Death at the Beggar's Opera

by Deryn Lake

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  He crossed the corridor in a single jump, at least that is how it felt to him, and went to push down the handle on Coralie’s door. It moved but did not give and then John remembered that he had told her to lock herself in.

  ‘Coralie,’ he shouted, ‘open the door for God’s sake. It’s John.’

  There was no reply but from within could be heard the faint sounds of a struggle. Taking a few steps back, the Apothecary thrust his shoulder into the door and it was only as it swung open that he remembered he had left his pistol in the other room.

  At first John could see nothing, for all the candles had blown out in the icy draught coming through the open window, clearly the means of the intruder’s entry. Then his eyes grew used to the blackness and he managed to pick out dim shapes. Coralie, in her nightgown, had been half pushed back onto the bed, out of which she had obviously jumped in alarm. A man leant over her with his hands tightly squeezed around her throat, while she flailed and struggled as helplessly as a captured bird. Wishing he were armed, John flung himself at her attacker, dragging him down towards the floor. Very remotely, he became aware of pounding feet and realised that the alarm had been raised at last.

  Though he knew, because of the sampler, whom he was fighting, the Apothecary still could not see his adversary, and rolled and grappled and punched blindly, hoping that his fists would make contact with some vital part of the man’s anatomy. Then came a roar from the doorway.

  ‘Give yourself up or I fire.’ It was Rudge, surrounded by a group of his cohorts, several of whom held candelabra, thus brightly illuminating the scene.

  But the attacker hadn’t given up the battle yet. Delivering John a blow to the guts which left him winded, he struggled up from beneath the gasping Apothecary and snatched Coralie from the bed, holding her in front of him. John saw that the man had Sir Gabriel’s duelling pistol in his hand and that he was pointing it straight at the actress’s temple.

  ‘One move from any of you and she gets into her coffin,’ he called. ‘Now, where’s my sister?’

  John regained his breath. ‘In the other room.’

  ‘One of you fetch her. Then I want a carriage brought round to the front door with four strong horses in the trace.’

  ‘There are no animals here. Lord Delaney took them with him.’

  ‘Don’t give it me for nothing! I’ve been round to the mews. It’s packed with beasts.’

  There was a shout from the doorway. ‘The woman in the other room is unconscious. You’d best let Mr Rawlings look at her.’

  ‘Is this a trick?’ snarled the intruder.

  ‘Come and see for yourself,’ answered Rudge, his voice full of contempt and loathing. And John thought that the situation was like tinder and just hoped that no one’s trigger finger twitched.

  The attacker looked at him where he lay on the floor. ‘Get to your feet, Apothecary, and go to her. But if you harm one hair of her head I’ll blow yours clean off your neck.’

  Terribly aware of his predicament, John made his way through the bunch of Runners and peachers, who parted for him like the Red Sea, and went to kneel beside Lucy Egleton’s body. Despite the blow he had given her she was breathing normally. Crossing over to the ewer and basin standing on the wash stand, John poured cold water on a towel then applied it to Lucy’s forehead, meanwhile holding his salts beneath her nose. Her eyelids flickered and opened and she gazed round her dazedly, then she saw her brother standing in the open doorway, his human shield lolling against him.

  They exchanged a look then, a look which only John could see, a look so deep that he knew at once what Mrs Atkins had been talking about. They loved one another; loved with a love that far transcended that normally experienced by brother and sister. Rejected by their mother, fostered out into alien surroundings, spurned by Jasper Harcross, the Egleton children had found comfort only in each other. John supposed that, in the literal meaning of the words, they had fallen in love.

  ‘Are you safe?’ she said.

  ‘Perfectly, but what about you?’ And her brother unguardedly took a step into the room.

  Everything happened. Rudge, seizing the momentary advantage, fired at the intruder who whirled and fired back, winging the Runner in the shoulder. John, seeing his pistol still lying by the chair where he had left it, lunged for it, only for Lucy to claw at him so viciously that he was unable to reach it. At this the ranks of the Runners broke and they charged her brother in a mass. There was a loud explosion followed by a scream and John saw that the man had gone down, dragging Coralie with him. Fighting his way through the heaving mass of bodies, he reached the actress’s side and lifted her high, away from all the blood and horror spilling onto the floor beside her.

