by Bruce Barber
it. “This is terrible – he’s got the Third Murderer to do yet!” Then, as if realizing how he must sound, Porliss hurriedly went on: “I mean, how awful... the poor boy...”
“Somebody has to call the police,” Keyes said.
“Right now? Couldn’t we wait until the play is over?” Porliss suggested.
“Hobie, this is serious, not a bad dress rehearsal!”
“Alan had enough of those,” Porliss said, almost smiling this time, Keyes thought. “But you’re right. God, this could ruin me, absolutely ruin me!”
Keyes refrained from saying that Porliss’ ruin as a director was a fait accompli, and by his own hand at that. Then a monumental shadow fell over them, and a voice boomed in their ears.
“What’s going on down there?” Porliss and Keyes craned their necks around and up to see O’Reilly peering over the rim. He, too, was covered in gore, the blood spilt at Duncan’s murder. Unlike the blood on Alan Wales, however, none of his was real. “Never mind, I’ll come see for myself!” His head disappeared from the opening.
Dressed as he was in the regalia of the Dark Ages, it was not easy for O’Reilly to negotiate ramp and stair down to the alcove beneath the well. The great cloak of wolf pelts caught on the webbing of ropes and ladders.
When O’Reilly arrived, in a swirl of fur and leather, Porliss still stood staring at the dead man. Keyes turned to meet O’Reilly.
“It’s Wales,” Keyes said; then added, diplomatically, “he’s had an accident.”
“What do you mean, ‘accident’?”
He stopped, and like Porliss, stared.
“Jesu!” he said in a soft voice. Not even as Othello in his tenderest love scene, Keyes thought, had O’Reilly spoken so softly, so gently.
O’Reilly had to bend down to see clearly what had happened to Wales, the lighting being so feeble, and the scene further obscured by the barred shadows from the rigging. Nevertheless O’Reilly instantly knew that Wales was dead.
He put forward a hand, thought better of what he was doing, and straightened again. Then he noticed the iron bust, and pointed to it.
“’Who’s that?”
“ Shakespeare,” explained Keyes.
“What the hell’s it doing here... although Will would have loved this!”
“It’s mine...” Porliss said in a vague fashion. “I left it up there... on the rim of the well...”
“But what happened?” O’Reilly demanded. He glanced upward. “Did Wales fall through that ridiculous hole? It’s not a very long drop...”
“I don’t know,” Keyes said, “but the blood on his face is real, and a couple of his teeth are broken – maybe somebody hit him with something.”
“There are plenty of people around with reason to... to hit him, as you say. I’ve wanted to hit him myself...”
“But not that hard,” Keyes suggested.
O’Reilly shook his ponderous head slowly. “No, not that hard.” Then the big actor shook his head again, more briskly, as if clearing it for more important concerns. “Hobart – what about the Third Murderer?”
The show must go on, Keyes thought. What madmen actors were...
“There are only a few lines...” Porliss replied. “I’ll do it myself.”
“You won’t be able to get into his costume – he barely squeezed into it!” O’Reilly said sardonically.
Porliss shuddered so violently that Keyes thought for a moment he might shake himself to pieces.
“Take it easy, Hobie,” Keyes said. Although he didn’t care for Porliss, neither did he like to see so much distress in him. He didn’t like seeing it in anyone. Keyes put his hand on the plump shoulder in an effort to steady Porliss, or console him, or something. The trembling stopped.
“I’ll wear something of yours, Seamus,” Porliss said, and drew himself up in an effort to look as if he were in command – of himself, if not of the situation.
“We’d better call the police,” Keyes insisted.
“It must have been an accident,” Porliss put in frantically. “Right now, we’ve got a show to finish!”
“Duncan’s dead,” O’Reilly said. “You’ve got a show to finish. I’m going to get drunk.”
Porliss rolled his eyes, then said, more or less to himself, “George... George will find something for me to wear.”
“You’re still worrying about the Third Murderer?” O’Reilly growled. “Play the scene with two murderers.”
“There are three murderers in the text,” Porliss proclaimed. “There is the integrity of the text to think about.”
O’Reilly snorted, “In this production? You’ve already butchered the text. One more cut won’t even be noticed. I think Shakespeare threw that part in at the last minute for some friend of his, anyway. Nobody will know, Hobart.”
