Foul Deeds: A Rosalind Mystery Read Online Free PDF

took Molly out for a run on the Commons.”
    â€œShe’s a great dog. Very special, I think.” Sophie spoke as though she knew all dogs.
    â€œI’m fond of her. And believe me, I don’t take easily to dogs. But I kind of think of Molly as a person. I’ve known her since McBride rescued her—must be about four years ago now.”
    â€œReally? From what?”
    â€œI’ll let McBride tell you sometime,” I said. “How’s it all going?”
    â€œI’m working ahead a bit, looking at that pesky nunnery scene. We probably won’t get that far tonight but I’m so antsy about it. If I know it really well, it’ll be easier to play. I mean, she really gets messed about by Hamlet in that scene, doesn’t she?”
    â€œ Well, she’s totally set up, Sophie. I mean she knows Polonius and Claudius are using her. She must feel like a complete jerk. What does Claudius say to Gertrude right in front of Ophelia?” I took the script from her and looked at the scene. “Here it is—‘
Her Father and myself, lawful espials, will so bestow ourselves that seeing, unseen, we may of their encounter frankly judge.
’ God, lawful espials! Sounds like the Bush admin. And then Polonius hands her a prayer book and says—‘
Ophelia, walk you here. Read on this book that show of such an exercise may colour your loneliness.
’ He’s telling her how best to play her role in order to sucker Hamlet in. Ophelia’s not by nature deceptive, but she’s obedient to her father. That Shakespeare scholar Harold Bloom—you know him?—he writes that when Ophelia says, ‘
I shall obey my Lord,
’ in that very first scene with Polonius, her tragedy is already in its place. So, okay, inwardly she’s compelled to obey her father, but at the same time she cares deeply for Hamlet, who realizes the second he encounters her that something’s up—he can smell it. The whole situation just releases this venom in him.”
    â€œI see what you mean,” Sophie said. “He must be horrified she’s become part of the dissembling he sees all around him at the court.”
    â€œThat’s right,” I said. “So then at the beginning of the scene when she starts the conversation by trying to return the things he’s given her—an obvious artifice—something in him just snaps, and he rages on, completely insensitive to her fragile state. He’s partly railing against his own mother and partly lashing out hard for the benefit of the listeners—those “espials”—and he gets very carried away. It’s ruthless, but he’s in a world of treachery and he knows it. Part of what is truly tragic in this play is the bulldozing of the sweet love between Hamlet and Ophelia. They don’t stand a chance.”
    I stopped ranting. The others were starting to arrive. Sophie nodded, taking the script back from me, “Okay, thanks Roz—that really helps.”
    As she walked away, I thought about how the suspicion of being spied on had made me feel just a couple of hours earlier. When McBride and I had taken Molly out to the Commons where we could talk freely, we decided he should call on his old buddy Andy—a specialist in the surveillance biz—to check out his place, his phone, and maybe even his car, just to make sure it was all clean. After our walk McBride was heading off to a meeting with our client, Peter King’s son Daniel.
    The actors were setting up for the scene between Ophelia and Polonius—her description of Hamlet’s visit to her sewing closet, to be followed by the arrival of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the court. Sophie had pulled on her long rehearsal skirt and she came over to where I was sitting with my script, waiting for things to get rolling.
    â€œBy the way, Roz, in case we just do this one scene with me and I leave early, why don’t you