Bryant & May 09; The Memory of Blood

understood why he had been dragged out here. His partner was suspicious of Robert Kramer because he believed the Mr Punch clues pointed to him. May was of a different opinion, and would have resisted making the trip if Bryant had forewarned him.

Salterton instructed a tiny old woman who sat behind the scratched Plexiglas of the entrance booth. “Betty, let these gentlemen in on discount tickets, will you? They’re under fifteen.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” grumbled Betty. “I caught a right little tearaway with his hand up Princess Diana’s skirt just now. Couldn’t have been more than ten. You have to have eyes in the back of your head.”

“You know, Betty, you could have been my assistant on stage, you’ve got the legs for it,” said Salterton.

“No, really, don’t make me laugh,” said Betty. “I mean it, I’ve just had my womb lifted. I’m not allowed to crack a smile for at least a fortnight.”

The waxworks had once been a private house, where Dudley’s great-grandparents, a sturdy well-to-do Edwardian family from Kingston upon Thames, had entertained their summer guests visiting from London. Back in the 1930^s the rooms had been stripped out and hung with red velvet curtains and waxworks of historical figures had been installed. After the Second World War the enterprise had struggled to compete with flashier fare on the promenade, and the building’s fabric had deteriorated. Cary Grant and Elizabeth Taylor had been removed, Steve McQueen and Raquel Welch had been installed. Welch had recently been refitted as Keira Knightley, but these days the reality-TV celebrities came and went so fast that there was no point in changing most of the exhibits any more. Mice, moths, woodlice and spiders inhabited the damp drapery and warped floorboards, and the only paying customers now were bored children looking for something to make fun of.

“I’ve no money to fix the roof,” Salterton explained. “I thought I might get a grant from the council, but times have changed since the credit crisis. We’re all having to fend for ourselves.”

He led the way into the first room. “We got rid of the historical figures and all the old film stars. Nobody’s interested in Norman Wisdom and Diana Dors any more. I dressed up some of our old cast-offs with new wigs and clothes and I’ve given them new names. The Duke of Wellington and General Wolfe are now Big Brother contestants. Anne Boleyn and Mary, Queen of Scots have become X- Factor finalists. Nobody notices, nobody cares.”

The room had the spirit-lowering air of a hospital chapel. Half a dozen gruesome, ill-kempt figures were grouped in attitudes of supplication. “They need a wipe-down,” said Salterton apologetically, “but there’s only Betty and me left, and she can’t get about much.”

“Arthur, what are we really doing here?” asked May. “I’ve been very patient, but I think I’ve indulged you long enough. If we hurry, we can catch the two-thirty train.”

“You asked me if I had any idea about the case,” Bryant countered. “Well, I do. We need to understand a very devious and particular kind of mind-set. Dudley, kindly show Mr May your pride and joy, would you?”

? The Memory of Blood ?

22

Mammet

Salterton perked up. “So that’s what you came to see me for. Come this way.” He led them to a narrow flight of stairs, turning on the lights as he went up. It was clear nobody ever came to this part of the building. “Be careful. Some of the steps are broken.”

At the top landing, he unlocked a varnished oak door and groped for the light switch. “We never let anybody up here because of the insurance. If anyone found out that they were on the premises – well, it’s hard times, the local kids will break into anything nowadays and you can’t find a copper for love nor money. I’m supposed to have a security system before the insurance will cover me, but where am I going to get the cash for that kind of thing?”

“Arthur, what is he talking about?”

Chemist signs made of rust-spotted tin decorated the walls. One read Carson’s Superior Nerve Tonic Dissipates Catarrh of the Bile Ducts. Another showed a frighteningly elderly baby drinking from an unstoppered bottle beneath the headline Baby Loves Formulated Mendalin Phosphate, the Only Cure for Unwarranted Secretions.

“He’s talking about those.” Bryant pointed to a series of dusty cases on crimson-painted pedestals. “Go on, take a look.”

