Murder in the Title (24 page)

He was going to have to go and talk to Donald Mason.

He ordered himself a large Bell's as a bracer.

LESLIE BLATT WAS
coming out of the administrative office as Charles reached the top of the stairs. The elderly playwright looked extremely pleased with himself.

‘Hello, Charles,' be said, rubbing his hands together. ‘We're going to be working together.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Donald's just asked me and I've said yes. It's a few years since I've done it, but I'm sure I'll manage. It's a real challenge.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Shove It.
Donald's just asked me to take over as director.'

‘What!'

‘Well, don't sound like that. I used to direct, you know. Still got a lot of ideas, and I've been following most of the rehearsals. I'd really like to get my hands on a play like this.'

Not just on the play, either. Charles visualized the chaos that would be caused among the naked actresses by Leslie Blatt's wandering hands as he ‘directed' them.

‘Well, aren't you going to congratulate me, Charles?'

‘What? Oh yes. Congratulations.'

‘We're hoping to get ready for an opening on Friday. Only two days late.'

‘I see.'

‘Rehearsal ten sharp tomorrow morning. See you then.' The old goat pranced downstairs, chuckling to himself.

Charles knocked on the office door, and was bidden to enter.

Donald Mason sat behind his desk, every bit the smart executive in another pin-striped suit. Too smart, really, for the theatre. Charles felt he should have smelt a rat earlier. But no, he – presumably like everyone else – had been just relieved to see someone who appeared to be efficient in the role of General Manager.

‘Charles. What can I do for you?'

‘I just met Leslie. Gather he's going to take over directing
Shove It
.'

‘That's right. Seems ideal. Difficult to get in someone from outside at this stage, and at least he's been following the production.'

‘He'd follow anything where he knew women were going to take their clothes off.'

Donald Mason looked up sharply, surprised by Charles' change of tone. ‘Have you been drinking?'

The actor shook his head. ‘Not enough to affect my judgement.'

‘Oh. Well, Leslie is going to be directing. I've made the decision.'

‘Yes. I'm sure you have. Yet another in a skilfully composed sequence of wrong decisions.'

The General Manager was stung by this. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘I think it was almost a compliment, Donald. You've managed the whole thing very well. Constantly talking about the importance of right decisions and ensuring that the wrong ones are made. Constantly stressing the need for company loyalty and spreading divisive rumours behind people's backs. Constantly saying how much you want the Regent to survive and all the time undermining it.'

‘Are you going to explain what you're on about, or do I have to listen to more of this abusive rhetoric?'

‘I'll explain.' Charles took a deep breath. ‘I've blown your cover, Donald.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘I know that all the references you produced to get this job were forgeries. I know that you never worked in the theatre in Australia. I know that you started working for an estate agency called Spielberg, Pugh and Fosco and I reckon that you're still in the pay of Schlenter Estates!'

There was a silence. Charles tensed. He didn't know what to expect after his outburst, but was ready for some form of physical assault.

To his amazement, he heard Donald Mason laughing. ‘Very good, Charles, very good. I heard you had a bit of a reputation as a detective, and I'm most impressed by this demonstration of your skill.'

With the wind momentarily taken out of his sails, Charles blustered. ‘Do you deny that you were put into this job to bring the theatre to its knees?'

‘No, I don't.'

‘Pretty easy, too, wasn't it? You could run circles round Tony Wensleigh. So vague he was, so abstracted, so trusting . . . Always out at a rehearsal, so that you could do what you liked here. Spread rumours about his inefficiency, libel him – always with an expression of deep regret that you had to do it.

‘The sabotage went deep. The choice of plays . . . you contrived that very well. You knew Herbie was totally ignorant about art, and you knew Leslie would agree with anything so long as his dire little thriller was included. So you lumbered Tony with this awful programme, and then had the nerve to tell everyone that he had chosen them, and that his judgement was going.'

Donald Mason shrugged. ‘Yes,' he said with an air of indifference.

‘You're not making any attempt to deny it.'

‘Why should I? It's all true.'

‘But . . .' Charles found himself blustering again. It was like trying to get satisfaction out of punching a sponge. ‘I mean, the way you played us all along, making us believe you were the long-suffering one, constantly clearing up after Tony. Little calculated touches of humanity – like when you didn't sack me, like when you offered me the part in
Shove It
. .'

Donald smiled with something approaching insolence. ‘Yes. Of course that was not just magnanimity.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I thought keeping a piss-artist like you around in the company was another good method of disruption.'

‘Good God.' Charles was almost lost for words. He found himself getting angry. This was not at all how he had intended the interview to turn out. ‘So that's why you went against Tony's advice and kept me on.'

‘Oh I didn't go against Tony's advice. He wanted to give you a second chance.'

‘But you said . . .'

‘Yes. And you believed me. I've often been told that one of my great strengths is my plausibility.'

‘But . . . but how can you be so bloody cool about it all?'

‘Why shouldn't I be cool? I was put into this job to see that the theatre closed within a year, and I reckon I've pretty well achieved that.'

‘But what's going to happen when I expose you?'

‘Expose what? Have you proof of any crime that I've committed?'

‘Well . . . That accident to Gordon Tremlett – I bet you were behind that.'

‘Proof I said, Charles, proof. Even if I did fix it – and I'm not saying I did, in case you have some tape recorder hidden away – how could you prove it?'

‘Well . . .' Charles felt momentarily lost. ‘What about Tony? You hounded him so much, confused him, accused him . . . you drove him to kill himself.'

The General Manager smiled again, infuriatingly. ‘That I think you'd find even more difficult to prove, Charles.'

The actor gaped.

‘You see, it's so easy to fool people. They set themselves up. They want to be conned. I mean, someone like Tony was just a sitting target. So trusting, as you said. So incapable of fighting back, assuming he could ever identify his enemy. Ultimately so stupid.'

