Death at the Beggar's Opera (18 page)

Fortunately, one of the scenery doors had not quite caught on its latch and by careful insertion of his herb knife, the carrying of which was a patent affectation in the heart of London but one that the Apothecary refused to give up, it swung silent back on its hinges.

‘It’s damnably dark inside,’ whispered Samuel, peering into Drury Lane’s fathomless depths.

‘Very,’ agreed John, and a most unpleasant feeling, practically one akin to horror, crawled the length of his spine.

‘I wonder if there’s a candle anywhere,’ Samuel went on, taking a few tentative steps into the abyss.

‘We’ll never find it even if there is.’ John raised his voice a little. ‘Will, don’t be afraid. It’s John Rawlings, the apothecary, come to see you. Where are you?’

There was no reply and John had the odd sensation of hearing his words come back to him through layers of muffling cloth. The curtains were obviously drawn across the stage, adding to the impenetrable dusk.

‘Where can he be?’ asked Samuel.

‘Probably asleep. He sleeps very soundly, sometimes aided by some sort of opiate in my opinion.’

‘I hope he’s all right,’ the Goldsmith continued, and suddenly there was a note of genuine fear in his voice.

‘William,’ John called again, this time more urgently, but still there was no answer, only the unnerving echo of his own disembodied tones.

They had been standing in the dark for several minutes now and slowly, as their eyes adjusted, vague shapes began to rear out of the shadows. It was apparent that they were in one of the scenery bays, those roomy areas backstage where flats and other theatrical contrivances are stored when not in use. To their left was the great expanse of the stage itself, still set for
The Merchant of Venice
and strangely haunted-looking because of the fact that the auditorium was blocked off by drapery. To the right were the scenery doors, a chink of moonlight glinting through. Beyond the stage, invisible in the blackness, lay the staircase leading to the dressing rooms and, on stage level, the properties and costume rooms, together with the Green Room and various other bits of storage space.

‘The child told me he had a bed in the properties room,’ John said to Samuel, finding that his voice had dropped to a nervous murmur.

‘Then we had better go and look for him. It shouldn’t be too difficult once we’ve crossed the stage,’ Samuel answered, bravely striking out and instantly tripping over some furniture and falling flat, then rising again amidst a great deal of cursing.

What, when the theatre was lit and the audience assembled, was normally a haven of pleasure now seemed a pit from hell. As uncertain as blind men, the two friends stumbled and felt their way across the arena of Drury Lane Theatre until at last they entered the opposite wing. Here they were helped by a small amount of moonlight coming through a barred window next to the stairs, and it was by this pallid illumination that they crept along the corridor from which doors led off to the various rooms.

‘Which is the properties room?’ Samuel asked quietly.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t been in there. This is the Green Room for sure,’ John answered, opening and closing a door after staring into the dimness beyond.

‘But where’s the boy? Surely he should have heard us by now?’

‘As I said, the poor thing sleeps deeply.’

But even as the Apothecary spoke the words, alarm plucked the strings of his heart and the spine-freezing hand of fear laid itself upon him once more.

‘There’s something wrong,’ he exclaimed involuntarily.

‘I know,’ Samuel answered.

They stared at one another in the sickly moonlight and then, with one accord, began wrenching open doors and calling the child’s name. As is always the way in awful situations, the properties room was the very last they came to, even though they instantly recognised the place for what it was by the ceiling-high pile of everything from Roman armour to Macbeth’s great chair of state.

‘Will,’ called John loudly, striding in. ‘Will, where are you?’

No sleepy little voice answered from the pile of bedding clearly visible beneath one of the two windows, and no ugly-faced child got to his feet, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

‘Where is he?’ asked Samuel, clutching the Apothecary’s arm in panic.

‘Not here, certainly.’

‘Then what …’ The Goldsmith’s voice died away as his attention was caught by something else. ‘My God, isn’t that the gallows over there?’ And he pointed with a broad finger, now visibly trembling.

Caught by the rays of watery moonshine, John looked across to where the mobile, the contraption on which Jasper Harcross had met his death, had been pushed into a corner. It loomed, dark and somehow threatening, in the place to which it had been removed once Mr Fielding had given permission for it to be taken from the stage.

