Cursed in the Act (3 page)

“She seems to be taking it well. I expected to see a lot of tears and hand-wringing, but she had a determined set to her mouth and both eyes quite dry.”

Bill took a deep drink from his tankard and then belched. He sat back on the settle. “You can never tell how a person will take a death, especially the death of your own son,” he said quietly. “Just because there are no tears doesn't mean there is no sorrow.” Quite the philosopher, I thought.

We sat quietly for a few moments. John Martin, the tavern keeper of the Druid's Head, loomed over us. If he could have acted, he would have made a magnificent Falstaff. His stomach preceded him as he steered around the tables and chairs of his establishment. His deep voice bounced off the low, blackened beams of the ceiling. His ruddy nose and cheeks reflected the red glow of the log fire in the hearth. He now stood before us clutching half a dozen empty tankards in his ham-sized fists.

“You at the funeral of that study man?”

“
Under
study,” I said. “Yes, we were just there.”

“Funny what 'appened to 'im.”

“What do you mean, John?” I was suddenly curious.

He moved around and stood with his buttocks to the fire. I felt a sudden chill as the warmth was cut off.

“Why, 'e seemed sober enough when 'e left 'ere that night. Walked out wif 'is friend, and the next fing I knew there was a commotion outside. When I looked out, someone by the road said as 'ow a gent 'ad been run down.”

“You didn't actually see it happen, then?”

“No. Don't know as 'ow anyone did. Though there was a couple of toffs out there, wif too much wine in 'em. And then someone cried out about one man pushing the other, or somefing.”

“One man pushing the other?” I was interested. “You mean, Richland didn't just get run down?”

John shrugged and, thankfully, moved out of the line of the fire's warmth. “Confusing stories,” he said. “One of the gents said that your man, the study, blundered out into the road and was 'it by a growler goin' too fast . . . nufin' new there. The other gent was on about 'ow the study's friend 'ad
pushed
'im in front of the four-wheeler and then—afterward—had dragged the body off to the other side of the road and then away down an alley.” He sniffed. “All that matters, if you ask me, is that your man got 'isself killed.” He somehow managed to add Bill's now empty tankard to those in his hands and sailed off toward the bar.

“But you say you didn't actually see this, John?” He had disappeared behind the bar and didn't hear me.

“Happens all the time,” said Bill. “Those growlers are always going too fast. No consideration for others, especially when they've a few drinks in them. Bound to be accidents. Have another drink, Harry?”

I looked at Bill. “An accident?” I asked. “Or murder?”

* * *

“I
think we have neither the time nor perhaps the interest to investigate Peter Richland's death,” said Stoker when I reported my conversation with the owner of the Druid's Head. “‘Did he fall or was he pushed?' is the basis of many a theatrical drama, not to mention works of literature, Harry, as you well know. The police seem satisfied with the turn of events, I take it?”

“No mention of any fubbery at St. James's Division,” I said. “All cut-and-dried, according to the detective sergeant at the morgue.”

“You mentioned that there was nothing in Richland's pockets and no jewelry?”

“That's correct, sir. Strange, don't you think, though, the police didn't comment on it? You'd imagine that at the very least he would have had a pocket watch.”

“But you spoke of an eyewitness saying that the man with him dragged his body over to the other side of the road and out of sight down an alley, did you not, Harry?”

“Yes, sir.”

He shrugged. “Well, there you are, then. A simple case of robbing the corpse before making off. Opportunism, Harry. We see it everywhere.” My boss paused, as though a thought had struck him, then nodded and pursed his lips. “Hmm.”

“Is there something else, sir?” I asked.

“I hope there will not be.”

I was puzzled. “Sir?”

He straightened up in his chair and looked me in the eye. “Mr. Richland was not, at least, killed within the confines of the theatre,” he said.

“No.” I was still puzzled. What was he driving at?

“It seems highly unlikely, then, that his
specter
will linger here; though there have been cases . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Are you talking about ghosts, sir?”

“Do not dismiss such things out of hand, Harry. I would draw your attention to the Man in Grey at the Drury Lane Theatre. Most certainly a well-known, if not famous, specter.”

