Ngaio Marsh
Night at the Vulcan
To
The Management and Company of
The New Zealand Student Players
of 1949 in love and gratitude
Cast of Characters
of the Vulcan Theatre
Martyn Tarne
Bob Grantley, business manager
Fred Badger, night-watchman
Clem Smith, stage-manager
Bob Cringle, dresser to Adam Poole
Adam Poole, actor-manager
Helena Hamilton, leading lady
Clark Bennington, her husband
Gay Gainsford, his niece
J. G. Darcey, character actor
Parry Percival, juvenile
Jacques Doré, designer and assistant to Adam Poole
Dr. John James Rutherford, playright
of the Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard
Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn
Detective-Inspector Fox
Detective-Sergeant Gibson
Detective-Sergeant Bailey, finger-print expert
Detective-Sergeant Thompson, photographer
P. C. Lord Michael Lamprey
Dr. Curtis
Chapter I
THE VULCAN
As she turned into Carpet Street the girl wondered at her own obstinacy. To what a pass it had brought her, she thought. She lifted first one foot and then the other, determined not to drag them. They felt now as if their texture had changed: their bones, it seemed, were covered by sponge and burning wires.
A clock in a jeweller’s window gave the time as twenty-three minutes to five. She knew by the consequential scurry of its second-hand that it was alive.