The Roaring Boy nb-7 Read online

  ‘If I may, sir.’

  ‘But you do not even know who I am.’

  ‘You are a friend of this family and that is enough for me. I saw the way you took control this night. I watched you deal with those foolish constables. You are Master Bracewell and I want to help you all I can.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I heard them come.’

  ‘Them?’

  ‘Dragging the dead body.’

  Nicholas grabbed him by the arms. ‘You saw them?’

  ‘No, sir. I was too late.’

  ‘What did you hear?’

  ‘Voices only. Then the horses galloping off.’

  ‘These voices. What did they say?’

  ‘I do not know, sir. The language was unknown to me.’

  ‘Foreigners?’

  ‘Deep and gruff.’

  ‘Can you you remember no words at all?’

  ‘None, sir. Except “smell.” They were in a hurry. One of them kept saying “smell” or something much like it.’

  ‘Could it have been “schnell”?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘Indeed, it could. Say it again.’

  ‘Schnell. Schnell.’

  ‘That was it, sir!’ said Valentine. ‘What language?’

  ‘German.’

  ‘Why should two Germans kill poor Master Chaloner?’

  Nicholas said nothing. He was quite certain that the men were only delivering the corpse of someone who had been murdered elsewhere by another hand. Their nationality was an important clue, however, and he took due note of it.

  ‘I wish I could tell you more,’ said Valentine.

  ‘You have been most helpful and I thank you for that.’ His tone became much sterner. ‘But that does not excuse your eavesdropping. Why did you listen to me when I talked with Mistress Brinklow earlier in the ruins of the laboratory?’

  ‘I did not, sir.’

  ‘You admitted it only two minutes ago.’

  ‘I said I overheard you by accident. But not today. It was when you first came to Greenwich. You and your friend talked in the arbour with the mistress and Master Chaloner.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Caught nearby and forced to listen.’

  ‘Why did you not discover yourself and leave?’

  ‘It would have thrown suspicion on me, sir,’ said the gardener. ‘Once I had heard a little, I had to hear all. Besides, sir, I was interested. Master Brinklow was like a father to me. I mourn him every day.’

  Nicholas warmed to the man. Disfigurement was only skin deep. Valentine was a loyal and compassionate man underneath his repellent exterior. He could yet be of more help.

  ‘Why do you sometimes sleep in the garden?’ he said.

  ‘I like it, Master Bracewell. I am at peace here.’

  ‘There must be another reason.’

  Valentine grew restless. ‘I’d blush to acknowledge it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Come, sir, you are a man. You may guess at it.’

  Nicholas was surprised. ‘This concerns a woman, then?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the other, strangely bashful. ‘Not that the woman in question knows anything about it. Nor must she or all is lost. I’ll say no more unless you keep my secret.’

  ‘The matter will go no further.’

  ‘Then hear her name.’ The grin broadened. ‘Agnes.’

  ‘The maidservant?’

  ‘As fine a piece of flesh as any in Greenwich.’

  ‘You and she have some…understanding?’

  ‘Oh, no, sir,’ said Valentine with bitterness. ‘She looks at my ugliness and blames me for it. I am never allowed near her. Agnes goes out of her way to abuse me. Why, only today she caught me near the window of the parlour and chided me for trying to listen to your conversation within.’

  ‘Mistress Brinklow and I?’

  ‘Agnes chased me off down the garden.’

  ‘Then what did she do?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  Nicholas did. It was conceivable that the maidservant had cleared Valentine away from the vantage point outside the window so that she could take it up herself. If she had overheard the conversation in the parlour, she would have known that they moved on to the laboratory. Someone had been listening to them in the bushes. Since it had not been the gardener, it may well have been Agnes. She had always been in the vicinity on his previous visit to the house. When he and Hoode had first arrived, the maidservant had actually been in the arbour with Emilia.

  ‘It is Agnes who keeps you in the garden at night?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I cannot but be fond of her.’

  ‘Even though she rails at you.’

  ‘That is the fault of my face and not her temper.’

  ‘You are very forgiving.’

  ‘All I want is to see her now again,’ said Valentine in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘To catch her unawares at some simple task. Opening her window, closing her curtains, even just blowing out her candle. In those moments-though Agnes will never know-she is mine.’

  ‘Where is her chamber?’

  ‘At the top of the house. I see her from the garden.’

  ‘I cannot think she would enjoy your surveillance.’

