An Honourable Murderer (19 page)

“This
was
an accident, Nick?”

“I suppose so. It certainly had the appearance of one.”

“You believe it wasn't?”

“No, but . . .”

“But?”

“Jonathan Snell's son had an idea that the ropes holding the chair might have been cut part of the way through so that Sir Philip was bound to fall to his death. His father says it's all nonsense, though.”

“Old Snell knows best, I suppose,” said WS.

“I think he's an honest man,” I said.

Perhaps there was a hint of a question in the remark. And, in fact, I was interested in Shakespeare's opinion about Snell's honesty. But all the playwright said was, “Honest? I think so too.”

“Looked at one way, William,” I said, “this was not our fault but to do with the, er, mechanics of the masque. Or it was an act of God.”

“An act of God striking at the
deus ex machina
, eh? That's the trouble with these devices, Nick, they let you down when it comes to it.”

“Or they don't let you down and you stay stuck up in the air.”

“Or they don't. It's much simpler to rely on a handful of foils, some fine costumes and a few choice words. And a bit of blood. Let the audience do the rest of the work inside their heads.”

I knew that WS didn't hold with these new-fangled devices employed on stage. Even so, he was shrewd enough to understand that some of the audience liked them and, in a masque at least, they were essential.

“You said once that Sir Philip and Lady Blake were cold with each other,” I said, reverting to the subject that was on my mind. “Did you mean . . . what did you mean exactly?”

“Maybe you weren't aware, Nick, that Sir Philip was on the edge of the Essex rebellion? He was lucky not to have been called in and questioned. Cecil must have had his hands full with more important fish.”

“I saw the Secretary talking to Sir Philip on the day the Spaniards arrived in town,” I said. “He must have forgiven him.”

“The Secretary may forgive but he does not forget.”

“And what has this got to do with his relations with his wife? Blake's, I mean. Cecil is not after Blake's wife, is he?”

Robert Cecil, for all his forbidding appearance (some would say, his downright ugliness), had a name among women.

“Not at all,” said Shakespeare. “Lady Jane was angry with her husband because he had put himself at risk over the Essex business. The kind of anger that comes out of love, perhaps.”

“There was no one else involved?”

“Nick, you keep hinting at how much more you know. Tell me.”

“I thought that maybe she had a, er, partiality for William Inman.”

“Inman? I don't think so. Like Jonathan Snell, he is an honest man as far as I know. Inman was devoted to his late master.”

So devoted that he must grope the widow within an hour of the husband's death, I thought but said nothing. I also wondered why, since WS seemed so well informed on the individuals within the Blake household, he had required me to report back on them. That he knew them at all wasn't so unexpected. Through the Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare himself had had connections with the circle surrounding the doomed Earl of Essex. If Sir Philip Blake had been on the edge of that circle, it wasn't surprising that WS was familiar with him and some of his household. A keen observer of men and women, he stored up impressions and characters for later use. At least I assumed he did. It's what I would do if I were a playwright.

We returned to Somerset House for a final practice of the masque. The last one had been abandoned before the end, of course. There was a subdued feeling to the occasion, which was easily explained. The members of Sir Philip's household wore black armbands and none of us felt much like cracking celebratory grins to welcome the outbreak of peace and harmony. Any outsider viewing such a scene would have concluded that the preparations were going badly, very badly. If I hadn't been used to the situation at the Globe playhouse before every performance – the controlled panic, the last-minute decisions – I'd have wondered how we would ever be ready to present our
Peace
within a couple of days. But we would be ready. We always are. It's not merely that the show must go on. Before that can happen, the show must start.

Once again, nobles and commoners filled the audience room in Somerset House. There were
señors
and a sprinkling of
señoras
, as well as a few outsiders who were no doubt drawn by the hope of watching another man plunge to his death or some similar disaster.

