Dead for a Spell

by Raymond Buckland

  So that was it! Nell Burton had been drawn here for a tryout. But for what? She was a member of the Lyceum family and firmly ensconced as a character in Hamlet. Had some other theatre taken note of her and enticed her here for an audition of some sort? I pondered. But what talent did she have that would lead to that? In all fairness, there was none of which anyone at the Lyceum had been aware. She was a walk-on; a crowd scene character. Like so many young hopefuls she had little chance of even playing speaking roles in these, her early years. It was true that John Saxon had noticed her, and made mention of her to me a time or two, but I had not seen any extraordinary talent there myself as of yet. Perhaps with some personal coaching and some elocution lessons, but the same could be said of several of the young hopefuls. Besides, John might well have an ulterior motive in trying to advance a pretty young girl and have her beholden to him.

  I began wandering around the ill-lit loft, peering into corners, but stopped when it occurred to me that I had not given the ground floor a thorough investigation. I should do this systematically so as not to miss anything, I determined. I started down the stairs again. As I reached the bottom I heard noises outside on the wharf. There were shouts and the sound of wheels. A horse whinnied. I hurried to the door and tugged it open.

  Outside I found an active scene. A cab—the very one I had earlier used and sent off to the Lyceum—had just discharged Mr. Stoker. He paused to look back at the vehicles behind him. A second hansom bore Inspector Bellamy and a sergeant, and behind them a police growler was emptying out four other policemen.

  “This way!” shouted Stoker, and then turned and made for the steps.

  “Mr. Stoker, sir!” I cried. “You made excellent time. But what’s happening? How did you get Scotland Yard to pay attention?”

  “It was the Guv’nor,” he said, breathing heavily as he came up the steps. “I complained to him and he—as you may or may not know—is a good friend of the police commissioner. I don’t think our friend Inspector Bellamy was overjoyed to be told to get down here with all possible speed.”

  As he finished speaking, the inspector himself came blustering over to the warehouse.

  “All right then! Where’s the body? You do have a body, we hope, to make all this fuss?”

  “I sincerely hope we do not have a body,” said Stoker grimly. “But it will be no thanks to you if we do.” He swung back to me. “Lead on, Harry. I take it you’ve had a look around?”

  “There’s not much to see,” I said, as I returned inside with my boss and a goodly number of the Metropolitan Police Force behind me. I quickly ran over what I had observed on the upper floors.

  “Let us proceed to the top floor,” said Stoker. “The chalk markings, as you say, Harry, would seem to indicate that space has recently been used.”

  When we reached the large open area the police fanned out and, as I had done earlier, started peering into every dark and dingy crevice.

  “Looks empty to me,” muttered Bellamy to his sergeant.

  “Yessir!”

  “But not to me,” said Stoker. He had looked briefly at the chalk outlines at one end of the space and then proceeded to the far end—the one closest to the river. “Look at these markings, Harry.”

  I did. They didn’t tell me anything in particular, although they did seem far more complicated than the other ones I had seen.

  “Describe what you see, Harry,” Stoker urged.

  “Er—large circles, one inside the other,” I said hesitantly.

  “Concentric circles,” Stoker clarified.

  “And there is some writing between the lines,” I added. I leaned forward and peered down at what had become smudged by the boots of the policemen. “Can’t make out what it says,” I continued. “But it looks like Latin or some such to me.”

  “Correct,” said Stoker. “Latin. The Words of Power.”

  “Excuse me?” Bellamy came and stood beside us as we looked at the markings on the floor. “Here! Sykes!” He called to one of the constables. “Get your bullseye over here sharpish. Let’s have a good look at what Mr. Stoker thinks to be so important!”

  The policeman hurried across and shone his lantern down on the floorboards. The light showed a large rectangle drawn with the corner points hitting midway along the sides of a larger rectangle that enclosed it. The corner points of the larger figure touched the inside of the first circle. The “Words of Power,” as Stoker termed them, were written between this first circle and the larger outer circle encompassing everything.

  “It doesn’t look like a layout for scenery or stage furniture,” I hazarded.

  “It is not,” said Stoker.

  “’Ere!” Another constable let out a shout. He had been shining his own bullseye lantern along the end wall and looking at the solitary window that faced out onto the river. “Hinspector! Don’t this ’ere look like blood, sir? ’Ere on the windowsill?”

  As Bellamy, Stoker, and myself moved to look, the sergeant, who was left where Bellamy had been standing, gave another shout.

  “Looks like blood here, too, sir. Lots of blood.”

  “Well this is a rum do,” muttered the inspector.

  Indeed, we had been so taken with interpreting the chalk design on the floor that we had failed to notice the large, dark reddish stain in the very center of the inner rectangle. Bellamy had been standing on it.

  Chapter Four

  “There is indeed a lot of blood,” said Inspector Bellamy.

  “Well soaked into these ancient and dry old floorboards,” agreed Stoker. He turned away. “Damnation! I feared we would be too late!”

  “Down in the water, sir!” sang out the policeman who was leaning out of the end window. “Somefink’s down there. Floatin’ in the tide. Could be a body, sir.”

