Ruddy Gore (4 page)

‘This has been a wonderful reception,’ said Bert Hinkler with a fair show of firmness, ‘and it’s nice to be here. And the performance has been really wonderful and I wouldn’t think of interrrupting it any further,’ he added, and almost bolted off stage and out of the public eye. And off-stage he firmly remained, despite three cheers of such deafening force that plaster flaked off the ceiling and snowed down on the audience.

‘That’s Bert,’ sighed Bunji. ‘It’s no use expecting him to be a lion. He’s good at flying, not talking.’

The ladies sat down again and the curtain opened on a gloomy hall, lined with portraits.

Robert Craven entered, as Sir Ruthven, and 28

managed the patter song with Old Adam competently. He had little presence, but the part carried him. The audience did not appear to have noticed the substitution.

Enter Dick Dauntless and his Rose, singing gaily that she was a neat little, sweet little craft. Sir Ruthven’s attempts to abduct Rose were foiled by the production of a Union Jack, a piece of burlesque which Dick played with complete, self-absorbed seriousness which was irresistibly comic.

Phryne laughed aloud, and Dick Dauntless heard her; there was a heightened alertness in his manner, though he did not deviate from his part by one iota.

Releasing Rose to go off with the sailor, Sir Ruthven confronted his ancestors.

The lights dimmed. ‘Painted emblems of a race all accurst in days of yore’ stepped down from their frames and railed at him. ‘Alas, poor ghost!’

said the kneeling descendant, reminding Phryne of Prince Hamlet – could Gilbert have really been burlesqueing
Hamlet
? Well, why not ? It was only a play. She chuckled when she considered what a particularly pompous Shakespearan actor of her acquaintance would think of her calling
Hamlet

‘only a play’.

Meanwhile the ghosts had sung a fast, whirling song stating that being a ghost was not all that bad. Robert Craven as Sir Ruthven was managing the dialogue with the ghost of his father fairly well until Sir Roderick said, ‘Very well – let the agonies commence.’

29

The ghosts circled him as he fell and writhed on the floor, but they did not speak. The spectres danced more quickly, and someone bent to whisper to the recumbent actor. Finally he gasped out his line.

‘Stop it, will you? I want to speak.’

Sir Roderick dragged him to his feet, holding him strongly around the body, and omitted a whole chunk of the play by signalling the chorus into ‘He Yields!’

‘Something’s wrong,’ said Phryne, as the ghosts completed their dance and retreated to their frames. Sir Roderick handed his son over to Old Adam, who announced unilaterally that he was going to kidnap a lady and escorted his master off stage.

Despard and Margaret came in, dressed in sober black, announcing that they were now very respectable, and danced a blameless dance. Margaret requested her new husband to use the word

‘Basingstoke’ to restore her to sanity and they launched into the patter song with a shaky Sir Ruthven.

Phryne noticed that either one or the other of the black-clad pair kept a hand under his elbow.

Something was wrong with this Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd as well.

Did someone dislike
Ruddigore
so much that they had poisoned both Sir Ruthvens?

It seemed unlikely.

Meanwhile, on the stage, Adam brought in Dame Hannah, fighting tooth and nail. Being 30

dragged across difficult country had not improved her temper, and she attacked Sir Ruthven, who was rescued by his father.

It then transpired that Sir Roderick ought not to have been dead – as refusing to commit a dreadful deed exposed the Murgatroyds to death, that was effectively suicide and suicide was certainly a dreadful deed, therefore Sir Roderick ought not to have been dead, and suddenly wasn’t. He sang a touching duet with Dame Hannah.

Phryne was staring at Sir Ruthven. In his embrace with the utterly faithless Rose, he was leaning on her heavily, but she was bearing him up and still contriving to speak.

‘When I was a simple farmer, I believe you loved me?’

‘Madly, passionately,’ answered Rose, stagger-ing under his weight.

‘But when I became a bad baronet, you very properly loved Richard instead?’

‘Passionately, madly!’ replied that blameless flower of British womanhood.

‘But if I should turn out not to be a bad baronet after all, how should you love me then?’

‘Madly, passionately!’

‘As before?’

‘Why of course!’

‘Darling!’ groaned Sir Ruthven, gathered his courage, and sang his finale. Rose, keeping a firm grip on him, answered. The jilted Richard stated that he would take the chief bridesmaid, destined for a life of ‘bread and cheese and kisses’. His 31

wicked charm carried over the footlights effortlessly; Phryne smiled, and Bunji blushed.

‘He’s a rotter,’ she muttered. ‘But a dashed attractive rotter.’

‘Happy the lily when kissed by the bee,’ sang the chorus, and the red and gold curtain came down.