The ghost he referred to had been around as long as the Drury Lane Theatre had been standing. No one knew who he was . . . a onetime actor or perhaps an admirer of one of the early actresses. He would be seen sitting in a box seat or in the front row of the stalls. From all reports he appeared to be a man-about-town, but his three-cornered hat placed him over a hundred years behind the present times. In 1850 some workmen had knocked down a wall at the theatre, to enlarge the auditorium, and had exposed a hidden room. It contained a male skeleton with a dagger stuck between the ribs. Although the remains were given a proper burial, the ghost continued to appear at irregular intervals. I knew that there were many similar stories connected to other theatres in London and about various parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, not to mention Ireland.

“You are thinking that perhaps our Mr. Richland might become the Man in Grey of the Lyceum?” I asked.

Mr. Stoker shook himself. “As I say, he did not die within these walls, so don't be so superstitious, Harry! Let us keep our sights on the attempt to poison the Guv'nor. I am not willing to let that slide, and I still have great suspicions about those malcontents at Sadler's Wells.”

“So I should just forget what I heard about Richland being pushed?” I didn't feel comfortable with that.

Neither, it seemed, did Stoker. After a moment's thought he said, “Well, as I said Harry, focus on the poisoning of the Guv'nor . . . but if you can also do a little digging into Richland's death, well, why not?”

“When you think about it,” I said, “killing off our main understudy would add to any attempt to undermine our production. So it could be part of the same plan to do us harm.”

“True. Yes, very true, Harry. And who, exactly, was this friend that Richland was with? Do we know that? Might bear some investigation, wouldn't you say?”

“I agree,” I said. “So do you want me to make another trip over to Sadler's Wells?”

He again turned his gray green eyes on me and squinted slightly as he tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. My stomach lurched. I knew the sign. He had in mind some devious plan, and I was to be the instrument of it.

“You are well acquainted with our Mr. Archibald, I take it?”

I nodded. Mr. Archibald was in charge of makeup and personal props at the Lyceum. No one seemed to know if Archibald was his first or his last name. He was a short, thin man of indeterminate age, with a large head, who affected an almost feminine manner. Rumor had it that he wore one of his own much-curried wigs. He was inclined to wax poetic about the works, and actions, of Oscar Wilde. The twenty-seven-year-old Wilde had entered society just last year and, to complicate matters, had been a former suitor of Mr. Stoker's wife, Florence, though both gentlemen had long since settled their differences. Mr. Archibald lived in Chelsea, close to his hero.

“I would like you—if your stage-managing duties permit, of course—to visit with Mr. Archibald and see if you can affect some disguise that will permit you to enter the backstage area of the Sadler's Wells Theatre undetected and to mingle with the staff. See what the word is regarding Mr. Irving's affliction . . . and, now, Richland's ‘accident.' I have the feeling that someone there is in on any malice that may have been directed this way. Do you think you can do that, Harry?”

“Of course, sir.” The words were out of my mouth before I even considered it. I later thought to myself that perhaps I shouldn't be quite so eager to please.

As I made my way across the stage toward the dressing rooms, wardrobe, and makeup, on the far side, I wondered about my mop of carrot red hair. How on earth would Mr. Archibald hide that? It would take some monstrous wig, it seemed to me, to cover my head and still look natural.

There was a thud and I almost jumped out of my skin. Something had landed at my feet, right beside where I was walking. It had only narrowly missed me. Alarmed, I looked down on a heavy sandbag with a short piece of rope attached to its neck.

Up above the stage, on either side of it, are the fly galleries: working platforms where the flymen, or riggers, work scene changes by raising and lowering scenery flats. It had taken me a long time to learn the intricacies of this world above the stage. When I first came to work at the Lyceum, I had to learn and adjust quickly. It was a big theatre and there was much with which to familiarize myself. The fly galleries run back from the proscenium to the rear wall. They are connected, along the wall, by a bridge and narrow catwalks. All is accessible by ladders and rungs built into the walls. There is also the gridiron, or fly tower, high above the main stage, immediately under the roof of the building. It's called the gridiron because the floor consists of narrow wooden joists laid on beams with just enough room between the joists for ropes to pass through and connect to pieces of scenery. This vast network of ropes runs through multiple pulleys and up over two great drums rotating on shafts, just under the peak of the roof. The ropes go all the way down the walls to the stage floor. There they are wound around cleats when not fastened to the scenery. To counterbalance the weight of the scenery, the other ends of these ropes are tied around heavy sandbags that move up and down the walls as the scenery is manipulated.

