The Devil's Apprentice (22 page)

To learn more about the sudden death of Robert Partridge, he walked back to the house to seek out its owner. Sir Michael was in the entrance hall, talking with an agitated Doctor Winche. Lurking in the background, inevitably, was Romball Taylard. The actor ignored the steward and hurried across to the others.

‘Forgive me for interrupting you, Sir Michael,’ he said with a gesture of apology, ‘but I simply had to hear the latest news.’

Sir Michael smiled sadly. ‘The guests have all departed, Master Firethorn, as you see. Apart from those who are staying under my roof, of course. In the circumstances, they felt that they wanted to get away.’

‘That’s understandable but my real concern is for the unfortunate victim.’

‘Robert Partridge’s body has been removed to the mortuary,’ said Winche. ‘I’ll be able to give it a proper examination there.’

‘Were you able to confirm death by unnatural means, doctor?’

Winche registered surprise. ‘No, Master Firethorn. Why should I?’

‘Sir Michael had the impression that the man may have been poisoned.’

‘It was only an impression,’ stressed Sir Michael.

‘There was no hint of poison,’ said Winche firmly. ‘Robert Partridge died by natural means. It may seem unusual for an apparently healthy man to suffer heart failure but it does happen, especially in winter.’

‘Sir Michael spoke of a strange smell on the victim’s breath.’

‘Doctor Winche explained that,’ said Sir Michael. ‘There was nothing sinister in it, according to him. It could be put down to the rich food on which he dined before coming to the play. I’m sorry if I misled you Master Firethorn. I’m an experimental scientist rather than a physician. My true skill lies in astrology. Indeed, I have better news for you on that score,’ he said with inappropriate glee. ‘When I read the constellations last night, I thought I detected joyful events for Westfield’s Men.’

Firethorn spoke through clenched teeth. ‘Your astrology may be as inexact as your medical knowledge, Sir Michael. We’ve seen no signs of joy as yet.’

‘It will come, dear fellow, it will come.’

‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’

‘Well, I must be off,’ said Winche. ‘I need to visit the mortuary.’

‘Before you go, doctor,’ said Firethorn, detaining him
with a hand, ‘do I have your word that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding this death?’

Winche detached his arm. ‘None, Master Firethorn.’

‘Then what provoked the heart attack?’

‘
You
might be partly to blame, sir.’

‘Me, doctor?’

‘I fear so,’ said the other with a frown. ‘This is no criticism of your art, Master Firethorn, quite the reverse, but the fact is that you gave such a powerful performance as Duke Cosimo that we were all swept along by it. I’ll confess that you had my own heart pounding in the final scene when I thought you were about to ravish Emilia.’

‘That goes for me, too,’ said Sir Michael. ‘I was throbbing with emotion.’

‘A worthy tribute to an actor’s skill.’

‘Thank you, doctor,’ said Firethorn. ‘But I still don’t see that I’m to blame.’

‘You may not be, sir, but you may unwittingly have contributed to his death. Robert Partridge was a man of high passion. Your performance would have worked on his emotions as it did on ours. It’s not inconceivable that, at the very height of the tragedy, he could take no more. In short, his heart burst with pity, Master Firethorn.’

‘Spectators are not in the habit of dying during my performances.’

‘This was a special case,’ said Sir Michael.

‘A very special one,’ agreed Winche. ‘If any poison was involved, it was administered on stage by brilliant actors.
The Insatiate Duke
was so affecting that it took hold of Robert Partridge and shook him until he died.’ He moved
away. ‘And now, you must excuse me. I promised his widow I’d examine the body properly as soon as I can.’

Firethorn was silenced for a moment but not altogether convinced.

‘What sort of man was the deceased, Sir Michael?’ he asked.

‘Robert Partridge was an able lawyer with a good reputation.’

‘Was he a popular man?’

‘Lawyers are never popular,’ said Sir Michael with a wry smile. ‘They’re rather like undertakers. An unappealing necessity.’

‘Did he have anything to drink before he came into the hall?’

‘Romball would be able to tell you that,’ said his host, indicating the steward.

Taylard glided forward. ‘I believe that Master Partridge enjoyed a cup of wine just before the performance,’ he said easily, ‘but so did most of the guests, including his wife who sat beside him. Nobody else was struck down so the death could not possibly have been the result of poison or the house would be littered with bodies.’

