Enter Second Murderer (8 page)

He sighed. Only in a convent could two women have lived for months and made so little impression. Obviously religious ladies also gave up the natural curiosity associated with their sex, along with other worldly pleasures, when they took their final vows.

And for once, realising the magnitude of his self-appointed task, he understood why his colleagues had been so anxious to settle for Hymes as a double-murderer.

About the teachers they had still to interview, he felt more hopeful. People suffering from shock have unreliable memories, and some fact or observation forgotten about, or dismissed as too trivial, when they were first questioned might, in retrospect, assume more significant proportions.

He would begin by hiring a gig tomorrow and driving out to Fairmilehead village to see Miss Burnleigh. But tonight . . .

"Tonight we have the Pleasance Theatre, Stepfather. Shakespeare will be a capital opportunity for you to relax. A nice murder, on stage for a change, that you can watch and enjoy, without having to solve."

Chapter 6

The Pleasance Theatre was already crowded and the curtain about to rise on
Othello
when Faro and Vince arrived. Vince had been delayed by Dr. Kellar and Faro secretly hoped they might not be expected to go after all, if the performance had already begun.

To his annoyance, he found his stepson in no way perturbed and quite ready to sacrifice his dinner, much to Mrs. Brook's indignation.

"Put it in the oven, indeed. What sort of way is that for a young doctor to treat his stomach, or my rib of roast lamb?"

They arrived breathless, and Vince seized the only seats available in the back row. "Rob and Walter won't be allowed to keep seats for us as late as this, I'm afraid. That would create ill-feeling, not to say a riot, among the other students who have waited for hours." As the curtain rose, he added, "They must be down near the front, dammit. Can you see at all?"

"Good job I'm tall."

Vince grinned. "At least we can stand up with no one behind us. Sorry, Stepfather. It's all my fault."

Faro was non-committal, irritated at having been pressed to attend the play and then finding himself in a poor seat. However, he reflected by the end of the first scene, there were some advantages, and if Mr. Topaz Trelawney's Thespians hadn't given a better account of themselves by the time the curtain fell at the end of Act I, he would make some excuse and slip out. Vince would not mind; he had his two friends to meet in the green-room for refreshments.

As cat-calls and loud applause from the noisy audience greeted Othello's first appearance, Faro groaned. It seemed that all his fears had been justified. Mr. Topaz Trelawney was an actor-manager, a Shakespearean tragedian of the worst kind. He over-acted, leering, gesturing, making asides to the audience, which delighted them but turned Othello into a buffoon. An inch deep in greasepaint, his overweight frame filled the tawdry costume to overflowing as he pranced and strutted across the stage. Rather too often for comfort, he forgot his lines and took a reassuring swig from a tankard placed on a convenient table. These forays, which grew more frequent as the play progressed, affected his posturing with an alarming unsteadiness.

Faro stirred restlessly in his seat. The performance was exactly what he had expected. It was unendurable, and he would leave at the end of Act I. Scene 2 dragged wearily to a close, and as Desdemona's entrance had been well signalled, Faro groaned, expecting the worst. Then, in Scene 3, thunderous applause greeted her first appearance.

A flower-like Desdemona, with long flowing blonde hair, a voice of astonishing beauty and timbre, which she had no need to raise for it carried with a pure, bell-like quality to the back row of the theatre. While she spoke, she held her audience captive and it was as if no one else existed on stage. Her presence turned Iago, Cassio, Emilia—and particularly Othello—into stiff cardboard painted characters.

The audience loved her, they hung upon every word of her three short speeches, her duty to her father Brabantio and to her husband Othello and her plea to accompany him. As Faro too now waited enthralled, trying to remember the play and when she would appear again, he lost all interest in going home. He forgot the discomfort of his seat, the atrocious overacting of the Thespians, for he recognised that he was in the presence of that exceedingly rare creature, a great natural actress, who could convey without raising her voice, without outrageous posturing or gestures, a child-like innocence, her love and hero-worship of Othello and a desperate vulnerability.

