We had to give her another helping of medicine.
‘Back gate. Went back … left my purse in the cab … wanted to see if the driver was still there. As soon as I opened the gate there they were, and they hit me and left me there on the floor!’
She leaned forward and we had to push her gently back on the chair.
‘Did any of them smell of this?’ I asked, looking at the glass of laudanum.
‘I don’t know, sir. It was all too quick. But … I saw a dog …’
We all seemed to lean towards her.
‘Big, black animal?’ McGray asked, and Miss Desborough assented. I could tell we were straining her a little too much.
‘Try to rest,’ I whispered to the lady. ‘Someone will take you to the hospital shortly.’
She hinted at a smile, then rested her head on the back of the chair and closed her eyes.
‘Any thoughts, Percy?’ Nine-Nails asked me.
I went through the facts, trying to order them in my own head. ‘Miss Desborough is attacked by two people who were perhaps trying to enter the building. Her coming out would have given them that chance. And that blow on her temple seems too strong to be the work of another woman. Then there was the banshee cry …’ I raised an eyebrow, things slowly fitting together. ‘The malodorous messenger, the black hound and the banshee are all together in this, I would say. In which case there would be no doubt now that –’
‘That they’ve been messing with Miss Terry,’ McGray jumped in. ‘If yer musings are right they’re definitely after her.’
‘Which means we have a potential murderer in the theatre as we speak, hidden amongst hundreds of other people … and we do not even know what the man looks like! Still the only clue we have is that the man stinks of laudanum – so possibly someone addicted to the stuff.’
‘Oh! Oh!’ cried Miss Desborough, and I thought she was about to have a fit. She was again leaning forward, her jaundiced eyes so wide I feared they’d roll out on to the floor, and her hands once more stretched up. She’d never looked more like a witch about to throw a curse.
‘I know someone! I know someone addicted to laudanum!’
‘Well … I used to know,’ she groaned a minute later, when she saw us all surrounding her chair.
‘Who was that?’ I asked. ‘Anything you can tell us.’
Miss Desborough bit her lips, suddenly looking unsure. ‘I heard the story … Backstage gossip, you know, of this man who used to work with Irving – many years ago. Before Mr Stoker’s time.’
‘Well, that’s no use!’ said Stoker, but McGray raised a hand.
‘Nae, nae, let her talk.’
‘An actor, of course,’ said Miss Desborough. ‘The man broke his hip after Irving pushed him from the stage in a tantrum,’ the woman suddenly bit her knuckles. ‘Confound it, I cannot remember his name!’
There was a general uproar of frustration, but I did not join in. I felt a rush of excitement as I looked in my notebook. ‘Dear Lord, I think I have heard of that! Somebody mentioned it …’ I passed the pages so eagerly I tore a few sheets, my eyes scanning the notes as quickly as I could. Suddenly each second felt like an eternity, my mind too slow to get through all the useless entries.
‘Told ye, ye take too many notes,’ McGray said, which did not help my focus.
‘The story does sound familiar,’ Stoker mumbled, but looking sideways, and with a dark, fearful tone.
My heart skipped a beat when I found the entry.
‘Here it is!’ I cried. ‘I had it from Mr Wheatstone; he was talking about Irving’s temper … He mentioned one man …’ I looked up, fervently pointing at the lines, ‘who broke his hip and developed an addiction; his career ruined!’
‘D’ye have the name?’ McGray urged.
‘Yes. John Tarvin.’
Bram Stoker instantly covered his mouth.
‘Ye ken the lad!’ Nine-Nails cried.
‘Well, I never met him,’ he said, rather defensively. ‘Miss Terry never met him either. He worked with Irving in his early years, in the Theatre Royal in Manchester. The accident happened when they were rehearsing Hamlet – if I remember correctly.’
I smirked. ‘Is there anything else you might risk to remember correctly?’
Stoker tensed his lips, glaring at me, but he did speak. ‘Mr Tarvin played Horatio, and from what I’ve heard showed real promise – although Irving says he was utterly hopeless at remembering lines, and Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest play. It must have been frustrating to work with him.’