‘One is quite enough,’ said Firethorn sharply. ‘Particularly when it falls to ground during the climax of the drama. If there’s one thing I abhor as an actor, it’s bad timing.’

Sir Michael sighed. ‘Yes, I do hope this will not cast a blight over the other plays. Perhaps it’s just as well there’s no performance tomorrow. It will give people a day to get over the shock. The same goes for you, naturally, Master Firethorn.’

‘I’ll admit that it was a blow to our self-esteem.’

‘An unintentional one.’

‘Everything will soon improve,’ said Sir Michael confidently. ‘My telescope rarely lets me down. It’s in the stars. Westfield’s Men are on the verge of triumph.’

‘Really?’ said Firethorn. ‘How many heart attacks will I provoke next time?’

Stapleford was only a small village but their work still took over an hour. By the time they had finished, darkness was beginning to close in. They rode on to a nearby hamlet but their enquiries drew nothing from the inhabitants there except blank looks and a shake of the head. Nobody had seen Davy Stratton or could give them any information about his whereabouts. Nicholas Bracewell and Owen Elias mounted their horses yet again.

‘We can do no more today, Nick,’ said Elias resignedly.

‘Then we search again tomorrow at first light.’

‘You may have to go without me. Lawrence needs me for rehearsal.’

‘I’m needed as well,’ said Nicholas, ‘but finding Davy is more important than having me there to prompt actors. I’m certain the lad can’t have gone far afield.’

‘Well, he didn’t come this way or somebody would have seen him.’

‘True enough.’

‘We’ve spoken to everyone here and in the village,’ said Elias as they set off at a trot. ‘Including that egregious Reginald Orr.’

‘You and he will never be brothers, Owen.’

‘Why not?’ joked the other. ‘Welshmen are puritanical by nature.’

‘Then you must be the exception to the rule.’

‘What did you make of the fellow?’

‘Master Orr was exactly as they described him,’ said Nicholas. ‘Strong-willed and fanatical. But he wasn’t the man I fought at Silvermere last night.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Completely sure. He’s too old.’

‘That doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved in some way.’

‘Oh, I agree. There were daggers in his eyes. Reginald Orr is certainly capable of setting fire to a stable but I think he’d have preferred to have us inside it at the time.’

‘Why was he so keen to close the door in our faces?’

‘You heard what he said about actors.’

‘There was more to it than that, Nick. He was hiding something.’

‘Or somebody.’

‘Do you think we should go back there?’

‘He won’t open his door to us a second time.’

Aware of a marked drop in temperature, they pulled their cloaks around them and rode on through the dusk, speculating on the whereabouts of their missing apprentice and on the relationship between the boy and his father.

‘Do you think he’ll come back of his own accord?’ said Elias.

‘Not this time, Owen. He’ll be too scared to face us after this.’

‘Davy can’t stay on the run for ever.’

‘No,’ said Nicholas, ‘but we may have to accept that
he’s not for us. We can’t keep an apprentice who’s so keen to escape.’

‘That’s not what he did in London, Nick. I know that he caused merry hell in Lawrence’s house but he didn’t actually run away from there. Nor from Bankside, for that matter, when he spent time with you and Anne.’

‘Davy would have been lost in London,’ explained Nicholas. ‘It’s a big city, full of strangers. Where would he go? He needed us to bring him back to Essex. That’s why he was on his best behaviour at the end. So that we wouldn’t leave him behind.’

‘You think that he planned this latest escape?’

‘I’m certain of it. Davy was biding his time. I think that he deliberately created havoc during the performance so that I’d send him away in disgrace. It was the one time when none of us could watch him and he took full advantage of it.’

‘The cunning little devil!’

‘He has an old head on young shoulders.’

‘It won’t stay on there for long if Lawrence gets his hands on the lad.’

‘That’s why I want to reach the boy first. To get the truth out of him.’

‘I think that we already know it, Nick. You said it a moment ago.’

‘Did I?’ asked Nicholas.

‘Yes. Davy is not for us.’

They continued on their way until they got with a couple of hundred yards of the village. A rider then cantered towards them out of the darkness. Seeing them approach,
he reined in his horse and swung it off the track as if waiting for them to pass. They were too far away to pick out more than his outline. Elias’s hand went straight to his sword.

‘Another ambush?’ he said.

