He flashed his torch across walls and shrouded seats. He walked up the new central aisle and into the foyer. It was deserted and dimly lit and the street doors were shut. Peregrine called up the stairs.
“Jobbins.”
“Eh?” Jobbins’s voice said. “That you, guv? Anything up?”
“I heard a seat flap. In front.”
“Didjer, guv?”
Jobbins appeared on the stairs. He wore an extremely loud brown, black and white checked overcoat, a woollen cap and carpet slippers.
“Good Lord!” Peregrine ejaculated. “Are you going to the Dogs or Ally Pally or what? Where’s your brown bowler?”
“You again, guv?” Jobbins wheezed. “I’d of ’eld back me quick change if I’d known. Pardon the dishy-bill. Present from a toff this ’ere coat is and very welcome. Gets chilly,” he said, descending, “between nah and the witching ar, when my relief comes in. What’s this abaht a seat?”
Peregrine explained. To his astonishment Jobbins pushed the doors open, strode into the auditorium and uttered in a sort of hoarse bellow—
“Nah then. Out of it. Come on. You ’eard.”
Silence.
Then Emily’s voice sounding worried and lonely: “What goes on?” She had groped her way down into the house.
“It’s all right,” Peregrine shouted. “Won’t be long.” And to Jobbins: “What does go on. You sound as if you’re used to this.”
“Which I am,” Jobbins sourly endorsed. “It’s that perishing child-wonder, that’s what it is. ’E done it before and ’e’ll do it again and once too often.”
“Done what?”
“ ’Angs abaht. ’Is mum plays the steel guitar in a caff see, acrost the river. She knocks off at eleven and ’er ’earts-delight sallies forth to greet ’er at the top of the lane. And ’e fills in the gap, buggering rhand and theyater trying to make out ’e’s a robber or a spectrum. ’E knows full well I can’t leave me post so ’e ’ides isself in various dark regions. ‘ ’Ands up,’ ’e yells. ‘Stick ’em up,’ ’e ’owls, and crawls under the seats making noises like ’e’s bein’ strangulated which ’e will be if ever I lay me ’ands on ’im. Innit marvellous?”
From somewhere backstage a single plangent sound rang out and faded. It was followed by an eldritch screech of laughter, a catcall and a loud slam.
“There ’e goes,” said Jobbins and flung an ejaculation of startling obscenity into the auditorium.
“I’ll get that little bastard,” Peregrine said. He foolishly made a dash for the treble-locked doors into the portico.
“You’ll never catch ’im, guv,” Jobbins said. His voice had almost vanished with excessive vocal exercise. “ ’E’ll be ’alf-way up the lane and going strong. His mum meets ’im at the top when she’s sober.”
“I’ll have the hide off him tomorrow,” Peregrine said. “All right, Jobbins. I’ll see you’re not pestered again. And anyway as far as the treasure is concerned this is your last watch.”
“That’s right, sir. Positively the last appearance in this epoch-making role.”
“Goodnight again.”
“Goodnight, guv. Best of British luck.”
Peregrine went into the stalls. “Emily!” he called. “Where are you, my poor girl?”
“Here,” Emily said, coming up the aisle.
“Did you see the little swine?”
“No. I was in front. He came down from the circle. I could hear him on the steps.”
Peregrine looked at his watch. Five past eleven. He took her arm. “Let’s forget him,” he said, “and sling our hooks. We’ve wasted ages. They shut at midnight. Come on.”
They slammed the stage-door behind them. The night was still fine and quite warm. They climbed Wharfingers Lane and went in under the illuminated sign of the new bistro: the younger dolphin.
It was crowded, noisy and extremely dark. The two waiters were dressed as fishermen in tight jeans, striped jumpers and jelly bag caps. A bas-relief of a dolphin wearing a mortar-board was lit from below.
As their eyes adjusted to the gloom they saw that Destiny and her three audience friends were established at a table under the dolphin and had the air of slumming. Destiny waggled her fingers at them and made faces to indicate that she couldn’t imagine why she was there.
They ate grilled sole, drank lager, danced together on a pocket-handkerchief and greatly enjoyed themselves. Presently Destiny and her friends left. As they passed Emily and Peregrine, she said: “Darlings! we thought we would but oh, no, no.” They went away talking loudly about what they would have to eat when they got to Destiny’s flat in Chelsea. At ten to twelve Peregrine said: “Emily: why are you so stand-offish in the elder Dolphin and so come-toish in the younger one?”
“Partly because of your prestige and anyway I’m not all that oncoming, even here.”
“Yes, you are. You are when we’re dancing. Not at first but suddenly, about ten minutes ago.”
“I’m having fun and I’m obliged to you for providing it.”
“Do you at all fancy me?”
“Very much indeed.”
“Don’t say it brightly like that: it’s insufferable.”
“Sorry.”
“And what do you mean, my prestige. Are you afraid people like Gertie, for example, will say you’re having an advantageous carry-on with the author-producer?”
“Yes, I am.”
“How bloody silly. ‘They say. What say they? Let them say.’ ”
“That aphorism was coined by a murdering cad.”
“What of it? Emily: I find you more attractive than any of my former girls. Now, don’t flush up and bridle. I know you’re not my girl, in actual fact. Emily,” Peregrine shouted against a screaming crescendo from the saxophonist, “Emily, listen to me. I believe I love you.”
The little band had crashed to its climax and was silent. Peregrine’s declaration rang out as a solo performance.
“After that,” Emily said, “I almost think we had better ask for the bill, don’t you?”
Peregrine was so put out that he did so. They left The Younger Dolphin assuring the anxious proprietor that they would certainly return.
Their plan had been to stroll over to Blackfriars, pick up Peregrine’s and Jeremy’s car and drive to Hampstead.
They walked out of The Younger Dolphin into a deluge.
Neither of them had a mackintosh or an umbrella. They huddled in the entrance and discussed the likelihood of raising a cab. Peregrine went back and telephoned a radio-taxi number to be told nothing would be available for at least twenty minutes. When he rejoined Emily the rain had eased off a little.
“I tell you what,” he said. “I’ve got a gamp and a mac in the office. Let’s run down the hill, beat Jobbins up and collect them. Look, it’s almost stopped.”
“Come on, then.”
“Mind you don’t slip.”
Hand in hand they ran wildly and noisily down Wharfingers Lane. They reached the turning at the bottom, rounded the corner and pulled up outside The Dolphin. They laughed and were exhilarated.
“Listen!” Emily exclaimed. “Peregrine, listen. Somebody else is running in the rain.”
“It’s someone in the stage-door alley.”
“So it is.”
The other runner’s footsteps rang out louder and louder on the wet cobblestones. He came out of the alley into the lane and his face was open-mouthed like a gargoyle.
He saw them and he flung himself upon Peregrine, pawed at his coat and jabbered into his face. It was the night watchman who relieved Jobbins.
“For Gawsake!” he said. “Oh, my Gawd, Mr. Jay, for Gawsake.”
“What the devil’s the matter? What is it? What’s happened!”
“Murder,” the man said, and his lips flabbered over the word. “That’s what happened, Mr. Jay. Murder.”
SIX
Disaster
While he let them in at the stage-door the man—he was called Hawkins—said over and over again in a shrill whine that it wasn’t his fault if he was late getting down to the theatre. Nobody, he said, could blame him. He turned queer, as was well known, at the sight of blood. It was as much as Peregrine could do to get the victim’s name out of him. He had gone completely to pieces.