Free Death on the Air by Ngaio Marsh Page B

taking the air with a member of stage staff, moved forward, peering at the stranger.
    â€˜Was you wanting something?’
    â€˜I’m taking this case in for Mr Gill.’
    â€˜He’s in front. You can leave it with me.’
    â€˜I’m so sorry,’ said the voice behind the beard, ‘but I promised I’d leave it backstage myself’
    â€˜So you will be leaving it. Sorry, sir, but no one’s admitted be’ind without a card.’
    â€˜A card? Very well. Here is a card.’
    He held it out in his black-gloved hand. The stage door-keeper, unwillingly removing his gaze from the beard, took the card and examined it under the light. ‘Coo!’ he said, ‘what’s up, governor?’
    â€˜No matter. Say nothing of this.’
    The figure waved its hand and passed through the door.
    â€˜â€™Ere!’ said the doorkeeper excitedly to the stage hand, ‘take a slant at this. That’s a plainclothes flattie, that was.’
    â€˜
Plain
clothes!’ said the stage hand. ‘Them!’
    â€˜â€™E’s disguised,’ said the doorkeeper. ‘That’s what it is. ’E’s disguised ’isself.’
    â€˜â€™E’s bloody well lorst ’isself be’ind them whiskers if you arst me.’
    Out on the stage someone was saying in a pitched and beautifully articulate voice: ‘
I’ve always loathed the view from these windows. However if that’s the sort of thing you admire. Turn off the lights, damn you. Look at it
.’
    â€˜Watch it, now, watch it,’ whispered a voice so close to Mike that he jumped.
    â€˜OK,’ said a second voice somewhere above his head. The lights on the set turned blue.
    â€˜Kill that working light.’
    â€˜Working light gone.’
    Curtains in the set were wrenched aside and a window flung open. An actor appeared, leaning out quite close to Mike, seeming to look into his face and saying very distinctly: ‘God: it’s frightful!’ Mike backed away towards a passage, lit only from an open door. A great volume of sound broke out beyond the stage. ‘House lights,’ said the sharp voice. Mike turned into the passage. As he did so, someone came through the door. He found himself face to face with Coralie Bourne, beautifully dressed and heavily painted.
    For a moment she stood quite still; then she made a curious gesture with her right hand, gave a small breathy sound and fell forward at his feet.
    Anthony was tearing his programme into long strips and dropping them on the floor of the OP box. On his right hand, above and below, was the audience; sometimes laughing, sometimes still, sometimes as one corporate being, raising its hands and striking them together. As now; when down on the stage, Canning Cumberland, using a strange voice, and inspired by some inward devil, flung back the window and said: ‘God: it’s frightful!’
    â€˜Wrong! Wrong!’ Anthony cried inwardly, hating Cumberland, hating Barry George because he let one speech of three words override him, hating the audience because they liked it.The curtain descended with a long sigh on the second act and a sound like heavy rain filled the theatre, swelled prodigiously and continued after the house lights welled up.
    â€˜They seem,’ said a voice behind him, ‘to be liking your play.’
    It was Gosset, who owned the Jupiter and had backed the show. Anthony turned on him stammering: ‘He’s destroying it. It should be the other man’s scene. He’s stealing.’
    â€˜My boy,’ said Gosset, ‘he’s an actor.’
    â€˜He’s drunk. It’s intolerable.’
    He felt Gosset’s hand on his shoulder.
    â€˜People are watching us. You’re on show. This is a big thing for you; a first play, and going enormously. Come and have a drink, old boy. I want to introduce you—’
    Anthony got up and Gosset, with his arm across his shoulders,