“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Parsons, but as I expect you will have heard, I am investigating this case in association with the local police. I want to ask you a few questions. I believe you may be able to help us very considerably.”
“Will you sit down, sir?”
“Thank you. Will you please tell me, as accurately as possible, what your movements were after Mr. Hambledon told you to go and get ready for the supper-party last night?”
“My movements, sir?”
“Yes.”
“I went into the passage, sir, and watched other people working.”
“Just for a change, what? You mean the stagehands?”
“Correct, sir. I stood in the doorway watching the boys work overtime.”
“You could see most of the stage from the doorway, I suppose?”
“I could, yes.”
“I suppose you’ve no idea what the time was?”
“Yes. I have so, sir. It was ten-twenty-five.”
“Good Lord, how so accurate?”
“Always time the show, sir. I like to know how she runs. We rang down at ten-twenty-five, and I went straight to the dressing-room and Mr. Hambledon came straight off and told me to clear out. ‘You’ll want a clean swaller-and-sigh, sir,’ I said. ‘You’ve got No. 9 all over those.’ ‘Well, I can do that,’ he says, ‘and how about a clean collar and tie for yourself,’ he says. ‘What’s the time?’ So I told him the time — ten-twenty-six — and I went out.”
“How long were you in the passage?”
Bob screwed his face into a labyrinth of lines and thought for a moment.
“Well, sir, I rolled a fag and smoked it and I rolled another.”
“Whistling a bit, in between times?”
“That’s the ticket, sir. I’m a great hand at whistling. My old Dad learnt me that forty years ago. He was a vordervil artist, ‘Pip Parsons, the ’Uman Hedgesparrer,’ and he trained me for a Child Wonder. Made me whistle for me tucker. All day he kept me at it. ‘Pipe up,’ he’d say, ‘there’s only one place where you can’t rehearse your stuff, and that’s the dressing-room.’ It grew a habit and when I took on this business I had to unlearn it a good deal faster than I got it. Never do, you see, sir. Unlucky. Whistling people out of their jobs. When I first started dressing I was always being sent out to knock and come in again, to break the bad luck.”
“I see. Miss Dacres told me about this superstition.”
“Miss Carolyn’s a fair terror on it, sir. Well I usually tunes up when I gets outside the door. Once through ‘A Bird in a Gilded Cage’ while I roll me fag. That’s what I did last night with the falsetto encore. Then I lights up.”
“How long does ‘A Bird in a Gilded Cage’ take?”
“Well — can’t say exactly, sir.”
“Look here — will you whistle it through now?”
“Pleased to oblige,” said Bob briskly.
Alleyn took out his stop-watch. Bob fixed his eyes on a picture of two horses being struck by lightning, assumed an expression of agonised intensity, moistened and pursed his lips. A singularly sweet roulade, in a high key, came through them.
“Just to tune up. Count it in, sir. Always do it.” His eyes glazed and he broke into the Victorian ballad, saccharine, long drawn out, and embellished with many stylish trills. The refrain was repeated an octave higher, ending on a top note that seemed to impinge on the outer rim of human hearing.
“Three minutes,” said Alleyn. “Thank you, Bob, it’s a grand bit of whistling, that.”
“Used to go big in the old days, sir.”
“Yes, I can believe it did. By the time it was finished you had rolled your cigarette, and you lit it, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Suppose you repeat the performance.”
Bob took a dilapidated tin from his pocket and from it produced a hand-made cigarette.
“Always keep some by me,” he said, and lit up. Alleyn glanced again at his watch.
“The next thing,” he said, “is to remember who came past you from the dressing-room to the stage.”
Bob looked him straight in the eyes.
“I get the idea, sir. Watch me step here. If in doubt say so.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, when I first went out, some of them were still on the stage after the last curtain. Mr. Hambledon always goes straight to his room. Mr. Funny Ackroyd came along first and then old ‘I-Played-It-Well-Laddie,’ with young Broadhead.”
“Mr. Vernon?”
“Yes, sir. The boys on the staff called him ‘I-Played-It-Well-Laddie’ after his favourite remark. The last two were Mr. Liversidge and Miss Gaynes. They stood talking on the stage — couldn’t hear what they said— and then went past me to their rooms. I’d got to the falsetto repeat then, I remember.” Bob sucked his teeth meditatively. “Well, sir, they was all stowed away be that time.”
“Parsons, you’re a witness after my own heart. Now for when they came out.”
“Yes. Have to do a bit of thinking now. Take it easy, sir, it’s on the way. Yes.” Bob shut his eyes and took a vigorous pull at his cigarette. “The four gents was first. Mr. Comedy Ackroyd, Mr. Vernon, Mr. Broadhead and Mr. Liversidge, all come out together and they stands there chaffing me and asking why I wasn’t wearing a tailcoat and a white tie. Ackroyd was that funny I nearly burst out crying. Footpath comedian!”
“You don’t care for Mr. Ackroyd?”
“Not so’s you’d make a sky-sign of it. We’re human, sir, even if we do earn our treasury dressing up the great ‘hactors.’ Mr. Ackroyd doesn’t seem to have thought that out for himself. I got Mr. Ackroyd’s number a long while back. So did my gentleman, and my gentleman is a gentleman, sir.”
“Mr. Hambledon?”
“Ah! The genu-ine ticket. He knows all about Mr. Saint John Ackroyd and so did the guv’nor.”
Bob re-lit his cigarette and looked significantly at Alleyn.
“Why?” asked Alleyn. “How do you mean?”
“It’s an old yarn now, sir. Ackroyd forgot ’imself one evening when we was at the Cri. He’s very partial to ’is glass of whisky at times, and ’e don’t break ’is heart if there’s not much water with it. This night he’d ’ad just that much too much, and he comes into Miss Carolyn’s dressing-room without so much as knocking and ’e starts up on the funny business. ’Struth! What a scene! She tells ’im orf a treat and Mr. Hambledon, ’e comes along and ’e tells ’im orf a snorter, and then the guv’nor ’e gets wind of it and ’e comes along and ’e tells ’im orf fit to suffercate. Laugh! I was outside the door when ’e comes out, and to see ’is face! Not so blooming comic and as red as a stick of carmine. Laugh! Next day ’e ’as to apologise. ’E’d ’ave got ’is notice if it hadn’t been that piece, I do believe, but ’e was playing a big part and ’is understudy was not too classy. So the show went on, but since then Mr. Funny Ackroyd ’as blooming well kept ’is place. Well now, where was we? Ah, I’ve got it. Mr. Broadhead and Played-It-Well, and Mr. Liversidge and Ackroyd, they all come out in a bunch. They ’as their spot of comedy with yours truly, and then I rather fancy Ackroyd goes orf to the stage-door. Not for long though. ’E comes back and joins the others, and then they all goes on the stage, and froo the Prompt entrance to the set, see? And they never comes orf again while I’m there.”
“Sure of that?”
“Yes, sir. Sure as s’help me. Tell you for why. I could hear them telling Mr. Gascoigne what a lark they’d ’ad with me and how I was too shy to come to the party. Very funny, they was.”