Cursed in the Act

by Raymond Buckland

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Is Mrs. Richland at home?” I enquired. “I would like a few moments of her time, if possible.”

  I handed the maid my card, its corner appropriately turned down, which she took and disappeared, leaving me standing on the doorstep with the door ajar. It was some time before she reappeared and ushered me inside. She took my hat and coat and then led the way up to the first-floor drawing room, where I found Mrs. Richland seated at a small table close to a very low fire. She was well wrapped in a tea gown with no less than two woolen shawls held tightly about her shoulders. I found this understandable when I discovered little heat coming from the fireplace.

  “An unexpected visit, Mr. Rivers,” she said, holding my card in her hand as though it were somehow tainted. She studied it at length through a tortoiseshell-framed lorgnette. She did not ask me to sit, despite the number of chairs scattered about the room. “To what do I owe this encounter?”

  “I have some news regarding your son’s . . . er, regarding your son,” I said.

  “My son is dead and buried, Mr. Rivers, as well you know. You were at his funeral, were you not?”

  “Yes. Well, that is the point, ma’am.”

  “Then kindly get to it. I have matters that need to be attended and time is irrevocable.”

  She smelled strongly of camphor; her shawls were probably kept in a camphor chest for much of the year. I could not imagine what business she might have that was in the least bit urgent, but who was I to question her?

  “Mrs. Richland, your son’s grave was recently opened and the coffin . . .”

  “What?” She looked up sharply and her eyes were ice. “What do you mean, my son’s grave was opened? Pray explain yourself, sir!”

  I was afraid I’d make a mess of trying to explain things. Thank you, Mr. Stoker, I thought, for leaving this task to me!

  “The police . . .” I began. Best to bring in mention of the authorities, I thought. “It was apparently necessary to determine . . . that is to say, to confirm that the body . . . that your son . . .” I took a deep breath and plunged in. “It would appear that your son’s body is missing, Mrs. Richland. I’m sorry to have to let you know in this way but Mr. Stoker felt—we all felt—that you needed to be informed. There was nothing in the coffin but a tree trunk. The body is gone!”

  I don’t know what sort of reaction I expected. I was certainly prepared to call the maid should the administering of smelling salts be necessary, but they were not. Mrs. Richland rose to her feet—happily, still a couple of inches shorter than myself—and stared me in the face.

  “I do not know what you are saying, nor implying, Mr. Rivers, but I think I should advise you that I do retain the services of a competent solicitor. My son’s remains were placed in consecrated soil by a respected church minister. They should remain there, undisturbed, for all eternity. If you have somehow interfered with that repose, then I must remind you that a higher authority than that of the Metropolitan constabulary may bring you to task. Bodies of the deceased do not transmute into tree trunks. If what you say is true, then it sounds to me like the shenanigans of a theatrical production. I will look into this affair, and believe me when I say that you will be hearing further from me. Good day to you, Mr. Rivers!”

  * * *

  I got back to the theatre just in time for the matinee performance. During the first interval I was backstage talking with old Margery Connelly, the wardrobe mistress, who was sewing on a button for Meg Grey. As we chatted, Miss Connelly mentioned seeing Peter Richland in the wings before curtain up.

  “This afternoon?” I asked, perplexed.

  “Yes. He wasn’t in costume,” she said. “Everyone was scurrying about, as they do before curtain-up, you know?”

  “Yes.” I was still trying to take in what she said. “Are you certain it was Mr. Richland?”

  “Oh yes. Well, fairly certain, Mr. Rivers. My eyes are still good for close-up work—which is what you need, you know, working in wardrobe—but they are not all they once were for distance, I’m afraid. Why one time I . . .”

  “Yes. Yes, sorry for interrupting, Miss Connelly, but you do know that Peter Richland died? You were at the funeral, I believe. He couldn’t possibly have been here.”

  She stopped her sewing and her face went white. “Oh dear me! Yes, of course! How silly of me. Oh dear! Perhaps . . . perhaps . . . No, it must have been my eyes. But it did look like Mr. Richland. Of course, he was on the prompt side and I was opposite prompt. But still . . . Oh dear!”

