‘No-o-o,’ said Trubshawe. ‘But then, of course, I was sitting in the very first row. I couldn’t really see how they were taking it.
‘Anyway,’ he added in a conciliatory tone, ‘no harm done. It was hilariously funny. And, as you say, it was in a Good Cause. And, after all, I am only an ex-policeman. I couldn’t have taken official action even if I’d wanted to.’
The next several minutes saw them occupied perusing the menu. When their choices had been made and their orders taken, the subject turned at last to the bad news of which Evadne Mount had already advised the Chief-Inspector.
‘I say, Cora …’ she began hesitantly.
Cora was instantly aware of the change in her friend’s voice.
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Well … I heard some news – bad news, seriously bad news – just five minutes or so before curtain-up. You’ll forgive me, I know, but I felt I had to hold it back until after you’d done your turn.’
‘All right,’ said Cora bluntly, ‘I’ve done my turn. Out with it.’
‘It’s Farjeon.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m afraid he –’ she sought to cushion the blow – ‘I’m afraid he’s joined the Great Majority.’
‘What!’ cried Cora. ‘You mean he’s gone to Hollywood?’
Evadne wriggled in a paroxysm of embarrassment.
‘No, no, dear. Do try to concentrate. What I mean,’ she frowned gravely, ‘what I mean is that he’s dead.’
‘Dead?! Alastair Farjeon?’
‘Yes, I fear so. The stage manager heard the news on the wireless and told me, as I say, just five minutes before you were due to make your entrance.’
It came again, like a belated echo:
‘Dead!’
Horror and incredulity battled it out for supremacy on Cora’s features.
‘Good God! Farjeon dead! A heart attack, I suppose?’
‘No. I understand why you might think so. As a matter of fact, though, it wasn’t a heart attack. It was something much, much worse.’
There was a momentary pause during which neither spoke.
‘Well?’ Cora eventually said.
‘Well …’
‘Oh, do get on, Evie, for Christ’s sake! By dragging it out like this, you’re only making it a thousand times worse.’
‘Well, as you know – as I’m sure you know – Farjeon owned a villa near Cookham – you did know that, didn’t you? – I’ve heard it was the last word in gracious living – he used to host lots of weekend parties there – were you ever invited?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Cora nodded impatiently.
‘Well, it seems there was the most ghastly fire in that villa of his and he himself was burnt to death.’
‘Oh my Lord, how perfectly awful! Was he alone, do you know?’
‘Absolutely no idea. All I know are the basic facts. None of the details. It happened this afternoon – late this afternoon.’
Trubshawe intervened for the first time.
‘Apologies for butting in. This has obviously been a terrific blow to both of you. But would you mind if I asked who exactly you’re talking about?’
Cora stared at him.
‘Don’t tell me you don’t know who Alastair Farjeon is?’
‘Well, no, I can’t say I do.’
‘Cora, love,’ the novelist gently broke in before her friend could air her astonishment at the policeman’s ignorance. ‘You forget. Not everybody’s horizons are bounded by Wardour Street at one end and Shaftesbury Avenue at the other. You lot who work in the show business often forget how very distant that world is from most people’s ordinary day-to-day preoccupations.’
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. Right as usual, darling,’ Cora replied contritely.
She turned again to Trubshawe.
‘Mea culpa, my dear. I was just so surprised that you’d never heard of Farje – I mean, Farjeon. I quite took it for granted that everyone knew the name, because he’s simply – he was simply,’ she corrected herself – ‘the most brilliantly creative artist we’ve ever had in the British film industry.’
‘I don’t get to the Pictures too often,’ the Chief-Inspector apologised. ‘This Farjeon, he was what you call a film producer, is that it?’
‘No, he was a film director, and please’ – here she raised the palm of her right hand in front of his face to prevent him from posing what she knew would be his next question (it was a ploy he recalled having seen before but, since on that occasion the hand had been Evadne Mount’s, the actress must have picked it up from the novelist or possibly vice-versa) – ‘please don’t ask me what the difference is between a producer and a director. If I had a silver guinea for the number of times I’ve had that question put to me, I could retire on the spot. Just take my word for it, dearie, there is one.’
‘And now he’s dead. Such a tragic death, too,’ said Trubshawe. ‘I’m truly sorry. He was a close friend of yours, I gather?’
‘Close friend?’ Cora ejaculated. ‘Close friend?? That’s a good one.’
‘Beg pardon?’
‘I couldn’t stand Alastair Farjeon. No one could.’
The Chief-Inspector was utterly befuddled. He knew the immemorial reputation of theatricals for being fickle, flighty creatures, capricious to a fault, but this was ridiculous.
‘Then there really must be something I’m not getting here,’ he said. ‘I had the impression you were devastated by his death.’
‘Oh, I am. But for purely professional reasons, you understand. The man himself I abominated. He was a verminous, arachnoid pig, if I may be permitted to mix my animal metaphors, a pompous, puffed-up little swine, a toad to his inferiors and a toady to his superiors. He also had, if you can believe this, the unmitigated brass to flatter himself that he was God’s gift to womanhood,’ she added, unexpectedly assuming a maidenly archness that would have been comical if the circumstances were other.
‘A good-looking man, was he?’
‘Good-looking? Farje?!’
Cora gave a harsh, mirthless laugh.
‘Farje, you must know, was fat. Not ordinarily, forgivably, lovably fat. He was outlandishly fat, monstrously so. Which is why, when Evadne announced the news of his death, I at once assumed it must have been from a heart attack, for he’d had more than one already.
‘He was also the vainest, most egocentric man I ever met. A complete narcissist.’
‘A fat narcissist?’ said Trubshawe. ‘H’m, that couldn’t have been easy.’
Cora was now talking compulsively, almost convulsively.
‘I’ve always believed it was out of narcissism that he became a film director in the first place. He had this very special trick – a unique trick, you might say. In every one of his films, right at the start, before the plot had got underway, he would have a double, some extra who looked exactly like him, make a brief appearance in the corner of the screen. It became in a way his trademark, like the Guinness pelican, you know, or the golliwog on the marmalade jar.’
‘I see …’ said Trubshawe, though, in truth, he didn’t quite.
‘Poor Farje. He was famous for falling helplessly and hopelessly in love with his leading ladies. But because he invariably lusted after the sort of frosty blonde, cool and aloof on the outside, scalding hot on the inside, who couldn’t possibly have lusted after him, he found himself obliged to pay them vicarious – is that the word I’m looking for? – to pay them vicarious court via the various debonair young actors he tended to cast opposite them in his films. He was like Cyrano de Bergerac, except that it was Farje’s belly not his nose that was oversized.’
She allowed herself the ghost of a smile at her own wit.