“Innovation!” muttered Dr. Johnson. If it was innovation, I approved it; Captain Benton had made good use, it seemed, of a mouthful of rose-pink. Even as I thus reflected, his hands clutched the air, his mouth bubbled, and his frame contorted, pitched sideways, and disappeared behind the table.
A gasp went over the house. What had happened? Was ramrod-stiff Captain Benton too drunk to stand? Was it some new scheam of stage business?
The scene moved forward, but the ghost of Ban-quo came not again. Mr. Garrick had perforce to cry to empty air:
“Avaunt, and quit my sight!
Let the earth hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold,
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!”
“I own it, sir,” said I to my friend, “these words, operating on the mind alone, exceed stage contrivances.”
“I trust, sir,” said Dr. Johnson uneasily, “that ’tis no more than contrivance.”
So great was his unease, that he could not sit still, but lumbered before me towards the side scene as soon as the act drop fell. The Grenadier eyed us suspiciously; but he knew me again, and passed us.
On the stage all was confusion. In their tinselled velvet coats, faces stricken and drawn under the paint, the supernumerary actors stood behind the banquet table in a knot. Mrs. King sat on her throne, her face in her hands, weeping in great gulps.
Behind the table Captain Benton lay in his blood where he had fallen. He was quite dead.
I stared in unbelief. A sharp-edged blade had unseamed him from navel to chaps. We had heard his death cry. Who had struck him down?
It was David Garrick who spoke the question at my friend’s elbow. His dark eyes were full of real tears.
“Indeed, sir, all hangs upon an immediate detection,” cried Mr. George Garrick at the other elbow. “If you, sir, cannot quickly unriddle the matter, we shall all be taken up for breaching the King’s peace, and Davy will lose the King’s patent for playing, and end his career in disgrace.”
“I will do what I can,” said Dr. Johnson. “But you on the stage saw more than I. Who sat next the trap?”
Fingers pointed at two actors, little mild-faced Aickin and young Fawcett.
“But you cannot think, sir,” said the younger man sharply, “that any of us laid a hand on him. We sat all along the table, in full sight of one another, and every man with his glass in his hand. Two thousand people saw us so.”
“But you heard his outcry?” demanded Dr. Johnson.
“Who could fail to hear? It rings still in my ears.”
“And you saw him as the trap rose?”
“No, sir. ’Twas not our part to see the ghost, but to look upon Macbeth.”
“And you, Davy, what did you see?”
“Why, Dr. Johnson, as I thought, I saw Captain Benton exceeding his part with spewing of red paint, and falling from his stool like one disguised in liquor, and I resolved inwardly to rebuke him, poor fellow! Only when the act drop fell, and we made to raise him, did we find him to be slain.”
“I see it all clearly!” cried I. “This murderer lay hid beneath the table, and sliced him as he rose on the trap!”
“Not so, Mr. Boswell,” said little Aickin. “’Twas our first care to search beneath the table, where we found neither a murderer nor the knife that did the deed.”
“Look to the table for the knife!”
But all the banquet knives were edgeless things of tin. Dr. Johnson shook his head.
“We must call in the magistrate,” said he.
“Anything but that!” cried Mr. George Gar-rick. “’Twould ruin us all. We must first have the murderer to hand over.”
“Alack, Mr. George,” said Dr. Johnson, “I fear the murderer has struck his blow and taken his flight where we shall never catch up with him.”
“Not so, sir,” cried Mr. David Garrick, “because of the King’s Grenadiers!”
When Dr. Johnson understood the system of sentries, the men were questioned. None, they averred, had been permitted to depart; none, indeed, had sought egress, save only a stage servant or two intent on filling some actor’s empty can.
“Well, then,” said Dr. Johnson, “the guilty villain is penned up close, and shall not escape.”
But among the throng of actors, aye and actresses, singers, dancers, stage carpenters, and servants—which one was guilty?
As we stood deliberating, the wise actor-manager cocked an ear. All was not well ’tother side of the drop curtain. At the long delay the audience was growing restive. In the gallery, sticks thundered, catcalls whined, voices demanded Harlequin. It was the sound of a riot in the making.
