Dame Beatrice saw the police inspector, who was seated next to Marcus Lynn at the witnesses’ table, suddenly stiffen. Then he wrote something down and beckoned to the coroner’s officer. That official received the slip of paper and passed it to the coroner’s clerk who handed it to the coroner. Dame Beatrice, seated in the public gallery next to Deborah, murmured:
“The consultant surgeon has identified the wrong dagger.”
The coroner returned to the witness and asked for a further description of the injury which had resulted in Bourton’s death ‘with as few technicalities as possible, please’. Keeping this last request in mind, the consultant explained that the wound had been delivered from the front, had slanted backwards and downwards and had made a large slit from which blood had poured internally into the cavity of the chest.
“Were there no signs of external bleeding?”
“None.”
“Did you find that surprising?”
“No. I was told that the body was in a prone or semi-prone position when the blow was struck. All the bleeding was internal, a really massive haemorrhage in the cavity of the chest. There is a case in Professor Keith Simpson’s autobiography—”
“Thank you, Doctor. Call Jonathan Bradley.”
After Jonathan, Tom Woolidge was called. Each was asked to identify the dagger he had worn during the performances. These two daggers were then removed, leaving three which, in their sheaths, looked very much alike. Yorke was called.
“You produced the play?”
“And directed it, pretty much.”
“Where were the theatrical properties kept when they were not in use?”
“Our performances were held out of doors in a private garden. All the costumes and the bits and pieces were kept up at the house.”
“So how many people had access to them?”
“Nobody but our sponsor who, incidentally, had renewed the licence which permitted us to charge for seats at the play.”
“Very proper, but that is not the concern of this enquiry. What the court would wish to know is how a dangerous weapon was substituted for the theatrical dagger which we assume had been used with perfect safety at the previous performances.”
“At the dress rehearsal, too,” said the witness. “Rinkley tried it out on the table before he trusted it enough to use it on himself and, when he did, he struck himself with it so gingerly that I had to encourage him to make the blow look a bit more like the real thing. The way he used the dagger, it wasn’t even going to stay upright and, although the play was a comedy, I didn’t want laughs in the wrong place.”
“In the wrong place, Mr Yorke?”
“Yes. I didn’t want the audience giggling as the dagger teetered slowly to the floor. For one thing, it would have spoilt Thisbe’s entrance and we should have lost the bit of by-play where she plucks the dagger out of Pyramus and sticks it in her own tummy.”
“Perhaps we could return to the point at issue. How did the lethal dagger get substituted for it?”
“That’s just what I myself would like to know. Also, who kicked the theatrical dagger under the table instead of picking it up and putting it back into its belt.”
“You can offer no explanation?”
“None at all. I helped Lynn and his son to carry the things down after we had dished out the costumes to the actors, and I helped them carry the oddments back at the end of each performance. I waited with him while the actors returned their costumes and then the room we used as a wardrobe was locked up. The props were locked up in a cupboard in the same room and Lynn held both keys, the ones to the cupboard and the room.”
“Were there no duplicate keys?”
“No,” said Jonathan, from his seat. “As the present occupier of the house I can assure you that there were no duplicate keys.”
“What’s more,” said Marcus Lynn, also from the witnesses’ part of the court, “the two keys mentioned were never out of my possession.”
The coroner accepted these interjections without comment and then turned to the circumstances which had led to the installation of Bourton as Pyramus.
“For the benefit of those whose knowledge of the play is not exhaustive,” said the coroner, “I should explain, perhaps, that the character in question takes part in a burlesque version of a tragic story in which the hero is supposed to commit suicide, a theatrical weapon with a retractable blade having been provided for this purpose.”
“And used harmlessly at the other performances,” Yorke reminded the gathering.
“Now, there arises a question of the deceased having taken over the part. This must have been at short notice,” the coroner went on.
“Yes, indeed, at very short notice. It meant he had to change his costume in a great hurry. The actor whose place he took became ill and could not continue in the part.”
“Is that actor in court?”
“No, sir, he is still under observation in hospital,” said the inspector of police.
“I see. Well, it would hardly seem that he could help us. Now, Mr Yorke, under what circumstances could the daggers have been changed over?”
“I have no more idea than anybody else.”
“Let us recapitulate. Will you tell the court how many daggers were used in the play?”
“There was the theatrical dagger which should have been in Bourton’s sword-belt, but apparently wasn’t, then Bradley and Woolidge each had a real one, as you have heard, and the court page had a dagger, but I believe she took her belt off when she was not on stage, and wore the dagger in only one short scene.”
“She?”
“Yolanda, my daughter, a child of nine.”
“Is she in court?”
“No.”
“Could she—playfully, of course—have changed over the daggers?”
“Certainly not. All the properties were laid out on trestle tables in the wings and were under constant surveillance from members of the cast. All the children were also under constant supervision. There is no way that Yolanda could have substituted one dagger for another and, in any case, she would never dream of doing such a thing.”
“Then can you not suggest any way in which the weapons could have got changed over?”
“No, I can’t. It is a mystery to me. The theatrical dagger wasn’t found until all the properties had been returned to the house and the trestle tables taken down to be stored in the summerhouse until the workmen who were to dismantle the floodlights and amplifiers could collect everything on the Monday. The day following the play was a Sunday, of course. The dagger would have been in shadow under the table. That is why neither Bourton nor anybody else spotted it and it was not found until everything was cleared away.”
“Call Marcus Lynn.”
Lynn went into the witness box and glanced at the daggers which remained on the ledge. Before the coroner could question him he said, pointing:
“Hey! One of these is the retractable dagger, and I recognise that one, but the last one I’ve never seen before. It does not come from my collection. What jiggery-pokery is this? If that’s the dagger which killed Bourton, I’ve no knowledge of it whatever.”
The inspector of police got to his feet.
“If you’ll refer to the note I sent up, Mr Coroner,” he said, “the police would like an adjournment at this point.”
But at this point there was another interruption. “I want to say something else. If the police or anybody thinks there is any chance that my husband knew he had picked up the wrong dagger and deliberately committed suicide with it,” said Barbara Bourton, standing up and taking, as it were, the centre of the stage, “I assure you that nothing could have been further from his mind. He was a happy, lighthearted man in a good financial position, enjoying excellent health and with no worries of any kind. I want that placed on record.”
“Thank you, Mrs Bourton. The inquest is adjourned sine die,” said the coroner, gathering up his papers.