‘Ah. You found Lord Hawbridge. Mr Davenport told me. I am sorry for that.’
I shrugged. ‘It was better me than one of the young maids, sir. Although I did cry out when I saw it.’
‘I don’t doubt it. Tell me,’ he leaned forward a little, ‘what do you make of this business with Simmot? Did you see him threaten Garrick last night?’
‘I did, sir. He was very loud about it. But,’ I kept my voice soft, ‘it seems to me that everyone here has got it all wrong.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Well, they’re all convinced Simmot is guilty, but no one has asked about Lord Hawbridge at all and why it was him that was murdered.’
He smiled. ‘Not yet, I haven’t.’
‘I didn’t mean you, Mr Fielding. I know you’ll be asking about him. I mean everyone here. They’re so concerned about the theatre, and how this murder is an affront to Garrick, they’ve lost sight of the dead man.’
‘You, on the other hand, Miss Blunt, have no loyalty to Garrick as yet, having been here for only a day. So, what do you recall of Lord Hawbridge, if you saw him at all?’
‘Oh, I knew Lord Hawbridge.’
Davenport dropped his pen. I tried not to smirk.
‘Knew him? From Mrs Farley’s establishment, I presume,’ said Mr Fielding.
‘No sir. He was a friend of my father’s.’
Davenport picked up his pen but decided not to write notes.
‘He visited my father some years ago. They had been at school together, and he was passing through the area. He stayed for a week or two.’
‘But you remembered him when you saw him at the theatre?’
‘I once watched him nearly beat a boy to death. That sort of thing sticks in the memory.’ I told him what I had seen from behind the stable door, and how the brutality of if had horrified me.
‘Did he see you in the theatre? Recognise you?’
‘He would have no reason to expect Edward Vessey’s daughter in a London theatre,’ I said carefully.
‘And I suppose your paths were unlikely to cross here, an earl and a girl from the dressing rooms.’
‘No sir.’
I decided not to tell him what had happened when they had crossed, in case he thought it gave me a motive for murder.
‘But I watched him. I was carrying a wine jug about and saw him with his friends, Mr Astley and Mr Callow, and the actresses that they were sitting with.’
‘How did he appear to you, when he was in the green room?’
‘A man who knew his own status and who expected attention. A man of wealth, given the styling of his coat and the jewels he wore.’
‘We have his snuff box,’ Davenport said. He looked down at his notes. ‘Joseph Sugden, the assistant stage manager, handed it to us when he came to be questioned. He says it was on the stage under the body; that it had fallen from Lord Hawbridge’s pocket.’ He pulled it from his own pocket and laid it on the table. ‘It’s a very fine piece.’
‘I’m glad you asked him for it. I thought he might pawn it.’
‘Why would he pawn it?’
‘He’s spent the last day grumbling about how Garrick doesn’t always pay the staff. You’ll have caught that from Mr Dinsdale’s comments – and from several of the others.’ I gestured to the little box in front of me. ‘But that is, as you say, a very fine snuff box. Lord Hawbridge made use of it last night. Open it.’
He flicked the catch and the lid popped up, the peacock tail displaying itself.
He gave a short laugh and then described the movement to Mr Fielding.
‘So, not only a man given to outbursts of violence, but also one who liked to display his wealth and status,’ said the magistrate. ‘Who was with him did you say?’
‘Two friends. A Mr Astley, who is a man of similar age, and a younger man, Mr Callow. They spoke with others, of course, and Garrick was with them when Mr Simmot made his threats, but they were, I think, a group of three.’
Mr Fielding looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose I’d better let you go. But… is there anything else you can tell me?’
‘Mr Davenport will share what I told him earlier about the breakages and accidents,’ I said. ‘And there’s a lot of gossip about Lord Hawbridge, Mr Astley and one of the actresses here.’
He cocked his head. ‘Really? Which one?’
Old goat. Everyone loves a bit of scandal, even him.
