The First Murder

by The Medieval Murderers

  ‘Read the ending of “Cain and Abel” to me.’

  Malinferno turned the stiff pages of his printed book until he came to the relevant passage.

  ‘It’s Cain’s final speech after the angel hands down God’s curse on him. It ends,

  “The devil take both Him and thee!

  Foul may you fall!

  Here is a crooked company;

  Therefore, God’s curse upon you all!”’

  Bromhead tapped his original gleefully. ‘I knew there was something different. There are two more lines attributed to the angel at the end here in the manuscript.’

  ‘What do they say?’

  Bromhead intoned the extra lines in his most solemn voice, though it cracked a little and somewhat spoiled the effect.

  ‘“Beware the sins of envy and vainglory,

  Else foul murder ends your story.”’

  Malinferno rose from his chair and leaned to look over his friend’s shoulder.

  ‘Let me see. Oh, yes. And yet they look like an addition done in a different hand. Could they have been added at a much later date?’

  Bromhead frowned, peering closely at the intruders on the neat page of handwritten text.

  ‘I don’t think so. The script is still very old, and I would swear that it has been done by the same hand. The only difference is that the two lines are in a quickly written bastard script, whereas the rest is a more formal book hand. The whole of the rest of the book was carefully inscribed in a way suggesting the author wished his work to last down the ages. These words were stuck at the bottom of the page, below the lines drawn for the proper text. As though they were an afterthought. And a warning.’

  Malinferno laughed. ‘A warning? Have you been reading Mary Shelley?’

  Bromhead gave him a scandalised look for suggesting he of all people would be reading such modern Gothic rubbish as Malinferno referred to. He shrugged.

  ‘I suppose it’s nothing really.’

  ‘Of course it’s not. The writer of the play was a monk, yes? He probably had second thoughts about finishing Cain and Abel on a curse, and made a late addition. A salutary lesson to avoid . . . what does he say? . . . “envy and vainglory”.’

  Bromhead nodded at Malinferno’s wise words. But a nagging doubt remained in his mind. If he had known what was going on at the first rehearsal of The Play of Adam at the Royal Coburg, he might have been more worried.

  ‘I’ll kill you, Jed Lawless, you incompetent nincompoop.’

  Morton Stanley had been in a bad mood since realising he would have to share the stage with Perceval Tristram. Doll noted that, when he came back from talking to Will Mossop, his temper had been unalloyed. The first run-through of “Adam and Eve”, with Tristram as a rather corpulent serpent, had gone badly. It had terminated when a canvas backcloth, painted with a scene more reminiscent of a prim English woodland than the Garden of Eden, came tumbling down into a crumpled heap close on the heels of Stanley. He had leaped away just as the wooden beam at the top of the backcloth crashed to the ground. With years of dust rising in clouds, and a shocked silence hanging in the air, the tall actor had laid into the chief stagehand. It must have been Lawless’s grip on the cloth that had failed.

  Lawless himself, a wizened but wiry old fellow with a club foot, had emerged from the gloom of the wings, ashen-faced, but determined not to be railed at by a mere actor. He cast a glance into the auditorium where Mossop sat giving his instructions.

  ‘He can’t talk like that to me, Mr Mossop. It was a genuine accident. The rope gave way.’

  Will Mossop gave a deep sigh, and waved a hand in his stagehand’s direction.

  ‘Just tidy up the mess, Jed. Anyway, haven’t we got anything better for the Garden of Eden. I’m sure that backdrop was last used as Birnam Woods in the Scottish play.’

  Lawless grinned toothlessly at the theatre manager. ‘It’s true, what you say. We could always use the backdrop of Jack and the Giant.’

  He ambled offstage and, as he passed Doll, shot her a comment out of the side of his mouth: ‘He won’t like that. It’s got a ruddy great beanstalk in the middle of it.’

  Mossop called the cast to order as the offending backcloth was hauled back up into place. The collapse had creased the painting badly, and Birnam Woods was now mottled with gashes of bare canvas and flaking paint. The effect was most surreal.

  Mossop clapped his hands to gain everyone’s attention.

  ‘Look here, everyone. I want to move on to the Cain and Abel scene, and block it in before we call it a day.’