Mr Howard raised his chin then. ‘That was in the sixties, wasn’t it, Mr Stoker? It must have been the first time Irving played Hamlet?’
‘Yes,’ Stoker mumbled.
Mr Howard’s face was now illuminated. ‘I think I remember that play. They brought it on tour to the Theatre Royal here in Edinburgh. I used to work there at the time – this theatre hadn’t even been built back then. I remember it particularly well because that was the first time I saw Irving on stage.’
McGray chuckled, all bitterness. ‘I doubt ye remember someone in a play ye saw more than twenty years ago.’
‘Well, no, but …’ he then grinned. ‘Why, I might have a photograph from that production!’
Mr Howard dived into his files and soon produced a photograph album. I recognized it instantly: that was the album he’d been leafing through when I’d first met him. He opened it on his desk and passed through the black cardboard pages as quickly as his stumpy fingers allowed.
‘There!’ he exclaimed, pointing at a very old, slightly faded photograph of Hamlet’s entire cast. It was dated 1864.
At last we would have a first glimpse at the face of the man we were chasing.
46
Irving stood proudly in the centre, holding the play’s emblematic skull. Quite strangely though, like in Stoker’s picture, his face did not look much younger, as if his sharp cheekbones and deep brow were immune to the passage of time – as if he’d been a middle-aged man all his life.
‘Which one’s Horatio?’ McGray asked.
‘Must be this one,’ said Mr Howard, pointing at a young man standing behind Irving, sporting a plumed hat, like in that famous lithograph by Eugène Delacroix.
The man had the haughtiest expression imaginable, his mouth turned upside-down, his eyelids half shut and his eyebrows raised. Even Irving looked humble by his side.
‘Is this yer messenger?’ McGray asked Stoker, showing him the album.
‘My messenger!’ Stoker cried. ‘I’ve never seen that rascal in my life!’
McGray snorted. ‘Well, even if yer lying, I have nae time to beat it out o’ ye. Mr Howard, I hope ye don’t mind,’ and he tore the photo from the album, half the page coming with it. He looked at me. ‘Frey, let’s go. We have to find this man.’
Stoker protested, but McGray pointed at him with exasperation. ‘Don’t ye move from here! Yer not completely cleared yet!’
And we left Mr Howard’s office without glancing back. Just as we walked out a couple of theatre clerks came in to take Miss Desborough to the hospital.
‘Miss Terry will be able to confirm if that Tarvin man was her messenger,’ I said as we made our way to the auditorium.
‘Aye, but I feel we’re just glimpsing the surface of it …’
We met a couple of officers, showed them the photo and asked them to detain any man who looked like that, only twenty years older. I even sighed as I gave the instruction, realizing how ambitious our quest truly was.
McGray found his way across the theatre very easily. In no time we were at the stage wing that led to the dressing rooms. Two horses were being held by stage assistants, as the brawny men who played Macbeth’s assassins stepped on to the stage.
Freddie was there too. This was the scene where he fled, right after Banquo’s brutal murder.
‘Did Mr Stoker confess?’ he asked with scorn.
‘Sod off!’ McGray spat.
Behind the painted scenery people w
ere frantically laying Macbeth’s large banquet table. Meat joints of papier-mâché, piles of wax fruit, as well as empty jugs and goblets were being flung into place with extraordinary precision. Torches were being lit in the background to complete the medieval feel.
There was no need to walk to the dressing rooms: Miss Terry appeared in front of us, and what a vision she was! She had now changed into her queenly dress, the one I’d seen before: white material embellished with pearls and silver threads, and on her back a thick, heavy cape embroidered in intricate Celtic knots. With a gleaming crown on her head, bejewelled with more pearls and fine coral, she looked the perfect Queen of Scotland. Even I found her beautiful then, but she was not in a pleasant mood.
‘Could you please tell your men to get out of my way?’ she barked at us, for there were two officers virtually stepping on her toes. ‘I’m trying to do my work!’
McGray only held the photograph before her eyes.
‘Is this the man?’ he asked, no need of further explanation.
Terry’s cheeks were suddenly blanched with fear. She recognized the face immediately; McGray did not even need to point.
