Overture to Death (9 page)

“She’d never be such a fool.”

“The woman’s pathological, my dear. She might do anything. Anyway, I’ll see.”

He put the paper in his pocket.

“In my opinion,” said Selia Ross, “she’s green with jealousy because I’ve rather got off with the parson and the squire.”

“So am I.”

“Darling,” said Mrs. Ross, “you can’t think how pure I am with them.”

Templett suddenly burst out laughing.

i

At ten minutes to eight on the night of Saturday, November 27th, the parish hall at Winton St. Giles smelt of evergreens, wet mackintoshes, and humanity. Members of the Young People’s Friendly Circle, harried and dragooned by Miss Campanula, had sold all the tickets in advance, so, in spite of the appalling weather, every seat was occupied. Even the Moorton Park people had come over with their house-party, and sat in the front row of less uncomfortable chairs at two shillings a head. Behind them were ranged the church workers including Mr. Prosser, chemist of Chipping, and Mr. Blandish, the police superintendent, both churchwardens. The Women’s Institute was there with its husband and children. Farther back, in a giggling phalanx, were those girls of the Friendly Circle who were not acting as ushers, and behind them, on the back benches, the young men of the farms and villages, smelling of hair-grease and animal warmth. In the entrance, Miss Campanula had posted Sergeant Roper, of the Chipping Constabularly, and sidesman of St. Giles. His duties were to collect tickets and subdue the backbenchers, who were inclined to guffaw and throw paper pellets at their girls. At the end of the fourth row from the front, on the left of the centre aisle, sat Georgie Biggins with his parents. He seemed strangely untroubled by his dethronement from the position of call-boy. His hair was plastered down with water on his bullet-shaped head, his face shone rosily, and there was an unholy light in his black boot-button eyes, which were fixed on the piano.

The piano, soon to achieve a world-wide notoriety, stood beneath the stage and facing the centre aisle. One of the innumerable photographs that appeared in the newspapers on Monday, November 29th, shows a museum piece, a cottage pianoforte of the nineties, with a tucked silk panel, badly torn, in the front. It has a hard-bitten look. It would not be too fanciful to compare it to a spinster, dressed in dilapidated moth-eaten finery, still retaining an air of shabby gentility, but given over to some very dubious employment. This air is enhanced by the presence of five aspidistras, placed in a row on the top of the bunting, which has been stretched across the top, over the opening and the turned-back lid, tightly fixed to the edges with drawing pins, and allowed to fall in artistic festoons down the sides and in a sort of valance-like effect across the front. At ten to eight on the night of the concert, there on the fretwork rack under the valance of bunting was Miss Prentice’s “Venetian Suite,” rather the worse for wear, but ready for her attention.

There was a notice in the programmes about the object of the performance, a short history of the old piano, a word of thanks to Jocelyn Jernigham, Esq., of Pen Cuckoo, for his generous offer to make up the sum of money needed for a new instrument. The old piano came in for a lot of attention that evening.

At eight o’clock Dinah, sick with apprehension in the prompt corner, turned on the stage lights. Sergeant Roper, observing this signal, leant across the row of boys on the back bench and switched off the house lights. The audience made noises of pleasurable anticipation.

Improvised footlights shone upwards on the faded green curtain. After a moment’s pause, during which many people in the audience said, “Ssh!” an invisible hand drew the curtain aside and the rector walked through. There was a great burst of applause in the second row, and the reporter from the
Chipping Courier
took out his pad and pencil.

Mr. Copeland’s best cassock was green about the seams, the toes of his boots turned up because he always neglected to put trees in them. He was actually a good-looking, rather shabbily-dressed parish priest. But, lit dramatically from beneath, he looked magnificent. It was the head of a mediaeval saint, austere and beautiful, sharp as a cameo against its own black shadow.

“He ought to be a bishop,” said old Mrs. Cain to her daughter.

Behind the curtain, Dinah took a final look at the set. The squire, satisfactory in plus-fours and a good clean make-up, was in his right position up-stage, with a telegram in his hand. Henry stood off-stage at the prompt entrance, very nervous. Dinah moved into the wings with the bicycle bell in her hands.

“Don’t answer the telephone till it’s rung twice,” she hissed at Jocelyn.

“All right, all right, all right.”

“Clear, please,” said Dinah severely. “Stand by.”

She went into the prompt box, seized the curtain lines and listened to her father.

