“The usual thing is complete loss of memory for events occurring just before the accident.”
“Alas.”
“What? Oh, quite. You must find that sort of thing very frustrating.”
“Very. I wonder if it would be possible to take the boy’s height and length of his arms, would it?”
“He can’t be disturbed.”
“I know. But if he might he uncovered for a moment. It really is important.”
The young house-surgeon thought for a moment and then nodded to the sister, who folded back the bed-clothes.
“I’m very much obliged to you,” Alleyn said three minutes later and replaced the clothes.
“Well, if that’s all—?”
“Yes. Thank you very much. I mustn’t keep you. Thank you, Sister. I’ll just have a word with the constable, here, before I go.”
The constable had withdrawn to the far side of the bed.
“You’re the chap who came here with the ambulance, aren’t you?” Alleyn asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“You should have been relieved. You heard about instructions from Mr. Fox concerning the boy’s fingernails?”
“Yes, I did, sir, but only after he’d been cleaned up.”
Alleyn swore in a whisper.
“But I’d happened to notice—” The constable — wooden-faced — produced from a pocket in his tunic a folded paper. “It was in the ambulance, sir. While they were putting a blanket over him. They were going to tuck his hands under and I noticed they were a bit dirty like a boy’s often are but the fingernails had been manicured. Colourless varnish and all. And then I saw two were broken back and the others kind of choked up with red fluff and I cleaned them out with my penknife.” He modestly proffered his little folded paper.
“What’s your name?” Alleyn asked.
“Grantley, sir.”
“Want to move out of the uniformed arm?”
“I’d like to.”
“Yes. Well, come and see me if you apply for a transfer.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Trevor Vere sighed lengthily in his breathing. Alleyn looked at the not-quite-closed eyes, the long lashes and the full mouth that had smirked so unpleasingly at him that morning in The Dolphin. It was merely childish now. He touched the forehead which was cool and dampish.
“Where’s his mother?” Alleyn asked.
“They say, on her way.”
“She’s difficult, I’m told. Don’t leave the boy before you’re relieved. If he speaks: get it.”
“They say he’s not likely to speak, sir.”
“I know. I know.”
A nurse approached with a covered object. “All right,” Alleyn said, “I’m off.”
He went to the Yard, treating himself to coffee and bacon and eggs on the way.
Fox, he was told, had come in. He arrived in Alleyn’s office looking, as always, neat, reasonable, solid and extremely clean. He made a succinct report. Jobbins appeared to have no near relations, but the landlady at The Wharfinger’s Friend had heard him mention a cousin who was lockkeeper near Marlow. The stage-crew and front-of-house people had been checked and were out of the picture. The routine search before locking up seemed to have been extremely thorough.
Bailey and Thompson had finished at the theatre, where nothing of much significance had emerged. The dressing-rooms had yielded little beyond a note from Harry Grove that Destiny Meade had carelessly tucked into her make-up box.
“Very frank affair,” Mr. Fox said primly.
“Frank about what?”
“Sex.”
“Oh. No joy for us?”
“Not in the way you mean, Mr. Alleyn.”
“What about the boy’s room?”
“He shares with Mr. Charles Random. A lot of horror comics including some of the American type that come within the meaning of the act respecting the importation of juvenile reading. One strip was about a well-developed female character called Slash who’s really a vampire. She carves up Olympic athletes and leaves her mark on them — ‘Slash,’ in blood. It seems the lad was quite struck with this. He’s scrawled ‘Slash’ across the dressing-room looking-glass with red greasepaint and we found the same thing on the front-of-house lavatory mirrors and on the wall of one of the upstairs boxes. The one on the audience’s left.”
“Poor little swine.”
“The landlady at The Wharfinger’s Friend reckons he’ll come to no good and blames the mother, who plays the steel guitar at that strip-tease joint behind Magpie Alley. Half the time she doesn’t pick the kid up after his show and he gets round the place till all hours, Mrs. Jancy says.”
“Mrs.—?”
“Jancy. The landlady. Nice woman. The Blewitts don’t live far off as it happens. Somewhere behind Tabard Street at the back of the Borough.”
“Anything more?”
“Well—dabs. Nothing very startling. Bailey’s been able to pick up some nice, clean, control specimens from the dressing-rooms. The top of the pedestal’s a mess of the public’s prints, half dusted off by the cleaners.”
“Nothing to the purpose?”
“Not really. And you would expect,” Fox said with his customary air of placid good sense, “if the boy acted vindictively, to find his dabs — two palms together where he pushed the thing over. Nothing of the kind, however, nice shiny surface and all. The carpet’s hopeless, of course. Our chaps have taken up the soiled area. Is anything the matter, Mr. AUeyn?”
“Nothing, Br’er Fox, except the word ‘soiled.’ ”
“It’s not too strong,” Fox said, contemplating it with surprise.
“No. It’s dreadfully moderate.”
“Well,” Fox said, after a moment’s consideration, “you have a feeling for words, of course.”
“Which gives me no excuse to talk like a pompous ass. Can you do some telephoning? And, by the way, have you had any breakfast? Don’t tell me. The landlady of The Wharfinger’s Friend stuffed you full of new-laid eggs.”
“Mrs. Jancy was obliging enough to make the offer.”
“In that case here is the cast and management list with telephone numbers. You take the first half and I’ll do the rest. Ask them with all your celebrated tact to come to the theatre at eleven. I think we’ll find that Peregrine Jay has already warned them.”
But Peregrine had not warned Jeremy because it had not occurred to him that Alleyn would want to see him. When the telephone rang it was Jeremy who,answered it; Peregrine saw his face bleach. He thought, “How extraordinary: I believe his pupils have contracted.” And he felt within himself a cold sliding sensation which he refused to acknowledge.
Jeremy said: “Yes, of course. Yes,” and put the receiver down. “It seems they want me to go to the theatre, too,” he said.
“I don’t know why. You weren’t there last night.”
“No. I was here. Working.” .
“Perhaps they want you to check that the glove’s all right.”
Jeremy made a slight movement, almost as if a nerve had been flicked. He pursed his lips and raised his sandy brows. “Perhaps,” he said and returned to his work-table at the far end of the room.
Peregrine, with some difficulty, got Mrs. Blewitt on the telephone and was subjected to a tirade in which speculation and avid cupidity were but thinly disguised under a mask of sorrow. She suffered, unmistakably from a formidable hangover. He arranged for a meeting, told her what the hospital had told him and assured her that everything possible would be done for the boy.
“Will they catch whoever done it?”
“It may have been an accident, Mrs. Blewitt.”
“If it was, the Management’s responsible,” she said, “and don’t forget it.”
They rang off.
Peregrine turned to Jeremy, who was bent over his table but did not seem to be working.