‘I think not, Owen. Someone just doesn’t want to be seen.’

‘Davy, perhaps?’

‘He has no horse.’

‘What’s to stop him stealing one?’

The two them maintained the same pace to give the impression that they would carry on into the village. When they reached the point where the other rider had veered off, however, they took their horses into the bushes after him.

‘Is that you, Davy?’ called Nicholas.

‘Where are you lad?’ shouted Elias.

But the rider was no fleeing apprentice. He was a well-built young man in black attire and hat. Head down to conceal his face, he kicked his horse into a gallop and shot between the two of them, buffeting Elias across the chest with his forearm. Taken by surprise, the Welshman was knocked from the saddle and let out a roar of pain as he hit the ground. Nicholas did not stop to help him. Spurring his own horse, he went off in pursuit of the phantom rider. If the man had such a pressing reason to keep away from them, Nicholas wanted to know what it was. Caution was thrown to the wind. The man rode hell for leather along the track, ignoring the bushes that flapped against his legs and the stinging caresses of overhanging branches. Nicholas was equally scornful of safety, urging his horse on and sensing the importance
of catching his quarry. The lead was gradually cut back. Glancing over his shoulder, the rider winced audibly. When Nicholas got even closer, he could hear gasps of pain.

They did not deter him. With a last spurt, his horse drew level with the other and allowed him to grapple with its rider. The man was strong but he cried in protest when Nicholas took firm hold of his bandaged wrist. It was all the proof that the book holder needed. He was struggling with the same man who had tried to set fire to the stable. Holding the reins in one hand, he swung the other arm with full force against the man’s head, making him reel in the saddle. Nicholas slipped his feet out of the stirrups and flung himself hard at his adversary. Both fell heavily to the ground and rolled over a couple of times. Their horses continued to race on. Nicholas raised a fist to deliver a punch but he did not need to overpower his victim. The man had been knocked unconscious by the fall. His hat had blown off. There was enough moonlight for Nicholas to see his handiwork on the face of Isaac Upchard.

Owen Elias arrived a minute later, sword flailing vengefully in the air. He brought his horse to a halt and looked down anxiously at the two bodies on the ground.

‘Are you hurt, Nick?’ he said.

‘No, Owen.’

‘Do you need any help?’

‘We do,’ said Nicholas, panting. ‘Find the horses for us.’

Among the guests who remained at Silvermere when the bulk of the audience left was Jerome Stratton and he joined
the others for a banquet that evening in the Great Hall. The rows of chairs had been cleared and a massive table set in the middle of the room. A sumptuous meal was lit by a series of silver candelabra. Sir Michael was a generous host and Lady Eleanor an assiduous hostess but they could not entirely dispel the shadow that hung over the occasion. Yards from where they were sitting, a man had died during the performance of a play. It affected even the most voracious appetites. Slowly, however, the mood of sadness was replaced by a muted jollity. Stratton even felt able to make light-hearted remarks about the deceased.

‘It’s a dreadful loss for his wife, I grant you,’ he said to Sir Michael in an undertone, ‘but the rest of us may gain. No more huge legal bills from Robert.’

‘He was ever an expensive gentleman,’ agreed Sir Michael.

‘Expensive and unbelievably tardy. The two went together, of course. The longer a case took, the more money he made. The Partridge coat of arms should have been a giant snail carrying a huge bag of gold.’

‘Don’t speak ill of the dead.’

‘It’s not censure, Sir Michael. I admire any man who can make money so well.’

‘Yet you and Robert had profound disagreements, as I recall.’

‘That was purely a business matter,’ said Stratton airily. ‘I always liked him.’

‘So did I. Acute mind. A subtle advocate.’

‘Too subtle for his own good sometimes,’ murmured Stratton.

Romball Taylard suddenly appeared at Sir Michael’s shoulder to whisper in his ear. The old man was torn between pleasure and astonishment. He leapt up at once.

‘Do excuse me, ladies and gentleman,’ he said, moving away, ‘I’ll not be long.’

‘What’s happened?’ asked Lady Eleanor.

‘I don’t know,’ said Stratton, ‘but it must have been important.’

‘Nothing is more important than entertaining guests properly. I’ll give my husband a reprimand when he comes back,’ she said, smiling to show that it was not a serious threat. ‘Enjoy yourselves, my friends!’