The Corpse Played Dead Read online

  ‘Is there anyone else in the theatre?’ I asked. ‘Someone needs to fetch a constable.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to keep looking at it. Makes me feel ill.’

  ‘Go to Bow Street and fetch the magistrate,’ said Sugden. ‘It’ll be all right, Moll. Don’t fret yourself.’ He gave her a single candle and she went swiftly through the wings. Sugden and I stood looking up at Lord Hawbridge’s inverted body. I saw that he touched the little crucifix that hung around his neck; mouthed noiseless words as he breathed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Should we get some more light in here, Mr Sugden, do you think? Can we light the candles in the footlights, or some of the sconces? I expect the law men will want to see this properly.’

  ‘I’ll open the pit door,’ he said, ‘let some daylight in.’

  ‘I don’t think Mr Garrick will want the whole of London peering in to see this show,’ I said, somewhat ruefully. Mr Garrick would be devastated. A wealthy patron butchered on his precious stage – the emotions would defy the pen of Shakespeare. ‘Perhaps we should make do with candles?’

  He grunted in assent and padded around softly at the edge of the stage, gradually lighting the oil lamps as if he were preparing for the evening performance – the one that would not be happening tonight. While he was engaged, I took the opportunity to have a good look at Lord Hawbridge, knowing that I would not have a chance once the stage filled with people.

  The earl had been tied at the ankles and the wrists before being hoisted up from the stage. I wondered how he had allowed this to happen. He must have been stunned in some way, hit on the head or knocked out. He would need to be taken down and examined properly, but I expected that the constables would find a wound on the back of his head. His wig had fallen off, probably when he had been raised up. It had been kicked or thrown away and was now curled up like a small cat downstage. His throat had been cut in a gash from ear to ear. He had been sliced, rather than hacked, I thought. I wondered what had happened to the blade. It would have dripped blood enough to leave a tell-tale trail. And was the murderer also covered in blood? I was standing in a small pond of it; when his neck was sliced it would have spurted out, covering whoever was in front of him. Unless they cut from behind. Opened his throat and held his head from the back. That had to be it.

  This was not a killing done in a temper or in a passion. It was planned, and it was calculating. The man had been lifted high in a grotesque spectacle. I shuddered.

  On the floor, directly under Hawbridge’s head, was his peacock feather snuff box. It was not covered in blood but shone in the candle light, the lid raised in display.

  ‘What’s that?’ Sugden, having dealt with the footlights, stood at the edge of the blood lake and pointed to the snuff box.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ I said, ‘I think we should leave everything exactly as we found it.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Who are you to give the orders?’ He stepped into the bloody pool, picked up the snuff box and turned it over in his hands.

  ‘Must have fallen from his coat pocket,’ he said. ‘Worth a lot; more than a man’s wages for a year.’

  There was a noise from the passageway. Sugden’s consideration of the box’s value was brought to a halt by the arrival of the law. He shoved it into his coat.

  ‘The magistrate will come down later, but he hasn’t risen from his bed yet,’ I heard a familiar voice.

  Mr Davenport was striding through the wings carrying a lantern. Behind him came the tall figure of Mr Snow – known to the men of Bow Street as Snowy – and Molly, scurrying to keep up.

  Davenport stopped as soon as he saw what was on the stage ahead of him. The inverted corpse, and his own spy, now fully illuminated by candles. I imagine it was an impressive sight. Dramatic, certainly. That, I realised, was the intention.

  There was a moment of stunned silence, followed by a few muttered words.

  ‘You there,’ he addressed Sugden, and ignored me, ‘have you touched anything?’

  ‘No sir,’ said Sugden, lying, ‘we’ve touched nothing. Just lit the candles so’s you could see him better. We thought you’d want to see.’

  He nodded. ‘Thank you. That was a good idea. Who found the body?’ He looked between me, Sugden and Molly.

  ‘It was me, sir,’ I said in a small voice. ‘I found him.’

  He walked over to me, stepping carefully around the blood. ‘You found him?’ There was the smallest glimmer of concern in his eyes. ‘You were sent here by the magistrate, were you not? Caught thieving. Remind me of your name.’

