31 Plays in 31 Days, #23 - "Crossing Kingmaker"

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Grumble. I'm behind. Bernie is visiting and I didn't have a chance to post for the last couple of days. Also I'm VERY close to having a complete draft of Mrs. Frost and don't want to post things that spoil it. But here's one of those "plotting scenes" which has proven to be the trickiest for me— the ones where the team is pulling apart the mystery, and how they get from problem to solution.

This piece immediately precedes #21 - "The Force of Her".

Day #23 - "Crossing Kingmaker"
From Mrs. Frost
By Phoebe Roberts

VICTORIA HAWKING, lady's society avenger, mid forties
MARY STONE, her housemaid and assistant, mid twenties
MALAIKA SHAH, colonial avenger, late forties
CLARA HAWKING, society lady, Mrs. Hawking's niece-in-law, mid thirties

London, England, 1886
~~~

(The Hawking parlor. MRS. HAWKING, MARY, MADAM MALAIKA, and CLARA are gathered there.)

MARY:

Well, madams… shall we begin? It seems we have three objectives. Nathaniel’s rescue from Mrs. Frost. Safe passage for the refugees she’s trafficked. And dealing with the woman herself.

MRS. HAWKING:

It’s all the same problem. Put paid to Frost, and that’s the beginning and the end.

CLARA:

Not if we don’t find where she’s keeping Nathaniel.

MRS. HAWKING:

I assure you, Clara, I have considered that; I have been at this some time longer than you. It all comes down to her— a lesser mind than hers could not manage so complex an operation beneath all notice. Take her out, and all of it comes crashing down, all of it.

MADAM MALAIKA:

The real question is, how? As you say, she is cunning, and all of it depends on her. What is your intention? To kill her?

(Pause.)

MARY:

I beg your pardon, madam?

MADAM MALAIKA:

She will not stop unless something stops her. We all know that.

CLARA:

Would you— is that— do you consider it, madam?

MARY:

Surely— surely not.

MADAM MALAIKA:

We do what has to be done, miss.

CLARA:

(To MRS. HAWKING) And have you before?

MRS. HAWKING:

This is not a game, Clara.

CLARA:

My God. (To MARY) Did you know that?

MARY:

No, madam. I never did. I suppose I thought…

MRS. HAWKING:

For heaven’s sake, it’s not been necessary in some time. How was it supposed to come up?

MADAM MALAIKA:

You ought to know, even if you wanted to, it won’t work. She keeps guards about her wherever she goes, day and night, at home and afar. Even if one of us could get near to her, they wouldn’t come out alive.

MARY:

You know, madams, we’ve had great success laying traps for our enemies with the police. Frost has so many criminal endeavors, surely there’s one of them that would betray her to them.

MRS. HAWKING:

Do you think she has no officers in her pay? And even so, I have been digging about for months for something to hang on her! But there’s nothing— nothing that can be traced back to her. Her layers and layers of proxy agents protect her.

CLARA:

Then— why not begin with those layers? What are they, how do they shield her, so that we might begin peeling them back?

MRS. HAWKING:

(Sighing) There are more than we can count— her operatives, her false fronts, even her thrice-damned husband.

CLARA:

Her husband?

MADAM MALAIKA:

She keeps the man drugged on opium, so she can act freely in his name.

(MRS. HAWKING produces a document to show.)

MRS. HAWKING:

See here, I intercepted some documents sent to his solicitor last week. It’s a request to review his financial investments, signed as if in his hand.

CLARA:

Dawson Frost, you said? How odd!

MRS. HAWKING:

It’s a faked signature, Clara, that’s the whole matter.

CLARA:

Not that; I sign for Nathaniel all the time.

MARY:

You do, madam?

CLARA:

Oh, for God’s sake, why take a man’s name if you can’t use it?

MRS. HAWKING:

I assume that you aren’t running a criminal empire from behind it! What is your point?

CLARA:

That Dawson Frost has gone abroad recently to the continent— before that thing was supposed to have been signed.

MRS. HAWKING:

How do you know that?

CLARA:

I saw it in The Lady. Which I’m sure you don’t read.

MADAM MALAIKA:

But how could that even be? As far as I saw, the man was practically invalid; he hadn’t the wherewithal to leave his dressing room.

MRS. HAWKING:

Why would she put it out that he was abroad, if she had work for him to be carrying out here? Why risk drawing attention to her scheme?

MARY:

We can’t be certain without knowing where he is for sure.

MADAM MALAIKA:

And for that we’d have to search the house. She keeps the place like a fortress; you found that firsthand, I think.

MRS. HAWKING:

Then what about you? You worked for her; did you learn nothing that could be of use?

MADAM MALAIKA:

I learned that one does not lightly cross Kingmaker.

MRS. HAWKING:

Then what are we to do? Risk nothing, learn nothing, and change nothing?

CLARA:

You are not going off half-cocked when Nathaniel is still in her grasp.

MRS. HAWKING:

How do you expect me to save him, Clara? Wait until he’s talked her to death?

CLARA:

I have had quite enough of your sneering, madam. Considering it’s your fault he’s in this mess.

MRS. HAWKING:

My fault? Do you know how much trouble it would save me if I didn’t always have to mind that boy?

CLARA:

For God’s sake, he’s not a boy! You were at his wedding, the births of his children— he’s the one who manages your money! Why do you insist on calling him that?

MRS. HAWKING:

Because it seems I’m always responsible for him as if he were! And otherwise— he becomes his uncle. And I am quite through with that.

CLARA:

You know, there’s one thing I’m glad of in all this. You may have placed him in terrible danger. But at least he’s not here to see just how little you regard him.

(CLARA exits.)

MRS. HAWKING:

Are you very pleased with yourself, Mary? You’ve always wanted cause for us to get in this together. And now you’ve done it.

(MRS. HAWKING exits.)