Desperate Acts (20 page)

“Exactly. They’ll be relieved, relaxed and
definitely off-guard. If you can get into Oakwood Manor and keep
your eyes peeled and your ears pricked, you might be able to find
out what information Duggan was using on each of them. I know it’s
a tall order, old friend. But if I can get that information, I’m
sure I can build a proper defense for Brodie. At the moment it
seems like the only chance I’ve got.”

“There’s still Nestor, ain’t there?”

“Yes, I mustn’t forget that. Nestor could
certainly tell us what his cousin was using as leverage for his
extortions, as he himself was likely the source for some of it. He
may well know for certain who the targets were. But I can’t just
sit idly by and wait for Nestor to turn up some time in the next
two weeks, can I?”

“I see yer point.”

“If you’ll take this on, I’ll pay for your
extra hours.”

Cobb looked hurt. “Now, major, you know I
can’t take money from ya.”

“I do. But I was thinking that there would be
nothing improper if an anonymous donor were to pay Delia Cobb’s
second-term school fees.”

Cobb grinned. “Nothin’ improper in that, as
far as I c’n see.”

“So you’ll do it, then?”

“I will. But only fer Brodie’s sake, major.
I’m gonna hate every minute of it.”

But that, Marc thought, remained to be
seen.

ELEVEN

The next morning – Saturday – Cobb returned to his
regular patrol. Ewan Wilkie, however, was happy to take the
night-shift for the next two weeks as the chances of his catching
the serial burglar and securing the reward were much greater on
that circuit. His total lack of curiosity about matters unrelated
to police work (and much else) led him to accept the proposed swap
without asking what reasons Cobb might have for wanting it.

At six o’clock, with an hour to go on his
Saturday shift, Cobb stopped at the The Cock and Bull to confer
with one of his lesser snitches (still no sign of Nestor Peck or
his pal Itchy Quick) and take some supper. At quarter to seven he
astonished the regular patrons of the tavern by stepping into a
taxicab and noisily directing the driver to take him home. The Cobb
cottage was located at the far eastern edge of town, on Parliament
Street just above King, and so it was almost seven when the cabbie
stopped his horse in front and heard Cobb ask him to wait.

In the house Delia was ready with a change of
clothes and a basin of warm water. Cobb had a quick wash, put on a
new shirt, and wriggled into his wedding-suit (recently retailored
to accommodate his mature figure). Fabian had polished his father’s
Sunday boots and helped him squeeze into them. The children stood
on the front stoop and cheered him back into the cab.

“Oakwood Manor, sir!” he called up to the
driver, and then waved to his admirers on the porch.

***

Marc had given Cobb money to cover the use of
taxicabs and other incidental expenses associated with what he
thought of as his undercover operation. Everything now depended
upon the next half hour and his interview with Sir Peregrine. A
message had been sent up to the baronet in the morning and a reply
received by noon: Sir Peregrine would be pleased to hear Mr. Cobb
read for the role of Bottom the weaver. Would the gentleman come at
seven-thirty?

It was shortly after that hour when the cab,
a converted surrey, wheeled through the gates of Oakwood Manor and
came to a gravelled halt at the entrance to the baronet’s
ostentatious abode. Cobb overpaid the cabbie, stepped up to the
massive front door, and was startled when it was opened by a very
prim-looking gentleman in formal dress.

“You must be Cobb,” he said without the
slightest trace of emotion, though Cobb felt the fellow’s eyes
flick down to his boots and up again.

“Yer master’s expectin’ me, I believe,” Cobb
said.

Without further speech and with an economy of
movement, the butler led the way through a wide vestibule towards a
stout door at the end of it. Cobb was removing his Sunday hat when
the butler snatched it out of his fingers and plunked it on a
hall-tree. Taking the hint, Cobb took off his coat and watched it
settle on the knob next to his hat.

At this point the door beside him opened and
Sir Peregrine appeared, all smiles. “Welcome to Oakwood, Mr. Cobb.
That’ll be all, Chivers.”

Chivers bowed meagrely and vanished.

“I got yer message, sir,” Cobb said. “An’
most people call me Cobb.”

“I’m so glad you could come, Cobb, and that,
upon reflection, you have reconsidered our offer.”

