“Good God!” said Laura.
“It wasn’t at all bad,” said Mrs Gough, complacently. “Considering that we were only given three weeks’ notice, I think the club came up to scratch quite marvellously. Of course, being under-rehearsed, we had to improvise a bit, but as we gave it in the dark, except for a few candles, and to an audience who’d mostly had plenty to drink…”
“Where was it performed, then?” asked Laura. “In the house?”
“Yes, in the hall of Squire’s Acre. It’s Elizabethan, so there was plenty of room. Well, when the lights went up—which they did rather unexpectedly, owing to Teddy Luton mistaking—or some of us thought perhaps it was done deliberately—mistaking the cue to switch them on—Caroline was found to be sitting on the Colonel’s knee. Of course, it was quite suitable, in a way, as the Colonel (we heard afterwards) tried to point out to his wife, because he was dressed as Charles II, but, naturally, Mrs Batty-Faudrey wasn’t having any of that, although she glossed matters over at the time.”
“Yes, but we’ve never been asked to perform there again,” said Mrs Collis. “In fact, until the pageant, none of our members has even been inside the gates and none of the Batty-Faudreys came to the Town Hall Merry Wives, I noticed, not even Giles.”
“So when Giles Faudrey came bounding in with Caroline and sat with his uncle and aunt and the Mayor and Mayoress—yes!” said Kitty thoughtfully. “Do you know,” she added to Laura, as they left the cul-de-sac and made for the side-street where they had left the car, “I don’t believe you need look any further for a motive.”
“Why?”
“Why? Well, Dog, it’s plain enough. You can see what happened.”
“Oh? And what did happen?”
“Delayed revenge!”
“Eh?”
“Well, it stands to reason, Dog. The Colonel gets into his wife’s bad books because of this Caroline creature, and Giles presenting her at tea-time on the day of the pageant like that—fuel to the fire, as you might say—and then that silly business of the donkey which spoiled the dressage—well, you can see how it all affected the Colonel. He frets and fumes. She-meaning Mrs Batty-Faudrey—a hard case, Dog, if ever there was one—she spends the long winter evenings brooding upon his little escapade and then reminding him of it. His anger smoulders—and against whom?”
“Don’t keep me in suspense! Against whom?”
“Not against his wife. He is honest and he can’t help seeing her point of view. Not against Caroline. He is a fair-minded man and he is prepared to admit that she would not have been the party of the second part if he had not been the party of the first part. I refer to the knee-sitting. So now, with whom are we left?”
“You tell me.”
“Oh, Dog, you can’t be trying! We’re left, of course, with the wretched Luton, who gave the game away by turning the lights up at the wrong time. Let us go further.”
“I can’t wait to do so,” said Laura. They reached the car. “I’ll drive, shall I?”
Kitty settled herself comfortably, Laura took the wheel and they drove off towards Brayne high street and the London Road.
“Well, going further,” continued Kitty, “this is how I see it. At the time of that masque, Luton is in love with this girl Caroline. He is of a jealous temperament. He feels there is hanky-panky in the air. He knows she is not on-stage, and as, in that hall where the masque was performed, there wouldn’t have been any wings, he knows she is not in the wings. Where, therefore, he wonders, has she got to?”
“To the Colonel’s armchair and lap?” suggested Laura.
“Quite right, Dog. How he senses this, we do not know, but, his feelings bursting suddenly out at the top of his head, he turns up the lights and exposes the guilty couple to the gaze of the many-headed.”
“Blimey! You know, you’re wasted designing fashions and hair-do’s,” said Laura. “You ought to be writing about Dracula and Frankenstein and Mr Who. You make my flesh creep.”
“Then there comes,” pursued Kitty, “the afternoon of the pageant. The Colonel’s nephew brings the means of the Colonel’s downfall in to tea, and this, mark you, when poor old Batty-Faudrey is grinding his teeth about that donkey. His mind is made up. Luton is for it. People who turn the lights up at inconvenient times deserve their fate, and so do those who let loose donkeys at the wrong time. Round to the left here, Dog, just beyond the next lights. Don’t you think I’ve hit the nail on the head?”
“The sureness of your aim commands my utmost reverence.”
“That means you don’t believe in my reconstruction. You’ll find I’m about right, all the same.”
“So you think Colonel Batty-Faudrey is the murderer? What, then, did you make of Mrs Collis’s remark that none of the Batty-Faudrey lot came to the Town Hall show?”
“That’s an easy one. The Colonel wasn’t in the audience, of course, but what about that side-door which opens on to Smith Hill? I’ve thought a lot about that, since Dame Beatrice inspected the Town Hall.”
“Do you think the Batty-Faudreys knew about that door? I shouldn’t have thought they’d know more than the front (or official) entrance to the Town Hall, with red carpet laid down, so to speak.”
“Still, the side-door is there, Dog, and even a Batty-Faudrey murderer would be a desperate man.”
“Desperate enough to get green slime on his shoes when dumping a body in the Thames?”
“He wouldn’t worry about his shoes.”
“It’s no use, Kay. I simply cannot see Colonel Batty-Faudrey as a murderer.”
“Well, he’s been a soldier, so he must have murdered lots of people in his time.”
“Not by stabbing them through the heart, though.”
“Why not? The Commandos did.”
“Be that as it may, even if the Colonel killed Falstaff for the reason aforesaid, he couldn’t have had any reason for killing Henry VIII.”
“That’s as far as we know, Dog. If Henry VIII had found out about the murder of Falstaff, the Colonel might have killed him to shut his mouth.”
“Those two who carted Falstaff off the stage went straight across the road to the pub, you know. Neither of them could have seen the murder committed, if things are as you say.”
“Oh, I know that’s supposed to be their alibi, but alibis are there to be busted. Read any good detective story, and judge for yourself.”
“I do. But real life isn’t often like that. How would you reconstruct the crime?”
“That’s easy. Falstaff is lugged off the stage and helped out of the basket. He’s hot and sticky, so he goes into the Bouquets room to freshen up.”
“What about his make-up? How do you mean—freshen up?”
“Oh, Dog, don’t quibble. Who’s doing this reconstruction, me or you?”
“I’m only making helpful comments.”
“Well, they’re not. They simply make me lose the thread, that’s all.”
“Sorry. He goes into Bouquets to freshen up.”
“Colonel Batty-Faudrey is lurking.”
“In Bouquets?”
“No, I shouldn’t think so. He couldn’t be sure that Falstaff would go in there.”
“Where, then?”
“Oh, Dog, does it matter where? He’s just simply lurking, that’s all. He follows Falstaff into Bouquets and stabs him—an easy job for an old soldier. That’s just plain common-sense. He leaves the body where it is, and sneaks to the door to make sure the coast is clear. Well, it isn’t clear.”
“Aha!”
“Henry VIII, in the character of one of the menservants, is doing up a shoelace or buttoning his overcoat or searching his pockets for the price of a pint or something.”
“I can see it all!”
“You’re not to sneer at me, Dog. I mean this seriously. The other serving man—the one who took the part of Edward III in the pageant-has gone charging on ahead. Well, the Colonel doesn’t know whether Henry VIII’s suspicions have been aroused or not. He doesn’t think they have. He waits for him to go, then he totes the body and the basket down to the Thames and plants them where he hopes the tide will wash them away.”