‘We were just getting somewhere there. Just imagine if it was a…’ He sought the right word. ‘… a lover’s tiff between Bankes and Stanley. Or if Stanley was about to let society know of Bankes’s leanings, it could have destroyed his reputation. That makes it a very good reason for Bankes murdering Stanley.’
Doll remained silent until they had escaped the gloomy confines of the backstage area of the Royal Coburg. But once they were out again in the street, she took a deep breath, and the words tumbled out of her mouth.
‘You’re exactly right, Joe. It makes a good reason for murdering Morton. But the problem is that we aren’t looking for someone who set out to kill Morton.’
Malinferno stared at Doll, not comprehending her meaning. ‘We aren’t? Why not?’
‘Because Morton Stanley wasn’t the intended victim.’
She pointed over her shoulder at the large and looming edifice that was the Royal Coburg, still shrouded eerily in mist. Malinferno was completely lost.
‘Then who was?’
Doll Pocket pulled a grim face. ‘Me.’
Doll promised to tell Malinferno all if he first bought her a meal.
‘The truth has made me feel famished.’
Now, they sat in the anonymous chop-house in Unicorn Passage, just off Tooley Street, where Malinferno had first become acquainted with Bromhead’s copy of The Play of Adam. He was beginning to feel that the warning written at the end of ‘Cain and Abel’ had some meaning to it after all. And that it was his fault that Doll’s life had been placed in jeopardy. It was he who had suggested that she should audition for a part in the play. As they ate, he confessed to Doll that the play was cursed, but that he’d only learned this much later. He wanted to know why she thought the deadly trap had been set for her. But Doll refused to enlighten Joe until she had finished the food placed before her. Finally, she wiped the brown gravy from her lips with a napkin, and dabbed the splash that had marred the pristine white of the front of her gown.
‘I hope that doesn’t stain. I paid a lot of money for this gown.’
Through gritted teeth, Malinferno begged Doll to explain why she thought she had been the target of the heavy bag of sand.
‘It was when Job pointed at the chalk cross marked on the stage.’
‘Yes. He said it was Morton Stanley’s mark. You yourself told me he couldn’t remember all his positions. Mossop must have put it there to make sure he was in the right place.’
Doll smiled fleetingly.
‘Yes, we thespians call it hitting your mark.’
‘And the sandbag certainly hit Morton’s mark. With deadly results.’
Doll spat on her napkin, and worried at the gravy stain that marred the material over her cleavage.
‘But that is the whole point. It wasn’t a mark placed there for Morton to hit. It was there to show young Tom where to put the bath.’
‘Tom, the stagehand?’
‘Yes.’
Doll watched as understanding blossomed in Joe’s eyes.
‘The bath in which you were to sit. Then if Tom hadn’t missed the mark in his haste, you would have been right under the counterweight.’
Doll nodded, and Joe squeezed her hand.
‘You would have been crushed to death. Just as Morton was.’
‘Yes. So you see, we are looking for someone who wanted me dead, not Morton Stanley.’
‘But…’
Malinferno didn’t want to believe what Doll was telling him. He wanted another explanation for the falling sack that had taken Stanley’s life. Then he wouldn’t feel so guilty.
‘But, why would anyone at the theatre want to kill you? Unless Bankes was jealous of the attentions Morton was paying you.’
Doll gave up trying to remove the gravy stain, and patted Joe’s hand.
‘I think he would have known that Morton’s embraces onstage were all for show – a pretence for everyone else. But I believe that you are right to point the finger at William Bankes. Remember the other incident that occurred this week?’
Malinferno frowned, and then recalled what had vexed him so earlier.
‘The theft of my notebook with all the workings you and I had made on hieroglyphs?’
‘Yes. The murder took place after that notebook was taken, so perhaps something in it drove the killer to set the trap up at the theatre.’
‘But very few people were there when Stanley was killed, apart from the actors and Will Mossop. Do you think it was one of them?’
‘No. The beauty of the trap was that someone else would spring it unwittingly. It could easily have been Jed Lawless, and maybe that was what the murderer intended. To shift the blame on to Jed. As it turned out, Jed was ill and poor young Tom released the rope that was supposed to lower the Garden of Eden backcloth. But it was the rope that now held the counterweight of the flying rig. With the bath in place and me sitting in it…’
Doll brought her hand down on the table with a crash, and their cutlery rattled. A few heads in the chop-house turned to look at them. But Doll just stared back brazenly, and the onlookers’ eyes fell back to their own meals.
She leaned towards Joe, and hissed in his ear, ‘I’d’ve been squashed as flat as a pancake.’ She looked around for the waiter. ‘And talking of food, do you think we could get some plum pudding? This evading death by a whisker makes me feel starved.’
Only when the puddings were laid before them would Doll continue with her diatribe.
‘No, I reckon it’s what I wrote in your notebook that almost did for me.’
‘And you think Bankes was responsible?’
Doll inclined her head. ‘Something like that.’
She shovelled a spoonful of plum pudding in her mouth, and winked at Joe. He felt ill, pushed his bowl aside, and pursued the line of thinking.
‘He is, after all, an Egyptian scholar himself. If he saw that you had cracked the code of the hieroglyphs, he had every reason to kill you and claim the breakthrough for himself.’
Doll waved her spoon in the air as if about to say something, but her mouth was still full of sweet pudding. So Malinferno pressed on.
‘I think we should follow up your suspicions, Doll. We know that he has shipped an obelisk to London from Philae on the ship Dispatch. And that it has just landed. He told you so. The obelisk lies on the quay at Deptford, and it is likely Bankes will be there to view his prize. We should confront him there immediately. And even if he’s not there, we may at least learn something of his plans.’
Malinferno pulled on his garrick, and was almost out the door before Doll could spoon the last of her pudding into her mouth. She grabbed her hooded cloak and followed him. Once in Tooley Street, they searched in vain for a cab of any sort. The night was cold and it began to drizzle, causing Doll to doubt the urgency of their mission. But Malinferno was not to be put off.
‘Come on, Doll, it’s not far from here. We can walk it.’
He strode off towards Deptford, and Doll sighed, wrapping her cloak close around her. Her satin slippers were not the most appropriate footwear for the weather, and soon her feet were soaked and frozen. The rain began to come down more heavily, and soon a rising wind was driving it in their faces. But finally the dreary sight of the Royal Dockyards came into view. Ten years ago, this had been a bustling area where ships bound for the Napoleonic Wars were built. Now, with the threat from the continent over, and victualling the only use for the dockyards, it was a run down and almost deserted place. The stench of rotting food drifted on the wind along with the rain, and any night watchman worth his salt would be snug and warm out of sight. Malinferno led the way to the main wharf where he guessed the Dispatch was moored up. The obelisk it had brought back from Egypt had to be so big that it would be hard to miss. Even in the gloom of a dreary London night.