  We all rushed over and squeezed together to stick out our heads. The constable was right. Something white—like a woman’s dress—was gently swaying back and forth in the tide. It looked as though it was caught up on a metal spike protruding from the side of the wharf. As one we turned and started for the stairs.

  “Dickinson! Martin! You stay here and see what else you can find. Don’t touch anything, just make note of it.” Bellamy had suddenly become efficient, I thought.

  The warehouse jutted out adjacent to the wharf, though there was an eight-foot gap between the two. The body—if body it was—was caught up at the corner of the building. Bellamy sent off one of his men to find a boat hook. When he returned with one there was much fishing and tugging to get what was indeed a body free and draw it in to where we crouched.

  “Must have thrown the body out of the window hoping the tide would carry it away,” observed the police sergeant. “Didn’t reckon on it getting caught up.”

  “It’s her,” I said, as the now-obvious body nudged the wharf side. “It’s Nell Burton.”

  “You’re certain?” asked Stoker.

  I nodded.

  “Damnation!”

  It was unlike my boss to use such language. Now he had done so twice in ten minutes. He was obviously greatly moved.

  As the dead girl was brought ashore a gasp issued from several of the men. One policeman—a younger man—turned away and was violently sick over the edge of the timbered wharf side. I almost followed suit. Nell’s head flopped backward, a dreadful gash slicing across the once-delicate female neck. She had had her throat cut, and savagely at that.

  * * *

  Abraham Stoker stayed for over an hour, making a sketch of the chalk markings on the floor, with notations about the blood and the disposition of Nell Burton’s body. He sent me back to the theatre, since it was getting close to time for the evening’s performance, assuring me that he would be returned before curtain-up. He also said that he would personally break the news to Billy Weston. I was grateful for that.

  News of the death spread rapidly through the theat
re after Stoker returned. People moved about in silence, seemingly nervous and jumping at any sudden noise. After curtain-up things progressed in a more normal fashion, though there was an indefinable lack of sparkle about the whole presentation of the play. So much so that, after the final curtain, the Guv’nor called everyone onstage as soon as the audience had vacated the theatre.

  Henry Irving stood center stage and gazed around at the assembled cast and crew. He seemed to meet every eye. I stood in the prompt corner but felt the draw of his magnetism as his gaze swept over me. It was a little like being back in the Hounslow Masonic Institution for Boys when I was a youngster. I remember a time when the whole school was assembled and the headmaster, Dr. Birch, similarly cast his beady eyes over us all, after some minor breach of discipline by a few. We all felt incredibly guilty then, and I felt the same now. None of us at the Lyceum had done anything wrong, of course, but I think we all felt as though we had been brought up on the carpet.

  “The loss of one of our number,” said Irving, in his tragedy voice, “affects the whole family. Those both onstage and off; in the orchestral pit or up in the flies. Those who work so diligently behind the scenes and those who expose themselves to the theatre audience . . . all are equally vulnerable. It is like losing a loved one, even to those of us who never had the fortune to actually meet with Miss . . .”

  “Nell Burton,” murmured Ellen Terry, who stood slightly behind the Guv’nor.

  “Indeed!” Irving’s gaze once again ranged around those crowded onstage. “But we are actors!” He seemed to stress the last syllable for some reason. “We are servants of our audience. We are here to give of our very best . . . or we should not be here at all.” He gave one of his dramatic pauses before continuing. “Tonight’s presentation was woefully inadequate. Woefully inadequate!” Again the piercing gaze at all assembled. “I do not say that we may not mourn our fellow actress. Indeed, it would be sinful not to do so. But, we must mourn in our own time, and not onstage during the performance of the play.”

  This last was said in a rush. I glanced about me to see how the Guv’nor’s words were being taken. I was surprised to see Billy Weston at the back. Mr. Stoker had told me that he had suggested the boy take some time off, but that Billy had insisted on staying, saying that he would rather keep busy. I admired him for that. It seemed to me that I saw the glint of a tear in Billy’s eye, and there I knew he was not alone.

  “It is my understanding,” continued the Guv’nor, “that the Metropolitan Police—indeed, Scotland Yard—are now investigating this tragedy. We must leave them to do their job even as we continue with ours. Mr. Stoker has requested that all make themselves available to any member of the constabulary who may need to ask questions. Thank you, everyone. Please carry on.”

  He turned on his heel, almost colliding with Miss Terry, and strode from the stage with her trotting behind him. I almost applauded, such was the impact of any speech from Mr. Henry Irving. I returned to my office and had a last look around, then shrugged into my topcoat, ready to return home to the minimum “comforts” of Mrs. Bell’s establishment on Chancery Lane.

  “Mr. Rivers, sir?”

  I looked up. It was Edwina Abbott—she of the tarot cards—who peered nervously around the corner, obviously uncertain whether or not to delay me.

  “Miss Abbott,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

  There was a long, awkward pause before she said, “It were just like what the cards said, Mr. Rivers, weren’t it?”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “In a sense, Edwina, yes. I suppose it was. Either that or coincidence, of course.”

  “Coincidence? Do you really believe that, sir?”

  I shook my head. “No, I suppose I don’t.”

