To the best of your knowledge, no one else was in the building?”
“As far as I know, no one of a non-spectral nature. I think I heard the ghost, but I don’t pay any attention to her anymore.”
“And then the cast arrived?”
“They all came in together. They were noisy and in high spirits. I think alcohol and the kind of weather we were having last evening played into it. Most of us resonate with violent weather. It causes a kind of madness. Of course, I was immediately concerned about their behavior. When you talk to the cast members, some will tell you I was cross with them, a misinterpretation on their part. I needed them to quiet themselves and start getting into character.”
“Two questions. First, was there anyone missing who should have been here? Second, was there anyone around who shouldn’t have been here? And was there anything out of place, anything that seemed wrong or unnatural?”
Shevlin rubbed his balding pate with his right hand, fingers spread like he might be running them through hair. Then he pulled off his glasses, the heavy horn-rimmed frames, and wiped his eyes, first the left then the right, with a rumpled handkerchief.
“I hear your questions, but other things are bouncing around in my brain. Something is wrong, unnatural. Did I see anything? Let me ponder that for a moment. I don’t think so. But something was completely wrong. We do a play about murder. We wrap the scariest piece of the human experience with the cozy atmosphere of an English village. People drink tea and eat biscuits as they try to puzzle out the real killer from the many possibilities. And so no one in the audience has to work too hard, Miss Marple, with her unerring logic and amazing memory for detail, eventually identifies the killer. It’s a comfortable evening of theatre—dinner and drinks before, dessert and drinks after, and some light mental gymnastics in the middle. What took place last night is completely unnatural. I am struggling to believe this really happened. Murder, it’s not part of my experience. It’s not part of the experience of anyone here. It’s the stuff of theatre, film, and TV.”