“I ain’t ever been on the stage before,” Cobb
said as Sir Peregrine led the way into the
ballroom-cum-theatre.

“Neither have the other members of the cast,
excepting of course Lady Madeleine and myself. We propose to put on
a purely amateur production in the time-honoured aristocratic
tradition. You’ve already viewed our stage, still under
construction, and this is the temporary table where we are
executing rehearsed readings of
The Dream Sequence
, my
personal adaptation of the forest scenes from the Bard’s
transcendent comedy.”

“Are them the scripts there on the table?”
Cobb said, choosing to ignore the wince this remark incited in his
host.

“Yes, but I have already laid one out for you
in the dining-room over here. You’ll be reading Bottom opposite
Titania, and I thought the dining-room would prove a more
comfortable venue. Now, do come and meet my lady, who is most
anxious to meet
you
.”

Lady Madeleine, who was seated near one end
of the dining-table, did look anxious to Cobb, but not to meet him.
She gave him a cool, non-committal smile upon being introduced,
then darted a glance at her husband that would have shattered the
crystal decanter on the sideboard, had it been aimed in that
direction. Cobb tried not to stare at the voluptuous, bold-eyed
woman on the other side of the table. How a flabby dandy like
Shuttleworth had managed to hook a creature as beautiful, and as
young, as this was beyond Cobb. Except that money and rank appeared
to suspend the regular workings of human nature.

“As you know full well, Cobb, this tragic
business with Broderick Langford – a blackmailer, they tell me, was
the cause of it all – has left our troupe one player short. We have
made adjustments so that the role of Bottom is now open. Lady Mad,
as the others have been urged to call my dear wife and bosom
companion, has kindly agreed to read her role of Titania in the
scene I myself have marked out for you.”

“You’re the director, then?”

“I am indeed,” Sir Peregrine said, unaware of
the just-perceptible smile that creased the corners of Lady Mad’s
pretty mouth.

“And we in the troupe refer to our director
affectionately as Sir P.,” Lady Mad said in a low, husky voice that
sent a tingle through Cobb’s nether region.

Sir P. leaned over Cobb’s shoulder and
pointed out the place where Bottom was to begin – affording Cobb a
whiff of some pungent, exotic perfume. “Take a few minutes and scan
it, if you like.”

“No need, sir. I got it conned by heart.”

Lady Mad smiled, regally this time, adding an
unexpected warmth to her icy allure. She gave her husband a brief
but telling glance. Some byplay was going on between those two,
Cobb thought, and
he
seemed to be part of it.

“Then, by all means go ahead. When we get on
stage, as Puck, I’ll pantomime the placing of the ass’s head on
Bottom and lead him to the sleeping Titania, who, as you know, has
been given a charm whereby she will fall in love with the first
person she sees upon wakening – a masterstroke, don’t you think, of
the Bard’s genius for comedy?”

“Let the man begin, Perry.”

As Cobb looked down to remind himself of his
first line and note Titania’s cues, he felt Lady Mad’s gaze fasten
upon his person and caress it slowly up and down. He stumbled
slightly on the opening phrase, but having amused his children with
this role more than once, especially after the visit to his dying
father last winter, he quickly recovered.

Bottom:
The woosel cock so black of
hue

With orange-tawny bill

The throstle with his note so true

The wren with little quill –

“Well done! Well done!” Sir P. enthused. “We’ll have
you put that verse to a little tune of sorts. As Puck I may even
tootle an accompaniment on my recorder.”

“Let the man
recite
, for God’s sake,”
Lady Mad snapped. Sir P.’s jaw dropped, but before he could say a
word, Lady Mad said sweetly to Cobb, “Just read your last line, as
you did, in that gravelly voice with those amazing vowels.”

Cobb blushed, turning his purple nose
scarlet. He did as he was bid.

Lady Mad came in on cue, closing her
long-lashed eyes, then raising her head, with its burst of
strawberry hair, and dreamily fluttering her fairy-queen eyelids.
“What angel wakes me from my flowering bed?” Titania breathed.