Ben Jonson himself took on the dangerous part of Truth. Perhaps he judged that no one else would be willing to entrust themselves to the flying chair, even though the Snells were full of reassurance that the mechanism had been checked and rechecked. You could never say that Ben was lacking in courage.

I looked out especially for the widow, Lady Jane. I was curious, to be honest, about how she carried her mourning. But when I saw her I felt ashamed for ever having doubted her. Her face was etched with grief. There were deep shadows under her eyes. It was all most inappropriate for the part of Plenty even though, when she was made up, some of the worst effects were hidden. She seemed determined to go through with it, however. Her attendant, Maria More, kept her close company.

At some point during a pause in the action I approached them, brandishing the handkerchief. They knew me by this time.

“Forgive me, my ladies, but I found this recently. Does it belong to one of you?”

“Is that blood?” said Lady Jane, barely glancing at the handkerchief.

“That? Oh no. That's the pattern. Embroidery, see.”

Lady Jane took the handkerchief and examined it. I suppose that, at a cursory glance, the red spots might have looked like blood. It was an odd question, nevertheless.

“Why, I think it is yours, Maria.”

“I do not think so, my lady.”

“It is, because I am sure I gave it you.”

Mistress More looked at the handkerchief properly for the first time.

“Where did you find this, Master Revill?” she said.

“Up in the gallery.”

I gestured behind me. We were standing with our backs to the stage. Maria More looked at the handkerchief once again then shook her head.

“I thought it was one which Lady Blake gave me lately. But it is not, only very like. Here.”

She handed the handkerchief back to me. I thought I detected a ripple of distress pass across the older woman's face. Lady Blake turned away at the very moment that William Inman – in his garb as Oceanus – came across to speak to her. They engaged in an earnest, whispered dialogue. I observed them out of the corner of my eye. Whatever Shakespeare had said about Inman being an honest man and one devoted to his late master, it was hard not to believe that there was an ‘understanding' between this man and woman.

Perhaps Maria More thought so too for I had the distinct feeling that, in what she said next, she was trying to distract my attention from the whispering couple.

“Have you thought of a reason yet?”

“A reason?”

I don't know why but I thought that she was referring to the death of Sir Philip Blake. Instead, as she quickly made clear, she was talking about the prohibition which kept women from playing on the stage. That old subject. But it was not a real concern with her. She was speaking merely to occupy me.

Then she came closer and spoke like a sister. She was a graceful handmaid to Plenty.

“See here, Nicholas, you have come undone. Let me tie you up again.”

I was wearing my dark costume as Ignorance, which had a somewhat rustic feel to it and which was fastened at the side with points. Using her strong and supple fingers, Maria More secured the loose strings. Her hands seemed to linger over the business and I did not object.

“Do you enjoy playing Ignorance?”

“All parts are grist to the player's mill, you know. We take what comes.”

“So you are a peasant one day and the next day you're a bishop.”

“Or a murderer,” I said, then added quickly, “or a king.”

Was it my imagination, or did she tug a little harder on one of the points when I said ‘murderer'?

“It must be diverting to play someone else, to step aside from yourself,” she said.

“Oh, we are most of all players when we play ourselves,” I said complacently.

She was silent for a moment as she leaned forward to tie the final point in my costume. Plenty's handmaid was herself quite plentiful. I wondered whether she'd been as impressed as I had by my philosophical comment about playing oneself. Evidently not, though.

“That is nonsense, what you just said, Nicholas,” she said, standing tall again. “There. You are no longer undone.”

“Thank you, Maria. Not for telling me I'm talking nonsense but for doing me up.”

I considered making some joke about ‘ruin and undoing' – don't raise your eyebrows, enough writers have done it, including WS – but thought it would probably go down badly. Neither jokes nor high-minded musing seemed likely to work with this woman.

She smiled. I smiled back. No hard feelings. Then Maria went to rejoin her mistress, who by this time had finished with Bill Inman.

