The Strangling on the Stage by Simon Brett

Author:Simon Brett
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789085241522
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2012-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

“Is that Jude Nichol?”

She was surprised. So few people ever referred to her by anything other than her first name. It was only on official documentation that she used the surname she had gained from her second marriage.

“Yes,” she replied cautiously.

“It’s Detective Inspector Tull,” said the voice from the other end of the phone. “You remember you gave a statement to me and one of my colleagues after the death of Mr Ritchie Good.”

“Yes, of course I remember.”

“And I said then that I might be in touch with you again in connection with our enquiries.”

“Yes.”

“So here I am, being in touch,” he said with some levity in his voice.

“Right, Inspector. What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to check a couple of details that you put in your statement.”

“Fine. Fire away.” But Jude felt a small pang of panic. She had withheld from the police what Hester Winstone had said to her in the Green Room that Sunday night. Maybe, when interviewed, Hester herself had mentioned it and Inspector Tull was about to expose Jude’s lie.

“We’ve now spoken to all of the people who attended the rehearsal that afternoon,” the Inspector began smoothly, “and they all seem to tell more or less the same story.”

“That’s not surprising, is it?”

“Not necessarily, no. And the sequence of events that everyone agrees on is that before the demonstration of his gallows, Gordon Blaine was holding a real noose as opposed to the fake one. Would you go along with that, Mrs Nichol?”

“Please just call me Jude.”

“Very well, Jude.”

“Yes, I would go along with that.”

“Thank you. And then when the stage curtains were drawn back to reveal Mr Good, he had the fake noose around his neck…?”

“Yes.”

“And he was standing on the wooden cart, which Gordon Blaine moved away so that it no longer supported him…?”

“Exactly. And Ritchie then grabbed the noose so that the Velcro didn’t give way immediately, and he did a bit of play-acting, as if he was actually being hanged.”

“‘Play-acting’?”

“Yes, playing to the gallery, showing off.”

“And to do that would have been in character for Mr Good?”

“Completely.”

“So, after the demonstration, everyone went off to the Cricketers pub opposite St Mary’s Hall…?”

“Yes, I’m honestly not certain whether everyone went, but most people certainly.”

“And within half an hour you went back to the hall and found Mr Good dead, hanging from the gallows with the real noose round his neck…?”

“As I said in my statement, yes.”

“Yes. So within that half-hour – or however long it was exactly – someone substituted the real noose for the fake one…?”

“They must have done.”

“Mm.” The Inspector was silent for a moment. “When you went to the Cricketers pub that evening, did you notice any members of the group missing? Or did you see anyone leaving the pub to go back to the hall?”

“I wasn’t aware of anyone missing or anyone leaving, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. You know, I was just having a drink with a bunch of people. I wasn’t expecting ever to be cross-examined on the precise events of the evening.

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