Murder Unprompted: A Charles Paris Murder Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

time or opportunity to . . .’
    ‘Time, my dear Charles, can always be made. And you forget that Lesley-Jane and I joined the company at the end of last season. As for opportunity . . . well, always sort out a bolt-hole for yourself, Charles.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    But he only got an enigmatic and rather smug smile by way of answer. ‘Lesley-Jane’s a sweet kid,’ Charles volunteered magnanimously.
    ‘Oh yes. Only one thing wrong with her.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘She’s not an orphan.’
    ‘Ah, doesn’t the lovely Valerie approve of you?’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘Because you’re too old?’
    ‘No, I think simply because I’m a man.’
    Charles nodded and started to powder down his make-up.
    ‘Still, sod the lot of them!’ said Alex Household with sudden venom. ‘I am going to win through. I am going to have all the successful things I should have had years ago. And none of the buggers are going to stop me!’
    Once again Charles detected the unstable note of paranoia in the other’s voice.
    There was a call for all cast on stage at the ‘half’ for the next day’s matinée. Most of them reckoned they had a pretty shrewd idea of what it was for.
    And sure enough, when Paul Lexington addressed them, his first two words were the ones which had been the cause of much discussion and speculation since the previous evening.
    ‘Denis Thornton,’ he announced, ‘as you may or may not know, came down to see the show last night. And I have some good news for you – he liked it!’
    The cast burst into shouts of delight, but cut them off sharply, waiting to hear what followed from this.
    ‘And basically what has happened is – he has offered us a theatre to transfer the show to the West End!’
    This was greeted with more euphoria. As it died away, Salome Search, who plumed herself on knowing a bit about the mechanics of ‘going in’ to the West End, having once spent a week in the chorus of an ill-fated musical at the Apollo, asked, ‘Does that mean Lanthorn Productions will be presenting the show?’
    ‘Oh no. I will be presenting the show. Denis’s company will just be renting us the theatre. It gives us a lot more freedom than if Lanthorn actually took over.’
    And a lot more chance to fail, thought Charles cynically.
    ‘So when will we be going in to the King’s?’ asked Alex.
    ‘Ah, it’s not the King’s,’ said Paul. ‘No, Denis reckons the King’s is far too big for this show. We’d get lost in there. No, he’s offering us the Variety.’
    ‘Oh,’ said all the cast at the same moment, trying not to sound disappointed.
    The Variety Theatre had had a chequered history. It was called a West End theatre, but its position, in Macklin Street, was a little too far from Shaftesbury Avenue for the designation to sound convincing. It had been a popular Music Hall venue before the First World War, and come back to prominence in the fifties with a series of intimate revues. Since then it had justified its name by the variety of managements who had tried to make a go of it and the variety of fare they had presented there. Mime shows, light shows, nude shows, drag shows had all been washed up there as theatrical fashions ebbed and flowed. Religious rock musicals had followed on modern dance extravaganzas; one-man shows based on eighteenth-century letters had succeeded abortive attempts to revive the art of stage revue; poetry readings had drawn the same size audiences as South African jail diaries; laser shows, a punk rock musical and a gay version of
Romeo and Juliet
in black leather had all been tried, and failed.
    It was currently occupied by an entertainment based on Maori song and dance, which had somehow maintained its sickly life there for nearly three months.
    ‘Now I know what you’re all thinking,’ said Paul Lexington hastily. ‘That the Variety hasn’t had a success for the past twenty years. Don’t worry.
The Hooded Owl
is going to change all that. Listen, Denis Thornton