Take No Prisoners

by John Grant

  Periodically, Mrs. Romford would instruct her husband that sitting at home in front of the television, waiting in case the phone rang with an urgent summons from the Yard, was all very well in its way, but it was not what she – an intelligent, cultured, aesthetically sensitive woman – had married him for. No, like any delicate plant she would wilt unless properly tended, which in her case meant that she required a little Culture – Culture with a capital "C" – to be regularly injected into her life.

  She had a way of adjusting her carpet slippers while she said this that made it clear to him she was not just indulging in idle whim.

  Tonight the Culture was a performance by the Bridhampton Amateur Dramatic Society of Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. Local actors whom Romford constantly expected to stop and offer him a pound of sausages or ask if he would take in a package because the neighbors wouldn't answer their doorbell battled grimly through the bard's immortal words. Romford would have allowed the soaring beauty of the language to have its customary exhilarating effect on him, but unfortunately the little hall was cold and drafty and the seat too uncomfortable for him to be able to drift off to sleep.

  He was therefore, de rigueur, paying close attention as the performance stuttered towards the play's first great climax – the assassination of Caesar. Romford leaned forward in his seat; he had a professional interest in a good murder.

  "I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar," said Brutus. The actor – Donald Glover, who ran the garage – let his gaze roam around the auditorium. Romford was quite impressed; most of Glover's performance had been predictably wooden, but now he was conveying brilliantly a sense of nervousness mixed with malice. "Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may / Have an immediate freedom of repeal."

  Caesar stood stock-still for a moment, merely allowing the aluminum plates of his armor to tinkle expressively. "What Brutus?" he asked, triumphantly reasserting the thespian traditions of the Bridhampton Amateur Dramatic Society.

  Casca, trembling with suppressed emotion, intervened briefly – another bravura performance – and was replied to by the tyrant, who stalked the stage as menacingly as if he'd lost a pencil.

  "There is no fellow in the firmament," Caesar reassured the audience, who took him to be making a declaration of atheism.

  "The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks," added Mrs. Michaelmas, postmistress and prompter.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Michaelmas," said Caesar.

  Cinna and Decius Brutus both tried to interrupt the progress of the speech, but without avail. Once he had finished it, Caesar began again, to make sure that everyone had marked his words well. Jimmy Evans from the bakery began an off-stage roll on his drum to signify that the fell moment was at hand. The Reverend Jeremy Harcourt-Fruitcake, sitting bolt upright with his wife two rows in front of Romford, said, "Oh golly." Mrs. Romford, rapt, exuded an aura of silence that was almost tangible.

  Then came the moment when Casca – Arthur Miller from the local branch of KwikSave – drew his sword, the other conspirators not far behind him.

  "Speak, hands, for me!" bellowed Casca, plunging the blade into Caesar's chest.

  Blood spurted and Caesar shrieked. This must be the Bridhampton Amateur Dramatic Society's finest hour, thought Romford contentedly, feeling in his coat pocket for a fruit gum. I wonder who was responsible for the stage effects.

  The swords of the other conspirators stabbed viciously at the self-proclaimed Emperor, who continued his piercing yell for a couple of seconds longer and then dropped like a felled bullock.

  That's funny, thought Romford. He forgot to say, "Et tu, Brute."

  "Et tu, Brute," said Mrs. Michaelmas, as if in response to his thought.

  Caesar twitched noisily a couple of times on the floor, pumping further red liquid, and then jerked into stillness. First rate! thought Romford.

  "Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!" said Mrs. Michaelmas crisply on behalf of Cinna, who, mouth hanging open, was white-faced with superbly portrayed shock.

  And then Romford was puzzled again because the curtain was rather hastily drawn across the stage, obscuring everything from his view.

  ~

  "Dead as a doornail," said Dr. Smithee a few minutes later. Like Romford, he had been among the audience that night. "Never had a chance. Turn a man into a living pincushion, like happened here this evening, and pretty damn' soon he's going to be a dead pincushion."

  He looked up at Romford, who was standing on the stage on the other side of the corpse, Mrs. Romford beside him. She was trying to make sure she didn't get blood on her shoes.