  ‘Lizzie Blunt, sir,’ I ducked my head down. ‘I’m second seamstress here now.’

  I expected a word of sympathy for the shock of my discovery, but Davenport was not given to niceties. Even so, his next question shook me.

  ‘What were you doing wandering about the stage in the early hours, Lizzie Blunt?’

  Sugden stiffened, as if he had not thought of this, as if he had not imagined I might be a killer. I avoided Davenport’s eye.

  ‘My room has no curtain, sir. I was woken by the sun, and the market traders. I got up and began to tidy.’

  ‘On the stage?’

  It annoyed me that he was pressing me like this, but I gave him an honest answer in my meekest voice.

  ‘I’m new here, sir. I just wanted to see the stage.’

  ‘And when you came here, you found it all, just like this?’

  ‘Yes sir. I’ve touched nothing. Mr Sugden lit the candles and Miss Bray ran to Bow Street.’

  Sugden shifted uneasily at the mention of his name.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, sir, I think someone should go to Mr Garrick. He lodges near to the theatre when we’re in season. He’ll need to know… come and see…’ his voice trailed off as he anticipated the response from the manager.

  Davenport considered this. ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘Take this young woman with you, Miss Bray, is it? I’ll want to speak to you both later, but Mr Garrick may be less… immediately anxious… if there are two of you. Please tell him that William Davenport advises him to hurry here.’

  Molly looked glad to be leaving the stage but nodded to me. ‘What about Lizzie?’

  ‘She can stay where she is for now. She’s quite safe.’

  Molly threw me a look of sympathy before the two of them hurried away. Snowy saw them out through the wings and then stood, at a distance, with his arms folded, watching. He was a man of few words, although he had once marched me to the magistrate’s, thinking I was a thief and a murderer. I didn’t think anyone suspected me of murder this time – but I was still relieved when Davenport’s expression quickly changed.

  ‘Garrick’s worst imaginings have come to this, then?’ he said.

  Before I could stop myself, I let out a long gasping sigh of relief. His face twisted into concern.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘My legs,’ I said, my voice a strangled whine. ‘I can’t move my legs. I’ve been stuck here since I found him. I don’t think I can move. It’s the blood… all of this blood… it’s in my shoes, Mr Davenport. I can feel it in my shoes.’

  He frowned at me, whether out of concern or frustration, I couldn’t tell.

  ‘Stay where you are for now. I’ll get you out of there in a moment. Can you bear it?’

  I nodded. ‘I’ll do my best. I’m not good with blood. Sorry.’

  He looked up at the corpse.

  ‘Any idea who he is?’

  ‘He’s the Earl of Hawbridge. He was in the audience last night with some friends. Mr Garrick was entertaining him in the interval.’

  He groaned. ‘Shit.’

  Snowy muttered darkly from the wings. ‘That’s all we need. As if we haven’t got enough to do.’

  ‘The Earl of Hawbridge, hanging upside down like a carcass in a butcher’s shop on the stage of Drury Lane theatre. It’s going to keep the newspapers busy for weeks,’ said Davenport, rubbing at his forehead. ‘And if M
r Fielding can’t find out who killed him, and bring the killer to justice, then his lordship’s friends will ask serious questions in the House about our funding. We’ll be under significant scrutiny. As you say, Snowy, this is all we need.’

  The whole country would be watching the men of Bow Street.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ He gestured to the corpse with a sigh. ‘You’ve been standing looking at him for long enough.’

  I rehearsed my earlier thoughts. He listened, head on one side.

  ‘An execution?’

  ‘Look at what’s been done to him,’ I said. ‘He’s been strung up, put on display like the worst sort of criminal. He’s been sliced from behind, but I think that must have happened only once he was hanging.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Well, if they killed him on the floor and then lifted him up there would be signs of him being dragged through the blood. I can’t see from here – you might be able to if you walk around the back of him – but I would imagine he was knocked on the head and hoisted on the girandole when he was out cold. Otherwise, even if there had been two men, he would have struggled while they tied him, but you can see that his coat is perfectly intact. His cuffs are still in one piece.’