  ‘What harm does it do?’ He plucked at Nicholas’s sleeve and let out a chuckle. ‘I watched her window for a whole month once. She did the same thing every night bar Fridays.’

  ‘What was different about those?’

  ‘She did not sleep in her room. Or if she did, she entered it in darkness and came not to the window. Why do the same thing six nights a week and not the seventh?’

  ‘Haply, she was released from service on Fridays.’

  ‘No question of that, sir. It is one of her busiest days with Saturday even more so. We work a full week here, sir. Sunday morning is our only time of rest and part of that must be spent in church.’

  Nicholas was fascinated by the information. The insight into the weird emotional life of Valentine had started a line of thought which led in only one direction. If there was a spy in the household, the maidservant was best placed to perform the office.

  ‘Thank you, Valentine,’ he said. ‘I am glad we met.’

  A grim chuckle. ‘Nobody has ever said that before.’

  ‘Tell nobody else what you have told me.’

  ‘I must ask the same of you, Master Bracewell. This is my domain out here. I stalk it like a cat. Do not take it away from me, sir. It is all I have.’

  Nicholas nodded. He had no reason to rob the gardener of anything, especially as Valentine had helped him. They shook hands to seal their bargain and parted.

  ***

  Emilia Brinklow was dogged by fatigue but kept awake by remorse. The murder of Simon Chaloner was devastating. Coming as it did in the wake of the attack on the play, it completely disoriented her. She did not know what to do or where to go next. Agnes sat with her in the parlour and tried to offer some words of comfort but they fell on deaf ears. All that Emilia could hear was the fearful thud on the front door which had announced the arrival of Chaloner’s corpse.

  Guilt coursed through her like molten lead. She blamed herself for his death. But for her, he would never have been drawn into the long and fretful search for justice with regard to her brother’s murder. Chaloner had now joined Thomas Brinklow on a premature slab. Emilia believed that it was all her fault, that she should somehow have prevented him from taking such precipitate action against an enemy far stronger than him. She even wished that she had agreed to marry him sooner instead of offering him conditions. Her anguish was proof against all solace.

  There was a tap on the door and it opened to admit the head of Nicholas Bracewell. She sat up with a start.

  ‘Have they gone?’ she asked.

  ‘Their enquiries are over for tonight,’ he said, coming into the room. ‘I made sure that they did not trouble you.’

  ‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’

  ‘I will not disturb you any longer.’

&n
bsp; ‘Where are you going?’ she said anxiously.

  ‘To the inn at the end of the main street. If I can rouse the landlord, I am sure he will give me a bed for tonight. I will then be on hand in the morning to lend further assistance.’

  ‘You will say here, Nicholas.’

  ‘I have no right to intrude.’

  ‘I insist,’ she said, turning to the maidservant. ‘See that a bed is made ready at once, Agnes. Hurry.’

  As the woman went off about her task, Nicholas thought he detected a slight reluctance. He surmised that she was unhappy about his continued stay in the house and annoyed to be sent too far away to overhear what might be a valuable conversation. He took swift advantage of her absence.

  ‘Speak to nobody,’ he warned. ‘Confide nothing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It is a sensible precaution. Master Chaloner told me that this house has ears. I know that to be true.’ He moved in closer and looked into her face. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Sick with grief.’

  ‘Retire to bed.’

  ‘How can I rest on such a night as this? What sleep do I deserve? I killed Simon,’ she said simply. ‘I killed him.’

  Nicholas was firm but gentle. ‘That is nonsense and you must not even think it. What you did was to give him an excellent reason for living. Remember the times you shared together and reflect on what they meant to him. Master Chaloner was deeply in love and that is the stoutest armour of all. He died ignobly but he also died happy. He had you.’

  ‘I could have been kinder to him.’

  He shrugged. ‘Let us talk again in the morning.’

  ‘Do not pack me off to bed, Nicholas. I am not ready. I am not disposed.’ She took his hand impulsively. ‘Stay with me for a little while yet. I need you.’

  ‘My presence here occasions some disquiet.’

  ‘You do not wish to stay?’

  ‘Nothing would content me more,’ he said, feeling the warmth of her hand, ‘but I would not make you the object of comment. You thought it improper for your betrothed to stay beneath the same roof with you. How more unsuitable am I?’

  ‘Nobody could be more suitable.’

  He looked down into a face almost haggard with fatigue.

  ‘Then I will stay.’

  ‘I want your guidance.’

