Ruddy Gore Read Online Free PDF

whirling song stating that being a ghost was not all that bad. Robert Craven as Sir Ruthven was managing the dialogue with the ghost of his father fairly well until Sir Roderick said, ‘Very well – let the agonies commence.’
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    The ghosts circled him as he fell and writhed on the floor, but they did not speak. The spectres danced more quickly, and someone bent to whisper to the recumbent actor. Finally he gasped out his line.
    ‘Stop it, will you? I want to speak.’
    Sir Roderick dragged him to his feet, holding him strongly around the body, and omitted a whole chunk of the play by signalling the chorus into ‘He Yields!’
    ‘Something’s wrong,’ said Phryne, as the ghosts completed their dance and retreated to their frames. Sir Roderick handed his son over to Old Adam, who announced unilaterally that he was going to kidnap a lady and escorted his master off stage.
    Despard and Margaret came in, dressed in sober black, announcing that they were now very respectable, and danced a blameless dance. Margaret requested her new husband to use the word
    ‘Basingstoke’ to restore her to sanity and they launched into the patter song with a shaky Sir Ruthven.
    Phryne noticed that either one or the other of the black-clad pair kept a hand under his elbow.
    Something was wrong with this Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd as well.
    Did someone dislike Ruddigore so much that they had poisoned both Sir Ruthvens?
    It seemed unlikely.
    Meanwhile, on the stage, Adam brought in Dame Hannah, fighting tooth and nail. Being 30
    dragged across difficult country had not improved her temper, and she attacked Sir Ruthven, who was rescued by his father.
    It then transpired that Sir Roderick ought not to have been dead – as refusing to commit a dreadful deed exposed the Murgatroyds to death, that was effectively suicide and suicide was certainly a dreadful deed, therefore Sir Roderick ought not to have been dead, and suddenly wasn’t. He sang a touching duet with Dame Hannah.
    Phryne was staring at Sir Ruthven. In his embrace with the utterly faithless Rose, he was leaning on her heavily, but she was bearing him up and still contriving to speak.
    ‘When I was a simple farmer, I believe you loved me?’
    ‘Madly, passionately,’ answered Rose, stagger-ing under his weight.
    ‘But when I became a bad baronet, you very properly loved Richard instead?’
    ‘Passionately, madly!’ replied that blameless flower of British womanhood.
    ‘But if I should turn out not to be a bad baronet after all, how should you love me then?’
    ‘Madly, passionately!’
    ‘As before?’
    ‘Why of course!’
    ‘Darling!’ groaned Sir Ruthven, gathered his courage, and sang his finale. Rose, keeping a firm grip on him, answered. The jilted Richard stated that he would take the chief bridesmaid, destined for a life of ‘bread and cheese and kisses’. His 31
    wicked charm carried over the footlights effortlessly; Phryne smiled, and Bunji blushed.
    ‘He’s a rotter,’ she muttered. ‘But a dashed attractive rotter.’
    ‘Happy the lily when kissed by the bee,’ sang the chorus, and the red and gold curtain came down.
    Subsequent and repeated curtain calls revealed no sight of either Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd.
    ‘You busy tonight, Miss Fisher? We’ve got a bit of a ‘‘do’’ on at my place for poor old Bert, he’ll need a few restorers after facing this lot,’ invited Captain Larkin. ‘Bunji’s coming.’
    ‘No thanks, Captain, really, have to sup with an old friend,’ said Phryne, supressing a private pre-diliction for airmen – in any case both her powder and her shot would have been wasted on Hinkler, it was well known.
    Phryne gathered her cloak around her and walked quickly through the thinning crowds to the stage door. Something stirred in the gloom under the stair, and a man tacked toward her.
    He was the doorkeeper, a bowed figure in a greatcoat and scarf. He had evidently been keeping out the cold with one of the cheaper forms of tawny