There was a ripple of laughter at his melodramatics. Ritchie Good, ever the showman, was enjoying his moment in the spotlight.
‘Also I’d like to say that public hangings used to be one of this country’s most popular spectator sports, until some wet blanket of a do-gooder decided that they weren’t an appropriate divertissement for the Great Unwashed to gawp at. So you’re very honoured, ladies and gentlemen, fellow members of SADOS, to have this much-loved entertainment re-created for you, here in St Mary’s Hall, Smalting. And with that – let my hanging commence!’
At what was clearly a prearranged cue, Gordon pulled the cart away from beneath his feet. Ritchie Good’s hands shot up to grasp the strangling rope around his neck, and for a moment he swung there, choking and kicking out into the nothingness.
The gasp which followed this had no element of irony in it. People rushed forward to the stage.
But before he could be rescued, Ritchie released his grip on the noose and dropped down to the floor, as neat as an athlete finishing a gymnastic routine. His mocking laughter revealed that the whole thing had been a set-up, and he looked boyishly pleased with the trick he had played on everyone. ‘Not bad, is it? Full marks to Gordon!’
Mr Fixit glowed and did a half-bow to acknowledge the rattle of applause. Then he moved across to demonstrate the cunning secret of his handiwork. The noose was no longer a loop, but two parallel pieces of rope. ‘Oh, the magic of Velcro,’ said Gordon, as he pressed the two ends together and reformed the circle.
‘Very clever,’ said the sardonic voice of Neville Prideaux, ‘but in fact unnecessary. In the text of Shaw’s play the cart never gets moved. Dick Dudgeon may have the noose around his neck, but he’s in no danger of ever getting hanged. Then he’s saved by the arrival of Pastor Anderson.’
Gordon Blaine looked almost pathetically nonplussed at having his moment of triumph diminished. But Ritchie Good came quickly to his rescue. ‘Well, speaking as the person who actually has the rope around my neck, may I say I’m very pleased about the sensible precautions Gordon has taken. Accidents do happen. I could black out while I’m up there, or the cart could break or somebody could push it away by mistake. No, thank you very much, but I’m happy to stay with my Velcro rope. And I’m equally happy that General Burgoyne is unable to see through his plan of getting me hanged.’
Though he was talking entirely in terms of The Devil’s Disciple, Ritchie Good still managed to make his last sentence sound like a criticism of Neville Prideaux, and a point scored in the ongoing rivalry between the two men.
As she watched the action, Jude had been standing next to Mimi Lassiter, who looked seriously shocked by the scene they had just witnessed. ‘Are you all right?’ asked Jude.
Mimi didn’t answer the question, just announced in an appalled voice, ‘He said “fellow members of SADOS” – and he hasn’t even paid his subscription.’
Clearly she took her duties as Membership Secretary very seriously.
Over by the stage, where the curtains had once again been closed, there was much clapping on the back for Gordon Blaine, along with congratulations on another feat of stagecraft and offers to buy him a drink. He said he and Ritchie would join the others after he’d made a couple of adjustments to his precious gallows.
And the rest of the company, predictably enough, adjourned to the Cricketers.
As Jude crossed the car park towards the pub, she saw Hester Winstone standing by the side of a flash BMW, in heated conversation with someone through the driver’s side window.
‘I just want to stay and have a drink,’ Hester was saying.
‘And I just want you to come home.’ The voice was recognizably her husband’s. ‘Look I’ve already had to rush my Sunday lunch to get you here for the beginning of the bloody rehearsal. Then I come into the rehearsal room and see some idiot showing off pretending to be hanged – and I see no sign of you. And now you’re here and I’d have thought the least you can do is come home now the bally rehearsal’s finished.’
‘You go home. I’ll get a cab.’
‘Well, that’s a waste of money when I’m here to give you a lift. I’m already stuck with paying the insurance excess on the repairs caused by you pranging your bloody car. On top of that …’
Jude couldn’t hear any more of the conversation without becoming too overt an eavesdropper, so she continued her way into the Cricketers.
ELEVEN
The macabre demonstration they had seen had lifted the spirits of the Devil’s Disciple company. This was partly due to the jokey double act which Gordon and Ritchie had just presented for them, but also to the feeling that they were finally making progress on the production. They were around halfway into their rehearsal schedule, some of the cast were actually ‘off the book’, and now they were being shown how bits of the set would work. The Devil’s Disciple was beginning to gather momentum.
Jude had found that sessions in the Cricketers had become considerably more relaxed since the departure of Elizaveta Dalrymple and her cronies. Elizaveta was one of those women who not only needed always to be the centre of attention but who also carried around with her a permanent air of disapproval. And, given her place in SADOS history, though she didn’t voice it in so many words, there was an implication of disdain for everything the society had done since the demise of its founding father Freddie Dalrymple. And yet, despite this inevitable decline in standards, Elizaveta Dalrymple had appeared magnanimous enough to offer her services and do what she could for SADOS.
So, without her condescension and prickliness, without everyone kowtowing and worrying about her reaction to things, the atmosphere in the Cricketers after rehearsals had improved considerably. The inevitable glass of Chilean Chardonnay in her hand, Jude found herself looking round quite benignly at her fellow actors. She had come to recognize that most of their flamboyance and ego derived from social awkwardness and, as ever attracted to people by their frailty, she realized that she was getting fond of most of them. To her considerable surprise, she discovered that she was enjoying her involvement in amateur dramatics. She giggled inwardly at the thought of breaking that news to Carole.
Feeling it was her turn to buy a round for the small circle she stood with, Jude looked for the African straw basket which contained her wallet, and realized to her mild irritation that she must have left it in St Mary’s Hall.
To joshing cries about ‘the Alzheimer’s kicking in’, Jude left the Cricketers and made her way back to the rehearsal room. The March evening was comfortingly light, finally promising the end of the miserable weather that seemed to have been trickling on forever.
Security at St Mary’s Hall was not very sophisticated. The keys were kept behind the bar of the Cricketers and one of Davina Vere Smith’s duties as director was to open the place and lock up at the end of rehearsals. Frequently, because cast members were slow to leave the hall, Davina didn’t do the locking up until when she was leaving the pub to go home.
So it proved that Sunday evening. Jude slipped in without difficulty and went through the foyer area to the main hall. She switched on one row of lights and noticed, without thinking much of it, that the stage curtains were almost closed, with just a thin strip of light showing.