It was one of these sandbags that now lay at my feet. I wondered how that had happened? Stooping, I saw that the short piece of rope had been cut through. This was tough, three-quarters of an inch, Manila hemp. Someone had deliberately cut it and dropped the sandbag, trying to hit me on the head! That would certainly have made a mess of my carrot red hair! As I peered up into the gloom above me, I heard someone scramble along the catwalk. It was far too dark to see who it was.

I am not one to move rapidly under normal circumstances, but someone had just tried to kill me. I leapt across to the closest wall and ran along to the ladder rungs set into it. I started climbing, gasping as I went, determined to catch the man. I reached the fly gallery and was halfway across the bridge when I heard a whooshing sound. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a shadowy figure clinging to a rope and descending rapidly to the stage floor below while one of the sandbags went flying upward to counterbalance him. As he reached the ground, he let go of the rope and ran off into the wings. The released rope immediately reversed its direction, and another sandbag hit the stage, this one bursting open and spewing sand in all directions. I started to slowly climb down again.

Chapter Three

M
r. Stoker was greatly agitated when he heard of my misadventure.

“So!” he hissed. “They have the nerve to bring their war into our camp. We can't let them do that, Harry.”

“I could have been killed.”

“Yes, Harry. Yes, of course.” He paused, his brow furrowed. “I'll tell you what.” I looked at him expectantly. “We'll forget about you going to Sadler's in disguise . . . for now, at least. We'll concentrate our attention here at home. Get up into the fly tower and check all the ropes. Make sure no other ones have been tampered with.”

“All of them, sir? Couldn't the flymen . . . ?”

“Ah yes. Of course, of course. Tell Sam Green to get his men onto it right away. We don't need any mishaps at this evening's performance. Oh, and have a word with Bill Thomas. I want to know how a stranger got into the theatre.”

“Probably happened while we were at the funeral, sir. Bill had to leave his post to go to that.”

“Yes, well . . . someone should have been there to verify visitors.”

The evening performance was fast approaching. I hurried off to catch up on my duties as stage manager. There seemed to be a lot that needed my attention. No time to dwell on what may well have been an attempt on my life. How often had I heard the old saw “The show must go on”? It must indeed and would, with or without me.

In
Hamlet
a majority of the scenes take place in rooms of the castle or in Polonius's house. The brief scene that is Act Four, Scene Four is “A Plain in Denmark,” and so, rather than deal with major scene changing, a painted backdrop sheet of said plain is unrolled down in front of the main set and then pulled up again afterward. This sheet rolls down and up like a blind. I had watched while Sam Green unrolled and then re-rolled the sheet, to make sure that it ran smoothly. Little did I realize the part that this backdrop would play in the evening's performance.

* * *

T
he play was going well. The Guv'nor seemed to have regained most of his stamina and was charming the audience in his customary manner. They were eating out of his hand. Mr. Stoker was, as usual, ensconced in his office juggling paperwork: accounts, schedules, booking requests, front of house matters. While the performance was underway, the stage manager was in charge. I made sure the callboy was not slacking, quieted the chatter of the extras, ensured that props were where they needed to be. Many's the time I had to institute a frantic search for a dagger or sword that one of the actors had mislaid or I had to locate the wardrobe mistress because one of the ladies had stepped on the hem of her dress and torn it.

But tonight all seemed to be running smoothly. I stood behind the prompt and watched from the wings. Scene Three finished and I saw Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern gathered opposite me, with Maurice Withers as Fortineras on my side of the stage waiting to go on. The lights were not dimmed for the brief scene change; it was a simple matter for the backdrop to come rolling down and the scene to start. At a cue from me, Sam Green and his men sent the backdrop rolling down. There was a sudden gasp from the audience, followed by a scream from Edwina Price, the prompt. The scream startled me, since Miss Price normally never uttered a word during a performance, unless called upon to prompt.

“Lights! Douse the lights!” Someone responding faster than me shouted the order, but the lights continued to burn steadily. I saw the reason for the commotion and leapt forward.

As the scene backdrop unfolded, something that had been rolled up inside it came bouncing out. It was a severed human head!

* * *

D
etective Sergeant Bellamy examined the point of his pencil to make certain it was sharp. I'm sure he had a lot to write. The pencil was poised over his official notebook. He looked up again for the umpteenth time, his eyes only half open, and he seemed close to falling asleep. His mournful gaze rose to the vast darkness above the stage.

