Trumpets Sound No More

by Jon Redfern

  The three men ran down the corridor by the dressing rooms and took their places. After waiting a few moments, they signed to each other, and Endersby stepped into a dark corner by the stage entrance. He waited, hearing the cries, the tumult, the sudden blast of trumpets which quieted the theatre. As he watched his quarry leave by a side door, he let his two sergeants begin the chase. He hurried back to the auditorium. He looked at his watch and figured ten to fifteen minutes would be all he needed before he must make his final move.

  In the grand house of Old Drury, the smell of acrid smoke floated over the hushed audience. Queen Victoria was standing now in her box like one of her new public statues. She took on a solemn gaze. The audience rose with her in silence and in awe. The Queen bowed her head and raised her right hand, pointing it toward the stage curtain. All eyes followed her. Endersby sensed it was as if her royal presence had a magnetic power, as if her outstretched hand could, over space and through smoke, bless the charred form of little Betty Loxton who lay dead on the stage under the guard of a weeping boy of fourteen.

  Endersby signaled to Harriet. She held her head high, her handkerchief in her hand. She nodded twice back to him. The Queen then turned from the sorry sight, and with no fanfare left her royal chair behind, taking with her the Prince and her entourage. The audience remained standing, and Endersby without further delay went from the auditorium and pushed his way through the backstage halls and foyers into Brydges Street, hired a hansom and rode onward to the house of a murderer.

  * * *

  “We’re ready, sir,” said Caldwell in a low voice. Endersby took the muslin bag from him. In the distance, Birken stood in the shadows by the back door of the building.

  “Stott’s gone inside already, Inspector.”

  “Wait here, then Caldwell. For five minutes only. Then come upstairs and stand by the door, which I shall leave ajar.”

  Endersby did not attempt to explain his presence to the agitated dour aunt when she confronted him in the hall.

  “Are they together?” he asked her.

  “Yes, but what…?”

  Endersby reached for the doorknob and left the confused woman covering her face with her hands.

  The bed was in the centre of the room, facing a crackling fire. The figure of Sarah lay propped up on pillows in the four poster with a canopy and side curtains. Her eyes were closed, her face so death-like and pallid in hue that Endersby feared she had taken a turn for the worse. The thin mattress under her no longer had a skirt around it. The cloth had been removed and now lay spread, like a banner, over one of the chairs near the window. Under the canopy sat a man with white greasepaint on his face, his eyes outlined in black, his tall bony frame still clothed in woolly fur and green spangled boots. He was holding Sarah’s thin hand.

  “Mr. Weston.”

  “Please come in, Inspector. I beg your pardon for the disarray.”

  Endersby left the door ajar, placing his satchel by it to keep it still. He walked forward, his shadow running beside him on the wall across from the brilliant hearth. The shadow lifted up the muslin bag and placed it on the bed. Endersby’s silhouette then faced that of Mr. Weston’s.

  “Please sit down, sir, if you so wish,” said the actor.

  Endersby took a chair and pulled it toward Mr. Weston. He noticed immediately that the mattress sat unevenly upon the bed frame.

  Weston looked down, his face coming into the glare of a candle on the side table, his eye sockets lighting up as if he were out of doors in sunlight. “I thought it the best place to hide things, Inspector. I kept my money, my cancelled promissory notes and other possessions under her. Who would have considered disturbing a sickly girl?”

  “Who indeed?” replied Endersby.

  Weston reached for the packet young Crabb had brought him earlier in the evening. He took it from the side table and opened it. Out came a clean glove, the match to the one found at the murder scene, a coster’s cap, and a slip of paper. Mr. Weston read the number on the paper in a whispery voice. “He is a fine cabby, this chap,” the actor said, handing the paper to Endersby. “I assume you shall want that returned to you, sir?”

  Endesrby placed the paper in his coat pocket.

  “Now look in the muslin bag beside you, Mr. Weston.”

  Weston let go of Sarah’s hand. He placed it tenderly on the counterpane and reached for the muslin bag. Endersby spotted Caldwell’s face in the shadow of the hall.

