Death in the Spotlight: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery 07 (A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery, 7)

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But it turned out to be not quite as dreadful an experience as the audition, for this time the stage was filled with talking, laughing, shouting people, and crowded together they reminded me of something. Daisy pushed the door open, and we found ourselves in a warm, wood-panelled little space where an old man was sitting in a cubbyhole to the right of us, just the way the porter had at Maudlin College last winter. I had been to plays before, and sat in the nice dusty darkness of the stalls, but I had never been on a stage. We made a mistake,’ she said, squaring her shoulders and standing as upright as she could next to Bridget.

My favourite character was Annie because she was very chatty when she was alive and she reminded me of a friend!

But all the same, if more than a few months go by without a murder, or a theft, or a kidnapping, I begin to feel as though something is missing. she might improvise a bit if she forgets her lines, and judging by the endings in your books, all will be well. The men all wore jewel-bright cravats, and looked (I was reminded of Bertie and Harold at Cambridge) rather long-haired and terribly aesthetic, and all the women were wearing a fearful lot of make-up.

Now that Miss Tree is here,’ Inigo went on, ignoring Martita’s sharp words, ‘I can introduce our two new company members.I almost don’t want to get to what happened, because I am still reeling from what Daisy and I saw – what we found – but of course I know I must. Jim kept rigid watch on the stage-door entrance, and front of house was locked up tight (Daisy checked). The prompt box is in the corner at stage right (the other side to most theatres, for the Rue is built oddly to block off the noise from the street outside), and that is where the stage manager, Theresa, usually sat during rehearsals, clutching a copy of the play to her chest and hissing at the players whenever they forgot a line. This man was tall and slender, with pale skin and rather long brown hair flopping about his temples. I had not realized how very big a theatre is, the way the circles of seats rise up in front of you like mountains, the way the lights get in your eyes and the greasepaint smell gets in your nose, the way your legs go wobbly and you want to sink through the floorboards and never be seen again.

I saw Martita whirling in and out of the stage door, fetching and carrying, staggering under the weight of enormous boxes of old programmes and posters, fabric and sandwiches, and grumbling cheerfully about it. There is always a moment, deep in the midst of a case, when I think that I never want to detect another one. On Thursday there was a single peacock feather, terribly unlucky in a theatre, sitting on her dressing table.I have already read the first six in the Murder Most Unladylike series and I had challenged myself to finish the series over the summer.

Then, she dressed up as Annie and posed as her for the next several days (the two women looked quite alike). I wondered if she was upset about being reminded that she was having to pretend to be from a different country. Once we were through the stage door and past Jim and his book, and Bridget had waved us off each morning and gone to run her mysterious errands for Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy, we were swallowed up in the strange world of the Rue. Daisy, Hazel, we’ll be on book for the next three days, so there’s still time for the blocking of your roles and for you to learn the ropes – but I expect you to be off book by the end of this week.Martita came in today, Friday, to collect them, paid and rushed out again without opening the parcel. I thought that they might perhaps be in love, and I saw from Daisy’s scowl and narrowed eyes that she did too, but then they began to chatter away to each other about people I didn’t know, leaning their heads together just like our schoolmates Kitty and Beanie, and I realized that they were simply very good friends. Your aunt has arranged that you are to be in my play, no matter how dreadful you are, but, all the same, I’m curious to see what you’re made of. Inigo’s a stupid old man,’ I heard Rose say to Annie one morning as she was being fitted for her day dress. Rose was utterly flirtatious with Lysander, whispering and canoodling with him in dark corners, but she was smug about receiving letters from other admirers too, and this made Lysander horribly jealous.