Sherlock Holmes: The American Years (25 page)

Finally I dragged myself out of bed, bathed, and dressed. Rehearsal had been called for two o’clock in the afternoon, so after a hasty breakfast, Holmes and I took a cab to the theatre.

That day we were scheduled to rehearse the scene in which Hamlet visits his mother, Gertrude, in her bedroom. During the course of the scene he mistakes the busybody Polonius, eavesdropping behind a screen, for his Uncle Claudius, the man who murdered Hamlet’s father. Gertrude calls out for help, and, in a panic, the foolish Polonius echoes her cries. Hamlet hears him and stabs Polonius through the screen, thinking he is stabbing the murderous Claudius. In one of the play’s many sad ironies, poor Polonius is rewarded for his meddling with an ignominious death, and Hamlet incurs the wrath of the old man’s son, Laertes, while Claudius remains free.

We used a prop sword with a collapsing blade—a simple enough device—so that when I “stabbed” Geoff Simmons, the blade retreated into itself, giving the illusion of sinking into his flesh. The effect was very realistic, even seen from close up, and audiences invariably gasped when the sword “penetrated” his body.

The scene between Hamlet and his mother was going well. Elizabeth Zare, the veteran actress playing Gertrude, was wonderful—and when the moment arrived for the stabbing, I
was charged with emotion. I spoke Hamlet’s lines as he hears Polonius:

How now? a rat?

Dead for a ducat, dead!

As I said the lines, I seized the sword from Gertrude’s bedside table. As I did, a small voice inside of me sounded faintly:
This is not the right sword.
It did not feel like the usual prop sword that we used—it was heavier, and the handle felt different. But the moment was fleeting, and I was so hot with emotion that I ignored that faint voice and continued with the scene.

I will never forgive myself for what happened next.

I grasped the sword and plunged it into the curtain Polonius was hiding behind. But instead of the metallic click of the collapsing blade, there was the sickening sound of steel ripping into flesh. Stunned, I pulled my hand back, the sword still clutched in it. It was wet with blood—not stage blood, but real blood. I staggered backward as Geoffrey Simmons stumbled out from behind the screen, his face white, clutching his stomach. With a groan, he sank to his knees. He looked up at me with the most pitiful expression of disbelief, hurt, and accusation. I tried to speak but could not utter a word. I knelt beside him and caught him in my arms; I was vaguely aware of a woman screaming behind me. And then all was blackness; it was as though someone had pulled a shade over my eyes, and I lost consciousness.

The next thing I knew I was lying on the divan in my dressing room, Holmes bending over me.

Squinting in an attempt to focus my eyes, I tried to sit up.

“Easy, now,” Holmes said. “Don’t try to stand just yet. You’ve had a shock—we all have.”

“Geoffrey!” I cried. “Is he—?”

“He has been taken to hospital,” Holmes replied. “Everyone believes it was an accident.”

“It was no accident,” I said grimly.

“Yes, I know. Someone put that sword there on purpose.”

“But why kill poor Geoffrey?” I lamented.

“Clearly he knows something. That is no doubt why he left the note asking to speak with you.” He began pacing the room, his face dark. “This is really getting to be too much—we must act decisively, and soon.”

It struck me that we were caught in the same dilemma as Shakespeare’s famous character: to act or not to act—and when?

When I had recovered from my shock I made a brief appearance in front of the rest of the company to announce that rehearsal was canceled indefinitely—at least until we found a new Polonius. A report arrived from the hospital that Geoff Simmons was alive, but for how long he would remain thus they could not say. Following that news, I sent the actors home. I was careful to call the event a “horrible accident,” and cautioned everyone to check his or her props carefully from now on. Perhaps others also suspected this was no accident, but if so, they did not tell me.

Holmes hailed a cab and I sat in moody silence as it rattled through the streets. I now was in a moral quandary, and had to seriously consider canceling the entire production. I had thought up until now that I was the only one in danger, but clearly I was mistaken.

No sooner had we seated ourselves in the grill room when Hector handed me my mail. In it was a bill from the theatre owner for our monthly rent, which made my decision even more painful. If I did not present
Hamlet,
the bill would go unpaid and my entire company would be out of work. I sighed deeply and tossed the envelope on the table next to me.

“What is it?” Holmes asked.

“A bill from our landlord,” I replied. “Each year he threatens to sell the building, and each year I find a way to dissuade him. He claims if he turned it into a store it would be much more profitable.”

“No doubt he is right,” Holmes answered. “I wonder why he continues to operate it as a theatre.”

“I don’t know—I suspect prestige has something to do with it.”

“Of course,” Holmes said with a nod. “He can boast at parties that he is Edwin Booth’s landlord . . . that makes me wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“Well, I had previously discarded money as a motive, but perhaps I should revise my thinking. There may be an unseen player in this affair after all.”

I was about to respond, but at that moment the door opened and in strode Lawrence Barrett.

Barrett and I had known each other for many years, since my earliest days in New York. He was an intense and gifted actor, but a difficult and demanding man. We had had many ups and downs over the years—after one quarrel we didn’t speak for months. I had refused to cast him in a lead I felt he was unsuited for, and he refused to forgive me. He was as covetous of fame as I was weary of it. His Cassius in Julius Caesar was renowned—he was suited to
the part as few actors are, being himself not only lean but possessed of a truly ambitious and “hungry” nature. Though a critically acclaimed actor, he never drew large audiences as I did, which rankled him terribly.

He swung into the grill room on his long legs, wearing a forest green wool cape and shiny black riding boots. He looked around the room, no doubt hoping to be recognized by some young actor who might ask him for an autograph. No one paid him any attention, though, and he flicked his cape over his shoulder, much as a cat flicks its tail when irritated. Spying me, he stalked stiff-legged to our table; a frown passed across his face when he saw Holmes.

