Kitty’s eyes, already quite tarnished with crossness, glowered. Barnaby guessed at a recent visit to Mr. Ounce.
“And why was it such a piece of cake for her to lead this man, who supposedly had the pick of the bunch, to the altar by simply lying about a pregnancy?”
There was an audible intake of breath from several people at this revelation, and Rosa made a thick, choking sound. The Everards whickered like excited horses.
“To move on to his position as an actor. In this company, he was top dog. A big fish in a little pond—”
“I beg leave to take issue there, Tom. This theater is—”
“Please.” Harold subsided reluctantly. “A little pond. True, he had leading roles, but he did not have the talent, the perception, or the humility to make anything of them. Neither did he have the ambition to look for pastures new. There are bigger groups in Slough or Uxbridge where he might have stretched himself, but he never showed the slightest inclination to do so. Perhaps because he may not have found another director quite so amenable.”
“Amenable!” cried Harold. “Me?”
“There are many people I know who regarded his refusal to take direction as revealing supreme confidence. I disagree. It is putting yourself in a director’s hands, trying different ways of working, taking risks, that shows an actor’s confidence. And I gradually came to the conclusion that ambition and self-assurance were two things that Esslyn Carmichael had very little of.”
He got a lot of puzzled looks at that, but none of actual disbelief. More than one person seemed to find the idea feasible. Rosa, while looking a little mystified, also nodded.
“And yet …” Barnaby left his position at the pass door and walked slowly up the aisle. Every head followed. “There were certain signs that this aspect of his personality was undergoing some sort of change. The feeling I picked up during questioning was that over the last few months, he had become openly argumentative, querying or defying Harold and castigating the only other actor in the company who was any serious threat.” Nicholas looked rather pleased at that remark, and gave Cully a wide smile. “Now,” continued Barnaby, “why should that be?”
The company recognized the question as purely rhetorical. No one spoke. In fact, two people looked so deeply disturbed you could have been forgiven for thinking that they might never speak again. “I believe that once we know the answer to that, we shall know why he was murdered. And once we know why, we shall know who.” Troy found his mouth was dry. At first guarded and resentful of his chief’s deductive progress, he had sat outside the circle with a slightly defiant air, knowing his place, showing his detachment disdainfully. Now, in spite of himself totally gripped by the thrust of Barnaby’s narrative, he leaned forward, caught in the storyteller’s net.
“I’d like to jump to the first night of Amadeus, and the drama within the drama. I’m sure you all know by now that rumor and misinformation were running rife, and that Kitty and Nicholas were both attacked by Esslyn during the course of the evening.” At this indication that his previous declaration had been validated, Nicholas looked even more pleased. “This naturally put them high on the list of suspects. In any case, I’m afraid the widow of a murdered man is usually thrust into this unenviable position. Kitty had the motive—he’d discovered she was unfaithful, and once the baby had ‘disappeared’ would perhaps have turned her out. And she had the perfect opportunity—”
“I didn’t kill him!” shouted Kitty. “With all the witnesses I’d got to physical cruelty, I could’ve got a divorce. And maintenance.”
“That sort of procedure can take a long time, Kitty. And not always end to your advantage.”
“I never touched the bloody thing.”
“Certainly your prints were not on the razor, but then neither were anybody else’s until the dead man picked it up. But then, the most inept delinquent knows enough to wipe the handle of a murder weapon clean. Even so, all my instincts set themselves against this simple solution.” Kitty and Rosa engaged glances. Triumph and disappointment sizzled back and forth.
“I also decided that David, Colin, and Deidre were in the clear, and in each case for pretty much the same reasons. I’ve known them all a long time, and although I’d never be foolish enough to say that none of them are capable of murder, I very much doubt if they were capable of this particular murder. But of course they did have the opportunity. And this was my real stumbling block. Because, until earlier this evening, it seemed all the wrong people had the opportunity and all the right people had none.”
“What happened earlier this evening, then?” asked Harold, who had been quieter for longer than anyone present could ever remember.
“I discovered there were two razors.”
The remark fell into the silence like a stone. Ripples of emotion spread and spread. Some faces looked eager, some were flushed and serious, one turned ghastly pale. Avery, noticing, thought, Oh, God—he knows something. I was right. Then, not caring whether or not he was publicly rebuffed, he took his lover’s hand and squeezed it; once for comfort and twice for luck. Tim didn’t even notice.
“This, of course, opened up the whole thing. Almost anyone could have taken it, left the substitute, removed the tape when it was convenient, and then slipped the original back.”
“Who’s the ‘almost,’ Tom?” asked Nicholas.
“Avery. He didn’t return to the wings till the play was over. Now I knew how,” continued Barnaby, “I was left with the two whys. Why should anyone wish to murder Esslyn in the first place and, much more puzzling, why choose to do it in front of over a hundred people? Frankly, I still haven’t understood the second, but I have become quite sure about the first.”
Now, he retraced his steps and, once again, every head, as if yoked together on one invisible string, turned. He leaned back against the thrust of the stage, hands in pockets, and paused. The old ham, observed Cully admiringly. And I thought I got it all from me mum.
“Putting aside the motives we first thought of—namely, passion and money—we are left with a third, equally powerful and, I believe, the correct one. Esslyn Carmichael was killed because of something he knew. Now, our investigation has proved that, unless he’s been ordering his affairs with special cunning, there have been no large sums of money coming his way, and that seems to rule out using this knowledge for financial coercion. But a blackmailer’s demands can be other than monetary. He can put sexual pressure on people, or he can use his secret to obtain power. I thought the first, as he was so newly married and, according to his imperceptive lights, quite satisfied, was unlikely. Yet how much more unlikely, given my understanding of his character as lacking ambition and confidence, was the latter. And yet I became more and more certain that it was in this area of investigation that my solution lay.
“Like all of you, I’m sure I have thought of this murder as a theatrical one. Although on this dreadful evening reality crept upon the stage in certain unpleasant ways, we all knew, until the very last minute, that we were watching a play. Esslyn wore makeup and costume, he spoke lines, and executed moves that he had rehearsed. Whoever killed him was a member of the company. It seemed so plain that everything centered on the Latimer that I hardly took into account the rest of Esslyn’s life—the larger part of it, after all. It was Kitty who reminded me that from nine till five Monday to Friday Esslyn Carmichael was an accountant.”