  “It’s very dark in the wings,” I said. I could see her worrying that she was starting to lose her faculties, and I tried to set her mind at rest. “Don’t worry about it, Miss Connelly. I’m sure it was a natural mistake.” Then I had a thought, and laughed. “Of course, it could have been Peter Richland’s ghost. Perhaps the Lyceum has now got its own Man in Grey to match the one at the Drury Lane Theatre.”

  Margery Connelly did not laugh with me.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’ve been thinking about our missing body, Harry,” said Stoker later that afternoon, when the matinee crowd had cleared out.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “If whoever emptied Richland’s coffin of his body was responsible for separating top and torso, and then planted the head here in our scenery, would it not make sense that he’d also secrete the body right here in our theatre?”

  I thought for a moment. “That does seem to make a certain sense,” I admitted. “Why deposit them in two different places when one will do, albeit with head distinct from body? So, what’s the plan, sir?”

  “Why, we must search the theatre, of course!” He got up and slipped off his jacket. Mr. Stoker always dressed well, and his clothes were expensively tailored. I could understand that he wouldn’t want to go digging around backstage and elsewhere in his best coat. He carefully hung it from the mahogany clothes tree by the door. “I suggest we start at the bottom and work our way up. Lead on to the under-stage, Harry!”

  I led the way out to the stairs heading down to the dressing rooms, wardrobe, and green room. I led on through the opening that put us underneath the stage itself. It was a large, low-ceilinged space filled with boxes, pieces of furniture, hampers of clothing, and assorted properties. In the few short years I had been at the Lyceum, I had never fully explored this vast, dark area. For some reason I felt uncomfortable down there, a remnant of childhood fears. I had vague memories of once being inadvertently locked inside a large trunk I had climbed into, in the attic of the Hounslow Masonic Institution for Boys. The attic was, of course, out-of-bounds, but that hadn’t deterred an adventurous spirit such as myself. The experience of being locked in complete darkness for three hours did, however, leave its mark.

  Many of the old oil lamps and floats, and a pair of broken limelights were piled in one corner. I had honestly been meaning to get down there and clear up one of these days . . . but I never seemed to find the time. Happily, I didn’t have to give any excuses to my boss; he knew the score.

  “Check the trapdoors, Harry.”

  “You think the body might be in one of them?” I asked.

  “No. Not likely. But it struck me that if our villain can cut ropes coming down from above, he can certainly cut ropes working on trapdoors coming up from the bottom.”

  I should have thought of that and mentally kicked myself. The traps were important, and most stages had a number of them. For this production of Hamlet we had three: two placed one on either side of the stage and the third at the rear. Climbing up, I saw that the rear one, used for the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father, was fine. The one stage right was the grave trap, the section of stage that was lowered just sufficiently for the actors to appear to step down into the open grave in Act Five, Scene One, where the skull of Yorick is unearthed. I climbed up the stepladder beside the mechanism. Ropes attached to the platform ran over pulleys so that the stage
hands could pull on them and lower or raise the platform.

  “This one seems to be all right,” called Stoker, from stage left.

  My blood suddenly ran cold. “Not so this one,” I said. “The ropes have been cut partway through. Whoever stepped onto this tonight, their weight would cause it to let go. It would drop like a stone to the bottom!”

  “Probably not enough to kill anyone, but certainly sufficient to cause serious injury,” said Stoker, coming over to join me. “Get someone on this, Harry. Right away! We don’t need any more accidents.”

  I rounded up Sam Green and got him and one of his men to replacing the ropes. I rejoined Stoker, who was standing holding up an oil lamp and studying a small flat lying on its side at the back wall of the area. There was little lighting in this whole section.

  “What is this doing here, Harry? Why isn’t it in the scenery bay?”

  I looked at the flat. “I’m quite sure it’s not part of any scene we have for Hamlet. Leftover from a past production, I’d say. I don’t know why it was put here.”

