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  ‘You look tired, Nigel,’ said Lyn. ‘Feel it?’ Nigel stared straight through her. ‘What’s the matter?’ Nigel shook his head and walked off.

  Lyn shrugged her shoulders and started helping Councillors’ wives on with their fur coats. After all the guests had departed (their parents with last-minute instructions ‘not to hang around, but to come home as quickly as possible’) they made weak attempts to tidy up a bit, and Maddy awoke and started on another snack.

  As Lyn was stacking glasses Nigel approached her again and said softly, ‘Lyn—I’m frightened—’

  She looked up amazed. ‘What on earth of?’

  ‘It’s—Lucky. He’s left his digs without paying the landlady. Said he was going away for the week-end. He didn’t tell us that, did he? And he disappeared from the party without a word—’

  Lyn said slowly, ‘And you think…’ She stopped. It was too awful to go on.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nigel. ‘I feel terrible for thinking it, because if it’s nothing of the sort I shall feel ashamed for the rest of my life, when he’s done so much to help us.’

  ‘Well, we must go and see,’ said Lyn, still in a low voice, so that the others should not hear.

  ‘That’s why I’m frightened,’ said Nigel; ‘in case it’s gone.’

  ‘Oh, Nigel!’ said Lyn tremulously. They stood staring at each other, unable to move.

  ‘Come on, you loons. What’s the matter?’ asked Bulldog, who was all ready to go home. ‘Surely you haven’t just discovered that you’re soul-mates after all these years?’

  Nigel and Lyn were too sick at heart to retaliate.

  ‘You go on.’

  ‘No, we’ll wait for you,’ said Vicky, sinking into one of the theatre seats with her tired feet up on the back of another.

  Lyn and Nigel fussed about, tidying up, hoping that the others would go, but still they stayed, yawning and nattering. At last Nigel said, ‘Come on. We mustn’t be cowards and put it off any longer. We must go and investigate. It’s all in the boxoffice. The whole of the pantomime takings. I kept on at him to take it to the bank.’

  ‘And he wouldn’t.’

  ‘He would never leave the box-office for long enough.’

  Lyn said firmly, ‘Come on,’ and led the way to the box-office.

  ‘It’s locked up all right,’ shouted Bulldog after them. ‘I checked.’

  Nigel produced the keys and unlocked the door. Before he switched on the light, Lyn prayed hastily, ‘Please don’t let it be true…’ But when the light was switched on, it was.

  The large cash-box that had been stuffed with notes and silver was lying empty on the desk. For several minutes they stood like statues, then Lyn gave a shuddering groan. Nigel leaned up against the wall, feeling sick, then said very quietly, ‘What on earth shall we do?’

  ‘Phone the police, I suppose,’ said Lyn dully.

  ‘Oh, how could he! Don’t let’s tell the others… We’re done for… Oh, Lyn…’ Nigel was incoherent with distress. A soft footfall behind them made them look up—a new hope springing in them—but it was only Vicky, her green eyes full of curiosity.

  ‘Whatever…’ she began, then saw the cash-box and their pallid faces. Her horrified scream brought the rest of the company running in a tumult. They, too, stopped dead when they saw what the others were looking at. The silence was broken by Maddy, who, in tears of rage, flung on to the floor the little celluloid doll dressed as Lucky and jumped on it again and again, hysterical with anger. The need to calm her brought them to their senses again, and Sandra put her arms round her little sister and told her not to be a silly girl.

  ‘We’ll get it back,’ she told her. The police will catch him.’

  ‘It’s not—it’s not that…’ sobbed Maddy, distressed by her first contact with the falseness of human beings. ‘It’s because he did it… And we thought he was all right—I liked him… I didn’t at first, but then…’ She had to stop to gasp for breath.

  Nigel reached for the telephone and said to the operator, ‘Will you give me the police station, please. It’s rather urgent.’

  As he gave details to the friendly but unmoved police sergeant at the other end, the rest of the Blue Doors, pale and frightened, talked in little groups, softly, stunned, yet occasionally flaring into sudden spurts of rage.

  Nigel, who suddenly looked very old, said, ‘You’d all better go home. The parents will be worried. Don’t tell them about this until we’re really positive he has taken it. I must stay here to interview the police.’