Subsequent and repeated curtain calls revealed no sight of either Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd.

‘You busy tonight, Miss Fisher? We’ve got a bit of a ‘‘do’’ on at my place for poor old Bert, he’ll need a few restorers after facing this lot,’ invited Captain Larkin. ‘Bunji’s coming.’

‘No thanks, Captain, really, have to sup with an old friend,’ said Phryne, supressing a private pre-diliction for airmen – in any case both her powder and her shot would have been wasted on Hinkler, it was well known.

Phryne gathered her cloak around her and walked quickly through the thinning crowds to the stage door. Something stirred in the gloom under the stair, and a man tacked toward her.

He was the doorkeeper, a bowed figure in a greatcoat and scarf. He had evidently been keeping out the cold with one of the cheaper forms of tawny port.

‘Yes, Miss?’ Phryne recoiled under a pub-cellar exhalation and said, ‘Can you tell Sir Bernard that Miss Fisher is here?’

‘’Erb! Nip up and tell Sir B that Miss Fisher’s

’ere!’

A boy wearing carpet slippers and a dark suit evidently made for a younger brother sauntered 32

for the stairs. His slowness evidently displeased the port-swiller.

‘Get a move on!’ he snarled, and flung a boot.

The bare calves flashed upwards and the boy yelped something very derogatory and returned the boot, which bounced and was fielded with a facility that spoke of a cricketing youth.

‘Sorry,’ said the doorman, putting the boot on a shelf in his little box and settling his greatcoat.

‘Cheeky little blighter. Knows I can’t chase ’im.

Me bronicals are something crook in this weather, ever since the Somme they been bad. I went as a stretcher bearer – wanted to see what glorious con-flict was like, see? Weren’t like the Bard says and that’s a fact.’ He coughed experimentally. ‘Now, Miss, what’s goin’ on in the ’ouse? I reckernise you – you’re Sir B’s friend what’s a detective.

What’s been ’appenin’? No one ever tells me anythin’, but I’ve ’ad to call for a doctor and now

’Is Nibs says he wants the cops.’

‘Someone has been poisoning your Sir Ruthvens,’ said Phryne. ‘Who could have done that, do you think?’

‘Plenty of reason for wantin’ Mr Ruddy Copland gone,’ said the man, consideringly.

‘Rude. Difficult. ’Ard to please. Never a good word to throw to a dog and mean as a tick.

Nothin’ against Robbie Craven though – nice young lad. But there’s been funny things ’appen-ing. Funny even for the Maj, I mean.’

‘What sort of things?’ Phryne leaned against the doorman’s box and drew her cloak closer. It was 33

freezing in the small corridor. ‘Shouldn’t they get you a heater of some sort? It’s cold, no wonder you’re wearing a greatcoat.’

‘Yair. Perishin’. No one cares about a doorkeeper. I was lucky to get this job, though. You’d never believe that me and Sir B is the same age –

somethin’ cruel, innit? Known ’im for a long time, I ’ave – I been with G and S since I was a nipper.’

‘I thought you had a London accent,’ said Phryne, wondering why stage-door entrances were invariably so shabby.

‘I was there when they did
Ruddigore
for the first time. I seen Sir Arthur Sullivan conductin’

with ’is lighted baton, and Mr Gilbert shoulderin’

out into the fog to walk the Embankment and chew ’is cigar until they found out if it was a hit or not. ’E was a toff, Mr Gilbert was. I remember

’im looking for his wife – ’e says to me, ‘‘Tom, have you seen Mrs Gilbert?’’ and I says, ‘‘She’s round behind, sir,’’ and he says quick as a flash,

‘‘I know that, Tom, but where is she?’’ The doorkeeper laughed heartily, coughed, and took a sip out of a bottle artlessly concealed in a biscuit tin.

Phryne laughed.

‘When did they do it first? It’s my favourite.’

‘In 1887, Miss. Ran over 200 performances, but never been really popular – that’s why Mr Gilbert wanted to call it
Not as Good as The Mikado
. They had a lot of arguments, them two. Mr Gilbert said they should call it
Robin and Richard Were Two
Pretty Men
and Sir Arthur says, ‘‘No, my dear chap,’’ and Mr Gilbert growls, ‘‘Oh all right, we’ll 34

call it
Ruddigore
then!’’ and outs with ’im into the street. Then they complained that the title was rude, so he says, ‘‘Well, what about
Kensington
Gore
?’’ and Sir Arthur wouldn’t ’ave that, so he said it had to be
Ruddigore
and that was where they left it. Takes a person of refined musical tastes to appreciate, does
Ruddigore
.’ He grinned at Phryne, showing unexpectedly white teeth and a deeply lined face.