‘Lucy Hunter. She’s very pretty – in an affected sort of way. Her husband has thrown her in the direction of Mr Astley. I understand that this is how they work together. She’s not much of an actress, but she’s attracting wealthy patrons. Last night she was flirting with Lord Hawbridge. Molly says George Hunter put her up to it.’
‘Molly? That’s the head seamstress?’
‘Yes sir. She thinks Hunter has set his sights on a bigger prize than Mr Astley.’
‘Interesting. I wonder whether there was bad blood between Astley and Hawbridge as a result. Keep watching. Come to us at Bow Street if you discover anything more.’ He rubbed his nose and then spoke a little louder. ‘Very well. Thank you, Lizzie. You’d better return to your mending now. I am grateful for your cooperation.’
I stood up, dropped him a curtesy and skipped back to Molly, as Davenport called the little maid forward. She, the last and the lowliest of all of us, looked as though she’d been summoned to the gallows.
‘How was he?’ Molly asked as I sank into a chair.
‘He’s mighty terrifying,’ I said. ‘I was almost as frightened of him as I was in the courthouse. But he was kind to me when I told him about finding the…’
She patted my hand. ‘Don’t think about it.’
‘I try not, miss.’
Joe Sugden narrowed his eyes. ‘You were with him a long time. What was he asking you?’
I was tempted to invite him to mind his own business. ‘He asked me how I was getting on here, and how I was liking the work. It was, after all, due to his mercy that I came here. Then he asked about the body. I told him all about that. The man with him, Mr Davenport, he showed me the snuff box – the one you picked up off the floor.’
Molly stared at him. ‘You didn’t tell me you found a snuff box.’
Sugden threw me a mean look.
‘It was on the boards, Moll, underneath the corpse. Fell out his pocket, I’d say. I picked it up and handed it to the magistrate when he was asking questions.’
‘What sort of box?’ Ketch leaned across the table to hear better. ‘A snuff box?’
‘Aye,’ Sugden said. ‘A fancy piece with pearl and gold peacock feathers all over it. Must be worth a fortune.’
‘Peacock feathers, you say?’ Ketch’s eyebrows raised at this. ‘That is fancy. One of a kind, even.’
‘You did the right thing, Joe Sugden,’ said Molly, cutting across Ketch. ‘Even if it was worth a fortune, you were right to hand it over.’
‘I would always do the right thing, you know that, Molly. Stealing’s a sin against God.’ His lip curled. ‘And they knew I had it.’
Molly stood up. ‘Do you think we can go if we’ve been seen? We might not be opening tonight, but there’s still work to be done.’
‘You’re right about that,’ said Sugden. ‘Dinsdale will want us back in the hell soon.’
‘Hell?’ They all looked at me. Then, realising that I had no idea what they meant, they began to laugh. It was a relief of sorts, to hear laughter, even if it was at my expense.
‘Hell, when it’s not the home of tormented souls, is what we call the trap room,’ Molly said.
I was still confused.
She went on. ‘The trap room? It’s under the stage. Under the stage,’ she said patiently, ‘there’s a space where actors wait to be sprung up on the boards. Sometimes a play calls for a character to appear all of a sudden. Rather than fly on through the wings, they pop up from under the stage, by a trap door. There are a number of trap doors over the boards, if you know where to look. And under the stage there are p
ulleys and hoists and springs that help them emerge like magic.’
I was impressed by this. It had not occurred to me that such mechanics might exist. Or that there was a room under the stage at all. I wondered why Dinsdale had not thought to mention it to Mr Fielding.
‘But why is it called hell?’
She shrugged. ‘I would have thought it was obvious. It’s under the stage, under the earth.’
‘It’s where we store some of the scenery flats,’ said Sugden, dismissive, and still scowling at me. ‘It’s just a room.’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I said. ‘It’s just with the dead body and all that blood, it made me all shaky again to think of hell.’
‘Come on, Lizzie,’ said Molly wrapping an arm around me. ‘The best cure for a shock is hard work. I can offer you plenty downstairs.’
But even better than hard work, of course, is entertainment. And, just as we were about to leave the green room, the entertainment arrived in the form of the players.
