Cicely stood up at the same time and moved over to a silver serving dish on the sideboard. She took off the lid. ‘Banana fritters!’ she announced. ‘How wonderful. Can I help you to a couple, Miss Kendall?’
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ Amanda apologised, ‘I don’t think I’ll be having any pudding.’
‘Are you sure?’ Sidney asked.
‘What ever is the matter?’ Lord Teversham asked. ‘Don’t you like bananas?’
Sidney was talking
to himself again. ‘Vanity, vanity, all is vanity, saith the Preacher,’ he muttered as he walked towards the Arts Theatre for the first rehearsal of a modern-dress production of Shakespeare’s
Julius Caesar
.
Why had he agreed to take part, he wondered? At least his was only a small part, that of Artemidorus, ‘sophist of Cnidos’, who tries to warn Caesar that a group of conspirators are about to kill him. There were two scenes, very few lines and, as Inspector Keating pointed out, ‘you can be in the pub by the interval’.
Sidney had convinced himself that his performance was more to do with civic responsibility than with pride. This was, after all, the theme of the play: how to live an honourable life and protect the greater good. To take part in such a drama, he said to himself, was no more than his duty. There was no point in getting into a state or worrying about what people might think. In any case, his ego, he reassured himself, was far smaller than that of Julius Caesar: a man who had, in fact, been assassinated precisely because of vanity.
Derek Jarvis, the coroner, was the director. He had decided to set the play in the 1930s and make much of the similarities between Julius Caesar and Mussolini. The part of Caesar was taken by Lord Teversham with his sister, Cicely Teversham, as Caesar’s wife, and Ben Blackwood as Mark Antony.
As soon as he discovered that he was going to be dressed as an Italian blackshirt Sidney forbade both Amanda and Inspector Keating from attending a performance. There was only so much teasing he could take. Why couldn’t they have done
South Pacific
instead, he wondered? Then he could have persuaded Amanda to join the chorus and appear in a hula skirt. It would be a lot more entertaining than sharing the stage with a collection of amateur thespians dressed up as fascists.
‘I thought you did enough performing in church,’ Keating had teased. ‘You want to watch it. People will start talking.’
‘I think I am on safe ground.’
‘This is the way they draw you in, Sidney. Next year you’ll be in the panto. I can just see you as Widow Twanky.’
‘I will be doing no such thing,’ Sidney replied, his sense of humour deserting him. ‘This will be my only appearance on the boards.’
Mrs Maguire had been equally sceptical. ‘People will think you’ve got too much time on your hands, Canon Chambers. Either that or you are showing off. No one likes a show-off.’
‘I am doing it to feel part of the community,’ Sidney replied, ‘that is all.’
‘You are already part of the community. You should be out walking the dog instead of consorting with people who should know better.’
‘But then,’ Leonard Graham chipped in unhelpfully, ‘if they did
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Dickens could take a starring role as the dog Crab. There would be no trouble catching him “a pissing” under the Duke’s table. He does it often enough.’
‘There’s no need to be vulgar,’ said Mrs Maguire.
‘My dear Mrs Maguire, I am quoting from Shakespeare. It’s bawdy rather than vulgar.’
‘I don’t care what it is. It’s still rude. But at least it would get that wretched animal out of the house and spare the lino.’ Mrs Maguire still refused to call Dickens by his name. Clearly it was going to take her a long time to recover from the latest incident of the laddered stocking.
Mrs Maguire was, however, correct in her analysis of how much time the production would take. Sidney spent hours in rehearsal simply hanging about. He had never realised that most of an actor’s life involved waiting around. It made him tense. He remembered the impatience of the prayer – ‘Come Lord, quickly come’ – and thought that this was a sentiment that could be applied to the all too secular Lord Teversham, who frequently missed his entrances, and who had so much difficulty in remembering his lines that his scenes took far longer than anyone else’s. Indeed, Sidney thought, such was the intolerance of the other cast members that he began to wonder if they might even take a modicum of pleasure in seeing their local aristocrat lying in a pool of blood.
There were six weeks of rehearsal before the first night in late October, and much discussion about the inherent themes of the play, such as honour, pride, loyalty and political opportunism. Sidney found it an instructive process, as these were qualities that could also prove useful in understanding the machinations of many a priest in the Church of England.
By the time the first night arrived, he was more than prepared. He strode on to the stage, pressed the letter warning Julius Caesar about the conspirators into Lord Teversham’s hands, and infused his lines with as much menace as he could muster.
‘Delay not, Caesar,’ he hissed. ‘Read it instantly.’
Lord Teversham looked at Sidney but then answered by looking straight out to the audience. ‘What, is the fellow mad?’
This double-take had not been part of the rehearsal process and was closer to pantomime than politics. The audience laughed and Sidney realised, with horror, that he had been upstaged. He had intended to inspire both anxiety and fear but it now appeared that he was little more than a figure of fun. How could Lord Teversham have done this to him? Was it on purpose or by accident? He left the stage feeling humiliated and watched the rest of the scene from the wings.
Moments later, the conspirators moved in for the kill, kneeling round the aged would-be emperor. Lord Teversham stretched out an Imperial arm, and intoned, impossibly slowly: ‘Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?’
Clive Morton, dressed in a black outfit that would have looked more at place in a nightclub than a battlefield, leaped up, grabbed Lord Teversham’s neck from behind, and shouted ‘Speak hands for me!’ before stabbing him in the back.
The other actors rose as one from their kneeling positions to conclude the murderous deed. Simon Hackford pulled back the slouching body by the collar, held the gasping form upright and stabbed Lord Teversham once more in the chest.
His victim gasped. ‘Et tu, Brute? Then fall Caesar.’
