Carole lingered on the periphery of a group in the centre of which Olly Pinto was doing his Ritchie Good ‘Life and Soul of the Party’ impression, until Neville Prideaux came and joined her. ‘Sorry, Carole, we haven’t really had a chance to have a proper chat, have we?’ he said.
She was glad to have the chance to talk to Neville, though she put herself on her guard. Jude had brought her up to date with everything she knew about the retired teacher, so Carole was wary of appearing to know too much.
‘You were certainly kept busy today,’ Neville went on.
‘I suppose that’s the prompter’s role.’
‘To be busy? Yes. But not that busy.’
‘Well, I didn’t have to prompt you once.’
‘No,’ he responded rather smugly. ‘I felt, since I’m the one who suggested the play, I have to set an example as General Burgoyne.’ A complacent smile, then: ‘Olly was absolutely hopeless this afternoon, wasn’t he?’
‘Hopeless on the lines, do you mean, or as an actor?’
‘Let’s just stick to the lines for the moment, shall we? He was all over the place. You were having to prompt him on virtually every speech.’
‘Yes, but of course he has taken the part over at very short notice.’ Carole was not just being defensive for the young man; she had spotted an opportunity to steer the conversation back to Ritchie Good’s death.
‘He’s had a couple of weeks. He ought to be more advanced than he is. Olly’s always been a bit iffy on lines. I directed him as Algy in The Importance, when Elizaveta gave her Lady Bracknell. Oscar Wilde’s lines are so beautifully written, you wouldn’t think anyone could cock them up. Well, Olly Pinto managed it. He was paraphrasing everything. He’s actually not a very good actor either.’
Neville spoke as if sounding the death knell on Olly Pinto’s theatrical career.
‘Then why does he get big parts in the SADOS?’
‘Oh, a couple of reasons. One, the eternal problem of all amateur dramatic societies: not enough men. The gender imbalance is so skewed that a young man with a very small talent can go a long way. And someone with a bit more talent – even a glib, meretricious talent like that possessed by Ritchie Good – can cherry-pick any part he wants.’ Even though his rival was no longer on the scene, Neville Prideaux still spoke of Ritchie with considerable venom.
‘You said there were two reasons why Olly got good parts …’
‘Oh, yes. Well, the other one, of course, is because he’s a creature. And I use the word in the Shakespearean sense of someone created by a more powerful person to whom they are totally subservient.’
‘So who fits that role for Olly Pinto?’
‘Elizaveta, of course. Elizaveta Dalrymple, undisputed queen of SADOS.’
‘I gathered that her right to that title had been disputed.’
‘What do you mean, Carole? Oh, that business of her walking out of this production. That won’t be forever, I can guarantee you that. SADOS is far too precious to Elizaveta for her really to cut her ties with it.’
‘But with regard to Olly, you’re saying he owes his success in the society to Elizaveta backing him?’
‘Exactly. As I said, he’s her creature.’
‘Or poodle?’
‘“Creature”’s better,’ said Neville definitively. Carole got the feeling that anything he thought of would always be better than anything anyone else thought of. That was why he’d so enjoyed being a schoolteacher, pontificating to small boys who never dared to question his opinions.
‘Oh yes,’ he went on, ‘Olly is very much Elizaveta’s creature. Part of the inner circle who spend all their time going for “drinkies” round at her place. She’s got a nice house on the seafront at Smalting, and I gather she’s been having these little parties for years. She used to co-host them with Freddie and didn’t let his death stop her.’
‘When did he die, actually?’
‘Oh, I suppose about three years ago.’
‘What of?’
‘Heart attack, I think it was. He had a flat in Worthing where he used to “prepare his productions”. He was found there, I believe. Still, he left Elizaveta very well provided for.’
‘Oh?’
‘Freddie made a lot of money. That’s why he could afford an expensive hobby like SADOS.’
‘Doing what?’
‘You mean how did he make his money? He was a pensions consultant.’ Neville loaded the words with contempt. ‘Nothing even mildly to do with the arts.’ Strange, Carole reflected, how Neville seemed to recognize a hierarchy amongst day jobs. To her mind being a schoolteacher wasn’t that much more interesting than being a pensions consultant, but to Neville there was evidently a big difference.
‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘Freddie had sorted out his own pension provisions very carefully indeed. Elizaveta is extremely well-heeled.’ He spoke with a degree of resentment. ‘It’s why she can always afford to be giving her “drinkies things”.’
‘I’ve heard about those, but I don’t know much detail.’
‘Oh, they’re part of her power base, those “drinkies” parties. Elizaveta has a level of deviousness in her that makes Machiavelli look like a rank amateur. She’s always been one of those manipulators who likes to “colonize” people. If you’re not for me, you’re against me, that’s her approach to life.’
‘Have you ever been to one of her “drinkies things”?’
‘Good Lord, no. I can’t be bought by a free glass of champagne.’ The statement, intended to sound rather magnificent, succeeded in sounding petty.
‘But if Olly Pinto is part of this charmed inner circle, then why didn’t he join in Elizaveta’s boycott of the production?’
‘Interesting point, Carole. I wondered that a bit myself. Then I decided it was for one of two reasons.’ He clearly liked dividing things into numbered sections, another schoolmasterly trait perhaps. ‘Either it was just sheer greed. He saw a socking great part being offered to him, and he thought, “Yes, I’m going to grab that.”
‘The other possibility – and I think the one I favour – is that Elizaveta encouraged him to take the part.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘Because she knows he’s not a very good actor. I think what she hoped for first didn’t happen – that her walkout would stop the production stone dead in its tracks. Elizaveta’s not used to playing small parts, you see. Most productions she’s been in for SADOS, if she’d walked out, it really would have been the end. She didn’t realize how easy it would be to find another Mrs Dudgeon.’
‘I’m sure Jude would be very flattered to hear you say that,’ Carole observed drily.
‘Sorry, that didn’t come out right.’ He was quick to come back with a smooth response. ‘I mean how easy it would be to find another and vastly superior Mrs Dudgeon.’
‘Ha-ha. But, Neville, are you saying Elizaveta encouraged Olly to take the part of Dick Dudgeon because she thought he would ruin the production?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past her. Another reason she might have done it is so that she has a spy in the enemy camp.’
‘So that he reports back to her everything that happens during rehearsals for The Devil’s Disciple?’
‘Once again, I wouldn’t put it past her. Elizaveta Dalrymple is a woman of remarkable deviousness. She deeply loathed Ritchie Good for what he said to her about her past – particularly because he did it so publicly. She’d want to get her own back.’
‘Enough to arrange his hanging?’ asked Carole, making the question sound more frivolous than it was.