Free This Private Plot by Alan Beechey Page A

incredulity that the son of a provincial glover—or butcher, according to some sources—with no university education could write dramas that require an intimate knowledge of court intrigue, the law, foreign explorations, Roman history, and so on.”
    â€œSo you’ve found yet another candidate?” asked Ben. “Queen Elizabeth the First with no wig and a false moustache? Or is it really that infinite number of monkeys?”
    Toby laughed. “No, I believe that the plays were written by William Shakespeare, all right. But this is the odd part. When you look at the very few surviving facts about Shakespeare, the London actor-playwright, and Shakespeare, the Stratford-upon-Avon landowner and businessman, there’s no overlap.”
    â€œPerhaps he was Ernest in the town and Jack in the country,” Oliver said, unable to decide which way his artichoke more resembled a pinecone, in appearance or in taste.
    â€œErnest and Jack Worthing turned out to be same person. My belief is that Stratford Will and London Will were two different people.”
    â€œBecause of this lack of evidence?” asked Effie.
    â€œThe scanty documentation isn’t so unusual in itself. We don’t know much about the personal lives of any dramatists of that period. So most research is like Kim’s Game. We have to ask what’s missing that we’d truly expect to see: the ‘pregnant negative.’ And what we don’t have is a single piece of paper written or signed by Stratford Will that lays claim to his being the great London poet and playwright. For example, Stratford Will’s notorious last will and testament—the one that leaves his wife the ‘second-best bed’—doesn’t mention his part ownership in any South Bank theaters. In fact, it doesn’t mention any manuscripts or books or unfinished plays or other papers. No, I think London Will is a different William Shakespeare, from somewhere other than Stratford.”
    The housemaid slipped into the room and began to replace the remains of the artichoke with plates of gray roast beef.
    â€œBut just a tick,” Catriona protested. “What about Stratford Will’s tomb? We were taken there on a school trip once. There’s that statue on the church wall that looks just like all those photographs of London Will.”
    â€œAha, that’s where history got sidetracked, Cat,” Toby remarked, helping himself to overcooked vegetables. “I think that sometime after Stratford Will died in 1616, somebody spotted that he had the same name as a famous London playwright, who may well have died three or four years earlier, going by the dates of his last plays. And thus, with a little jiggery-pokery, the Stratford Shakespeare industry was born, hijacking London Will’s fame. Ka-ching!”
    â€œAnd so we never found the real London Will…” Oliver ventured.
    â€œâ€¦because we never knew we had to look for him.”
    â€œHow deep you are!” said Catriona, leaning across the table and gazing intently into Toby’s dark, nervous eyes, which took on an expression of mild panic. Clarissa, beside him, who had tuned out of the conversation five minutes earlier and was wondering instead why Catriona was wearing her own initial pin, took her cue to drop her hand onto Toby’s forearm.
    â€œWell, Toby,” Davina intervened with a yawn, “it all sounds very brainy, but I’m sure I speak for Effie when I say let’s move on to a less taxing subject.”
    â€œThen I suppose it’s my turn to tell you what I’m working on,” Oliver said quickly, observing Effie for signs of an impending Look. He thought about announcing his next planned story in the Railway Mice series, The Railway Mice and the Frog of the Baskervilles , but then it occurred to him to try out his idea for the book of common knowledge (which wasn’t a bad title, come to think of it). It