The play to be performed was called The Butler’s Revenge. It was an old warhorse not seen on stage in that town for decades. But Rock had requested that it be done as his farewell performance. The part of the butler was a meaty role that gave him the freedom to pull out all the stops. The rest of the cast hated the play, but since it was Rock’s last role they went along with him.
There were plenty of butterflies backstage that evening. Even though the gala was a trumped-up affair, the conspirators found themselves inspired to believe their sentiments were genuine. The tension was increased when the attempted hold-up took place.
It happened less than an hour before curtain. The cast were prowling about, drinking coffee, staring without comprehension at newspapers, enjoying that delicious sensation of impending execution which is always reprieved by the rising curtain.
The bandit let himself in by the stage door. He was a black man in his twenties, roughly dressed in leather and denim, hair an extreme Afro, eyes shaded by dark glasses. He kept his hand in his jacket pocket until he confronted the actors. Aubrey Rock included. Then he whipped out a revolver. “I tell you, mon, this is a robbery,” he said. “I must ask you, don’t make me nervous, mon.”
The accent was perfect West Indian. Rock was very pleased with his friend Lewis Nunford. His neat appearance and his Academy-trained voice were perfectly disguised. The cast froze and fell silent.
“One at a time,” the intruder said. “Hand over your money.” He approached Rock first. “I start with you, mon.”
The actor moved forward casually. “Certainly. We are only poor players, you won’t get much from us.” Suddenly he moved with surprising speed, tangled with the young man, and, before the others knew what was happening, the gun was in Rock’s hand. He forced the muzzle into the crust of the Afro. “I should blow your brains out,” he said, “only I’m afraid I’d miss.”
“Well done, Aubrey,” Lance said. The others chorused approval.
“Hey mon, don’t do this to me. I got no father. Just a mother and nine sisters and brothers back in Notting Hill. We got nothing. I can’t get no job. I been on the dole for two years. I hate that, mon. I rather do anything.” He went ahead with a tale of hardship delivered so convincingly that the whole group was moved. Aubrey Rock was most impressed. Given the creation of a few more good black parts on the professional stage, there was no telling how far Lewis Nunford might go.
Rock backed off. Still aiming the gun at his friend, he said, “How do the rest of you feel? I think we should let him go.”
There was a babble of approval. Only Ken Lavender, the stage manager, took the practical view. “This is not the way to support the police,” he said. “Letting him go won’t solve his problems. He’ll be off robbing somebody else later tonight.”
“Oh no, mon. Hey, you let me off and I’m going straight. I learned my lesson.”
“All right,” Rock said. “Come on.” He led the boy to the stage door, fishing in his pocket for a pound note. “I’m giving you taxi fare and I want to see you use it.” They stepped through the doorway into the alley and the door banged shut behind them. Rock put the gun in his pocket. “Lewis, that was beautiful. You even convinced me.”
“My pleasure, Aubrey,” Nunford said, taking off the Afro wig. “Now about the gun — you’ll be careful, won’t you? It’s real, and it’s loaded.”
“That’s the whole point,” Rock said. “Where did you get it?”
“Through a friend. In — would you believe — Notting Hill? He’s one of those blokes who dream of revolution. Don’t worry, it can’t be traced to anybody.”
“Right,” the older actor said. “Now you’d better get back to London.” As his friend hurried away Rock added, “I may be joining you there soon.”
The Butler’s Revenge started on time and was a great success. The pre-curtain shot of adrenalin had put the performers on the bit. The audience laughed in all the right places. The Mayor’s chain of office glittered in light reflected from the stage.
The climax of the play — and Aubrey Rock’s reason for choosing it — happens in the final scene when the butler, who has been harshly treated by the domineering family, confronts them at last, delivers an angry speech, and then shoots them all in the sitting room.
Backstage, in a short break before the final scene, Ken Lavender approached Rock and showed him the prop gun loaded with blank cartridges ready for the mass assassination. “Where do you want this, Aubrey?”
Rock, in shirtsleeves, said, “Would you put it in my jacket pocket, Ken? In my dressing room.”
Later, when it was almost time for his entrance, Rock went to the dressing room, ignored his own tuxedo jacket hanging most obviously on a hook by the mirror, and took the costume tux from where he had, concealed it behind the door. He slipped into it, feeling the weight of Nunford’s gun in the pocket. Glancing at the other jacket, he could see the bulk of the prop gun. Patting the lethal load at his side, he said to himself, “Thank you very much, Ken.”
The audience loved the butler’s final speech. Rock made the most of it as he delivered a scathing tongue-lashing to the assembled family played by Lance Haldane, Sybil Simon, and Beverly Fragment. “You ungrateful swine,” he fumed. “I’ve served you faithfully all these years and now you try to cast me adrift. We’ll see who has the last laugh. I’m quite sure you never anticipated this!”
As Rock drew the gun from his pocket, his fellow performers were blinking thoughtfully. That last bit was not in the script, was it? Never mind, the performance was over anyway.
And it was over for them, because Aubrey Rock now took careful aim and fired three deadly shots, one each into the hearts of Lance, Sybil, and Beverly.
The curtain fell to thunderous applause. The audience laughed and cheered as the curtains opened again and Rock took his farewell bow alone, the others pretending to be dead on the stage behind him.
A minute later the mood changed to hysteria. The police were summoned, and, of course, the presentations were cancelled.
It all came out at the inquest a week later. The holdup was described, the tragic mistake which saw the real gun end up in Rock’s costume jacket while Lavender had put the prop gun in the pocket of its near twin — the actor s personal garment, brought along to be worn during the formal activities later. Aubrey took full blame for having let the bandit go and for retaining the weapon. He had intended to turn the gun in that night, explaining he had found it in a rubbish bin. He saw now that it was wrong to try to circumvent the law even in the smallest way and with the best of intentions. He would never do it again. All his friends dead — and on the occasion of their generous recognition of his career. He wept.
The officials were touched and lost no time in returning a verdict of accidental death in all three cases. Aubrey left the courtroom a tragic hero and announced that he would act no more. Rock’s last role had been played not at Prepington Repertory Theatre as his fellow actors had intended, but in front of a coroner’s court of inquiry.
Well-wishers outside pleaded with him to reconsider, to continue delighting audiences with his presence.
“No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I will never set foot upon a stage again.” And as he walked away, he said to himself, “And neither will those three sons of mischief” — or words to that effect.