  "We won't know for certain until there's been a proper PM," Smithee continued, "but at a guess I'd say that each of the blows punctured one vital organ or another. Poor young Clarence was killed several times over – any single one of those sword-thrusts could have killed him, and all of them together made absolutely certain. In all my career I've never come across a fatal accident like it."

  "Could it," began Romford, aware of the portentousness of the question he was about to ask, "could it have been ... murder?"

  There was a gasp from the assembled actors, stage-hands and audience members. Mrs. Michaelmas looked as if she were about to faint, and was hastily fussed into a chair by Mrs. Harcourt-Fruitcake, the vicar's wife.

  "Murder?" said Dr. Smithee incredulously. "Here? In Bridhampton? Surely not, old boy."

  "We all saw him die," said Romford heavily, lighting his pipe despite the peeling NO SMOKING signs in the wings on either side. "I assume it was not a planned part of the entertainment. He was stabbed multiply, right in front of our very eyes, by these!" He knelt down and touched his fingers to the handles of a couple of the swords.

  "Then ... then the conspirators must have killed him!" said Dr. Smithee. "But I can't believe it! Donald, Arthur – the others. I know them, and so do you. Surely you can't believe they would willingly take part in such a heinous crime? Surely you can't believe they murdered him?"

  "If I were to credit the evidence of my senses," said Romford, "then that is exactly what I would believe. And that is exactly what the murderer – who is a very clever person, let me tell you – meant me, all of us, to believe." He took a deep breath. "It is for precisely that reason that I dismiss them immediately from any form of suspicion."

  "But how could the deed have been done?" said the Reverend Harcourt-Fruitcake. "Did the murderer use mirrors? What magnificent feat of conjuring—?"

  Romford silenced him with a raised hand. "These are police matters, Mr. Harcourt-Fruitcake, and I must ask you not to try to pry into them. All shall be revealed in due course. In the meantime, Dr. Smithee, I should be grateful if you could take the body of this unfortunate young man to the Cottage Hospital. I, for my part, must telephone the police forces of several neighboring counties to put out a general alert for our man, whoever he might be."

  "But tell us how it was done!" pleaded the vicar.

  For answer Romford stood and beckoned over the nearest of the huddled conspirators. It was Brutus, Donald Glover.

  "Donald," said Romford, "am I mistaken in thinking that the short swords with which you were supposed to stab Caesar were trick ones, specially designed for use on the stage?"

  "Yes."

  "I imagine they had spring-loaded wooden blades that retracted easily into hollow handles, is that not so?"

  "Precisely, sir." Glover appeared to wish he had a cap to worry between his hands. "And very convincing they looked too, sir, Mr. Romford, sir, even if I do say so as the one who was given the responsibility of painting they blades all silver-like. Bit of a muck-up we had at the first night, mind, seeing as how the paint wasn't properly dry – Casca, Arthur, couldn't get his out of its scabbard until the interval, so Decius Brutus, Sam, had to strike the first blow instead, oh, we all had a good laugh about that, but—"

  "I think you have explained matters comprehensively enough," concluded Romford, gesturing to the man to leave them alone once again. "You see," he said to Dr. Smith
ee, still kneeling by the corpse, "it was all a simple matter of substitution. At an appropriate moment, when he knew he could not be observed, our cunning murderer merely exchanged the harmless theatrical swords for genuine edged weapons, bitterly sharp and ... lethal! It must have been easy enough to find swords that matched the originals, right down to their weight in the hand – although I doubt if any of our budding Oliviers, tense already from stage-fright, would have noticed the difference."

  "Ah," said Smithee and Harcourt-Fruitcake together. Smithee shook his head as if in wonderment.

  "And you see the beauty of the plot?" Romford carried on. "Once the trap was set – once the substitution had been made – our murderer was scot-free! He had no need to be anywhere near the scene of the crime when that young fellow was almost simultaneously spitted by men who believed they were wielding nothing more deadly than painted wood. The murderer could have been – must have been – miles away when it happened. All he had to do was wait for the slow, inexorable advance of the Bard's relentless meters to bring his victim second by second closer to his inevitable doom!"

  The echoes of that last word took a moment to die away in the wings. Romford became aware that everyone was looking at him.