  They put on their coats and went out into the unfriendly cold and darkness. Maddy whimpered all the way home, and the boys made the night ugly with threats of what they would do to Lucky when he was caught.

  ‘It’s the low cunning of it that revolts me,’ said Lyn. ‘Worming his way into the job and into our affections! No wonder he worked so jolly hard—we wondered why. It was all for himself he was trying to rake in the money—we ought to have guessed. He obviously wasn’t the type to be trusted. We all felt it at first. Why didn’t we stick to it?’

  ‘Because he seemed so—so…’ Vicky searched for words, ‘friendly and enthusiastic.’

  ‘Friendly!’ growled Bulldog. ‘Gosh I’ll let him know what I think of that type of friendship—’

  ‘I feel awful—us going now,’ said Snooks; ‘leaving you when things are so bad—’

  Sandra said sensibly, ‘They’re not as bad as all that. We mustn’t let ourselves be dramatic about this. Of course he’ll be caught and dealt with and our money recovered. This isn’t the first time that this sort of thing has happened. It’s happened to other people, but never to us, so naturally it’s a shock.’

  ‘Oh, stop being so self-controlled for goodness sake,’ cried Lyn. ‘You drive me mad with your good sense.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Sandra, ‘but it strikes me as better than losing our heads.’

  Jeremy quelled them, ‘Be quiet, you two. This is no time to bicker. We must stick together now, if ever we do.’

  For many hours that night Nigel was with the police. They examined the box-office and the cash-box, took some finger prints from it and made Nigel go down to the station and make a statement. When he crawled into bed in the not-so-early hours of the morning he felt that he was the most wretched and illfated actor-manager in England.

  The next day the police were still about the theatre, assuring them constantly that they would soon track down Mr Lucky. They also told the Blue Doors that he had a police record, and this was not the first time that he had absconded with the takings of some small theatre.

  ‘The beast,’ Vicky muttered, ‘picking on people who are struggling to make a living…’

  When their parents heard how they had been let down, they were full of sympathy, and promised any help they could give in tracking down Lucky. The six fairies departed sadly after extracting promises from the Blue Doors to let them know if there were ever anything they could do to help.

  On Monday they hardly had the heart to rehearse Granite, but felt they must, as time was getting short. Nigel had to keep dashing away to answer calls from the police on the telephone, and to interview reporters.

  ‘At least it’s good publicity,’ he said grimly. ‘The sort that Lucky would approve of.’

  ‘You don’t think—’ began Maddy hopefully.

  ‘No,’ said Nigel, ‘I don’t think that it’s just a stunt. I’m positive it’s the real thing. It explains Lucky. We never could quite place him, could we?’

  ‘We know where he should be placed now,’ said Jeremy bitterly, and then to Nigel, ‘Nigel, what are we going to do now? Can we carry on?’

  Nigel said with tight-set lips, ‘I don’t know. Mr Chubb is getting up tomorrow, and he’ll be down at the theatre to go over the accounts with me. Then we shall know.’

  Next day Mr Chubb appeared, very pale and much thinner from his illness, and extremely worried about the situation as there was no word from the police. His first words to Nigel
were, ‘If only we’d been insured—’

  ‘“If only’s” are no good,’ said Nigel. ‘There are endless ones—if only you’d never been ill—if only we’d never trusted Lucky. What we’ve got to do is to get down to it, and work out if we can possibly carry on.’ They went into conclave in the box-office, poring over the accounts, wincing every time they realized how well in hand they would have been, were it not for Lucky.

  The others were nervously rehearsing without Nigel, but every now and then someone would dry up completely and say, ‘I’m sorry, but it’s so difficult to concentrate.’ Finally they gave it up and went over to the café for a cup of tea, and sat looking at the dirty table-cloth with unseeing eyes. Across the road, the little theatre, smartly painted in blue and cream, seemed as if it had never before meant so much to them.

  Vicky broke the silence. ‘And to think,’ she said, ‘that he is somewhere—walking about—eating and sleeping—’

  ‘And all on our money,’ added Bulldog. ‘I bet he’s killing himself at the thought of us. “Mugs”—that’s the word he’d use to describe us.’

  ‘And it’s so right,’ said Lyn.

  ‘’Ave you ’eard anything?’ inquired the friendly waitress who adored them all.

