Death in the Round Read online

  TWO

  All rail journeys to Dearehaven are divided into three unequal parts. They begin with the long haul to Dorchester, followed by a wait of at least forty minutes, and ending with the slow, meandering trundle along the branch line to the coast. The last part is made even more uncomfortable by every seat being so positioned that the passenger has to sit with his back to the engine. This is not my favourite way of viewing the countryside, but I was sustained through my first experience of it by the reflection that what goes back must come forward and that, in the nature of things, we should all be facing the right way round on the return journey. However, this proved not to be the case and I was driven to the conclusion that the inhabitants of that part of Dorset, who differ from the rest of mankind in a number of ways, actually prefer to travel backwards and that British Rail are therefore compelled to go to a vast amount of time and trouble to shunt things around at each terminal, which could presumably also account for the forty minute wait.

  However, I was shielded from all this on my first visit because on that occasion Len Johnson came to meet me at Dorchester Station and drove me the remaining eighteen miles in his Mini Clubman car.

  Although this was our first meeting, I had heard something of Len, who turned out to be a rather nervous and self-conscious young man, with untidy brown hair and a bony, hungry-looking face, which flushed very easily, sometimes bringing tears to his eyes. He also had a somewhat abrasive manner, not rude or offhand, but a shade too head tossing and defensive for comfort. Another immediately noticeable thing about him was his accent, which fell somewhere between cockney and north country, but with overtones of pure King’s Road. I guessed that he had started out with one, adopted another and had not yet got the mixture right.

  This was his first season at Dearehaven, where he had been taken on at the express request of the Rotunda’s leading light, James Crowther, who had seen some of his work in experimental theatres outside London. It was an unusual background for a director of the kind of light-weight, conventional comedies which Jamie wrote, but apparently Elfrieda had been equally enthusiastic. He had been engaged for the whole season and would also direct two other plays in the repertory.

  The regular season ran from 5th April until the end of October, the programme changing each month, with one production being dropped to make way for a new one. Early in November rehearsals started for the Christmas pantomime, which ran for six weeks, and there then followed a fallow period in which the theatre was closed for re-decoration and plans laid for the spring and summer.

  Much of this I had either known already or could have guessed, but it did not occur to me to point this out because no one likes to be interrupted while eulogising the object of his loyalty and devotion, and it had soon become abundantly clear that Len had been infected by Elfrieda’s single-minded dedication to the Rotunda. In fact, the main impression I gained was that joining this company would be more like entering a religious order than spending a few months in provincial rep.

  On the other hand, this devotion to the cause had already brought me one bonus because, when the moment did come for me to speak and I started to thank him for coming all the way to meet me, he made it clear that it was not my convenience which had motivated him. He explained that he had intended, anyway, to drive over to Dorchester that morning, to look at a secondhand car which Elfrieda had seen advertised in the Dearehaven Mercury.

  ‘Looks like a dud, though,’ he added in grave tones, more appropriate to breaking the news that Big Ben had developed a crack down the middle and was in danger of falling over backwards.

  He did not explain why an elderly woman of means should interest herself in dubious second-hand cars and it was not for me to enquire, so instead I asked him a few questions about the rest of the cast and the designer.

  ‘Kyril Jones,’ he said in reply to the last one, ‘and he’s another reason why I wanted to come to Dorchester this morning. He’s got his eye on some bits and pieces in an old junk shop he thinks might do for the set and he asked me to take a look at them. You know him, do you?’

  ‘Oh yes, awfully nice man. His mother was a Russian countess or something.’

  ‘Oh, was she? And, in your view, is that what makes him awfully nice?’

  ‘Goodness, no; although it does set him apart, I think, in his own view, anyway. I admire his work tremendously, but he has such a mumbly way of talking that I often find myself losing the thread.’

  ‘He has no trouble making himself understood when he needs to,’ Len said.

  ‘Oh, sure! And very successful too, isn’t he? It’s rather surprising, in a way . . .’

  ‘That he should be working in a back of beyond place like this, you were going to say?’

  ‘Not at all. I was only thinking that most designers are so awfully definite about what they want and what they don’t. It just came as a surprise that he should need advice about furniture.’

  ‘He doesn’t need it, but that’s the way we do things here. We work as a team, not as individuals each doing our separate thing. And nobody pulls any rank either. As you’ll find out.’

  The last words sounded almost like a threat and, puzzled as well as deflated, I remained silent.

  ‘Where shall I drop you?’ he asked, as we reached the crest of a hill a few miles outside Dearehaven and caught a glimpse of the sparkling bay in the distance.

  ‘I’ve booked a room at the Green Man. As it’s only for one night,’ I hastened to explain, realising that he had already managed to put me on the defensive. This time, however, his response was the exact opposite of what I had expected.

  ‘Clever thinking!’

  ‘It’s as good as they say, is it?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t know about that. Not in my class, I’m afraid, and I tend to become slightly revolted by the sight of a lot of rich people guzzling themselves stupid and then arguing with the waiter about the bill.’