  It was painted to look like a section of stone wall. Although it didn’t exactly match the stonework of the basement wall under the stage, the flat did tend to blend in and thus—I presumed—that was how it had got overlooked and left there. I called to Sam, who was just about to leave the trapdoor platform.

  “Sam! See that this flat gets back up to the scenery bay, would you? It doesn’t belong here.”

  “Sure thing, ’Arry!”

  I turned back to Stoker, who was now digging through a trunk full of assorted pieces of Roman armor from Julius Caesar—breastplates, greaves, vambraces, and assorted togas, tunics, and cloaks.

  “Think the body might be in there?” I asked.

  “You just never know. Look everywhere, Harry.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “’Ere, ’Arry! What’s this, then?” Sam Green’s voice caught my attention and had Stoker standing upright from the trunk of Roman props. “This is a dodgy do an’ no mistake,” muttered Sam. “I ain’t never see’d that afore.”

  He had moved the flat away from the wall and revealed a hole in the stonework behind it that was about two feet square.

  “Looks as though it might be for drainage,” said Stoker uncertainly. “You know how damp it can get down here.”

  “Big ’ole just for drainin’, beggin’ yer pardon, Mr. Stoker,” said Sam, removing his cap and scratching his head.

  “You are right,” agreed my boss.

  There was a mesh grill covering the hole, but when I touched it, it came free. It did not seem to be fastened at all.

  “Get a better light, Sam,” Stoker said. “Let’s take a look.”

  When Sam returned with a bright naphtha lamp, we moved inside. Behind the grill a larger space opened up that extended back to a corroded iron pipe that had once carried away any water that might have seeped into the theatre’s foundations. Between the grill opening and the pipe was what amounted to a small room, albeit with little height to stand upright. A soiled, torn mattress lay in one corner of the space, two threadbare blankets across it. There were one or two upturned wooden boxes, one bearing the stub of a candle, and on the floor a tin plate on which sat a large rat. I kicked at it and the varmint scuttled away, disappearing into an unseen hole in a dark corner.

  “What have we here?” said Stoker. “It would seem to be a hideaway; an abscondment for some Lyceum rapscallion.”

  “This opens up all kinds of possibilities,” I said. “I would doubt it was used by any employee of the theatre . . . Why would they need it? No. There is the strong possibility of someone from outside making use of this.”

  “Someone who would not then have to pass the scrutiny of our vigilant Bill Thomas.”

  “Exactly.”

  Sam pointed out an old tin of rat poison. “Some rat catcher, d’you think, sir?” he asked.

  “None that I know of,” I said. “Leastwise, not an official one for the theatre.”

  The three of us examined the whole area, which didn’t take long. We found no clues to the occupant, though Stoker did find five or six empty liquor bottles in one corner.

  “Could be this is an old ’idey-’ole, sir,” volunteered Sam. “May’ap no one’s been ’ere in years.”

  “I think not, Sam.” Stoker prodded the blankets with his foot. “These blankets may be old, but they are not covered with dust. And the burnt wick of the candle is still flexible. If it were ancient, it would be brittle and snap off. No, this place has been used, and fairly recently at that.”

  We sent off Sam, with the oil lamp, to return to his work, and Stoker and I continued a survey of the below-stage area with the brighter illumination. There was a section far from the descending steps and not far from the newly discovered hole where it looked as though a circular area of the floor had been cleared.

  “What’s this, then?” I said.

  Burnt-down candles stood around on the ground, apparently to mark the area. There was a liberal amount of sawdust in the center, with some dark substance mixed in. It looked as though it had once been liquid and had now congealed. I noticed an unpleasant pungent odor but with a second, slightly sweet, smell lingering. I sniffed, as did Stoker. I looked at him quizzically.

  He prodded at the sawdust with the toe of his elegant boot. “If I am not mistaken, Harry, this may be the residue of blood, with the sawdust put down to absorb it.”

  “Blood?” I was aware of a tremble in my voice.