If he was to get the part and help Marc
defend Brodie, Cobb decided he had better pretend to read the
script and thus keep his eyes where they would do the least harm.
With his gaze fixed on the page, then, and hers upon her beastly
lover, they moved through the scene – in which Titania professes
her love and Bottom is both bedazzled and dazed. They were
interrupted only once by the director, who informed Cobb that his
nieces and nephew would be playing the attendant fairies and that
Smallman’s
had been commissioned to render the costumes
thereof.

While Cobb
was
able to keep his eyes
from wandering where they wished to, he was
un
able to stop
himself from picturing the actions that might be appended to
Titania’s amorous declarations. Lady Mad certainly recited these
with a passion hardly suited to a gentleman’s dining-room. Was such
transparent ardour aimed at him or at her husband?

“Thank you, Cobb,” Sir P. said and, glancing
at Lady Mad, who nodded, he added, “You’ll do nicely.”

“Ya mean I got the part?”

“You have indeed. And thank you, my lady, for
your selfless participation. I’m sure you’ll excuse Cobb while we
go over some of the mundane details of our schedule and
protocol.”

“Of course. I am looking forward, Mr. Cobb,
to a fruitful collaboration.” With that, Lady Mad made her exit.
Cobb noticed that she was just as handsome going away as she was
coming at you.

Chivers appeared magically from somewhere
with cigars and port. Cobb refused the cigar but welcomed the port,
as he listened to Sir P. review the plans for the ensuing
fortnight. Rehearsals would be held here on Tuesdays, Thursdays and
Saturdays at seven-thirty in the evening. After a full read-through
on Tuesday next, the director hoped to get the cast on stage –
still “on-book” – for elementary blocking. Costumes would be
supplied from the Shuttleworth steamer-trunk or manufactured by
Smallman’s.
Individual scenes would be rehearsed on stage,
while the actors not involved would be free to take refreshment in
the dining-room, smoke and chat in the adjacent den, or read in the
library just down the inner hall that led to the Shuttleworth’s
private quarters.

“Now, Cobb, it occurred to me that you might
find such extended down-time – well – boring.”

“I could read the newspapers,” Cobb
suggested.

“True, true. But I was wondering whether you
could . . .ah . . . paint.”

Cobb blinked. “Ya mean pictures?”

“Not quite. I was thinking of walls.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Mullins, our handyman, has built us a
splendid stage, as you can see, and tacked together five canvas
flats, which will display scenes that will provide our guests with
the most wonderful illusion of Shakespeare’s fairyland. These
bucolic motifs – trees, stars, moonlight – have been elegantly
sketched out on the canvas by my talented lady. But, alas, Mullins
is ham-fisted with a paintbrush and Madeleine is a
water-colourist.”

“You’d like me to paint the scenery – when I
ain’t actin’?”

“Only if you’d be bored otherwise, and only
if you felt comfortable doing so.”

Cobb quickly concluded that the baronet was
really concerned that a mere police constable might discomfit the
regular ladies and gentlemen of the cast with his ordinary manners
and amazing vowels. While he should have been insulted – and was –
he also realized that by painting the flats, which he had seen
stacked up against the west wall near the curtained-off wing and
the door to the den, he could unobtrusively eavesdrop on
conversations, and perhaps even move about with the “invisibility”
of the servant class. “I’ve painted a porch or two in my time,” he
said. “I’d be glad to help ya out.”

They shook hands in the vestibule. Sir P. had
insisted that his brougham be brought around and put at Cobb’s
service. When the carriage and its liveried driver pulled up in
front of the Cobb cottage fifteen minutes later, three faces were
pressed up against the big window.

Cobb grinned, and waved the carriage away as
if he were Puck with a fairy-wand in his hand.

***

The first rehearsal on Tuesday evening next produced
no evidence that Cobb could take to Marc, who had instructed him to
report to Briar Cottage only when he felt it necessary. (Chief
Sturges had wondered vaguely about Wilkie and Cobb exchanging
shifts, but when Cobb explained that Wilkie owed him a month’s
worth of night-shifts, Sturges had made no further inquiries about
what Cobb might be up to in his spare time). The entire cast sat
around the long-table in the theatre and did a directed
read-through, and Cobb was able to observe the subtle interplay
among its members. During his other investigations with Marc, Cobb
had become adept at interpreting body language and facial
expressions, and there were plenty of both on display here.