The wrong mark

“No Rupert,” exclaimed Lady Constance, the back of one hand on her brow, while she made fending off gestures with the other; “I would not marry you even if you were the last man on earth!”

“If I can’t have you then neither will any other man,” replied Rupert with a snarl, as he thrust a hand into his pocket, pulled out a pistol and fired.

Lady Constance put her hand to her stomach and started to scream dramatically, before suddenly collapsing in an inert heap, as Rupert ran from the scene.

The audience, who had been cheering loudly as the play built up to a climax, went wild with applause.

A few seconds after Lady Constance death, the entire cast returned to the front of the outdoor stage to take their bows and bask in the applause of the locals. Constance was still lying where she had fallen.

“Come on Penny old girl, you’ll catch your death of cold lying on the grass like that,” joked Rupert as he went to help her to her feet. Then his face changed. “Oh my god, is there a doctor in the house?”

Most of the audience applauded once again, supposing this to be part of the act, then the women in the cast came to see what had caused the interruption to their curtain call and began screaming in unfeigned terror.

The director ran to the front of the stage and asked the audience to remain seated and not leave the area while the police were sent for.

----O----

DI Jenkins arrived in a blare of sirens, flashing blue lights and screeching tyres. He ordered his men to take the names and addresses of the audience and list their belongings, before letting any of them leave the theatre site.

He had a quick look at the body and recognised poor old Penny the barmaid from the local pub. She was dead alright, her blood was soaking into the grass where she lay.

While the details were still being taken from the audience, Inspector Jenkins looked round the setting for the incident. The stage was set in a horse shoe shaped clearing in the trees, overlooking both the seating for the audience and the estate ha-ha. Behind the stage the lawns sloped up for a hundred yards or so before meeting a gravel surfaced pathway that surrounded the old manor house.

The Lower Wharton Players were an amateur dramatic group who liked to specialise in the field of melodrama. Not only did the genre appeal to their audience’s rustic sense of humour, but it also disguised many of the cast’s lack of ability.

The group were fortunate in having access to the Manor, built in the 18th C. This property had been blessed during the 1920’s with an outdoor theatre, where he was now standing.

Brian Jones, the actor playing Rupert, was in a terrible state. At the Inspector’s request he handed over the stage gun immediately.

“I couldn’t possibly have killed her,” he quavered, “we may be amateurs, but we’re told never to point a gun at anyone, even if it does only fire blanks!”

An hour or so later Jenkins together with DS Smith started to try and make sense of the notes collected by the constables. A fairly representative collection of modern day accessories had been listed. Wallets, bunches of keys, lady’s make up accessories, small change, credit cards and the ubiquitous mobile phone. There was nothing that looked remotely like a murder weapon.

There really wasn’t much to discuss, the whole thing appeared impossible. The only fact they had to go on was that the two actors had been facing each other in the scene when the woman had been killed. From the audience point of view Rupert had been standing to the right of Constance as he’d fired at her.

Superficial examination showed that a small calibre bullet had hit her in the right temple, so obviously she’d been shot from the direction of the open countryside that formed the magnificent view from the house. Rupert’s protestations proved to be correct; the barrel of his gun was only drilled out for half an inch in from the muzzle and could fire nothing but blanks.

Yet there was 300 yards or more of open country before there was any cover for a rifleman to conceal himself. Nothing out there except for a few sheep and even if there had been perfect cover, it must have been almost impossible for a fatal shot from a small bore weapon to hit her so cleanly in the head.

----O----