‘Did he always direct the plays he was in?’ asked Jude.
‘Invariably. Freddie was always very diffident about it, said he’d be very happy for someone better to take on the role. But there never was anyone better, so yes, he directed all the shows we did together.’
Carole and Jude exchanged the most imperceptible of looks. Both of them were realizing to what extent the SADOS was the Dalrymples’ private train set. Other children were allowed to play with it, but only under the owners’ strict supervision. They also realized how painful relinquishing total control of the society must have been for Elizaveta.
‘Freddie often designed the shows too,’ Gordon chipped in. ‘I mean, he didn’t do elaborate drawings of what he wanted, but his ideas were very clear. I was more involved in building the sets when Freddie was around.’ This was said in a slightly accusatory tone, as though there might be someone present who had caused the limiting of his involvement. ‘And Freddie would always say to me, “I have this image in my mind, Gordon, and I’m sure you can turn that image into reality.”’
‘And did you build lots of stage machinery, special effects, that kind of thing?’ asked Carole. ‘Like the gallows for The Devil’s Disciple?’
‘Oh yes, that sort of thing was always my responsibility. Freddie would come up to me and he’d say, “Now I may be asking the impossible, Gordon, but it seems to me that the impossible has always rather appealed to you.” And then he’d say what his latest fancy was. Do you remember, Elizaveta, when we were doing As You Like It, and Freddie asked me if I could make those thrones for the palace which were trees when they were turned round?’
‘Oh, goodness me, yes, Gordon! Such a coup de théâtre they were. Suddenly, with just the turning of a few chairs, we were right there in the Forest of Arden. It got a round of applause every night. Wonderful, Gordon, wasn’t it?’
He positively glowed beneath his ginger beard. ‘All my own work. Yes, though I say it myself.’
But, from Elizaveta Dalrymple’s point of view, Gordon was now taking too much credit on himself. ‘Though, of course, it was Freddie’s concept,’ she said quite sharply.
‘Oh yes,’ a chastened Gordon Blaine agreed. ‘It was very definitely Freddie’s concept.’
‘And the Fethering Observer gave a real rave of a review for my Rosalind. Which was rather one in the eye for those SADOS members who suggested I might be a bit old for the part.’
‘I remember,’ Mimi Lassiter chimed in. ‘The Fethering Observer actually talked about you moving “with the coltish grace of a teenage girl”.’
‘But that’s what acting’s about,’ Elizaveta enthused. ‘You think yourself into the character you are playing, you become that person. Considerations like age and size and shape become totally irrelevant once you’re caught up in the magic of the theatre. And, Gordon,’ she said, feeling that the technician should now be thrown some kind of magnanimous sop, ‘your chairs that turned into trees were part of the magic of that As You Like It.’
He grinned, his good humour instantly restored.
‘Anyway, Gordon,’ said Carole, eager to steer the conversation round to Ritchie Good’s death, ‘you’ve also done a splendid job on those gallows for The Devil’s Disciple.’
‘Oh, relatively straightforward, those were.’ He started to laugh. ‘Certainly compared to the palaver I had with that balcony on wheels Freddie wanted for Romeo & Juliet!’
Elizaveta Dalrymple laughed theatrically at the recollection, while Jude winced inwardly, visualizing a Juliet with flamenco hair and a Romeo with a pointed goatee beard.
‘But the gallows,’ Carole insisted. ‘They seem to work very well. Possibly even too well,’ she dared to add.
Her words did actually prompt a brief silence. Then Gordon said, rather defensively, ‘I created a set of gallows that were completely safe. Everyone saw that. If they’d been used properly, Ritchie Good’d be alive today. I can’t be held responsible if people mess around with the equipment I’ve made.’
‘By “messing around” you mean changing the doctored noose for the solid one?’ suggested Carole.
‘Exactly.’
‘Can I ask something?’ said Jude innocently. ‘Why did you have a solid noose when the one that was going to be used would always be the one with Velcro?’
Gordon appeared pleased to have been asked the question, as it gave him an opportunity to provide a technical explanation. ‘I was determined to make the gallows look real, so I needed to see what it would look like with a proper noose attached. Then I’d know what the doctored one had to look like.’
‘But why did you bring it with you to St Mary’s Hall that Sunday when you were demonstrating it?’
‘Ah well.’ He coloured slightly. ‘The fact is, I had planned to have the stage curtains open during the rehearsal, with the gallows there with a proper noose. Then anyone in the company who had a look at it would see a real, businesslike noose there, and they’d be even more surprised when Ritchie appeared to have it round his neck.’
‘What, and you would have switched the two nooses just before the demonstration?’
‘Yes. We’d have drawn the curtains for a moment and done it. I thought that’d be more dramatic. But Ritchie didn’t. He said we’d get the maximum effect if the curtains were closed right through the rehearsal, and then when we opened them we’d get a real coo … what was that thing you said, Elizaveta?’
‘Coup de théâtre,’ she supplied.
‘Exactly. One of those.’ Gordon looked grumpy. ‘I still think my way would have been better.’
‘Well, it was quite dramatic,’ said Jude. ‘Of course, you weren’t there, were you, Carole?’
‘No, but you told me about it. So after the demonstration, Gordon, someone must have switched the two nooses round.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you don’t know who?’
‘I know it wasn’t me,’ he said huffily.
‘I wasn’t suggesting—’
‘Mind you, I can think of one or two people in SADOS who might have—’
‘I’m not sure,’ Elizaveta Dalrymple interrupted magisterially, ‘that I want my entire “drinkies thing” taken up with talk about that ill-mannered boor Ritchie Good.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jude meekly.
‘But I’ve spent a lot of time,’ Gordon continued, ‘thinking how the two nooses got switched, and I’ve come to the conclusion that—’
‘Nor,’ Elizaveta steamrollered on, ‘do we want to spend the whole time talking about your wretched gallows – particularly since you’ve already spent one entire evening telling us all about them.’
‘Have I?’ asked Gordon, puzzled.
‘Yes,’ said Olly Pinto. ‘It was three weeks ago, the day before you were going to do the demonstration. We were all here for Elizaveta’s “drinkies thing” and you couldn’t talk about anything else. Goodness, by the time you’d finished we all knew enough about your gallows to have built a replica ourselves.’
Carole and Jude exchanged a quick look before the SADOS Mr Fixit said abjectly, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Was I a bore?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid you were, Gordon darling,’ Elizaveta replied. ‘Let’s just say that by the time the evening finished the gallows was a subject on which you had “delighted us long enough”.’
Her coterie sniggered at the line, unaware that Elizaveta had filched it from Jane Austen. Then the star of the show vouchsafed a gracious smile to Carole and Jude. ‘Now do tell me, you two, what’s The Devil’s Disciple going to be like?’