– OLE I P KE-KE
It was gobbledegook, and he sighed, having hoped for more. But despite having felt annoyed when she had intimated that she had made a breakthrough, he knew Doll was more likely to solve the riddle than he was. Maybe using her latest idea of single letters for each hieroglyph, rather than Dr Young’s idea of sounds, would pay dividends. He began scouring her other notes for inspiration.
It was only when the oil lamp wick burned low and the room was plunged into darkness, that he realised how much time had passed. And that Doll was still not home. He stepped over to the bow window, which looked down onto the narrow street, and saw two figures approaching the end of Creechurch Lane. Turning in past St Katherine Cree, they were lit momentarily by the yellow light of the new gaslamps on Leadenhall Street. Such illumination had not yet crept down Malinferno’s little lane, and the two people were soon enveloped in darkness again. But he had seen who they were. One was Doll Pocket with her favourite turban perched jauntily on her head of blonde hair. And the other fellow, identifiable from the silver-topped cane that swung on the end of his elegantly clad arm, was surely the Frenchie Étienne Quatremain. As the two figures approached Mrs Stanhope’s house, his fears were confirmed. Quatremain was fashionably dressed in a rich blue tailcoat and brown fall-front trousers topped by a white waistcoat, shirt, and cravat. And Doll hung on tightly to his arm with both hands.
Malinferno stayed by the window but hugged the shadows of his darkened room. From there he observed Quatremain escorting Doll to the very front door of Mrs Stanhope’s house. He doffed his tall hat, and kissed Doll lingeringly on her outstretched hand. Malinferno could see the simpering look on her face from where he stood. As Doll entered Mrs Stanhope’s front door, the Frenchie looked up at the first-floor window, and his gaze locked with Malinferno’s. He smiled triumphantly and turned away, striding down the lane back to the lights of Leadenhall Street.
The stairs creaked familiarly, and Doll, apparently a little drunk, reeled into the room where Malinferno stood. She clutched her head, tilting the turban over one eye.
‘Joe! Are you still up? You gave me quite a shock, lurking in the shadows, there.’
‘I have been working. How about you?’
Doll puffed out her cheeks, and slumped in one of the two dining chairs. It groaned in protest.
‘Oh, it is such hard work being an actress, Joe. You can’t imagine.’
‘So hard that you have to spend the rest of the evening relaxing, I suppose.’
Doll gave Malinferno a peculiar look, until enlightenment dawned.
‘Oh, you mean my drink with Étienne? He was at the theatre, Joe. It would have been rude not to accept his invitation. We ain’t married, after all.’
Malinferno pulled a sour face, knowing how his continuing aversion to such a commitment irked Doll. He sat on the other dining chair, set at the table where he had been working until the lamp wick had died.
‘Now it’s all my fault, I suppose.’
Wearily, Doll rose from her chair, and plonked herself in Malinferno’s lap. The chair beneath the two of them groaned more ominously than its partner.
‘Silly boy.’ She twirled a hank of Malinferno’s dark locks in her slender finger. ‘Étienne was at the theatre with another gentleman, who was putting money into the play. I had to be good to him, didn’t I?’
Malinferno pouted, twisting his head away from Doll’s wheedling.
‘Why?’
She laughed. ‘Because his name was Mr William Bankes.’
Malinferno gave her a blank look. Then the truth dawned.
‘William Bankes of Kingston Lacey?’
Doll nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, the same William Bankes who has just returned from Abu Simbel and Philae in Egypt. He’s brought an obelisk back, and will show it me. It lies at Deptford right now.’
Malinferno pondered this exciting news for a moment before anxiously questioning Doll further.
‘What did Bankes demand of you for this favour?’
Doll hugged Joe gleefully, causing the chair almost to collapse beneath her onslaught.
‘Why, it’s nothing like that, Joe. William Bankes is, as Jed Lawless puts it, a backgammon player.’
‘Why should I care about his gambling propensities?’
Doll guffawed. ‘No, you sweet innocent. In the business,’ Doll always used this expression to mean her former trade of doxy, ‘that means he likes to enter through the back passage.’
Malinferno gasped, never comfortable with Doll’s relapses into crudity.
‘You mean he frequents molly-houses?’
‘Yes, Joe. He likes to dress as a woman, and is more likely to be interested in Morton Stanley than me.’
Even though Malinferno had been reassured by Doll’s innocent explanations of her various beaux, he still managed somehow to be at the Royal Coburg for the next few days. But the endless repetition of the short religious scenes from The Play of Adam began to pall. Even the topical references to the Queen’s love life, and the meetings between the King and Pergami in the guise of Cain and Abel – meetings that had never happened in real life – failed to stimulate his interest. And Mossop was ever prone to changing his mind about the location of the actors onstage. He prowled around the auditorium like a shaggy-maned lion, examining the stage from all angles.
‘It is to observe all the sight-lines, do you see?’ he explained when Augustus Bromhead taxed him on his restlessness. The antiquarian nodded wisely, though he had not understood a word, and was still perplexed by Mossop’s actions. Just as he was about to ask for clarification, the manager broke away. He rushed down to the front of the stage, and berated the stagehands. They had dragged a large hip-bath on the stage, and had clearly not located it in the correct position.
‘No, no, no, Jed. Can you not see the cross I chalked on the stage? The bath must be there. Dead centre.’
Jed Lawless grumbled under his breath, and took the reprimand out on his two assistants. He cuffed the ear of the nearest youth, a spotty-faced lad with wire-rimmed glasses hooked over his protruding ears.
‘Tom, you stupid idiot, can’t you see the mark?’
Tom clearly couldn’t, and blushed. The other boy grinned and pushed the bath in place.
Malinferno leaned across the seats to where Bromhead was sitting, and whispered in his ear, ‘Isn’t this supposed to be the Garden of Eden? Where does a bath come into it?’
Bromhead shrugged wearily. He had tried to persuade Mossop not to use the pantomime backcloth for the scene, but had withdrawn his objection when asked for some more money for a new backcloth. Now, Mossop had inserted a bath into the scene. He began to explain to his friend.
‘Will is taken by Theodore Lane’s cartoon showing Queen Caroline and Pergami frolicking in a bath together. He is determined to reproduce it in the play, and insists “The Fall of Man” is the best place. God knows how he plans to show Adam and Eve in all their nakedness.’
Malinferno had a good idea how from what Doll had told him, and his fears were realised immediately. Doll and Stanley emerged from the darkness of the wings in their attire for this scene. The handsome Stanley was stripped to the waist, showing off a hairy chest and a tight waist. His nether garment was no more than a tight pair of breeches that did little to obscure his well-endowed manhood. Malinferno thought he heard an indrawn breath from behind him where William Bankes sat. This was followed by a long-drawn-out expression of admiration in French from Quatremain, who sat next to Bankes. Of course, the Frenchman’s salute was not for Stanley, but for Doll. She was clad in nothing more than a thin muslin shift, which did nothing to hide her manifest charms. Especially when the candlelight shone on her.