The List of Seven

by Mark Frost

  “Naïveté, then,” said Sparks.

  “So might a more cynical mind call it,” said Doyle evenly.

  “And you might call it…”

  “Faith.”

  Sparks and Doyle looked at each other. Doyle saw a tightening around the corners of Sparks’s eyes. Had he shamed some vulnerable place in him, or was it simply a reflex of remorse? Whatever the case, Sparks retreated from the openness of their exchange, the jocularity of the mood he’d built with Larry forfeiting its bright sheen.

  “Long may it serve you well,” said Sparks.

  “‘In God We Trust,’” said Larry. “That’s what they stamp on the money in America. There’s the proper place for faith, you ask me.”

  Sparks started for the door to the engine. “I’ve squandered enough of my dwindling fortune in your direction for one sitting, Larry; time to earn your keep and shovel some coal—”

  “Right with you, sir.”

  “You’re more than welcome to join us, Doyle.”

  “A bit of exercise in the fresh air would do me well,” said Doyle.

  Doyle followed them out the door, traversed the agitated coupling, and climbed onto the tender. Sparks gave a wave to Barry, hand on the throttle, bundled up ahead of them in the engine cab. Each man grabbed a shovel and went to work pouring fuel into the scuttle. The cold and whipping wind sent up motes of coal that bit into their skin; driven snow-flakes exploded on contact with their clothes, crystals melting in the wooden threads, dissolving into the black of the scattering dust.

  “Where are we?” shouted Doyle.

  “An hour from York,” Sparks yelled back. “Three hours to Whitby, if the weather holds.”

  The cold inspired them to great exertions, the quicker to remove themselves from its glare. Soon the fire in the engine burned hotter than a sinner’s conscience.

  Whitby began as a sixth-century fishing village, grown over the years to a minor port, a seaside resort in the short summer of Northumbria, but in the depths of winter a forbidding destination to any but those required to seek it out by either trade or custom. The river Esk had carved a deep rift between two summits as it made its way to the sea where it formed a natural, deep harbor, and in that narrow valley the village first found life. Over the years, the community sprawled to incorporate both hillsides. Some combination of mood and the harsh landscape had down the centuries created a fertile haven for stern religious feeling, ofttimes fervor. The crumbling Celtic abbey of St. Hilda dominated the high headland south of the village proper, as it had on that site since before England had known kings. The ruins of the ancient abbey cast a long shadow over its less austere successor, Goresthorpe Abbey, which shared the southern hill, halfway between its forerunner and the town. Its spire was the first landmark Doyle noticed as the train pulled into the station. The hour was not quite noon, but few people were about; those that were moved in halting submission to the bitter cold of the deepening storm and lowering sky. The town seemed mired in a gray and fog-bound hibernation. Barry saw to the disposition of the train, while Larry took charge of their bags, settling them at a nearby inn recommended by the stationmaster. Sparks immediately recruited Doyle for a visit to Bishop Pillphrock’s abbey.

  No carriages were available at the station, every shop and service battening down in anticipation of the storm’s worsening, so they crossed the bridge and walked a mile to the southern slope. A dense sea fog rolled in from the harbor and together with the falling snow reduced visibility to zero. Bent against the wind, they ascended the steep and winding stairway up the hill, mufflers protecting their faces from the growing gale, which howled more fiercely the farther up they climbed.

  Arriving at Goresthorpe Abbey, the more contemporary parish church, they found snow accumulating in blowing drifts and the doors to both church and rectory secured tight. No lights burned in the windows; no signs of life inside. Sparks raised the thick iron ring on the rectory’s massive wooden door and slammed it three times against its plate, the sound quickly smothered by the rising blanket of snow. Sparks knocked again. Doyle, his mind benumbed by the cold, tried in vain to remember which day of the week this was: a day of rest for the clergy? Where else would they be?

  “There’s no one here,” said a deep and resonant voice behind them.

  They turned; a giant of a man stood before them, six-and-a-half feet tall if he was an inch, cloaked against the cold as they were, but he wore no hat; a leonine shock of red hair crowned his massive head, and his face was framed by a thick red beard encrusted with icicles.

