A Mask of Shadows: Frey & McGray Book 3 (A Case for Frey & McGray)

by Oscar de Muriel

  ‘And how did you come to know that?’ she spat.

  ‘Yer husband told us himself. He also told us ye like attending the criminal courts to amuse yerself. Plenty of inspiration to gather there!’

  Mrs Irving looked around, as if desperately trying to find something misplaced in the darkness.

  ‘My sons!’ she said. ‘My sons can testify! They can tell you –’

  ‘Tell us what?’ asked McGray. ‘I doubt yer sons were aware of yer true intentions. Ye surely made them believe yer story about Miss Terry blackmailing ye, right?’

  ‘Indeed,’ I added. ‘So their statements would sound truthful – and to spare them the pain of knowing their mother had committed suicide.’

  ‘You’re all mad,’ she hissed. ‘Of course you’re all mad!’

  ‘Have ye ever met Lewis Carroll?’ McGray asked her.

  ‘He used to be a mutual acquaintance,’ Miss Terry jumped in. ‘He dined many times at Henry’s house – back when he lived with this woman, of course.’

  ‘So you would have known his handwriting,’ I said. ‘And it was you who attacked Miss Desborough today – you and Mr Tarvin, trying to get into the theatre without being seen.’

  ‘By the way,’ said McGray, ‘the poor lad’s dead.’

  He’d said it upon seeing McNair and two officers bringing the body down the steps, wrapped in a thick blanket, which had nonetheless turned red with the man’s blood.

  Miss Terry looked away, but her aghast expression was nothing compared with Mrs Irving’s.

  McGray let go of her wrist. Florence instantly pressed both hands against her face, her quivering fingers moving in a way that made me think of the snakes on Medusa’s head. She sank on to the floor as she saw the body being taken away. The hound, tied by the neck with one of the stage ropes, was following its master’s corpse, attempting to sniff his dangling hand – and still whimpering.

  ‘Sorry, sirs,’ McNair said, clutching the dog’s rope. ‘We didn’t want to disturb the ladies, but this was the quietest way out.’

  Behind them came a sickly looking theatre assistant, carrying a stained mop and a bucket. Mrs Irving let out a harrowing moan when she saw the contents.

  And just as they carried the real corpse away, another man in medieval costume brought in Macbeth’s severed head, impaled on a long spear, looking unnervingly authentic. Syrup dyed red dripped from the false neck, and I could no longer tell which stains on the floor were actual blood.

  We then heard the clash of steel against steel. Irving must be locked in the final sword fight against Macduff.

  ‘There’s one more thing,’ said McGray. ‘What about yer attack on Stoker? Why did youse batter him so badly? Was it even necessary?’

  Something had shifted in Florence. Upon seeing Tarvin’s dead body she did not seem to care about defending herself any more. All of a sudden she spoke candidly, and I suspected her connection with Tarvin had been far from platonic. I would soon confirm that.

  ‘It was necessary. I got rid of the dress that very night, right after Stoker saw what I wanted him to see. I had only thrown it over my own clothes – that cow and her understudy are much bigger than me these days, so I could easily pull it out and give it to Tarvin, who took it to that mad woman’s room.

  ‘When I was back in my lodgings, only after I’d calmed down, I realized I didn’t have my ring on. It never even occurred to me it might have been caught in the dress, but I had seen something that terrified me. I saw Stoker pick something up from the floor when he followed me. Something shiny, so I thought Stoker had found my ring. That’s why Tarvin followed him back and searched his room and his clothes – we didn’t have to be too careful; his room was already a mess. When he found nothing he thought we were safe … we assumed I’d lost the ring somewhere on the streets, and that Stoker had perhaps picked up something else.’

  ‘He had,’ I said. ‘A beetle wing that fell off your dress, which led us to suspect Miss Terry, just like you expected.’

  McGray arched an eyebrow. ‘Why did ye have to plant the dress in Mrs Harwood’s room? Why not burn it?’

