Mr Alleyn. Nothing much in the pockets. Bills. Old racing card. Cheque-book and so on. Nothing on the body, by the way, but a handkerchief.’
‘Come on, then. I’ve had my bellyful of gas.’
But he stood in the doorway eyeing the room and whistling softly.
‘I wish I could believe in you,’ he apostrophized it, ‘but split me and sink me if I can. No, by all that’s phoney, not for one credulous second. Come on, Gibson. Let’s talk to these experts.’
IV
They all felt a little better for Jacko’s soup which had been laced with something that as J. G. Darcey said (and looked uncomfortable as soon as he had said it) went straight to the spot marked X.
Whether it was this potent soup or whether extreme emotional and physical fatigue had induced in Martyn its familiar compliment, an uncanny sharpening of the mind, she began to consider for the first time the general reaction of the company to Bennington’s death. She thought: ‘I don’t believe there’s one of us who really minds very much. How lonely for him! Perhaps he felt the awful isolation of a child that knows itself unwanted and thought he’d put himself out of the way of caring.’
It was a shock to Martyn when Helena Hamilton suddenly gave voice to her own thoughts. Helena had sat with her chin in her hand, looking at the floor. There was an unerring grace about her and this fireside posture had the beauty of complete relaxation. Without raising her eyes she said: ‘My dears, my dears, for pity’s sake don’t let’s pretend. Don’t let me pretend. I didn’t love him. Isn’t that sad? We all know and we try to patch up a decorous scene but it won’t do. We’re shocked and uneasy and dreadfully tired. Don’t let’s put ourselves to the trouble of pretending. It’s so useless.’
Gay said: ‘But I did love him!’ and J.G. put his arm about her.
‘Did you?’ Helena murmured. ‘Perhaps you did, darling. Then you must hug your sorrow to yourself. Because I’m afraid nobody really shares it.’
Poole said: ‘We understand, Ella.’
With that familiar gesture, not looking at him, she reached out her hand. When he had taken it in his, she said: ‘When one is dreadfully tired, one talks. I do, at all events. I talk much too easily. Perhaps that’s a sign of a shallow woman. You know, my dears, I begin to think I’m only capable of affection. I have a great capacity for affection but as for my loves, they have no real permanency. None.’
Jacko said gently: ‘Perhaps your talent for affection is equal to other women’s knack of loving.’
Gay and Parry Percival looked at him in astonishment but Poole said: ‘That may well be.’
‘What I meant to say,’ Helena went on, ‘only I do sidetrack myself so awfully, is this. Hadn’t we better stop being muted and mournful and talk about what may happen and what we ought to do? Adam, darling, I thought perhaps they might all be respecting my sorrow or something. What should we be talking about? What’s the situation?’
Poole moved one of the chairs with its back to the curtain and sat on it. Dr Rutherford returned and lumped himself down in the corner. ‘They’re talking,’ he said, ‘to Clem Smith in the – they’re talking to Clem. I’ve seen the police-surgeon, a subfusc exhibit but one that can tell a hawk from a hernshaw if they’re held under his nose. He agrees that there was nothing else I could have done which is no doubt immensely gratifying to me. What are you all talking about? You look like a dress-rehearsal.’
‘We were about to discuss the whole situation,’ said Poole. ‘Helena feels it should be discussed and I think we all agree with her.’
‘What situation pray? Ben’s? Or ours? There is no more to be said about Ben’s situation. As far as we know, my dear Ella, he has administered to himself a not too uncomfortable and effective anaesthetic which, after he had become entirely unconscious, brought about the end he had in mind. For a man who had decided to shuffle off this mortal coil he behaved very sensibly.’
‘Oh, please,’ Gay whispered. ‘Please!’
Dr Rutherford contemplated her in silence for a moment and then said: ‘What’s up, Misery?’ Helena, Darcey and Parry Percival made expostulatory noises. Poole said: ‘See here, John, you’ll either pipe down or preserve the decencies.’
Gay, fortified perhaps by this common reaction, said loudly: ‘You might at least have the grace to remember he was my uncle.’
‘Grace me no grace,’ Dr Rutherford quoted inevitably. ‘And uncle me no uncles.’ After a moment’s reflection, he added: ‘All right, Thalia, have a good cry. But you must know, if the rudiments of seasoned thinking are within your command, that your Uncle Ben did you a damn shabby turn. A scurvy trick, by God. However, I digress. Get on with the post-mortem, Chorus. I am dumb.’
‘You’ll be good enough to remain so,’ said Poole warmly. ‘Very well, then. It seems to me, Ella, that Ben took this – this way out – for a number of reasons. I know you want me to speak plainly and I’m going to speak very plainly indeed, my dear.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Please, but –’ For a moment they looked at each other. Martyn wondered if she imagined that Poole’s head moved in the faintest possible negative. ‘Yes,’ Helena said, ‘very plainly, please.’
‘Well, then,’ Poole said, ‘we know that for the last year Ben, never a very temperate man, has been a desperately intemperate one. We know his habits undermined his health, his character and his integrity as an actor. I think he realized this very thoroughly. He was an unhappy man who looked back at what he had once been and was appalled. We all know he did things in performance tonight that, from an actor of his standing, were quite beyond the pale.’
Parry Percival ejaculated: ‘Well, I mean to say – oh, well. Never mind.’
‘Exactly,’ Poole said. ‘He had reached a sort of chronic state of instability. We all know he was subject to fits of depression. I believe he did what he did when he was at a low ebb. I believe he would have done it sooner or later by one means or another. And, in my view for what it’s worth, that’s the whole story. Tragic enough, God knows, but, in its tragedy, simple. I don’t know if you agree.’
Darcey said: ‘If there’s nothing else, I mean,’ he said diffidently, glancing at Helena, ‘if nothing has happened that would seem like a further motive.’
Helena’s gaze rested for a moment on Poole and then on Darcey. ‘I think Adam’s right,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid he was appalled by a sudden realization of himself. I’m afraid he was insufferably lonely.’
‘Oh, my God!’ Gay ejaculated and having by this means collected their unwilling attention, she added: ‘I shall never forgive myself: never.’
Dr Rutherford groaned loudly.
‘I failed him,’ Gay announced. ‘I was a bitter, bitter disappointment to him. I dare say I turned the scale.’
‘Now in the name of all the gods at once,’ Dr Rutherford began and was brought to a stop by the entry of Clem Smith.
Clem looked uneasily at Helena Hamilton and said: ‘They’re in the dressing-room. He says they won’t keep you waiting much longer.’
‘It’s