  ‘Snowy, can you open to door on to the street? It would help to have more light. But stand at the door, for God’s sake, and deter any onlookers.’

  Snowy did as he was bid, and the stage filled with natural light.

  Davenport walked around, keeping to the edge of the pool of blood and peered at the back of Hawbridge’s wig-less head. His hair was cropped short, meaning that Davenport had good sight of the skin.

  ‘You’re right. He’s been cracked over the head. There’s a bruise and some blood here. Looks bad, but possibly not enough to kill him. I can’t be sure without a closer look in better light.’

  A dark thought arose in my mind.

  ‘Mr Davenport, do you think he was out cold when they cut his throat, or was he alive?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why were you up here so early, on the stage? Really?’

  ‘I was woken by the sounds of the market, as I said. I thought I could poke around, like you asked, see if there were any indications of a campaign against Garrick. There’s definitely something going on. I picked that up last night.’

  ‘Did you see anything? Or anyone about, while you were “poking”?’

  ‘Not a soul. I thought I was the only one here. Everyone else must have lodgings of some sort or another – or had gone drinking. I didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘You don’t sound sure.’

  ‘I’m sure I didn’t hear anything, but when I found him, when I screamed…’ I tried not to sound embarrassed by my reaction ‘…Joe Sugden and Molly Bray arrived very quickly.’

  ‘Do you think they were in the building last night?’

  I thought for a moment.

  ‘I don’t know. Molly would begin early with the mending and stitching, but she wasn’t in the room with me last night. Joe Sugden is a stage hand. They are together, I think. Possibly they went to a tavern, and hired a room for some privacy? Molly said that they were going out for a drink. They could have come here just after dawn, to begin work, wherever they went last night.’

  ‘It might be worth checking that,’ said Davenport, nodding to Snowy.

  ‘Oh, and Mr Sugden picked up Lord Hawbridge’s snuff box from the stage floor. You might want to ask him for it.’

  ‘His snuff box?’

  ‘Yes, it had fallen from a pocket. It was standing in the blood when we arrived. Mr Sugden has it.’ I pointed to where the box had stood. It seemed rich to me that Sugden had taken it, having been so quick to mark me as a thief.

  We stood, gazing up at the body, taking in the horror of it. He had not simply been killed, stabbed and left for dead, he had been lifted up for us all to see. The killer, or killers, wanted us to see how he had been butchered. There was something vindictive about it – although whether it was the hanged man who was being taunted, or those of us who looked on him, I could not tell.

  A large group of people suddenly appeared in the wings, one man pushing through in a state of alarm. It was Mr Garrick.

  ‘No!’ His shout might have been thought theatrical, were it not for the fact that his face was genuinely horror-struck.

  ‘My stage!’ He threw himself on the boards, gasping with shock, more concerned about the stain on the wood than the body that had caused it, as Sugden had predicted. Other men came in and there were shouts of anger, fear and outrage at the sight. A woman shrieked, and several men began to shoo people back. The magistrate, Mr John Fielding, now up from his bed, was with them. He was an impressive-looking gentleman in an old-fashioned wig and a dark coat. He wasn’t old, but he had an air of authority that made him appear so. Blind from his youth, he was supported on an arm by one of his men, Mr Carter. Under the other arm, he carried his long white cane, which he tapped as he walked.

  Leaving Garrick to be supported by friends, Davenport went over to speak with Mr Fielding while I stood, alone, in the blood, listening to them all shouting, crying and wailing at what they saw. The two men spoke quietly: a contrast to the chaos around them. Davenport would be describing in detail what the magistrate was unable to see for himself. When he had finished, the magistrate took charge and began issuing instructions. It appeared that the girandole was going to be lowered at last. In the bustle, Davenport came over to the edge of the blood pond.

  ‘I’m going to help you out of there now, before they lower the body. Are you ready?’

