‘Was it because of his performance that you hit him?’
J.G. looked at his fingernails and seemed to ponder. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘Or not directly. If I thought you’d believe me I’d say yes, but no doubt you’ll talk to her and she’s so upset anyway –’
‘You mean Miss Gainsford?’
‘Yes,’ said J.G. with the oddest air of pride and embarrassment. ‘I mean Gay.’
‘Was it on her account you dotted him one?’
‘It was. He was damned offensive.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Alleyn said, ‘but you’ll realize that we do want to be told a little more than that about it.’
‘I suppose so.’ He clasped his hands and examined his bruised knuckles. ‘Although I find it extremely difficult and unpleasant to go into the wretched business. It’s only because I hope you’ll let Gay off, as far as possible, if you know the whole story. That’s why I asked to see you alone.’ He slewed round and looked discontentedly at Fox.
‘Inspector Fox,’ Alleyn said, ‘is almost pathologically discreet.’
‘Glad to hear it. Well, as you’ve heard, I’d managed to get hold of a bottle of aspirins and I brought them to her, here, in the second interval. Gay was sitting in this chair. She was still terribly upset. Crying. I don’t know if you’ve realized why she didn’t go on for the part?’
‘No. I’d be glad to have the whole story.’
J.G. embarked on it with obvious reluctance but as he talked his hesitancy lessened and he even seemed to find some kind of ease in speaking. He described Gay’s part and her struggle at rehearsals. It was clear that, however unwillingly, he shared the general opinion of her limited talent. ‘She’d have given a reasonable show,’ he said, ‘if she’d been given a reasonable chance but from the beginning the part got her down. She’s a natural ingénue and this thing’s really “character”. It was bad casting. Adam kept the doctor at bay as much as possible but she knew what he thought. She didn’t want the part. She was happy where she was in repertory but Ben dragged her in. He saw himself as a sort of fairy-godfather-uncle and when she found the part difficult he turned obstinate and wouldn’t let her throw it in. Out of vanity really. He was very vain. She’s a frail little thing, you know, all heart and sensitivity, and between them they’ve brought her to the edge of a breakdown. It didn’t help matters when Miss Martyn Tarne appeared out of a clear sky, first as Helena Hamilton’s dresser and then as Gay’s understudy and then – mysteriously as some of the cast, Ben in particular, thought – as Adam’s distant cousin. You noticed the uncanny resemblance but you may not know the part in the play requires it. That was the last straw for Gay. She’d been ill with nerves and fright and tonight she cracked up completely and wouldn’t – couldn’t go on. When I saw her in the first interval she was a bit quieter but in the second act little Miss Tarne did very well indeed. Quite startling, it was. Incidentally, I suppose her success infuriated Ben. And Gay heard everybody raving about her as they came off. Naturally that upset her again. So she was in tears when I came in.’
He leant forward and rested his head in his hands. His voice was less distinct. ‘I’m fond of her,’ he said. ‘She’s got used to me being about. When I came in she ran to me and – I needn’t go into the way I felt. There’s no explaining these things. She was sobbing in my arms, poor bird, and God knows my heart had turned over. Ben came in. He went for her like a pick-pocket. He was crazy. I tried to shut him up. He didn’t make a noise – I don’t mean that – matter of fact what he said streamed out of him in a whisper. He was quite off his head and began talking about Helena – about his wife. He used straight-out obscenities. There’d been an episode that afternoon and – well he used the sort of generalization that Lear and Othello and Leontes use, if you remember your Shakespeare.’
‘Yes.’
‘Gay was still clinging to me and he began to talk the same sort of stuff about her. I’m not going into details. I put her away from me and quite deliberately gave him what was coming to him. I don’t remember what I said. I don’t think any of us said anything. So he went out nursing his jaw and they called me for the last act and I went out too. During this last act, when we were on together, I could see the bruise coming out under his make-up.’
‘What was his general behaviour like during the final act?’
‘As far as I was concerned he behaved in the way people do when they play opposite someone they’ve had a row with off-stage. He didn’t look me in the eye. He looked at my forehead or ears. It doesn’t show from the front. He played fairly soundly until poor Parry got out of position. Parry is his butt in the piece but of course what Ben did was outrageous. He stuck out his foot as Parry moved and brought him down. That was not long before his own exit. I never saw him again after that until he was carried out. That’s all. I don’t know if you’ve believed me but I hope you’ll let Gay off any more of this stuff.’
Alleyn didn’t answer. He looked at the young-old actor for a moment. J.G. was lighting a cigarette with that trained economy and grace of movement that were part of his stock-in-trade. His head was stooped and Alleyn saw how carefully the silver hair had been distributed over the scalp. The hands were slightly tremulous. How old was J.G. Fifty? Fifty-five? Sixty? Was he the victim of that Indian summer that can so unmercifully visit an ageing man?
‘It’s the very devil, in these cases,’ Alleyn said, ‘how one has to plug away at everyone in turn. Not that it helps to say so. There’s one more question that I’m afraid you won’t enjoy at all. Can you tell me more specifically what Bennington said about – I think you called it an episode – of the afternoon, in which his wife was concerned?’
‘No, by God I can’t,’ said J.G. hotly.
‘He spoke about it in front of Miss Gainsford, didn’t he?’
‘You can’t possibly ask Gay about it. It’s out of the question.’
‘Not, I’m afraid, for an investigating officer,’ said Alleyn, who thought that J.G.’s sense of delicacy, if delicacy was in question, was possibly a good deal more sensitive than Miss Gainsford’s. ‘Do you suppose Bennington talked about this episode to other people?’
‘In the condition he was in I should think it possible.’
‘Well,’ Alleyn said, ‘we shall have to find out.’
‘See here, Alleyn. What happened, if he spoke the truth, was something entirely between himself and his wife and it’s on her account that I can’t repeat what he said. You know she and Poole were on-stage at the crucial time and that there’s no sense in thinking of motive if that’s what you’re after, where they are concerned.’
Alleyn said: ‘This episode might constitute a motive for suicide, however.’
J.G. looked up quickly. ‘Suicide? But – why?’
‘Shame?’ Alleyn suggested. ‘Self-loathing if he sobered up after you hit him and took stock of himself? I imagine they’ve been virtually separated for some time.’
‘I see you have a talent,’ said J.G., ‘for reading between the lines.’
‘Let us rather call it an ugly little knack. Thank you, Mr Darcey, I don’t think I need bother you any more for the moment.’
J.G. went slowly to the door. He hesitated for a moment and then said: ‘If you’re looking for a motive, Alleyn, you’ll find it in a sort of way all over the place. He wasn’t a likeable chap and he’d antagonized everyone. Even poor little Parry came off breathing revenge after the way he’d been handled but, my God, actors do that kind of thing only too often. Feeling runs