by Barry Day
As I descended the steps that took me down to the river walkway, I became part of a steady stream of people all heading in the same direction. On the road above us hansom after hansom was decanting its cargo of passengers to swell the throng.
They were a good tempered crowd, chattering loudly in anticipation of being about to witness a unique event—Shakespeare’s return to Bankside and the rebirth of the ‘great Globe itself. Now we could see it rising some thirty feet and towering over the surrounding buildings, just as it must have done some three hundred years ago. Now its white sides gleamed in the afternoon sun but a London winter would soon take care of that and it would blend into the background just as though it had never been away. I couldn’t help notice how people’s voices suddenly dropped when they first caught sight of it, for it was indeed a magnificent sight. I could well see why men had pursued the dream of rebuilding it for so long. Ironic to think it had taken a brash American to give us back such an important part of our heritage.
Jostled by the crowds who were now finding their voices as they entered the building, I found myself pushed along the familiar corridor and into the sunlight of the wooden ‘O’. I have to confess I was stunned by what I saw. Gone were the builders and their debris, their sawhorses and dust sheets. There was the stage that had already seen its share of drama, now covered with rushes. There were the mighty stage pillars that one would have taken for marble, if you didn’t know that they were painted wood. And there, above and around the stage itself the carved and brightly painted effigies of mythical gods and goddesses. Within those few short days—while so much that was black and evil had been taking place in the real world—a universe of dreams had been taking shape. And now here it was, magnificent and complete and nothing must be allowed to dim its luster.
I must have been lost in my own thoughts for I was quite startled to feel a hand on my sleeve. I looked round to find a small figure in a well worn tweed suit and sporting a flat cap of the kind most often seen on the grouse moor. And even allowing that we were now well past the ‘glorious twelfth’, it looked a little out of place in an Elizabethan playhouse. As if he could read my find, the man quickly removed it and stuffed it into his pocket, brushing unruly hair flat with his hand like a small schoolboy. It was then that I realised who my companion was.
“Good afternoon, Doctor Watson,” said Professor Campbell Bryson, “you seem surprised to see me.” Indeed I was but a moment’s thought sufficed to resolve that. Elizabethan playhouses were, after all, his special subject and his next remark completed the picture. “Your visit the other day with Mr Holmes piqued my curiosity and I thought—‘I must see what sort of a mess that Adler feller’s made of things’.” Then a realisation struck him. “Oh, my dear Doctor, what must you think of me? I only heard the appalling news as I got off the train and bought a paper. My heartiest condolences. The world has lost a great intellect.”
“Yes,” I replied gruffly, “and I a great friend.” I looked away over his shoulder at the crowded galleries while I fought to keep my emotions under control. Then I returned my attention to the crestfallen academic. “So what sort of mess has he made, Professor?” That was enough to distract him back to safer ground. “Very creditable, very creditable, I must admit. Personally, I still believe the stage pillars are wrongly placed and one could argue whether Thalia and Melpomene”—and here he indicated the elaborately carved figures of two buxom goddesses—“should be stage left or stage right but otherwise … very creditable indeed. Seeing it in all its glory—for it does take one back across the centuries, does it not?—one can quite see how the poor little Rose was outclassed. And now, what play shall we hear today, I wonder?”
I was in the midst of telling him what little I knew of the day’s events when I observed the figure of Lestrade pushing through the crowd in my direction. “Ah, Doctor, looking for you everywhere,” he said, removing the bowler hat he affected whatever the weather and mopping his brow. As he did so, he looked questioningly at the Professor. “Lestrade, I don’t believe you’ve met …” I said and made the introductions. “Delighted to meet you, Professor,” said the Inspector, “you’re just the chap the Doctor and I need to explain to us what’s going on. It’ll be double Dutch to us, I shouldn’t wonder …” “Speak for yourself, Lestrade,” I replied somewhat irritably, “I’ve been a Shakespeare man all my life.” With that, Lestrade dropped the subject and steered us towards the back of the crowd until we were standing as close as we could get to the roped off section of the lower gallery which would hold the royal party.
As we pushed and jostled, I muttered into Lestrade’s ear—“There are a few things you and I need to discuss, Lestrade. I’ve been talking to Miss French about last night …” If the back of a man’s head can blush, Lestrade’s did just that. Out of the side of his mouth I heard him say—“All in good time, Doctor. As soon as this lot is over, I promise!” And with that I had to be content.
Bryson seemed surprised that we did not move up into the gallery itself, until Lestrade, glancing pointedly at me, said: “The Doctor and I are men of the people, eh, Doctor? We know our place.” Then, so that the professor couldn’t hear—“My men are mingling with the crowd, just in case, and I promised ‘your friend’ that we’d stay as near as possible.” I nodded to show I understood.
It’s unlikely that we needed to take any such care in conversing, for Bryson was in a world that was more real to him than the one the rest of us inhabited.
