Tarvin ran up the trapdoor stairs, McGray a few steps behind. I thought I saw steam rising from his face.
I managed to muster the last of my strength, got back on my feet and followed them. I dragged myself up the creaking wooden steps and then on to the stage. The painted scenery again concealed us, the shadow of Miss Terry projected sharply on the canvas, and I saw that Tarvin and McGray were already climbing a ladder that led to the flies and rafters. I realized neither carried a gun. McGray must have dropped his when Tarvin threw the charcoal at him.
More recklessly than bravely, I followed, regretting it halfway up, for my ribcage throbbed with pain at every movement, and my hands and feet were still slightly numb, barely feeling the rungs I clung to.
I saw that Tarvin’s hands were about to grasp the bridge that ran across the stage, some thirty feet above the floor. From that height – I could not help looking down – I could see the other side of the canvas. Miss Terry was down there, a single light on her, pretending to wash her hands. She had everyone captivated.
Just as Tarvin was jumping on to the bridge Nine-Nails seized him by the leg. Tarvin let out a strange groan, as if trying to be as silent as possible, and then threw Nine-Nails a well-aimed kick in the chest. I saw his torso lurch backwards, McGray grasping the ladder with nothing but the very tips of his fingers.
I rushed upwards and managed to push the back of his thigh, just enough for him to recover his balance.
‘We’re even now!’ I said, but McGray had no time to reply. He reached the top of the ladder and sprang up, tossing dangling ropes aside as he strode forward.
Tarvin seized a rope tied to an iron pulley, and began whirling it in the air as if about to throw a noose on to a colt. The bolt fanned swiftly towards McGray’s face. He jolted sideways and grasped the bridge’s low railing, nearly falling over it. I thought the pulley had hit him, but he’d simply dodged it so quickly that his own momentum had almost toppled him.
I went closer, and just as McGray regained his balance we saw Tarvin trip on something. He fell backwards on to the creaking wooden boards, lifting a little cloud of white powder. He’d stumbled over the very same sack of lycopodium that had spilt half its contents over Laurence and Eugenia.
McGray ran towards him, ready to seize him before he got hold of the rope again, but then we all halted.
There was a terrible female wail: long, anguished and rasping, and I immediately thought of the banshee.
It was Miss Terry, though, finalizing her act and then whispering ‘to bed, to bed’, which was followed by an ovation that made the very walls of the theatre tremble.
We’d looked down for a second, but by then Tarvin had grabbed a handful of lycopodium, produced a little lighter from his pocket, and ignited it in front of the hump of white powder. Tiny sparks of unsettled dust burst around the flame, like an ominous halo.
‘Get away!’ he shouted, as if he’d waited for the ovation to conceal his voice. He blew over the hump of powder, turning it into a cloud of hellish fire that made us jump backwards.
When it dissipated I saw Tarvin grinning like a fiend. He’d picked up a second handful and was staring at it with wicked eyes. He spoke eerily, almost father-like, at the explosive.
‘Curious that you should be here … as if by design. So small yet as deadly as the strike of thunder.’
He glanced at the stage. Miss Terry was leaving now, glowing with satisfaction, but instead of going to the stage wing, the natural choice, she walked around the canvas towards the trapdoor; the same one through which we’d just ascended.
‘Choose who shall burn!’ Tarvin snarled, his eyes moving maniacally from Terry to us, holding the lycopodium up high. ‘The enchantress of fools – or you?’
The cheering was deafening, dragging on and on like a downpour. Terry would never hear our warnings. Her own admirers would be her doom.
‘There’s a fucking third option!’ McGray shouted, stepping forward.
Tarvin turned the powder to us. ‘Then this is the end of the applause! After this –’ he bellowed, ‘Only silence!’
It all happened at once: the orchestra burst into a fateful chord, Tarvin dashed lycopodium in every direction and waved his lighter around, and as he kindled intermittent balls of fire Nine-Nails and I charged against him.
Engulfed in fleeting flames, shouting and kicking under the uproar of the music and the persistent clapping, we pushed him backwards, desperate to get him away from the sack.