  ‘That’s where we took it from originally, but that was not the only reason. There was always the risk that someone had seen Miss Terry where she really was that night. And she would defend her story to the death. The dress just guaranteed that, should everything else fail, the attention never went back to me. Vanity. All vanity. I would have been dead by then, but I didn’t want the world – my sons! – to know what I had truly done. We actively tried to make sure everyone thought that the woman was losing her mind – which she was! Although … I never thought he’d be so close to killing one more person in the process.’

  ‘Mr Wheatstone was indeed very nearly killed,’ I said, and Florence nodded. ‘So it was Tarvin who gave the little gun to Mrs Harwood. He told her about Susy’s situation and set her against him.’

  ‘Yes, but that was Tarvin and Tarvin alone!’ Florence spluttered. ‘He went too far. He always went too far when he had his beer and laudanum. I told him we needed Mr Wheatstone away from here. We needed the coast clear when I faced this trollop after her stupid monologue. All we needed was a distraction, nothing more, but Tarvin gave that mad seamstress a gun! And tonight he helped her escape from the asylum, God knows how, and brought her here only so that the police would have to chase her around.’

  ‘He did a good deal for ye,’ said McGray. ‘He helped ye send the messages, mount this spectacle … Why? Were youse two – close?’

  Florence looked away at once. ‘I refuse to answer that.’

  A pathetic reply, I thought. I remembered my stepmother mentioning that people had seen Mrs Irving on the arm of a ‘pauper-looking scarecrow’.

  ‘Did he ken ye were planning to take yer own life?’ McGray asked.

  ‘He did … though not from the start. I promised him a sweet revenge on Irving and he was all too happy to help. But when I told him my true intentions – his resolve crumbled. He wanted to kill this trollop with his own hands.’ Her eyes for Miss Terry were poison. ‘He abhorred the filthy hussy who was forcing me to scheme my own death …’

  ‘Forcing!’ Miss Terry exclaimed, but I had to contain her. Mrs Irving was not done yet.

  ‘Poor Tarvin tried to convince me otherwise,’ Florence continued, ‘time and time again. He wrote me the most agonizing letters pleading that I should change my mind. Usually while overdosed. I was trying to burn them atop Calton Hill. I knew my possessions would be searched after my death, and those letters revealed too much … But I was seen before I finished.

  ‘I was terrified – terrified of my fate. I saw the letters burn and the fire only made me think of what might await on the other side. I saw myself burning in hell, and I felt this wave of horror, and before I knew it I was howling. Howling! And I went on even when my throat scalded. I only stopped because I saw people approaching and I had to flee.’

  ‘Was it Tarvin who left those ghastly brains?’ Miss Terry demanded, making Florence grin.

  ‘Of course, you witless crow! Right after handing you a message! It all arose from an impulse: a parcel he’d just bought to feed his dog! And I thought you would realize it immediately, but you were desperate to ensnare yet another man, weren’t you? You’re far more stupid than I gave you credit for! I was furious when Tarvin told me what he had done; I thought he had ruined my plan; but when that didn’t happen I was only sorry I didn’t get to see you when you found them! What a face you must have pulled!’

  I had to hold both of Miss Terry’s arms.

  ‘Tarvin didn’t just want to help me. He wanted Irving to see his company destroyed. Utterly destroyed. And everyone in it as well: Wheatstone, the seamstress, the old hag who plays the witch, Stoker … He targeted them all in one way or the other. He would have seen them all dead just to bring Irving down.’ She shuddered. ‘I aimed for much less. I only wanted the legendary Ellen Terry ruined and behind bars … and my sons to have what they’ve always yearne
d for – even if I had to die to accomplish it.’

  We heard steps coming from the trapdoor. Heavy and slow.

  It was Henry Irving, still sweating from his fight, dragging the blunt metallic sword designed to emit electric sparks whenever it hit his opponent’s.

  He’d heard it all, and all the colour seemed to have drained from his face. Rather fittingly, he’d just died on the stage and his chest was drenched in fake blood.

  ‘You were willing to die for this?’

  ‘I don’t fear death,’ Florence retorted. ‘I would have gone to a better place, unlike you and your whore!’

  ‘You’ve been hovering over us all like the damned vulture you are!’ And he threw the sable against the wall. ‘You damned beast from hell!’

