Murder at Ford's Theatre - Margaret Truman [108]
His bedroom in London had had wallpaper with a frieze of lions and tigers resting in a jungle setting, and they would come alive in his dreams as a small boy living with strangers, coming down from the walls and clawing and ripping at him. He would wake up screaming, bringing Mrs. Watterson running into his small room beneath a stairwell and holding him until the nightmare had passed.
After the war, he was brought back to London to reunite with two sisters who’d also been provided safe passage to areas outside war-torn London. His father had been killed in one of the nightly raids, and his mother had died of natural causes, he was told, of an unspecified kidney disease. An uncle and aunt had completed the raising of the Bancroft children; he’d stayed with them until leaving to attend a theatre school in Manchester, and then to hit the road with a traveling Shakespearean troupe that appeared throughout the British Isles.
He thought of his childhood more often these days, never pleasant, happy thoughts.
“YOU HAVE A CALL, Sydney,” a theatre intern told him.
“Oh? London?”
“I don’t know. It’s a man who said he wants to speak with you.”
Bancroft went to the phone dangling from its cradle on a backstage wall. “Hello?”
“Mr. Bancroft, this is Detective Rick Klayman.”
“Oh, yes, that nice young man who asks all those questions.”
“Mr. Bancroft, I’d like to get together with you again.”
“To do what, ask more questions? I can’t imagine what there is left to ask. You’ve admirably solved dear, poor Nadia’s murder, and I applaud you for that, you and your charming partner with the mellifluous voice. But I am very busy, as you can imagine. I’m directing the show to be televised Thursday on the ABC network. You’re aware of it?”
“Ah, yes sir, I am. That’s quite an assignment.”
“Well within my capabilities, I assure you.”
“I’ll try not to take too much of your time,” Klayman said.
Johnson sat across the desk from Klayman at headquarters, where he made the late-afternoon call to Ford’s Theatre. Attempts to reach Bancroft at home had failed. Johnson’s amused grin summed up his reaction to the call.
“I’m really not interested in the murder anymore,” Klayman said, sounding sincere. “As you say, we’ve solved it. Actually, I’d enjoy chatting with someone like you about Abe Lincoln.”
“Lincoln? You wish to discuss President Lincoln with me?”
“Yes, sir. I’m a bit of a Lincoln buff, and I know you’re quite an expert on his assassination. You told us you’d made a study of John Wilkes Booth and his role in the assassination.”
“Oh, yes, Detective, that is quite true, quite true, indeed. And I do recall you saying you had some minor interest in Lincoln. An unofficial visit is it, then?”
“Yes. Unofficial.”
Johnson’s thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows went up.
“Let me see. Yes, I shall find the time for you, Detective. Shall we say at six?”
“Okay. At your apartment?”
“No. I’m suffering—what is it you call it?—cabin fever? I’ve been working here at the theatre all day. The incompetence surrounding me is staggering. I intend to treat myself to a proper drink at the Star Saloon, and a spot of dinner. Will you join me?”
“I’d love to have dinner with you, Mr. Bancroft. Six it is, the Star Saloon.”
“I’m appalled,” Johnson said when Klayman hung up. “An officer of the law lying to a citizen.”
“I wasn’t lying. I’d enjoy having dinner with him.”
“An ‘unofficial’ visit?”
“Exactly. It’s my day off. I’m not on duty.”
“Shameless!” Johnson said with exaggerated disgust. He laughed. “I’m going home,” he said. “Told Etta I’d take her out to dinner. If you change your mind about Bancroft, come join us. We’ll be at B. Smith’s in Union Station.”
“Bancroft says you have a mellifluous voice.”
“Then give him my best, by all