  I was trying to remember the last time I had heard someone arguing with a waiter about anything at all, when he added:

  ‘More to the point, it’s only five minutes’ walk from the theatre. Which reminds me: Elfrieda would like to see you for a preliminary chat around twelve, if you can make it. After which, you’ll get a chance to meet the rest of them at lunch.’

  ‘The whole company?’

  ‘Plus one extra. Don’t look so worried, it’s desperately informal. Elfrieda provides what she rather charmingly calls a cold collation in her office on working days. There’s absolutely no rule about it, but everyone’s welcome and they mostly turn up.’

  ‘On the stage?’

  ‘No, in her office. And an office like no other, I might add.’

  ‘It must be, if it can accommodate that number. And who’s the mysterious extra?’

  ‘An eighteen-year-old retired juvenile delinquent, named Melanie.’

  ‘Rather young for retirement?’

  ‘Perhaps I should say reformed. That remains to be seen, but she is certainly managing to keep out of trouble at present.’

  ‘How does she come to be mixed up with the Rotunda?’

  ‘Mixed up hardly describes it. Elfrieda has adopted her.’

  ‘Really? Whatever for?’

  ‘Not legally, I should add. She’s past the age for that, but she’s out on probation and Elfrieda has badgered the authorities into allowing Melanie to live with her and be responsible for her good behaviour and so forth.’

  ‘Is she given to this kind of philanthropy?’

  ‘No, this is an entirely new departure. I need hardly tell you that she’s deeply involved with every worthwhile charity in the neighbourhood, including the orphanage where Melanie was brought up, but up till now only from a distance.’

  ‘So what’s special about Melanie?’

  ‘Oh, she’s a character all right. Not to everyone’s taste, but I’ll leave you to make your own judgement about that. The general opinion is that the most exceptional thing about her is the way she’s managed to con
Elfrieda.’

  ‘How was it done?’

  ‘Believe it or not, her first coup was to turn up in a laundry basket.’

  ‘I do find it practically unbelievable. How did she manage to do that?’

  ‘Careful calculation, in the view of some people, but I’ll give you the story straight. She was on the run from her remand home and found herself outside the theatre just as they were coming out. She’s more than slightly stage struck and having kept a special place in her heart for the Rotunda ever since she was taken there as a child to see the pantomime, she had an impulse to nip inside and see what it looked like when the audience had gone home. It’s not entirely improbable. You can walk straight on to the stage from the front rows and that’s apparently what she did, and got so carried away that she forgot the time. To cut a long story short, she eventually found herself locked in. So, faced with finding somewhere to doss down for the night, she finally made her way to the wardrobe, where she was found fast asleep the next morning. It could all be perfectly true, of course.’

  ‘But what’s all this about a remand home? I thought you said she came from an orphanage?’

  ‘Oh yes, indeed, but that was some way back. She ran away from there when she was about fifteen, I gather, and has been in and out of remand homes ever since. In fact, she really has a terrifying record, poor kid, including an illegitimate somewhere along the way, so I’m told. However, she seems to have landed on her feet this time and, if she plays it right, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t stay on them.’

  We had reached the main street of Dearehaven by this time, a characterless, modern shopping centre, in complete contrast to the early Victorian residential outskirts and when I remarked on this, Len said bitterly:

  ‘Oh yes, the capitalist speculators have done their best to ruin the place. It used to have a lot of charm in the old days.’

  ‘Did you know it then?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ he said, sounding as though he found the question offensive and adding immediately afterwards: ‘Here’s your Green Man and, when you’re ready to leave, go straight down to the end of this road and you’ll come to the Esplanade. Turn right and the theatre’s just two minutes away.’

  ‘Thank you, and thanks again for the lift.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. And you’ll be along in what? Half an hour?’

  ‘Oh, sooner than that. Twenty minutes at the outside.’

  ‘Good! Splendid!’ he said, smiling for the first time.

  THREE

  Predictably enough, the Rotunda Theatre proved to be a circular building with a domed roof and the stage was also in the round, exits and entrances being made by means of ramps at each point of the compass and descending to basement level.

  Surrounding it was a steeply raked auditorium holding approximately three hundred people. It was claimed, correctly I believe, that it was possible to see equally well from every seat in the house, so they were unnumbered and all the same price. It was first come first served, thus dispensing with argument or confusion and saving countless man hours for the front-of-house staff.

  On the outer perimeter there was another circle, in the form of a wide passage, with bars and cloakrooms set into the back section of it, like jewels on a hooped ring, each with a curved rear wall.

  The same motif extended to the outside as well, the building being contained in a small circular walled garden, to which the audience had access before and during performances, and the final touch of rotundity was the office of the Chief Administrator and Licensee, Miss Elfrieda Henshaw. This was situated at the very top of the building, inside the dome, and was approached by a long, winding ramp, somewhat reminiscent of a multi-storey car park.

  ‘No lift, I’m afraid,’ Len explained, evidently slightly amused by my rapidly wilting stamina, as we plodded onward and upward. ‘There was some engineering problem, I gather. You’ll soon get used to it, though. Find yourself skipping up here like a mountain goat in no time.’

