Read Online Cast For Death by Margaret Yorke - Free Book Online Page B

said Leila. ‘I can’t help you, if you want to know why he did it. I told the police the same thing.’ She reached out for the telephone. ‘I’ve got to find that actress,’ she said, and, as Patrick still remained sitting in front of her, added, ‘I sent him off several times to audition for really good parts – things he could do on his head if only he’d kept it – but he didn’t turn up. You can’t keep on indefinitely with someone like that.’
    Yet she’d done it: persevered for years, and thought at last that she’d found him a niche where he might take root.
    ‘Nerves?’
    ‘No confidence. Many actors lack it – some of the greatest never get over their nervousness – but the obsession with acting overcomes it. The business is harsh—tough—unless they fight they don’t get on. There are hundreds of people with talent and someone unreliable won’t be chosen if there’s a reliable actor around waiting to grab what’s going.’
    ‘So you think he was capable of suicide?’
    ‘He proved it, didn’t he? Yet I thought this time he was really looking forward to the season. The run at the Fantasy went well, and he’s always liked doing Shakespeare.’
    ‘It seems funny that he lost his nerve about Stratford when he’d done that spell at the Fantasy,’ Patrick said. ‘I should have thought that was more of a challenge.’
    Leila shrugged. ‘He’d done Macduff before, in rep. He’d never played Caesar,’ she said. ‘He’s the sort of person who, when they’re gone, you forget – it’s as if he never was,’ she added. ‘A negative man.’
    ‘What a terrible epitaph.’ Patrick was shocked.
    Leila shrugged, impatient for him to leave.
    ‘Had he a drink problem?’
    ‘Not now. In the past.’
    ‘Any enemies?’
    ‘You’re joking. He wasn’t positive enough. No friends and no foes. Now, you’ve had far more than three minutes of my valuable time,’ Leila said. ‘Goodbye.’
    She started her telephoning again as Patrick left. The three men in the outer office had been joined by a dark girl. None took the least notice of him; all were absorbed by their own problems.
    They were looking for roles to play. But they must have other things too in their lives – lovers – people to whom they related in some fashion. Or did they all come to life only when they were acting?
    And what about Sam?

 
2
     
    Patrick spent the afternoon in the cinema and then met Dimitris Manolakis outside the British Museum, where he had been keeping a tryst with the fragments from the Parthenon.
    He had also visited St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey with his relations, and he was wearing a new sweater which showed he had visited another tourist mecca.
    ‘I have some news about your dead friend,’ said Manolakis. ‘You might like to hear it right away.’ His English sounded more fluent already, though he must have been speaking Greek with his relations. ‘I have been to see the good Colin Smithers this morning and he told me. He knew you would want to know.’
    The way Manolakis gambolled about among English verbs was impressive; but Greek ones were so difficult that ours must seem child’s play to one who had grown up with those, Patrick reflected.
    ‘The police are satisfied. They think his death was suicide, but he died from failing heart, not drowning. He had been acting out his fantasies.’
    ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Patrick. ‘You mean he tied himself up, acting out some masochistic scheme, and then jumped in the river?’
    After a little sorting out of the linguistics of this, Manolakis agreed.
    ‘And he died from fear before he is hitting the water,’ he said, letting his tenses slip. ‘His arteries were not good.’
    ‘So they’re stopping enquiries?’
    ‘That bright.’
    ‘What do you think, Dimitri?’
    ‘I did not know your friend. I cannot judge. These things happen, it is known. Colin has told me of many unhappy cases.’
    ‘But the shreds of sacking under his