Now, the real fun was about to begin.
Chapter Nineteen
In so far as any man with a walking stick could make a dramatic entrance, George Hunter was that man. His wife trailed in his wake, carrying, of all things, a small, floppy-eared spaniel. Behind her came Kitty Suckley, with Peg West, Nan Collyer, and a handful of men and women whom Molly helpfully pointed out by name – as we sat back down to watch the show.
Dinsdale sent a lad scurrying to find the manager – although whether Garrick’s presence would calm things down or enhance the inevitable drama was uncertain. The players had been appraised of the murder. Someone had been sent to give word and the news had travelled among them. It was still far too early, as Molly said, for them to be arriving for rehearsals. But they had been given enough time to compose themselves and decide how they would respond to the death. Whereas the stage hands, called upon to lower the dead man to the ground and mop up his blood, had reacted spontaneously – with unmitigated horror and, in the case of one poor lad, a lot of vomit – these people had enjoyed an hour or two to dress, converse and prepare themselves while Mr Fielding had eaten breakfast and questioned the rest of us. The players had chosen to arrive together.
George Hunter was their leader, and he carried himself like a man who had been born to the stage. He had an air of one who still needed – craved – an audience. The stick had become a theatrical prop, but his heavy frame contained a violent energy that simmered under the guise of flamboyance.
‘Garrick!’ he roared his entrance to the theatre manager, now returned to the green room. ‘What’s all this, dear man? Who’s dead? What’s happened?’
Garrick, still with a pen in his hand, ran to his friend and nearly fell on him.
‘George, George, it’s such a dreadful thing. I’m ruined, I’m damn near certain of it.’
Now Lucy Hunter came upon the touching scene. She meant to lay her hand gently on Garrick’s arm, creating a charming tableau with her husband to be seen by the company, but she had forgotten about the dog in her arms. The creature, which fell to the floor, howled at the indignity, shook itself, cocked a leg in defiance of the world and watered a table leg.
Mrs Hunter began to scold the dog – for doing what had come naturally – and then to fuss him and fondle his ears. She picked him up so that Garrick, who hadn’t noticed the pool of piss getting closer to his feet, could inspect him. The dog, Garrick was informed, was a gift from an admirer. She told him this in quiet tones that were just loud enough for us all to hear, although the intended audience was undoubtedly Kitty Suckley. Miss Suckley smiled so benignly that it was certain she was furious. Mr Astley had sent the dog to Lucy.
George Hunter, like his wife, knew very well who had died – and how. He asked for information, all the same. Garrick was about to give him a full, and probably very lurid account of the morning’s discovery, when he was interrupted by the magistrate.
‘My dear Garrick, please be so good as to calm down. Ladies, gentlemen, kindly seat yourselves and find some refreshment while I continue to ask my questions. A man, a nobleman, is dead, and it is my intention to discover who killed him.’
The sound of shock, distress, annoyance filled the green room as the players did as they were bidden. Most of them ambled to the side table and helped themselves to drink. Lucy Hunter’s dog, set on the floor again, began to snuffle at the floor, looking for crumbs. I saw Kitty jolt Lucy’s arm and then apologise profusely when the wine slopped over her glass. The two women smiled graciously at one another, but the air between them was poisonous.
Davenport moved about them, adding names to his list, before taking his place next to Mr Fielding and calling them forward – as he had with the stage hands and servants. Molly, I was glad to see, was as keen to watch the performance as I was, rather than hide away in the dressing room darning more stockings. She sent Sugden over to the table to find more food for us. The landlord of the Shakespeare, alert to the news from the theatre, had replenished the table with heartier fare. Sugden returned with a large plate piled with bread rolls, still warm, as well as slices of ham and beef and a mound of cheese. Molly sent him back to the table for a thick wedge of pie, and when he returned a third time at her bidding for a jug of beer and four pots, I knew that we were settling down to watch the drama unfolding.
