‘Och, sod off. There’s work to do. We need to confront Terry right away.’
‘Indeed. With everything running behind schedule she should be here today.’
Just as McGray was going to place his hand on the doorknob we heard a desperate, insistent knocking.
When he opened the door we had to look down. It was Susy, the young girl, her little fists still in the air. I felt guilty that my eyes should fall first on to her scars, for the child was distraught.
‘Sirs, please!’ she sobbed. ‘Help me find my mother!’
McGray placed his thick hand on the girl’s shoulder with surprising gentleness.
‘S’all right, lassie. We’ll see ye get help. Who’s yer ma?’
I could not believe her answer.
Cast as listed in the 1889 Edinburgh souvenir
Underlined and annotated by Inspector I. P. Frey.
Duncan Mr Haviland
Malcolm Mr Webster
Donalbain Mr Harvey
Macbeth Mr Henry Irving
Banquo Mr Wenman
Macduff Mr Alexander
Lennox Mr Outram
Ross Mr Tyars
Mentieth Mr Archer
Angus Mr Lacey
Caithness Mr Leverton
Fleance Master Harwood
Siward Mr Howe
Seyton Mr Fenton
Two other Officers Mr Hemstock
Mr Cass
A Doctor Mr Stuart
A Sergeant Mr Raynor
A Porter Mr Johnson
An Attendant Mr Roe
Murderers Mr Black
Mr Carter
Gentlewoman Miss Coleridge
A Servant Miss Foster
Lady Macbeth Miss Ellen Terry
Hecate Miss Ivor
1st Witch Miss Marriott
2nd Witch Miss Desborough
3rd Witch Miss Seaman
Apparitions Mr Baird
Miss Harwood
Miss Holland
21
‘Son of a bleeding whore!’ McGray whispered at my ear, as the young Susy led us to Mrs Harwood’s workshop.
Even before looking at their names in my copy of the souvenir I began to remember. Yesterday, Mrs Harwood had mentioned she had two children, whom she’d dropped off at the Palace Hotel before coming back to the theatre to work. Apparently, Nine-Nails had just smacked her son.
‘When was the last time ye saw her?’
‘After rehearsing my scene,’ Susy replied through sobs, the despair overcoming her shyness. ‘She was mending my brother’s costume. She said she was very busy and asked me to leave. I just went back and –’
She could not say more. McGray patted her gently and we rushed down to the storerooms.
We found her workshop crammed with sumptuous court attires, surely for the banquet scene. She’d been busy ironing and adjusting them, and there was a particularly grand dress – white silk as fine as a cobweb, richly embroidered with silver threads – that seemed to require particular care. The green dress with the beetle wings, I noticed, was not to be seen.
As we stepped in, our attention went to a single piece of cloth: the brown doublet her son had been wearing. Curled up on the floor, the thread and needle still attached to a half-finished seam. The thread, originally white, was now stained in red, and a tiny drop of blood hung by the tip of the fine needle.
‘Step out, lassie,’ McGray told Susy.
‘What is going on?’ asked Miss Ivor, who was just coming in with some garment under her arm, perhaps to ask for some mending.
‘Take care o’ Susy,’ McGray told her. ‘Take her to Mr Howard’s office and give her some tea or something.’
‘Is anything the ma–’
‘Please, just do it,’ I urged. Miss Ivor held Susy’s hand and led her away with motherly care. As they walked, the girl’s reddened eyes remained fixed on the workshop’s door.
‘We’ll find her,’ McGray assured her, and as soon as they disappeared we went back to inspect the place.
McGray picked up the needle almost tenderly, examining it so closely I thought he might pierce his eyes.
‘Looks like she injured herself,’ he said.
I lifted the garment and found several drops of blood on the floor. A few were getting dry.
‘A little badly,’ I mumbled, ‘and then she kept on working, even –’
We heard a mad scream from one of the corridors: a woman’s desperate cry. We jumped to our feet and darted towards the sound.
Just then a man began to shout. ‘Don’t let her near the understage! We’ll all be blown to pieces!’