“—So you see,” the rector was saying, “the present piano is almost a historical piece, and I’m sure you will be glad to hear that this old friend will be given an honourable place in the small recreation room at the back of the stage.”

Sentimental applause.

“I have one other announcement. You will see on your programmes that Miss Prentice of Pen Cuckoo, in addition to taking a part, was to play the overture and entr’acte this evening. I am sorry to say that Miss Prentice has — ah — has — ah — an injured finger which has given — and I am sorry to say is still giving her — a great deal of pain. Miss Prentice, with her customary pluck and unselfishness”—Mr. Copeland paused hopefully and was awarded a tentative outbreak of clapping—“was anxious not to disappoint us and was prepared, up to a minute or two ago, to play the piano. However, as she has an important rôle to fill later on in the evening, and as her hand is really not fit, she— ah — Dr. Templett has — ah — has taken matters in hand and ordered her not to — to play.”

The rector paused again while the audience wondered if it should applaud Dr. Templett’s efficiency, but decided that, on the whole, it had better not.

“Now, although you will be disappointed and will sympathize, I am sure, with Miss Prentice, we all know we mustn’t disobey doctor’s orders. I am happy to say that we shall still have our music — and very good music, too. Miss Idris Campanula, at literally a moment’s notice, has consented to play for us. Now, I think this is particularly generous and sporting of Miss Campanula, and I’ll ask you all to show your appreciation in a really — ”

Deafening applause.

“Miss Campanula,” ended Mr. Copeland, “will play Rachmaninoff’s ‘Prelude in C Sharp Minor.’ Miss Campanula.”

He led her from the wings, handed her down the steps to the piano, and returned to the stage through the side curtains.

It was wonderful to see Idris Campanula acknowledge the applause with an austere bend, smile more intimately at the rector, descend the steps carefully and, with her back to the aisle, seat herself at the instrument. It was wonderful to see her remove the “Venetian Suite,” and place her famous Prelude on the music rack, open it with a masterly flip, deal it a jocular slap, and then draw out her pince-nez from the tucked silk bosom that so closely resembled the tucked silk bosom of the instrument. Miss Campanula and the old piano seemed to face each other with an air of understanding and affinity. Miss Campanula’s back hollowed as she drew up her bosom until it perched on the top of her stays. She leant forward until her nose was within three inches of the music, and she held her left hand poised over the bass. Down it came.

Pom.
Pom
. POM.

The three familiar pretentious chords.

Miss Campanula paused, lifted her big left foot and planked it down on the soft pedal.

ii

The air was blown into splinters of atrocious clamour. For a second nothing existed but noise — hard racketing noise. The hall, suddenly thick with dust, was also thick with a cloud of intolerable sound. And, as the dust fell, so the pandemonium abated and separated into recognisable sources. Women were screaming. Chair legs scraped the floor, branches of ever-greens fell from the walls, the piano hummed like a gigantic top.

Miss Campanula fell forward. Her face slid down the sheet of music, which stuck to it. Very slowly and stealthily she slipped sideways to the keys of the piano, striking a final discord in the bass. She remained there, quite still, in a posture that seemed to parody the antics of an affected virtuoso. She was dead.

iii

Lady Appleby in her chair by the piano turned to her husband as if to ask him a question and fainted.

Georgie Biggins screamed like a whistle.

The rector came through the curtain and ran down the steps to the piano. He looked at that figure leaning on the keys, wrung his hands and faced the audience. His lips moved, but he could not be heard.

Dinah came out of the prompt corner and stood transfixed. Her head was bent as if in profound meditation. Then she turned, stumbled past the curtain, calling, “Henry! Henry!” and disappeared.

Dr. Templett, in his appalling make-up; came through from the opposite side of the curtain. He went up to the rector, touched his arm and then descended to the piano. He bent down with his back to the audience, stayed so for a moment and then straightened up. He shook his head slightly at the rector.

Mr. Blandish, in the third row, pushed his way to the aisle and walked up to the stage.

He said, “What’s all this?” in a loud, constabulary tone, and was heard. The hall went suddenly quiet. The voice of Mr. Prosser, the Chipping organist, said all by itself: “It was a gun. That’s what it was. It was a gun.”

Mr. Blandish was not in uniform, but he was dressed in authority. He examined the piano and spoke to Dr. Templett. There was a screen masking the corner on the prompt side between the stage and the wall. The two men fetched it and put it round the piano.