“Hello, Larry,” I said, smiling up at him.

“Good day, Edwin,” he replied, still looking at Holmes.

“Allow me to present Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” I said. “He is our Horatio for this production. Holmes, this is Lawrence—”

“Lawrence Barrett,” Holmes interrupted smoothly. “One of our greatest living actors. I had the honor of seeing your Cassius once—I found it to be the definitive interpretation of the role.”

“You flatter me, sir,” Barrett replied, coloring. He had a broad Irish face, with a Cupid’s bow mouth, rosy cheeks, and a fair complexion that betrayed his emotions. (It was rumored that his father’s name was Brannigan, but that he changed it for his stage career.)

“I think not,” Holmes answered, “though your modesty becomes you.”

I was forced to hold my tongue—Barrett was many things, but modest was not one of them.

“In any case,” Holmes continued, “the honor is all mine.”

“Thank you, sir,” Barrett replied, somewhat placated, but I still sensed an uneasiness on his part.

“Won’t you join us?” I said.

“No, thank you—I have urgent business to attend to; however, I heard of your terrible accident, and I wished to offer you my services as Polonius.”

(Barrett was five years younger than I—and, as my critics liked to point out, I was long in the tooth for the role of Hamlet, but I continued to draw more crowds in that role than in any other.)

“Why, what a capital idea,” I replied.

“I have just ended an out-of-town engagement, as it happens, and am quite free at the moment,” Barrett said, all the while flicking his cape nervously. It occurred to me that possibly there was no “out-of-town engagement,” and that Larry was in fact in need of a job. But I knew the man too well to puncture his pride needlessly, so I nodded seriously.

“How kind of you to think of me,” I said. “Can you start immediately?”

“Indeed I can,” he replied.

“Tomorrow at noon, then?”

“That will be fine. And now if you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to. It was a pleasure meeting you,” he added, addressing Holmes.

“The pleasure was all mine,” Holmes replied.

“Until tomorrow, then,” Barrett said, bowing slightly.

“Yes—and thank you, Larry,” I answered.

His mouth curled upwards in a smile, and again I was reminded of a cat—precise, wary, watchful. “Always a pleasure to help out a friend.”

“He does indeed have a lean and hungry look,” Holmes remarked when Barrett had gone.

“Yes,” I answered. “He was born to play Cassius.”

“How long was he in the military?”

By now I had become so used to Holmes’s ways that I didn’t even bother to show my astonishment.

“About four years, I believe, during the Rebellion,” I replied casually.

“An officer—a captain, perhaps, or major,” Holmes said.

“Captain.”

He looked at me as if expecting the usual questions and pronouncements of amazement, but I refused to play along.

“Now then,” I said, enjoying the faint expression of disappointment that crossed his face, “what are you going to order for dinner?”

But we were both exhausted, emotionally and physically, and neither of us ate much dinner. By the time we were ready to retire I was yawning uncontrollably. I settled into my comfortable four-poster bed and closed my eyes, but before I drifted off to sleep, two unwelcome thoughts occurred to me: that as a cavalry officer, Barrett was presumably a very good shot, and furthermore, perhaps not all was forgiven after all.

My mood was not improved when I arrived at my dressing room the next day to find a piece of paper nailed to the door. Trembling, I plucked it off and read it, instantly recognizing Richard’s Act III speech from
Richard II
:

For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poisoned by their wives: some sleeping killed;
All murdered.

I turned to see Holmes coming toward me, and handed him the note without speaking. He glanced at it, then shook his head.

“Someone is toying with you.”

“Maybe it is time to admit defeat and cancel the production,” I said.

“If you can grant me one more day,” Holmes said, “I think I can flush out your assailant. However, should you decide to give up, I can certainly understand—”

“Very well,” I interrupted him. “At the end of today, though, I must make the decision.”

The bell rang for rehearsal, and we headed off down the corridor toward the stage. Today we were to rehearse the final duel scene, but I was not sure I was up to the task.

All good actors must learn to immerse themselves in the emotional life of their character, all the while keeping a part of their brain detached, so that they may remember their lines, as well as execute any necessary blocking and stage business. This “double life” extends to their attitude toward their fellow actors: Othello, for example, must experience all the torment of jealous passion toward poor Desdemona, at the same time taking care not to actually strangle her during their final scene. Of course, these lines have been crossed—I myself have more than once had to restrain my impulse to actually choke another actor onstage, and have come away with bruises more than once from a fight scene that got out of hand.

Nowhere is a combination of control and restraint more
necessary than in the final scene of
Hamlet
. During the duel between Laertes and Hamlet in front of the entire Danish court, each man is required to give and receive a nick of the sword, which must appear to pierce the skin. Laertes’s sword has been dipped in a deadly poison, something Hamlet is unaware of, and when he receives what he thinks is a tiny scratch, he has in fact been fatally poisoned. Later in the duel, when Hamlet seizes Laertes’s sword—still unaware it is coated with poison—he inflicts a minor cut upon his friend, not knowing he has fatally wounded him.

It has always been my desire to create as much realism as possible, so I always provide myself and Laertes with a small pouch of stage blood to be held in the left hand during the sword play—then, at the proper time, the pouch is clapped on the area of the “wound,” creating a very realistic effect for the audience. I have heard gasps from the gallery during these moments—a sound that is music to the ears of any actor/manager.

Given Nate Carlisle’s superior swordsmanship, I was on my guard, though my duel with him had been carefully staged. As we squared off for the fight, I thought I saw a gleam in his eyes I had not noticed before—or perhaps it was a trick of the light, the glare of the hot gas lamps catching his face just so.