  He took a carefully-aimed step into the blood, caught me around the waist and picked me up. I heard the girandole being cranked down, and the shouts as Lord Hawbridge’s body thudded softly on the floor into his own blood. I closed my eyes and clung to Davenport, trying not to think of it; the warm scent of his coat was the last thing I was aware of before I passed out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘I’m sorry, sorry, so sorry, I’m sorry.’ The words tumbled out, a series of conflicting memories and images rattled in my head. Pain and blood. Humiliation and rising panic. My uncle’s face. My hand throbbing. Every part of me sore.

  I had been set down in a chair in the costume room. The room began to arrange itself slowly into focus. I could see my needle box on the table, the crumbs of an apple pie on a cracked plate. The man standing in front of me, above me, arms folded, frowning a little, was not my uncle.

  ‘What are you sorry for?’ said Davenport. ‘You fainted. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you’ve had a shock and, as you said yourself, you’re not good with blood.’

  I didn’t know whether it was the finding of the corpse, the recollection of blood seeping into my shoes, or the terror of a memory that had suddenly come unbidden to my mind that caused me to weep. My right hand was clasped over my left wrist. I could feel the knife scars ridged and hard under my hand, and I knew. Tears began to fall.

  Davenport dropped to his knees, putting a hand over mine.

  ‘Bad memory,’ I said with a sniff, seeing his concern. ‘Sorry.’

  He felt in his coat and pulled out a handkerchief.

  ‘It’s me that should be apologising. I’m sorry you had to see that,’ he said.

  I blew my nose. I had not been talking about the hanging.

  Before I came to London, before my father threw me out of his house, before I took the squire’s son to bed in the vain hope that he would marry me, I had committed a far greater sin. Restless and full of lust I had caught the attention of my uncle, Sir Francis Vessey, a man who was always open to the possibilities of vice. I had thought myself a woman of the world at eighteen but had found my uncle to be vastly superior when it came to playing bedroom games. Terrified by what I had done, I had sought to extract myself, but he had no intention of letting me go, binding me with threats of violence and reminding me of my shame. And then, one day, I summoned the courage to refuse him. He had held me and calmly cut my arm with a knife,
slowly and deliberately, until I passed out. He had told the servants that I had been careless with a glass.

  The sight of blood now makes me feel faint. Even when it’s not mine.

  I blew my nose again, in defiance of him and tucked the handkerchief into my sleeve.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’ll want to see to your shoes,’ said Davenport. ‘They’re ruined, of course.’

  ‘I’m sure that there will be spare shoes here. Molly will know where I can find a pair. And stockings,’ I said, feeling the dried blood on the soles of my feet. ‘What I really need is some water so I can wash, if you don’t mind.’

  He stood up. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  Molly came into the room and, as if she had heard my words, she was carrying a bowl, a jug, a lump of soap and a towel. She grimaced when she saw my shoes, the full horror of their condition illuminated by the morning light streaming in through the window.

  Davenport left the room as Molly and I tugged off my shoes and peeled away the stockings, the blood now black and cracking. I soaked and scrubbed at my feet, grateful to find the water was warm, while she rummaged in drawers and cupboards to find shoes that would fit and pulled a pair of stockings from the pile I had darned only yesterday. The bowl of water turned dark red. The activity, unpleasant though it was, stopped me thinking about my uncle.

  ‘What’s happened to the corpse, miss?’ I asked Molly. ‘Is it still on the stage?’

  She nodded, wiping a smear of blood from my calf with an old piece of rag. ‘Laid out. There’s one of the magistrate’s men guarding him.’

  ‘That’ll be Mr Carter,’ said Davenport, returning through the door behind her. ‘I’ve examined the body now, so he’s waiting for someone to come and remove it.’

  ‘The magistrate wants anyone who’s in the theatre to go to the green room,’ she said, looking up at Davenport.

  He nodded. ‘Then you’d better go. I’ll bring the girl up with me when she’s put her shoes on.’

  Once she’d gone, he took a seat and I gave him a swift account of what I’d seen and heard last night, of Simmot’s threats to Garrick, Tom Firmin’s fall from the ladder, the candle holders in the girandole, and what I’d seen of the Hunters.