  ‘Have they killed him?’ she whispered as John carried her to the bed.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered quietly.

  ‘Poor Dick,’ she said, ‘poor, poor Dick.’

  ‘Poor? The man was a ruthless killer.’

  ‘But if he was one of the missing Egletons, and I can only presume he must be, then his fate was decided for him, wasn’t it?’

  It was no time for argument and after tucking her comfortably into bed the Apothecary momentarily left Coralie Clive while he went to examine the last mortal remains of Dick Weatherby, the wretched soul who had been born into the world George Egleton. Yet just as he bent over the body he was thrust to one side. Lucy had recovered sufficiently to stagger from the bedroom into the corridor, where her brother lay in his own blood and shattered flesh, far beyond the help she so desperately longed to give him.

  She fell upon him like a figure from Greek tragedy, covering him with her body and mourning in the manner of a widow. She had put her black cloak back on and she draped it over the two of them for a funeral pall, while from deep within her throat came a sound the like of which John had never heard before. She was neither crying nor moaning but keening, lamenting her dead in a high unearthly wail.

  ‘God’s pity, Lucy!’ he exclaimed. ‘You mustn’t agonise like that. You’ll break your heart.’

  She turned her head to look at him. ‘It is already broken, there is no hope for me.’ She gave him the faintest smile ‘Do you know, I was fond of you, Mr Rawlings.’ Then that beautiful mouth opened and she slipped the muzzle of Sir Gabriel’s pistol between her lips – and fired.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The room that John always thought of as so light and airy was snug with winter warmth. Despite the earliness of the hour a well established fire burned in the grate of Mr Fielding’s salon, in front of which stood a jug of steaming toddy, keeping hot. Seated in chairs on either side of this cheerful conflagration were the Blind Beak himself and John Rawlings who, for the second time in their acquaintanceship, had been drawn into a trail of intrigue and violence and had determinedly followed it through to its ultimate conclusion. Yet though they had been discussing all the terrible events that had taken place for over two hours, in this case there had been a certain amount of personal involvement on the Apothecary’s part. And now he needed to talk over this particular aspect with the man whose judgement he respected only second to that of his father.

  Yet it was extraordinary really, John thought, looking at the Blind Beak who sat, blissfully unaware of the other’s regard, facing the fire, thrusting out his hands to the flames. For John Fielding, despite the awe in which most of society held him, was still only a few days off his thirty-third birthday, young yet to hold a position of such enormous power. However, disregarding the fact that the Magistrate was only ten years older than the Apothecary, the younger man still desperately needed his advice.

  ‘Sir, it is about Polly Rose, née Lucy Egleton, that I am most anxious to talk to you.’

  ‘I guessed as much,’ said Mr Fielding, and held out his empty mug that John might refill it with toddy.

  ‘But how?’

  ‘There was something about your voice when you mentioned her to me.’

  ‘Yet I mention
ed a dozen other people as well.’

  The Blind Beak smiled. ‘I told you once before, my friend, that when I lost my sight I gained other compensations. There is scarcely a verbal nuance that escapes me. I gathered from a certain hesitancy in your tone that you and the girl shared a tendresse.’

  John looked at the Magistrate earnestly, forgetting for a moment that he could not see his face. ‘Mr Fielding, I know that in about an hour’s time you are due to address the company at Drury Lane and explain to them all that has happened. I also know you will be very frank. So may I just say that I would not like it made public that Lucy Egleton granted me her favours.’

  ‘Naturally you may rely on my discretion. But how terrible for you, my friend, that you became involved with a killer, and that she died in the way she did. It must weigh very heavily upon you.’

  ‘Oh it does, it does,’ the Apothecary answered sadly ‘Though to tell the truth it was only a physical infatuation on my part, in my heart I did not love her. Which makes me sound like the biggest rakehell in London, but there it is.’