McGray found his way to the voices with astonishing speed. I followed him to a dimly lit hall, where we found a panting Mr Wheatstone surrounded by half a dozen technicians. He was bellowing commands and the men ran swiftly.
‘The seamstress has gone mad!’ Mr Wheatstone gabbled when he saw us. His grey hair was stuck to his sweaty temples, his thick spectacles askew. ‘She went after me!’
‘Again?’ I asked, but there was not time for explanations.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Wheatstone. ‘We had to usher her away from the rheostat and the lycopodium. They’re rehearsing the forest fire right now. We have ten people handling explosives and electricity all over the place.’
‘Lord!’ I let out.
‘I just sent these chaps to keep anyone away from the rheostat,’ said Wheatstone, ‘but I’m afraid she might go to the stage and get burned – get others burned!’
‘They need to stop the rehearsals,’ said McGray.
‘Then you must tell Mr Irving yourselves,’ Wheatstone urged. ‘He’ll listen to nobody here.’ McGray and I were already running as we heard Wheatstone’s advice. ‘Go directly to the stage! Irving will be there!’
The auditorium was like a window to hell. The stage glowed in every shade of crimson, flames arising from trees ablaze like torches. Dozens of soldiers, all carrying burning fir branches, roared madly at the walls of a brooding castle. They were rehearsing the scene when Dunsinane Forest, fulfilling the witches’ prophecy, rises to attack Macbeth.
Irving, in his full royal attire, looked at the flames from a turret. His frown was as deep and worried as the one I’d seen the previous night. This was the instant Macbeth’s determination began to shatter; when the idea that the spirits had tricked him first crept into his twisted thinking. And when he saw us come in, running past the empty rows of seats, his thick brow warped in a gesture fitting for that scene.
‘Stop!’ McGray howled. ‘Police orders! Put out all the fires!’
Even his booming voice could not get through the roaring flames, the sound effects and the frantic orchestration.
Only a few extras and musicians looked at us, but then Irving waved a command, and when he bellowed ‘Go on, you fools!’ his long-trained voice did reach every corner of the enormous vault. For a moment he did not seem to be acting: he was indeed the cruel, tyrannical lord, staring at us threateningly from the heights of his besieged fortress.
Stoker had been there all along, and he ran to us looking as pale as a corpse. ‘What is going on?’
We had no time to reply. The soldiers’ synchronized cries of war halted, replaced by confused murmurs as their orderly lines parted and gave way to a solitary, small female figure.
The staggering Mrs Harwood was right in the centre of the stage, grasping her right hand and shouting with anguish.
Even from the distance I could see her fingertips stained in red. With her lined face and pleading stare, she could not have looked more like an actual witch.
‘Run away!’ she was crying at the soldiers. ‘He’ll burn you all! You’ll all die!’
McGray jumped on to the stage and went straight to her.
I was expecting Mrs Harwood to shriek, to struggle, to try to scratch out his eyes, but instead she dropped bonelessly into his arms.
By then the orchestra had stopped and the clouds of fire had faded, and I could hear her pleas
with clarity.
‘Go away, sir! He’ll burn you too! Tell them to go away! Please!’
‘She needs a doctor!’ Nine-Nails said, dragging her aside.
Stoker and I reached him, dodging the still-blazing fir branches held by the soldiers.
I looked at Mrs Harwood’s spent face. She was not unconscious, her eyes still half open, but she looked like an empty shell. I lifted her hand carefully and felt a twinge when I saw it: she’d been biting her nails and cuticles until they bled.
‘Is she dead?’ Irving shouted from his turret.
‘No,’ answered Stoker, ‘but she looks like she needs –’
‘Then get her out of my stage and let’s resume! Now!’
McGray shouted at him something I cannot possibly transcribe, but he stepped off the stage just as soon.
‘Stoker,’ said Nine-Nails, ‘I’m taking her to yer hotel. Send someone to the Lunatic Asylum in Morningside. Tell them I need either Dr Harland or Miss Smith, the head nurse.’
‘Of course, Inspector. I will –’
‘And send her children to the Palace too,’ McGray added. He shook his head with weariness, staring at the poor woman’s face. ‘Tell them we found their mother, but don’t tell them what’s happened. Not yet.’
