The Lamplighter (13 page)

He smiled victoriously.

“So you see? We have been personally summoned, you and I. First through the Bible in your possession, and now through the very language of philosophy. We have been invited purposely, and perhaps even maliciously, deep into the heart of the mystery.”

Canavan, without a proper protest, seemed dazed.

McKnight shook his head in wonder at it all. “Would you happen to know exactly where this Evelyn lass lives?”

“I…I suppose so…”

“Then we must arrange a meeting as soon as possible. I believe she might have some very significant things to tell us.”

They picked their way down the rocky path, Canavan's mind too agitated to engage in meaningful conversation. Could the Professor be right? Was the killer deliberately baiting them? What special powers could they possibly possess, to make them the subject of such a challenge? Was the Irish lass really at the heart of it all?

And how, for that matter, had the Professor learned her name?

It made no sense at all.

But when he returned to his sky-high garret and found McKnight's wind-borne bowler sitting neatly on his only chair, he was suddenly convinced logic had flown out the window as surely as the hat had flown in.

I
T WAS THE FIRST DAY
I heard of the lamplighter, and the first time I got wind of some conspiracy,
Groves later recorded in his memoirs.
It was another day of mounting mystery, with Professor Smeaton now put to rest, and nothing to do but to forge on through the confusion that hung on the city like a blanket, and the fear that hung on it like a sheet. Ainslie's footman was of little help, but again he mentioned his employer's links to the theatre, and to be thorough I could not avoid a visit to “the realms of fantasy,” to which I had not been since my days as a wean.

The Royal Lyceum was a newly erected theater on Grindlay Street with an audience capacity of two thousand people. On the boards outside were pasted newspaper reviews of the latest sensation, the great Scottish tragedian Mr. Seth Hogarth, direct from the London stage, in the title role of
Othello,
with Miss Lindsay Grimes as Desdemona. “Mr. Hogarth,” trumpeted the
Review,
“informs his every word with electric passion, and now threatens Tommaso Salvini in his claim to the definitive Moor.” During the day, at popular prices, Hogarth was also appearing in
Seven of His Most Popular Shakespearean Interpretations,
performing selected soliloquies in the character of everyone from Benedick in
Much Ado About Nothing
to Macbeth in the Scottish Play. He was supported by the Brothers Gonzales and Their Eccentric Donkey.

Groves picked his way through the backstage ropes and pulleys and rapped on the indicated dressing room door.

“Come forth,” a voice boomed expectantly. “The door is unlatched.”

The Inspector entered a tiny windowless room to find the famed actor standing imperiously before a vacant chair, his fists lodged on his hips. Hogarth, he had already been informed, habitually concluded his matinee performances as a fully made-up Moor and remained in character until the final curtain of the evening performance. He was currently costumed in an amber robe with a jeweled collar, burnt-cork makeup, frazzled crepe wig, and gold earrings.

“'Tis Groves?” he asked in his imposing voice.

“It is,” replied Groves, vaguely unsettled.

“Five thousand welcomes,” Hogarth boomed. “Pray, take a seat.”

Groves perceived an imperative tone and ordinarily might have resisted on principle. But he was uneasy enough in the environment, and now on top of that disconcerted by Hogarth's manner, and so he found himself settling almost against his will into the provided chair. It was not the first time he had set eyes on the actor—he had arrived late in the performance and endured the final “interpretation” impatiently, privately rueing the fact that he had missed the donkey—but he found the man even more fearsome in person than he had appeared onstage.

“Have you visited the theater before, Inspector?” the actor inquired. He had not offered his hand, but his eyes blazed with warmth.

“This is the first time I've been,” Groves admitted. “But it has not been open too long, in any event.”

“I mean any theater. Theater, the father of dreams. Have you never slipped into a play to ease the pain of a torturing hour?”

“I went as a young 'un. And got a headache from the houselights.”

“We use electric filaments in glass globes now,” Hogarth said proudly. “Only the backup footlights are gas. The naked flame is truly the theater's nemesis.” He did not have to mention the Theatre Royal in Broughton Street, which had a nasty habit of burning down every ten years.

“A policeman has little time for such trifles,” Groves observed.

“Though I caught you before in the guise of the Negro.”

Hogarth, as though on cue, affected a theatrical flourish. “‘By heaven, thou echoest me…as if there were some monster in my thought…too hideous to be shown…!'” He projected his gilded voice to some imaginary audience and let the words hang in the air and dissipate, his hands still curled, and Groves got the impression that he was meant to applaud, or express some manner of approval. But he only grunted.

“You've heard of the murder at Waverley Station, sir?” he asked, eager to waste no time.

“Unsavory news,” said Hogarth, lowering his head, “which truly has turned my countenance.”

“What do you know of it?”

“Murder most foul, strange, and unnatural. People's hearts are brimful of fear, and Edinburgh is spoken as a term of terror.”

Groves was baffled by the actor's grandiloquence, but he had always suspected that actors were mad. “It is said by more than one that you were a close friend of the deceased, Mr. James Ainslie.”

“Pish,” Hogarth snorted. “A small acquaintance, hollow friends at best.”

“So he was not a friend, you claim?”

“He was a close friend of no one, Inspector. Disgrace knocked often at his door, and I always suspected wrath or craft would get him in the end. Still, to give the devil his due, he could play the gentleman well enough, with those requisites that green minds look after.”

Groves decided to register his impatience. “This is a most serious investigation, sir. You would do well to cooperate.”

“It is my duty, Inspector, and I hold my duty as I hold my soul.”

Groves sniffed. “I would like to know how you met him.”