The curtain fell at the end of Act II, and watching his stepfather applaud, Vince added his "Bravos" to those of the student audience. As they joined the noisy good-natured throng heading for the greenroom, where refreshments were served in the interval, Vince said:

"Isn't Alison Aird an absolute wonder? Can't you see why we're all passionately in love with her? Desdemona's just a small role. Wait until you see Alison Aird as Lady Macbeth or Cleopatra."

Vince's two companions, Roband Walter, emerged through the crowd, and Faro, who had found a small table, set pints of ale before them.

"Guess what, Stepfather. Walter's cousin Hugo Rich is playing Cassio—joined the company two months ago. This is his first major role and we've been cordially invited to a party back-stage. You'll come with us, of course."

Normally Faro would have resisted meeting the Trelawney Thespians, but if Desdemona in her real-life role as Mrs. Trelawney would be there he felt this was an opportunity not to be missed.

Desdemona's handkerchief scene and Othello's brutality brought storms of protest from the audience, especially as the latter's performance grew more and more outrageous and considerably less steady. Faro spared a thought for that inebriated gentleman, doubtless seeking consolation in the bottle for the fact that he was a dismal failure as an actor. How many performances would it take for Trelawney to recognise that his own future as well as that of his Thespians hung on a slender thread—that the audience came to applaud Mrs. Aird, and that the success of every evening belonged to his leading lady.

How Trelawney must hate all that adulation by-passing him each night. Faro tried to picture them as man and wife in a cosy domestic setting, but imagination baulked.

The Willow Song in Act IV was a triumph of understatement, made all the more moving. The audience was spellbound now and Faro decided that this lovely woman must indeed be bound to the Thespians by ties of loyalty and love, when her talents so obviously belonged in the ranks of the great Shakespearean actors on the stages of London and New York.

"Kill me tomorrow: let me live tonight." The words, uttered in no more than a whisper, reached every seat in the house, and sent a chill through Faro. For a moment he forgot that this was a play he was watching. Helpless to avert the tragedy, he expected to see Desdemona's lifeless form in Othello's arms.

And at the last, "Commend me to my kind lord", the silence was broken by an outburst of scuffling as many of the audience began to take their departure before the curtain fell. It also released Faro from his spell. What was coming over him? he wondered. That strange dark moment out-of-time on stage—too many wife-slayers?

He joined the tumultuous applause as the curtain rose on a smiling Desdemona, risen unscathed from her deathbed. She very obviously supported Othello to his curtain-speech, which was clearly not as reverently received as Mr. Topaz Trelawney thought proper to the occasion. He made a drunken, threatening gesture to the audience, quickly suppressed by an anxious Desdemona, and the curtain mercifully descended.

The audience surged towards the exits, while Faro and Vince made their way back-stage to the small dressing-room Hugo Rich shared with the other male members of the cast. Topaz Trelawney, Faro noticed, had a room of his own.

Hugo greeted them anxiously. "How did it look from the front?"

Walter was full of assurances; Rob and Vince were kind and flattering about his Cassio, putting him at his ease. Mark their words, they would be seeing him treading the boards of the London stage one day very soon. He went away, beaming and happy.

The party increased in volume of noise and merriment as they were joined by a troupe of girls who were part of the company. Faro, alert, looked in vain for Desdemona among these young actresses, who made costumes, attended to laundry and more mundane domestic matters when there were no suitable parts for them.

They were polite to him, and attentive, respectful and courteous in a manner that made him conscious of his age, and of the fact that he had lived and experienced a whole lifetime before any of them were born. By the time he was watching Vince with a girl sitting on his knee, he decided that his presence was superfluous and that he should quietly withdraw. Sheridan Place and his bed, only minutes away, seemed a tempting alternative.

Catching Hugo's eye, he made his apologies about work the next morning, adding, "No, please, don't disturb Vince."

