Don Gutteridge - Vital Secrets

When the play ended and the last of six curtain calls was gracefully acknowledged, Marc led Aunt Catherine towards the exit onto Colborne Street. “I’ll walk you home, then come back here for my horse,” he said.

“Sure you won’t come up to Mrs. Thedford’s room for a nightcap?” Owen Jenkin called out just behind them. “We’ve all been invited.” He looked imploringly at Marc, who suddenly got the message.

“Both Aunt Catherine and I have had a long day, Owen. And some personal excitement I’ll tell you about later.”

“Yes,” Aunt Catherine said agreeably. “It’s past ten-thirty and I’ve a full work-day tomorrow. We’re mending some costumes for the company here.”

“Where’s Rick, then?” Marc said.

“Probably in the ingenue’s boudoir, if I know him.”

“I sincerely hope he behaves himself.”

“I’ll see to it, Marc.”

“I’ll wait for you outside when I come back from the shop in about half an hour, and we can all ride home together.”

“That should work out well for everybody. See you then.” And he trundled off to throw himself at the feet of the prima donna from Philadelphia and New York.

Just as Marc and Aunt Catherine started along Colborne, Cobb popped out of the alley leading to the stables. He had his bowler in both hands. “You don’t haveta come,” he said with acute embarrassment. “Dora gets carried away sometimes.”

“I’m coming on Wednesday because I want to, old friend,” Marc assured him.

Major Jenkin was waiting at the livery stable with two horses in hand.

“Where’s Rick?” Marc wondered, a rhetorical question in the circumstances.

Jenkin nodded up towards the theatre. “He swore to me as an officer and a gentleman that he would have one drink with Miss Guildersleeve and leave when she asked him. Mrs. Thedford was very gracious with me: I was utterly charmed by her. But I’m afraid I may have inadvertently misled her into thinking Rick was going to leave when I did. Tessa is really like an adopted daughter to her, and it’s hard enough for actresses to gain respect without having footloose soldiers dallying in their rooms. But I wasn’t going to go barging in on the youngsters like an outraged papa.”

“I think Rick believes he’s truly in love with the girl. The odds are he won’t do anything to harm her reputation. But you’re right: Rick’s a grown man, and I’m sure he realizes that Tessa’s guardian is next door. Come on, let’s be on our way.”

The two men, so recently and unexpectedly friends, rode out together towards the garrison a meandering mile or so west of the city centre under a splendid moon and a backdrop of stars. They fell into easy conversation.

“I thought the days of this old war-horse dreaming about a particular woman were over, Marc. But Annemarie is really something.”

“So I gather. I must say she impressed me tremendously. In a motherly way, of course,” he added with an appropriate chuckle.

“I asked her about Merriwether, for example, because the man intrigues me. Unlike her, I got the feeling he was acting out a role for himself, perhaps because he wasn’t happy with who he really was. Well, she told me the whole story. Seems he was a great star of the Park Theatre for twenty years, before his wife died and he hit the bottle. By the time Annemarie arrived in New York from Philadelphia and established herself, about fifteen years ago, Merriwether was on the way down. She’d met him while she was doing bit roles at the Park and admired his talent. Five years later she had become a star and part owner of the Bowery, and took it upon herself-when everyone else in the theatre world of New York was shunning him-to take a chance on the man, on condition that he give up the drink and attempt to regain his former lustre.”

“As Tessa remarked, the woman has a weakness for strays.”

“That’s an approach I’ll have to consider.”

“Well, it’s obvious she succeeded in rehabilitating him.”

“Almost. But she admitted to me, after assuring me they had never been, ah, intimate, that while Merriwether did regain much of his lost talent, he remained a difficult and often unattractive human being.”

“I expect she did what she could. And as professionals, they have certainly worked well together, as the mounting of the farce tonight showed. I’ve seen pieces like that botched many times in Drury Lane itself.”

“She seems a very giving person to me. She was kind enough to ask me about my experiences in the war, knowing full well, I trust, that such an opening is in danger of never being closed thereafter. Anyway, I did chatter on about Sandhurst and Portugal and Paris and the exploits of the Iron Duke.”

“I envy you that,” Marc sighed.

“Please, don’t, son. War is tolerable only when you’re well away from it.”

Marc was in the middle of a dream in which Beth was floating somewhere just above the foot of his bed, beckoning to him as her nightdress sailed away behind her, when a cold finger on his chin brought him reluctantly awake.

“Beth?” he murmured.

“It’s Corporal Bregman, sir. Sorry to wake you up at this hour. I’ve come straight from Colonel Margison.”

Marc sat up, shivering in the cold room. It could be no more than 2 a.m. Why would one of Margison’s orderlies be rousing him in the middle of the night?

“What is it?”

“Instructions, sir. For you.”

“At this hour?”

“I’m afraid so. A fast horse is being saddled for you right now. You are to proceed at once to the Regency Theatre.”

“What’s happened?”

“One of the actors has been murdered.”

Mark glanced quickly at Rick’s cot. It was empty.

“Is Hilliard all right?” Marc asked.

“Not quite, sir.” Bregman had turned white.

“What do you mean, ‘not quite’?”

Bregman gulped hard, and said almost in a whisper, “They’re saying he done it.”

Marc did his best to shut down his naturally speculative mind as he rode furiously towards the city from the fort, soon leaving behind the young messenger who had brought the disturbing news. But until he knew which actor had been murdered and whether Bregman’s comment about Rick Hilliard’s being an accused killer was itself speculation or fact, there was no point in fretting unnecessarily. Nonetheless, there was no denying that something terrible must have happened for Colonel Margison to have become involved and issue commands in the wee hours of a Tuesday morning. It was with a genuine sense of dread that Marc pounded up Colborne Street towards Frank’s Hotel.

He was about to wheel into the alley that led to the stables when he spotted someone in uniform waving at him from under the false balcony in front of the theatre. It was Ogden Frank, still in his militia outfit. Though the street was silent and utterly deserted, Frank was motioning him to dismount quickly, while glancing left and right as if he expected shutters to be flung open all along the thoroughfare.

In a hoarse, frightened whisper, he said to Marc, “My boy’ll see to your horse; just leave it here and come inside right away. Nobody else knows what’s happened upstairs, and we’d all like to keep it that way.”

All? Who else had arrived ahead of him?

“They’re waitin’ fer ya inside.”

Marc followed Frank through the double-doors, which Frank was careful to secure with a bar, and into the theatre itself, now steeped in gloomy shadow. The proprietor seemed able to navigate without benefit of light, and led the way through the curtained door at the right side of the stage and up the stairs towards the actors’ rooms above.

“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such a calamity as this,” Frank was muttering ahead of him. “If this news gets out, I’ll be ruined. I’ll have to store hay in the pit.”