“I will know,” Porliss said in pious tones. “And God will know.”
“Give me a break,” O’Reilly moaned, as he surveyed the body again. “You know, I believe he’s wearing his costume correctly at last, so some good has come out of it. He’s even managed to strike a decent pose. Looks a bit like a hieroglyph, doesn’t he?”
Keyes was having trouble believing his ears. A man lay dead between them, and these two lunatics were talking about cut lines and costuming!
“The police!” he repeated. “Somebody has to do something about... this.” He gestured vaguely toward the corpse, then, as if possessed by some long-buried swashbuckling instinct, Keyes began to clamber up a rope-ladder which dangled from the lip of the well. Once, this would have been an efficient decision, allowing him to reach the Marquee deck more quickly. But, given the intervening years of physical inactivity, he made rather heavy weather of the ascent, and nearly fell, which could easily have resulted in his lying sprawled senseless beside Alan Wales.
“See if you can find George Brocken for me!” Porliss called.
When Keyes reached the nearest door, he found his way blocked by a small, bird-like woman.
“Is Mr. Porliss out there?” Grace Lockhardt asked. “It’s almost time to go again.”
“Yes, he’s down below... but you stay here. Have you seen George Brocken?”
Grace shook her head. “Not backstage. He’s in the house, somebody said.”
Keyes glanced past the dresser and saw Sandra coming down a flight of stairs. She was wearing a nightdress smeared with blood. What has happened to company discipline? Keyes thought with somewhat tangential censure. What kind of show had half its cast running around outside at intermission, covered with false blood?
Sandra called to them uncertainly. “For God’s sake, Grace, what are you doing out there? I need you.”
“Get her out of here,” Keyes whispered to Grace.
“But what about Mr. Porliss?”
“He’ll be along. Please, go!”
She went as she was told and intercepted Sandra on the stairs. The two women spoke briefly in hushed tones, then Sandra looked across at Keyes.
“Claude?” she said. “’What is it?”
Keyes shook his head, and directed her back upstairs with a wave of his hand.
“Nothing,” he lied. “A little accident. There’s no time now. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Later?” Sandra echoed. “Later?”
Somewhere above her, places were called. Her eyes widened, then she turned away to climb toward the stage and the appalling challenge of her role as Lady Macbeth.
(2:9) A street
Keyes managed to contact the police; they arrived after the play had resumed, and were initially able to question only those not onstage, primarily Keyes. He answered methodically, to the best of his ability, and escaped just as the first members of the audience emerged through the front doors of the theatre.
Keyes walked slowly back to Betty’s; he wanted to change his clothes, have a quiet drink, and think about this sudden and grisly event for a while before he was forced into the inevitable post-mortems. The night was unseasonably warm, pleasant now that the storm had passed,
and the air smelled fresh, clean. This neighbourhood, adjacent to the Festival, was quietly residential, with well-kept homes and carefully ordered gardens. Trees in bright seasonal costume lined the sidewalk; they bowed gently in the autumn wind, nodding sagely to Keyes, as he eavesdropped on a couple across the street loudly analyzing the shortcomings of Macbeth.
“I’ve never seen so much blood in one play!” said the man, brushing a stray leaf from his tuxedo jacket. “Really, I don’t see the artistic necessity in splattering every second person with a gallon of red paint!”
The heavy and heavily-gowned woman hanging from his arm answered in a confrontational New York voice, “Oh, but I don’t agree, Justin! It’s all allegorical, you know, the director’s symbolic commentary on how messy political ambition is. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. The real horror in that show was those wigs. Just awful...”
“Oh, I agree,” the man continued, “but you know what was really interesting? How much better the second half was, after the intermission. Somebody or other must have given a rousing pep-talk...”
“Or made dire threats!” the woman laughed.
Keyes stopped listening, and wondered what symbolic meaning these armchair directors would attach to the bloodied corpse of Alan Wales.
From the notebook of Jean-Claude Keyes:
Literature. Painting. Theatre – does anyone really care if sometimes the seams show, or that the collar occasionally doesn’t match the cuffs? In the middle of an economic depression (not so named, but everyone knows the monster for what it is), wars, famine, ozone depletion, does it matter if a band of painted players does or does not get
