“That’ll do admirably,” said Craddock. “In the meantime is Dr. Gilchrist in the house?”
“He is.”
“Then I’d like to talk to him.”
“Why, certainly. I’ll fetch him right away.”
The young man bustled away. Dermot Craddock stood thoughtfully at the top of the stairs. Of course this frozen look that Mrs. Bantry had described might have been entirely Mrs. Bantry’s imagination. She was, he thought, a woman who would jump to conclusions. At the same time he thought it quite likely that the conclusion to which she had jumped was a just one. Without going so far as to look like the Lady of Shalott seeing doom coming down upon her, Marina Gregg might have seen something that vexed or annoyed her. Something that had caused her to have been negligent to a guest to whom she was talking. Somebody had come up those stairs, perhaps, who could be described as an unexpected guest—an unwelcome guest?
He turned at the sound of footsteps. Hailey Preston was back and with him was Dr. Maurice Gilchrist. Dr. Gilchrist was not at all as Dermot Craddock had imagined him. He had no suave bedside manner, neither was he theatrical in appearance. He seemed on the face of it a blunt, hearty, matter-of-fact man. He was dressed in tweeds, slightly florid tweeds to the English idea. He had a thatch of brown hair and observant, keen dark eyes.
“Doctor Gilchrist? I am Chief-Inspector Dermot Craddock. May I have a word or two with you in private?”
The doctor nodded. He turned along the corridor and went along it almost to the end, then he pushed the door open and invited Craddock to enter.
“No one will disturb us here,” he said.
It was obviously the doctor’s own bedroom, a very comfortably appointed one. Dr. Gilchrist indicated a chair and then sat down himself.
“I understand,” said Craddock, “that Miss Marina Gregg, according to you, is unable to be interviewed. What’s the matter with her, Doctor?”
Gilchrist shrugged his shoulders very slightly.
“Nerves,” he said. “If you were to ask her questions now she’d be in a state bordering on hysteria within ten minutes. I can’t permit that. If you like to send your police doctor to see me, I’d be willing to give him my views. She was unable to be present at the inquest for the same reason.”
“How long,” asked Craddock, “is such a state of things likely to continue?”
Dr. Gilchrist looked at him and smiled. It was a likeable smile.
“If you want my opinion,” he said, “a human opinion, that is, not a medical one, anytime within the next forty-eight hours, and she’ll be not only willing, but asking to see you! She’ll be wanting to ask questions. She’ll be wanting to answer your questions. They’re like that!” He leaned forward. “I’d like to try and make you understand if I can, Chief-Inspector, a little bit what makes these people act the way they do. The motion picture life is a life of continuous strain, and the more successful you are, the greater the strain. You live always, all day, in the public eye. When you’re on location, when you’re working, it’s hard monotonous work with long hours. You’re there in the morning, you sit and you wait. You do your small bit, the bit that’s being shot over and over again. If you’re rehearsing on the stage you’d be rehearsing as likely as not a whole act, or at any rate a part of an act. The thing would be in sequence, it would be more or less human and credible. But when you’re shooting a picture everything’s taken out of sequence. It’s a monotonous, grinding business. It’s exhausting. You live in luxury, of course, you have soothing drugs, you have baths and creams and powders and medical attention, you have relaxations and parties and people, but you’re always in the public eye. You can’t enjoy yourself quietly. You can’t really—ever relax.”
“I can understand that,” said Dermot. “Yes, I can understand.”
“And there’s another thing,” went on Gilchrist. “If you adopt this career, and especially if you’re any good at it, you are a certain kind of person. You’re a person—or so I’ve found in my experience—with a skin too few—a person who is plagued the whole time with diffidence. A terrible feeling of inadequacy, of apprehension that you can’t do what’s required of you. People say that actors and actresses are vain. That isn’t true. They’re not conceited about themselves; they’re obsessed with themselves, yes, but they need reassurance the whole time. They must be continually reassured. Ask Jason Rudd. He’ll tell you the same. You have to make them feel they can do it, to assure them they can do it, take them over and over again over the same thing encouraging them the whole time until you get the effect you want. But they are always doubtful of themselves. And that makes them, in an ordinary human, unprofessional word: nervy. Damned nervy! A mass of nerves. And the worse their nerves are the better they are at the job.”
“That’s interesting,” said Craddock. “Very interesting.” He paused, adding: “Though I don’t see quite why you—”
“I’m trying to make you understand Marina Gregg,” said Maurice Gilchrist. “You’ve seen her pictures, no doubt.”
“She’s a wonderful actress,” said Dermot, “wonderful. She has a personality, a beauty, a sympathy.”