‘But there have been crimes committed!' Charles insisted, rising involuntarily from his chair with fists clenched.

Donald gave him a cool appraisal. ‘If you were to hit me, that would be a crime. And I would see that you were charged with it.'

Charles subsided, trying to calm himself. Slow down, slow down, stick to the one crime he could prove. ‘What about those forged references? Those are real enough. They're proof against you.'

‘Okay.' The General Manager still refused to be ruffled. ‘So what would that be – a charge of False Pretences, maybe? Might get a few months for that I suppose.

‘Yes,' said Charles, with a hardly adequate feeling of minor triumph.

‘If, of course, you could find anyone to charge me . . .'

‘What?'

‘Listen. As you have so cleverly worked out, I was infiltrated here to put this theatre out of business. I think I've done pretty well. With this new offer coming in from Schlenter, with
Shove It
causing public demonstrations, with the Artistic Director committing suicide under a cloud, the whole set-up looks pretty shaky. Not a great deal of faith around Rugland Spa in the Regent's management. Do you think that that faith would be increased by the revelation that that very management appointed as their General Manager someone with forged references?'

Slowly Charles let this sink in, and felt the full crushing power of its logic. The one charge that could be proven against Donald Mason would never be brought.

THE FRUSTRATION WAS
total. It was even more frustrating than when he couldn't make sense of the case. Now he could, now he had arrived at the truth, only to find that truth brought no resolution. It was like chatting up an apparently avid girl all evening only to have her favours abruptly denied.

Charles fumed, because he knew Donald was right. He had been planted to bring down the theatre and the revelation of the subterfuge would only hasten its collapse. If there were someone strong around to handle the exposure it might work, but there wasn't. Tony had found the pressure too much and was no longer available. And Councillor Inchbald wasn't going to publicize the way he had been manipulated by his ‘friend', Lord Kitestone.

If only there were something else, some actual crime that could be proved against Donald Mason. He had as good as admitted to engineering Gordon Tremlett's accident, but in the full confidence that no proof could ever be produced. Maybe he had also been responsible for the stabbing Charles had so narrowly escaped. It didn't seem in character, too rash an action for someone who planned so cold-bloodedly, but it was possible Donald had arranged it as another random act of sabotage, another incident to get the anti-theatre councillors baying for enquiries.

But, even if that had been the case, evidence of Donald's implication remained as elusive for the stabbing as for the hanging.

Charles' fury was increased by the General Manager's arrogant confidence. He had taken the job knowing that it would end in collapse and presumably had some fatly-paid post lined up with Schlenter Estates for when he finally left it. And he had done what was required very efficiently, without a moment's hesitation on moral grounds. Driving Tony Wensleigh to suicide was clearly a feat he regarded as a major professional coup, not an action affecting the life of a fellow human being.

Tony, Donald had said, had been stupid. Stupid for showing normal human qualities like trust, stupid for giving people the benefit of the doubt, stupid for letting the pressure get to him.

No doubt Donald would apply the same adjective to Charles. Everyone in the world was stupid to Donald, because he knew he could run circles round any of them. A person with no moral sense at all is capable of much greater efficiency than those trammelled by doubt and benevolence.

And Charles could see no way of unsettling Donald Mason's evil complacency.

He stumped round the now-hateful streets of Rugland Spa, waiting for the pubs to open.

On the dot of five-thirty he went into the one behind the theatre. He had vague thoughts of seeing the old lady again, asking her more about the young winkler who had made her life a misery. He didn't know what he hoped to find out. It was all so long ago. To prove criminality at such a distance and after so long would be virtually impossible.

Anyway, the old lady hadn't appeared, so the idea was academic. Charles settled down to an evening of heavy drinking which might, in time, induce oblivion. He didn't drink beer; he went straight on to the Bell's.

So the wheel of his Rugland Spa drinking had come full circle. It had started badly, even to the extent of his being hopelessly drunk on stage; then he had reformed; and here he was deliberately going back to the bad ways.

Then came the unwelcome thought of what had started him drinking the first time. Frances. Frances and her announcement of her new lover. He was still shocked by how much that had affected him.

But the previous night he had seen her, had spent with her. The confrontations of the day had pushed that to the back of his mind. But it had been good. They had so much together. He couldn't just let her slip out of his life.

In his increasingly maudlin state he made various resolutions. He must get Frances back. David he dismissed as an irrelevancy. Surely, if he really asked her to, Frances would come back to him, permanently. Of course, he'd have to reform, he knew that. Moderate the drinking, though that wasn't what really annoyed Frances; she had always been pretty tolerant about that. No, it was other women. She really didn't like him being unfaithful. And he had always found it hard to resist the appeal of a young actress. That had been the root of the trouble, that and the long separations caused by his work.

But he was fifty-five now and his prospects with young actresses waned further with each passing day. No more, he decided virtuously. Concentrate on Frances. Concentrate on getting Frances back. She was the only woman who really mattered to him, she was the only one who could cope with his low moods. He needed her.

‘Charles Paris, isn't it?'

A Welsh voice broke into his earnest resolutions.

‘Yes.' He looked up into Frank Walby's bibulous baby face ‘Hello. Can I get you a drink?'

He spoke with enthusiasm. Having taken the decision to get drunk, he knew it would be more pleasant to have a companion in his excesses, and also knew that Frank Walby was probably the most suitable candidate for that role in all of Rugland Spa.

The journalist accepted the offer with equal enthusiasm, specifying ‘a pint of Old and Filthy – they'll know what you mean'.

Charles got himself another large Bell's and the two sat down and toasted each other.

Frank Walby emitted a long, lugubrious sigh. ‘Who was it who described his life as a long disease?'