A Series of Murders Read Free Page B

W.E.T. hasn’t stinted on the set dressing. Everything looked very solid and real. The prop buyers must have had their work cut out to find that lot. Charles didn’t think he’d ever been in a television production with so many props.
    No,
Stanislas Braid
would look good. But, as so often in television, Charles worried about the difference between the look of the product and the product itself. With no discredit to Will Parton, who had worked miracles with what he had been given, the scripts did have a dated feel. Not a period feel, which, Charles suspected, was what W.E.T. was really striving for, but a dated feel. There is all the difference in the world between a loving re-creation of a past period and something that just looks old-fashioned. And though it was early on in the series to form judgements, Charles had a nasty suspicion that
Stanislas Braid
would achieve the second effect.
    Nothing was actually being rehearsed when Charles came into the studio, but there was a huddle of activity over in front of the sitting-room set. He moved toward it, but as he drew closer, he realised that the activity was just another argument between Russell Bentley and his Director. This time it must have been more serious, because Rick Landor had actually come down on to the studio floor and was speaking to his star without the mediation of a floor manager. Also on the scene were the thin, faded figures of W. T. Wintergreen and her sister, Louisa, no doubt contributing their own objections to the argument.
    It was clearly going to be some time before anything got rehearsed, let alone recorded. And Charles wasn’t even in that scene. Definitely be time for a drink. Just so long as he told someone where he was.
    He moved away quietly. No need to draw attention to himself; someone might think of something he was needed for. He went around the edge of the study set into the corridor between the studio wall and the backs of the flats. The smell of canvas warmed by strong lights was achingly familiar from the backstages of a thousand theatres. Ahead of him he saw a familiar back view kneeling down at the foot of a flat. Good, someone he could tell where he was going.
    â€˜Tony.’
    The A.S.M. whirled around at the sound of Charles’s voice. He looked flushed. ‘Goodness, you startled me.’
    â€˜Sorry. Just wanted to say, nothing seems to be happening on the set. I’m going to nip to the bar for a quick drink, okay? Get me paged up there if I’m needed.’
    â€˜Yes, fine, okay,’ said Tony Rees.
    One of the advantages of having worked for the company a few times was that Charles knew the quickest way to the bar from almost every part of W.E.T. House. From this end of Studio A the best route was out through a dark little storage room used for props, into the scenery dock, up the stairs to the first floor, and through the Casting Department.
    Cheered by the anticipation of soon having a large Bell’s in his hand, Charles started on his way.
    The scene that met his eyes in the murky props room was one of total chaos.
    The room, probably not more than ten feet wide, was flanked with tall shelves to store props, and because of the large number required to give period flavour to
Stanislas Braid
, these were loaded. Unfortunately, no doubt because of the weight of their burden, one set of shelves must have become top-heavy and fallen forward.
    The result was an amazing pile of debris, as if a bomb had gone off in a junk shop. Old cash registers lay on the floor beside elephant’s foot umbrella stands; the shards of chamber pots mingled with crushed cigar boxes; billiard balls dotted their colours over a heap of smashed crockery and dented tankards.
    Charles briefly contemplated telling someone about the accident. On the other hand, a selfish instinct urged, it wasn’t really his job. Someone else, whose job it might well be, would soon come through. And now the idea of an imminent drink