  He pointed at the quiet, middle-aged actor who had already played several minor roles as angels. He had been so self-effacing that Doll had not yet learned his name. Mossop now provided it.

  ‘Harry, you are the yokel, Brewbarrel, and you come on from stage left.’ He waved his hand disdainfully. ‘Do your usual moping and leering.’

  Harry blushed, and nodded as he walked off into the wings. Doll followed him offstage as she was not needed in this scene.

  Standing by him in the darkness of the wingspace, she whispered in his ear, ‘What’s blocking?’

  He cast a curious glance at her, thinking she perhaps was trying to take a rise out of him. But the genuinely puzzled look on her face showed him that this attractive, voluptuous woman with whom he was sharing this intimate little space was truly ignorant of theatrical jargon. He guessed that she had probably had to provide her services on the couch in Mossop’s office to get the part, rather than by dint of her acting skills. He glanced onstage, and saw that he had time to explain. Mossop was still manoeuvring Stanley and Tristram around the vast open space. He put his mouth to her pretty shell of an ear, and pointed onstage.

  ‘That is blocking. Giving the actors their moves, and hoping they will remember them at the next rehearsal.’

  Doll breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thank goodness. I thought it was going to be something quite painful.’

  Harry grinned, observing how Morton Stanley was stumbling around the stage, much to Mossop’s exasperation.

  ‘Oh, for some actors of limited brain it is very painful, I assure you.’

  Mossop’s harassed voice coming from the auditorium broke off their conversation.

  ‘Harry, that’s your entrance.’

  The blocking lasted another full day, and then on the third day work began in earnest. Mossop wished the actors to concentrate on the tale of Adam and Eve, and Doll, Morton Stanley, and Perceval Trsitram, who played the part of King George/Satan, went over their lines again and again. Doll had spent the previous night learning her words with Malinferno, who had had to read both Adam and Satan. He had seemed to have taken great relish in the speech after the eating of the apple.

  ‘“Alas, my wife I blame, for so she to me said—”’ He broke off. ‘This text is quite up-to-date, is it not, Doll?’

  Doll cuffed him around the head with her copy of the play. ‘I shouldn’t need to remind you, Joe Malinferno, that I am no wife of yours. Thanks to your reluctance to make an honest woman of me.’

  Malinferno’s face went a little pale at the mention of marriage, but he diverted Doll’s sally into the running battle between them concerning making of her an honest woman.

  ‘What are you going to do about the fact that Adam and Eve are naked, my dear?’

  Doll leered at him. ‘I shall be clad in the sheerest of muslin, and Morton will be bare-chested and wearing the tightest pair of breeches you have ever seen.’

  That had shut Joe up, and now at the rehearsal, Doll examined the aforesaid actor’s shapely form from the wings, as she awaited her next entrance.

  ‘No good looking at that, dearie. Didn’t you know that Morton Stanley plays backgammon with the boys?’

  It was Jed Lawless who had spoken out of the gloom where all the ropes for the backdrops came down to a series of cleats on the wall. It reminded Doll somewhat of a ship at sea, with taut ropes holding masts and sails in place. At the Royal Coburg, they disappeared into the sp
ace above the stage that she had learned was called the flies. This wing-space was Lawless’s domain, and he was often to be seen hauling on ropes and tying them off again. Usually, his crude comments were spoken sotto voce to his crew of scene shifters, but this time he had aimed his comment at Doll. He had also spoken too loud, and a red-faced Stanley stormed into the wings, brushing against Doll as he passed. He grabbed the unrepentant Lawless by the neck.

  ‘Make such unfounded allegations again, and I will kill you.’

  The stagehand seemed unworried by the actor’s violent behaviour, and simply grinned at him. The even-tempered Harry, who had been playing an angel to Stanley’s Adam, hurried over and prised his colleague’s hand from Lawless’s throat.

  ‘Come, Morton, let’s get on. We have less than two weeks to opening night.’

  Stanley growled deep in his throat, pushing Lawless back against the row of cleats.

  As he strode back on to the stage, Doll heard the stagehand whisper to himself, ‘Kill me, Molly? Not before I have killed you first.’

