“Did you visit Miss Vaughan’s dressing-room before the fatality?”
“Yes. I was there with Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, who visited me with a friend, before the first act. I did not return after the first act.”
“Did you notice a bottle of white cosmetic upset on the dressing-table?”
“No, sir.”
“Mr. Gardener, will you describe the actual scene when you fired the revolver?”
Gardener did so. His voice shook over this, and he was very pale.
“Did you realize at once what had happened?”
“Not at once, I think,” Gardener answered. “I was dazed with the report of the revolver. I think it flashed through my mind that one of the blanks, fired in the wings, had got into the chamber of the gun.”
“You continued in the character of your part?”
“Yes,” said Gardener in a low voice. “Quite automatically. Then I began to realize. But we went on.”
“We?”
Gardener hesitated.
“Miss Vaughan was also on, in that scene.”
A pair of grey suede gloves was produced, to the infinite satisfaction of the onlookers.
“Are those your property?”
“No.” Gardener looked both surprised and relieved.
“Have you seen them before?”
“ ‘No. Not to my knowledge.”
The anonymous letter was produced, and identified by Gardener, who described how it arrived and explained the reference to his “sore foot.”
“Did you get any impression of the identity of the person who trod on your foot?”
Gardener hesitated, and glanced at Alleyn.
“I received a vague impression, but afterwards decided it was not definite enough to count for anything.”
“Whom did this impression suggest?”
“Must I answer that?”
He looked again towards Alleyn.
“You told Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn of this impression?”
“Yes. But I added that it really was not reliable.”
“What name did you mention?”
“None. Inspector Alleyn asked if I noticed a particular scent. I thought I had done so.”
“You meant a perfume of sorts?”
“Yes.”
“With whom did you associate it?”
“With Mr. Jacob Saint.”
Mr. Phillip Phillips was on his feet, in righteous indignation. The coroner dealt with him, and turned to Gardener.
“Thank you, Mr. Gardener.”
Stephanie Vaughan appeared next. She was very composed and dignified, and gave her evidence lucidly. She confirmed everything that Alleyn had said as regards the stage-white and said that Surbonadier himself upset it after the others had gone. She believed it to be a case of suicide. The jury looked sympathetic and doubtful.
The rest of the cast followed in turn. Barclay Crammer gave a good all-round performance of a heartbroken gentleman of the old school. Janet Emerald achieved the feat known to leading ladies as “running through the gamut of the emotions.” Asked to account for the striking discrepancies between her statement and those of Miss Max and the stage manager, she wept unfeignedly and said her heart was broken. The coroner stared at her coldly, and told her she was an unsatisfactory witness. Miss Deamer was youthfully sincere, and used a voice with an effective little broken gasp. Her evidence was supremely irrelevant. The stage manager and Miss Max were sensible and direct. Props looked and behaved so precisely like a murderer, that he left the box in a perfect gale of suspicion. Trixie Beadle struck the “I was an innocent girl” note, but was obviously frightened and was treated gently.
“You say you knew deceased well. You mean you were on terms of great intimacy?”
“I suppose you’d call it that,” said poor Trixie.
Her father was sparse, respectful and rather pathetic. Howard Melville was earnest, sincere, and unhelpful. Old Blair gave his evidence rather mulishly. He was asked to give the names of the people who went in at the stage door, and did so, including those of Inspector Alleyn, Mr. Bathgate, and Mr. Jacob Saint. Had he noticed anybody wearing these gloves come in at the stage door?
“Yes,” said old Blair, in a bored voice.
“Who was this person?”
“Mr. Saint.”
“Mr. Jacob Saint? (If there is a repetition of this noise, I shall have the court cleared.) Are you certain of this?”
“Yes,” said old Blair and withdrew.
Mr. Jacob Saint stated that he was the proprietor of the theatre, that deceased was his nephew, and that he had seen him before the show. He identified the gloves as his, and said he had left them behind the scenes. He did not know where. He had visited Miss Emerald’s room, but did not think he was wearing them then. Probably he had put them down somewhere on the stage. To Nigel’s surprise no mention was made of the tension between Saint and Surbonadier. Mincing, the footman, was not called. Mr. Saint had not returned to the stage until after the tragedy.
The coroner summed up at some length. He touched on the possibility of suicide, and rather belittled it. He directed the jury discreetly towards the verdict which, after an absence of twenty minutes, they ultimately returned — a verdict of murder against some person or persons unknown. As he left the court Nigel found himself walking behind Alleyn, and immediately in front of Janet Emerald and Saint. He was about to join the inspector when Miss Emerald pushed past him, and seized Alleyn by the arm.
“Inspector Alleyn,” she said.
Alleyn stopped and looked at her.
“You were behind that.” She spoke quietly enough, but with a kind of suppressed violence. “You told that man to treat me as he did. Why was I singled out to be insulted and suspected? Why was Felix Gardener let off so lightly? Why isn’t he arrested? He shot Arthur. It’s infamous.” Her voice rose hysterically. Several people who had passed them stopped and looked back.
“Janet,” said Saint hurriedly, “are you mad? Come away.”
She turned and staged at him, burst into a passion of the most hair-raising sobs, and allowed herself to be led off.
Alleyn looked after her thoughtfully.
“Not mad, Mr. Saint,” he murmured. “No. I don’t think the Emerald is mad. Shall we say venomous to the point of foolhardiness?”
He followed them out into the street, without noticing Nigel.
CHAPTER XVII
Shane Street to the Yard
Nigel spent the afternoon in writing up his report of the inquest. He was greatly intrigued by the vast amount of information that had not come out. The coroner had skated nimbly over the Jacob Saint libel action, had made no comment at all on Surbonadier’s state of intoxication, and had walked like Aga in and out of Stephanie Vaughan’s dressing-room. The jury, an unusually docile one, had apparently felt no urge to ask independent questions. Their foreman, like the Elephant’s Child, had the air of saying “this is too buch for be.” Nigel imagined that, in their brief retirement, they had discussed the possibility of suicide, decided it wouldn’t wash, and agreed that the whole thing was too complex for any decision but the usual one, which they had given. He had sensed Alleyn’s extreme satisfaction; and now, once more, revised his own view of the case.
He found that he had made up his mind that Saint was responsible for the murder. Yet Saint’s was the best of all the alibis. He had been alone in the audience, but Blair had sworn positively that he had not seen the proprietor of the Unicorn return to the stage between the acts. Saint had been in a box, and it was just possible that he could have slipped out during the black-out. At this point Nigel got his brain-wave. Suppose Jacob Saint had left his box under cover of the black-out and had gone through the door in the proscenium, on to the stage. This door had been locked when Stavely and Nigel went through, but Saint might easily have got hold of a key. There he would be, before the lights went out, in his box facing the audience, as large as life. Then complete darkness. Saint had left the box, slipped through the door, which he had perhaps previously unlocked, gone straight to the desk, colliding with Gardener on the way, pulled out the drawers and replaced the dummies with the cartridges. When the lights went up again — there was Mr. Saint sitting in his box at the Unicorn. Nigel was thrilled with himself and rang up Scotland Yard. Alleyn was out, but had made an appointment for four o’clock. Nigel said he would be there at 4.30.