SHAKESPEARE’ SECRET (4 page)

“That's just it. It didn't make sense. The necklace was an antique, worth a fortune. And the thief didn't take anything else of the Murphys' either, not the sterling silver, nor the electronics, not any of Eleanor's other jewelry. There were no fingerprints in the house except Arthur's and Eleanor's. There had been no other break-ins in the neighborhood. And the police found it strange that someone climbed through the window. I guess the back door was so old, it would have been easy to force open.”

Hero rested her chin on her knees. “Did the police think they'd faked the whole thing?”

“Well, yes,” Mrs. Roth said. “I suppose they did. As did the insurance company, of course. There were detectives prowling around for months. They even interviewed me.” She looked at Hero more closely. “Are you sure you haven't heard any of this? It's common knowledge in town.”

“My parents may have heard about it. But they
didn't say anything. Why would the Murphys do that? Just for the money?”

Mrs. Roth didn't answer. She smoothed her trousers, and Hero noticed how old her hands looked, the skin thin and white, a network of blue veins near the surface.

Hero asked again, “Why would they pretend the diamond was stolen?”

Mrs. Roth sighed. “They were very good friends of mine,” she said finally.

Hero glanced at her. She fiddled with her shoelaces, waiting for a response. Why wasn't she answering? And then she thought she understood.

“You can tell me,” Hero said slowly. “I won't tell anyone. There's nobody I could tell anyway.”

“No?” Mrs. Roth turned to her, and her gaze was steady. “You're like me, then. There's nobody I can tell either. Eleanor was my closest friend. Isn't it strange? She's the one I'd most like to talk to about it, and she's gone.” Her lips twitched. “There's a wonderful Emily Dickinson poem:

“I'm Nobody! Who are you?

Are you
—
Nobody
—
too?

Then there's a pair of us?

Don't tell! they'd advertise
—
you know!

How dreary
—
to be
—
Somebody!

How public
—
like a Frog
—

To tell one's name—the livelong June—

To an admiring Bog!

“Do you know that one?”

Hero shook her head, smiling. “If anything gets quoted at our house, it's usually Shakespeare. But I like that.”

“I do, too,” Mrs. Roth said. She rested her head against the post again and looked out into the garden. “All right, then. Why would Arthur and Eleanor Murphy hide a diamond?”

Hero waited in the warm silence, eager for her to continue.

Finally she spoke again. “Two years ago, Eleanor became ill. It was cancer, very advanced; no one had any hope. But there was a treatment in Mexico, something experimental and very expensive. It wasn't covered by their health insurance. Arthur was certain it was the only thing that would save her.”

Mrs. Roth seemed to be talking to herself now. “They couldn't afford it. Arthur wanted her to sell the necklace. Eleanor refused. She thought the necklace might have some sort of historical importance. The Vere family was descended from British nobility apparently.”

“But if it was the only way to pay for the treatment she needed,” Hero protested, “wouldn't she do it to save her own life?”

“I don't think she had any confidence she could be saved,” Mrs. Roth said. “She wasn't a young woman. She seemed to accept it, that she was going to die.”

“Really?” Hero couldn't imagine that. “She just gave up?”

“I don't think it was giving up. Her health declined noticeably about a year ago. It was a terrible thing to watch. She'd always been such a vibrant person, full of interests and curiosities. She became very weak. She couldn't read. We couldn't do the crosswords anymore. Arthur was just desperate. I'd never seen him like that.” Mrs. Roth hesitated.

Hero sunk her chin into the hollow between her kneecaps, breathing the salty, grassy smell of her own skin. “So you think he did it? You think Mr. Murphy took the diamond himself?”

Mrs. Roth nodded. “I do, yes. I think the police were right. I think Arthur reported the diamond stolen for the insurance money. He thought it was the only way to save his wife.”

“Did he get the money? Did he take her to Mexico?”

Mrs. Roth straightened, seeming to come out of her
reverie. “No, not in time. Because of the investigation, the insurance people delayed payment for months and months. Eleanor died last fall. So it was all for nothing. And Arthur couldn't bear to live here without her.”

Hero stared at the ordinary shingled profile of her family's house. It looked so much like the other houses on the street, with its peaks and dormers, its aging shutters and bay windows. Who would have thought it had such a history?

“But why does anyone think he hid the diamond in the house?” she asked. “It would make more sense for him to take it with him, or give it to someone. Or at least to hide it someplace else.”

“True,” Mrs. Roth agreed. “But the investigation was very thorough. The Murphys didn't have many close friends, other than myself. And Arthur did finally receive the insurance settlement, which was nearly a million dollars. So if he'd turned up with the diamond, it would have been a serious matter legally.”

Hero hugged her legs against her chest. What if the diamond were still in the house somewhere? Or buried in the yard? It could be tucked under a floorboard in the hallway, or pushed deep into the soft dirt beneath the azaleas.

“But Mr. Murphy moved out awhile ago, right?” Hero said suddenly. “And you said the whole town knows about the diamond. Someone might have already found it.” She felt a stab of disappointment.

Mrs. Roth tilted her head, smiling at Hero. “Arthur did move out a few months ago. But the house has been locked up, empty. And the police searched it quite thoroughly. Wherever the diamond is, it isn't easy to find.”

She rested her hand on Hero's shoulder. “You know, I think Arthur chose your family quite deliberately. He told me all about your father and his job at the Maxwell.”

Hero looked at her curiously. She couldn't imagine what her father's job had to do with this. “Have you talked to Mr. Murphy? Since he left, I mean?”