The players were, sadly, disappointing. Most of them had spent the hours after the performance firstly in the green room and then in the Shakespeare tavern next door, or else the Rose, or other places further afield. Not all of them could recall who it was they spent the rest of the night in bed with – some even claimed they had gone to bed alone. Most of them had lodgings in the Drury Lane area. Most of them could account for the movements, or likely movements, of everyone else in the company. Most of them, as with the stage hands, laid the blame at the door of William Simmot, whom they had all heard berating and threatening Mr Garrick.
Kitty Suckley was wearing the same yellow gown as the previous evening – and even the same jewels. I knew, because I had dressed her after the performance. This could only mean that she had spent the night somewhere other than her own lodgings. I could not judge her for that.
I watched Lucy Hunter’s performance with more interest. It was she, after all, who had kept Lord Hawbridge company on the couch and she who, according to Molly, was intending to become his mistress. At the same time, I kept an eye on her husband, who was affecting nonchalance, glass in hand, to hide his agitation as his wife answered Fielding’s questions. She was calm, offering gentle smiles to Fielding and to Davenport and speaking in a pleasant, unhurried tone. Yes, she had been devastated to hear that it was Lord Hawbridge who was dead. She had made his acquaintance only last night when they had been introduced by Mr Astley. She had enjoyed a short time in his company and found him charming and engaging.
I had found him rude, violent and presumptuous, but then, I was not the star of the theatre.
Mr Fielding, who had learned from me that her husband was pushing her in Hawbridge’s direction, was delicate, almost deferential in his questions. It was not as if she were of noble birth, nor even a decent gentlewoman, so this surprised me. He was usually more direct. He enquired how she had spent the evening after the play, and she said that she and her husband had gone directly to their lodgings.
‘I was tired, you know,’ she said with a little sigh. ‘Cordelia always takes it out of me. It’s an exhausting part to play, such a drain on the gentler feelings.’ She gave Davenport another smile. He returned it and, ridiculously, this appeared to be a genuine response. Another man captivated by her beauty and soft voice.
He took her hand and helped her up from her seat – he had afforded the second seamstress no such courtesy – and led her back to her husband. Again, I watched Hunter and noticed how he reacted. The arm around her shoulders was genuine enough, but his manner towards her suggested that he was applauding a performance, rather than comforting her distress.
Mr Hunter’s own account of the previo
us evening chimed, unsurprisingly, with his wife’s. He added very little of note, except that he was aware of the on-going disagreement with Simmot and had witnessed the playwright’s explosion of fury. He had not, himself, read any of Simmot’s plays, but trusted the good judgement of his dear friend, Mr Garrick. If Garrick thought they were unworkable, then they could not be produced.
Davenport asked him how he had known Lord Hawbridge. Hunter said, as his wife had done, that he had briefly made his acquaintance last night.
Davenport, cutting across Mr Fielding a second time, asked about his acquaintance with Mr Astley.
There was a ripple of sound around the green room as we all leaned forward to catch his reply.
‘Mr Astley is an acknowledged man of good taste and discernment,’ Hunter said, with a casual air. ‘He is a friend to my wife and to me. I think that I can call such a gentleman a friend, when he has done so much to support us – my wife in her career and me…’ he gestured to his leg ‘…in my enforced retirement.’
Davenport explained Mr Hunter’s situation to Mr Fielding.
‘How did you come about your injury, Mr Hunter?’ the magistrate asked.
Hunter cleared his throat. ‘An accident, sir. A foolish quarrel and my temper got the better of me. I was lucky only to lose my livelihood and not my life as a result.’
He was not going to say any more. He twisted the ruby on his finger.
Fielding nodded thoughtfully. ‘And you left Mr Rich’s company and moved here with your wife.’
Hunter, who hadn’t mentioned John Rich, gave a little start. Fielding had known of the story already. For some reason he had decided to rattle the husband rather than the wife. Perhaps, like some of us, he found the misuse of Mrs Hunter objectionable. Perhaps he detected a tone in Hunter’s voice of a man who thought that he was above the law. I knew that the magistrate had little time for men such as that.
Hunter’s response, though, was lost to us.
The Corpse Played Dead Page 11
