‘So the whole process,’ said Carole, ‘takes less than thirty seconds.’
‘Yes,’ Gordon agreed, as though accepting a compliment.
‘And anyone could work out how to do it?’
‘I would think so. Certainly anyone who’d watched me do the switch.’
‘Or someone who’d heard you describe how to do the switch,’ said Jude.
‘Sorry?’ He looked down in puzzlement from the ladder. ‘Don’t know what you mean?’
‘Well, we just heard, earlier this evening at Elizaveta’s, how you described the working of your gallows in meticulous detail at another of her “drinkies things”.’
‘Oh yes, I remember that. Elizaveta seemed very interested in it. Which was unusual. Usually she shut me up when I got on to the details of the technical stuff. “Gordon darling,” she’d say, “I’m an actress. I deal with the emotional side of putting on a play. I can’t be expected to understand the nuts and bolts of the business.”’
‘And that particular “drinkies thing”,’ said Jude, ‘was three weeks ago.’
‘Was it really? I can’t remember.’
‘Three weeks to the day.’
‘The day before Ritchie Good got strangled,’ said Carole.
TWENTY-SIX
‘Who is this speaking?’ asked the elocuted voice at the other end of the line.
‘Jude.’
‘Jude? Oh yes, Jude!’ said Elizaveta Dalrymple.
‘I was just ringing to say thank you so much for the party last night.’
‘Oh, hardly a party, Jude darling. Just one of my little “drinkies things”.’
‘Well, it was much appreciated, anyway. I really enjoyed it. And I’m sure Carole will be in touch soon to say thank you too.’ Though, actually, knowing Carole, she was much more likely to post a graceful note of thanks than use the telephone.
‘It was a pleasure to see you both. I do like to keep up with the new members of SADOS … even though I’m not involved in the current production.’
‘But presumably you’ll be back for others,’ suggested Jude, ‘now that Ritchie Good’s no longer around to insult you?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, darling. I’m not as young as I was.’
‘You’re still looking very good,’ said Jude, shamelessly ingratiating.
‘Yes, well, of course I am lucky to have the bone structure. If you have the bone structure, the ravages of time are not quite so devastating. But,’ she concluded smugly, ‘so few people do have the bone structure.’
Jude, whose face was too chubby for much bone structure to be discernible, made polite noises of agreement. Then she said, ‘Carole and I took Gordon Blaine back to his place yesterday.’
‘Really?’ Elizaveta sounded affronted. She didn’t like people in her coterie doing things she didn’t know about. ‘Why was that?’
‘His Land Rover had broken down.’
‘No surprise there. I must say, for someone who’s supposed to have engineering skills, dear Gordon is astonishingly inept.’
‘He showed us his workshop.’
‘Oh, that glory hole. He used to keep dragging Freddie down there to show him the development of his latest bit of stage wizardry – frequently rather less than wizard, I’m afraid. At times Gordon has qualities of an overeager schoolboy.’
‘Maybe. When he was talking yesterday he seemed to be worried about the future of SADOS.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, if you were not involved, he thought there was a danger the whole thing might pack up.’
‘Really? I hope not.’ But Elizaveta’s voice betrayed her attraction to the idea. ‘SADOS is more than one person, just as it was more than two people while Freddie was still alive. I owe it to his memory to keep the society going.’
‘Gordon seemed worried that, with you having walked out of The Devil’s Disciple, there might be—’
‘I did not walk out of The Devil’s Disciple. Ritchie Good’s behaviour put me in a position where I could no longer stay as part of the production.’
‘Well, however you put it, Gordon seemed worried that you might be so angry that you wouldn’t come back for another show.’
‘Oh, he shouldn’t have thought that. Of the many things I may be, Jude, vindictive is not one,’ Elizaveta lied. ‘If the right part comes up, and if I’m lucky enough to pass the audition, then I’m sure I’ll be back for the next production.’
‘And what is that? I haven’t heard yet.’
‘The autumn show’s going to be I Am A Camera.’
‘Isn’t that the play on which the musical Cabaret is based?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Based on the book by Christopher Isherwood.’
‘I’ve no idea who wrote it. I just know it wouldn’t have been my choice, but now Neville Prideaux’s on the Play Selection Committee all kinds of weird stuff’s getting through. If there really is a threat to the future of SADOS, it’s much more likely to be Neville Prideaux’s choice of plays driving the audiences away.’
‘But you will audition for it, Elizaveta?’
‘Oh, I suppose I’ll have to. I mean, Sally Bowles is meant to be quite a mature character.’
Jude only just stopped herself from voicing her disbelief and saying, Oh, for heaven’s sake, there’s mature and there’s far too old for the part. But she didn’t want to break the confidential mood between them.
‘Last night Gordon was talking about his gallows and what had gone wrong with them.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he was. Gordon can be a very tedious little man.’
‘We were discussing how the two nooses might have got switched.’
‘Incompetence on his part, I would imagine.’
‘I wonder …’
‘What do you mean by that, Jude?’
‘Well …’
‘Are you suggesting the nooses might have been switched deliberately?’
‘It’s a thought, isn’t it? Which would have meant someone in the Devil’s Disciple company really had it in for Ritchie Good.’
There was a silence. Jude could sense Elizaveta assessing her response. Then the older woman said, ‘Well, if you’re looking for that person, Jude, you might do a lot worse than remember what I said to you last night.’
‘Davina?’
‘You said it.’
Both Carole and Jude were required for the rehearsal that Sunday afternoon. Rather boldly, the director had announced that they were going to do the whole play for the first time, ‘which, given the fact that we open in a month’s time, should put the fear of God into all of you.’
If that was the sole aim of the exercise, it certainly worked. The unreadiness of the entire company was made manifest, and no one seemed less ready than Olly Pinto. His lines were still all over the place, and Carole as prompter had one of the busiest afternoons of her life.
Olly’s incompetence seemed to infect the others like some quick-spreading plague. Even Jude, who’d always been rock solid on her lines, found herself stumbling and mumbling. And she was by no means the worst. By the time they got to the end of the play, the whole thing was a complete shambles. The final scene, the near-hanging of Dick Dudgeon, had never been rehearsed properly with all of the extras who were meant to populate the town square, and they milled around like sheep in search of a shepherd.
As Davina’s mood grew increasingly frayed, Carole and Jude found themselves watching the director closely and trying to reconcile her with the suspicions raised by both Elizaveta Dalrymple and Neville Prideaux. What he had said did make a kind of sense. Until that Sunday afternoon Davina had been more relaxed in rehearsal without the presence of Ritchie Good. In Olly Pinto she’d got a much less convincing Dick Dudgeon, but a considerably more biddable actor. She seemed to revel in bawling him out, in a way she never would have done with Ritchie.