She really did appear physically ilclass="underline" haggard, pale, and loose-fleshed, her hair unkempt, her eyes swollen from weeping. Could she have killed Merriwether in a fit of jealous rage upon discovering him with Tessa, then regretted it? But how could she have managed it? Marc mulled over these questions as he sought the best and least cruel way to approach her. Last night she had been asleep in the Franks’ quarters, where no sound from the floor above the theatre could be heard. Hence, if she had somehow slipped by Jeremiah Jefferson, awake with a toothache, and stumbled upon Merriwether at the very moment of the rape, would she have had the strength to strike him unconscious with the ashtray and the wherewithal to drive Hilliard’s sword through him? Moreover, Armstrong now claimed to have seen Beasley answer Tessa’s cry several minutes after it pierced the night, but he had not seen Thea. Further, Armstrong had seemed sure that no mad-eyed assassin had come running out of Tessa’s room and down the hall to the only exit. Could both Jeremiah and Armstrong be lying? If so, to what end?
At any rate, one glance at Thea’s devastated face and fragile composure caused Marc to begin obliquely and gently. “Miss Clarkson, we have been told that you were in love with Jason Merriwether.”
She surprised them with a smile, and for a fleeting second they were privy to the beauty and warmth that had made her attractive to playgoers and suitors alike. “Not everyone has been kind enough to put it like that,” she said in a low but steady voice. “But yes, Jason and I were lovers.”
“For how long?”
“Our liaison began last winter when I joined the Bowery Company after a year away in Boston. We tried to keep it secret-Mrs. Thedford does not approve of affairs among her actors while they’re sharing a stage-but I’m sure everybody in the company knew of it. I think Annemarie realized how much Jason and I needed each other.”
“Everyone so far has spoken highly of Mrs. Thedford.”
“Everyone will-she’s the finest human being I’ve ever met.”
Marc cleared his throat. “And yet Mr. Merriwether was found in Miss Guildersleeve’s room-in compromising circumstances,” Marc said quietly.
“Jason was attracted to young women, very young women, probably because they were attracted to him. And I’ve found most men cannot resist sustained flattery.” There was no coyness or the least irony in her remark: it was simply a statement of what was and is.
“But you quarrelled loudly with Mr. Merriwether yesterday morning? Over Tessa, I presume?”
For a moment Marc was certain she was going to deny this, but all she said was “yes.”
“When did you learn that something dreadful had happened upstairs?”
“I was awakened by the commotion in our quarters. Mr. Frank ordered me to stay put, but I did hear them bringing Tessa downstairs and placing her in Mrs. Frank’s bed next door. Mrs. Frank told me what had happened. Then the police came.”
“Thank you for being so candid, Miss Clarkson. If it is any consolation to you, I intend to find Jason Merriwether’s killer and bring him to justice.”
“Are we going to be allowed to carry on tonight?”
While they were waiting for Wilkie to bring Clarence Beasley down, Marc said to Cobb, “Miss Clarkson certainly had motive enough to brain him and passion enough-even in her weakened condition-to put a sword through his body. But there’s no way she could have got up there and, even if she had, her timely arrival takes coincidence beyond credibility.”
“Ya mean it’s too good to be true.”
“Precisely. Unless, of course, they’re all lying and in this thing together.”
“Well, Major, we gotta remember these folks are actors.”
Marc sighed. “And I can’t see Thea Clarkson being a gunrunner or fire-breathing republican.”
“But she might’ve been jealous enough to’ve helped somebody else do him in.”
“Like Beasley, who also had his eye on Tessa, I’m sure.”
At this point the latest potential suspect arrived, and the last of the interviews began.
Since Beasley had already given Cobb, Sturges, and Spooner an account of his actions and reactions last night, Marc saw his task as having Beasley go over the narrative and flesh it out with details, details that might indicate a lie or an uncertainty. If Beasley’s account and corroboration of it by Jeremiah and Armstrong went unchallenged, Rick Hilliard would hang.
Beasley was maddeningly co-operative, forthright, ingenuous almost. He listened to each question with the care he would have offered a director giving notes, paused to take it in, then answered in plain and unambiguous language, keeping eye contact throughout. If this were acting, then Beasley was destined for stardom.
“The number of minutes between Tessa’s cry wakening you and your reaching her room are critical to our understanding of what happened,” Marc said. “Tell me exactly what you did when you awoke.”
“I sat upright. I recognized Tessa’s voice, and there was terror in it. That’s the first thought I had, and then that I must go to her as quickly as possible.”
“And did you?”
“No. My bed is partly under the roof-line and, in my panic, when I went to jump out of bed, I bumped my head against a rafter. I did not black out, for I was aware of falling back onto the bed and then onto the cold floor. But I was dizzy and momentarily confused.”
“You heard no further cry or other sounds from Tessa’s room?”
“No. And I remember being very worried that I did not. ‘Has she been murdered?’ was my thought, and I staggered to my feet into the pitch dark, feeling about for my tinderbox and not able to remember where I had left it. I was cursing myself all the time and knocking things over.”
“But you found it?”
“Yes, where it was supposed to be: on my night-table. My hands were shaking so badly, it took twenty or thirty seconds for me to get it working and light a candle. By then, my head was throbbing-right here-but I was no longer dizzy.”
Cobb put his pipe down, came around, and dutifully inspected the lesion and modest bump on the top of Beasley’s head.
“I half ran and half staggered out into the dark hall, but I could see a tiny wedge of light coming out of Tessa’s doorway at the far end. I hurried up, and stubbed my toe on that spittoon near Armstrong’s door-I think it was ajar, but I can’t be sure-righted myself, and crashed into Tessa’s room. What I intended to do I do not know. I am not a brave man. I had no weapon except the saucer holding the stub of candle. But its glow and the candle near Tessa’s bed were enough light to show me the situation.”
“So, if you did not black out when you bumped your head, the time between your hearing Tessa’s cry and your arrival could not have been less than, say, a minute, and not more than, say, two minutes?”
“That is my own estimate, yes.”
Beasley then repeated the description of the scene that was now depressingly familiar to Marc: Hilliard standing over the victim with both hands on the haft of the bloodied sword.
“Why didn’t you go to Tessa immediately? You ran out of the room like a madman, hollering and banging on doors.”
“I did not see Tessa, or if I did, the horror of Jason’s body stuck like a pig, and blood everywhere, and this soldier standing over him-all that blotted her out. I ran, like a coward, to get help.”
“Leaving Tessa, to whom I believe you are strongly attached, with a vicious killer?”
Beasley coloured. “Yes,” he whispered. “I am ashamed to say I did. But I will not lie to you. I stumbled back into the hallway and headed across to Dawson’s door. It was already open and I saw him lying inside in a pool of his own vomit, still drunk or hopelessly hungover, and I just carried on to Mrs. Thedford’s door, and pounded on it like a child trying to waken its mother. The racket alerted Jeremiah, who joined me, and we went in there together.”