  “Nor me, sir.” She looked at me for a moment and then turned and went out. “Good night, Mr. Rivers.”

  * * *

  “Look at this, Harry.”

  I had only just arrived at the theatre. My boss was already there. Mr. Stoker had spread a copy of the Era across his desk. The weekly newspaper was regarded as the Bible of the theatrical profession. Started just over forty years ago, it was then a general newspaper, but since being taken over by Frederick Ledger and then his son, Edward, it now dealt mainly with the London theatre scene, Freemasonry, and sport.

  “What is it, sir?”

  “That young upstart Reginald Robertson. His company is opening in Oxford with Coriolanus of all things. No great soliloquies for him there, I think. But see here what he has the effrontery to say to the newspaper.”

  I leaned forward to read over his shoulder, but Mr. Stoker insisted on reading it aloud.

  “With this pivotal role I feel I will finally establish myself as the equal, if not the superior, Shakespearean actor of these British Isles. Perhaps it is time for others, who have trod the boards for too long, to slip away into retirement and allow the younger generation to carry the banner. Ye Gods, Harry! If that isn’t a direct slap at the Guv’nor I don’t know what is!”

  “It is a trifle strong,” I acknowledged.

  “The man is obviously perfectly cast as Coriolanus!”

  “Sir?”

  “Coriolanus is proud, immature, stubborn, and inflexible. But that is beside the point. To publish such a comment in the Era is an insult. I think an apology is called for; nay, demanded!”

  I could see that Mr. Stoker’s Irish temper was up. He was devoted to the Guv’nor. So were we all in our way, though nowhere nearly as staunchly as my boss.

  “Surely it’s just hot air, sir. No one could take him seriously, comparing himself to Mr. Irving.”

  “This is the way rumors get started, Harry. You mark my words. The gossipmongers will sink their teeth into this.”

  “Who is this Reginald Robertson anyway, sir?” I asked. “I’ve heard his name mentioned in connection with provincial theatre, but he’s never played London, has he?”

  “No. No he has not, now that you mention it.” Stoker seemed to calm a little. “Good point, Harry. Young upstart!”

  “What do you know of him?”

  Stoker sat back and gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling. “His father was the old character actor James Robertson. His mother was Cynthia Ecclestone, so he came from good theatrical stock. But young Reginald has never been a forerunner. He put his so-called company together on a shoestring. Against the advice of his father, as I understand it. Got most of his bookings by occult means.”

  “By occult means?” I echoed. “What exactly do you mean by that, sir?”

  “His grandmother, on his mother’s side, was supposed to have been a witch, so rumor has it.” Stoker’s gray green eyes came down to look into mine. “He himself consults with an astrologer to set the major dates for his performances.” He shook his head. “Lot of nonsense, if you ask me.”

  I never thought I’d hear my boss pooh-pooh the occult. He who believed in good luck charms, vampires, zombies, fairies, and the like.

  There was a rap on the door.

  “Come!” shouted Stoker.

  The door opened and Edward, Miss Terry’s nine-year-old son, the Lyceum’s callboy, poked his head in.

  “Mr. Thomas says that the Scotland Yard inspector wants a word, sir,” he said.

  “Send him in.”

  “Yes, Mr. Stoker.” Edward’s head disappeared.

  “I suppose it was inevitable that the inspector would show up.”

  “Yes, sir,” I agreed. “He must have a hundred questions.”

  “Well, I’m as anxious as he is to find who murdered our young lady. I’m thinking that there is a lot more to this than meets the eye, Harry.”

  I had to agree. Why had Nell gone to that riverside warehouse? Were there auditions being held there? Why late at night, after the theatres closed, and not during the day? Why the secrecy? And who could have murdered an
innocent young woman so viciously? I hoped Inspector Bellamy would have some answers.

  “Mr. Stoker, sir.”

  Bellamy did not remove his bowler hat when he came into the office and barely nodded to acknowledge myself.

  “What may we do for you, Inspector?” said Stoker. “Have you found the killer yet?”

  “Bit early for that, sir. But he won’t get far, believe me.”

  “Oh! So you know it to be a man, do you?” Stoker looked surprised.

  “What? What d’you mean? Do you think it was a woman that did it, then? Bit extreme for the fair sex, wouldn’t you say?”

  I barely caught the glint in my boss’s eyes. If there were any hint of a smile it was well hidden beneath his bushy red mustache. “Just trying to keep to the facts,” he said. “And incidentally, was it not less than ten years ago that Mary Ann Robson Cotton was hung for murdering her three husbands, a lover, and a dozen children? Less than twenty years ago did not Frances Kidder hang for killing her eleven-year-old daughter? I mention these members of the ‘fair sex’ merely in passing, Inspector.”

  Bellamy pulled himself up straight. “As I recall, Mister Stoker, sir, they were all poisonings. A far cry from the throat slashing that we have here . . . if I may say so, sir? Perhaps we should allow Scotland Yard to get on with its job?”

  “Touché, Inspector!” Stoker looked pleased. “I am delighted to see that you are well up on your work. I was beginning to wonder.”

  “Just what have you learned, Inspector?” I asked. I could not contain myself. I hoped that some very real clue or clues had been uncovered.