“Yes,” said Gilchrist, “she has all those, and she’s had to work like the devil to produce the effects that she has produced. In the process her nerves get shot to pieces, and she’s not actually a strong woman physically. Not as strong as you need to be. She’s got one of those temperaments that swing to and fro between despair and rapture. She can’t help it. She’s made that way. She’s suffered a great deal in her life. A large part of the suffering has been her own fault, but some of it hasn’t. None of her marriages has been happy, except, I’d say, this last one. She’s married to a man now who loves her dearly and who’s loved her for years. She’s sheltering in that love and she’s happy in it. At least, at the moment she’s happy in it. One can’t say how long all that will last. The trouble with her is that either she thinks that at last she’s got to that spot or place or that moment in her life where everything’s like a fairy tale come true, that nothing can go wrong, that she’ll never be unhappy again; or else she’s down in the dumps, a woman whose life is ruined, who’s never known love and happiness and who never will again.” He added dryly, “If she could only stop halfway between the two it’d be wonderful for her; and the world would lose a fine actress.”
He paused, but Dermot Craddock did not speak. He was wondering why Maurice Gilchrist was saying what he did. Why this close detailed analysis of Marina Gregg? Gilchrist was looking at him. It was as though he was urging Dermot to ask one particular question. Dermot wondered very much what the question was that he ought to ask. He said at last slowly, with the air of one feeling his way:
“She’s been very much upset by this tragedy happening here?”
“Yes,” said Gilchrist, “she has.”
“Almost unnaturally so?”
“That depends,” said Dr. Gilchrist.
“On what does it depend?”
“On her reason for being so upset.”
“I suppose,” said Dermot, feeling his way, “that it was a shock, a sudden death happening like that in the midst of a party.”
He saw very little response in the face opposite him “Or might it,” he said, “be something more than that?”
“You can’t tell, of course,” said Dr. Gilchrist, “how people are going to react. You can’t tell however well you know them. They can always surprise you. Marina might have taken this in her stride. She’s a soft-hearted creature. She might say, ‘Oh, poor, poor woman, how tragic. I wonder how it could have happened.’ She could have been sympathetic without really caring. After all deaths do occasionally occur at studio parties. Or she might, if there wasn’t anything very interesting going on, choose—choose unconsciously, mind you—to dramatize herself over it. She might decide to throw a scene. Or there might be some quite different reason.”
Dermot decided to take the bull by the horns. “I wish,” he said, “you would tell me what you really think?”
“I don’t know,” said Dr. Gilchrist. “I can’t be sure.” He paused and then said, “There’s professional etiquette, you know. There’s the relationship between doctor and patient.”
“She has told you something?”
“I don’t think I could go as far as that.”
“Did Marina Gregg know this woman, Heather Badcock? Had she met her before?”
“I don’t think she knew her from Adam,” said Dr. Gilchrist. “No. That’s not the trouble. If you ask me it’s nothing to do with Heather Badcock.”
Dermot said, “This stuff, this Calmo. Does Marina Gregg ever use it herself?”
“Lives on it, pretty well,” said Dr. Gilchrist. “So does everyone else around here,” he added. “Ella Zielinsky takes it, Hailey Preston takes it, half the boiling takes it—it’s the fashion at this moment. They’re all much the same, these things. People get tired of one and they try a new one that comes out and they think it’s wonderful, and that it makes all the difference.”
“And does it make all the difference?”
“Well,” said Gilchrist, “it makes a difference. It does its work. It calms you or it peps you up, makes you feel you could do things which otherwise you might fancy that you couldn’t. I don’t prescribe them more than I can help, but they’re not dangerous taken properly. They help people who can’t help themselves.”
“I wish I knew,” said Dermot Craddock, “what it is that you are trying to tell me.”
“I’m trying to decide,” said Gilchrist, “what is my duty. There are two duties. There’s the duty of a doctor to his patient. What his patient says to him is confidential and must be kept so. But there’s another point of view. You can fancy that there is a danger to a patient. You have to take steps to avoid that danger.”
He stopped. Craddock looked at him and waited.
“Yes,” said Dr. Gilchrist. “I think I know what I must do. I must ask you, Chief-Inspector Craddock, to keep what I am telling you confidential. Not from your colleagues, of course. But as far as regards the outer world, particularly in the house here. Do you agree?”
“I can’t bind myself,” said Craddock. “I don’t know what will arise. In general terms, yes, I agree. That is to say, I imagine that any piece of information you gave me I should prefer to keep to myself and my colleagues.”
“Now listen,” said Gilchrist, “this mayn’t mean anything at all. Women say anything when they’re in the state of nerves Marina Gregg is now. I’m telling you something which she said to me. There may be nothing in it at all.”
“What did she say?” asked Craddock.