  “I imagine we are not alone, Inspector?” queried Weston. His face fell once again under the shadow of the bed’s canopy. He opened the bag and lifted out the soiled glove found at Doughty Street. He laid it on top of the other, the two a perfect match. Next he noticed the collar of a mackintosh coat peeking out of the bag. “Ah, you have that as well, sir,” said Weston, his voice feigning delight and surprise.

  “One of our witnesses at the coroner’s inquest mentioned she had seen, on and off, a tall man in a coster’s cap and mackintosh coat. She imagined he was a frequenter of Mr. Cake’s residence, as you certainly were.”

  “Often. The man was generous in his loans. Demanding, of course, when it came to repayment. But always fair. I admired him. I found him eccentric, especially his empty house with his unlocked doors. He seemed content without servants.”

  “You knew better than most that his house was empty, easy to break into.”

  “Child’s play, sir. But I had intended only to retrieve this last item. This promissory note you have folded in the bag. I knew there was one left—for thirty pounds— but I could not find it that evening, Friday last. It was all I wanted other than ready cash.”

  “Mr. Cake was diligent in his bookkeeping. He kept all of it in his head and on his person.”

  “How so?” inquired the actor. His sister opened her eyes for a moment, then closed them again, unaware of Inspector Endersby sitting close by.

  “Sewn into his cloak.”

  “How clever.” Weston stared at the muslin bag in a frozen reverie. He then mumbled a single word.

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Weston?”

  “Evil,” replied the actor. “It shows itself in odd ways, sir. It was a simple thought only.”

  “I wondered when I saw the beds in a burnt lodging house if perhaps you thought as those men did,” said Endersby. “Secrets hidden in obvious places.”

  “Perhaps, Inspector. I thought of my dear Sarah as a kind of guard. Her illness allowed me to take advantage of a place of which even my aunt was unawares.” Weston began stroking his sister’s hand, the shadow over the bed casting a line just below his eyes, so that the lower part of his face was in light, the upper in dark, his whites barely visible. He picked up the promissory note. “I meant to tear this up if and when I found it.”

  Endersby leaned forward quickly. Here was a piece of valuable evidence he could not allow to be destroyed. Caldwell had made a slight move, and his foot was inside the door. But then Mr. Weston folded the note and put it back in the muslin bag. “Why bother,” he then said. “The gallant man is dead.”

  Weston stood and stretched. He turned and noticed Caldwell by the banister in the hall. He smiled and sat down again. “Provocation, Inspector.”

  “Yes?” said Endersby, attentive and waiting.

  “What provokes a man?” asked the actor. “Fear? Anger? Love?”

  “All three from time to time,” said Endersby, his eyes held hard on Weston’s face.

  The actor pulled on the pair of gloves. He examined them, turning them in front of his eyes.

  “Sarah made these. She could hardly pull thread, let alone cut and make a glove. But she insisted. She wanted me to have them for rehearsals. She said they were one of a kind, and that for me, they would always remind her of how grateful she was.”

  “Grateful, sir?” asked Endersby.

  “She does not wish to be in this cruel world of ours, sir,” the actor said. Tears came quickly to his eyes. “I have tried to warn her. I have bought antidotes, prayed with her, paid
doctors to dissuade her. But she insists. She must be tethered from time-to-time. She has fits of joy followed by fits of inertia and terrible melancholy.”

  Endersby moved his eyes toward Sarah, her frame but a gentle stretch of skin and bone under the covers.

  “Why did you kill him, Mr. Weston?”

  “Provocation, sir. One can never predict what one is capable of doing under duress.”

  “You are an actor, sir. You are used to reining in emotions, shaping them, controlling them.”

  “Ah, sir, you sound like a mesmerist. Do you detectives use mesmerism to trick your felons into confession?”

  “On occasion. But I sense that shall not be necessary with you, sir.”

  “You have invaded my house, ransacked my hiding place, thrown my old aunt into tears. There is provocation, sir. But as you see, I am calm and collected.”

  “Why did you kill Samuel Cake?”

  “Ah, Inspector, the tale is simpler than our own pantomime.”