  Mr Fielding actually guffawed out loud. ‘My dear Mr Rawlings, you are only doing what most of your fellow humans do. You are learning about life and love. You are no nearer a rakehell than I am a highwayman.’

  John sighed, not greatly comforted. ‘The puzzling thing is, though, that Lucy let me make love to her at all. I told you of the look she exchanged with her brother. I could almost swear that they regarded one another as husband and wife.’

  ‘Now you are being fanciful,’ answered the Blind Beak firmly. ‘For all her grievous sin, Lucy was a woman like any other and as free to give herself as the next. If she did love Dick as you say – and that is only your belief, remember – then she was amusing herself with a dalliance, as has done many a married woman before her. You must cease to dwell on it, Mr Rawlings, and realise that your relationship with her was yet another of the innumerable experiences which litter the path to maturity.’

  John sighed. ‘But I cannot help mourn her.’

  ‘If you did not,’ Mr Fielding answered thoughtfully, ‘you would not be the young man whom I have grown to respect and trust so well. Now, drain your tankard, my friend, we are due at Drury Lane within the hour.’

  It was a strange gathering, this motley collection of theatre people all come together to hear the Principal Magistrate explain to them the link between the violent deaths of Jasper Harcross and William Swithin, and the shootings that had occurred in the fashionable London house belonging to Lord Delaney. By now the fact that Dick Weatherby and Polly Rose were dead was common knowledge, though nobody seemed quite to know why or how. Rumours of foul play had been dismissed in favour of wild talk of suicide pacts, and so it was with enormous interest, if not to say prurience, that Mr Fielding’s invitation to meet him once more at Drury Lane had been accepted by all concerned.

  This time, David Garrick had set a high chair, used in King Lear, on the stage, its back to the auditorium, which was shielded by the drawn curtains. Not to pass unnoticed, the actor-manager himself sat in a somewhat smaller seat, suspiciously like Macbeth’s throne of state, beside it. A semi circle of gilt chairs, taken from the boxes, faced it, extra spaces for other people being provided by the boxes themselves.

  Coming in through the stage door, following the Magistrate who was being led by Joe Jago, John wondered if it could really have been only a few days before that they were similarly gathered together to hear the announcement that Coralie Clive had gone missing. It seemed more like months, he thought. Without wanting to, he looked round at the places where Polly and Dick had stood and was almost shocked not to see them there.

  As if they were going to watch a play, the spectators had arrived early, and there was a buzz of expectancy in the air. Staring about him to find out who was present, John’s eyes alighted first on the Clive sisters, sitting together in a box, Coralie wearing a scarf around her throat to hide the ugly bruising caused by the pressure of Dick’s fingers. Also there, very pale and subdued and looking a great deal thinner, was Clarice Martin, who sat beside her husband in one of the higher boxes, her face shaded by a large dark hat. Seated side by side on the gilt chairs were Amelia and Adam Verity, he with one leg negligently crossed over the other, she wearing the most stunning headgear in the place. Not to be outdone, the ménage-à-trois, Mrs Vine, Mr Bowdler and Mr Masters, were also dressed exceptionally well, and it briefly occurred to John that most of the theatricals had regarded this meeting as a place at which to be seen as well as to see.

  Notably absent from the throng were Sarah Delaney and her husband, he having sent a personal messenger to say that he could not possibly expect his pregnant wife to set foot in their home until all signs of the recent violence had been cleared away. Another face that should have been amongst the crowd, yet no one with any humanity could have expected it to be, was that of Mrs Harcross, that inadvertent bird of ill omen, whose neglect of her children had been the cause of so much suffering. However, one late comer, Samuel, rushed in looking rather red in the face and took a seat beside his friend.

  ‘Sorry to be late,’ he panted. ‘What a morning! I had intended to close the shop but my father insisted that I get a boy in.’ He looked important. ‘Now that I have been made Free I am considering getting an apprentice.’

  John slanted his brows. ‘How very nice for you.’

  Samuel looked repentant. ‘I’m sorry. I had no desire to be tactless.’

  ‘Be quiet,’ his friend hissed in reply. ‘Mr Fielding is about to speak.’