  ‘Oh, sure! Doesn’t Miss Henshaw find it slightly inconvenient, though?’

  ‘You’re joking! She’s the only one of us who’s not inconvenienced in the least.’

  I could only conclude that her living quarters, as well as her office, were housed in this eyrie, but this was only half true. One important fact, which no one had told me, was that Elfrieda suffered from chronic and crippling arthritis and was virtually confined to a wheelchair. Furthermore, it was a highly stream-lined machine, custom built and with a kind of outboard motor attached to it, enabling her to scale the heights as easily as she could coast down the slopes.

  Being thus equipped gave her a great edge over the people who worked for her, newcomers in particular, for there was no denying that one felt at a distinct psychological disadvantage in having to stagger into her office more or less in the condition of a hundred metre runner who has just breasted the tape.

  However, she did unquestionably suffer a good deal of pain, as was evinced by her habit of tightening her lips and frequently placing a hand up to shield her eyes, as well as by the deep lines which grooved her face from her nose to the corners of her mouth.

  Without them, she would undoubtedly have been one of the handsomest women ever to go spinning down a ramp in a wheelchair, instead of merely distinguished looking, in a stern and arid kind of way, and I wondered that she should have acquired the reputation of being so plain.

  Perhaps the answer was that she had been born at the wrong period, in the wrong place and that in her youth the arbiters of Dearehaven taste had considered tall women with strong features and noble brows to be sadly out of style. So, perhaps in a spirit of defiance, it seemed as though she had gone all out to emphasise her plainness, wearing no make-up, cropping her coarse grey hair with the kitchen scissors, by the look of it, and dressing in clothes which did less than nothing to soften her thin and angular figure. Her complexion was only a shade less grey than her hair, her eyes a pale grey-blue and she looked more like a weary abbot than a female impresario.

  Her manner was also rather gauche and she had no aptitude for social chit-chat, her conversation starting off with a few abrupt enquiries about my journey, interspersed with painful silences. This made me nervous, too, and I heard myself yapping on about the magnificence of the room, although, in truth, I was not all that much impressed. It was sparsely and plainly furnished, without flowers, books or ornament of any kind, and the only light coming from the circular skylight in the domed ceiling.

  However, it had come as something of a relief to discover that it was not, after all, a perfect circle. It was more the shape of an orange which had one third of it sliced off, having three curved walls and one straight one, facing the door and desk. I was subsequently to learn that when the building had been constructed as a museum and aquarium this dome had housed the library and a special collection of model sailing ships. There had then been two partition walls, dividing the whole into three equal sections. One of them had been left intact during the conversion, in order to provide Elfrieda with her own tiny bedroom and bathroom, so that on first nights and other gala occasions, she could rest and change without leaving the premises.

  Fortunately, her uneasiness evaporated as soon as she felt the conventional preliminaries had been adequately dealt with and we had turned to the subject of the play. She then became refreshingly forthright and practical, easily carrying Len along in all her suggestions and comments. Although I felt she was probably right in most of them, it struck me that James Crowther must be a dramatist like no other to leave so many decisions in their hands.

  The discussion had lasted for about twenty minutes when Kyril Jones sidled into the room and stood just inside the door, regarding us with a faintly puzzled expression. This was typical behaviour, for I had never seen him when he did not appear to be in a state of disorientation, an impression which was accentuated by his trick of travelling in a vaguely sideways direction, although this may have been an optical illusion, due to one shoulder being hunch
ed a little higher and further forward than the other.

  Despite his undistinguished surname, he was a great snob and extremely vain about his noble birth and grand connections, being related, on his mother’s side, to practically every living member of the Russian aristocracy and having hosts of princely cousins in Paris, New York and the Earls Court Road. He was also authentically Russian in being extremely inquisitive and opinionated.

  The noble blood was always meticulously reflected in his manners and, having advanced further into the room, he bent low over Elfrieda’s hand, raising it in a courtly fashion to within an inch of his nose, and was on the point of extending the same treatment to me when, the gesture having brought his face near enough to mine for it to be recognisable, he dropped the old world continental pose and went into paroxysms of silent, shuddering laughter, before patting me gently on the head.

  ‘So Kyril has brought our conference to an end,’ Elfrieda remarked in a dry, though not ill-humoured tone, ‘but I daresay that we have covered all the important points that need to be dealt with at this stage. How about you, Miss Crichton? No worries?’

  ‘None whatever, thank you.’

  Looking transparently contrite, Kyril said: ‘Oh, but I have interrupted you! How rude and *maladroit! Forgive me, I beg! I shall go and wait outside until all this is finished. It is twelve-thirty, I think?’ he added in a dreamy voice.

  ‘Very nearly,’ Elfrieda agreed, glancing at the plain and functional wall clock, which registered twenty-nine minutes past the hour. ‘So please stay, Kyril, and let us all have something to eat. I am sure Miss Crichton must be starving.’

  This at least was true and I had been speculating from time to time about the contents of various urns and plastic containers which were set out on a table against the partition wall, although even more about the means by which they had arrived there.