“We must make haste!” cried David Garrick.
Swiftly the mangled form was conveyed to the inner stage alcove. The back-shutters closed upon the grim sight, the three Witches took their places, the prompter’s bell tinkled, the act drop rose, and up stage, center, standing upon the cauldron trap, terrible Hecate the witch goddess—mild-mannered old Bransby in real life—rose out of the earth. In his sepulchral voice he spoke the incantation. Weird musick sounded. Somewhere over our heads in the flies an unearthly voice was singing: “Come away! Come away!”
“Hark, I am called; my little spirit, see,
Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me!”
The foggy cloud, of painted canvas affixed to a board, now swung majestically down. Mr. Bransby stepped aboard, and was levitated from our sight.
“Gothick folderol!” muttered Dr. Johnson.
A new pair of back-shutters came together, and certain “walking gentlemen” stepped forth to engage in discourse:
“And the right valiant Banquo walked too late, Whom you may say, if’t please you, Fleance killed …”
Dr. Johnson ignored any clew that might lurk in the words of the Bard. Drawing me aside, he desired me to narrate the full Odyssey of my backstage wanderings before the banquet scene. Then, like the wise Odysseus, he made for the lower regions.
“Falsely does the poet say,” he remarked, feeling his way down the uneasy stair, “Facilis descensus Averni, for easy it is not; but” he added at the stair-foot, “black as the Pit it certainly is!”
The two carpenters had extinguished all but a single candle. In the gloom they sat upon a bulk and puffed on their churchwarden pipes. Dr. Johnson saluted them gruffly.
“You two were below for Banquo’s ghost?”
“Aye, sir, ’tis our post.”
“And who else?”
“Him in sky-blue sattin—” (pointing his pipe stem at me) “Mr. Bransby—Captain Benton—the Captain’s girl and his man.”
“Then, Mr. Boswell, I desire you’ll fetch the actor, the actress, and the servant; and advert no one of anything.”
On the word, part of my errand was forestalled, as Mr. Bransby, ducking his turretted head under a low beam, appeared at the stair-foot. Leaving silence behind me, I departed to discharge the rest of my commission.
I found the servant in the Captain’s dressing-room, making good use of his time. An empty ale can was at his elbow. Before him stood the little Colombine from the Colonies, no longer attired as a boy, but garbed in a stiff gauzy dancing skirt that was cut short to reveal a dainty slippered foot and a white silk ankle. In his hand he cupped her lifted chin, while he smoothed rose-pink on the pale round of her delicate cheek.
The fellow looked little pleased at my summons, but followed as I handed the lady down to the cellarage. As we passed the stage, the walking gentlemen had talked themselves out, and the musick was sounding the third entr’acte.
In the cellarage, to five oddly assorted figures clustered in the pool of candle light, Dr. Sam: Johnson spoke abruptly:
“Captain Benton is dead. He died on the Ban-quo trap. Which one of you killed him?”
Five faces went blank with surprise. Then tears seemed to touch the girl’s dark eyes, philosophical regret the Hecate mask, grief the servant’s gaunt mo
uth. The elder stage carpenter spoke sturdily:
“Indeed not I, sir, nor my son neither. I’ll answer for Benny. We heard the Captain cry out, but we don’t regard what the actors halloo, ’tis none of our affair. Nor did we see aught, by reason the trap was risen above our heads. We never touched him, sir, Mr. Murdoch is our witness.”
“And you’ll say the same for me, Ned Maggs,” said the Captain’s dresser sombrely. “I stood by and saw him go up, as I always did. Then I mounted to the dressing-room, to have all in readiness when his part was done.” (And paint Miss LaRue for Colombine, I added silently; but said nothing.) “I heard him give voice, but like Ned I gave no heed. He called me, and I failed him. I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Tell me, good fellow, had your master enemies?”
“What man has not, sir, that loves the ladies and huffs the gentlemen?”
“Say what ladies he loved? Miss LaRue here, perhaps?” Dr. Johnson shot the girl a keen glance; but he spoke gently. “Was he your lover, my dear?”
“No, sir,” whispered the girl. “He was my mother’s lover long ago in Quebec; and thus, my father.”