  And indeed the powerful figure of the Magistrate had risen from his chair while the bandaged sightless eyes appeared to scan the company. Beside him, David Garrick assumed an air of deep gloom and had the occasion not been one of such profound tragedy, John would have laughed.

  ‘Mr Garrick, ladies and gentlemen of the Drury Lane company,’ Mr Fielding began. ‘The pitiful story which I am about to tell you began and ended in a theatre and thus it is fitting that we are gathered here today in order that I may recount it. As ever, my well trusted friend Mr Rawlings will fill in those parts of the tale that are relevant to him. I shall outline the rest.’ He paused momentarily, then went on.

  ‘I think it was a shock to many present to discover at the time of Jasper Harcross’s murder that he was a married man. I am not repeating cheap tittle-tattle but stating a fact when I tell you that he loved the ladies well. Indeed in many instances in this strange account you will see that art mirrored life, and no more so than in the similarity between Captain Macheath and Jasper Harcross. However, despite his amours, it is now known that Jasper had contracted a marriage many years before, when he was struggling to make his way in the theatre, and with no less a personage than the great Mrs Egleton, the actress who created the part of Lucy Lockit in the original production of The Beggar’s Opera.’

  There was a loud murmur of surprise from several people present and somebody coughed nervously. The Magistrate waited for the hubbub to die down, then continued.

  ‘At the time of the marriage Mrs Egleton was a beautiful widow in her thirties, probably at the height of her career. However, this same career had not been achieved without a certain amount of sacrifice. By her first husband the actress had borne two children, a boy and a girl, to whom their father, being considerably older than their mother, devoted himself. However, on his death she put them out to a foster mother, a Mrs Camber of Chelsea, and in that sowed the seeds of destruction. What it was about these particular children we shall never know, but let me say, very simply, that they could not have been of a robust mental disposition. In other words, whereas some young people would have made the best of this twist of fate, these two appear to have turned in on themselves and to one another for their salvation.

  ‘It now appears that after some years, when she had remarried, Mrs Egleton offered them a ray of hope and invited them to come home once more. To actors like yourselves, used to envisaging the emotions of others, it cannot be difficult to
picture their excitement and joy. But this was to be dashed, for Jasper Harcross refused to have then under the same roof, and once again these children were cast aside. It must have been at this time that a loathing for the man, so violent that it could only have come from very tortured beings, was born. It was this loathing that brought about the two violent deaths in this theatre. You may be wondering at this point why William Swithin should have been a victim of their hatred and I will ask Mr Rawlings to explain that to you.’

  Acutely aware that Mrs Martin was sitting in a stage box only a few yards away from him, John got to his feet.

  ‘The reason why the boy should also have been killed puzzled me enormously. At first I thought it might be because he knew something that the killer did not want him to repeat, and indeed that may have been partly true. Sleeping in the theatre as he did, the poor child might well have seen the person who sawed through the planking of the mobile and yet have been reluctant to say who it was. In fact he came to my shop to tell me something but was thwarted in the attempt. Because of that I could not let the matter rest. I already knew that someone from Drury Lane was acting as patron to a poor orphan boy, but at that stage had made no connection. However, a visit to the Foundling Hospital revealed some new evidence. I feel I should spare the feelings of certain people present and simply say that William Swithin was the son of persons connected with this theatre.’

  Once again there was a gasp of amazement which grew to a crescendo as Mrs Martin stood up in her box. Her face may have been shadowed by her sweeping hat but her voice was clear for all that.

  ‘Friends – I hope I may still call you that – I was the mother of William Swithin and Jasper Harcross was his father. My dear husband who, since my recent illness, I have grown to love and respect more than any other being upon this earth, wanted me to keep the baby, knowing full well that it was not his. It was I, selfish, shallow creature that I was, who insisted that the boy be left at the gates of the Foundling Hospital. James took him there, even though it must have broken his heart to act thus, but dropped an embroidered initialled handkerchief as he did so. In this way Mr Fielding and Mr Rawlings arrived at the truth about the boy’s parentage.’