  Again, Weston stared off in reverie. He asked permission to take some refreshment. Caldwell entered and stood by the closed door as the actor went to a sideboard, opened a jug and poured out a glass of dark rum. He offered some to Endersby, who refused. Weston drank half the glass and went to stand by the hearth. Given what he knew, given what he feared could happen, Endersby sat forward in his chair. Mr. Weston was a strong man. He was London’s finest fencing actor. He could, if inspired, begin to fight. He might even consider an escape through the glass of the bedroom window. To his relief, Endersby noticed that Stott had been thorough in his break-in: he had removed the poker and shovel from the fireside. The only weapon the actor might use, other than the jug or a glass, would be his large fists.

  “We have time, sir,” said Endersby, “if you wish to regale my sergeant and me with the tale. We are all ears. I am most curious to know why and how you killed Mr. Cake.”

  * * *

  Owen Endersby learned this much: It was on Friday night last, late after the performance. William Weston washed his face in his dressing room basin before making his way to Miss Root’s parlour at the end of the hall. He looked in upon her, her two female cronies and the young sprite, Master Crabb. Indeed, they were all waiting for him. He did not guess the oysters had been served already. He jested to the gathered company: “I am a beggar invited to a banquet, yet not like a beggar, but a prince-come-lately.”

  The company dined and spoke of the play. And of Mr. Cake and his feat of stealing away Elisabetta Mazzini from the dragon claws of Henry Robertson Dupré. “As if,” Miss Root said, “Samuel Cake was a knight in armour. Off to Swan Yard to his club he has taken her.”

  The night grew late. Weston still harboured anger at what Cake had done to him earlier that evening. In a tavern, behind the great theatre, he and Cake had agreed on a rendezvous of sorts, Weston preparing himself to beg a loan for medicine for Sarah. Cake, dressed in his showy clothes, started to dispute over a few pounds owing . He dared to call Mr. Weston a careless debtor, “ready for Marshalsay Prison.” Weston held defence against the insult; he had no choice; blaming words meant nothing; could he persuade Samuel Cake to soften— to grant but an extra small loan to a loyal borrower? Was Cake capable, at least, of simple compassion ?

  No one could predict Samuel Cake. He refused his friend. He mocked him again, exciting Weston to shout, whereupon Cake had the tavern-keeper shove the actor out the door. Later, when the performances were finished and Weston had dined, he left the company in Miss Root’s parlour and decided he would assail Cake once again. After all he was desperate. Sarah lay on her bed in Cromer Street needing sedatives, leeches for clearing her blood. Unless she received these, she might fall into a death-like sleep. Possibly, she could become like the heroines in Italian operas and slip into madness, tearing her clothes, harming her body with pins, broken glass.

  “I, therefore, put on my cloak and hat, determined to walk to Cake’s club in Swan Yard. I felt light-headed from the French wine.” Not fifteen minutes later when he confronted the club’s proprietor, an arrogant Jimmy-Know-All, Weston stank of rum he had purchased on his way, for this sweet-bitter drink gave him courage.

  “Mr. Cake asked not to be disturbed, sir,” the man sneered. “You’ve cheap drink on your breath, my man. Off with you.” The proprietor crooked his finger to a ruddy Irishman behind him holding a thick cane to beat off intruders. The two approached Weston with threatening glances.

  “Call me a hansom, you insolent donkey,” Weston demanded. The Irishman stopped grinning. He stepped forward, spat on the floor, then after a mock bow, mouthed a whistle and a cab instantly appeared.

  That was the start. “I was in no state of sound reason,” Weston said. “The rum cut apart my logical senses.” The cab drove north towards the Foundling Hospital; the wobbly wheels shook the cab so hard, Weston feared he’d lose his fine supper and so asked the driver to pull over. Descending from the hansom, Weston decided to walk through Mecklenburgh Square to clear his head, to balance his thoughts. “I stopped to gaze at a new lot being dug for a house. The earth was blood red, thick, and like a curious boy I decided to walk through it to see the back end of another house with a large open court. It felt a fine, brisk evening, and since I had no intention of giving up my quest for a loan, I came to my senses. Leaving that square I decided to stroll to Cake’s house, to Number 46 Doughty Street, with which I was familiar, and wait for him to return from Swan’s Yard. How could he refuse me yet again, I argued. The man was, at bottom, not a monster.”

