twenty-six

“Thank you all for being so professional.” Rex stood before the cast and crew with his back to the stage. “The reason behind choreographing your movements was to show how Darrell Brewster was able to pull off the shooting without anybody realizing he was ever here. How?” he asked rhetorically. “He arrives before five, dressed up as Father Brown in case anyone sees him, which someone does”—Rex turned to Penny—“and mistakes him for Timothy. He has the real gun concealed under his cassock, perhaps up his sleeve, and his large black hat pulled forward over his face. He waits for the main door to be unlocked and presumably enters the stage via the hall while Timothy is changing in the dressing room.

“Throughout the first act, he bides his time near the front of the stage behind the floating black panels until he hears the scrim for the attic scene roll down, the trap door open, and the projector click on. But then Bill hurries past where he’s hiding, and Darrell realizes he’s forgotten to close the curtains. He can’t shoot Cassie from the wings and risk missing his target, nor can he step onstage in full view of the audience if he hopes to get away with it, and so, after waiting a few seconds for Bill to come back, he pushes the button himself. This accounts for the slight delay on opening night. He whips off his hat so his will be the last face Cassie ever sees on this earth, steps forward into the light cast by the projector, and, lifting the gun, aims for her heart. Cassie screams, as she is supposed to, but from real fear this time, and he fires. While the unsuspecting audience applauds, he opens the trap door, pulling it shut after him, and hides below while those backstage rush up the steps to investigate the loud bang.

“When the coast is clear, he sneaks into the dressing room, diving into a cubicle when Ada, Susan, and his double pass through. He goes into the corridor and hides at the top of the main stairs until the smokers among you re-enter the building, and then makes his escape before Ron returns last of all at seven fifty-five. By then, most of the spectators would have been back in the hall. I had Timothy act it all out to see if it was feasible.”

Rex tapped his stopwatch. “The crime took less than ten minutes, from firing the gun to pedalling away to freedom on Timothy’s bike. You could say luck was with the devil that night! But perhaps he never intended to get away with it. He may have been planning to shoot himself as well, but lost his nerve.”

“But why?” Dennis Caldwell asked. “What motive could he possibly have had to kill Cassie of all people?”

“He was the jilted ex-boyfriend, vindictively jealous of Trey for winning Cassie’s hand in marriage, and probably resentful, too, that his rival got the part of Henry Chalmers. I would not be surprised if one of the reasons he decided to shoot Cassie onstage was to sabotage Penny’s play out of spite. And what’s more dramatic than doing it in front of a theatre audience, especially if he intended to die along with her à la Romeo and Juliet?”

“I didn’t know there had been something going on between Darrell and Cassie,” Penny said in surprise.

“Nor I,” added Tony, who was standing behind her with his hand on her shoulder.

“That was all over last year,” Trey told them. “For Cassie, at any rate. We did our best to play down our relationship, knowing how he’d react. Obviously, we didn’t know how far he would actually go.”

“Of course not,” Ada said in a consoling voice, rubbing his back.

Penny gave a helpless sigh. “Well, that explains a lot, doesn’t it? He was waiting in the wings, figuratively and literally.”

“And exit Lady Naomi for good,” Forsythe chimed in, rather inappropriately, as Rex thought.

“How did you guess it was Darrell?” Penny asked Rex.

“Everything pointed to Father Brown, in retrospect. You saw a person whom you assumed to be Timothy in his costume walking towards the building earlier on Friday evening than you would have expected. Then Timothy’s bike went missing. How could that be if he had arrived on foot? A pair of prop glasses were left behind in the dressing room, but Timothy wore his own glasses for the part. No doubt the imposter left them by mistake. Now, it had to be someone of similar height. Height is one thing that is not easy to disguise. All of you, with the exception of Timothy, Dennis, and Ada, are on the tall side. But those three had at least two people who could vouch for them at the time the shot was fired. Bill and Ben are of medium height. So, who was our phantom? It had to be someone who not only could pass himself off as Father Brown, but who knew the play backwards and where everybody would be at any given moment. You told me early on, Penny, that Timothy was a replacement, and as soon as you showed me Darrell’s headshot, I thought he might fit the bill for our killer. But everyone thought he had gone to LA. When it transpired he was obsessed with Cassie, I felt it prudent to check. Furthermore, his grandfather had served in the RAF and might conceivably have owned a revolver like the one retrieved at the scene. Means, motive, and opportunity.”

“Sherlock would be proud,” Snyder remarked. “In fact, all five of our characters would,” he added, indicating the four other fictitious detectives.

“Damn fine sleuthing,” agreed Andrew Forsythe, applauding Rex, the antique cane hooked over his wrist.

Everyone joined in the ovation, and Rex felt well rewarded for his efforts. He held his hands out in appreciation and then raised them for silence. There were more revelations to come.