“Marie!” cried the carpenter lad. “Why did you never tell me? I thought—”
“Look alive, Benny,” cut in the old man, as an overhead wire jerked and a bell tinkled under the joists. Hastily the two carpenters moved to the lowered Banquo trap.
“Ready, Mr. Bransby?”
Old Bransby stood still.
“There’s blood on the Banquo trap,” said he. “By your leave, I’ll ride the grave trap up.”
“I cannot take down the grave trap,” said old Maggs. “Can’t you hear them footing on it? You must ride the Banquo trap or walk.”
“I’ll walk.” Bransby hiked up his flapping robes and took the stairs two at a time; and not a moment too soon, for the prompter’s bell was jerking frantically. Through the trap-opening we heard the iron thunder balls rolling in the thunder trunk, and sniffed the stench of the rosin lightning-flash. Then Bransby’s deep voice spoke above our heads, and the witches’ chorus rang out:
“Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey,
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may!”
Feet pattered in the mazes of the Furies’ Dance. Suddenly a shoe skidded at the gaping edge of the trap, and a muttered curse was heard.
“Put up the Banquo trap, fellow!” commanded Dr. Johnson sharply. “If Captain Benton met his end neither above nor below, let us see what the trap will shew us half way between.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
The platform began to rise. It had reached the half way point when there was a click, and forth from under the stage planking, like a snake striking, leaped a hideous device. Fixed to a pole was a long knife blade, ground to a double edge and a stabbing point. In the shadow of the trap, oblivious, the two carpenters strained at the capstan until the rising trap jammed against the pole and would rise no more.
“So now we know,” said Dr. Johnson slowly, “how Banquo became a ghost between earth and heaven. But who reset the device?”
“Nobody reset it,” said old Maggs hoarsely, “for Benny and me was manning the winch, and Mr. Bransby and Mr. Murdoch stood by, and not one of us climbed up.”
Dr. Johnson’s retentive mind reverted to my account of my pantomimical researches.
“Look for a strand of packthread!” he cried.
Sure enough the packthread was there, hanging in the shadow of the upright. At sight of it, Benny caught Marie by the hand.
“’Tis my machine! It works!” cried he. “Marie, it works!”
“Benny! You!” Old Maggs collared his son. Realization returned to the eager young face.
“I never!” cried Benny. “Somebody stole it! But it does work,” he added, with the stubborn pride of a projector. He pulled the packthread, a hidden counterpoise fell, and the blade shot back. “It works, my fortune’s made!”
It worked too well. We all saw how the sharp-bladed spear had been mounted in the shadow of a rafter, and so triggered that at proper height the rising trap would trip it and release the deadly blade. Whatever the knife penetrated in its forward leap must be ripped along its length as the powerful winch sent the trap inexorably upward. A man who sat upon a stool that was bolted in place—
“Why is the stool bolted down?”
The elder carpenter licked his lip.
“By Captain Benton’s order. You may see the chalk marks on the trap as Mr. Murdoch explained it to us.”
“Well, Dr. Johnson,” said I, inspirited, “be that as it may, now that we know how ’twas done, you may soon put your finger on the doer.”
“Why, sir, how am I to tell which hand of many stole the device—if stolen it was—sharpened the knife, and set the trap? Or for whom, or when? It may have been set for weeks.”
“No, sir,” said I, “for the trap was tested tonight, as Murdoch informed his master in my hearing. So the villain is in the theatre tonight; and the only hope for Mr. Garrick’s patent is to lay him by the heels before he gets away.”
“Alack, sir,” said my friend ruefully, “this is a task for Harlequin’s magick bat, or some conjurer from a bottle.”
“Which would surely avail, sir,” said I, smiling, “were this a Persian Tale.”
“A Persian Tale?” said my friend slowly. “Perhaps, sir, if ratiocination can supply the place of magick, I may make it a Persian Tale. So soon as the company can be assembled, I shall make shift to detect the villain!”