22
I could only guess what was going through McGray’s mind as a cab took us to the Palace Hotel. He was facing the narrow window but looking at nothing, his stare lost somewhere in the distance.
Mrs Harwood’s episode must have been like salt on his still fresh wounds. Though it felt like weeks, McGray’s own sister had been taken away only two days since.
And what a terrible night that had been. I will never forget the sight of him standing there, tall and broad shouldered, yet crushed and powerless in the circumstances. Dr Clouston had tried hard to talk some sense into him, but McGray had roared, kicked about and punched the walls. He had been holding a small bouquet of white roses he’d brought for his sister, and despite the commotion and his seemingly brutal hands, he managed to keep the flowers intact for her.
Amy had appeared down the corridor like a floating ghost; wrapped in a thick shawl, with her dark hair netted tightly into a chignon, and flanked by two nurses who guided her gently by the arms. Everything in that image spoke of constraint.
McGray offered her the flowers, and it was the one moment the girl acknowledged her surroundings. She received the blooms with a very slow yet very steady hand, and dreamily brought them close to her face to breathe their perfume. McGray rested a hand on her back with unexpected gentleness, and perhaps meant to tell her something, but in the end he simply nodded at the nurses and Dr Clouston, who resumed their sad march.
When Miss McGray passed closest to me I could not help feeling a quiver, as if the very air around her carried a chill. I caught a glimpse of her thick eyelashes, as dark as her eyes, and her youthful features, which even madness has not managed to harden. I have always thought her a pretty sight, but the tragedy of her situation, imprisoned in her own broken mind, had never struck me with all its harshness as it did right then.
And as they took her away, my mind began to wonder. What would have become of her had she not needed to be confined to a mental institution? What would she be doing with her life, instead of forever sitting by the window, looking at the sky and counting the clouds? Would she have married? Would she have friends? Perhaps right now she would be looking forward to seeing Ellen Terry, going through all her pretty dresses, looking for the one ideal for the theatre halls. Or perhaps she would be spending those nice summer days in the Scottish countryside, rejoicing in the cool breeze and savouring the ripe wild berries without a care in the world.
If only.
Mrs Harwood had only a small room at the back of the hotel, very close to the kitchens. We had deposited her there about half an hour before, and asked two chambermaids to look after her. Her children had arrived right behind us, Susy insisting she remain close to her mother, Freddie looking quite put out, as if tending to his parent’s fits were an utter nuisance. He soon ran to the kitchens, shouting out that he was starving.
McGray and I thought it better to stay present until someone from the asylum arrived. We went to the hotel’s tearooms and found a table a little away from the others.
A small part of me wanted to cheer, since Mrs Harwood could not have looked more like a banshee: up there on the stage, unsteady and eerie, and shouting about everybody’s impending death. However, this was no moment to gloat.
‘Why would she break down like that?’ I whispered instead. ‘She seemed a little unbalanced, but nothing to suggest this would happen.’
McGray only nodded, unable to say something back. Somebody would (partly) answer that question very soon.
‘Inspectors, is Mrs Harwood well?’
I saw it was the bearded, stately old man who played King Duncan. He noticed I struggled to remember his name.
‘Mr Haviland,’ he said.
‘We are waiting for medical help,’ I told him. ‘Thank you for your concern.’
I looked away, trying to make him leave, but he only stepped a little closer, clearly in search of gossip.
‘It is only logical that she would try to attack poor Mr Wheatstone. I don’t know which party deserves the more pity.’
McGray and I turned our heads to him in a perfectly coordinated movement.
‘What d’ye mean?’ McGray asked, and Mr Haviland instantly blushed.
‘Well, I assumed you would know by now – after all your inquiries, I mean.’
McGray kicked a nearby chair. ‘Have a seat, Yer Majesty. Tell us everything.’
Mr Haviland began to squeeze his bowler hat. ‘I – I do not want to get myself in trouble, gentlemen …’
‘Too late for that,’ said McGray, snapping his fingers at a waiter. ‘Oi, laddie! Bring us a dram for King Duncan.’