“Quite right, quite right—we shall be Groundlings. They were the people who stood here in the yard. Fifteen hundred of them when the place was full and another fifteen hundred packing the galleries …”
I looked up to where the rows of backless benches were rapidly filling with a cross section of society. On our level were the better and more formally dressed, most of them there by royal invitation. Above us and in the ‘wings’ curling around the stage the clothes were brighter and the accents broader, while the yard itself was peopled by as cheerful a crowd of Londoners as you would expect to see on Hampstead Heath on a bank holiday, which for them it virtually was.
Bryson’s voice broke in again. “All London came here to ‘hear a play’ and meet their friends. Clerks, courtesans and cutpurses. Ladies of repute and those of less certain reputation, lords, merchants and miscreants. It was a true melting pot of Elizabethan society and the plays were their newspapers, for many of those three thousand were illiterate, you know. They came here both for discourse and distraction and somehow the theatre itself made them all one. Can’t you feel it beginning to happen even now, gentlemen?”
And strangely, I began to sense what he meant. Unlike any theatre I could recall, there was a unity among that very diverse audience. It was something to do with the intimacy created by that encircling shape that enabled each one of you to be aware of everyone else. We were all part of a greater entity and part of the play, even before it began.
“They used to call the audience ‘The Great Beast’, you know and it was up to the actors to tame it with their performance.” Bryson continued. “I wonder if the beast will turn and rend today?” His words sent a shiver along my spine and suddenly I remembered just why I was standing here and wondered what might happen beneath that warm September sky.
Realising that the professor was three hundred years away, I turned aside to Lestrade. “Is everything under control?” “Everything we can possibly think of, Doctor,” he replied. “Of course, we’re pretty sure he’s acting alone but just in case he has any accomplices … My men are all over the theatre and I’ve a couple who’ll be in that dressing room place”—he indicated the back of the stage—“the moment they’re all out there. Oh, there is one rummy thing …”
My heart sank. “For God’s sake, man—what’s that?”
“Adler’s vanished. Not a smell of him anywhere. Seems to have gone off without a word to anyone.”
“But isn’t he in the first scene? I thought he was playing the King in the duel scene?�
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“So he was, Doctor, so he was. He was also supposed to greet Her Majesty when she arrives but we got a message earlier today that the lady wants her party to arrive without fuss and meet everybody after the performance. Let’s hope he turns up by then. Luckily, young Tallis has stepped into the breach on the acting front. Seems he’s played the part in an amateur production. He’s going to carry a script, just in case, but he seems pretty sure he can fill in for his father. Rather him than me.”
I found my mind racing with possibilities. Was this part of Holmes’s plan and, if so, how did it fit? Or had Allan decided on a desperate throw at the last moment by eliminating the man he saw as the arch villain in his own Grand-Guignol? And, most important, what would Holmes expect of me in these new circumstances?
Before I could arrange my thoughts into any semblance of order, I was aware of a ripple of movement near the entrance to the theatre that was closest to the river. A trumpeter blew a fanfare from the stage gallery. The general babble of noise died down to a murmur as all heads turned to see what had caused it. Then the crowd near the entrance parted like the waters of the Red Sea and a loud if ragged cheer went up. All around us the people in the galleries began to rise to their feet and join in the cheering as the royal party could be seen entering.
Next to me Bryson whispered loudly—“Not the Queen but at least a Queen. Better late than never, eh?”
And now the party were approaching where we stood. There were several solidly built members of the Brigade of Guards, I was pleased to see, flanking Her Majesty’s personal retinue. Next came the elegant patrician figure of the Marquess of Salisbury, the Prime Minister, and on the other side, dwarfing him, the bulk of Mycroft Holmes. As he passed, his eye caught mine and the merest flicker of expression disturbed his impassivity.
Then I concentrated on the woman who had ruled much of the civilised world since before I and most of the people around me had been born. I had seen her many times over the years on occasions such as this and the sight never ceased to make me feel proud.
Today I also felt a little sad. She was being carried in a sort of semi-covered sedan borne by four sturdy fellows in livery and I remembered reading that her doctors had confined her to bed for the past several days. She was, of course, an old lady now, though her spirit made that hard to accept. I had no doubt that today, in her determination to be here, the royal will had triumphed over the medical. I could see that her face was mostly covered from air that would turn chilly later by some sort of lacy—‘mantilla’ was the word that came to mind, though my wife would undoubtedly tell me it was something quite other. Her gloved hands were clasped around a silver topped cane. My overriding thought was that nothing should happen to this gallant lady, if John H. Watson had any say in the matter.
As the crowd settled, I turned to Lestrade. “Well, Lestrade, I suppose all you have to worry about now is getting her safely out of here? The worst is over.” Lestrade didn’t appear to share my sangfroid.
He seemed about to say something when there were three sharp knocks on the floor of the stage—the classic sign that the entertainment was about to begin.
Two actors entered. Allan dressed in the funereal garb of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returned to court from his exile and now accompanied by his old friend, Horatio, played by Harrison Trent. As they stroll about chatting, they are approached by a Lord bidding Hamlet attend the King and Queen’s pleasure. There is to be a fencing bout between Hamlet and Laertes, brother of the dead Ophelia. Having delivered his message, the Lord exits.
HORATIO: You will lose, my lord.