‘He is not so young any more,’ she whispered, drawing a trembling hand to her chest. Then her eyes fell on Irving’s image. ‘Not many people age as well as Henry, I suppose …’ and she shuddered from head to toe.
‘We told you to get out of here!’ Henry Irving cried, timing his voice with the neighing of the trained horses and the fearful cries of the audience, now watching Banquo getting slaughtered.
Irving too was in full kingly attire, wearing the wooden crown Miss Terry had used to pose for Mr Sargent.
‘We think this man has been sending those spurious messages to Miss Terry,’ I said at once. ‘And we now know that you broke his hip years ago.’
Irving could not have looked more astounded. He, the great actor, could not disguise his shock or emit a sound.
‘John Tarvin,’ McGray added. ‘Sounds familiar?’
Irving looked at the picture, then at Terry. She was just as speechless, and could only give him an affrighted nod.
That was clearly not the reaction of someone plotting for ticket sales. Terry was aghast, as if seeing the bundle of blood-dripping brains again.
‘So those omens …’ Irving muttered.
‘It’s Miss Terry we fear is in danger,’ said Nine-Nails. ‘Like we told ye before.’
I have no words to describe the desolation, the sheer dread in both faces. All the crew around us had heard McGray’s sentence. We’d brought the entire backstage to a standstill.
The floorboards under our feet trembled with the horses’ hooves, the scene behind the immense canvas coming to its dramatic end. It was now time to lift the painted landscape and reveal the interior of Macbeth’s castle.
The stage assistant, however, did not proceed. He approached Irving with meek steps.
‘Shall we – shall we raise the curtain, Mr Irving?’
He did not reply, but took a step closer to Miss Terry, who recoiled. ‘Can you go on, my dear?’ Irving whispered.
Her bosom heaved and her eyes flickered from him to the back of the painted canvas.
Irving clasped her by the arms. ‘I need you!’
And then, to everybody’s shock, he kissed her full on the lips, so fervently and so anxiously I blushed and had to look away.
A flushed Ellen Terry stepped back, pulling herself from Irving’s grip, looking utterly confused.
The orchestra was now playing the majestic cue to the banquet scene, the trumpets and French horns in all their glory.
I saw a fleeting glow in Miss Terry’s eyes – tears pooling. She raised her hand, clumsily adjusting the crown on her head, and then she blinked the tears away.
‘I am Lady Macbeth. We shall go on.’
As soon as she said so everyone except the actors left the stage. McGray whispered at her:
‘The banshee said “the Scottish stage shall see your death”.’
Miss Terry took a deep breath, her eyes indomitable fire once more. ‘Then so be it, Inspector McGray!’
We ran across the theatre as Irving cried and writhed in fear, his Macbeth falling into madness, the guests at his banquet jumping to their feet.
By now all the officers had seen the photograph, and we were conducting a systematic search of the place.
I walked up and down the rows of seats in the Grand Circle – to me, the seats which offered an even better view than the royal box – and I looked into the face of every single spectator. Thankfully, the stage was ablaze with torches, shedding crimson light all over the audience. I worked my way from the back to the front, ending at the gilded banister of the raised platform, and had a spanning view of the entire auditorium.
Irving was now on his knees, before a sharp ray of light symbolizing Banquo’s ghost. Miss Terry bent down and tenderly embraced him. She lifted her face to the audience and happened to look me straight in the eye. It was the only time her voice seemed to fail.
‘This is the very –’ she exhaled, ‘this is the very painting of your fear!’
Then a frantic waving caught my eye. To my right, in the royal box, I saw Mr Wilde gesturing hysterically, but not at me. His white gloves almost glowed under the torchlight. He was desperately trying to catch the eye of McGray, who was searching the pit. I noticed that Irving’s sons were no longer in the royal box with Wilde, so I instantly ran over.
I found Harry and Sydney in the corridor, both boys reading intently from a small piece of paper.
‘What is the matter?’ I asked, and Mr Wilde and McGray joined us just then. ‘Why, you look like parchment!’
Harry, the eldest, handed me the piece of fine paper, but he did not speak. Neither boy looked at us.
‘This sheet was thrown into our box!’ Mr Wilde told us.
