“What are you doing, Em?”
“Ringing up the doctor.”
“I don’t think —”
“I do,” said Emily. She had an incisive conversation. “How did it happen?” she broke off.
“I fell on a sword. On the wooden hilt.”
She repeated this into the telephone and hung up. “He’s looking in on his way home,” she said.
“I’d like a drink.”
“I suppose it won’t do you any harm?”
“It certainly will not.”
She fetched him a drink. “I’m not sure about this,” she said.
“I am,” said Peregrine. He swallowed it. “Better,” he said. “Why did you come running out of the house?”
“I’ve got something to show you but I don’t know that you’re in a fit state to see it.”
“Bad news?”
“Not directly.”
“Then show me.”
“Here, then. Look at this.”
She fetched an envelope from the table and pulled out a cutting from one of the more lurid Sunday tabloids. It was a photograph of a woman and a small boy. They were in a street and had obviously been caught unaware. She was white-faced and stricken. The little boy looked frightened. “Mrs. Geoffrey Harcourt-Smith and William,” the caption read. “After the verdict.”
“It’s three years old,” said Emily. “It came in the post this morning.”
“My God,” Peregrine said. “I remember. It was a murder. Decapitation. The last of five, I think. The husband was found guilty but insane and he got a life sentence.” Peregrine looked at the cutting for a minute and then held it out. “Burn it?” he said.
“Gladly.” She lit a match and he held the cutting over an ashtray. It turned black and disintegrated. He let it drop.
“This too?” Emily asked, holding up the envelope. It was addressed in capital letters.
“Yes. No. No, not that. Not yet,” said Peregrine. “Put it in my desk.”
Emily did so. “You’re quite sure? It is your little William?”
“Three years younger. Absolutely sure. And his mother. Damn.”
“Perry, you’ve never seen the thing. Put it out of your mind.”
“I can’t do that. But it makes no difference. The father was a schizophrenic monster. Lifetime in Broadmoor. They called him the Hampstead Chopper.”
“You don’t think — it’s — anybody in the theatre who sent this?”
“No.”
Emily was silent.
“They’ve no cause. None.”
After a pause he said: “I suppose it might be a sort of warning.”
“You haven’t told me how you came to fall on the claymore.”
“I was showing the girls and Rangi how to fall soft. They don’t know what happened. They’ve each got a special place. The sword was halfway between two places, under the tarp covering the mattresses they fall on.”
“It was there when they fell?”
“Must have been.”
“Wouldn’t they have seen it? Seen the shape under the cover?”
“No. I didn’t. It’s very dark down there.”
They were silent for a moment. The sound of London swelled into the gap. On the river a solitary craft gave out its lonely call.
“Nobody knew,” Emily ventured, “that you were going to make that jump?”
“Of course not. I didn’t know myself, did I?”
“So it being you that got the jab in the wind was just bad luck.”
“Must have been.”
“Well, thank God for that, at least.”
“Yes.”
“Where was it? Before someone hid it?”
“I don’t know. Wait a sec. Yes, I do. The two wooden claymores were hung up on nails, on the back wall. They were somewhat the worse for wear, in spite of having cloth shields on the blades. One was split. Being Gaston’s work they were carefully made: the right weight and balance and grip but they were really only makeshift. They were no good for anything except playing soldiers.” He stopped and then hurriedly said: “I won’t elaborate on the sword to the doctor. I’ll just say it’d been left lying there and nobody cleared it up.”
“Yes. All right. True enough as far as it goes.”
“And as for William, beyond taking care what we talk about, we ignore the whole thing.”
“The play being what it is —” Emily began and stopped.
“It’s all right. He shouted out, ‘He got his comeuppance, didn’t he?’ last week, just like any other small boy. At rehearsal, I mean.”
“How old was he when it happened?”
“Six.”
“He’s nine now?”
“Yes. He looks younger. He’s a nice boy.”
“Yes. Does it hurt much? Your side?”
“If I move it’s unpleasant. I wonder if for the cast there’s some chronic affliction I could have had at odd times? The result of something that happened long before Macbeth.”
“Diverticulitis?”
“Why diverticulitis?”
“I don’t know why,” said Emily, “but it seems to me it’s something American husbands have. Their wives say mysteriously to one: ‘My dear! He has diverticulitis.’ And one nods and looks solemn.”
“I think I’d be safer with a gimpy leg. Perhaps I wrenched it years ago?”
“We can ask the doctor.”
“So we can.”
“Shall I have a look at you?”
“No, we’d better leave well enough alone.”
“What a dotty remark that is. After all,” said Emily, “the bit in question is a bit of you that is not well, so how can we leave it alone? I’ll get our dinner instead. It’ll be a proper onion soup and then an omelet. Okay?”
“Lovely,” said Peregrine.
Emily made up their fire, gave Peregrine a book to read, and went to the kitchen. The onion soup was prepared and only needed heating. She cut up bread into snippets and heated butter in a frying-pan. She opened a bottle of Burgundy and left it to breathe.
“Emily!” called Peregrine.
She hurried back to the study. “What’s up?”
“I’m all right. I’ve been thinking. Nina. She won’t be satisfied with the chronic gallstones or whatever. She’ll just think my chronic thing coming back now is another stroke of bad luck.”
They had their dinner on trays. Emily tidied them away and they sat with modest glasses of Burgundy over their fire.
Peregrine said: “The sword and the photograph? Are they connected?”
“Why should they be?”
“I don’t know.”
The doctor came. He made a careful examination and said there were no bones broken but there was severe bruising. He made Peregrine do painful things.
“You’ll survive,” he said facetiously. “I’m leaving something to help you sleep.”
“Good.”
“Don’t go prancing about showing actors what to do.”
“I’m incapable of even the smallest prance.”
“Jolly good. I’ll look in again tomorrow evening.”
“Thank you.”
Emily went to the front door with the doctor. “He’ll be down at the theatre on Monday come hell or high water,” she said. “He doesn’t want the cast to know he fell on a sword. What could he have? Something chronic.”
“I really don’t know. Stomach cramp? Hardly.” He thought for a moment. “Diverticulitis?” he suggested. And then: “Why on earth are you laughing?”
“Because it’s a joke word.” Emily put on a grave face, raised her eyebrows, and nodded meaningfully. “Diverticulitis.” she said in a sepulchral voice.
“I don’t know what you’re on about,” said the doctor, and then, “Is it something to do with superstitions?”
“That’s very clever of you. Yes. It is. In a way.”
“Good-night, me dear,” said the doctor and left.