Desperate Acts (10 page)

The tedious minutes I with her have spent.

Not Hermia, but Helena, I do love,

Who will not change a raven for a dove?

Sir Peregrine cleared his throat. Dutton had got
every word right, but the rhythms in which he had cast them were
closer to those of a prosecuting attorney with a hostile witness
than a teenage lover in an enchanted wood.

“Perhaps we could try that again, sir. And a
little less forensic this time.” Sir Peregrine chuckled at his
witticism in hopes of relaxing the fellow. “Try thinking of the
beautiful Helena as you do so, or any beautiful woman, if you will.
I am told your dear departed Felicity was a dark-haired
beauty.”

Dutton tried to smile to indicate his
appreciation of the compliment, but the pain in his eyes was
apparent. Nonetheless, he gamely plunged ahead.

Several more attempts had reduced the pace
somewhat but little of the sustained aggression. Sir Peregrine’s
smile grew more impoverished with each rendition. Finally he turned
to Fullarton and said, “While Mr. Dutton ponders Lysander’s words
silently, perhaps you would try the meaty role of Oberon, my dear
Horace?” Sir Peregrine directed the banker to the speech he had
preselected.

Fullarton began to recite in a deep, rich
baritone voice:

My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb’rest

Since once I sat upon a promontory

And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back

Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath

That the rude sea grew civil at her song

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres

To hear the sea-maid’s music?

The silence that followed Fullarton’s recitation
indicated that something in the poetry had genuinely moved his
listeners. Perhaps too they were startled by the passionate and
melodious voice of the speaker, who was after all a banker and an
usher at St. James, a man of rectitude and solitary habits. But
Brodie was not surprised, for he had long suspected that there was
a lot more to the man than his public persona. He was grateful that
Mr. Fullarton had suggested their joining this club: it was going
to be good for them both.

“Splendid, sir,” the chairman burbled. “More
than splendid. Somewhere above, seated on his divine actor’s stool,
the Bard himself is surely watching and nodding approval.”

This effusive dollop of praise had a double
effect: it embarrassed Horace Fullarton and left Cyrus Crenshaw
dry-throated in the knowledge that such a performance would be
impossible to follow. Moreover, Sir Peregrine was now blessing him
with a multi-chinned grin.

“My dear Crenshaw, as you may have begun to
surmise, we have saved the plum role for your formidable
talents.”

“P-Puck?” was all Crenshaw could squeeze out,
though it may not have been as precise an enunciation as
intended.

Sir Peregrine’s grin vanished. “I am
obviously referring to one of the supreme comedic roles in the
entire Bardic canon.”

“He means Bottom the weaver,” Dutton
whispered in the manner he had often used to toss devastating
asides to the jury.

“You want me to play Bottom?” Crenshaw said,
letting his jaw drop.

“I do, sir. I believe you will make the
perfect clown. Why, you have the face of a Will Kemp, Shakespeare’s
own favourite among the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.”

Crenshaw struggled heroically to take this
remark as a compliment. “But Bottom is a common mechanic,” he
protested, “an ignorant weaver who muddles his diction. And he is
pompous and vain to boot.”

“Ah, I see you have penetrated to the nub of
the character already. My directorial instincts have proven to be
unerring, have they not?” Sir Peregrine said with much heartiness
and a rippling smile.

“But I am a man of means, milord, the owner
of a prosperous factory and a fine residence. I have graduated
grammar school. I can read Latin and a little Greek – ”

“Then you are further advanced than the
Bard,” Sir Peregrine quipped.

“I was hoping to be assigned a role with some
dignity – like Oberon.”

“But my dear Crenshaw, am I not correct in
recalling that your father was a hard-working farmer and a mere
corporal in the Canadian militia when he fell in the line of
duty?”

Whether this was a deliberate putdown or a
misguided attempt to bolster Crenshaw’s confidence did not matter.
The candle-maker knew he was beaten. He also knew that his wife
Clementine would poison his coffee if he failed to obtain roles for
them in the baronet’s play.

“I will do my best, then” he said. “What do
you want me to read?”

“Act four, scene one: the place where Bottom
wakes up with the ass’s head on him and finds himself in the arms
of the beautiful Titania.”