When Mr. Irving, onstage as Hamlet, had seen the head and realized what it was, he had run forward, kicked it into the orchestra pit, and then carried on as though nothing had happened. Miss Price's scream went unnoticed and the play had gone on to its conclusion with the usual number of curtain calls. It was not until the audience had cleared the theatre that Mr. Stoker notified the police.

“Rum do,” observed the sergeant. “Rum do.”

“Yes.” I had to agree.

“So this wasn't a part of the play, we take it?”

“No,” said Mr. Stoker. “The play is
Hamlet
. There are no severed heads in it.”

My mind did go, fleetingly, to the churchyard scene and Hamlet musing over the skull of Yorick. It might, perhaps, have been more appropriate if the severed head had leapt out at that time, I thought.

“Whose head is it, sir?”

“Whose head is it?” Stoker echoed, incredulously.

“Yes. It must belong to someone.”

“Well, of course it belongs to someone!” I exploded. “How would we know whose it is? I thought that was your job?”

He made a note in his book then looked at me through rheumy eyes. “No need to get testy, sir,” he said.

“Testy?” It had been a long day and I was about to show him just how testy I could get when pushed . . . but I sighed and let it go. I was too tired to get into an argument. “You are going to take it with you, are you not?” I asked almost pleadingly.

“Oh yes. Yes. We'll remove the object, sir. Have no fear.” Another note in his book. “Tell me, how did it end up in the orchestra pit . . . beside the bass drum, as we understand it?”

“The Guv . . . Mr. Irving kicked it there.”

His eyebrows rose a half inch. “Kicked it there? Did he now? Now why would he do a thing like that?”

“So that the audience wouldn't get upset!” I said, exasperated.

“Look, Sergeant, can we not go over all these questions in the morning?” interjected Mr. Stoker. “It is getting late and we have all had a really long day . . .”

“Oh yes. Yes, sir, of course we can.” More scribbling in his book, which he finally snapped closed. His eyes examined me for a moment, as though he thought I might be holding back some important information. Then he nodded in agreement with himself and turned to look down into the pit, where the head still lay. “Just come around to St. James's Division before nine of the clock, if you would be so kind, sir, and we'll finish our report then. Do you have a bag, or something?”

* * *

T
he theatre was closed on Sunday. Not so the police station, so I made my appearance there and filed my report to Sergeant Bellamy's satisfaction. I was surprised to see him there on the Sabbath, but one of the constables suggested that the good sergeant had no other life.

“'E's married to the force,” he said with a grin. “Ain't never 'ad no wife as I know, and not likely to get one, to my way o' thinkin'.”

The good detective sergeant was about fifty years of age, and I surmised from his somewhat ruddy countenance that he was also married to the local tavern. I pondered whether or not that could be classed as bigamy.

It was a sunny day for February, though with no warmth from the sun. The bone-chilling wind that had blown through London for the past several days had died down to a whisper, and I felt almost exhilarated. I eschewed a cab or an omnibus, turned down Northumberland Avenue, and headed for the Embankment: Sir Joseph Bazalgette's vision of reclaimed river land. Up until twenty years ago this whole section had been twenty-two acres of mud and filth, with various sewer lines emptying into the river. Now it was a fine promenade fashioned from granite blocks brought by barge from as far away as Cornwall. It had rapidly become a popular venue for all Londoners.

A number of young couples strolled there beside the river, pausing now and again to stand close to each other and gaze out at the murky waters of the Thames. One or two nursemaids pushed their perambulators, clutching the hand of an older child dressed in his or her Sunday best. A young boy bowled a hoop along the Embankment while another boy enthusiastically whipped at a top to set it spinning. Most, I assumed, were fresh out of church. I was not a churchgoer myself, though I did duck into Christ Church in Marylebone once in a while, to keep on good terms with whoever might be in control “up there.”

An old woman played a hurdy-gurdy at the corner of Northumberland, and not a dozen paces away a young boy fingered a pennywhistle at a furious speed, its notes clashing with those of the hurdy-gurdy. It was as I was turning away from admiring a slow-moving Thames sailing barge that I saw Ralph Bateman.