  ‘Not yet,’ Jeremy said wearily. ‘At first the police said they’d trace him easily, but it seems to be taking longer than they thought.’

  ‘Oh, I’m that sorry—and just when you was doin’ so nicely…’ In her distress for them she slopped the tea into the saucers of the cups she was carrying, and sniffed loudly.

  They sat in silence. The thaw had set in, and outside the grimy windows the snow drip-dripped off the roofs on to the wet pavements. They kept a constant watch on the front entrance of the theatre, waiting for Nigel and Mr Chubb to appear. When at last they did, there was nothing to be gathered from their faces. They would have looked as pale as that anyhow. But when they had joined them at the table and ordered tea, Nigel looked up and said in a dead voice, ‘Well, we’ve been over the accounts, and you are all welcome to do the same to make sure that you agree with us, that the only possible thing that we can do in the circumstances…’ He swallowed convulsively, ‘is to close down.’

  6

  THE UNEMPLOYED

  Lyn woke up and was just about to leap out of bed in order to get to rehearsal in time, when she remembered that there was no rehearsal. There was no show. There was no company. There was no Blue Door Theatre. The horror of it dawning on her again, after the respite of sleep, dissolved her into tears, and she buried her face in the pillow which was still damp from last night’s weeping. After a while a sudden hope struck her. Perhaps there was some news from the police that Lucky had been caught. She threw on her dressing-gown and hurried downstairs. Jeremy was on the telephone.

  ‘Any news?’ she gasped.

  ‘I see. Thank you,’ he said into the receiver, and then hung up.

  ‘No,’ he told her despondently. The police say there is nothing to report, and please will we not make continual inquiries. They will get in touch with us when there is any news.’

  ‘We’re not even allowed to inquire,’ cried Lyn. ‘That at least was something to do…’

  ‘Something to do’ was becoming a very important item in their lives, after a week with no show to rehearse. Straight from the rush and flurry of repertory, the sudden inactivity seemed uncanny.

  ‘What on earth shall we do today?’ demanded Jeremy.

  ‘Have breakfast, go out and have coffee, and answer a lot of stupid inquiries from stupid people about the theatre. Have lunch. Can’t afford to go to the pictures. Have tea. Have supper, then go to bed,’ said Lyn gloomily.

  Jeremy paced up and down the hall. ‘We can’t go on like this. We shall go crazy.’

  ‘Yet we can’t go anywhere,’ said Lyn. ‘We must be here on the spot to start again immediately, if they should get the money back.’

  Jeremy said slowly, ‘Do you really still believe that they’ll get the money back?’

  Lyn considered it, and then said, ‘No, I don’t think they will. But if there were not that to hope for, there would be nothing—’

  ‘Breakfast!’ cried Mrs Darwin cheerily. Over their toast and marmalade Mrs Darwin said, ‘Oh, Lyn, I’ve got so much shopping for you to do this morning… And Jeremy, your father said something about you dropping in to the office and helping him out with a job or two.’ They agreed unenthusiastically. The parents of all the Blue Doors were making a gallant effort to keep them busy, but nothing could ever make them busy enough to take their minds off the loss of the theatre.

  That morning at eleven o’clock it was a despondent and depleted company who assembled at Bonner’s for their mid-morning coffee. The six fairies had departed. Terry had returned to Tutworth Wells to the company that he had been with before, until he might be needed by the Blue Doors again. Ali and Billy had gone back to London to see their parents, and, as they sat down at the large table in the window that they usually occupied, Myrtle said nervously, ‘Oh, Nigel, I don’t want you to think I am backing out, or anything…’ Her heavy friendly face was lined with distress; ‘but I’ve been offered another rep. job, quite near here…’ She named the nearest town to Fenchester that had a theatre; ‘and I’d be able to keep in touch…’

  ‘Why, yes, of course you must take it,’ said Nigel hastily. ‘I can’t keep you hanging about here in the hope that we may be able to start up again. Of course you must go.’

  ‘I go back to the Academy tomorrow,’ mourned Maddy, ‘and I pity anyone who asks me if I’ve had good holidays.’

  The six remaining Blue Doors looked from one to the other with the horrible feeling of being aboard a sinking ship. And then a too familiar voice cut into the silence.