Mrs. Roth shook her head. “I last spoke to him in June, when he decided to sell the house to your parents. He hasn't been in touch since. I think he's in Boston, but I'm not sure.”

Hero glanced at her watch. “Oh!” she cried. “It's almost five o'clock. I have to go.” She reached for her backpack reluctantly. “So you think the diamond's still there?”

Mrs. Roth stood slowly, using the porch column for
support. “Indeed I do. I have good reason to think so. Arthur—” she stopped. “You should go. I'll show you tomorrow.”

“What?” Hero asked, unable to leave the porch. “What is it?”

Mrs. Roth smiled. “Tomorrow.”

Hero burst through the back door into the kitchen, where the rich, garlicky smell of tomato sauce filled the air. Her mother stood at the stove, a dripping spoon in one hand.

“Hero, where have you been? I was worried.” “Sorry.” Hero unzipped her backpack and began sorting through it, dropping homework sheets on top of a stack of her mother's work papers in the middle of the kitchen table.

“Honey those are invitations for an event at the Maxwell. Please don't make a mess. Why are you so late?”

“I stopped at Mrs. Roth's on the way home.”

Her mother looked at her more closely. “Mrs. Roth's? Really? What were you doing over there?”

“Oh, nothing.” Hero paused. “She was working on a crossword puzzle, and I helped her.”

Hero's mother returned to her stirring, but her lips pursed skeptically. “How did school go today?” she asked.

Again, Hero hesitated. She wouldn't have minded her mother's sympathy, but often these things seemed to upset her parents more than they upset her. And then, in addition to worrying about her own problems, Hero had to worry about the two of them worrying about her problems, which was more exhausting than coping with the problems all by herself.

“School was okay” she said.

“Really?” her mother asked eagerly, searching Hero's face. “Everything went okay today?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“Oh, honey, I'm so glad. The first day is always the hardest.”

“Yeah, it is,” Hero agreed.

She sank into a chair and crossed her arms over her homework, resting her head in the crook of her elbow. She could see the smooth ivory invitations her mother had been working on. They had ornate crimson script curling across them.

“Those are pretty,” she said.

“Thank you. They're for the opening reception of that
Hamlet
exhibit your father's been talking about.” Her mother glanced out the window. “Speak of the devil.”

Hero heard the sound of her father's car in the driveway. A minute later he came through the door, scattering car keys and loose change right in front of her.

He ruffled her hair. “Hello, ladybird! How was the day?”

“Fine,” Hero answered promptly, hoping to cut off further questions. She thought of Mrs. Roth's comment about her father's job. “Hey Dad,” she said. “Mrs. Roth told me the guy who sold us the house was really interested in what you do. You know, that you study Shakespeare and everything. She said it's why he sold the house to us.”

“Mrs. Roth?” Her father looked at her blankly.

“The lady next door.”

“Oh, right. Well, yes, that's true. It's an odd connection, isn't it? The wife's relationship to Edward de Vere, of all people.”

Now it was Hero's turn to look blank. “What do you mean? Who's Edward de Vere?”

Her mother clucked in mock disapproval. “You girls never pay attention to your father. He told you
about this when we went through the house after the closing.”

“He did?” Hero had no recollection of any story about an Edward de Vere. But her father often digressed into long-winded literary lectures that she and Beatrice were in the habit of ignoring.

“Indeed I did,” her father protested. “Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, the man who might be Shakespeare. Ring a bell?”

The Earl of Oxford did vaguely ring a bell. But what did he have to do with Shakespeare, or with the Murphys for that matter? “Tell me again,” Hero said.

Her father pulled a chair away from the table and sat down next to her. He ran his hand over the short scruff of his beard and leaned forward intently. “Apparently, Arthur Murphy's late wife was a descendant of Edward de Vere, the Elizabethan courtier whom some believe is the real author of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. The secret Shakespeare. There's no proof, of course, but there are some intriguing clues.”

Hero looked at him, puzzled. “I don't get it. Why does anybody think Shakespeare didn't write his own plays?”

“Well, let's see. Three things, really. First, William Shakespeare was a humble merchant. He had no
more than a grammar-school education and wasn't worldly or well-traveled as far as we know. Yet the plays depend on a vast knowledge of many subjects-literature, history, law, and geography—not to mention specific details of royal life.”

“Couldn't he have learned about those things from books?” Hero asked.

“It's possible, but the point is, he wasn't an educated man. He was an ordinary businessman, without the library or other resources of a wealthier person. Then there's the second reason: When Shakespeare died, there were no obituaries or public homages paid to him. Think of that: a man now considered the greatest playwright of the English language and whose work was deservedly popular in its own time. He died quietly praises unsung.”

“What's the third reason?” Hero asked.

Her father tapped the edge of the table with his fingertips. “That's the most interesting of all. Shakespeare left behind no collection of books, no manuscripts of his plays or verses, no documents in his own handwriting that link him to the literature. It's very strange. Other Elizabethan playwrights and poets kept extensive libraries of their own and other writers' material. Actually, only six signatures in
Shakespeare's hand exist. They're quite primitive and show different spellings of his name.”

“He couldn't even spell his own name?” Hero considered this. “Okay, so maybe he didn't write the plays.”

Her mother laughed. “You were easy to convince. He's the greatest figure in English literature! Think what that would mean, if Shakespeare wasn't the author of those plays.”

Hero shrugged. “But it wouldn't change the plays. I mean, they're still the same. Does it really matter who wrote them?”