  He nodded. “And that slightly sweet smell, judging from those bottles that we found in the hiding area, is rum.”

  “Rum?” I felt like a fool standing there repeating the words as Stoker said them.

  The big man stroked his beard and paced around the area.

  “Is this another case for Sergeant Bellamy?” I asked. Then I had an idea. “Would the blood be from the severed head?”

  “No. No, in fact it probably is not even human blood, Harry. A chicken, perhaps. A rooster.”

  “What?”

  As we moved about the cleared area, my foot kicked against something. I picked it up. It was a small metal cup. I saw that it was probably silver and was handleless. It looked vaguely familiar, possibly from the prop box. I put it down again.

  Stoker stopped his pacing and beckoned me, leading the way back to the hiding hole. He took the naphtha lamp from my hand and we entered. Stoker stood for a moment in the center of the space, crouched down because of the low ceiling, and slowly swung around in a circle, studying the walls.

  “Aha!”

  He moved forward and pushed aside a box. I was able to make out a crude design painted on the wall in red paint . . . or what I assumed to be paint.

  “As I suspected,” muttered Stoker. “Come, Harry. Let us return to my office. There is nothing more we can do here for now. We have much food for thought.”

  When we did get back, Bill Thomas brought us each a cup of his strong tea. I was grateful for it but wished he was more liberal with his milk and sugar, to assuage the bitterness of the bergamot in the Earl Grey.

  “Thank you, Bill,” said Stoker as the old man went back to his station. “Now then, Harry. Let’s get our noggins to work. Have we stumbled upon the home of a Lyceum ghost, d’you think? Perhaps the one that Miss Connelly thought she saw? If so, it’s a very earthbound one that requires some form of habitation. No! My instinct tells me this hiding place we just discovered was used by whoever dropped sandbags on you, and even the one who poisoned the Guv’nor. And my old granny always told me to listen to my instinct. ‘It’s the true voice of your spirit,’ she used to say.” He shrugged back into his swallowtail coat, ran a hand quickly through his thick, dark hair, and sat down.

  I nodded, inured to Stoker’s Irish beliefs and traditions.

  “Do you think he’ll return to it, then, sir?”

/>   The big man shook his head. “I very much doubt it, Harry, though you never know. He must surely know that we’ll search every inch of this old place. It probably served him well for a long-enough period.” He paused before continuing. “However, if he does return, then I think he may be a much more dangerous personage than I had originally believed.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Herbert Willis,” I said suddenly.

  “I beg your pardon?” Stoker looked surprised.

  “Herbert Willis. That stagehand that we had to let go. Bill Thomas may be right,” I said, warming to the idea. “Willis cursed the Lyceum when he left. He was always sneaking off somewhere to tilt the bottle while he was here, and you found bottles down there. He could well have discovered that drainage space and made use of it, for God knows how long, for his imbibing. Then, after he was dismissed, he could have slipped back into the theatre—perhaps while we were away at Richland’s funeral—and ensconced himself there while he waged his war against us. What do you think, sir?”

  “Mmm!” The dark red head nodded up and down. “It is possible,” was all he said. He drank deeply of the dark, strong tea, seeming not to notice its slightly bitter taste. He eventually put down his cup and looked at me. “What you say of Mr. Willis may or may not be the answer, Harry. But I think there is far more going on here. Your Mr. Willis may have been a drinker, but most of those bottles we found were empty rum bottles, which could be very significant.”

  I didn’t follow, and my face must have registered it. Stoker continued.

  “You remember what I told you of zombies, Harry?”

  How could I forget? I’d had some very disturbing dreams for the last couple of nights.

  “Are you saying that the Lyceum has become a home for zombies?” I asked.

  He gave one of his mirthless chuckles. “Not exactly, Harry. No. But . . . not far from it!”

  A sudden chill swept over me and I shivered. Bram Stoker’s wild stories were one thing, and I could listen to them all day, but to suddenly find myself in the middle of one? No! That was not what I had signed on for.