  ‘Ah, dear kiddies…’ They looked up—into the puffy, but somewhat paler, features of Mrs Potter-Smith. ‘Congratulate me, dears,’ she cried. ‘This is my first public appearance since my illness. Pneumonia, you know. That draughty theatre of yours was to blame, I’m afraid. But there—Art for Art’s sake, as I always say. Though I must say I didn’t care much for the little play you were doing. But what’s the news I hear now? You’ve closed down? Couldn’t make it pay? Oh, dear me! How sad.’

  ‘It was just beginning to pay very well indeed,’ said Nigel loudly. ‘We were recovering from the harm that your pneumonia did to us, and we were robbed by the box-office manager—’

  ‘Not that nice Mr Chubb?’

  ‘No. He, too, has been ill. This was—someone else—’

  ‘Rather convenient, in a way. I suppose,’ said Mrs Potter-Smith, nodding her head understandingly, so that the feathers in her hat shook; ‘I mean, it gives you an excuse to close down, doesn’t it, and no-one will expect you to pay back the loan to the Town Council.’

  Waves of hatred seemed to fill the air round the heads of the Blue Doors. Then Maddy said airily, ‘Oh, we’re paying that back all right. I’ve got a lot of money put away from that film I did. Do you remember? You were an extra in it.’

  Mrs Potter-Smith seemed a little put out, and said, ‘Oh, really? It seems a pity to have to dig into poor little Maddy’s savings to get you older ones out of a jam, doesn’t it? Well, I must fly. I’m meeting one of my pals, Miss Thropple, you know. We have a chin-wag here every Tuesday.’ And off she sailed.

  ‘Chin-wag is the word,’ remarked Bulldog venomously. ‘All six of them.’

  Maddy said earnestly, ‘Nigel, I meant what I said just now. Do let’s pay the Town Council with my film money. Then no-one can say that Lucky robbing us was a fake.”

  ‘No,’ said Nigel firmly. ‘We’re paying back that money from Blue Doors funds, and not from any other source.’

  Maddy sighed. ‘Everyone seems determined to stop me spending that money. What’s the good of having it—just sitting in the bank like that?’

  ‘We can’t let you, Maddy dear,’ said Sandra, ‘even if it’s only to stop Mrs Potter-Smith and her cronies saying things like
she said just now.’

  ‘I thought people hardly ever got over pneumonia,’ said Maddy in a disappointed voice.

  ‘Mrs Potter-Smith is immortal,’ observed Jeremy, staring miserably into his coffee.

  ‘What shall we do this afternoon?’ demanded Vicky.

  ‘Something that doesn’t need any money,’ said Bulldog.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it terrible,’ agreed Sandra. ‘I haven’t got a sou—and I just can’t ask Mummy and Daddy for any. I’m out of the habit of getting pocket-money every week.’

  ‘My mother tactfully never asks for the change from the shopping,’ said Lyn bitterly. ‘It’s sweet of her, but it makes me feel like the poor relation.’

  ‘Come on. We’d better go,’ said Bulldog. ‘We’ve been here an hour and a half, and that’s quite long enough for one cup of coffee each.’

  ‘By next week we shall be asking for one cup amongst us and six straws.’

  ‘Nigel,’ said Sandra, as they walked down the High Street, ‘you don’t think there’s any chance of our opening up again within the next few weeks, do you?’

  ‘I haven’t an idea. But even if the police got the money back, we couldn’t open up for a couple of weeks. Why?’

  ‘Well, I bumped into my old cookery teacher yesterday, and she said if I wanted something to do to pass the time I could go and help her give cookery demonstrations at evening classes.’

  ‘Oh, Sandra,’ exclaimed Lyn. ‘You can’t!’

  ‘Why can’t I? It’ll be something to do. And it will give me some pocket-money.’

  ‘But—but everyone in Fenchester knows you as an actress.’

  ‘But actresses also eat,’ observed Sandra.

  ‘That’s rather good,’ said Jeremy, trying it out. ‘Actors also eat. That will have to be our motto for a while, I think.’

  ‘But what gets me down,’ blazed Lyn, ‘is that we’ve got to knuckle under, and do what everyone always advised us to do—get sensible and dependable jobs just so that we shall be safe.’