“So far as we know, he got on well with all of them. People respected him for choosing anything but a star part for himself and were all grateful for his lavish sponsorship of the show.”
“No case of having to hire your own costume and agree to take at least twenty of the most expensive tickets and either flog them to your friends or pay for them yourself and give them away, she means,” said Jonathan. “I have only one thing to add: he insisted on having his Emma cast as Hermia to begin with. At the first reading the poor girl was so terribly bad that I’m afraid opprobrious remarks were made and some of them may have come to Lynn’s ears. He would not readily forgive anybody who called his wife ‘a silly moo’ and said she would ruin the show.”
“I thought she performed adequately, but not as Hermia.”
“No, she swopped over with Barbara Bourton and then Deb took her in hand, and there weren’t any more complaints. If Lynn had it in for either Rinkley or Bourton, I really don’t think it would have been on Emma’s account. She got plenty of compliments in the end. The ladies who might have taken umbrage because of Rinkley’s comments on their acting were Susan Hythe, Robina Lester and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Caroline Frome.”
“Would those be the women who took workmen’s parts?”
“Yes, indeed. Susan was Flute, otherwise Thisbe, Robina was Starveling, alias Moonshine, and Caroline was Snout, who doubled up as Wall.”
“I remember.”
“Rinkley was anything but complimentary about their efforts during rehearsals, but I don’t think any of them would have gone to the lengths of changing over those daggers, even if they had had the opportunity.”
“They all had access to the properties, no doubt.”
“Oh, yes, that’s true. Susan had to pick up a wrap-over skirt and a small cloak-thing, Robina her thornbush, toy dog and lantern and Caroline the sandwich-board thing she wore as the stonework. I can’t see when any of them could have swapped over the daggers, though, especially as you think that was done before the performances began.”
“Oh, it must have been. Nobody would have taken the risk of changing the daggers in full view of the rest of the cast. This murder was carefully planned. The thing about which I cannot make up my mind is whether the victim was the person the murderer intended to kill. I cannot see how anybody could have known beforehand that Mr Rinkley would be taken ill and that therefore Mr Bourton would play Pyramus and kill himself with the substituted dagger.”
“I’m still most surprised that we needed an understudy at all. Rinkley must have thought he was at death’s door when those wretched bivalve molluscs reacted, or he would have crawled back on stage, chance what,” said Jonathan.
“Whereas, thanks to Dr Delahague’s morbid concern with myelotoxin, he was bundled off to hospital. I note—I looked her up, of course—that she worked in the north of England before she and her husband came down here, so although it was likely that Rinkley merely had an allergy about which he ought to have known, there was just the chance of myelotoxin from the mussels, so, as a conscientious medical practitioner, she decided to take no chances.”
Jonathan studied his small, spare aunt for almost a minute. She accepted the scrutiny and awaited the verdict with a reptilian smile.
“You’ve got some reason for going all on about those mussels and Jeanne-Marie’s reactions, haven’t you?” said her nephew. “What’s cooking?”
“Only the fleetest of idle thoughts. It occurred to me that, so quickly did Dr Delahague remove the allergist from the scene that he could have had no idea that Bourton was to take on the part of Pyramus.”
“So you have already said, Aunt, but he must have had more than an idea. He knew Bourton was to be his understudy.”
“I wish I could be sure of that. Were all the principal parts covered?”
“Well, more or less. Of course, from one point of view the workmen’s play was our big number, so if the worst came to the worst I suppose we should have scrubbed some of the court party in that scene—telescoped the quips and interpolations, I mean—and Tom and I would have filled in for Pyramus, Prologue or Lion, Emma for Moonshine and Barbara Bourton for Thisbe, leaving Wall for Valerie Yorke. That would have left Brian Yorke as Theseus, and young Jasper Lynn to intone all the responses. Of course, not all—probably not more than one —of the workmen would have had to cry off, but, yes, all the parts were more or less covered, and in the earlier scenes, too, although everybody was keeping their fingers crossed, for we all hoped that nobody would have to double up for the lovers, who had much the longest parts in the show.”
“How did Mr and Mrs Yorke get on with the other players?”
“Excellently, so far as I know, but, of course, Deb and I are strangers here. Yorke seems to be the company’s regular producer and always picks himself an attractive although usually a secondary part. Valerie is quite a good actress but, for these days, rather strait-laced, and I believe it was on her insistence that Yorke kicked Rinkley out of his house.”
“And you—but not on Deborah’s insistence—punched Rinkley in the stomach, I understand.”
“Just one of those reflex actions.”
“But probably deeply resented.”
“He did ask for it.”
“And seems to have learned little from it.”
“Oh, you don’t know Valerie Yorke. If Rinkley had so much as tickled Yolanda in the ribs he would have been out on his ear the next minute.”
“And quite right, too,” said Deborah. “It’s abominable of people to take advantage of children. You know, Aunt Adela, if I were asked to name the likeliest person to have changed over those daggers I would have no hesitation in picking any one of four.”
“Would you not? You refer, no doubt, to Mrs Robina Lester, her son David, Miss Susan Hythe and Miss Caroline Frome. You have a point. As we have agreed, their properties were on the same table as those of Rinkley and Mr Lynn. There is only one difficulty. At least two of the four, and possibly three of them, would have had to be in collusion if the substitution of the daggers was to go unnoticed by the rest of the cast.”
“Well,” said Jonathan, “all I know is that all four had had the rough side of Rinkley’s tongue at rehearsals when he thought they weren’t giving him enough support. Yorke told me that the women, in particular, had made so many complaints that if he could have found anybody else even half as good as Rinkley, we should have had another Bully Bottom in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. As it was, Yorke had to let a lot of things go on against his better judgment.”
“Could Mr Yorke not control his leading man?”
“It’s a tricky business producing for amateurs, and Rinkley really was damned good.”
“Suppose there had been collusion—”
“Oh, that’s easy to answer,” said Jonathan. “It could have been mother and son—Robina is a strong-minded woman and I should think David is pretty much under her thumb—or David and one of the girls. He’s supposed to be keen on one of them, but which one I’ve never been interested enough to find out.”
“But Miss Hythe and Miss Frome would not have conspired together?”
“I shouldn’t think so. They’ve probably both got an eye on young David. They wouldn’t go into any sort of huddle with one another.”
“They’ve both got an eye on Tom,” said Deborah.
“I accept your judgment. That leaves us with Barbara Bourton, who would seem to gain financially from her husband’s death. Money is a strong incentive to commit a crime.”
“But she was never in any position to change over the daggers, Aunt dear. She had no props to pick up, had no access to the daggers before the show opened and would have been spotted at once if she’d been seen—as she would have been—fiddling about on one of the trestle tables,” said Jonathan.