May made his way carefully across the room and wiped the dust from the glass with his sleeve.

“They were created for Queen Victoria in 1865,” Salterton told them. “The height of the British Empire. They’ve been in our family ever since then. Some shyster from Sotheby’s offered to put them up for auction, but I sent him away with a flea in his ear.”

May found himself looking at a collection of Punch and Judy puppets. The full cast included Punch, Judy, their Baby, the Beadle, Scaramouche, Toby – a real stuffed dog in its ruff collar – Pretty Poll, a pointy-haired Clown, a Courtier with an extending neck, an Archer, the Police Constable, the sinister Doctor, Jim Crow the Black Servant, the Tradesman, the Distinguished Foreigner, the Alligator, the Blind Man, the Ghost, Jack Ketch the Hangman, Mephisto, the Devil and, finally, Death himself.

“We think it’s probably the most complete collection in the world,” Salterton said. “The puppets got passed down from father to son, and each puppet master took on the royal coat of arms as the Queen’s official Punch and Judy man, hired to perform before the children of nobles and heads of state whenever they came to visit Windsor Castle.” In the light of the puppet cases, Salterton seemed younger. His enthusiasm regenerated him. “Everyone recognizes certain iconic figures, whether they’re real or fictional. The devil with red horns and a tail, Napoleon with his hat, Alice in her blue dress, Nelson with his eye patch, the Knave of Hearts and Harlequin – and to those you can add Mr Punch here. It’s the striped peascod doublet he wears that gives him the funny shape. He was once played by a live actor – Italian, of course, Pulcinella, anglicized to Punchinello, related to Don Juan – but he was really born in 1649. Then he became a wooden puppet, dancing about in his tall box opposite the Louvre.”

“Dudley Salterton has a secret,” Bryant told May. “He’s the world’s leading authority on Punch and Judy.”

“Mammet,” said Salterton softly. “It was the Elizabethan word for a puppet or idol. From Mahomet.” He unlocked one of the cases and carefully removed a Mr Punch, lovingly picking off specks of dust and stroking it like a puppy. “He’s always dressed in red and yellow, and you always see his legs. Everyone else in the show only appears from the waist up. The sets are here, too. Everything from Hampton Court Palace to the Bay of Naples. And props: Punch’s drum, his beating-stick, his sheep-bell, the string of sausages and the gallows.”

May was beguiled and puzzled in equal measure. “I don’t understand Punch and Judy. It just seems to be all yelling and hitting.”

“The second commandment of the God of the Israelites was levelled against the power of the puppet. The dangerous thing about them, of course, is that they might become human. Many religious figurines were removed in the Reformation, but lived on as gargoyles carved into church walls and on misericords. Punch and Judy is a morality play about the absence of morality,” Salterton explained. “Marionette players were banned by Oliver Cromwell, because many puppets have pagan histories. The Clown was originally Momus, the Harlequin was Mercury. We think Punch got his name from Pulliceno, a turkey-cock – a creature with a resemblance to Punch and his beaked nose. But the French say it comes from Ponche, short for Pontius Pilate, a character represented as a marionette in mystery plays, brought back for Christians to ridicule.” Salterton beamed at May, looking more than a little like a puppet himself. “Many of the puppets in these cases first appeared in the shows given by Robert Powell, the great Punch exhibitor, outside St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden at fairs and market days. Punch is a clown, too, just as clowns look like puppets.”

“If we understand Mr Punch, we start to get an insight into the mind of the murderer,” interjected Bryant.

“He follows a long line of low tricksters, from Pan to Loki to Puck. But it was when he came to England that Mr Punch showed his real nature – and it was one that reflected the bullish Englishman of the times. The first English shows were called Mr Punch’s Moral Drama, but Punch himself has no moral compass – he is nothing less than the ferocious spirit of England, condensed into a single creature. He’s a man of