Free The Serpent's Sting by Robert Gott Page A

that suave, conservative exterior there’s a ruthless man, and you should be careful. If he can kill the mother of his children, I don’t think he’d have too many qualms about disposing of you.’
    â€˜You’ve already decided that John Gilbert is telling the truth, haven’t you?’
    â€˜No I haven’t, Brian. All my instincts tell me that he’s either deluded or lying. My problem is that I’ve lost confidence in my instincts.’
    â€˜Suppose I agree to look into it. Will you help me? Where do I start?’
    â€˜You should start with John Gilbert. I have his telephone number. We’ll both go to see him tomorrow, after the show. You’ll have to forego the Tivoli horror. I won’t tell him you’re coming.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜Let’s not scare him off before we even get started. If he thinks it’s just me, he’ll agree to a meeting without a problem. I’ll insist that I need to see the room where Mrs Gilbert died. I want to meet him in situ , as it were. We need to get some sense of Mrs Gilbert. You need to know the victim if you’re going to find the killer. I already know that Peter and she slept in different bedrooms.’
    Brian seemed impressed that I was privy to this intimate detail, and I didn’t reveal that Peter Gilbert had revealed it without embarrassment or prompting.
    â€˜When I was talking to John Gilbert,’ I said, ‘I got the distinct impression that his relationship with his sister is fraught.’
    â€˜I think you might be better at this inquiry stuff than you say you are, Will.’
    I accepted this praise with a small nod of the head.
    â€˜And one last thing, Brian. There are enormous gaps in our knowledge of Peter Gilbert’s life.’
    â€˜Of course. He was here on and off for years, but he rarely stayed the night until recently.’
    â€˜When I saw him in the garden this morning, he said something to me that might have been no more than a throwaway line. In the light of his son’s accusation, it might be more sinister.’
    I paused for effect.
    â€˜Go on, what did he say?’
    â€˜He said that when I revealed Fulton’s existence, he could have killed me.’

    The performance of Mother Goose on the following day, Monday 21 December, was a good one, and I was pleased that Brian was in the audience to see it. The only disappointment was that Geraldine hadn’t returned from Puckapunyal to play the Fairy. Sophie, her understudy, was barely adequate. There was an amateur edge to her playing, and the crisp and rounded vowels weren’t yet effortless; half her mind was given over to putting into practice lessons learned in elocution. At interval she had the temerity to tell me that I was acting too broadly and that I was diminishing her more nuanced reading. As she was speaking to me in the wings, a little grimace of distaste crossed her undeniably pretty face.
    A person with a more fragile ego than my own might have been wounded. I was, however, well used to the neuroses of actors and actresses, and recognised in her complaint that she was simply giving expression to the threat posed by one actor to another. It was the threat of a competing talent. Crouched in the psyche of all actors and actresses is a hungry demon who feeds on the insecurities of its host. Unusually, Percy Wavel had left his barstool and was standing nearby when Sophie explained my shortcomings to me. He didn’t leap to my defence. All he offered was a smirk.
    I changed as quickly as I could, and congratulated Roger Teddles, who’d re-assumed the part of the Maid. Unlike Geraldine’s understudy, Roger was gracious. If anything might be said against him, it was that his personal hygiene could have been taken up several notches. He was immune to the blandishments in the newspapers for Pyrex Tooth Powder, Mennen Talc, and Guardian Medicated Soap. His resistance to this last was