There was something wrong here, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. It wasn't just to do with the inevitably subdued atmosphere in the audience chamber and the fact that last time we'd rehearsed the masque a man had died. I looked round the room while the break in the action continued – Ben Jonson was in deep discussion with the musicians – and saw most of those whom Ned Armitage had identified as being in the gallery shortly before Blake's death.

There was Martin Barton, the red-haired satirist and spindle-legged playwright, decked out as Poesy and Drama. He had his arm round the shoulder of the young bricklayer whom I recognized from the Line and Compass tavern. Verney was his name, wasn't it? I wondered what pretext Barton had used to get his friend past the Somerset House gatekeepers but then reflected that it was open house in this palace. I wondered too at Barton's brazenness. Success with
The Melancholy Man
must have gone to his head, so that he enjoyed flaunting his perilous tastes in the Queen's house, thinking himself invulnerable.

In another part of the chamber there was the dazzling Doña Luisa de Mendoza, dressed in not very much, and the rather less dazzling Lady Fortune, dressed in hopeful green. And there was the dapper Giles Cass, garbed as Suspicion. He carried his elaborate lantern for peering into the corners of men's lives and wrapped himself inside the cloak which was painted over with eyes. Like many non-professional players, Cass probably enjoyed dressing up. This one-time supporter of Raleigh was again enjoying a conversation with the two Dons whom John Ratchett had identified from my description. One was a Count, I remembered, and the other a lawyer, the one with a sallow face and hawk-like eyes. Of all the people in the room, it was perhaps Cass of whom I was – not inappropriately – most suspicious.

As I was looking about someone grabbed my arm. I turned round to stare into the glazed eyes of Jonathan Snell the younger.

“Master Revill, Nick, what have you got to say? Have you found the ring that belonged to your father yet?”

No, only a handkerchief, I said, taking out this feminine item and showing it to Snell. Did he know who it belonged to? Snell shook his head. As for the ring, I went on, perhaps it hadn't been mislaid here in the audience chamber after all. Then I started on a lengthy explanation of how, after a visit to their workshop in Three Cranes Lane and through the good offices and memory of Ned Armitage, the names of those who were present in the gallery shortly before Sir Philip's death had come to light. I was on the verge of saying that, if Jonathan was persisting in his theory that the man had been murdered, then it would be possible to attribute motives to most of them. But Snell waved his arms impatiently.

“I've changed my mind, Nick. I was mistaken. It was definitely an accident.”

“But the ropes holding up the chair, you were so certain they'd been tampered with.”

“My father is surer-sighted than I am, even with these,” said Snell, tapping his glasses. “My father is more experienced than I am. My father is right, usually.”

He said this in a curiously defeated way and I did not fully believe him. A trace of this must have shown in my face. He was about to say something else when a long-haired, stubbly individual in artisan's clothing tugged him by the sleeve.

“Yer father wants yer.”

Jonathan looked slightly alarmed.

“All right, Turner. Tell him I'm coming.”

“Wants yer now.”

As this hairy individual – whom I presumed to be another member of the workshop gang, Thomas Turner – almost dragged the son off, my feeling of unease deepened. Whereas before I'd been nearly ready to be convinced that Sir Philip Blake's death was indeed an accident, now it appeared to me to be a likely case of murder again. Jonathan's vehement denial somehow suggested the opposite of what he intended.

The rest of the practice passed off uneventfully. Ben Jonson descended in the person of Truth and gave his seal to the perpetual amity which would henceforth exist between England and Spain. He looked comfortable in the flying chair, and you would never have thought from his expression that a man had fallen to his death at this very spot less than forty-eight hours ago. Queen Anne was naturally missing from the rehearsal but otherwise everybody was there, and remembered their lines and moves even if they went through them somewhat mechanically.

The most unsettling aspect of the day so far was what I discovered when I went to the antechamber which had been set aside as a tiring-house. I took off my rustic cloak of Ignorance and put on my day clothes. As I was doing so, I discovered a note stuffed into the pocket of my doublet.