Ralph Bateman was the younger brother of Mrs. Crowe. Mr. Stoker believed that Mrs. Crowe (the Bateman daughter Kate) could be behind the poisoning of the Guv'nor. Her brother, Ralph, was a pasty-faced, overweight young man who had—so I had been led to believe—dropped out of Cambridge and, the last I had heard, journeyed off to the West Indies on the other side of the Atlantic. It seemed he had now returned, and it was indeed a surprise for me to see him here on so fine a morning. However, Ralph had always fancied himself something of a fashionmonger and before his travels used to hang about his mother's theatre passing his time by criticizing and complaining. His mother, and now his sister, fully indulged him. It was perhaps understandable that he would promenade along the Embankment, as did so many young bucks.

Right now Ralph Bateman was in deep conversation with a pair of unsavory-looking characters. One of them, a short man, kept his eyes firmly on Bateman's face, while the other, a tall and well-built dark-skinned man, constantly looked about as if to ensure that they were not being overheard. I didn't think that Ralph Bateman knew me, at least not by sight, so I casually strolled in their direction, idly wondering what they might be up to.

“You'll get your guinea when you've completed the job,” Ralph was saying to the shorter of his two companions. “That's what the boss said; that was the agreement.”

“That was afore I see'd the 'eight of that stuff! An 'undred feet above the stage, if'n you ask me.”

“Nonsense. No higher than at Sadler's, and you know it. I hadn't realized that you were afraid of heights or I would have hired someone else.”

“'Ere! I ain't afeared of nothin' and no one. I want me money.”

“When you have completed the job.” Ralph Bateman turned away as though the conversation was at an end. I stood there dumbfounded at what I was hearing and wondered who “the boss” he had mentioned might be. The short man took an impulsive step forward and Ralph swung back to stare at him, raising his cane and prodding him in the chest. “Don't even think it, Charlie Vickers. Don't even think it, especially if you want to get any part of your money.”

The dark-skinned man stepped forward and nodded in my direction. Bateman glanced over his shoulder and then set off at a brisk pace away from the riverside and toward Whitehall Place. The two others hurried after him.

* * *

“C
harlie Vickers, you say?”

Stoker peered at me over the gold rims of his reading spectacles. He was working on the accounts, and I felt guilty interrupting him so early on a Monday morning, but I wanted to report on my stroll along the Embankment the previous afternoon.

“That's what Ralph Bateman called him, I believe. I wasn't able to get too close before they took off, but I did hear that much. I don't know who the third man was, nor ‘the boss' that Ralph referred to. The third man was a dark-skinned gentleman. Very well dressed. From across the ocean, I presume. I haven't seen him before.”

Stoker's ponderous head nodded slowly up and down, as it was wont to do while he digested my reports. “Could he have been a native of the Caribbean, joined up with Ralph when on his travels? And you think that they are concocting further mischief?” he asked.

It was my turn to nod. “Bateman said something about not paying Vickers until the job was completed. That's when he mentioned this ‘boss.'”

Stoker laid down his pen and sat back in his office chair. “Charlie Vickers is a nasty piece of work, Harry,” he said. “If the price is right, he'll do anything short of murdering his grandmother . . . and he probably has a price for that.”

“You know of him, then?”

“Oh yes.” Again he nodded his head. “A thrasonical scoundrel. One time, just before you came here, I believe it was, he sold counterfeit tickets to all of our best seats for the Guv'nor's production of
Richard III
. Caused no end of a problem. Then he was involved in the theft of the leading lady's jewelry at the Prince of Wales's Theatre on Charlotte Street. That leading lady, by the way, was our own Miss Ellen Terry, before she came to join Mr. Irving. Charlie Vickers is a small-time sneaksman with no inhibitions.”

“Well, then there was that puzzling thing,” I added. “Bateman said—and I think I heard him aright—that ‘you'll get your guinea when you've completed the job.
That's what the boss said
.' In other words, it sounds as though someone else is actually in charge, giving the orders, and yet Ralph doesn't usually pay attention to anyone other than his mother. And she's no longer with us. He pays no heed to his sister.”

There was a long silence while Stoker digested that.

“I must admit, I thought this a little ambitious for Mrs. Crowe's brother, Ralph. Yes, Harry, it would make sense that there be a smarter mind behind these attacks on the Lyceum. The question is, who could it be?”

“I've alerted Bill Thomas to be especially vigilant,” I said, “and I've also paid a crossing sweeper and an itinerant musician to keep an eye open outside and report anything that strikes them as being out of the ordinary.”

“Good. Good.” He looked back down at the accounts book as though anxious to get back to it. “What news from your Sergeant Bellamy and the head?”