‘I would like to chop the vile thing up for firewood,’ Dick Weatherby had told John in confidence. ‘But, alas, the Blind Beak said it would be destroying evidence.’

‘And so it would,’ the Apothecary had answered.

Obviously, the fate of the murder platform had been to store it in the properties room, from whence it could be retrieved should further examination prove necessary. But none of this was in John’s mind as he stared in growing horror at the evil piece of stage machinery. For it seemed to him in the blurred and imperfect light that Jasper’s body still dangled from the noose, lifeless but swaying slightly in the draught created by the open door. But just as John remembered that there was no noose, that it had been cut down, still round the actor’s neck, he saw Samuel spring into action.

“Sblud, John, there’s someone hanging there! Oh God help us, there’s been another murder!’

As if released from a dream, realisation came to the Apothecary at exactly the same moment, and he and Samuel sprinted forward, knocking things flying as they went.

‘It’s the child!’ screamed the Goldsmith, more agitated than John could ever remember him. ‘It’s the poor, innocent boy.’

‘We must cut him down!’ John yelled, his voice rising to a note of hysteria. And with that came the memory that he had used virtually the same words about Jasper.

But here all similarity ceased. As Samuel, with his commanding height, slashed through the rope with Macbeth’s dagger, unusually sharp for a stage weapon, and the pathetic body was lowered into John’s arms, the Apothecary realised that Will and Jasper Harcross had been doomed to die in entirely different ways. Whereas the actor had been spared the agony of slow suffocation, the theatre boy had not. Wretched, tragic Will, who had started his life abandoned outside the Foundling Hospital, had met his dismal little end in pain and suffering. His callous killer had strung him up and left him there to die.

But for all that, the Apothecary tried every skill at his command to restore life. He had supported Will carefully as he was lowered, in order to put no further strain on the neck, and now that the noose was within his grasp he loosened and removed it. Then he pumped fiercely on the heart and blew into the child’s mouth, a strange technique which he had been taught by his Master, and which still needed some form of perfecting in order to succeed properly. Yet though he worked for a full quarter of an hour, willing that small, sad heart to start its beat beneath his hands, poor Will remained lifeless.

‘It’s no use,’ said John, his face white as lace in the moonlight. ‘I can’t save him.’

‘By God,’ answered Samuel fiercely, ‘this man has to be caught! To kill Jasper Harcross is one thing, but to take the life of a blameless child is entirely different. Who could possibly do such a thing – and why?’

‘Perhaps because the poor little wretch remembered something,’ John replied slowly. ‘I told him when I questioned him that if he were to recall anything further about the night before the murder, he was to tell me at once.’

‘But even if he had remembered something vital, how could anybody else have known that?’

‘Because he obviously confided in another, and that person was the wrong one to speak to. Will was silenced before he could get to me, don’t you see?’

‘I see only too clearly,’ Samuel answered grimly. ‘If he had spoken to you in the shop, if the fat lady hadn’t frightened him off, all this could have been avoided.’

‘Oh don’t, don’t,’ John said wretchedly. ‘I cannot bear even to think about it.’

‘You must not take that guilt on yourself,’ was Samuel’s sensible reply. ‘What happened, happened. The child ran away and that was that.’

John looked thoughtful. ‘He must have hastened back to Drury Lane and bumped into someone and decided to tell them everything. Now who could have been in the theatre at that time?’

‘Any of ’em,’ his friend answered morosely. ‘It seems to me that they are always hovering round the place, rehearsing and so on.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’ In the gloom the Apothecary stared at his watch. It was half past two in the morning. Samuel, reading his thoughts, said, ‘Is it too late to rouse the Beak?’

‘It is but we must. There is no way in which we can wait until later.’

‘I suppose you want me to run?’ asked the Goldsmith with a sigh.

‘It is a straight choice between that or staying with the body.’

‘I’ll run,’ said Samuel hastily.

Together they found the stage door which John left open, partly to let in more light, partly so as not to feel cut off from the world outside. This done, he went back to the properties room, having found a candle and tinder box on the way. There, with greater illumination and without Samuel lurking in the background, he made a more thorough examination of the mortal remains of poor Will Swithin.

