“Does this mean I must play housekeeper for another two days?” Madge Frank demanded, aghast.
“I’m afraid so, Mrs. Frank, for two reasons: Mr. Merriwether’s absence is sure to be noticed and Tessa’s room is covered with dried blood. The carpet will have to be removed and burned. But I’m sure the actors will co-operate by doing their own tidying up. They have a bathroom up there and a water-closet. It’s mainly their meals we’re talking about.”
“But Thea hasn’t got a room up there, she’s been stayin’ with us,” Frank said on behalf of his wife.
“Mr. Armstrong can move in with Mr. Beasley, and Miss Clarkson can have his room. I want to keep the murder room and Merriwether’s empty for the time being. Tessa can bunk in with Mrs. Thedford.”
“Now, see here-” Armstrong protested.
“Button yer lip!” Cobb said.
“I ain’t emptyin’ no chamber pots!” Madge cried.
“What’ll I tell my housemaids?” Frank said.
“Tell ’em actors are finicky an’ temper-mental,” Cobb suggested.
“That should do it.” Marc smiled.
“There’s still a problem, though,” Mrs. Thedford said.
“I know,” Marc said. “You are due to perform excerpts from Shakespeare tonight, a playbill in which Mr. Merriwether was heavily committed. And tomorrow night you are to repeat the farce, where, again, Mr. Merriwether is not only a principal player but the entire company is required to make it work.”
Mrs. Thedford beamed a smile at Marc that discomfited him more than he let on: “You seem intimately acquainted with the ways of the stage.”
“I have done some amateur acting years ago in London,” Marc said, “and I hung about the wings and back rooms of the summer playhouses and, once or twice, Drury Lane.”
“You will know, then, that we are capable, at short notice, of rearranging our playbill.”
“I was counting on that, ma’am.” Mrs. Thedford made a moue at the word ma’am, but Marc continued. “If you could come up with that potpourri or oleo you mentioned earlier, we’ll spread the word that Mr. Merriwether is ill and incommunicado and delay the Shakespeare till tomorrow night, then-”
“But I have patrons to think of!” Frank cried, almost rolling off his stool. “I’ve put notices in the papers an’ tacked up handbills everywhere.”
“And I’m sorry for that,” Marc said. “And I’m sorry you’ve got a murdered actor upstairs. But you have little choice. I am relaying here the explicit orders of the governor. If you refuse to co-operate, which is your right, then the Bowery Company will be sequestered elsewhere as material witnesses to a crime, and your brand-new theatre will be darkened, leaving your patrons free to speculate on your reliability as an impresario.”
“You bastard!” Mrs. Frank exclaimed on behalf of her husband, who winced a smile at her and patted her hand. She jerked it away.
“We’ll do whatever Sir Francis requires,” Frank said.
“On Wednesday, then,” Marc said, leaning forward, “and this is crucial, the Shakespeare program must go ahead in some fashion.”
There was a perplexed pause. “We can most assuredly put together a program of short scenes from Shakespeare using the five remaining members of the company,” Mrs. Thedford said, “but they will not have the power that-”
“But you miss my point,” Marc said, savouring the drama of the moment. “Sir Francis, for reasons of security that I am not at liberty to reveal, wishes the public not merely to believe that Mr. Merriwether is alive but to observe him in action on Wednesday evening.”
“Do you intend to bring Old Hamlet’s ghost on stage with us?” Dawson Armstrong snorted.
“Not at all. Jason Merriwether will, to all those in the audience, be performing as usual. But the body inside the costume and the face under the makeup will be mine.”
TWELVE
Marc himself supervised the surreptitious removal of Merriwether’s corpse. He emptied the trunk in the actor’s room of its costumes and, leaving the rifles secure beneath the false bottom, dragged it into the hall. There Jeremiah and Cobb were waiting with the body wrapped tightly in a canvas sheet supplied by Ogden Frank. They squeezed the near-six-foot figure into the five-foot trunk in as dignified a manner as possible, shut the lid, and then locked it with the key Marc had used Monday night.
Wilkie was called up from below to help Cobb and Jeremiah lug it downstairs and through the tavern. Fortunately, while blissfully uncurious and lacking entirely in ambition, Wilkie was as loyal as a spaniel. He simply did as he was bid, happy to be relieved of the tedium of sentry duty. The barroom was crowded, but the regulars, having witnessed the comings and goings of such trunks since Saturday, paid them little heed. Then, with Marc keeping watch, the trunk was slipped into the small ice-barn behind the stables. Blocks of ice were freed from the straw and chopped up, and the pieces packed around the corpse. Poor Merriwether would keep until Thursday. The icehouse was then padlocked.
Marc and Cobb repaired to the dining-room, where they sought out a quiet table in one corner, ordered a flagon of ale and some cold meat with cheese, and reviewed the events of the day.
“Well, Major, you left them thisbe-ans without a word to spout, that’s fer sure.”
“Do you think I convinced them that I can pull this off?”
“Dunno. But they ain’t got a lot of choice, have they?”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Marc had done his best to persuade Mrs. Thedford and the others that, at five foot eleven inches, Merriwether was a man to be noticed; indeed, he had been noticed during the troupe’s social activities on the weekend. But Marc was just as tall, with a similar build: muscular without being heavyset and very wide across the shoulders. Their colouring was roughly the same except for Merriwether’s dark eyes, but then Marc would be seen, even by those who might have dined with the tragedian on Sunday, only as a costumed figure up on a distant stage under flickering candles and above the glare of footlights, bearded and bewigged. He would have to make a conscious effort at lowering his voice to the basso range, but the declamatory style of delivery and exaggerated gesturing currently in vogue would assist in the deception. And Tuesday’s announced “illness” would be used as an excuse to forestall impromptu requests for backstage visits. It was Mrs. Thedford herself who suggested that the absence of company members from the environs of the theatre be attributed to the news of a death in her family. Her fellow actors would naturally go into mourning in deference to her sorrow.
It had been at this juncture that the only serious question regarding Marc’s scheme had been raised by Lieutenant Spooner from the wings. Could Mr. Edwards actually act and, if so, could he memorize and sufficiently rehearse his lines and cues well enough to deceive the playgoers of Toronto? To that, Marc had replied: “I’ll know the answer at dinner-hour tomorrow.” And before he had left to oversee the removal of the body, Mrs. Thedford said she would put together the pages of script he would have to learn by rehearsal time at one o’clock the next afternoon. In the meantime, the actors, surprisingly animated, set about preparing something to entertain the sophisticates of the colony later in the evening.
“I’ll be upstairs while the rehearsal is in progress, having a close look at Tessa’s room and doing a thorough search of the other rooms. Though any evidence there will likely have been hidden or destroyed,” Marc admitted to Cobb.
“Well, they couldn’t’ve taken it very far. Wilkie’s kept them cooped up there tighter’n a maiden’s purse, an’ he tracked Madame Thedford all the way to the dining-room when she went to meet Major Jenkin.”
“There are stoves in each room for burning whatever might need to be.”