“How well do you know her?”
“I had never met her until rehearsals began. I mean, she and her husband and the other married couples have been here for drinks, of course. We had to ask the Bourtons because we were having Brian and Valerie Yorke and Marcus and Emma Lynn, so Donald and Barbara seemed the obvious couple to make up the party.”
“What makes you think that she did not object to her husband’s amusing himself while she was in London or on tour?”
“Oh, they were the modern style of husband and wife, you know. ‘You go your way, I’ll go mine, and no hard feelings.’ That sort of thing.”
“Have they any children?”
“Not so far as I know.”
“Did she maintain him out of her earnings?”
“Good gracious, no. He was a partner in a firm of turf accountants with betting shops all over the place. I should think he was doing very nicely. Barbara showed me a bracelet she was wearing and I’d hate to guess what it cost. She said, ‘Donald gave it me when the favourite blew up at Doncaster and came in fifth, and an absolute outsider cantered home’.”
“I suppose the bookmakers take certain risks, though.”
“Minimal ones, I’d say. It’s the punters who drop the money.”
“Like Priscilla Wimbush in Crome Yellow, who dropped it in handfuls and hatfuls on every racecourse in the country.”
“Oh, yes, and then she turned to the occult and the casting of horoscopes and all that kind of thing, didn’t she? Oh, here’s Jon. Have the police gone, darling?”
“Yes, I’ve just seen them off.”
“What did they have to say?”
“Oh, the usual things—how, when and why—but of course I couldn’t really tell them anything. They wanted to see the props, so I’ve sent them round to Marcus Lynn. He collected everything up when he left here this morning. They didn’t seem too pleased about that.”
Chapter 8
Speculations
“First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on.”
« ^ »
We would like to have kept our costumes,” said Rosamund to Laura.
“But they belong to Mr Lynn, don’t they?”
“Yes, but he told Signora she could have them for the dancing class. She asked for them, I expect. She always asks our mummies and daddies for things, so I expect she asked Mr Lynn. Whenever we are in a dance display she asks if she can keep the costumes, and the mummies and daddies always say yes, because, if they said no, their children wouldn’t get nice parts next time. My daddy calls her ‘that old squirrel’, but Mummy says she can’t make much money out of that dance class and think of the bonus every Saturday morning. What’s a bonus?”
“An extra. A free gift.”
“But Signora doesn’t give them anything, ever, not every Saturday morning or any other time.”
“Isn’t it every Saturday morning that you and Edmund go to dancing class?”
“Yes, but that’s a bonus for Signora, not for Mummy and Daddy.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. When I was a little girl we were always packed off to Sunday School. I expect the principle is the same. Do you like going to dancing class?”
“Oh, yes, it’s lovely.”
“Well, I didn’t like going to Sunday School, so perhaps you get a bonus, after all.”
“We would rather have kept our costumes.”
“They were very pretty, I thought. Whose toy dog was it?”
“I didn’t see any toy dogs. I didn’t take a toy dog, only the real ones.”
“Somebody called Moonshine had a toy dog. She also had a bush of thorns and a lantern.”
“We didn’t see that part of the play. I expect the things belonged to Yolanda. She has lots of toys.”
“What happened to the grown-up people’s costumes?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps Mr Lynn gave them to Mr Yorke for another play.”
“More likely they were hired and went back to the shop.”
“No, they were all made specially, I think. Daddy hired a car once when ours was at the garage, and I think Mr Lynn hired the dogs, not the costumes.”
“Dogs are ‘props’. Mustn’t touch ‘props’,” said Edmund. “Mrs Yorke very cross. Not to go near them. Must not take dogs into bed. Dogs have fleas.”
“The toy dog was a prop, too,” said Laura. “Surely you saw it? It must have been somewhere where Moonshine could pick it up when it was needed. Where would that be?”
“Oh, the things were on tables, but nobody except Yolanda and the grown-ups could go near them,” explained Rosamund. “Yolanda could look at them because her little knife was a prop, but Mr Yorke was there all the time when Yolanda was, and so was Mrs Yorke, because they were all in the same part of the play.”
“Mrs Yorke was very cross,” said Edmund reminiscently.
“We were with Signora and the fairies,” said Rosamund. “We didn’t mean to be naughty when we took the dogs to bed. They liked it and we liked having them.”
“I expect you did. They were lovely creatures. You said you thought they were hired.”
“I think they were, because I don’t think Mr Lynn or Mr Yorke have any dogs of their own.”
“Who do these belong to?”
“Mr Woolidge. He breeds them. Do you know why they’re called bloodhounds?”
“Because they used to chase runaway slaves, I believe.”
“No, that’s not true. That’s what people think, but it isn’t true. They’re called bloodhounds because they’ve got bloodshot eyes. Peter Woolidge told me, and it must be true because he knows everything. He is my favourite, not like Mr Rinkley. Mr Rinkley has bloodshot eyes, but that’s because he drinks too much, then it makes him sick.”
“Who told you that?”
“Yolanda Yorke. She heard her daddy say so. Yolanda was given the dogs to mind when she was not on the stage. I wish I could have been given the dogs to mind.”
“ ’Ark, ’ark, the dogs do bark,” said Edmund, “only it was a bird in the long grass.”
“Do you like Yolanda?” asked Laura.
“Oh, yes. She is called an only child, so her mummy and daddy give her lots of things. She was a page-boy called Phil something and she had a knife, but her mummy only let her have it for one scene because it was a real knife and very sharp, although it was only a little one. She showed it me.”
“When?”
“At the dress rehearsal, when the fairy bits were over. When Edmund and Lucien and Ganymede were in bed and Cook and Carrie were in the kitchen doing their oojah board, I put on my dressing-gown and went down to the woods. Then I took the dogs upstairs after Yolanda showed me her knife. Then Mrs Yorke came and was cross and took the dogs back.”
“I thought you said the props were on tables and nobody was allowed to touch them, so how did Yolanda come to show you her knife?”
“At the dress-rehearsal Yolanda wore her belt with the dagger in it all the time. She was in the first scene and she wore the belt with the dagger and she showed it me before she went on the stage. After that, her mummy wouldn’t let her wear it until the hunting-scene, so at the dress rehearsal I asked her to show it me. It was in a leather sheath, but I wanted to see the real knife. Yolanda said she wasn’t supposed to take it out of the sheath, but she said she would if I would hear her her part. She did not have anything to say in the first scene, just to stand there behind Mr Yorke’s chair, but she had to speak in the last scene and say that Mr Yorke wouldn’t want to see the workmen’s play because it was silly, but Mr Yorke couldn’t have thought it was silly, because they did it, all the same.”
“How do you know? You never saw the last scene, did you?”
“No, but Yolanda told me. So when I had heard her her part, she heard me mine. We all practised our parts a lot. Mr Woolidge and Mrs Bourton practised their parts more than anybody, because they were supposed to be in love, so they went into the woods when they were not on the stage and practised being in love.”