‘What the hell?’ exclaimed McGray, who had already read the scant words:
Dearest boys,
Tell your silly mother to meet me as agreed. I shall not be laughed at.
ET
‘What does this mean?’ I asked.
Mr Wilde’s mouth had gone dry. ‘That is Miss Terry’s hand. I – I am speechless.’
‘Good,’ McGray snapped, and he grasped Harry’s collar. ‘Why would Miss Terry send youse this?’
Harry again looked down, pulling his head back as if Nine-Nails were a wolf about to bite him. ‘She has been sending Mother letters. She wants money.’
‘Money? Why?’ McGray asked.
Harry gulped, his lips trembling.
‘She has been blackmailing our mother,’ said Sydney. ‘The wench said she would leave father’s company for ever if Mother gave her a pension as recompense.’
‘She demanded a lot of money,’ Harry whispered, ‘practically all our grandfather’s estate … which is more than she could ever make as a performer.’ His eyes drifted to the sliver of stage visible from where we stood, just as the curtains closed on the doomed regents of Scotland.
47
The corridor was suddenly full of people, everyone moving to the rotunda for the interval.
‘If we find yer telling lies –’ McGray hissed. I thought Harry Irving would soil himself there and then.
‘That’s the truth!’ Sydney spluttered. ‘That’s why we’re in Scotland. That Terry woman asked Mother to meet her on the night of the ball, and it was then that Mother agreed to most of the viper’s terms.’
‘Is Mrs Irving in Scotland?’ cried Mr Wilde.
‘Yes,’ said Sydney, ‘but she didn’t want to stay at the hotel, where she could stumble across Father or that horrid woman any time of the day. She stayed at a friend’s home in the Georgian East End.’
‘She did ask us to stay close to Father,’ Harry added. ‘Part of the deal Miss Terry offered was that she’d convince him to give us a chance in the theatre, and Mother thought our presence might influence him.’
‘And she must have been right,’ said Mr Wilde. ‘The boys
sent Irving a note telling him they would be here tonight, and now he is giving the performance of his career!’
Harry spoke rather bitterly. ‘Mother has not allowed us to see most of his plays.’
I immediately thought of Irving’s fraught speech on the hotel’s roof; his desperate yearning to gain his sons’ affections. No wonder he was manically determined to go ahead with the play.
I massaged my temple, my head overloaded with information. ‘Good Lord, everything has just turned upside-down!’
McGray had another quick look at the note. ‘If Mrs Irving’s here tonight I’d like to talk to her.’
Harry shook his head. ‘She refused Miss Terry’s invitation, even though she was offered that empty seat in the royal box. She didn’t want to be seen and spoil father’s performance.’
‘But she insisted we came,’ said Sydney, with a note of pride. ‘She asked us to watch carefully and learn from Father.’
It all felt genuine, logical, simple enough; unlike Miss Terry’s story about receiving letters from Lewis Carroll. Still, and perhaps out of sheer surprise, I remained suspicious.
‘Tell us,’ I said, choosing my words carefully, ‘how were the messages delivered?’
Harry answered swiftly. ‘She used a horrible, stinking old actor as a servant,’ and he wrinkled his nose as if he could smell the man right now.
‘Is that why yer mother was in the theatre on the night the first banshee appeared?’ McGray asked.
The boys nodded. ‘Yes. They were supposed to meet right then,’ said Harry, ‘but they couldn’t, because of all the commotion after that scream was heard. The next day the wench sent another letter to Mother, asking to meet her in Scotland.’
‘And tonight our mother was supposed to deliver the first payment,’ Sydney concluded. ‘No wonder the wench became so pushy!’
‘For the love of God,’ gasped Mr Wilde, ‘will you stop calling her the wench? What a dreadful word that is!’
‘Wait a moment,’ I said. ‘Why did you not tell us this before? Why was this kept a secret?’
‘This is a family matter, gentlemen,’ Mr Wilde intervened. ‘And from what I have heard from the boys, Irving himself is not aware of Miss Terry’s messages.’
A Mask of Shadows: Frey & McGray Book 3 (A Case for Frey & McGray) Page 31
