“As Tessa remarked, the woman has a weakness for strays.”
“That’s an approach I’ll have to consider.”
“Well, it’s obvious she succeeded in rehabilitating him.”
“Almost. But she admitted to me, after assuring me they had never been, ah, intimate, that while Merriwether did regain much of his lost talent, he remained a difficult and often unattractive human being.”
“I expect she did what she could. And as professionals, they have certainly worked well together, as the mounting of the farce tonight showed. I’ve seen pieces like that botched many times in Drury Lane itself.”
“She seems a very giving person to me. She was kind enough to ask me about my experiences in the war, knowing full well, I trust, that such an opening is in danger of never being closed thereafter. Anyway, I did chatter on about Sandhurst and Portugal and Paris and the exploits of the Iron Duke.”
“I envy you that,” Marc sighed.
“Please, don’t, son. War is tolerable only when you’re well away from it.”
Marc was in the middle of a dream in which Beth was floating somewhere just above the foot of his bed, beckoning to him as her nightdress sailed away behind her, when a cold finger on his chin brought him reluctantly awake.
“Beth?” he murmured.
“It’s Corporal Bregman, sir. Sorry to wake you up at this hour. I’ve come straight from Colonel Margison.”
Marc sat up, shivering in the cold room. It could be no more than 2 a.m. Why would one of Margison’s orderlies be rousing him in the middle of the night?
“What is it?”
“Instructions, sir. For you.”
“At this hour?”
“I’m afraid so. A fast horse is being saddled for you right now. You are to proceed at once to the Regency Theatre.”
“What’s happened?”
“One of the actors has been murdered.”
Mark glanced quickly at Rick’s cot. It was empty.
“Is Hilliard all right?” Marc asked.
“Not quite, sir.” Bregman had turned white.
“What do you mean, ‘not quite’?”
Bregman gulped hard, and said almost in a whisper, “They’re saying he done it.”
EIGHT
Marc did his best to shut down his naturally speculative mind as he rode furiously towards the city from the fort, soon leaving behind the young messenger who had brought the disturbing news. But until he knew which actor had been murdered and whether Bregman’s comment about Rick Hilliard’s being an accused killer was itself speculation or fact, there was no point in fretting unnecessarily. Nonetheless, there was no denying that something terrible must have happened for Colonel Margison to have become involved and issue commands in the wee hours of a Tuesday morning. It was with a genuine sense of dread that Marc pounded up Colborne Street towards Frank’s Hotel.
He was about to wheel into the alley that led to the stables when he spotted someone in uniform waving at him from under the false balcony in front of the theatre. It was Ogden Frank, still in his militia outfit. Though the street was silent and utterly deserted, Frank was motioning him to dismount quickly, while glancing left and right as if he expected shutters to be flung open all along the thoroughfare.
In a hoarse, frightened whisper, he said to Marc, “My boy’ll see to your horse; just leave it here and come inside right away. Nobody else knows what’s happened upstairs, and we’d all like to keep it that way.”
All? Who else had arrived ahead of him?
“They’re waitin’ fer ya inside.”
Marc followed Frank through the double-doors, which Frank was careful to secure with a bar, and into the theatre itself, now steeped in gloomy shadow. The proprietor seemed able to navigate without benefit of light, and led the way through the curtained door at the right side of the stage and up the stairs towards the actors’ rooms above.
“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such a calamity as this,” Frank was muttering ahead of him. “If this news gets out, I’ll be ruined. I’ll have to store hay in the pit.”
On the landing-with a candle-lamp in hand, a uniform more dishevelled than usual, and hair rearing up at all angles from a helmetless head-stood Constable Horatio Cobb.
“Thank Christ you’re here, Marc. This is the worst bloody mess I’ve ever seen. It’s like an abattoir up there.”
“Where’s Hilliard?”
“He’s in the tavern, through that door at the foot of the stairs, in the charmin’ arms of General Spooner.”
“Spooner?” Lieutenant Barclay Spooner was the governor’s current aide-de-camp, the man who had succeeded Marc in Bond Head’s office. “Sir Francis is in on this? What the hell has happened?”
“I’ll show you in a minute, though it ain’t pretty. Doc Withers is upstairs an’ Sarge is in the tavern herdin’ all them hyster-ect-ical actors an’ makin’ sure General Spooner don’t set off another war with the States.” “Sarge” was Cobb’s colleague, Chief Constable Wilfrid Sturges.
So that was it, Marc thought: one of the American actors had been murdered and one of ours-a British officer-had been accused of the crime. That would be more than enough to bring the governor wide-awake with his political antennae twitching.
“Go on back to the tavern, Ogden,” Cobb said not unkindly to Frank, who was dry-washing his hands in futile frenzy, “an’ help Sarge keep a stopper in Spooner’s gob, if you can.”
Frank nodded, thankful to be doing something other than contemplating his imminent financial ruin.
“Who is the victim?” Marc asked as he and Cobb reached the hallway on the second floor. The name he had been repressing for the last half-hour now forced its way into his consciousness: Tessa Guildersleeve.
“The fella who played the whorin’ husband,” Cobb said, pointing the way towards the far end of the hall.
“Jason Merriwether?” Marc asked, astonished. How in the world could Hilliard have been involved in murdering Merriwether?
“That’s the fella. Stabbed through the chest with Hilliard’s sword.”
Yes, Marc recalled, Hilliard had strapped on his sabre before leaving earlier in the day in order to impress the girl. “I can’t believe that, Cobb.”
“Me neither, Major. But they claim he was found with both hands on the haft.”
Marc froze in his tracks. Whatever he had been steeling himself for, it was not this.
“In here,” Cobb said, easing open the door to Tessa’s room. “Brace yerself.”
Someone had brought one of the Argand lamps from the stage to illuminate Tessa’s room, in addition to several other lit candles. Marc was unprepared for the sudden light that greeted him when he entered. He blinked, then slowly directed his gaze towards the horrors on the carpeted expanse before him.
Jason Merriwether lay flat on his back, as if he had just made the perfect theatrical pratfall and was waiting for a burst of applause before popping up to take a bow. But the famous tragedian and farceur had taken his last curtain call. Like a stake driven through a vampire’s heart, Hilliard’s battle-sword was sticking straight up out of Merriwether’s chest and, in the unsteady candlelight, appeared to be still quivering from the force of the blow. The details surrounding this pièce de résistance Marc took in at a single glance. Blood had geysered out of the wound, splashed indiscriminately over the victim’s nightshirt from throat to crotch, trickled down his bare thighs, and was still seeping into the beige carpet. Angus Withers, physician and surgeon to the rich and highborn, the governor’s personal doctor, and county coroner, was crouched beside Merriwether’s head. With his fingertips he was probing a vicious wound at the base of the cranium. That area of the skull appeared to have been crushed by a blow made either by a heavy, blunt object or something lighter delivered with tremendous force. From his vantage-point several feet away, Marc could see pieces of bone protruding through matted hair and blood. Had the man been attacked twice?