Crenshaw blinked. The image of donkey’s ears
vied with the happier one of an amorous Titania in the guise of
Lady Madeleine, whose svelte figure and lustrous tresses he had
furtively glimpsed in her pew at St. James.

“
Ass’s
head?” he gulped.

“Of course. Bottom is, after all,
fundament
ally an ass,” Sir Peregrine said with an
ill-concealed smirk of satisfaction at this brief excursion into
wit. “This passage is prose. Just read it straight ahead, beginning
at ‘Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur.’”

Crenshaw gritted his teeth and began. Whether
he was nervous, humiliated or inept – or all three – it had an
immediate effect on his delivery. It started out at quick march and
fever pitch, and gained momentum from that point. It rode roughshod
over commas and periods, devoured vowels, and deconstructed
consonants.

“Well, now,” Sir Peregrine said into the
stony silence, broken only by the rasping of Bottom’s breath, “that
was not a bad beginning. We’ll work on it as we proceed. Perhaps
you might try rehearsing with your good lady.”

The reference to Crenshaw’s wife seemed to
revive him a little, enough to let him eke out a nod of
acknowledgement and unslump his shoulders.

“So you wish me to read for Demetrius?”
Brodie said in an effort to divert attention from the deflated
factory-owner.

“I do, young Langford, I do.”

Brodie proceeded to read his assigned part.
Dramatic readings and satiric skits had been part of his
private-school experience in New York, and so he felt quite
comfortable throughout, despite the watery blue gaze of the lordly
director upon him.

While Brodie’s vowels and cadence were
nowhere near the diphthong-drawl of many New Yorkers, they
nevertheless produced in Sir Peregrine’s multi-planed visage a
sequence of startling winces that disrupted his chins, jowls and
dimples. To the others at the table, such infelicities were a minor
distraction from the sheer force of the presentation itself. Here
was a voice – in addition to youthful good looks – that could
deliver the volatile shifts of mood and pace required of the young
lover in the play. When Brodie finished, his audience applauded,
and the wincing director adroitly arranged a congratulatory
smile.

“But we still need someone to play Puck,”
Dutton said when the applause was over.

Sir Peregrine feigned a look of abashment. He
may even have blushed, except that his permanently pink complexion
made it impossible to tell. “It is a role I have always coveted,”
he said, peering up from under his puffed eyelids, “but have never
had the opportunity to play – as the more masterful roles of
Prospero and Oberon have taken precedence. But Puck I shall be,
fellow thespians, and a Puck that shall dazzle and daunt.”

The image of the flabby and bejowled baronet,
clad in elfin garb, gambolling and pirouetting about the stage and
nimbly orchestrating the tangled mishaps of the various lovers
could not be conjured by anyone at the table – however hard they
might try. But the die had been cast – by their director, their
chairman and the owner of a manorial residence that just happened
to have a mini-theatre installed.

“So, we have only to hear the ladies read?”
Dutton said after a polite pause.

“Exactly, my dear Dutton. A palpable
hit!”

And that, Sir Peregrine went on to inform
them, would, if at all possible, take place tomorrow evening. He
proposed to have the full cast come to Oakwood Manor for supper at
six o’clock, to be followed by a read-through of the script – in
role. Everyone was to study his assigned part – Crenshaw could
inform Clementine of her role as Hermia and they might even
rehearse
en suite
– and all were to come prepared for an
evening of pleasure and purpose.

This generous offer was received well, and
turned out to have been perfectly timed, for Sir Peregrine had just
thanked them for their cooperation when Gillian Budge appeared at
his elbow with a tray of glasses and a decanter of sherry. They
would now toast their achievement with a “goblet of Amontillado”
before departing, a suggestion met with hearty murmurs of
approval.

However, at this moment, Brodie thought to
check his pocket-watch for the time, and discovering it was almost
nine-thirty, he made his excuses and headed for the cloakroom. In
the excitement of the audition he had almost forgotten the bit of
unpleasantness he had planned for the would-be blackmailer.

