“Yes, I’m quite convinced of that.”
“I wish to God I knew why.”
“I’ll tell you,” Alleyn said, “before the night is out.”
Poole faced him. “I can’t believe it,” he said, “of any of us. It’s quite incredible.” He looked at the wall between his own room and Helena’s. “I could hear your voices in there,” he said. “Is she all right?”
“She’s perfectly composed.”
“I don’t know why you wanted to talk to her at all.”
“I had three things to say to Miss Hamilton. I asked her if she wanted to see her husband before he was taken away. She didn’t want to do so. Then I told her that I knew about an event of yesterday afternoon.”
“What event?” Poole demanded sharply.
“I mean an encounter between her husband and herself.”
“How the hell did you hear about that?”
“You know of it yourself, evidently.”
Poole said: “Yes, all right. I knew,” and then, as if the notion had just come to him and filled him with astonishment, he exclaimed: “Good God, I believe you think it’s a motive for me!” He thrust his hand through his hair. “That’s about as ironical an idea as one could possibly imagine.” He stared at Alleyn. An onlooker coming into the room at that moment would have thought that the two men had something in common and a liking for each other. “You can’t imagine,” Poole said, “how inappropriate that idea is.”
“I haven’t yet said I entertain it, you know.”
“It’s not surprising if you do. After all, I suppose I could, fantastically, have galloped from the stage to Ben’s room, laid him out, turned the gas on and doubled back in time to re-enter! Do you know what my line of re-entry is in the play?”
“No.”
“I come in, shut the door, go up to Helena, and say, ‘You’ve guessed, haven’t you? He’s taken the only way out. I suppose we must be said to be free.’ It all seems to fit so very neatly, doesn’t it? Except that for us it’s a year or more out of date.” He looked at Alleyn. “I really don’t know,” he added, “why I’m talking like this. It’s probably most injudicious. But I’ve had a good deal to think about the last two days and Ben’s death has more or less put the crown on it. What am I to do about this theatre? What are we to do about the show? What’s going to happen about—” He broke off and looked at the wall that separated his room from Martyn’s. “Look here, Alleyn,” he said. “You’ve no doubt heard all there is to hear, and more, about my private life. And Helena’s. It’s the curse of this job that one is perpetually in the spotlight.”
He seemed to expect some comment on this. Alleyn said lightly: “The curse of greatness?”
“Nothing like it. I’m afraid. See here, Alleyn. There are some women who just can’t be fitted into any kind of ethical or sociological pigeon-hole. Ellen Terry was one of them. It’s not that they are above reproach in the sense most people mean by the phrase, but that they are outside it. They behave naturally in an artificial set-up. When an attachment comes to an end, it does so without any regrets or recrimination. Often, with an abiding affection on both sides. Do you agree?”
“That there are such women? Yes.”
“Helena is one. I’m not doing this very well but I do want you to believe that she’s right outside this beastly thing. I won’t get you any further and it may hurt her profoundly if you try to establish some link between her relationship with her husband or anyone else and the circumstances of his death. I don’t know what you said to each other, but I do know it would never occur to her to be on guard for her own sake.”
“I asked her to tell me about Otto Brod.”
Poole’s reaction to this was surprising. He looked exasperated. “There you are!” he said. “That’s exactly what I mean. Otto Brod! A fantastic irresponsible affair that floated out of some midsummer notion of Vienna and Strauss waltzes. How the devil you heard of it I don’t know, though I’ve no doubt that at the time she fluttered him like a plume in her bonnet for all to see. I never met him but I understand he was some young intellectual with a pale face, no money and an overdeveloped faculty for symbolic tragedy. Why bring him in?”
Alleyn told him that Bennington, when he came down to the theatre, had had a letter from Brod in his pocket and Poole said angrily: “Why the hell shouldn’t he? What of it?”
“The letter is not to be found.”
“My dear chap, I suppose he chucked it out or burnt it or something.”
“I hardly think so,” said Alleyn. “He told Miss Hamilton it was his trump card.”
Poole was completely still for some moments. Then he turned away to the dressing-shelf and looked for his cigarettes.
“Now what in the wide world,” he said with his back to Alleyn, “could he have meant by a trump card?”
“That,” said Alleyn, “is what, above everything else, I should very much like to know.”
“I don’t suppose it means a damn thing, after all. It certainly doesn’t to me.”
He turned to offer his cigarettes but found that Alleyn had his own case open in his hands. “I’d ask you to have a drink,” Poole said, “but I don’t keep it in the dressing-room during the show. If you’d come to the office—”
“Nothing I’d like more but we don’t have it in the working hours either.”
“Of course not. Stupid of me.” Poole glanced at his dress for the ball and then at his watch. “I hope,” he said, “that my business manager is enjoying himself with my guests at my party.”
“He rang up some time ago to enquire. There was no message for you.”
“Thank you.” Poole leant against the dressing-shelf and lit his cigarette.
“It seems to me,” Alleyn said, “that there is something you want to say to me. I’ve not brought a witness in here. If what you say is likely to be wanted as evidence I’ll ask you to repeat it formally. If not, it will have no official significance.”
“You’re very perceptive. I’m damned if I know why I should want to tell you this, but I do. Just out of earshot behind these two walls are two women. Of my relation with the one, you seem to have heard. I imagine it’s pretty generally known. I’ve tried to suggest that it has come to its end as simply, if that’s not too fancy a way of putting it, as a flower relinquishes its petals. For a time I’ve pretended their colour had not faded and I’ve watched them fall with regret. But from the beginning we both knew it was that sort of affair. She didn’t pretend at all. She’s quite above any of the usual subterfuges and it’s some weeks ago that she let me know it was almost over for her. I think we both kept it up out of politeness more than anything else. When she told me of Ben’s unspeakable behaviour yesterday, I felt as one must feel about an outrage to a woman whom one knows very well and likes very much, I was appalled to discover in myself no stronger emotion than this. It was precisely this discovery that told me that the last petal had indeed fallen and now—” He lifted his hands. “Now Ben gets himself murdered, you say, and I’ve run out of the appropriate emotions.”
Alleyn said: “We are creatures of convention and like our tragedies to take a recognizable form.”
“I’m afraid this is not even a tragedy. Unless—” He turned his. head and looked at the other wall. “I haven’t seen Martyn,” he said, “since you spoke to her. She’s all right, isn’t she?” Before Alleyn could answer he went on: “I suppose she’s told you about herself — her arrival out of a clear sky and all the rest of it?”
“Everything, I think.”
“I hope to God— I want to see her, Alleyn. She’s alone in there. She may be frightened. I don’t suppose you understand.”
“She’s told me of the relationship between you.”
“The relationship!” he said quickly. “You mean—”
“She’s told me you are related. It’s natural that you should be concerned about her.”
Poole stared at him. “My good ass,” he said, “I’m nineteen years her senior and I love her like a boy of her own age.”