It’s just a handful of powder, I told myself over and over, feeling the flashes of fire on my hands and through my clothes.
Amidst the frenzy I thought I saw a pair of bright eyes by the end of the bridge, glowing in the dark like those of a cat. It was only for an instant, for right then Tarvin ignited his last fire, mere inches from my face, and I instinctively thrust myself on my back, feeling as if my eyelids had been singed.
Through streaming eyes I could still discern the blurry outlines of Tarvin and Nine-Nails.
McGray’s shoulder was ablaze, but he somehow found the strength to throw one last blow at Tarvin’s cheek, hurling him to the low railing. He still had some lycopodium in his hand, but before he could ignite it McGray hit him squarely on the nose, and the man fell backwards into the void.
It was as if time itself stretched; as if I was looking at a man slowly sinking into the depths of the sea. His final terrified shriek sounded grave in my ears, mixed with the chords from the orchestra, and at last Tarvin landed on the back of the stage, his body bursting in a ghastly mess of red.
And I mumbled, ‘One falls on the stage …’
I pressed a hand against my sore eyelids, but I’d barely have time for a deep breath.
‘Och, it was just a wee scorch,’ said McGray, thumping his jacket’s seared shoulder.
He offered me a hand, pulled me upwards and then rushed down at unthinkable speed. I do not know how I faced that dreadful ladder again, but I managed to make my way down as the stage filled with soldiers preparing for the final battle.
A dark shape, crawling timidly out of the shadows, reached Tarvin before us. It was the enormous hound. For a moment I thought it would have us by the jugulars, but the animal was now whimpering like a lost puppy.
It sniffed Tarvin’s lifeless body, from his stomach to his neck, and then began licking the blood that had spilled from its master’s face. Its moans became louder as Nine-Nails and I approached.
Only then, after the man was dead, did I have a proper chance to look into his face. There was the handsome actor I’d seen in that picture merely minutes ago, the main features still there; a face undoubtedly fit for a Hamlet or a Richard III. His skin, however, was now dry and leathery, not so much from age, but eaten away by strain and substances. His eyes were wide open, so piercing it was as if his bitterness would last beyond death.
‘Poor wretch,’ McGray mumbled, kneeling down and gently closing the man’s lids. As he did so, on the other side of the scenery, Irving was receiving the news of Lady Macbeth’s death, followed by his ‘Out, out, brief candle …’ I remembered my nightmare the previous night, and I felt my entire body giving into a nasty shudder.
McNair and a couple of theatre assistants arrived then.
‘Do youse want us to move him?’ McNair asked, the only composed one amongst us, for all the theatre men around him were either sickened or terrified.
‘Aye,’ McGray whispered. ‘No need for everyone to see him in this state.’
I was about to say something religious, before the men set to do the messy work, but then we heard another female voice, one I’d never heard before, coming from the trapdoor.
‘Ellen! No!’
McGray jumped to his feet and hurled himself down the trapdoor. I followed as quickly as I could, saw him descend the steps in only two long strides, and then my eyes went to the rheostat, where a woman was screaming. Ellen Terry, swathed in her white nightgown, was standing in front of her like the angel of death.
&
nbsp; ‘No, Ellen! Don’t!’ the other woman cried as she stumbled backwards towards the rheostat, her elegant grey dress billowing as she approached the bobbins of naked wires. The electricity running through them would be enough to light up an entire street.
I realized, unable to do anything from where I stood, that I would see all that power strike her body, burst in blinding sparks and burn her flesh to charcoal.
And then McGray caught her.
He thrust himself like a locomotive, pushing the woman away, and they both fell flat on the floor a good six feet away from the machine.
The sweaty effects assistant came back right then, pressing a cloth against his forearm where the hound had bitten him, and he resumed operating the rheostat. So stunned were we all that nobody even looked at him for more than a second.
Miss Terry came to me, ghastly pale and pleading for protection. Her eyes were filled with a mix of fear and rage that would have made Mr Sargent’s masterpiece look like a mediocre doodle. She gripped my arm so tightly it hurt.
‘There she is! The Mrs Irving you claim I’ve been messaging! She lured me in here. She was calling my name after the scene! When she heard you approaching, she pretended I had pushed her towards that … that infernal device.’