"I will see you to the door," said Hugo. "Yes, I must. It is a rule that everyone is seen out and the door re-locked. There are often unsavoury characters about and once the box office was robbed."

As they walked along the dimly lit corridor, the door next to Trelawney's opened and a girl emerged and hurried towards the exit ahead of them. She turned, smiling, to let Hugo open the door for her, and Faro found himself staring into the face of the woman he had last seen in Greyfriars Kirkyard, by the grave of Timothy Ferris.

"Goodnight, Hugo," she said and stepped out into the darkness.

"Who was that?" he asked Hugo. "Is she a friend of Trelawney's?"

Hugo smiled. "I suppose you could call her that." Then he added, with a great roar of laughter, "Don't tell me, sir, that you don't recognise Desdemona."

"Desdemona? But . . . but . . ."

"The long blonde hair is a wig." And seeing the Inspector's astonished face, he said, "I would have introduced you, but I'm afraid I didn't catch your name. Mrs. Aird is in a great hurry as usual, a carriage usually awaits her each night."

Outside, blinded by the sudden darkness, Faro became aware of the cloaked figure of Alison Aird pacing the pavement.

Raising his hat, expecting a rebuff, he said, "Forgive this intrusion, ma'am. I should like to say how greatly I enjoyed your performance tonight. May a complete stranger be permitted to find a carriage for you?" As he spoke, he was conscious of her nervous reaction to his approach. It seemed a long time before she said:

"If you would be so good, sir. I fear some misfortune has overtaken the brougham which normally collects me after the performance." She sighed. "My departure was delayed tonight with business matters, hence the mix-up."

"This should not take long. There is a hiring establishment within hailing distance. Stay close to the stage door. If you are in any difficulties, you need just ring the bell." And Faro set off at top speed, chuckling to himself, delighted at his good fortune in finding his beauty in distress.

Luck was with him and he found a gig almost immediately. Returning with it, panic-stricken, he almost expected her to be gone.

He sighed with relief when her shadowy figure emerged from the stage door. Giving directions to a street a half-mile distant, she turned to Faro. "You have been very kind. Perhaps I might offer you a lift?"

"I would be delighted," said Faro, deciding the opportunity of sharing a cab was too great to miss.

Alison Aird settled herself and stared out of the window. It promised to be a silent journey.

"I was quite enthralled by the play tonight," said Faro desperately.

In the darkness, her voice smiled. "Why, thank you again."

"Regrettably, I have been absent from Edinburgh and have missed most of your season here. But I do hope to see others." Even to himself, he sounded nervous, too anxious to please.

"I trust you will also find them enjoyable," said Alison Aird, returning her attention to the passing night, the flicker of torches from other carriages.

"How do you find Edinburgh?"

"Beautiful but lonely."

Faro's mind again presented the melancholy picture of Alison Aird in Greyfriars. What had been her relationship to young Ferris? Were they lovers, or kin? He could see no resemblance to Ferris's photograph and had never seen the young man alive. He also realised that off-stage his Desdemona was older than appeared at first glance.

"Have you been long with the Thespians?"

"Just this season. This is my first time in Scotland for many years. But I am by birth a Scotswoman."

"Alison Aird would imply that."

"Indeed, it is my real name."

"I gather you are not Mrs. Topaz Trelawney."

"Good gracious, no. Whatever gave you that idea?" She laughed. "Mr. Trelawney is merely my employer. He was once a very great actor," she said in his defence, "one I admired greatly."

Faro could think of no suitable comment, beyond secret delight that his Desdemona was unmarried. "Have you ever considered the London stage, Miss Aird?"

There was a pause before she replied, "It is Mrs. Aird. And your name, sir?"

"Faro. Jeremy Faro."

She looked out of the window, and said, he thought with a certain relief, "Ah, here is my destination. Thank you for escorting me, Mr. Faro." Handing her down from the carriage, he made a mental note of the house and street number before giving the driver instructions for Sheridan Place.