“That’s just it, Dog,” agreed Kitty. “I know there were arguments and jealousies and general eye-scratching and back-biting, but nothing that would justify murder, unless the murderer was mad.”
“Any signs of anybody actually trying to bite holes in the carpet?”
“No, there aren’t, so far as I know. Of course, I don’t know what blood-feuds may have been going on before the actual rehearsals for the pageant, but I do know there was pretty bad feeling then.”
“I wonder whether anything definite touched it off? It might be very interesting to know.”
“All I know is,” said Kitty, forcefully, “that I’ve shaken the dust of Brayne well and truly off my non-stiletto heels and nothing will induce me to go there again, plead my nephew never so pathetically.”
“A pity,” said Dame Beatrice. “I was hoping to persuade you and Laura to accompany me there and show me round.”
Kitty looked horrified . Then, as Laura laughed, her expression changed.
“You mean you intend to look into these murders?” she asked.
“Say rather that I intend to look into the environment in which these murders took place,” replied Dame Beatrice.
“I know what that means,” said Kitty. “All right, then. I’ll be led to the slaughter, if that’s what you want.”
“There is something else, if you can arrange it. Would it be possible, do you think, for me to meet your nephew before we go?”
“You think you may be able to pump some information out of him? I doubt whether he knows very much, but you could try. Will you and Laura come to dinner at my flat one evening? I can easily put you up for the night, now that the children are with my sister in Cornwall.”
There were six people in all at the dinner. Kitty’s husband had invited a colleague who devoted himself to Kitty during the meal and talked fly-fishing with her husband for the remainder of the evening. Kitty’s husband talked mostly to Laura during the meal, and Kitty and Laura talked jobs, children and old times when it was over. Councillor Perse attached himself inexorably to Dame Beatrice both during the dinner and until he left for his lodgings in Brayne at just after eleven p.m., and talked almost incessantly to her, pausing only when she asked an occasional question.
“Did you find out anything useful?” Laura enquired, when he and the other man had gone, and Kitty and her husband were organising sandwiches and drinks.
“I think I must have found out all that Mr Perse knows and everything that he suspects. He was extremely expansive.”
“Yes, I noticed that.”
“Whether what he was able to tell me will be useful, is more than I can say at present. However, he was good enough to promise that he will have a word with the Town Hall staff, so that I shall be allowed every facility to study the stage, the dressing-rooms, and the door which opens on to Smith Hill.”
“Oh, well, that’s definitely something.”
In company with Kitty, they visited Brayne on the following evening between afternoon tea and dinner, to find that young Mr Perse had been as good as his word, and that they were indeed to have “every facility”. The caretaker recognised Kitty at once, saluted the party courteously and asked where they would like to go. He conducted them ceremoniously to the auditorium, told them that the dressing-rooms were unlocked and that there was nothing to do to the outside door except to turn the handle, and then, with another salute, added that it was all theirs.
Upon this, he left them, and Kitty led the way through swing doors to a corridor which led to the dressing-rooms and the back of the stage.
“Of course,” she said, “these rooms are used for different purposes at different times. Sometimes they’re used for meetings of sub-committees, because there aren’t always shows on, although the place is pretty well booked up by amateurs for most evenings, so I’m told. Anyway, I can tell you how the rooms were allotted for my evening.” She opened the doors and left Dame Beatrice to look round. “This was the room the men had. The women, there being only two of them, were given this small room next door. And that’s all they actually needed for the play. The Tots had this room, the ballet this one, and the formation team were in here.”
There were three rooms which needed no introduction from Kitty. They were clearly marked, in black paint on a primrose yellow surface, Toilets, Bouquets, Refreshments.
“Bouquets?” commented Laura, amused. Kitty opened the door, disclosing long wooden tables of the old-fashioned, well-scrubbed, kitchen variety, a sink with a water-tap, two nylon overalls on pegs and a collection of enamel jugs of all sizes on the floor.
“Well,” said Kitty, “I suppose it’s a good idea to have a special room fitted up for flowers. If the amateur shows I’ve been to are anything to go by, not only do all the women who actually have a speaking part or sing solos get a floral tribute, but so do most of the chorus. Those who don’t expect to be given one, buy it for themselves, so it’s a jolly good idea to have somewhere to put the stuff until it’s wanted at the end of the show.”
“Was this particular room needed on your night?” Dame Beatrice enquired.
“No, they didn’t use it, so far as I know. It was agreed no flowers, being Shakespeare, you see.”
“I don’t see,” said Laura. “What’s Shakespeare got to do with it?”
“I didn’t think it would be reverent to let them have bouquets, Dog, after they’d had the privilege of speaking his words, so I put an advertisement on all the posters and in the local paper, saying, No floral tributes will be handed on to the stage. I knew that would mean there wouldn’t be any.”
“Yes, I see. Floral tributes must not only be given, they must be seen to be given. Quite so. But didn’t your Mrs Page and Mrs Ford kick?”
“Oh, no, far from it. They were afraid their bouquets (if we’d had any) might be different from each other in number, size and price. You’ve no idea, Dog, of what goes on in people’s minds once they set foot on a real stage in front of a real audience.”
“What about the other acts? As I remember it, didn’t you have a ballet and so forth?”
“Oh, but they’re serious people, Dog! They wouldn’t dream of accepting bouquets from their friends. Anyway, their ballet mistress wouldn’t let them. She charges them the earth for their lessons and rules them with a sort of jack-boot fearfulness which is absolutely petrifying. I don’t know how on earth they stick it. My theory, having seen and heard the old dragon in action, is that, having joined, they simply don’t dare to leave.”
“There is that, of course. What happens if she chucks them out?”
“Oh, she never chucks anybody out, Dog. She’s got her living to earn. Just tells them they’re not ready to perform in public. Anyway, as I’ve just pointed out, this is the room the ballet had, and next door we put the Tots.”
“Weren’t they too noisy to be put next-door to anything cultural?”
“Oh, well, the signora screeches at her company all the time, without ever letting up, so I didn’t think an extra bit of yelling would matter. This, again as I said, and sorry to repeat myself but I do want Dame Beatrice to get it clear, is the room we gave the formation team. They came ready dressed, but we had to give them somewhere to hang about until it was their turn to go on, and this room has a little annexe where the girls could restore their make-up, so we didn’t need to separate them from their partners. They spend the whole time practising steps, you know. Formation dancing is…what’s the word I want?”