Read Online Death at the Beggar's Opera by Deryn Lake - Free Book Online

before them. ‘I wonder what Mrs Harcross is going to be like.’
    ‘I wonder if she’s going to be our killer,’ added Benjamin cheerfully.
    John shook his head. ‘I doubt it, somehow. It would be quite a feat to come across country during the night, then make one’s way to the theatre in order to saw the gallows floorboards through.’
    ‘But think of her motive, or motives!’ Samuel replied. ‘Why, her husband seems to have been sleeping with everybody.’
    ‘I don’t know where some people get the energy,’ said the Runner, roaring and slapping his thigh at this fairly unfunny remark.
    ‘I expect he took pills,’ answered Samuel earnestly. ‘There are tablets for that sort of thing, aren’t there, John?’
    ‘Indeed there are. I should say a good third of my income comes from mixing compounds to keep the ageing male population of London performing lustily in the boudoir.’
    ‘What a depressing thought.’
    ‘Yes, isn’t it.’
    ‘Now, gentlemen,’ said the Runner, grinning broadly. ‘There’s no need to be upsetting yourselves. You’ve time on your side, which is more than those old goats have. And as for Mr Harcross, well, his time ran out, didn’t it?’
    ‘I wonder what his wife’s going to be like?’ Samuel repeated, sounding bewildered and slightly nervous.
    ‘We’ll know in a minute,’ John answered grimly. ‘Isn’t that the house described to us over there?’
    ‘Yes, that’s it, Mr Rawlings. Just where Mr Garrick said it would be.’
    ‘I still think it strange that he kept the fact of the marriage secret,’ Samuel continued in much the same tone of voice.
    ‘David Garrick, d’you mean? Or Jasper Harcross?’
    ‘Well, both really. It seems so odd that none of the other actors appeared to know about it.’
    ‘In my view, there might lie the motive,’ put in Benjamin Rudge.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘That somebody happened on the fact that her lover was already married and therefore merely trifling with her affections. And, as a result, love turned to hate – with fatal consequences.’
    Remembering the tightly stretched skin of Coralie’s face, almost as if it were frozen, John audibly drew in his breath.
    ‘We must not rule out the male sex from this affair. Any one of them might well have loathed Jasper Harcross enough to do away with him.’
    The Runner nodded. ‘That’s true enough. Now, gentlemen, shall I undertake the task of breaking the news? Then you can stand by to give medical aid if need be.’ He looked at the Apothecary.
    ‘Very tactfully put,’ John answered. ‘I’d rather you than me.’
    ‘Hear, hear,’ said Samuel, as the carriage drew to a halt before a small, neat house of pleasing proportions.
    Swiftly checking his bag for the correct remedies to treat shock, John alighted with the others and mounted the two steps that raised the front door from the level of the street. Then he stood, staring in anticipation, as the Runner gave a loud and portentous knock.
    ‘Who’s there?’ called a voice. ‘Jasper, is that you?’
    ‘No, Ma’am,’ Benjamin Rudge shouted back. ‘I’ve come from the Public Office at Bow Street. Would it be possible to speak to you for a moment?’
    ‘Of course,’ the voice replied, and John heard the sound of bolts being drawn back and a key turning in the lock. Then the front door opened.
    The Apothecary did not know what he had been expecting, though he had harboured vague notions of a fresh-faced country girl, a bucolic milkmaid, as the only sort of person who could be married to Jasper and not be aware of his philandering. But the woman who stood in the doorway was most certainly none of those things, indeed it was an intelligent, humourous and sophisticated face he found himself regarding. Framed by a cloud of silver hair which she wore swept up beneath a lace cap, were a pair of shrewd eyes, crystal grey, the lines of experience and worldliness round them revealing that this woman was far from young,