A Dark Coffin. Gwendoline Butler
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of Jolie Madame. ‘Evening, Miss Pinero.’
* * *
They were late to the theatre. ‘Excuse me,’ said Harry, disappearing. ‘Won’t be a minute.’
Stella and Coffin waited. Weak bladder, Stella thought. She had a performer’s bladder herself and felt no discomfort till the show was over.
Harry returned with an apology – ‘Sorry’ – and followed Stella as she led the way to their seats and although Harry Trent looked around him, he didn’t see the Macintoshes.
‘Already in their seats.’ Stella led the way to the special house seats always reserved for her and her friends.
The young and ambitious producer, Monty Roland, had decided to make his mark on the world with this production: there would be no interval (something no management liked because it cut down bar profits, but he was too young to think this mattered or was any concern of his), it would break the mood, but the pace would be fast and there would be a party afterwards.
For celebrities, critics and his friends.
Harry was looking around him as they settled in their seats, but the lights were already being lowered, slowly shade by shade, so that people seemed to recede into the shadows. ‘Can’t see them, can’t see into the box.’
‘Perhaps they are in the other box, on the prompt side.’
Harry did not know which was the prompt side, but he could see into one of the boxes which was full of teenagers. ‘No, I can see into that one, and it’s not them. Their grandchildren maybe, if they have any.’
The other box was very dark, but there might be two figures sitting there. Yes, there were, you could just make out the shapes. Harry relaxed a little.
‘Oh, grandchildren, had they, do you think?’ Stella was always interested in personal details, it was one of the things that made her a good actress, because she carried within herself a compendium of people’s behaviour, their relationships, desires, ambitions, loves and hatreds. She had this reservoir to call upon when required to build a part.
‘I believe there’s a daughter.’
Stella was clearly about to ask about the daughter, but all the lights went out, and heavy, complete darkness descended upon the theatre.
It lasted for a long moment, then a distant thunder of artillery fire.
Then silent darkness again and the Last Post sounded.
The curtain went up on a trench in Flanders, World War One.
‘I don’t know anything about that, she may be dead,’ said Harry hastily to get his word in before the action started on stage. He looked at his programme and fidgeted a little while Stella smiled at her neighbour on the other side, an actor she knew and had played with but who was currently out of work.
Harry turned to Coffin. In a low, uneasy voice, he said: ‘I feel as though my brother is here. I can sense him.’
‘Oh, come on. You always were one for a bit of a rigmarole, Harry. I remember when we worked together and I used to enjoy it. But now … look around. Can you see him?’
‘I don’t need to see him,’ muttered Harry as the actors began to speak.
Coffin did his best to attend to the performance, it was a duty that Stella expected of her spouse, but his attention kept wandering. He found he enjoyed the extract from Journey’s End more than he expected but after that he went back into his own thoughts.
No interval, unluckily, but he would telephone to find out how the girl was holding up the minute the show ended. If there was any trouble on the streets the message would get to him anyway. He had left instructions on that score.
As the curtain came down to enthusiastic applause from the audience, which Monty had carefully packed with friends and relations, Stella leaned across to Harry. ‘Wasn’t bad, was it? I think Monty might develop very nicely. He’s a bit mannered now, of course.’
‘You mean the soldiers in underpants?’ said Coffin.
‘That was just to show they were dead, Monty wanted shrouds or naked, but I said not.’
‘I think you were right.’
Stella ignored this. ‘Harry, Monty’s having a party backstage to celebrate, we must all go. You’ll enjoy it.’
But Harry had his eye on the box in which he could see two figures still sitting.
‘I want to see the Macintoshes first.’
Coffin said that he would come too, he would take the chance to see if there were any messages for him. No riot tonight, or he would have been plucked from his seat already.
Stella was moving ahead out of their seats and down the aisle, greeting people as she passed. ‘See you at the party, then.’
Coffin and Harry together made their way to the back of the box. There was no door as such, but a low balustrade which opened.
Two figures were there, in their seats, but one lolled against the other whose head was flung back.
Coffin stopped and put his arm on Harry to hold him back. ‘Wait … something wrong here.’ He went through into the box, and looked down upon Joe and Josie Macintosh.
Joe stared back with open, sightless eyes. He was quietly dead.
The movement of air caused a small piece of paper to flutter to the ground. Coffin bent down to pick it up.
Coffin wondered what it was, but at that moment he did not realize it had two functions.
One was: a message from Hyde out of Jekyll. Hyde was out and walking round and Jekyll did not yet know.
Not for sure, that is, but Jekyll had suspicions that the enemy was loose.
Coffin held the piece of paper in his hand; he had picked it up carefully using a folded envelope from his pocket as a kind of pincer. Such behaviour was automatic with him. Fingerprints, they might be important, you never knew. He hardly thought about it, just did it, always the policeman.
It was a sheet of writing paper, a little dirty, almost as if someone had trodden on it. One corner was bent over. Several lines of writing in pale ink were to be seen.
He glanced at it quickly. ‘It looks like a suicide note.’ He did not hand it over to Harry who had pressed into the box by his side, and was staring down at the two figures. There was not much room but the low door had been pushed apart so Harry could get in. Behind him a small, interested crowd of theatregoers was gathering.
Coffin waved them back. ‘Go away, please, just leave, there has been a death here.’
He turned to Harry. ‘You stay here and keep people out while I get things moving …’ He moved away quickly, pushing the small crowd in front of him. Alfreda had appeared, together with Barney, she gave Harry a quick look, Coffin motioned her to follow him, talking rapidly as they went, explaining what he wanted her to do: clear the area as quietly as possible, keep the audience there if she could but if not get the names and addresses of people as they left, but to hang on to all those with seats near the box. And the performers and theatre staff must stay, of course. Yes, he said, it appeared to be a suicide pact but they must make sure.
‘I understand.’ Alfreda nodded, Barney, full name Barnabas, only used when he was in disgrace, stood by her side, wide-eyed and interested; he had never seen death before and now he was getting a double dose. He found it absorbing, worth observing, almost like a show. One of the bodies, Joe it was, leant against the other as if asleep, while Josie, he thought it was Josie but oddly he got them mixed sometimes, lay with her