Phryne was about to ask about Walter Copland again when Sir Bernard came down the stairs and took her by the hand.

‘Phryne darling, I’m so sorry to keep you waiting and I’m afraid that I can’t take you out, something else has happened.’

‘Yes, I saw it. How is the poor boy?’

‘Not good. Come upstairs, at least I can offer you some tea. Until the police come. Oh, Lord, the newspapers are going to have a jolly time with this!’

Aware of the doorkeeper’s ears flapping, Phryne laid one finger on Sir Bernard’s lips and allowed him to escort her back to his office, which now contained no Coplands but a girl laid out on the couch in a state of hysteria, being scolded by a middle-aged woman.

‘Sit up, girl, drink your tea, and pull yourself together,’ she snapped. ‘This is no time for hysterics, Leila. Sit up or I will slap you.’

There was no doubt that she meant exactly what she said, and the young woman obeyed. Phryne recognised Dame Hannah and Rose Maybud.

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‘Ah. Miss Phryne Fisher, this is Miss Leila Esperance and Miss Agnes Gault. Is that tea?

Good. Miss Fisher is considering helping us. She is a private detective.’

Miss Gault stared hard at Phryne and then smiled a broad relieved smile. ‘Yes, please do, Miss Fisher.

This company’s on the edge of a nervous break-down, so many odd things have been happening.

I’ve been in the business since I was three and I’ve never known things to be so . . . so strange.’

‘We’re cursed,’ announced Miss Esperance,

‘haunted!’

‘Haunted? Sorry, I don’t deal in ghosts. You want the Society for Psychical Research,’ suggested Phryne.

‘Ghosts, forsooth,’ Sir Bernard poured out stewed tea and loaded his with sugar. ‘We don’t have a ghost, we have a trickster of some sort –

not dangerous.’

‘Not dangerous, with poor Robert Craven and Walter laid out?’ Miss Esperance’s voice rose to a shriek. ‘We’re doomed!’

Miss Gault delivered a slap to Miss Esperance, then offered a shoulder onto which the star collapsed.

‘Perhaps I’ll just take her back to her dressing room,’ she murmured. She encouraged Miss Esperance to her feet and led her out.

‘That was a reprise of her role of ‘‘Black Nell’’

in
The Shadow of Huntley Hall
,’ said Sir Bernard dryly. ‘The trouble with actresses is . . . well, that they are actresses.’

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‘You can’t fault them for being what you want them to be,’ said Phryne briskly. ‘Now, what has happened? I’m intrigued.’

‘Lots of things. Both Copland and Craven are very ill. The doctor’s with them now. Before that

. . . well, if I believed in ghosts, which I don’t, I’d begin to think that we were haunted, Phryne darling.’ He put down the cup. ‘Do you want this disgusting tea?’

‘No,’ said Phryne, who had not tasted it.

‘Then let’s have some whisky.’ He found two glasses and poured out a liberal dose. Then he stared, pointing a quivering forefinger.

‘Look!’

‘I don’t think it’s supposed to be that colour, you know,’ Phryne observed.

The manager’s good and expensive Scotch whisky was a brilliant and repulsive green.

‘Oh, Lord, that’s it, that is the final straw, I have had enough!’ Bernard bellowed, swelling and taking on the sun-kissed hue of a ripe tomato.

‘This must stop! When I find out who’s doing this I shall personally suspend them by the . . . I shall suspend them from the tower of this theatre for daws to peck at!’

‘Very good, Bernard, now tell me what has been going on, or those daws are going to go hungry.

What are daws, anyway?’

‘I presume that they are jackdaws,’ said Bernard coldly. ‘Very well. There have been several incidents. The first was the disapearance of Rose Maybud’s glove, which vanished while she was on 37

stage and turned up in Mr Alexander’s room.’

‘That is susceptible of a romantic explanation.’

‘Yes, but he swears he didn’t do it.’ Phryne smothered a smile. ‘Then, there was a bag stolen from the chorus’s dressing room – which turned up in Mr Alexander’s room again.’

‘And it wasn’t him?’

‘I really think it wasn’t.’

‘No, it would seem a touch foolish. Was anything stolen from the bag?’

‘A bottle of hyacinth scent.’

‘For which Mr Alexander would presumably have no use?’

‘No. Then Miss Esperance lost a telegram, one of those ‘‘good luck and break a leg’’ ones, which was found torn up in the chorus room. Any one of the chorus could have done that, I admit. Then Monsieur Dupont the chorus master got a note to go to Leila’s dressing room, where he met Mr Evans. They are both attracted to her, and she’s not decided which one she wants, but she swears she didn’t send the notes and she certainly wasn’t there at the time. There was a bit of a fracas.