McGray helped the battered woman stand up, and I recognized Sydney’s haughty brow in her. Right now, however, she looked dumbfounded, every inch of her body trembling violently.
McGray told her we were CID inspectors, the formalities sounding odd at a moment like this, but it did help Mrs Irving come back to her senses.
‘You …’ she whispered, finally focusing her gaze on McGray. ‘She tried to … You just … saved me …’
I could not possibly tell what emotion, other than surprise, underlay her words. Was she glad? Could she not believe her good luck? And then her eyes fell on Miss Terry, and her astonishment turned into blind rage.
Both women glared at each other, their eyes hotter than the red embers next to them, and they both cried at once: ‘She wants me dead!’
49
The sounds of the battles taking place on the stage were nothing compared to their slanging match. Florence Irving and Ellen Terry began shouting obscenities I would have never believed could have emanated from a lady’s mouth.
‘Shut up the both o’ youse!’ McGray roared, so fiercely that even I started, but the women only reluctantly obliged. Nine-Nails then paced around them, his blue eyes analysing both faces.
‘Youse both cannae be telling the truth … So … Who’s the lying bitch here?’
Mrs Irving was still so shocked she did not notice the insult. ‘But it is all so clear!’ she babbled. ‘This harlot wants me dead! She wants my husband and knows he’ll never divorce me for our children’s sake!’
Miss Terry showed a little more composure, though from her grip on my arm I knew she wanted to tear Mrs Irving apart. ‘This – lady has always hated me. She thinks I’m responsible for the hell of her marriage, but she did it all to herself!’
‘Mrs Irving,’ said McGray, ‘how did ye end up here right now?’
‘She brought me in with deceit! She sent me letters promising my sons would have the career they’ve always wanted. She promised she’d finally leave Irving alone. All I had to do was to maintain her for the rest of her life!’
‘I have no idea what this harpy is talking about!’ Miss Terry screamed. ‘She is sick and mad!’ and I had to pull her hand from my arm, as her nails were about to break my skin.
‘Oh, but I have your letters!’ Mrs Irving argued, a sneer on her face. ‘Go to my rooms in New Town and you’ll see all the letters she sent me! I have one with me which I received just this afternoon. This so-called doyenne asked me to meet her here, right after her performance!’
She looked at the floor, where her purse lay. McGray reached for it and opened it himself, pulling out a sheet of paper. Again, it was good paper, and the writing looked neat and refined.
‘What happened to the other note?’ asked McGray, looking at Miss Terry.
She stammered. ‘I … I still had it in my hand when I left my dressing room. I must have dropped it on my way to the stage. God, I can’t remember!’
McGray looked dubiously at her. ‘Were ye sending letters to Mrs Irving? Were you using John Tarvin as yer messenger?’
‘Of course not, I was telling the truth!’ She clasped her stomach, ‘I thought they were real! I thought they’d come from –’ Nine-Nails raised a hand to make her stop.
Mrs Irving cackled, the echoes bouncing throughout the understage. ‘Another lie! What a pathetic woman you are! Why would a respected gentleman like Mr Carroll want to resume friendship with a – with someone like you?’
Nine-Nails looked up sharply. Once more I could tell we were thinking the same, but neither of us spoke immediately.
‘I do not need your money,’ Miss Terry snapped. ‘I have more money than I need! And don’t wish to marry ever again …’ She turned to me. ‘And if I wanted to kill her, I wouldn’t play these foolish games – she’d be long dead.’
McGray was still pacing, stroking his cleanly shaven face. ‘Perhaps I should’ve asked this first. Miss Terry, did ye push this lady? Where ye perhaps trying to get rid o’ her and make it look like an accident?’
‘Of course not!’ she retorted, although I could see doom growing in her eyes. ‘I didn’t lay a finger on her!’
‘So … she just tripped?’
Miss Terry began to shed copious tears, now sheer terror drawing in her face. ‘No … she – she … she jumped backwards!’
McGray smiled. ‘Miss, d’ye expect us to believe that?’