He had choked to death all right, and sufficiently long ago to render John’s attempts at resuscitation useless. Whoever had killed the boy had obviously waited until the theatre emptied after
The Merchant of Venice
and then returned to silence the unhappy child. Holding the cold, pale corpse in his arms, John thought what a waste everything was. Here was a young creature starting out on the adventure of life, courageously doing his best to make his way in the world. Now there was no hope for him. He had been despatched because he knew too much.

‘God bless you, sad soul,’ said John, and kissed the icy forehead.

It was in that moment, almost like a flash of lightning, that Will’s true parentage was suddenly revealed to him. Mr Fielding had guessed at it yet had refused to commit himself, but now the time had come to prove it. As Samuel crashed back in through the stage door, John, having covered the corpse with a theatrical cloak, ran to meet him.

‘Are they on their way?’

‘Yes,’ his friend panted. ‘Mr Fielding is getting dressed, as are two of the Beak Runners.’

‘What about Joe Jago?’

‘He lives in the Seven Dials area. Someone has gone to fetch him.’

‘Samuel,’ said John earnestly. ‘Do you think you could go back and divert one of the Runners to bring Mr and Mrs Martin here? Their presence is vital, I believe.’

The Goldsmith rolled his eyes in his head, still puffing. ‘Must I?’ he gasped.

John nodded. ‘It’s very important. Really.’

With a look of total resignation his friend said no more, heading out of the theatre at a strained trot, his face a picture of despondency.

‘I’m sorry,’ the Apothecary called after him, ‘but we must find the boy’s killer.’

Samuel’s receding figure quickened its pace as John, his expression grave, returned to keep his vigil with the newly dead.

* * *

Within half an hour all the officers of the law were present. The physician had examined William and confirmed John’s diagnosis of death by strangulation, caused by murderous hanging. But then, contrary to normal practice, the body had not been removed to the city morgue. Instead, at Mr Fielding’s instruction, it had remained in the properties room, still covered by the cloak.

By now all the chandeliers that normally lit the stage and theatre had been illuminated, so it was possible for a thorough search of the gallows and the surrounding area to be made. It had not surprised John greatly when a woman’s glove had been found abandoned not far from the scene of the murder. But what had shaken him to the core had been the fact that it smelled distinctly of the perfume worn by Coralie Clive.

‘But that’s impossible,’ he exclaimed to the Blind Beak, shortly after the discovery had been made. ‘I was with Miss Clive last evening. We dined with the Comte and Comtesse de Vignolles. Later we were joined by Miss Kitty who arrived at about eleven o’clock. Coralie’s movements can be completely accounted for.’

John Fielding had raised the glove to his nose and sniffed it thoughtfully.
‘Sarah Delaney’s bow and now this. It would seem that the murderer is definitely trying to incriminate a woman.’

‘He’s made an error this time!’ John replied triumphantly. ‘I suppose he thought that the glove belonged to Sarah and by placing it in the properties room he was drawing her into the net more tightly.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ the Blind Beak answered. ‘Think of the play, my young friend.’

‘The play?’ John repeated, surprised.

‘Do not Polly Peachum and Lucy Lockit become united by misfortune at one stage? Surely there is a line which Polly speaks, “Let us retire, my dear Lucy, and indulge our sorrows”? Having no one else to turn to, do they not console one another?’

‘Are you saying that the killer is trying to lay the blame at the feet of both Coralie and Sarah?’

‘It is a possibility, you must agree. One had been his mistress, the other expects his child. These two women, as far as we know, were Jasper’s most recent conquests.’

‘I don’t quite follow you, Sir.’

‘If jealous revenge was the motive for the original crime, then why not get rid of his two sweethearts by leaving clues that point to both of them?’

‘As if the women were working in collusion?’

‘Exactly.’

John sat silently, considering the idea. ‘On the other hand, Sir, he – or she – could have mistaken the glove for Sarah Delaney’s.’

‘Indeed, they could. The entire case is surrounded by bewildering possibilities. And speaking of women, could a female have strung that poor boy up?’