  “We’re looking for the Bishop Pillphrock,” said Sparks.

  “You won’t find him here, friends. The diocese is deserted,” the stranger said, advancing. The musical lilt of Erin danced in his voice. His face was broad and welcoming; his great size suggested power but no menace. “They’ve all gone, at least three days now.”

  “Would they be at the other abbey then?” asked Doyle.

  “You mean in the ruins?” said the man, turning in the direction of the ancient abbey and pointing with a silver-tipped walking stick of black zebra wood. “There’s been no shelter within those walls for near to five hundred years.”

  “This is Bishop Pillphrock’s diocese?” asked Sparks.

  “That is my understanding. I don’t know the man. I’m a stranger to Whitby myself, a condition I assume you share, or do I assume too much?”

  “Not at all. But I must say you look familiar to me, sir,” said Sparks. “Do we know one another?”

  “Are you gentlemen up from London?”

  “We are.”

  “Have you a passing familiarity with the theatrical scene there?”

  “More than passing,” said Sparks.

  “Perhaps that explains it,” said the man, extending his hand. “Abraham Stoker, manager to Henry Irving and his theatrical production company. Bram to my friends.”

  Henry Irving! My God, thought Doyle; how many times had he stood for hours to watch the legendary Irving on the stage? Lear, Othello, Benedick to Ellen Terry’s Beatrice, the greatest actor of his generation and perhaps the age. Such was the magnitude of his fame that Doyle felt dumbstruck by proximity to someone even remotely connected to the man.

  “Of course that’s it then,” said Sparks companionably. “I have seen you on many occasions, first nights and the like.”

  Sparks and Doyle completed their side of the introductions.

  “And may I ask what brings you gentlemen to this hibernal corner of the earth on the deadest night of winter?” Some note of cautious reserve in Stoker’s voice rendered the query as a good deal more than idle curiosity.

  Sparks and Doyle looked at each other. “We might do well to ask you the selfsame question,” said Sparks evenly.

  There followed a short silence in which each sized up the other, during which whatever Stoker sought in Sparks he apparently found.

  “I know a pub,” he said, “where we might sit by the fire and more congenially satisfy each other’s interest.”

  Half an hour’s trudge through the thickening tempest brought them to the Rose and Thistle, a post-and-beam establishment in the center of town overlooking the banks of the Esk. The snow now fell so rapidly it formed connective bowers between rocks in the channel below. Hot mugs of coffee laced with Irish whiskey warmed their hands as the three men shook off the cold in the embers of the dying afternoon. Idle chat about the couplings and customs of various well-known or otherwise notorious theatrical types—and what outrageously melodramatic personal lives they all seemed to lead, thought Doyle—had occupied their journey and the early minutes after their arrival at the public house. In the void of the first conversational lapse, with a marked change in tone toward the hushed, anxious, and mesmeric, Stoker, unsolicited, began his tale.

  “As you well know, Mr. Sparks, the world of the theater is a terrifically small community—a stone doesn’t enter that pond without the far end receiving immediate word of the ripples—and whereas most of the talk
-of-the-town is as perishable as a bucket of prawns in the noonday sun—as there’s always some sensational, up-to-the-minute chat coming along as grist for the rumor mills—it takes a good deal more than the usual fare to capture one’s interest for the turn of a single evening, let alone shock one into a state of more or less sustained agitation. Theatrical types love their gossip, and it usually goes down easier with a generous dusting of salt.”

  Stoker had not spent his years around the stage in vain, his delivery practiced to wring maximum dramatic effect from every pause or inflection, but the result was so spontaneous and virtually laden with import to come that the listener was effortlessly persuaded to deliver himself into this storyteller’s crafty hands. Doyle found himself aching to provoke the man forward with questions, but he took his cue from Sparks, held his peace, and sat forward on the edge of his chair in restive anticipation.