  "Enough of this." He coughed embarrassedly. "I must go about my official duties now, and so must you, Dr. Smithee. The rest of you had better disperse to your homes. This has been a sorry night, a sorry night indeed."

  ~

  Back in Blossom Cottage, Mrs. Romford hung up her best coat carefully and watched like a martinet as Romford himself followed suit. He also removed his jacket and the red velvet tie he had bought for his father-in-law's funeral; then he kicked off his shoes, ignoring his wife's look of disapproval at this casualness, wormed his way into his slippers and padded through to the snug sitting-room, Mrs. Romford following along behind him. He turned up the flames of the gas fire which so remarkably reproduced the effects of a coal one, right down to being virtually impossible to light on a cold morning, and flopped down into his favorite armchair.

  "A rum do, old girl," he said as Mrs. Romford dropped into the armchair opposite him. "A very rum do indeed. Sorry your evening of Culture was truncated so rudely. Can't be helped, of course."

  She said nothing, but looked pointedly at the telephone.

  "Now, where did I put my tobacco? Ah, here it is."

  "You'll be able to claim back the cost of the calls if you do them from here?" she asked anxiously.

  "Calls, old girl?"

  "You told the vicar that you were going to phone the constabularies in the neighboring counties."

  "Did I? Oh, yes, so I did. Well, I think that can just as easily be left until tomorrow." He sucked on his pipe, succeeded in lighting it, and – as always – stopped the reflexive movement of his hand just in time not to hurl the spent match at the gas fire.

  She looked at him earnestly. "That was a load of baloney, what you said back at the hall, wasn't it, Trevor?"

  "Ahem. I would prefer the term 'imaginative detection.'" He blew out a cloud of blue smoke, satisfied in the knowledge of an evening's work well done.

  "Then all that about the fake swords ...?"

  "A reconstruction of what could have happened. We in the Force do it all the time."

  "What do really think did happen, dear?"

  Romford fumbled in his trouser pocket and produced a crumpled copy of the cyclostyled program for that night's performance: "JULIUS CEASER, as Presented by the Bridhampton Amateur Dramatic Society."

  "'Ceaser,'" mumbled Romford. "How very, very appropriate." Out loud he said as he unfolded the program's single sheet: "Now, if we take a look at the list of credits we notice a very singular thing. The name of the young actor who met his untimely demise this evening was Clarence Griggs."

  "I know that. He was Dora's only son, the apple of her eye ..."

  "And, old girl, if we look down at the bottom of the right-hand side, we discover the producer's name."

  Mrs. Romford took the sheet from him. "'A Mrs. Dora Griggs Production,'" she read. "Well, naturally."

  "Yes, my love, 'naturally.' Everything that's been staged by the Bridhampton Amateur Dramatic Society during the past four years has been that – a Mrs. Dora Griggs Production. Ever since old 'Chompy' Griggs died she's been spending her money financing the company – that's what 'producer' means. Do you remember their presentation of The Merchant of Venice?"

  "I did wonder at the time if it was a good idea to have the same actor playing both Shylock and Portia," said Mrs. Romford with suddenly remembered dubiety.

  "And who was the actor cast in both roles?" pressed Romford.

  "Why, it would have been young Clar—" Mrs. Romford began.

  "Exactly. The apple of her eye. Even her millions couldn't have got him into RADA, which was what he'd set his heart on, but she could and did ensure that he was the star on a humbler stage."

  The idea that crude finance could possibly play a part in casting decisions was obviously a new one to Mrs. Romford.

  "His interpretation of Desdemona was rather ... suspect," she conceded, visibly recalling the grand outdoor performance of Othello the Bridhampton Amateur Dramatic Society had staged last summer in the Griggs House car park. ("So much easier than trying to get all those nasty cigarette-ends out of the herbaceous borders," Dora had confided to her.)

  "And then there was the song-and-dance number in the last act of King Lear," said Romford. "I do not think Shakespeare envisaged the dying monarch leaping from his throne and launching into a rendition of 'My Way.'"

  "Yes, it didn't seem quite ... respectful."

  "Not to mention the Christmas panto, Aladdin. Surely you remember Aladdin?"

