Don Gutteridge - Vital Secrets

Sturges glared at him.

Marc decided to take full control. “I’ll be the one to decide who I might require to assist me. Right now I wish to speak to Mr. Hilliard, without further comment from either of you. Where are the others?”

“Mr. Frank’s put them over there in the dining-room,” Sturges said to Marc. “I ’aven’t been able to get a single, sensible sentence from any of ’em,” he added with an accusatory glance at Spooner.

Marc walked to the open archway between the taproom and dining area, and peered ahead. Ogden Frank was seated at a large table, around which the remaining members of the Bowery Touring Company were arrayed. An open bottle of port and half a dozen glasses, kindly supplied by Frank, sat untouched. Marc made a quick survey of the actors, one of whom he believed had ruthlessly slaughtered another of his or her fellows. After the initial tears and incredulity, it appeared as if deep shock had taken over. Thea Clarkson, in a pink robe thrown carelessly over her shoulders, looked seriously ill. Her skin was rippled with cold sweat and she was trembling uncontrollably. Annemarie Thedford’s reaction was registered in the sudden appearance of lines and wrinkles that one did not notice when she was smiling and in command of her surroundings. Her eyes, bloodshot with weeping, were kindled by more than one kind of pain; after all, she was enduring the knowledge of her ward’s violation and the simultaneous loss of a professional partner in her life’s work. The financial and personal loss would be both acute and irreparable.

Clarence Beasley was staring straight ahead with a glazed expression that was unreadable, but exhaustion was telegraphed in every aspect of his collapsed posture. Leaning on his shoulder, unremarked, was Dawson Armstrong, who, having sobered up enough to have realized the severity of what had happened, had then promptly fallen asleep. Lastly, Jeremiah Jefferson lay with his head on the table, holding his left cheek and moaning softly. His bloated countenance was not likely due to any remorse or particular sorrow over Merriwether’s demise.

Unfortunately, Armstrong seemed to have the most obvious motive for doing away with his rival while having the least capacity for doing the deed. Thea Clarkson appeared too ill to have wielded that bloody sword, even if Marc were able to discover a motive for her. While he could envision Mrs. Thedford defending her ward against attack from any quarter, she would have to have been mad or bent on self-destruction to have plunged a sword through the heart of her own enterprise. His best bet seemed to be Beasley, although if he had smouldering depths, they were ingeniously disguised. The mute was a possibility, but a slim one. Marc wanted to sit them down one by one right then and thrash the necessary truths out of them, but he realized he would get nothing coherent from any of them until morning.

Poor Frank looked worse than any of the actors. His eyes, very far apart in his moon-face, seemed to be searching for each other without much success, and his hand-wringing was pathetic to behold. Though he was a known Orangeman who might conceivably hate Americans, it was not plausible that he had built a theatre worthy of attracting professional troupes from abroad, only to murder the first bona fide star to step onto his stage.

“What do you want us to do now?” Frank asked. “Miss Guildersleeve’s asleep in our spare room and my missus is beside herself with worry.”

“I’ll decide what to do with everybody in a few minutes. Try to keep from despairing, sir.” Other than this vacuous advice, Marc could think of nothing to say that might be remotely consoling.

“Lieutenant, it is now nearly three o’clock in the morning. The governor will be frantic-”

“Please leave me alone with Hilliard,” Marc said curtly to Spooner.

“I think we should do as the lieutenant suggests,” Withers said with a barely suppressed yawn.

“Five minutes, that’s all!” Spooner said to Marc with a lopsided twitch of his moustache, which simultaneously activated a similar twitch of the left eyebrow. “And I’ll be standing beside the bar, where I can keep an eye on you.”

“Do you want me to help?” Sturges said.

“May I have Constable Cobb to assist me?”

“Well, what do you say, Cobb?” Sturges said to his favourite constable.

Cobb had been standing aside in deference to his superior, but not without periodic, baleful glowerings at Spooner when loyalty demanded such. “Ya mean fer the rest of the time it takes us to finish the job?” he enquired.

“I do,” Marc said.

“But you have no authority to deputize anybody!” Spooner bellowed from his post at the bar.

“I believe the governor will back me up,” Marc said. “And this way, the local constabulary will have a say in what is at least partly their affair.”

“What a fine solution,” Sturges said, and moved across to join Spooner at the bar some ten paces away.

Marc took a deep breath and drew a chair up beside Rick, who had not raised his head once since Marc and the others had entered the taproom. It was doubtful if he’d even heard a word of the conversation around him. Cobb placed his generous profile between Rick and the men at the bar.

“Rick, it’s me. I’m here to help you.”

“Marc?” The voice was shrunken, scarcely recognizable; the eyes remained downcast. Merriwether’s blood had begun to dry in ugly brown smears on his scarlet jacket with its green-and-gold trim. His flies were still untied, but the flaps had been closed. There was blood on his pants, on the backs of both hands, and on his head, where his palms had rested in despair or remorse.

“I need to talk to you, man-to-man.”

“They won’t tell me what happened to her.”

“Tessa is resting. She’s had a terrible shock, but I don’t think she’s badly injured.”

“They won’t let me see her.”

“I’ll talk to her the second she wakes up in the morning. That’s a promise.”

Rick’s next statement was nearly a sob: “I’m not sure she’ll want to see me.”

“A lot depends on what you can tell me now, Rick. I realize that it must be horrific to think about what happened up there, but I’ve been sent by the governor to find the truth, all of it. Don’t worry about that trumped-up martinet Spooner; I am in charge. You can trust me.” Marc leaned over and whispered into Rick’s ear: “And I don’t believe for one moment that you drove your sabre through an unconscious man.”

Rick Hilliard raised his head slowly, peering up at Marc with round, enquiring, frightened eyes. “What can I tell you?” He looked away with a sigh, but when his gaze fell upon the bib of blood on his tunic, he looked back up at Marc and kept his eyes steadily upon his friend.

“Tell me everything you can remember about tonight, starting with what Tessa and you did when you went into her room shortly before eleven o’clock.”

Rick seemed puzzled by the question, or else was just more deeply in shock than Marc realized. But when Marc merely waited, he said at last, “We just laughed and talked … about the play … and how wonderful she was in it … and how much the audience loved it … just talk … you know.”

“Yes, I do. But think carefully now. When did you or Tessa take a drink of the sherry?”

“Not for a while. She was bubbling with excitement. Her eyes were like saucers. It must have been about eleven-thirty or after-there was a clock in the corner chiming the quarters, I remember-when I suggested we have a drink. I did promise Owen I would not stay long … I wanted to, oh, how I did, but I know that he … he saw us go into Tessa’s room-”

“Merriwether?”

“Yes, and Mrs. Thedford, too, but she smiled and told us to be careful. I didn’t want to let Owen down, or Mrs. Thedford either, and I didn’t want to harm Tessa’s reputation … but look what I’ve done. Oh, God, this is awful … this is unbearable.”