Hogarth again dispensed with his histrionics, if only briefly. “I was appearing as Richelieu at the Royal, coming off my great success as Mr. Tollaway in
My Black Eye
. Perhaps you've heard of it, Inspector?”

Groves shook his head.

“An aching farce.
Punch
called it better than
Who Speaks First?
But you weary of my tedious prattle, I see. Let me rouse my tired memory. Ah, yes—it was twenty years ago or more. Mr. Ainslie was introduced to me as a most worldly financier.”

“Had he been to France?”

“There was little Gaul in him, but a great stain of the soldier. Yes, that was it—he had in uniform seen the world. Though more of his soldiership I know not.”

This much Groves had already established: a dishonorable discharge from the Royal Rifle Corps and a swift retreat to his city of birth. “Did he speak of his service?”

“Of most disastrous chances, hairbreadth escapes, and insolent foes. But he was an infinite and endless liar, and his heart was clearly set on some future mischief.”

“Yet you mixed with him?”

Hogarth sighed heartily. “Limelight brings forth the adder, Inspector. I associate with such serpents, and seek to dodge their fangs when they strike.”

“What was his business, then?”

“In the theater?” Hogarth shifted posture. “I believe at first it was simply a bounteous madam by the name of Annabelle, who was appearing with me in
Richelieu,
but had most successfully played the Royal in Manchester in
The Belle's Strategem
. I was Doricourt.”

“A harlot?” Groves had little regard for actresses.

“A shallow, changing woman, whom I once considered my own, but who was drawn away by Mr. Ainslie's revels. The man played many a strumpet in his bed, Inspector, though at the time I believe he had commissioned her for something more. There was some evil plan he had hatched, and she was to play a prominent role.”

Groves stiffened. “What sort of evil plan?”

“I remember a mist of things, but nothing distinct. There was some orphan involved—some unfathered fruit. And he seemed to be visiting the churches.”

“The churches?” Groves thought of Professor Smeaton. “Did you ask why?”

“I did not. But he appeared one day shivering and looking pale, almost beside himself with fear. I took it that he had dared damnation, and elected not to pry.”

“He did not tell you anything?”

“Nothing.”

“He was tight-lipped, then?”

“I was tight-eared.”

“Had you spoken to him recently? This is important.”

“Not in many a season,” Hogarth said, “though of course he orbited the theater like a wandering moon.”

Groves now began to wonder about the actor himself. There was no question he was a cultured man, after all, of the sort identified by Evelyn. And certainly he had traveled far…

“The company was dining late that night,” Hogarth suddenly offered, as though reading his mind, “a fruitful meal at the lodgings of Oliphant Bentley, the tea merchant, when some caddy did arrive with the news. We all did pale, and lamented Mr. Ainslie's passing like Christians. A rascal he may have been, but at heart we're all bastards. Disguised, was he not, in some odd semblance?”

Groves nodded, making a note to verify the alibi later. “A rough job,” he said, “done without expertise.” He glanced pointedly at Hogarth's sponges and blending powders. “You've not heard of him, perhaps, prowling around for brushes and pastes?”

“Alas, no, but it would not be unlike the man to improvise. Lead paint, perhaps, which causes the eyes to swell and the skin to shrivel.”

“Can you think of any reason for such a mask?”

“Well, as I say, Mr. Ainslie had kept an evil diet long, and might have known his hour of reckoning was nigh. Is there as yet any clue to the identity of the beast responsible?”

Groves shifted. “I am closing in on the killer.”

“I warrant that the beast now shivers, knowing such a man has his scent. I pray that when his cue is called, he says the proper lines, and goes to his maker with humility.”

“Aye,” Groves agreed, though he still was not certain if the man was mocking him.

“Some tea cake, Inspector?” the actor asked, gesturing with a flourish to an ornate tin. “'Tis as luscious as locusts.”

But Groves decided that he had already had enough of trying to comprehend Hogarth's ornate jargon. “Kind of you,” he said, pushing himself to his feet, “but I fear I have too much to do.”

“Pish!” Hogarth exclaimed. “We have scarce begun! I beseech you for more of the theatrical expedition of your sapling years! Which play did you enjoy, and who did perform that day?”

Groves smoothed the brim of his hat. “I don't rightly remember who performed,” he said, “though I remember the play well enough.” In fact, his dear mother had taken them in the interests of patriotism, and if he recalled it so vividly now it was only because of the sacrifices she had made to do so.

Hogarth's eyes sparkled. “A tragedy? A comedy? A tragicomedy? A history, pastoral, comical-pastoral?”

“A depressing piece,” Groves said. “
Macbeth
.”

The actor grimaced visibly, but swiftly collected himself. “And did you enjoy it,” he asked, swallowing, “for all your tender age?”

The man must surely have had some poor review in the role of Macbeth
,
for every time I mentioned the play he blanched and spluttered, and in the end, for all his noises of hospitality, he wanted to evict me like a heckler, and I would have protested had I not myself wished to be free of the place, the theatre I say again being no place for the man of practical mind.

“Soft you, a word or two before you go,” said a pained Hogarth, seizing Groves's arm at the door. “I have done the state some service, and you know it.” Beads of perspiration had materialized on his blackened forehead and he was panting like a heated dog. “No more of that. I pray you, in your letter, speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate, or set down aught in malice. Speak of me as one who loved not wisely, of one not easily jealous, of one whose hand threw a pearl away, and one who dropped tears as fast as Arabian trees their medicinable gum! I dispatch you to your mystery!”

And he released a confounded Groves and shut the door with an audible gasp.

I have here attempted to record his words with some exactitude, but I fear they are of a brand that one does not easily recall, and speak of one whose salad days are well behind him, and one who has sunk to the level of a blinking idiot.