Lord Teversham clutched his heart, staggered forward to the front of the stage, and fell to his side. As he collapsed the conspirators threw their knives on to the ground. The scattered clatter of metal on the floor was intended to accentuate the drama of the death.
One of the disadvantages of the cast wearing black, rather than the traditional white toga, was the fact that it took far longer for Caesar’s blood to show; and, although a stomach sachet had been appropriately punctured, it was only when the conspirators came forward to smear their hands with Caesar’s blood that the audience was made aware of the amount of gore involved.
Each actor took off his gloves and knelt before Lord Teversham’s prostrate form. A servant arrived to ask that Antony ‘may safely come’ and Ben Blackwood arrived on stage and took his place by Caesar’s corpse.
‘O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low?
Are all they conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure?’
His performance had lost the feyness Sidney had noticed in rehearsals and Ben commanded the stage. He took off his gloves and shook hands with the conspirators. The blood on their hands stained his. He knelt over Caesar’s body. He was on the verge of tears, choking so much that he could hardly get through his lines:
‘Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times . . .’
He finished his speech and asked the servant to help him with the body. Then, after he had taken it into the wings and laid it down he hesitated. Lord Teversham had not risen like an actor who had finished his scene but lay motionless. Ben put his head against the heart of his friend and checked the blood once more.
The plebeians took to the stage, picking up the knives the conspirators had thrown down, ready to commit revenge.
Ben Blackwood looked up at Sidney in horror. ‘Curtain!’ he said urgently. ‘Curtain and house lights. For God’s sake!’
‘Typical,’ muttered Inspector Keating after he had been summoned from his home, leaving his wife and three sleeping children behind. ‘It could have been any of them.’
‘Or all of them, I suppose,’ said Sidney. He was already feeling defeated by the events of the evening.
‘Steady on. This isn’t
Murder on the Orient Express
. Only one blade did the damage.’
‘But who carried it? That is what we need to know. And where is it now?’
‘If it is in this building my men will find it. No one who took part in the play will be allowed to leave . . .’
Sidney realised that the design of the play was going to hamper the investigation since its fascist theme had necessitated each of the assassins wearing black shirts, black boots, and, crucially, black leather gloves. There were no fingerprints from the murder itself, and all the plebeians had handled the knives in the ensuing tumult. The actors playing Marcus Brutus, Cassius, Decius Brutus, Metellus, Cinna, Casca, Ligarius and Trebonius were all suspects.
The stage area was sealed off and the investigation began. Inspector Keating called Sidney aside. ‘I’m assuming that I will have your help on this case?’
‘As a member of the cast I am of course a witness. And, I suppose, a suspect.’
‘Now you are being plain daft.’
‘I would hope to be one of the first to be ruled out of your investigation.’
‘You can take that as read. Where do we start?’
‘With the director: Derek Jarvis. He should know what everyone was supposed to be doing and who was meant to stab Lord Teversham and where. He’s quite thorough about that kind of thing.’
‘I can’t imagine that the coroner is best pleased to have his night of theatrical triumph ruined by his professional duty. As soon as we know the angle of the crucial blow we will have to do a re-enactment.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Tomorrow. Once we have heard everyone’s statements. It’s going to be a long evening. You must be getting used to these by now.’
‘They are,’ Sidney agreed, ‘becoming alarmingly familiar.’
Police were stationed at the public entrance and the stage door. The cast was asked to wait in the auditorium while the stage and backstage areas were searched for the murder weapon. The coroner made a preliminary examination of Lord Teversham and organised his removal to the mortuary. His distraught sister had been in the audience and accompanied the body. Ben was alone in the bar. Frank Blackwood gave him a stiff drink and wrapped him in a blanket. He sat in the corner, shivering, without saying a word, unable to leave until the police had taken his statement, a hipflask of brandy beside him.
Inspector Keating commandeered the theatre manager’s office and went through the list of official suspects on a blackboard.
Marcus Brutus:
Simon Hackford, auctioneer and art dealer
Cassius:
Frank Blackwood, engineer
Decius Brutus:
Hector Kirby, butcher
Metellus:
Stan Headley, blacksmith
Cinna
: Michel Morel,
le patron
, Le Bistro Bleu Blanc Rouge, Mill Road
Casca
: Clive Morton, solicitor
Ligarius:
Tom Rogerson, stationmaster, British Rail
Trebonius:
Mike Standing, businessman
Inspector Keating briefed his men. ‘According to the coroner’s preliminary examination Lord Teversham was stabbed between the chest and the stomach with a single blow which twisted first to the left and then to the right. He suggests a short blade, three or four inches in length. It must have been sharp as the wound was clean and deep. To disguise a stage dagger and conceal its sharpness would take skill. All the knives used in the production were put back on the prop table after the murder. There are no missing stage weapons and they are all blunt, retractable and safe. The real weapon has disappeared. We need to find it.’
PC Roger Wilson asked a question. ‘An additional knife?’
‘Possibly disguised as a stage weapon.’
Wilson continued. ‘We are assuming, then, that the murderer would be some kind of expert . . .’
‘It seems likely but . . .’
‘Which means the butcher, the chef and the blacksmith?’
‘They would be obvious suspects. At the same time we must establish a motive. Why would Hector Kirby, for example, a butcher, want to kill Lord Teversham? Why would a French chef? It doesn’t make sense. We need to ask each man where he struck his blow, find out any inconsistencies and proceed from there . . .’
‘Can we rule any of them out?’ Sidney asked. ‘We know that the actors playing Ligarius and Trebonius did not stab Caesar at all and were nowhere near his body. Furthermore, Clive Morton, who played Casca, stabbed Lord Teversham in the back.’