  Doll wanted to ask Lawless how he knew about Morton’s preference for boys, but before she could say anything, she heard her cue, and she was onstage. Strangely, the rehearsal progressed well after the altercation. Morton Stanley’s anger appeared to bring his performance to a higher pitch. And when they came to the expulsion from Eden, which was now represented by a field with a large beanstalk in it, he took hold of Doll in a feverish embrace.

  ‘“Oh, Eve, to see us is a shameful sight.

  We both, who were in bliss so bright,

  Must now go naked, day and night.”’

  As he held her to him, she felt his manhood hard against her thigh. Her eyes flashed at him, and he grinned in a way that belied Lawless’s allegation. Then the spell was ruined as sporadic applause broke out in the auditorium. Doll held out her hand to shield her eyes from the light of the candles at her feet, and peered out to see who was watching. Two gentlemen were seated side by side in the stalls a few rows back. One was rather languid, with curly hair, and handsome in a rather feminine way. The other she recognised immediately. His silver-topped cane and elegant pose gave him away.

  ‘Why, Mr Quatremain! How did you find me?’

  The charming Frenchman, whom Doll had last seen in the British Museum, rose from his seat, and bowed gravely.

  ‘It is a miracle, Mam’selle Pocket. I was invited by my friend, here . . . ’ He indicated the man at his side, who nodded her way but remained seated. ‘ . . . to view a play he was funding. He knows I have some interest in the theatre due to my uncle, who was temporarily the commissioner for the Comédie Française in Paris. So I know they call such backers as my friend “angels” in theatre parlance. And an angel he is, for he has brought us together again.’

  He walked down the aisle and leaned with his left elbow on the front edge of the stage. His cane remained extended to the right in a foppish pose.

  ‘And this time I will not let you go so easily.’

  A light cough from Will Mossop interrupted the tête-à-tête, and Doll gave Quatremain a winning smile.

  ‘We shall meet after the rehearsal, Mr Quatremain.’

  ‘Oh, please. It’s Étienne. And, yes, I shall be waiting. My friend Mr Bankes and I are completely enthralled by your performance.’

  He retreated to his seat, sliding down beside the handsome man, who was part-funding Bromhead’s endeavour. His teeth flashed a smile, and Doll turned reluctantly back to the task in hand. Morton was staring out into the auditorium, and she wondered what he felt about Quatremain’s presence. She felt a flush warming her face at the thought of choosing between these two rivals for her attention. Though whether the rampant Stanley, or the suave Quatremain was the devil or the deep sea, she was not sure.

  Malinferno, meanwhile, had returned to Creechurch Lane with thoughts of the doom-laden Play of Adam racing around his brain. He had hoped Doll would be back from the theatre, but his rooms were in darkness. The only sound was that of Mrs Stanhope’s gin-soaked snores from below. He lit an oil-lamp, and slumped down at his table, at a loss as to what to do with this new information. Would he put off Doll from chasing her dream, if he mentioned Augustus’ comment about the warning in the old manuscript? Or would she merely laugh at his worries? He idly drew the papyrus sheets towards him, and looked at the cartouche in the centre of the top one again. Recalling that Doll had suggested she had made some progress, where he had signally failed, he reached out for his notebook in case she had written something in it. After the last page of his own notes, there was a single word in her sprawling hand.

  -OLE I P KE—KE

  It was gobbledegook, and he sighed, having hoped for more. But despite having felt annoyed when she had intimated that she had made a breakthrough, he knew Doll was more likely to solve the riddle than he was. Maybe using her latest idea of single letters for each hieroglyph, rather than Dr Young’s idea of sounds, would pay dividends. He began scouring her other notes for inspiration.