  ‘Why, did you expect me to sit quietly while you spat on your kin?’ Florence cried. ‘My sons – your sons – only wanted a chance in your theatre, but instead of helping them you kept stuffing the goose with bastards of the Terry breed!’

  Both Terry and Irving took a step ahead, their hands set to tear the woman apart.

  ‘There, there,’ said McGray, pulling Florence away, but she would not keep silent any more.

  ‘You abandoned me when I was about to give birth to Sydney! Only because I thought your career was a fool’s! Only because I didn’t bow to you and praise your “genius”! Look at yourself! A middle-aged man still dressing like a buffoon, playing at swords and calling himself a prodigy for that!’

  ‘Quiet!’ McGray snapped, handing her to a couple of officers who’d just arrived. ‘Ye’ll have plenty o’ time for this at the inquest …’

  ‘Oh, there will be no inquest!’ she said, jubilant. ‘Am I right, my dear husband? For the boys’ sake?’

  I could almost feel the heat emanating from Irving’s body. Ellen reached for his arm but he pulled it away.

  ‘Damned she-wolf! How dare you use them as your shield? I love those b-b …!’ Henry covered his mouth instantly, and Florence let out an awful cackle.

  ‘Oh, is it coming back to you? The p-p-poor Henry can’t sp-p-p-p-peak?’

  Irving leaped towards her. McGray and I both had to restrain him, and the technician had to join us too. Irving threw fists and kicked about with such fury that even Tarvin’s hound would have recoiled.

  We did not let go of him until Florence was out of sight. Every inch of Irving’s body quivered with a wrath that, I was certain, would not cool for years.

  ‘Shall I go on stage now?’

  Only then did we notice Freddie Harwood, who was supposed to emerge right behind Macbeth’s ghastly head. Finally, the play was drawing to a close.

  ‘There’s still blood up there, sir,’ said the man with the bucket, who had lingered to hear the gossip. Irving waved a hand dismissively, still shaking.

  ‘It’ll look like b-b-battle … b-blood,’ he said, then turned his back to everyone.

  The boy was looking intently at him and Miss Terry, even as he climbed the steps to the stage. And he was smiling! As if it was all part of a farce and he found it terribly amusing.

  We were all too drained to speak, or even move. We heard the ovation from the auditorium as the curtains came down, an uproar unlike any I’d ever witnessed, but it all seemed so trivial now. Even the ears of the mighty Henry Irving were deaf to his followers’ acclaim.

  And then, when I thought we had reached the end of it all, a scream came from above, so piercing it chilled my heart.

  No banshee this time, but a male voice.

  Something terrible had just happened on the stage.

  On the night the blood runs thick and freely

  Some fiend here comes, replete with too much rage

  Announcing death and doom and infamy

  Like a poor player, sentenced on the stage

  Chase not the voices and the spells they write

  For only death and blood your hand shall spread;

  One falls on the stage, maybe one tonight

  If you hunt whispers that concern the dead

  The dead that travel fast, the opening door,

  The silent room, the heavy creeping shade,

  The murdered idol rising through the floor,

  The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid,

  All hail! These tragic marks await Macbeth

  All hail! The Scottish stage shall see your death

  50

  Elgie looked utterly shocked, his lean cheeks pale and his eyes red from lack of sleep. His night had been difficult, of course, but not nearly as bad as mine; I must have looked like a living corpse as I walked into the house, my body battered, my face scalded from the fire and my heart still heavy.

  It had been such a consolation to step out of the City Chambers, after having spent hours at the morgue, and to be received by the fresh air, the clear summer sunshine and the bustle of people preparing for their daily chores. After the horrors of the previous night it was a relief to see that the world was still turning.

  My good brother helped me to the upstairs parlour, and Layton immediately brought me strong coffee and toast. I forced myself to eat, even if my mouth was still so dry I had to down it all with two cups of the brew. Elgie was kind enough to butter a second slice, but I barely managed to eat half of it.

  ‘I hope it was not as bad as people are beginning to say,’ he ventured.

  It had been a thousand times worse, but I would not tell him so. At least not right then.

