Percival said under his breath. Martyn, who thought the doctor was going well, glanced indignantly at Parry and was astonished to see that he looked frightened.
‘“ – therefore”,’ the doctor was saying arrogantly, ‘“to beg will not become me –”’
‘Gas!’ said an imperative voice off-stage and someone else ran noisily round the back of the set.
And then Martyn smelt it. Gas.
IV
To the actors it seemed afterwards as if they had been fantastically slow to understand that disaster had come upon the theatre. The curtain went down on Dr Rutherford’s last word. There was a further outbreak of applause. Someone off-stage shouted: ‘The King, for God’s sake,’ and at once the anthem rolled out disinterestedly in the well. Poole ran off the stage and was met by Clem Smith who had a bunch of keys in his hand. The rest followed him.
The area back-stage reeked of gas.
It was extraordinary how little was said. The players stood together and looked about them with the question in their faces that they were unable to ask.
Poole said: ‘Keep all visitors out, Clem. Send them to the foyer.’ And at once the ASM spoke into the prompt telephone. Bob Grantley burst through the pass-door, beaming from ear to ear.
‘Stupendous!’ he shouted. ‘John! Ella! Adam! My God, chaps, you’ve done it –’
He stood, stock-still, his arms extended, the smile dying on his face.
‘Go back, Bob,’ Poole said. ‘Cope with the people. Ask our guests to go on and not wait for us. Ben’s ill. Clem: get all available doors open. We want air.’
Grantley said: ‘Gas?’
‘Quick,’ Poole said. ‘Take them with you. Settle them down and explain. He’s ill. Then ring me here. But quickly, Bob. Quickly.’
Grantley went out without another word.
‘Where is he?’ Dr Rutherford demanded.
Helena Hamilton suddenly said: ‘Adam?’
‘Go on to the stage, Ella. It’s better you shouldn’t be here, believe me. Kate will stay with you. I’ll come in a moment.’
‘Here you are, Doctor,’ said Clem Smith.
There was a blundering sound in the direction of the passage. Rutherford said, ‘Open the dock doors,’ and went behind the set.
Poole thrust Helena through the prompt entry and shut the door behind her. Draughts of cold air came through the side entrances.
‘Kate,’ Poole said, ‘go in and keep her there if you can. Will you? And, Kate –’
Rutherford reappeared and with him four stage-hands bearing with difficulty the inert body of Clark Bennington, the head swinging upside down between the two leaders, its mouth wide open.
Poole moved quickly but he was too late to shield Martyn.
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Go in with Helena.’
‘Anyone here done respiration for gassed cases?’ Dr Rutherford demanded. ‘I can start but I’m not good for long.’
‘I can,’ said the ASM. ‘I was a warden.’
‘I can,’ said Jacko.
‘And I,’ said Poole.
‘In the dock then. Shut these doors and open the outer ones.’
Kneeling by Helena Hamilton and holding her hand, Martyn heard the doors roll back and the shambling steps go into the dock. The doors crashed behind them.
Martyn said: ‘They’re giving him respiration, Dr Rutherford’s there.’
Helena nodded with an air of sagacity. Her face was quite without expression, and she was shivering.
‘I’ll get your coat,’ Martyn said. It was in the improvised dressing-room on the OP side. She was back in a moment and put Helena into it as if she was a child, guiding her arms and wrapping the fur about her.
A voice off-stage – J. G. Darcey’s – said: ‘Where’s Gay? Is Gay still in the greenroom?’
Martyn was astonished when Helena, behind the mask that had become her face, said loudly: ‘Yes. She’s there. In the greenroom.’
There was a moment’s silence and then J.G. said: ‘She mustn’t stay there. Good God –
’ They heard him go away.
Parry Percival’s voice announced abruptly that he was going to be sick. ‘But where?’ he cried distractedly. ‘Where?’
‘In your dressing-room for Pete’s sake,’ Clem Smith said.
‘It’ll be full of gas. Oh, really!’ There was an agonized and not quite silent interval. ‘I couldn’t be more sorry,’ Percival said weakly.
‘I want,’ Helena said, ‘to know what happened. I want to see Adam. Ask him to come, please.’
Martyn made for the door but before she reached it Dr Rutherford came in, followed by Poole. Rutherford had taken off his coat and was a fantastic sight in boiled shirt, black trousers and red braces.
‘Well, Ella,’ he said, ‘this is not a nice business. We’re doing everything that can be done. I’m getting a new oxygen thing in as quickly as possible. There have been some remarkable saves in these cases. But I think you ought to know it’s a thinnish chance. There’s no pulse and so on.’
‘I want,’ she said, holding out her hand to Poole, ‘to know what happened.’
Poole said gently: ‘All right, Ella, you shall. It looks as if Ben locked himself in after his exit and then turned the gas-fire off – and on again. When Clem unlocked the door and went in he found Ben on the floor. His head was near the fire and a coat over both. He could only have been like that for quite a short time.’
‘This theatre,’ she said. ‘This awful theatre.’
Poole looked as if he would make some kind of protest but after a moment’s hesitation he said: ‘All right, Ella. Perhaps it did suggest the means but if he had made up his mind he would, in any case, have found the means.’
‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why has he done it?’
Dr Rutherford growled inarticulately and went out. They heard him open and shut the dock doors. Poole sat down by Helena and took her hands in his. Martyn was going but he looked up at her and said: ‘No, don’t. Don’t go, Kate,’ and she waited near the door.
‘This is no time,’ Poole said, ‘to speculate. He may be saved. If he isn’t, then we shall of course ask ourselves just why. But he was in a bad way, Ella. He’d gone to pieces and he knew it.’
‘I