***

Brodie grabbed his coat, hat and walking-stick, and
took the stairs two at a time. The back door opened out onto a
narrow strip between the public house and the adjacent building.
Brodie swung to the right and found himself in the broader alley
behind the tavern, one that stretched northward thirty yards until
it met the east-west service lane. A gibbous moon hung in the
south-eastern sky, lighting some sections of the alley brightly and
casting sharply edged shadows elsewhere. Brodie found the ashcan
mentioned in the extortion note without difficulty. Carefully he
peered around in all directions, but could see or hear nothing
untoward. Even the raucous chatter of the taproom did not carry
back this far. Laying down his walking-stick for a moment, he
placed the parcel he had brought along under the lid of the can on
top of the clinkers, and replaced the lid. The parcel, tied with
string, was stuffed with plain paper.

Then he moved quickly, as a frightened or
nervous fellow might, back into the narrow gap between the
buildings and walked noisily out onto Front Street, where he
wheeled and strode eastward. At Peter Street he turned north and
kept walking. Finding a convenient shadow to cover his next move,
he squeezed between the walls of two brick shops and made his way
back towards the head of the alley behind The Sailor’s Arms. When
he reached it, he remained hidden in the ell of a chimney, from
which vantage-point he could observe the rear of the tavern and the
ashcan.

It seemed an hour but was probably only ten
minutes before he spotted movement – a dark figure materializing
out of a shadowy lair not ten yards away from him. It moved
stealthily towards the ashcan, glancing about frequently. When it
reached the can, it opened the lid and lifted out the parcel. At
this precise moment Brodie made his own move. Knowing that the
blackmailer would be occupied for a few seconds in examining the
contents of the parcel, Brodie loped soundlessly towards him (it
was now apparent that the figure was a black-suited man). A split
second before Brodie reached him, the fellow heard his footstep,
and whirled around to face him.

The man looked vaguely familiar. He was
startled, but not frightened.

“Who the hell
are
you!” Brodie
shouted. “Spreading lies about my fiancée!” He grabbed the fellow
by the coat-lapels, and began to shake him. “You thieving
blackmailer! You bastard! Did you think I’d give money to the likes
of you!” Brodie was taken aback by the strength and vehemence of
this sudden, unplanned outburst.

The blackmailer was not a large man, and
Brodie had no difficulty in lifting him off the ground and rattling
his bones. He made no sound except a kind of wheezing as he was
being shaken. But the moonlight caught his bold black eyes fully,
and they registered shock and a smouldering animal fury.

“You’re coming with me to the police,” Brodie
said.

“You want them to know all about the baby
girl in Montreal, do you?” the fellow hissed, making no effort to
free himself from Brodie’s grip. “About the
hooer
you’re
courtin’?”

Brodie was stunned by both the venom and the
incredible calm in the fellow’s voice. “God damn you!” he heard
himself scream, and then before he could think further, he saw his
right arm drop away and his hand forming a fist.

Which is when the blackmailer drove his knee
towards Brodie’s crotch. The blow was poorly aimed, however, and
caught him on the thigh. But it lent an alarming amount of force to
the punch that Brodie landed on the villain’s left cheek. He
buckled under the impact, slid to the ground in a sitting position,
then slumped onto his back and lay still – the half-opened parcel
beside him.

My God, I’ve killed him, was Brodie’s first
thought. Ignoring the pain in the fingers of his right hand, he
knelt down and put a trembling palm on the man’s chest. It was
heaving steadily up and down: he had merely been knocked
unconscious. Still, the fact that Brodie had, against all the
principles he had been taught, struck a fellow human being in anger
left him paralyzed, unable to think or act. For a minute, perhaps
longer, he remained crouched over his victim, dazed and
unseeing.

Finally, he was able to stand up, and look
around. Then he did a very foolish thing. He picked up his hat, and
he ran.

SIX

Constable Cobb, to his surprise and not a little
chagrin, found himself patrolling the south-east sector of the city
on a Wednesday evening – during a week when it had been his turn to
take the more relaxed day-shift. But last night Ewan Wilkie had, he
claimed, spotted a burglar slipping out of the back window of a
home on York Street, had given chase, tripped on a prowling tomcat,
and turned his ankle. Both cat and burglar escaped unharmed. So it
was that one of the part-time constables had been called in to take
Cobb’s regular day-shift, while the veteran Cobb replaced Wilkie.
Fortunately, the first couple of hours this evening had been
peaceful, and in one or two of the lulls Cobb had found time for a
flagon of decent ale at The Cock and Bull.