Murder at Ford's Theatre - Margaret Truman [56]
He was in the midst of creating this self-review, saying the words aloud to the chagrin of an elderly woman seated across the aisle, when the flight attendant asked if he wished to purchase another drink.
“No, no thank you, my dear. I believe I’ve had enough. But thank you for asking. It was sweet of you.”
He rode the underground’s Piccadilly line from Heathrow Airport to Piccadilly Circus and walked to Beak Street, only a few blocks away, where he stopped in front of an Italian food shop. Sausages of every size and description hung in the window of the closed store, illuminated by red bulbs strung haphazardly from the ceiling. He looked up. Lights were on in the apartment above. He went to a door next to the shop and pushed the buzzer. A gruff male voice came through a tiny speaker: “Who’s there?”
“It’s Sydney. Open up.”
There was a harsh metallic sound as the lock disengaged. Bancroft opened the door and looked upstairs leading to the apartment. Standing at the top was the silhouetted figure of a burly man. “Well, come up, for God’s sake,” he said. “Don’t just bloody stand there.”
Bancroft slowly ascended the stairs and followed the man, whose stage name was Aaron Kipp—a variation of his birth name, Aaron Kipowicz—into the flat. Now, Kipp was fully visible—well over two hundred pounds, black-and-green flannel shirt hanging loose over baggy tan pants, frayed carpet slippers, his full beard as wild and woolly as his salt-and-pepper hair.
“Damn, Sydney, you’re as skinny as a pole,” Kipp said as Bancroft dropped his bag to the floor and collapsed on a couch. “What the hell have you become, one of those anorexic types?”
“The result of healthy living, Kipp, and a busy schedule. Got a drink, or are you on the wagon again?”
“Fell off that months ago, Sydney, but there’s no booze in the flat. Thought we’d pub it. Hungry?”
“As a matter of fact, I am. Been working much?”
“Nah, just a bloody voice-over now and then. Hardly enough to keep the larder stocked. I’m up for a cartoon character. Imagine that. You?”
“Can’t keep up with it, although Washington is not like London, not for a serious artist. Come on, Kipp, I’m absolutely famished.”
They walked to The Round Table Pub, in St. Martin’s Court, a narrow, pedestrian-only cut between St. Martin’s Lane and Charing Cross Road. The Round Table was a popular watering hole for cast and crew from the Albery and the Wyndham Theatres, whose stage doors opened onto the court. The downstairs bar was packed, so they went upstairs and found a single empty table in a corner. Patrons were three-deep at the bar, some of whom greeted Kipp as he and Bancroft passed through the room. A chunky waitress with orange hair and a heavy Cockney accent took their orders—bangers and mash for Kipp, shepherd’s pie for Bancroft, and a two-pint jug of cask ale for each. Their beer had just been served when two men and a young woman approached. “Well, well, well,” said one of the men, “what have we here? The famous Aaron Kipp and the infamous Sydney Bancroft.”
Bancroft had seen them coming and had silently prayed they would pass. No such luck. He knew the two men; the woman was unknown to him. The older of the men, Philip Wainsley, was a relatively successful actor-turned-director, who years ago had worked with Bancroft on two Shakespearean productions, Titus Andronicus, with the Royal Shakespeare Company, in which Bancroft played the arrogant Saturninus, and Iago in Othello, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Reviewers had not been kind to him in either role, although he had fared better with the critics in some of Shakespeare’s comedies, including the roles of Antonio in Much Ado About Nothing, the well-born but penniless lover, Fenton, in The Merry Wives of Windsor,