It was a strange enough court of justice that met on the lighted stage when the pantomime was done. Behind the Vesuvius-painted cloth, unseen, Captain Benton lay dead. Over our heads swung Hecate’s cloudy car, trailing ropes. At stage center stood my burly friend in his sober brown, flanked by the two Garricks, and I at his shoulder. About us clustered a motley assemblage. The brilliant glare from the wing-ladders fell on Cherokee scalp-locks and Mrs. King’s sable plumes, on Colombine’s gauzes and the stage carpenter’s leather breeches, on Mr. Bransby’s India-ink scowl and Signor Grimaldi’s painted grin, on stage servants in green coats and dressers in shirt sleeves stained with rose-pink. At each side the two Grenadier Guards from the fore-stage stood a-spraddle, at the ready.
“Pray make haste, Dr. Johnson,” implored David Garrick, still in his gold-laced scarlet coat. “The bells of St.-Mary-le-Strand have gone ten, and my patent hangs in the balance.”
“Before the bells chime eleven, the detection shall be accomplished. Attend me. There may be more than one among you who may have wished Captain Benton dead—” Dr. Johnson ran his eyes sternly from face to face. “—a gentleman huffed, a mistress supplanted, a servant misused, a sailor flogged—” Old Maggs looked up, startled, then hastily dropped his gaze. “—a pair of lovers baulked—” The carpenter and his Colombine locked hands. “I say there may be many such, that would not be sorry if a knife jumped out to destroy Captain Benton. But only one person set the knife ready to strike. Happily we have no need to guess at that person, for Nature, at the behest of the Almighty, will infalliby detect the man of blood.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
For answer, Dr. Johnson gave a sign. Green-coats bestirred themselves, the drop Vesuvius rose, and the inmost back-shutters parted. At the sight of the pallid corpse, stained with rose-pink and his own clotted blood, the actors gasped. They drew back, shuddering, as couch and corpse together were borne forward into the full central glare.
“Look upon the dead!” cried Dr. Johnson in his solemn, sonorous voice. “Step forward, those of you who dare, and touch him!”
“To what end, sir?” asked Mr. Garrick with a shiver.
“To the end that the guilty villain may be revealed; for ’tis well known, that at the murderer’s touch, his victim bleeds afresh.”
“Surely, sir,” remarked old Bransby, “this is meer Gothick superstition?”
“Superstition? No, sir, ’tis ascertained fact, and will
hold in any court of law in this realm.”
“I muse,” said I, “why it should be so?”
“The learned Libavius sets forth, sir, in De Cruentatione Cadaverum, that the secret disorder of the malefactor’s vital humours, though never so well concealed, will operate—whether by radiation, evaporation, or antipathy—to set the blood of his victim flowing. Cornelius Gemma holds rather, that ’tis the ghost of the dead man lingering for revenge; and from what we know of revenants and spirits, this may well be true—”
“It will have blood, they say;
blood will have blood:
Augurs and understood relations have brought forth
The secretest man of blood …”
I heard with a shudder the ominous words of Macbeth as, half to himself, David Garrick repeated them. My eyes went to the shadows edging the pool of light in which we stood, half-expecting to see the ghost of Banquo stalking there, glaring with sightless eyes; and truth to tell, many an eye followed mine.
“Stand forth, and touch!” repeated Dr. Johnson. “And first, since this deed was contrived below stage, let those below stand forth. Miss LaRue! Mr. Bransby! Murdoch! Benny! Maggs!”
“And with due respect, sir,” said old Maggs quietly—was there an insolent gleam in his eye?—“Mr. Boswell.”
“Mr. Boswell will shew us the way,” assented my friend calmly.
My sensibilities were hurt, but I stood forth. The ghost of the murdered man seemed very near. Exerting my utmost command, though my flesh crawled, I touched the chilling cheek. Nothing happened.
“Pass, Mr. Boswell.”
Miss LaRue tightened her grip on the young carpenter’s hand. Her light touch on the chalk-white cheek was a caress. Unbidden the young carpenter touched after her.
“Pass, my young friends. Mr. Bransby?”
The tall actor held his large hand theatrically high:
“I am innocent, before the Eternal I swear it.” He took the stiffening hand in his: “Farewell! The rest is silence!”
“Well played, sir!” said Dr. Johnson drily. “Maggs?”
The Return of Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector Page 18