HAMLET: I do not think so …
Then I fancied I saw something in Allan’s face which went unnoticed by almost everyone else in that audience. He seemed to withdraw, leaving the face a mask. Others would perceive it as an actor internalising his thoughts but I found myself wondering precisely who I was watching at that moment. Allan? Lowe? Hamlet? Or some hybrid creature compounded of all of them? On stage Hamlet was telling Horatio that he would “win at the odds.” He went on …
HAMLET: … thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart. But it is no matter.
With a sudden sickening feeling I realised that the lines themselves were beginning to affect the man, tip him further away from reality and over the edgeinto some other world where he could no longer be reached by reason.
HAMLET: There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all …
The light the words kindled in Allan’s eyes was unearthly. Freud was right. We were not dealing with one man but several. And out of the abyss was clambering—who? Holmes had lost his gamble but what could I do? I could hardly climb up on that stage and say—what? I fingered my trusty service revolver and tried to concentrate on what was happening in the play.
The stage was now filled with the other actors who made up the duel scene. King Claudius—a surprisingly authoritative Tallis, discreetly carrying a text. Carlotta Adler as his Queen Gertrude looking distinctly nervous, I thought—as well she might. Sundry lords and courtiers carrying cushions, chairs and flagons of wine. As they settled themselves, Simon Phipps made his way through the crowd in his role as Laertes. Once again, I realised I may have been reading what I already knew into people’s expressions but I would have said that here was a man who was once again his own man, for good or ill. All he now wanted was this game over and done with.
On the stage the King is bringing the two contestants together to reconcile them before the contest. Even while Allan was speaking the lines to Laertes, his gaze was fixed on Tallis and he might as well have substituted the words he was clearly thinking—“What are you doing here? Where is the man I have pursued for so long—where is Adler?” As it was, he was saying …
What I have done … I here proclaim was madness …
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy …
For some reason this seemed to disconcert Phipps and I saw Tallis sneak a surreptitious glance at his script. Then at my elbow Bryson whispered something which worried me even more: “He’s cutting his lines. Why is he cutting the lines?”
At that moment I knew with a dread certainty that we were watching a play within a play. Inside his spinning brain, Allan was snatching at the words of his character and holding on to those that made sense of his own turmoil. When the words no longer fitted or—worse still—when they were exchanged for violent action on that stage, what then?
The swords were being selected …
LAERTES: This is too heavy. Let me see another.
HAMLET: This likes me well. These swords have all a length?
An attendant assured him they did.
KING: Set me the stoups of wine upon that table—
If Hamlet give the first or second hit
Or quit in answer of the first exchange,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire …
And now the duel began. Both men were light on their feet but Allan clearly had the advantage and, while Phipps was clearly going through a series of motions as they had been rehearsed, I could see his expression begin to tighten around the mouth. Something was happening that had not been rehearsed. Allan was really attacking him. Had it not been for the buttons on the foils, the situation might have become dangerous. Laertes’ “Come, my lord” had hardly been necessary.
Then, as in the play, Hamlet made the first contact.
HAMLET: One
LAERTES: No
HAMLET: Judgement!
COURTIER: A hit, a very palpable hit.
LAERTES: Well, again
At this the King snatched a goblet of wine to toast Hamlet’s success. At my elbow I realised that Bryson had been conducting a non-stop commentary on the stage action, as much to himself as to Lestrade and me.
“See, the king puts a poisoned pearl into the wine to kill off Hamlet but, of course, Hamlet doesn’t drink i
t …”
KING: Give him the cup.
HAMLET: I’ll play this bout first. Set it by awhile.
Something now seemed to be troubling Bryson. His voice rose to a bleat, so that heads near us turned in irritation. He moderated his tone to a hoarse whisper into my ear. “Hamlet’s not supposed to set the cup aside. And why is he putting something into it. The King’s already done that …”
And, indeed, masked by the other activity of the court scene—with people moving and talking on the stage, while waiting for the fencing to resume, Allan had indeed taken the cup Tallis offered and moved around the stage pillar, while practising feinting movements with his rapier. Tallis and Phipps exchanged puzzled looks but they had clearly ceased to be surprised by anything Allan did. In any event, his back was now turned to them briefly and prevented them from seeing what he did next, which was to take a folded piece of paper from inside his robe and tip its contents into the wine. Then, completing his move around the pillar, he replaced the goblet on the table next to the Queen and pointed his sword at Laertes.
HAMLET: Come.
A few more movements and then …
HAMLET: Another hit. What say you?
LAERTES: A touch, a touch, I do confess it.
On stage the courtiers are showing their excitement at Hamlet’s success but at least two of the Groundlings have somewhat different feelings. Bryson continues to complain: “Absolutely nothing in either the Quarto or Folio versions to justify such a vulgar interpolation. If this is the sort of thing Adler’s going to …” For my part, my mind was racing in an attempt to try and understand what I had just seen. Was this a piece of stage business or something far more sinister? I looked at Lestrade. Had he noticed it, too? He seemed more concerned to scan the crowd, presumably to spot the whereabouts of his own men. Before I could say anything to him, the action began again.
Carlotta was picking up the goblet and raising it to her son.