  Mrs. Romford nodded mutely. There was nothing to be said. Some of the children from the audience were still being counselled.

  "So you see, old girl," said Romford, stretching out his legs and looking through the haze of smoke at his slippers, "there comes a case in every copper's life when he knows precisely the identity of the criminal, he knows the man is as guilty as sin, and yet he decides that the purpose of a higher law than any set down in the statute books is better served if he turns a blind eye. This is, for me, that case."

  "Then all that business about the swords – I was right, wasn't I?"

  He leaned forward and patted her comfortably on the knee. "Absolutely right. Total baloney. It was what I was meant to believe. The conspirators knew precisely the nature of the weapons they were holding. They were doing a public service for the sake of the good folk of Bridhampton and its environs. Ideally they'd have gone for Dora herself, but then of course young Clarence would have inherited – and that would probably have been even worse. So they did what they could."

  "But what about the Reverend Harcourt-Fruitcake?"

  "Whose hobby is swordsmithery ..."

  "And Dr. Smithee?"

  "Those swords were driven in with anatomical precision. It takes expert training before a man can do that. I imagine that even now the good doctor is preparing a suitably anodyne death certificate – ghastly accident, couldn't be helped, you know the sort of thing."

  Mrs. Romford drew a deep sigh and stared resolutely at the transitory castles of brightness the flames of the gas fire were building. "And what shall you do, darling?"

  "Nothing," said Romford. "Nothing at all. Blast it, this pipe's gone out again."

  Mrs. Romford gave another deep sigh, and pulled herself wearily to her feet. "Would you like your cocoa now, dear?"

  I Could Have a General Be /

  In the Bright King's Arr-umm-ee

  Every time I hear them sing the song, wondering am I if it could be for me, about me, my sorry tale; and then I say no, for my tale is littletold, save by me – and who would listen to me? (Though it is true: I could have been a General in the Bright King's arr-umm-ee. And that is the tale.)

  Ten cold seasons gone now, those times I do not forget (and in one case cannot forget), when the old king, Durblediabolo,
was athronèd still, and the people loth under his sway. O the rumors swept like ladies' eyelashes: Did he eat small children for his tiffin? Was there a wench unassaulted in all the land left by his dark and horny body? Blood he drank in banquet cups – the old idlemen, in cups of their own, assured it truth was, told me so themselves, they who had it from a grandchild's friend. The Queen, fair Galinea of the springbreeze smile: she was burnt, or rackt, or walled away, or long decades back all three – another matter the idlemen knew. Her daughter – Durblediabolo's daughter – was the villainess who sucked her mother's blood, dried fair Galinea. Dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-skinned, dark-garbed, dark-souled, dark-everythinged LoChi: we saw her, all the palace guards and I (Qinmeartha), leader of them, as she paraded daily – here to the bath, there to the sewing-room, and somewhere to the chamber which no man upon pain of death must think the thought of. We saw her evilness, albeit evil disguised into invisibility.

  So we said, so all knew. All knew that, worse than her father even, LoChi was a blooddrinker, a semensucker, a throatbiter: vargr, lamia or succubus, the words all combined in her unregal form. All knew it, but what they knew (what Qinmeartha knew) was that her father's taxes made them sweat, the sternness of his royalty them tremble (as well they might, for gibbets strained e'en more then than now, when we are ajoyed under the benevolence of the Bright King our savior, bless his belch). All knew, too – and here they were rightly thinking (this also Qinmeartha knew) – that the days of the Aranthons, the House whose blood did truly flow within Durblediabolo and LoChi the both, were fastly twilighting, and that the Bright King beyond the borders with his armies would soon be regnant over us his loving loyal subjects, idlemen and damselfines alike.

  Qinmeartha knew, I say. Qinmeartha had no love for Durblediabolo or LoChi, although no loathing either. I had great love, say this too, for myself (Qinmeartha, fine Captain of the Royal Guard, crimson-costumed with gold stringing here and here and here, just so) and for the safety of my skin, and more than either these (I believe this is honesty) for the wife (comely) and children of mine (there were three, and still maybe are) who devoured what Durblediabolo's saltmoney bought them.