Poole said: “We understand, Helena.”
With that familiar gesture, not looking at him, she reached out her hand. When he had taken it in his, she said: “When one is dreadfully tired one talks. I do, at all events. I talk much too easily. Perhaps that’s a sign of a shallow woman. You know, my dears, I begin to think I’m only capable of affection. I have a great capacity for affection, but as for my loves, they have no real permanency. None.”
Jacko said gently: “Perhaps your talent for affection is equal to other women’s knack of loving.”
Gay and Parry Percival looked at him in astonishment, but Poole said: “That may well be.”
“What I meant to say,” Helena went on, “only I do sidetrack myself so awfully, is this. Hadn’t we better stop being muted and mournful and talk about what may happen and what we ought to do? Adam, darling, I thought perhaps they might all be respecting my sorrow or something. What should we be talking about? What’s the situation?”
Poole moved one of the chairs with its back to the curtain and sat in it. Dr. Rutherford returned and lumped himself down in the corner. “They’re talking,” he said, “to Clem Smith in the — they’re talking to Clem. I’ve seen the police surgeon, a subfusc exhibit, but one that can tell a hawk from a handsaw if they’re held under his nose. He agrees that there was nothing else I could have done, which is no doubt immensely gratifying to me. What are you all talking about? You look like a dress rehearsal.”
“We were about to discuss the whole situation,” said Poole. “Helena feels it should be discussed and I think we all agree with her.”
“What situation pray? Ben’s? Or ours? There is no more to be said about Ben’s situation. As far as we know, my dear Helena, he has administered to himself a not too uncomfortable and effective anaesthetic which, after he had become entirely unconscious, brought about the end he had in mind. For a man who had decided to shuffle off this mortal coil he behaved very sensibly.”
“Oh, please,” Gay whispered. “Please!”
Dr. Rutherford contemplated her in silence for a moment and then said: “What’s up, Misery?” Helena, Darcey and Parry Percival made expostulatory noises. Poole said: “See here, John, you’ll either pipe down or preserve the decencies.”
Gay, fortified perhaps by this common reaction, said loudly: “You might at least have the grace to remember he was my uncle.”
“Grace me no grace,” Dr. Rutherford quoted inevitably, “and uncle me no uncles.” After a moment’s reflection, he added: “All right, Thalia, have a good cry. But you must know, if the rudiments of reasoned thinking are within your command, that your Uncle Ben did you a damn shabby turn. A scurvy trick, by God. However, I digress. Get on with the post mortem, Chorus. I am dumb.”
“You’ll be good enough to remain so,” said Poole warmly. “Very well, then. It seems to me, Helena, that Ben took this — this way out — for a number of reasons. I know you want me to speak plainly and I’m going to speak very plainly indeed, my dear.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Please, but—” For a moment they looked at each other. Martyn wondered if she imagined that Poole’s head moved in the faintest possible negative. “Yes,” Helena said, “very plainly, please.”
“Well, then,” Poole said, “we know that for the last year Ben, never a very temperate man, has been a desperately intemperate one. We know his habits undermined his health, his character and his integrity as an actor. I think he realized this very thoroughly. He was an unhappy man, who looked back at what he had once been and was appalled. We all know he did things in performance to-night that, from an actor of his standing, were quite beyond the pale.”
Parry Percival ejaculated: “Well, I mean to say — oh, well. Never mind.”
“Exactly,” Poole said. “He had reached a sort of chronic state of instability. We all know he was subject to fits of depression. I believe he did what he did when he was at a low ebb. I believe he would have done it sooner or later by one means or another. And in my view, for what it’s worth, that’s the whole story. Tragic enough, God knows, but, in its tragedy, simple. I don’t know if you agree.”
Darcey said: “If there’s nothing else. I mean,” he said diffidently, glancing at Helena, “if nothing has happened that would seem like a further motive.”
Helena’s gaze rested for a moment on Poole and then on Darcey. “I think Adam’s right,” she said. “I’m afraid he was appalled by a sudden realization of himself. I’m afraid he was insufferably lonely.”
“Oh, my God!” Gay ejaculated, and having by this means collected their unwilling attention she added: “I shall never forgive myself. Never.”
Dr. Rutherford groaned loudly.
“I failed him,” Gay announced. “I was a bitter, bitter disappointment to him. I daresay I turned the scale.”
“Now in the name of all the gods at once,” Dr. Rutherford began, and was brought to a stop by the entry of Clem Smith.
Cem looked uneasily at Helena Hamilton and said: “They’re in the dressing-room. He says they won’t keep you waiting much longer.”
“It’s all right, then?” Parry Percival blurted out and added in a flurry: “I mean there won’t be a whole lot of formalities. I mean we’ll be able to get away. I mean—”
“I’ve no idea about that,” Gem said. “Alleyn just said they’d be here soon.” He had brought a cup of soup with him and he withdrew into a corner and began to drink it. The others watched him anxiously but said nothing.
“What did he ask you about?” Jacko demanded suddenly.
“About what we did at the time.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, yes. He — well, in point of fact, he seemed to be interested in the alterations to the theatre.”
“To the dressing-rooms in particular?” Poole asked quickly.
“Yes,” Clem said unhappily. “To them.”
There was a long silence, broken by Jacko.
“I find nothing remarkable in this,” he said. “Helena has shown us the way with great courage and Adam has spoken his mind. Let us all speak ours. I may resemble an ostrich but I do not propose to imitate its behaviour. Of what do we all think? There is the unpleasing little circumstance of the Jupiter case and we think of that. When Gay mentions it she does so with the air of one who opens a closet and out tumbles a skeleton. But why? It is inevitable that these gentlemen, who also remember the Jupiter case, should wish to inspect the dressing-rooms. They wish, in fact, to make very sure indeed that this is a case of suicide and not of murder. And since we are all quite certain that it is suicide we should not disturb ourselves that they do their duty.”
“Exactly,” Poole said.
“It’s going,” Darcey muttered, “to be damn bad publicity.”
“Merciful Heavens!” Parry Percival exclaimed. “The Publicity! None of us thought of that!”
“Did we not!” said Poole.
“I must say,” Parry complained, “I would like to know what’s going to happen, Adam. I mean — darling Helena, I know you’ll understand — but I mean, about the piece. Do we go on? Or what?”
“Yes,” Helena said. “We go on. Please, Adam.”
“Helena, I’ve got to think. There are so many—”
“We go on. Indeed, indeed we do.” Martyn felt rather than saw the sense of relief in Darcey and Percival.
Darcey said: “I’m the understudy, Lord help me,” and Percival made a tiny ambiguous sound that might have been one of satisfaction or of chagrin.
“How are you for it, J.G.?” Helena asked.
“I know it,” he said heavily.