  Fifteen minutes past one o’clock in the morning, the lone parish bell gave out one tinny clang. Though Weston had been walking for a short while, he was not restless nor did he doubt that Cake would lend him money. Anger, it seemed at that moment, had retreated from Weston’s sensibility. The street was dark and empty. “Why not enter Cake’s house and wait inside, in the kitchen. I’d done it often enough before,” explained Weston, his tale-telling voice devoid of emotion. Quietly opening the unlocked door to the Cake’s Doughty Street kitchen, Weston crept in, out of sight of any passerby. He lit a candle in the hall and shielding it, climbed to the first floor then to the second, the cold empty rooms resounding with his footsteps.

  Whereupon he set his mind on searching the bedroom desk, remembering the note for thirty pounds he had signed. “Why let him throw that in my face?” Weston said, pondering his actions. The desk drawers were full of documents, other notes but nowhere did he discover his thirty-pound promissory note. “I could simply tear it up, I thought,” said Weston. “Cake would not remember such a trivial item.” He searched on, but became disappointed. The room was ghostly; Weston looked back at the track of red mud he’d made. He thought: but how will the foolish man with no servants clean it all up? Weston was about to leave when he heard glass breaking. He paused. He heard rough voices. It sounded as if the basement door was being kicked open. More voices, footsteps, raucous laughs.

  Weston stood stone still. The noise flew up the stairwells. How had this happened, he wondered? On the night he plays the thief, there are others like him mad enough to rob the rich young man from Surrey side. “Come, let’s come out Mr. Arrogance,” shouted a countryman’s voice. It carried a violent threat to it. It could crush a skull, thought Weston. “Come ye out, Mr. Contraption,” yelled another, and this was followed by stamping boots and slamming doors. More laughter erupted, but soon the curses and questions began to get closer. Men were climbing up from the kitchen.

  Hurry, you must hide. Hurry.

  “Hoi, hollah,” shouted the voices. Feet tramped, shouts threw out more insults; the intruders then began the ascent to the second floor. Weston looked to the bedroom window. He hid behind the drape. He moved so quick he knocked over a chamber pot with its stale piss, clack and spill, all in a second. He held his breath. He covered his mouth and held his body close to the window as he heard one man enter the door opposite him and pause.

  “No sleeping body here,” the man shouted. “Where are
you, Mr. Cake?” a deep hoarse voice cried. “You aren’t safe, Cake. Nor be your fine house…we have truncheons, we have clubs, Mr. Cake. Come out, wag, Mr. Contraption Man.” The bedroom was left untouched, unexplored.

  Weston stepped from behind the curtain. Now a new noise commenced, one as frightening as the bawls of these violent bullies. Smashing, crashing had begun. Glass shattered; heavy chairs cracked. All the while there was a constant hammering so sharp Weston felt the banging through the boards on the second floor.

  But what kind of house thieves are these, he wondered? No, rogues like these are not after cash. Thieves want silver not broken furniture. These folk are murderers, indeed. They are savages. Best to stay hidden in the shadows. Will not the neighbors complain? Weston wondered. “In such a locked-up street I wished the constables good speed. But then, how could a young baton-wheeling constable overpower this congregation of hammers and clubs?” The noise remained for a time on the first floor, down the stairs into the basement. Then voices and feet disappeared; the house fell quiet as a grave. Weston said aloud, “They have gone, oh mercy. Come and gone. And what have they done?” Cake ought to have been home by now. But then Cake, he’d heard, slept at his theatre, dined with his seamstresses. He ought not to have this shell of a house. To what purpose? To show his fat purse to the world? Weston began to curse him. Not only for his money. But for something much stronger. Cheap rum had brought on a sharp headache and a melancholy. A rising memory of sorrow accompanied them. All rested on the face of dear lost Sarah. Once, Cake had cherished her. “Like a lover,” whispered Weston. “Like a true love.” Cake had thrown Sarah aside. Such abandonment was too brutal for Sarah. Such infected her mind so that she hid away inside her feelings of loss. Closeted her reason until it shriveled away like a plucked flower. “Guilty you are, Cake,” Weston mumbled aloud. Certainly you broke her heart and brought sadness into the Weston household. How could you do this? “Dog, charlatan, vulture!” Weston stopped on the stairs wanting rum, railing against Samuel Cake with mounting obscenity.