“I thought we’d just established that I haven’t given it up.”
“When did you give up being paid for acting?”
“A better question, but one which I fear I find rather difficult to answer. It’s not so much that I gave up acting as that acting gave up me. Calls from my agent dwindled, reflecting a comparable dwindling in enquiries for my professional services. Then I received the news that my agent had died, and I was faced with the question of whether I should endeavour to get a replacement or not. I fairly quickly decided there wasn’t much point. So I moved out of London and down here, to an area which I have known and loved since my childhood. That would be…some three years ago…probably more. I’ve reached the age where, in discussions of the past, I have to double the number I first thought of. And it may have been some years before that when I last had a professional booking. I still receive occasional, minuscule repeat fees for long-dead television series being sold to Mongolian cable networks, but the last occasion when I received a fee for a current project is lost in the mists of time.”
“Presumably you didn’t act under the name of ‘Old Garge’?”
“No, that would have been a trifle fanciful, wouldn’t it? Going way beyond the demands of having a mystique.” He rose from his seat, reached up to exactly the right spot in his shelves, and pulled down a fat book jacketed in two shades of green. “Spotlight,” he announced. “The actors’ directory. This volume dates from 1974, which is perhaps the nearest my career experienced to a ‘heyday’.”
From much usage, the book opened immediately at a page revealing the photographs and agent details of four actors. “I graced the ‘Leading Man’ section in those days. Later I was downgraded to ‘Character’.”
He held the book across to Carole. In spite of the changes wrought by time, she had no difficulty in identifying the right actor. With dark hair and eyebrows, a long, rather delicate face, Old Garge was still recognizable. Very good-looking in a dated, matinee idol way. The name beneath the photograph was ‘Rupert Sonning’.
Its owner looked fondly at the image. “Yes, me just about ‘on the turn’, I would say. Even then the photograph was a good seven years younger than I was. By that time the waist had thickened, the face spread, the veins in the nose become more visible. No longer in the market for romantic leads, moving towards seedy aristocrats, venal politicians and child molesters.” The thought seemed to cause him pain.
Remembering what she had thought after seeing Flora Le Bonnier in Her Wicked Heart, Carole couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Is it as depressing for a man to lose his looks as it is a woman?”
Old Garge – or Rupert Sonning – burst into laughter. “Full marks for tact, Carole. I know you used to be a civil servant, I think I can now rule out the possibility that you worked in the Diplomatic Service.”
“I’m sorry.” She was flustered both by her social gaffe and also again by his detailed knowledge of her life story.
“Don’t worry, I’ve always favoured the direct approach myself. And the answer to your question is probably yes. In my young days my face was – literally – my fortune. ‘You want a handsome young devil – call for Rupert Sonning!’ Oh yes, I was put through the Rank Charm School, learned how to deal with the press, not to tell them anything except the stories the publicity department had dreamed up for me. Then I did a few of those Gainsborough costume dramas, had a very nice time, thank you very much. And, looking like I did, I was also rather successful as a ladies’ man.” He chuckled, but there was sadness in the expression with which he looked again at his Spotlight photograph. “Still, those times are gone, and I suppose life now has other compensations. Though, inevitably…lesser compensations…”
There was a silence, then Carole asked, “In your acting career, did your path ever cross with that of Flora Le Bonnier?”
He grinned. “Ah, the lovely Flora. Lady Muck herself. Oh yes, our paths crossed. And how.” He chuckled at some fond reminiscence.
“Have you seen her recently?”
A hint of caution came into his pale blue eyes. “Why should I have done?”
“She spent Christmas not far away from here. Near Fedborough. With her son and family.”
“Ah, did she?”
Carole couldn’t tell if this was news to him, but she rather thought it wasn’t. For the first time in their conversation Old Garge had become cagey. But, she reasoned, there was no way he couldn’t know the Le Bonnier connection with Fethering. If he could summon up so many details of her own life – even embarrassing ones about how she’d spent recent Christmases – he must have been aware of Gallimaufry’s opening and of Lola’s connection to Flora Le Bonnier.
“I think you know she did,” said Carole firmly.
The actor spread his hands wide to indicate the end of his small subterfuge. “Yes, all right, I knew that.”
“So have you seen Flora recently? In the last few days?”
“You’re very persistent, Carole, aren’t you?”
“I can be.”
“Hm.” He thought about this. “I don’t think I ever had that quality. Of being persistent. Something lacking in my genetic make-up. Perhaps, had I been more persistent, I might have sustained a more enduring career as an actor.” He shrugged. “Still, one cannot change one’s nature, can one?”
“One can try.”
He considered this assertion, then asked, “Have you tried, Carole? Have you tried to change your nature?”
“At times, yes.”
“Didn’t work, did it?”
Carole would have liked to challenge that, but came to the rueful realization that he was probably right. Time to move back into investigative mode. “Old Garge…I feel a fool calling you Old Garge. As if I’m in some third-rate stage play.”
“But you are.” The old man gestured around the hut. “Look, we’re on the set of a third-rate stage play.”
“Well, I’d rather call you Rupert, if that’s all right with you?”
He inclined his head graciously. “I would be honoured.”
“Rupert, you still haven’t answered my question about whether you’ve seen Flora Le Bonnier recently.”
“True, I haven’t.” He was silent for a moment, teasing her. “But I will answer it now. No. It’s years since I’ve seen Flora.”
“Though at one stage you did see quite a lot of her?”
“We worked together on a few films, just after the war, in the late forties.”
“But was your relationship…”
He grinned, as he repeated firmly, “We worked together on a few films, just after the war, in the late forties. Inevitably, we saw a lot of each other.”
It was the practised ‘We are just good friends’ answer from someone who knew a bit about talking to the press. He did, however, manage to incorporate into it the practised cheeky implication that they might have been more than good friends. Carole recognized she wasn’t going to get anything else out of him on the subject, so she changed tack. “Do you know that Ruby Tallis describes you as ‘the eyes and ears of Fethering Beach’?”
“I wasn’t actually aware of that, but it doesn’t surprise me.”
“Well, having talked to you, I’d say it was a pretty accurate description.” He nodded acknowledgement of the compliment. “So I would have thought you know more than anyone else about what happened the night Gallimaufry burnt down.”
“‘More than anyone else’? I don’t think you can be taking account of the sterling efforts of the official investigators into the incident, the British police. For the sake of our country’s security, I would like to believe that they know more about what happened than I do.”