The rector mounted the steps to the stage and faced his parishioners.

“My dear people,” he said in a trembling voice, “there has been a terrible accident. I beg of you all to go away quietly to your own homes. Roper, will you open the door?”

“Just a minute,” said Mr. Blandish. “Just a minute, if
you
please, sir. This is an affair for the police. Charlie Roper, you stay by that door. Have you got your notebook on you?”

“Yes, sir,” said Sergeant Roper.

“All right.” Mr. Blandish raised his voice. “As you pass out,” he roared, “I’ll ask you to leave your names and addresses with the sergeant on duty at the door. Anybody who has had anything to do with this entertainment,” continued Mr. Blandish with no trace of irony in his voice, “either in the way of taking part or decorating the hall or so forth, will kindly remain behind. Now move along quietly, please, there’s no need to rush. The back benches first. Keep your seats till your turn comes.”

To the rector he said, “I’d be much obliged if you’d go to the back door, sir, and see nobody leaves that way. If it can be locked and you’ve got the key, lock it. We’ll have this curtain up, if you please. I’m going to the telephone. It’s in the back room, isn’t it? Much obliged.”

He went through the back of the stage, passing Dinah and Henry, who stood side by side in the wings.

“Good-evening, Mr. Jernigham,” said the superintendent. “Do you mind raising the curtain?”

“Certainly,” said Henry.

The curtain rose in a series of uneven jerks, revealing to the people still left in the hall a group of four persons: Jocelyn Jernigham, Selia Ross, Eleanor Prentice and the rector, who had returned from the back door with the key in his hand.

“I can’t believe it,” said the rector. “I simply cannot believe that it has happened.”

“Is it murder?” asked Mrs. Ross sharply. Her voice pitched a note too high, sounded shockingly loud.

“I–I can’t believe — ” repeated Mr. Copeland.

“But see here, Copeland,” interrupted the squire, “I don’t know what the devil everybody’s driving at. Shot through the head! What d’you mean? Somebody must have seen something. You can’t shoot people through the head in a crowded hall without being spotted.”

“The shot seems to have come from — from — ”

“From where, for heaven’s sake?”

“From inside the piano,” said the rector unhappily. “We mustn’t touch anything; but it seems to come from inside the piano. You can see through the torn silk.”

“Good God!” said Jocelyn. He looked irritably at Miss Prentice, who rocked to and fro like a middle-aged marionette and moaned repeatedly.

“‘Do be quiet, Eleanor,” said the squire. “Here! Templett!”

Dr. Templett had again gone behind the screen, but he came out and said, “What?” in an irascible voice.

“Has she been shot through the head?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“From inside the piano.”

“I never heard such a thing,” said Jocelyn. “I’m coming to look.”

“Yes. But, I say,” objected Dr. Templett, “I don’t think you ought to, you know. It’s a matter for the police.”

“Well, you’ve just been in there.”

“I’m police surgeon for the district”

“Well, by God,” said the squire, suddenly remembering it, “I’m Acting Chief Constable for the county.”

“Sorry,” said Dr. Templett. “I’d forgotten.”

But the squire was prevented from looking behind the screen by the return of Mr. Blandish.

“That’s all right,” said the superintendent peaceably. He turned to the squire. “I’ve just rung up the station and asked for two chaps to come along, sir.”

“Oh, yes. Yes. Very sensible,” said Jocelyn.

“Just a minute, Blandish,” said Dr. Templett. “Come down here, would you?”

They disappeared behind the screen. The others waited in silence. Miss Prentice buried her face in her hands. The squire walked to the edge of the stage, looked over the top of the piano, turned aside, and suddenly mopped his face with his handkerchief.

Blandish and Templett came out and joined the party on the stage.

“Lucky, in a way, your being here on the spot, sir,” Blandish said to Jocelyn. “Your first case of this sort since your appointment, I believe.”

“Yes.”

“Very nasty affair.”

“It is.”

“Yes, sir. Well now, with your approval, Mr. Jernigham, I’d just like to get a few notes down. I fancy Mr. Henry Jernigham and Miss Copeland are with us.”

He peered into the shadows beyond the stage.

“We’re here,” said Henry.

He and Dinah came on the stage.

“Ah, yes. Good-evening, Miss Copeland.”