Miss Terry had difficulty breathing, and I struggled to interpret her following sobbing words: ‘That’s the truth.’
‘She’s a terrible liar!’ Mrs Irving spat, showing her teeth in a wide grin. ‘She makes no sense! Why would I want to jump to my death?’
McGray had to reach for her hand, for she looked as if about to lose her mind. ‘Mrs Irving, come, come, give me yer hand, look nae so pale. Here, have a seat.’ He pulled a crate, dusted it and helped Mrs Irving sit down. ‘There. Miss Terry told us ye’ve slimmed a lot lately. Ye’ve been ill?’
‘No. Will you –’
Most indecorously, McGray kept Mrs Irving’s hand in his, looking at it and stroking it gently.
‘I remember after my wee sister became – well, ill, I lost a lot o’ weight in a matter o’ weeks. All the strain, just like ye. And somethin’ I hadn’t realized ’til then is that when you slim down, ye slim down everywhere. Waist, neck, face, and … fingers – well, I was one the poorer in that section! But the annoying part is, things won’t fit ye any more. Important things, like, say, yer wedding ring.’
Mrs Irving tried to pull her hand from McGray’s grip, but he brought it closer to his face.
‘Aye, ye ken what I’m talking about, don’t ye?’
‘Let go of me, you brute!’ she growled, showing her teeth again, but not in a grin any more.
It was McGray’s turn to smile. ‘It was ye wearing the beetle-wing dress on the night o’ the ball. Ye who helped Tarvin lure Stoker out to the streets. Youse needed a witness; someone reliable to believe he’d seen Miss Terry around yer lodgings that night. It would all have supported yer tale, wouldn’t it? And youse also kent Mr Stoker wouldnae speak straight away; he’s so loyal to Irving he wouldnae ruin the reputation o’ the company’s leading lady. But ye did bet on him talking once ye were dead and the inquiries began. Right? Ye kent he wouldnae keep quiet if he also suspected Miss Terry was a murderer.’
Miss Terry then brought both hands to her face.
‘Yes,’ I told her. ‘It is just what you are thinking.’
‘Good God!’ Miss Terry mumbled. ‘Florence was actually willing to kill herself … and make me appear a murderess!’
There was fire, thunder, the yells of warriors, frenzied music and the roaring voice of Henry Irving. None of which reached our ears. We were
all looking at Florence.
Her muscles reacted very slowly, stretching her lips in a crooked smile, completely at odds with the horrified expression in her eyes. What an eerie image it was; an empty, almost idiotic smirk, under a pair of doomed, terrified eyes.
‘That’s why ye lured Miss Terry down here,’ said McGray. ‘Like she said, ye jumped on the electric wires to kill yerself. Ye expected people to find Miss Terry standing right next to the rheo-thingy, and we would all think she’d pushed ye!’
‘Nonsense,’ Florence mumbled.
‘Ye were wearing that dress,’ said McGray, still holding her hand. ‘Ye lost yer wedding ring. I can see the tan line in yer finger.’ He raised the hand for us to see. ‘And it didnae happen long ago, I can tell the line’s quite sharp. A thin tan line too, which tells me yer ring was a cheap one; of course, since Irving didnae have much money when he married ye, and as youse fell out he never got ye a better one. We found that ring and thought it was Mrs Harwood’s. And I’m sure ye ken where we found it.’
‘Nonsense!’ Florence repeated, trying to pull herself free.
McGray held her by the arm before she had a chance to do something silly. ‘How did ye ken Miss Terry claimed to receive letters from Lewis Carroll?’
‘Indeed,’ I added. ‘She told no one but us. The matter was so embarrassing that not even Irving himself was aware of it. How could it then reach your ears? Unless you …’ I inhaled deeply. In a blink, like clockwork suddenly falling into place, all the events of the last few days reshaped in my head. ‘You forged the letters,’ I said triumphantly, at last recalling Irving’s words on the night of the ball. The very words I’d not had time to write down because of all the mayhem that immediately followed. ‘You have done it before: you forged many love letters to Henry Irving during your courtship with him.’
A Mask of Shadows: Frey & McGray Book 3 (A Case for Frey & McGray) Page 33