Swan Song by Edmund Crispin Read Free Book Online Page B

‘is Elizabeth Harding, who writes books about crime.’
    â€˜Ah,’ said Sir Richard. ‘Nasty subject,’ he added rather offensively. ‘Yes, of course. By all means. Delighted to meet her.’
    â€˜I rather think she wants to interview you, Gervase,’ Adam continued. ‘She’s doing a series on famous detectives for one of the papers.’
    â€˜
Famous detectives
,’ said Fen with great complacency. ‘Oh, my dear paws. You hear that, Dick?’ he went on, banging the Chief Constable suddenly on the chest to make sure of his attention. ‘
Famous detectives
.’
    â€˜Celebrated imbeciles,’ said Sir Richard crossly. ‘Ugh.’
    â€˜Anyway,’ Adam put in, ‘here we are.’
    Crossing the entrance to St John Street, they arrived at the opera-house, and made their way, Fen grumbling in quite a distressing way about the cold, to the stage-door, which they found guarded by a constable. Nearby, a small group of seedy-looking men with instrument cases, their coat collars turned up against the biting wind and their fingers blue and numb, were conversing with a female harpist.
    â€˜Morning, Mr Langley,’ said one of them. ‘Queer business, isn’t it? Shall we be getting a rehearsal, do you imagine?’
    â€˜Not until the afternoon, anyway,’ Adam returned. ‘It depends on the police, I should say.’
    â€˜They won’t cancel the production, will they?’
    â€˜No surely not. We’ll get a new Sachs. But it’ll probably mean postponing the first show.’
    â€˜Well, I’m for the boozer,’ said the oboist. ‘Coming, anyone?’
    The constable saluted Sir Richard Freeman. He saluted Fen, more dubiously. He did not salute Adam at all. They went inside.
    The stage-door led into a small stone vestibule, from which flights of stairs ran up and down. There was a kind of cavity, furnished with a few elementary comforts, where in the daytime the stage-doorkeeper lived, moved, and had his being, but this was at present empty.They pushed through a padded swing-door into the wings. Semi-darkness greeted them. Moving cautiously among ropes, floodlamps, and scenery poised precariously against the walls, they came within earshot, and soon within sight, of some kind of altercation which was in progress on the stage.
    Beneath a single working lamp, high up among the battens, stood Elizabeth and an Inspector of police, both of them very angry indeed. Dimly in the background there were other forms hovering, like wraiths on the threshold of limbo, but these two appeared to be the centre of such activity as was going forward at the moment. The Inspector of police was small, wizened, and malevolent in appearance; and Elizabeth was standing with her hands on her hips, glowering at him.
    â€˜You are an intolerable, pompous ass,’ she was informing him in measured, judicial tones. ‘A jack-in-office. A nincompoop. A giddy-brained pigeon.’
    â€˜Listen to me,’ said the Inspector with theatrical restraint. ‘Just you listen to me. I’ve had quite enough of you. You’ve no right to be here, young woman. And if you don’t get out – now:
instantly
– I shall charge you with obstructing me in the performance of my duties.’
    â€˜I’d like to see you try,’ Elizabeth replied, in a voice of such intense malignancy that even Fen was startled. She swung round to face the newcomers. ‘And if you think –’ She broke off, and her face suddenly brightened. ‘Adam!’
    â€˜Darling, are you being a nuisance?’ Adam asked. ‘I want you to meet Sir Richard Freeman, the Chief Constable, and Gervase Fen. Elizabeth, my wife.’
    â€˜Pleasure,’ said Sir Richard with manly gruffness. ‘It’s all right, Mudge,’ he added to the enraged Inspector.
    â€˜As you say, sir,’ Mudge answered. ‘As you say, of course. As you