Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death (The Grantchester Mysteries)

of many a priest in the Church of England.
    By the time the first night arrived, he was more than prepared. He strode on to the stage, pressed the letter warning Julius Caesar about the conspirators into Lord Teversham’s hands, and infused his lines with as much menace as he could muster.
    ‘Delay not, Caesar,’ he hissed. ‘Read it instantly.’
    Lord Teversham looked at Sidney but then answered by looking straight out to the audience. ‘What, is the fellow mad?’
    This double-take had not been part of the rehearsal process and was closer to pantomime than politics. The audience laughed and Sidney realised, with horror, that he had been upstaged. He had intended to inspire both anxiety and fear but it now appeared that he was little more than a figure of fun. How could Lord Teversham have done this to him? Was it on purpose or by accident? He left the stage feeling humiliated and watched the rest of the scene from the wings.
    Moments later, the conspirators moved in for the kill, kneeling round the aged would-be emperor. Lord Teversham stretched out an Imperial arm, and intoned, impossibly slowly: ‘Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?’
    Clive Morton, dressed in a black outfit that would have looked more at place in a nightclub than a battlefield, leaped up, grabbed Lord Teversham’s neck from behind, and shouted ‘Speak hands for me!’ before stabbing him in the back.
    The other actors rose as one from their kneeling positions to conclude the murderous deed. Simon Hackford pulled back the slouching body by the collar, held the gasping form upright and stabbed Lord Teversham once more in the chest.
    His victim gasped. ‘Et tu, Brute? Then fall Caesar.’
    Lord Teversham clutched his heart, staggered forward to the front of the stage, and fell to his side. As he collapsed the conspirators threw their knives on to the ground. The scattered clatter of metal on the floor was intended to accentuate the drama of the death.
    One of the disadvantages of the cast wearing black, rather than the traditional white toga, was the fact that it took far longer for Caesar’s blood to show; and, although a stomach sachet had been appropriately punctured, it was only when the conspirators came forward to smear their hands with Caesar’s blood that the audience was made aware of the amount of gore involved.
    Each actor took off his gloves and knelt before Lord Teversham’s prostrate form. A servant arrived to ask that Antony ‘may safely come’ and Ben Blackwood arrived on stage and took his place by Caesar’s corpse.
    ‘O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low?
    Are all they conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
    Shrunk to this little measure?’
    His performance had lost the feyness Sidney had noticed in rehearsals and Ben commanded the stage. He took off his gloves and shook hands with the conspirators. The blood on their hands stained his. He knelt over Caesar’s body. He was on the verge of tears, choking so much that he could hardly get through his lines:
    ‘Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
    That ever lived in the tide of times . . .’
    He finished his speech and asked the servant to help him with the body. Then, after he had taken it into the wings and laid it down he hesitated. Lord Teversham had not risen like an actor who had finished his scene but lay motionless. Ben put his head against the heart of his friend and checked the blood once more.
    The plebeians took to the stage, picking up the knives the conspirators had thrown down, ready to commit revenge.
    Ben Blackwood looked up at Sidney in horror. ‘Curtain!’ he said urgently. ‘Curtain and house lights. For God’s sake!’
     
    ‘Typical,’ muttered Inspector Keating after he had been summoned from his home, leaving his wife and three sleeping children behind. ‘It could have been any of them.’
    ‘Or all of them, I suppose,’ said Sidney. He was already feeling defeated by the events of the evening.
    ‘Steady on. This isn’t Murder on the Orient Express . Only one blade did the damage.’
    ‘But who carried it? That is what we need to know. And where is it now?’
    ‘If it is in this building my men will find it. No one who took part in the play will be allowed to leave . . .’
    Sidney realised that the design of the play was going to hamper the investigation since its fascist theme had necessitated each of the assassins wearing black shirts, black boots, and, crucially, black leather gloves. There were no fingerprints from the