  “A strange story began making the rounds of my little world about a month ago and reached my ears one night in the green room of the Lyceum Theatre not long after. Even allowing for the distortions and inevitable embellishments common to any well-traveled trifle, there was at its center such a persistent, original kernel of collusion and intrigue that it took absolute command of my attentions.”

  “What was it?” blurted Doyle.

  Without looking at him, Sparks made a light gesture toward Doyle, trying to gently dampen his eagerness.

  “The word came down to me,” resumed Stoker, “that a certain high-placed gentleman—he was not mentioned by name—through a series of obscure intermediaries, had retained certain members of a provincial theatrical company—actors, professionals, likewise unknown—to enact a newly scripted performance in a private London house. Not a play or a piece ever intended for the stage, mind you—an original creation. One time only, never to be repeated. Performed for an audience of one. No contractual arrangement, other than certain verbal agreements, were entered into. We might ask what motivated these actors to accept such an unorthodox assignment? A disproportionately large sum of money for this performance was guaranteed; half apparently disbursed to them ahead of time. The other half would be receivable upon completion.

  “What was the purpose of this mysterious performance? It was never stated to them, but the implication echoed that, which I’m sure you will recall, of Hamlet’s second-act importunity to the Player King: as in the Bard, this reenactment of a cold-blooded murder was intended to achieve some provocation in the sole member of its audience.”

  “Murder,” said Doyle. He felt a squeamish tightening in his throat. A sidelong glance to Sparks saw him return a look of equal intensity.

  “Who that person might have been or what his or her desired reaction was to be was never remarked upon. Even at that, the story was up to snuff as a bona fide nine-day wonder, but this dog has a tail that grew stranger still. During the performance, new and unanticipated characters made an impromptu entrance onto the scene, carrying these itinerant players far beyond the scope of what they had so carefully rehearsed. Something went terribly awry.” Stoker leaned in closer to them, lowering his voice to a hush. “Actual blood was shed.”

  By some superhuman effort, Doyle did not say a word, although he was not at all certain he could keep his heart from leaping out of his throat.

  “The players scattered,” Stoker went on. “One of their number had fallen at the scene and was never recovered. Presumed dead.” Stoker paused, looking back and forth between them.

  Don’t let it be her, thought Doyle. Dear God, if she’s alive, my own life before hers.

  “Needless to say, the survivors feared for their lives, not without reason. They sought protection in the shelter of the only safe haven they knew and rejoined their original company.”

  “The Manchester Players,” said Sparks.

  Stoker did not so much as bat an eye. “Yes. The unfortunate Manchester Players.”

  Stoker removed and unfolded a flier from his coat, trumpeting the Manchester Players’ production of The Revenger’s Tragedy, the same design as the one they had discovered on the desk in Rathborne and Sons. The dates advertised an engagement the previous week in the nearby city of Scarborough. A small strip pasted diagonally across the poster read CANCELED.

  “Upon hearing this, I tracked the rumor to its source: A stage manager once in my employ heard it from an actor who had in turn left the Manchester troupe on family business while they were playing London last fall. Intrigued, I made some inquiries and learned their itinerary from a booking agent. This was December twenty-eighth; that same day the Manchester Players reached Nottingham, where they had a two-day engagement. That same afternoon they were rejoined by two of the actors who had participated in the ruse—”

  “How many were in it altogether?” Damn the man’s vanity and his orderly unfolding of information; Doyle felt fully justified in asking.

  “Four,” said Stoker. “Two men, two women.”

  “Which of these had fallen at the scene?”

  “Doyle—” said Sparks.

  “I must know: which one?”

  “One of the men,” said Stoker. He paused now, not petulantly, but in a way that demanded respect to both the gravity of the tale and faith in his expertise as its teller.

  “Please, continue,” said Doyle, his heart beating ever faster.

  “On that night of December twenty-eighth, at their hotel in Nottingham, these same two members of the troupe disappeared. Although they had stated to their confreres that they feared for their lives—and indeed took all commonsensical precautions to ensure their safety; windows and door secured, lights left burning—when the morning arrived, these two were gone from their beds, without a trace, luggage left behind, without any visible signs of struggle. Considering the extremity of their state of mind, it seemed to others in the company not altogether perplexing that the two had decided during the night to take flight. At least that is what was presumed until the discovery was made during the troupe’s evening performance.” Stoker took a long draught from his drink; he seemed to require it. “Are you familiar with The Revenger’s Tragedy, Mr. Sparks?”

