Part Two

Part Two – Tea-parties on the Ceiling.


In which a clever little soul stumbles on the exit of the murderer.


When I said that no one had thought to look under the stage, I rather lied. You see, one brave little soul did think to look under the stage. Except, he was not with the police, nor the Government, he hadn’t even been a member of the audience.


The theatre hung in heavy secrecy, the curtains whispering to themselves in the occasional breeze when a dim light was tossed across the chairs at the opening of a door somewhere in the place. Whilst the case had been big news only a few hours ago, the police were now mildly embarrassed at the fact that they had appeared to have ‘misplaced’ the body and the Government was keeping the whole thing under wraps. The entire audience had been sworn to silence – under a number of veiled, and not so veiled, threats – and none of them had really seen anything anyway. (Especially the woman who had misplaced her glasses towards the end, who really hadn’t seen anything and who was convinced the murderer had been a woman.) This became painfully apparent when they were interviewed by the police, as no one could decide what the murderer actually looked like.


“He looked an awful lot like my next-door neighbour…”

“He was very handsome.”

“I saw him and I didn’t think for a moment he could be a murderer. He had such startling blue eyes.” “He had green eyes; blond hair and green eyes.”

“He had black hair and I thought he must be foreign but I can’t for the life of me think where. Oh, wait! You know that country with the funny name? Oh, now what is it…? Well, anyway, he is most certainly from there. No doubt about it.”

“I leapt at him but he swung a fist at me and then kicked… well, he didn’t fight fair. So I didn’t really get a glimpse of him but he definitely had brown hair to his shoulders.”

“Very handsome…”

And that was only the start of it, baffled policemen and women scratching their heads and jotting down notes which all contradicted each other. Even the witnesses themselves would often go round in circles and completely change their minds half way through the statement.


Eleanor had come to something of a dead end, once the police had enthusiastically rounded up all the Eleanors in the city they were at a bit of a loss at what to do next. The Government had been far from impressed and now the operation had been taken over by the officials, and the audience were interviewed yet again. At this the reports only became even more obscure as the interviewees had largely forgotten what they had said the first time. This included one fervent opinion that Marco wasn’t actually dead, merely sleeping, deeply – this was then taken up by a number of other viewers, who banded together to form the ‘MiSA’ society (Marco is Still Alive) and had to be suppressed by the officials for showing too much personal belief. There were fewer interviewees after this.


However, this was over now, and the remaining interviewees had been returned to their homes, under strict instructions not to tell anyone about what had happened (no one claimed responsibility for how the papers managed to get hold of the matter) and not to leave the City. Any curious stragglers were turned away by the official looking gentlemen; who, on closer inspection, proved to be police and also looked quite bored – this was what they had been made to do once they had been taken off the case. Predictably, they were not pleased, muttering to each other as they wandered round the building like goldfish in a bowl.

When they’d become police officers they’d thought they’d be out tackling criminals – which they weren’t allowed to do without authorised permission from their superior, which then had to be approved by a court just in case the criminal tried to sue the Government for grievous bodily harm. They’d thought they’d be fighting crime, stopping the bad guys. You know, that kind of thing; modern day super heroes. In their conviction that nothing would happen they completely missed it when something did.


The brave little soul crept round the theatre, sometimes pausing and looking over his shoulders as if he was being followed. There was little to warrant much attention to him: he was a little scrawny, gaunt, decked all in black as if he thought was a criminal returning to the scene of the crime. Messy hair refused to lay straight whatever he did with it, caught somewhere between brown and blond, and narrowed brown eyes surveyed the theatre. If you were to ask anyone that saw him – providing they weren’t part of the audience because it was obvious that you could not trust anything they said – they would probably place him at about mid-thirties, average height, pale and a coating of stubble on his chin; nothing special.

He ran his fingers over the seats in some surreptitious gesture, which seemed at once deeply symbolic and completely ridiculous. This slowly led him up to the stage, again he paused and it became apparent he was taking photos as he went. Perhaps he was a freelance detective or reporter? He obviously had some connection with the case but there was really nothing to see. The whole theatre had been stripped clean of clues – the murder of Marco had caused a huge stir, for varying reasons – even the blood stain and several parts from the stage had been removed, invoking an air of solemnity to the fanciful mind.


Not to be put off, the brave little soul continued, crouching down behind a chair as the door at the back of the theatre creaked open and then slammed shut again. It echoed for a moment before stillness resumed, bristling with anticipation of some magnificent event to come. Whatever this event was, though, it appeared to be hiding as the brave little soul climbed up onto the stage; nothing happened, there was no thunderclap, no startling revelation. Not even when he bent down to run his fingers round the edges of the gaps in the stage. It was during this exploration that he came across the trap door.

Now, the trap door appeared to not have been used in a very long time for it gave the impression of being obstinately stuck fast when the brave little soul pulled at it. Either they, the police and the government officials, hadn’t seen the trap door, or they had perceived it to be insignificant when they had found it more or less locked. However, the brave little soul thought differently and pulled something from his belt, setting about working the trap door open. Soon enough something gave and it grated querulously as he tugged it up, peering down into the dusty darkness below. He’d been prepared for this as well, tucking the tool away and replacing it with a flashlight which illuminated the swirling motes in the air as they drifted across the halogen beam.


Much like the trap door, the stairs hadn’t been used in an equally long time. The theatre itself had fallen much into disuse after the Government had come to power and had condoned most forms of entertainment, closing down the City theatres – they had previously become museum attractions but had been brought back to life for this one night. Rotting boards creaked under foot as he descended into the darkness, coughing from time to time as the dust stung at his eyes.

It was during such a period of coughing, when his eyes stung particularly and he had to blink frequently, that he stepped onto a very decayed stair. After so long of not being used it broke beneath his weight and he was sent plummeting to the foot of the staircase.


A minute or so passed before the brave little soul dared to sit up. The action caused him to groan – everything hurt, though he didn’t think he’d broken anything. However, he’d lost his flashlight, which had spun off into the distance somewhere.


Above him there was a sudden slam, which registered as the trap door dropping closed and he looked up hurriedly. As he did this he was greeted by an upside-down smile hanging from the rafters.

“Nice of you to drop in.”

Then, there was nothing.