The Medieval Murderers - The First Murder

‘But that is the whole point. It wasn’t a mark placed there for Morton to hit. It was there to show young Tom where to put the bath.’

‘Tom, the stagehand?’

‘Yes.’

Doll watched as understanding blossomed in Joe’s eyes.

‘The bath in which you were to sit. Then if Tom hadn’t missed the mark in his haste, you would have been right under the counterweight.’

Doll nodded, and Joe squeezed her hand.

‘You would have been crushed to death. Just as Morton was.’

‘Yes. So you see, we are looking for someone who wanted me dead, not Morton Stanley.’

‘But…’

Malinferno didn’t want to believe what Doll was telling him. He wanted another explanation for the falling sack that had taken Stanley’s life. Then he wouldn’t feel so guilty.

‘But, why would anyone at the theatre want to kill you? Unless Bankes was jealous of the attentions Morton was paying you.’

Doll gave up trying to remove the gravy stain, and patted Joe’s hand.

‘I think he would have known that Morton’s embraces onstage were all for show – a pretence for everyone else. But I believe that you are right to point the finger at William Bankes. Remember the other incident that occurred this week?’

Malinferno frowned, and then recalled what had vexed him so earlier.

‘The theft of my notebook with all the workings you and I had made on hieroglyphs?’

‘Yes. The murder took place after that notebook was taken, so perhaps something in it drove the killer to set the trap up at the theatre.’

‘But very few people were there when Stanley was killed, apart from the actors and Will Mossop. Do you think it was one of them?’

‘No. The beauty of the trap was that someone else would spring it unwittingly. It could easily have been Jed Lawless, and maybe that was what the murderer intended. To shift the blame on to Jed. As it turned out, Jed was ill and poor young Tom released the rope that was supposed to lower the Garden of Eden backcloth. But it was the rope that now held the counterweight of the flying rig. With the bath in place and me sitting in it…’

Doll brought her hand down on the table with a crash, and their cutlery rattled. A few heads in the chop-house turned to look at them. But Doll just stared back brazenly, and the onlookers’ eyes fell back to their own meals.

She leaned towards Joe, and hissed in his ear, ‘I’d’ve been squashed as flat as a pancake.’ She looked around for the waiter. ‘And talking of food, do you think we could get some plum pudding? This evading death by a whisker makes me feel starved.’

Only when the puddings were laid before them would Doll continue with her diatribe.

‘No, I reckon it’s what I wrote in your notebook that almost did for me.’

‘And you think Bankes was responsible?’

Doll inclined her head. ‘Something like that.’

She shovelled a spoonful of plum pudding in her mouth, and winked at Joe. He felt ill, pushed his bowl aside, and pursued the line of thinking.

‘He is, after all, an Egyptian scholar himself. If he saw that you had cracked the code of the hieroglyphs, he had every reason to kill you and claim the breakthrough for himself.’

Doll waved her spoon in the air as if about to say something, but her mouth was still full of sweet pudding. So Malinferno pressed on.

‘I think we should follow up your suspicions, Doll. We know that he has shipped an obelisk to London from Philae on the ship Dispatch . And that it has just landed. He told you so. The obelisk lies on the quay at Deptford, and it is likely Bankes will be there to view his prize. We should confront him there immediately. And even if he’s not there, we may at least learn something of his plans.’

Malinferno pulled on his garrick, and was almost out the door before Doll could spoon the last of her pudding into her mouth. She grabbed her hooded cloak and followed him. Once in Tooley Street, they searched in vain for a cab of any sort. The night was cold and it began to drizzle, causing Doll to doubt the urgency of their mission. But Malinferno was not to be put off.

‘Come on, Doll, it’s not far from here. We can walk it.’

He strode off towards Deptford, and Doll sighed, wrapping her cloak close around her. Her satin slippers were not the most appropriate footwear for the weather, and soon her feet were soaked and frozen. The rain began to come down more heavily, and soon a rising wind was driving it in their faces. But finally the dreary sight of the Royal Dockyards came into view. Ten years ago, this had been a bustling area where ships bound for the Napoleonic Wars were built. Now, with the threat from the continent over, and victualling the only use for the dockyards, it was a run down and almost deserted place. The stench of rotting food drifted on the wind along with the rain, and any night watchman worth his salt would be snug and warm out of sight. Malinferno led the way to the main wharf where he guessed the Dispatch was moored up. The obelisk it had brought back from Egypt had to be so big that it would be hard to miss. Even in the gloom of a dreary London night.

Suddenly the persistent drizzle turned to a downpour. The quay was inky black, and merged with the sky as the sullen rain clouds scudded over. Malinferno stumbled on a loose coil of ropes, losing his footing. Doll grabbed his arm and he regained his balance. It was so dark, he could barely make out the location of the quayside, but thought he saw the outline of masts and rigging. Holding on to Doll’s arm tightly, he groped his way towards the ship. A long, dark shape, lying on its side, loomed out of the pelting rain, blocking their way to the Dispatch . Malinferno could see that it was fully six foot high and square, but it tapered away evenly to their left. He touched its surface, and he could feel carvings all along its length. It was the Philae obelisk, lying where it had been offloaded onto the quay. Fascinated, he took a step along it, but Doll held his arm, stopping him.

‘Listen,’ she hissed under her breath, and held a cupped hand to her ear.

He did so, and discerned a sound like someone chipping at the stone. It was coming from the other side of the obelisk. Malinferno indicated that he would go to the left, and that Doll should go to the right around the base of the prostrate pillar.

‘Just position yourself at the end,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘but don’t show yourself until I have had time to get close to Bankes.’

She would have asked how Joe knew it was William Bankes who was chipping away at the obelisk, but he disappeared into the darkness before she had a chance. She shrugged, and pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. Somehow the rain was penetrating her cloak, and a cold dribble was running down her neck. She tiptoed towards the end of the mighty monument, stroking her fingers along the cold stone, admiring the hieroglyphs that disturbed its surface. She was almost stopped in her tracks by a familiar cartouche, but realised that if she examined it she would not be in place to trap whoever it was on the other side of the obelisk. She pressed on. The base of the stone was smoothly cut, and as she rounded it she could now see the ship at its mooring and the grey surface of the Thames beyond. The water was like a wide, undulating grey ribbon caught between the darkness of the sky and the quayside. Raindrops pockmarked its otherwise dark and mysterious surface. She peered cautiously around the end of the stone, knowing that Joe would not yet be in place.

Despite the gloom, she could make out a tall elegant figure, shrouded in a heavy coat similar to Joe’s garrick. He was apparently poking and prodding with one hand at the surface of the obelisk. He held a cane in his other hand, which was pressed against the surface of the obelisk for balance.