  “I am,” said Sparks.

  “A broad meller and a bloody bit of Grand Guignol,” said Stoker. “Not exactly an edifying spectacle; plays to the cheap seats, as we say in my business. There’s a steady stream of gratuitous savagery throughout, but its denouement delivers a particularly vivid session with the guillotine, featuring a stage effect that can only be described as a severing bit of ultra-realism. That night, as the property master went about his backstage task of placing props in all the proper places, he checked the hooded basket that rests below the blade. Inside that basket were the wooden heads used to simulate the remains of the recently dispatched. Later that evening, during the performance’s climactic scene, when the lid was lifted to display the contents of the basket…inside were the heads of these two missing actors.”

  “Good Lord. Good Lord,” said Doyle. Chief among the commingling of feelings Doyle felt pulsing through him with a dizzying sensation of relief: Jack Sparks had been with him throughout the night of December 28—on the road, and onboard ship, between Cambridge and Topping. If these murders were the work of Alexander Sparks, and they bore the gruesome and unmistakably original stamp of his foul hand, then clearly his fears that the two brothers were one and the same man were groundless.

  “The actor who made the discovery fainted onstage. The performance was, of course, suspended, and all the Manchester Players’ following engagements were summarily canceled by wire that same night. The next morning I first learned of the killings and traveled immediately to Nottingham, arriving late on the afternoon of the twenty-ninth. But it seems that before any of the chores regarding the disposition of their business could be conducted—return of received receipts, packing and shipping of costumes, scenery, and the like—the rest of this traveling company of players had gone missing, simply vanished, just as the first two had disappeared—hotel bill unpaid, bags and perso
nal effects left in their rooms. The local constabulary were only too happy to attribute their sudden departure to the still lingering perception of actors as opportunistic gypsies fleeing from creditors, and perhaps from their culpable involvement in as unsavory a pair of murders as that quiet Midlands community would ever hope to see.”

  “How many in the troupe altogether?” asked Sparks.

  “Eighteen.”

  Sparks shook his head slowly. “I fear we will not see them again.”

  Stoker looked at him for a long moment before responding, “I share your concern, Mr. Sparks.”

  “This murdered couple, they were a man and a woman?” asked Doyle.

  “Man and wife. And the woman six months pregnant,” said Stoker, his repugnance at the atrocity surfacing for the first time from under the polish of his delivery.

  The couple he’d seen at the séance, thought Doyle, the young couple seated beside him, the working-class man and his pregnant wife. So that meant the medium and the dark-skinned man were the genuine article, not for hire, they’d been on the inside of the job. Which meant the man killed at the scene was the actor hired to play the part of George B. Rathborne.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Stoker,” said Doyle urgently. “Is there a stage effect, a way of realistically simulating the cutting of someone’s throat, with a knife or razor?”

  “Not difficult at all,” said Stoker. “The blade would have a hollow edge, and on it a slit to an interior cavity filled with fluid, triggered by a button which the holder would push as he drew it across the skin.”

  “The fluid would be…”

  “Stage blood. A mix of dye and glycerin. Sometimes animal’s blood.”

  Pig’s blood on the floorboards of 13 Chesire Street.

  She’s alive. She’s alive, I know it, thought Doyle.

  “There were four actors involved; you’ve accounted for three, what happened to the fourth, the second woman?”

  Stoker nodded. “I knew this poor company had not left Nottingham of their own volition, if in fact they ever got out alive. Thus confronted with the most confounding mystery I have ever in my life encountered and in light of the profound disinterest of the police, I understood to pursue what I would learn of their fate myself. I am a writer of fiction, you see, or so I aspire to be. My family obligations necessitate my work in theater management, but writing is the means whereby I derive my greatest personal satisfaction.”