The man sat slowly. ‘I suppose you don’t know the circumstances of little Susy’s – mishap.’
‘Is that relevant to our investigation?’ I asked.
Mr Haviland shrugged. ‘Well, it explains a lot.’ Then he shook his head. ‘Terrible accident; really terrible. There was a fire in the last performance of Faust. Little Susy was only eight or nine years old and she played an angel. An angel! Can you believe she is now playing a witches’ ghoul? She was the most beautiful of all the angels in that play.’
I remembered that fleeting moment during the previous day’s rehearsal, when I was only able to see the unharmed side of the girl’s face and thought her so very sweet.
‘Irving called it a ladder of angels, and that is precisely what it was: a group of girls suspended from this ladder-like structure, painted black, so that against a dark background and under the appropriate lighting it looked as though they were floating in mid-air. I didn’t act in that play but I was a spectator – though fortunately not on that final night; I can tell you, it was the most beautiful, most impressive effect I’ve ever seen in the theatre. And you need but look at me to tell I have had a long career!
‘When the fire burst Susy got entangled in a harness – or so I’ve been told. People managed to free the other girls. But Susy, being the prettiest …’ Mr Haviland looked down, ‘she was the one on the apex. People couldn’t get to her in time. They managed to save her, but only after the fire had …’ The old man shuddered, and I shared his discomfort.
‘A lot of people felt guilty,’ Mr Haviland continued. ‘In particular Mr Wheatstone and, I am afraid, Miss Terry.’
His drink arrived then but he did not even attempt to touch the tumbler.
‘Was Mr Wheatstone in charge of those stage effects?’ McGray asked.
‘Indeed, Inspector. Has been for years. And Mrs Harwood never forgave him. It was right after that accident that she began to fall apart. Her husband died only a few months later, and then she had to take up work as a theatre seamstress. And her children had to work too. Miss Terry had a lot to do with that.’
&nbs
p; I nodded. ‘You just mentioned Miss Terry also felt very guilty.’ I remembered her treating Susy as though she were her own daughter. ‘Why is that?’
‘She was instrumental in hiring the Harwood children. She spotted them in the audience during a performance of Henry VIII. On that very night she invited them backstage – Mr Harwood was still alive then and apparently was a very greedy man. It was not difficult to convince him to allow his daughter on the stage. He died, as I told you, soon after Susy’s tragedy … It was as though the entire Harwood family had been cursed as soon as Miss Terry set her eyes on them. She must feel terribly guilty. Not that she could have known any of that would happen, but still … I understand her chagrin.’
McGray and I nodded in agreement. It all made sense now: Mrs Harwood’s aggressive behaviour towards Mr Wheatstone (whom I determined to question again at some point), her unhinged expression when she saw fire on the stage … her warnings that everyone would burn.
A very uncomfortable silence followed, and I could only nod at Mr Haviland, indicating he could go. McGray said nothing, staring at the table and feeling the stump that was his finger.
I realized with a flinch all the sad stories that surrounded me. Perhaps the weather was casting its spell on me – through the windows I could see that the day was very quickly turning from sunny to grey, with thick clouds coming from the north-east. By the time Cassandra Smith arrived from the asylum, Edinburgh looked its usual self. It was not raining yet, but a storm was indeed brewing.
23
Miss Smith looked as out of place as did McGray. Her simple, faded navy dress, her washed face as lacklustre as unvarnished wood and her hair hastily tied in a simple plait instantly caught the eyes of the well-to-do guests of the Palace Hotel.
The nurse, however, was undeterred, sporting her simple clothes and her medical bag with self-assurance, and looking defiantly at the richly attired ladies who walked by, carrying nothing but parasols.
Mr Clarke did not like her presence in the hotel one jot, or McGray’s. The manager had received us with a grimace and showed us the way to Mrs Harwood’s room with unprecedented speed – surely thinking we were spoiling the ambience of his lobby.
A Mask of Shadows: Frey & McGray Book 3 (A Case for Frey & McGray) Page 15
