Act of Murder Read Online Free PDF

but it would be disastrous
for the success of the tour, and his subsequent reputation on returning to the capital, if he were to become the object of scandalous speculation. Hitherto, he and Herbert had skated on the outer
fringes, so to speak. But gradually they were moving closer, with lingering touches of the hands and glances that lasted just that little too long, so that, soon – very soon, he hoped –
they would venture more closely together towards the thinner, more dangerous ice in the centre. Wigan was the first venue where he had arranged lodgings for both himself and Herbert –
traditionally, everyone on tour took responsibility for their own accommodation, but he had suggested casually one evening that he would make the arrangements if the young actor were amenable. The
wry smile in response, and the tantalising uplift of the eyebrows, had gratified him beyond measure.
    Nevertheless, they had to take the greatest care. It would be unbearable if something happened at this point to thwart his and Herbert’s plans, albeit unspoken. He thought of the time when
they would be fully and deliciously together as a moment of ecstasy, and when they finally returned to London perhaps Herbert would become a regular visitor to his home on Cheyne Walk. How blissful
that would be!
    But he would bitterly resent anyone doing anything to destroy the moment by turning it into the filthy slush of scandal. He could not allow that to happen. He would not.
    *
    Along the corridor, in the tiniest of dressing-rooms, Susan Coupe pulled herself away from a particularly extravagant embrace and tried to catch her breath.
    ‘What is it?’ her companion asked with a knowing smile.
    The young actress swallowed nervously, and leaned back against a small dressing-table replete with all the paraphernalia of her trade: a range of small, round boxes containing her favourite pale
peach theatrical powder; an array of greasepaint bases; several slender containers of various liner colours; and a faceless head draped with the wig she would be wearing for tonight’s
performance.
    ‘I thought I heard Benjamin. We must be careful,’ she whispered, with a furtive glance at the closed door.
    ‘It’s locked.’
    ‘It’s not that. You know what I mean.’
    ‘No one suspects a thing, my dearest,’ James Shorton whispered with a smile.
    ‘But what if . . . Perhaps . . . perhaps this is as far as we can go.’
    ‘Susan. Please look at me.’
    He held her face in his hands. Those startling blue eyes of hers became watery, looking far younger than her twenty-one years. ‘I have made you a solemn promise. I will not desert you now.
I love you. And that means I will do what I have promised to do.’
    Susan had the grace to blush. She hadn’t intended her words to sound so self-indulgent. And yet, she herself had a great deal to lose. She had already trodden the boards at some of the
greatest theatres in the world, most recently the Haymarket, and had accepted a tentative offer from Henry Irving at the Lyceum.
    She had strong hopes, too, of sailing across the Atlantic with the great Irving on his next American venture, where she knew, given the chance, she would stun a Broadway audience, said to be the
most critical but appreciative audience in the world. Many a night she curled herself around the comforting vision of an entire theatre standing in rapt applause as she stood on a stage bedecked
with the most colourful of floral tributes, her fellow actors leading the tributes with smiles and envious glances.
    It was a scene that grew darker on occasion. Gradually, as she drifted off to sleep and began to lose control of the gloriously satisfying coup de theâtre , the script would change.
The cheering and acclaims of ‘Bravo!’ would be interspersed, infrequently at first, with yells of ‘Dollymop!’ and ‘Judy!’ from the darkness beyond the stage,
until the catcalls gained momentum, row upon row of the audience now taking up the