Murder at Ford's Theatre - Margaret Truman [47]
Bancroft was a regular at Harry’s, although he was partial to the Star Saloon, directly across from Ford’s Theatre, whose history went back to the Lincoln assassination. He chose Harry’s on this day because there was less chance of being engaged in conversation than at the Star. Harry’s was big enough to find some relative seclusion.
He needed time to think, along with some alcohol to steady his nerves, although he would never admit that to others. The teenage production he’d been directing, and that was to be performed that weekend, was as good as it would ever be. The cast was more willing than talented—he detested having to try to pull anything decent from a group of teens who seemed more interested in what they wore and what gossip was being spread than in following his stage directions. It had been a most unpleasant experience, one that had caused him physical discomfort, pains in his stomach, headaches, even a bout of nausea. And now the murder and the distasteful, insulting interrogation by the police.
Surely, Clarise would understand his need to get away for a few days, to escape the source of his discomfort. His assistant could carry on in his absence, as untalented as she might be. Besides, he had business in London, important meetings that could raise him out of this temporary lull in his professional career and rekindle his passion for the theatre—more important, the theatre world’s passion for him as an actor.
The past two years at Ford’s had been dismal, although he knew he couldn’t express that to Clarise. From her perspective, she’d done him a great favor bringing him onto the staff and giving him a steady paycheck. Perhaps the most wounding thing was that Clarise viewed it, and him, in precisely that way, doing him a favor, bailing him out of what had been an unpleasant period of financial insecurity. Should he be grateful? Of course he was, but only to a point. She’d gotten her money’s worth, he was certain, parading him in front of potential personal and corporate donors, Sydney Bancroft, the British Shakespearean actor—“Remember him?”—all those British movies occasionally rerun on the cable TV channels—“Tell them that wonderful story, Sydney, about when you appeared in that love scene with Margo Sinclair and dropped her on the way up the stairs”—“I could never be an actor, Mr. Bancroft, especially Shakespeare, because I could never remember all those lines”—(An aside from Clarise: “Just as long as he remembers to write the damn check.”)—“Didn’t you used to be Samuel Bancroft, the British actor?”
He went to the bar and ordered another shandy, and a shot of Irish whiskey to go with it. Soon, fortified, he bid the bartender a flowery farewell, stepped out onto E Street, admired a passing young woman whose fine figure was amply demonstrated in the tight black pants and white sweater she wore, and walked to the corner of Tenth and E where young people milled about in front of the Hard Rock Café. He walked down Tenth and paused in front of Ford’s Theatre’s box office, then looked across the street to the Star. The saloon had originally been where the box office was now situated, attached to the theatre, and where John Wilkes Booth had downed a few shots before going inside the theatre to shoot Lincoln as he sat with his wife, Mary, and Major Henry Reed Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara Harris, who happened to be Rathbone’s stepsister. General and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant were to have accompanied the Lincolns to the theatre that night but had begged off at the last minute, the general citing the pressures of work. The truth was that Mrs. Grant disliked Mary Lincoln