  ‘What did you see?’ I asked him, before volunteering anything.

  Elgie sat back. ‘Well, that boy who played Fleance came out, with a little candle, like at rehearsals. We finished with the last chords and the curtain came all the way down as usual. There was a standing ovation – I even saw Mother and Father on their feet … and then we heard someone scream and the bottom of the curtain caught fire. Mr Stoker and Mr Howard appeared then, pleading for everyone to leave immediately. I cannot take Mr Stoker’s gesture out of my head; he looked horrified, but there was something else. I cannot really put it in words … There had always been a certain spark in his stare; some – zeal that never went away, even when he seemed in every other way exhausted. But it was gone then, as if everything around him had lost lustre … As if the whole world had darkened.’

  Elgie got lost in his thoughts for a moment.

  ‘Go on,’ I encouraged.

  ‘I was about to reach the main entrance when I heard that female cry and I thought it was all part of the act, like the first banshee scream, at the beginning of the play. I thought we would be asked to come back and Mr Irving would give us a speech, or at least all the cast would come back out for the cheering. But it never happened, and I heard some people waited for hours on Grindlay Street.’

  I thanked heaven he’d not seen more. I closed my eyes, for they burned with exhaustion, and I tried to recall the events in chronological order. I could hardly go through them in my head, let alone tell them aloud.

  The worst part was that Mrs Harwood had witnessed it all from the stage wing.

  She’d been standing there, staring with pride at the glorious last scene of her son, when the cloud of lycopodium had fallen on him. The powder had ignited with the little flame of Freddie’s candle; the poor boy must have been engulfed in flames in no time. We heard his screams from the understage and rushed up there.

  I will forever shudder at the memory of his thin body turned into a ball of fire. The amount of powder around him must have been a hundred times what we’d faced on the rafters. McGray jumped on him and rolled him on the floor, extinguishing the fire with his bare hands. Somebody came with a thick blanket, but by the time they smothered the flames the damage was …

  Thank goodness the boy had not lived for much longer. Death by fire is something I would not wish on anybody.

  His mother had run to him, and I am afraid she had the closest possible view of the injuries. That scream she let out, the one Elgie had just mentioned, was terrible. No banshee, no fury, no mythological
being could ever utter anything as sharp and unsettling. Not one, but her two children victims of fire. I cannot imagine what went through her already perturbed mind. Poor Mrs Harwood ran away and could not be found for the next twenty minutes – I am secretly relieved it was not I who did so.

  McGray and I were on the street when we first heard of the next tragedy. We were looking at the bodies of Freddie and Tarvin being carefully placed on the cart that was to take them to the morgue, when McNair came running and shouting. I cannot believe he still had energy to feel the terror so deeply: he had found Mrs Harwood at the back of the very basement into which I’d followed her. Half hidden between the vast canvases, and tangled in the ropes used to lift them, she appeared to have hanged herself.

  I must have appeared insensitive, but as I said, I was too drained for further emotion. Quite frankly, a part of me is glad Mrs Harwood is finally at rest, for her future could only have been grim.

  At least little Susy was spared those scenes. Miss Terry had already taken her to the Palace Hotel, after finding the girl in her own dressing room, washing off her make-up, so she was not even aware of her brother’s fate. The dreadful news was piling up for her. We sent word to the hotel about Mrs Harwood’s passing, and the messenger came back with Miss Terry’s immediate reply. Apparently the actress had reacted much like me; too tired and beaten for a proper display of emotion. In her note she told us she’d be the one to break the news to Susy, but not before morning, after the child had had some rest.

  I reached for my coffee and looked at the grey yet bright sky through the window. Susy Harwood would probably be receiving the news at that very moment, and I could only wonder how she’d react. Would she be distraught? Would her wits endure? Or, like me, would she also be a little relieved?

  I thought of her prospects. Unless Miss Terry took her on, the girl would probably be sent off to her relatives in New Zealand – the distant cousins mentioned by her mother. Given the circumstances, that was perhaps the best possible outcome for her. Distance would be the best balm, and in this case half the world would be scarcely enough.