  It was only when the oil lamp wick burned low and the room was plunged into darkness, that he realised how much time had passed. And that Doll was still not home. He stepped over to the bow window, which looked down onto the narrow street, and saw two figures approaching the end of Creechurch Lane. Turning in past St Katherine Cree, they were lit momentarily by the yellow light of the new gaslamps on Leadenhall Street. Such illumination had not yet crept down Malinferno’s little lane, and the two people were soon enveloped in darkness again. But he had seen who they were. One was Doll Pocket with her favourite turban perched jauntily on her head of blonde hair. And the other fellow, identifiable from the silver-topped cane that swung on the end of his elegantly clad arm, was surely the Frenchie Étienne Quatremain. As the two figures approached Mrs Stanhope’s house, his fears were confirmed. Quatremain was fashionably dressed in a rich blue tailcoat and brown fall-front trousers topped by a white waistcoat, shirt, and cravat. And Doll hung on tightly to his arm with both hands.

  Malinferno stayed by the window but hugged the shadows of his darkened room. From there he observed Quatremain escorting Doll to the very front door of Mrs Stanhope’s house. He doffed his tall hat, and kissed Doll lingeringly on her outstretched hand. Malinferno could see the simpering look on her face from where he stood. As Doll entered Mrs Stanhope’s front door, the Frenchie looked up at the first-floor window, and his gaze locked with Malinferno’s. He smiled triumphantly and turned away, striding down the lane back to the lights of Leadenhall Street.

  The stairs creaked familiarly, and Doll, apparently a little drunk, reeled into the room where Malinferno stood. She clutched her head, tilting the turban over one eye.

  ‘Joe! Are you still up? You gave me quite a shock, lurking in the shadows, there.’

  ‘I have been working. How about you?’

  Doll puffed out her cheeks, and slumped in one of the two dining chairs. It groaned in protest.

  ‘Oh, it is such hard work being an actress, Joe. You can’t imagine.’

  ‘So hard that you have to spend the rest of the evening relaxing, I suppose.’

  Doll gave Malinferno a peculiar look, until enlightenment dawned.

  ‘Oh, you mean my drink with Étienne? He was at the theatre, Joe. It would have been rude not to accept his invitation. We ain’t married, after all.’

  Malinferno pulled a sour face, knowing how his continuing aversion to such a commitment irked Doll. He sat on the other dining chair, set at the table where he had been working until the lamp wick had died.

  ‘Now it’s all my fault, I suppose.’

  Wearily, Doll rose from her chair, and plonked herself in Malinferno’s lap. The chair beneath the two of them groaned more ominously than its partner.

  ‘Silly boy.’ She twirled a hank of Malinferno’s dark locks in her slender finger. ‘Étienne was at the theatre with another gentleman, who was putting money into the play. I had to be good to him, didn’t I?’

  Malinferno pouted, twisting
his head away from Doll’s wheedling.

  ‘Why?’

  She laughed. ‘Because his name was Mr William Bankes.’

  Malinferno gave her a blank look. Then the truth dawned.

  ‘William Bankes of Kingston Lacey?’

  Doll nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, the same William Bankes who has just returned from Abu Simbel and Philae in Egypt. He’s brought an obelisk back, and will show it me. It lies at Deptford right now.’

  Malinferno pondered this exciting news for a moment before anxiously questioning Doll further.

  ‘What did Bankes demand of you for this favour?’

  Doll hugged Joe gleefully, causing the chair almost to collapse beneath her onslaught.

  ‘Why, it’s nothing like that, Joe. William Bankes is, as Jed Lawless puts it, a backgammon player.’

  ‘Why should I care about his gambling propensities?’

  Doll guffawed. ‘No, you sweet innocent. In the business,’ Doll always used this expression to mean her former trade of doxy, ‘that means he likes to enter through the back passage.’

  Malinferno gasped, never comfortable with Doll’s relapses into crudity.

  ‘You mean he frequents molly-houses?’

  ‘Yes, Joe. He likes to dress as a woman, and is more likely to be interested in Morton Stanley than me.’

  Even though Malinferno had been reassured by Doll’s innocent explanations of her various beaux, he still managed somehow to be at the Royal Coburg for the next few days. But the endless repetition of the short religious scenes from The Play of Adam began to pall. Even the topical references to the Queen’s love life, and the meetings between the King and Pergami in the guise of Cain and Abel – meetings that had never happened in real life – failed to stimulate his interest. And Mossop was ever prone to changing his mind about the location of the actors onstage. He prowled around the auditorium like a shaggy-maned lion, examining the stage from all angles.