  ‘Call on me for anything. I am here.’

  He released her hand but she did not move away. Emilia continued to stare up at him. Her eyes were still awash with grief but he saw something else in them now. Nicholas was touched. What he caught was a signal that she was ready to trust him more completely, to let him closer than she had ever dared before. Simon Chaloner had been her confidant in the past. Now that he had died, his mantle was being handed to Nicholas. The book holder reached out boldly to take it.

  ‘Tell me who wrote The Roaring Boy,’ he said.

  ‘I think you already know.’

  It dawned on him at last. Emilia Brinklow loved the theatre. She visited London regularly with her brother to watch plays. When Nicholas had asked why she did not feature as a character in The Roaring Boy, she was not coy or evasive. She gave him a sound technical reason for her absence from the dramatis personae. The play was far more than an obsession for her.

  ‘You are the author.’

  She smiled quietly. ‘Women do not write plays.’

  ‘One of them wrote The Roaring Boy and that makes the achievement all the more remarkable. I have read hundreds of plays in my time. Yours is not disgraced by any of them.’

  ‘I wrote from the heart.’

  Nicholas gazed at her with a new admiration. Emilia Brinklow was a talented woman. Her brother might have been a genius in the sciences but she had the talent for the arts. She also evinced rare courage in forcing her way into such a closed world. Theatre was an exclusively male preserve. Plays were written and performed entirely by men. For a woman even to attempt to emulate them was an act of bravery. To succeed in the way that Emilia Brinklow had done was quite astonishing.

  ‘You see now why the author had to vanish,’ she said.

  ‘Clearly.’

  ‘Who would even read a play penned by a woman?’

  ‘I would,’ he reminded. ‘And I did.’

  ‘Only because you thought it the work of a man. That is why I needed Edmund Hoode’s assistance. He not only made the piece work on the stage. His name lent it credence.’

  Nicholas Bracewell understood many things for the first time. His anger at having being misled was quickly smothered beneath his increased respect for her. Emilia Brinklow was not just a beautiful woman with a self-appointed mission. She was also a professional colleague. The implications of it all were not lost on him. She was in immense danger. Because he gathered the material for the play, Simon Chaloner was murdered. Because he reworked the drama, Edmund Hoode was imprisoned in the Marshalsea. Both had suffered from their association with The Roaring Boy. If its true authorship were revealed, Emilia would be hunted down without mercy.

  Nicholas felt that it was his duty to protect her.

  ‘I will stay until this affair is over,’ he said.

  ‘Here in Greenwich?’

  ‘This is where it begins and ends.’

  ‘My house is at your disposal.’

  ‘There is nowhere that I would rather be.’

  She gazed wistfully at him until a tap on the door told them that Agnes had returned. Emilia moved away and kept her back to them. The maidservant had prepared a room for the guest and waited to conduct Nicholas up to it.

  He turned to Emilia to bid a polite farewell.

  ‘Good night,’ he said.

  She acknowledged him with a faint wave of the hand. He went out with Agnes and the door was shut behind them. When Emilia swung round to look after it, tears of remorse were running freely down her face.

  ***

  The bed was soft and the linen clean but Nicholas was quite unable to sleep. His mind was exercised by the events of the day. The murder of Simon Chaloner was paramount. There would be no adulterous lovers waiting to be caught this time. The law officers of Greenwich would have to make their enquiries without any help and that made the likelihood of an arrest virtually non-existent. Additional men might be drafted in to assist them but there was no way that they would ever follow the tortuous path that led back to Greenwich Palace. Nicholas had to work alone, a daunting prospect until he remembered that he did, after all, have some associates.

  Emilia Brinklow herself was more than a friend. Tragedy had yoked them together. A mutual affection which had been sown at their first meeting had pushed up its first shoots in unpromising soil. He felt it somewhat unseemly to have such warm feelings about a woman so soon after the death of her betrothed and he tried to put them aside but they remained beneath the surface. Only a woman of singular determination could have waged the battle that she had. The fact that she had actually made her own ammunition-The Roaring Boy-impressed him even more. Thomas Brinklow had created wonders in his workshop but his sister’s invention came from the laboratory of her mind.

  Valentine was a useful if unprepossessing ally. The gardener’s nocturnal habits had paid dividends. Nicholas not only knew who had dragged the corpse up to the front door, he believed that he had unmasked the informer in the house. In the morning, he would confront another spy. Orlando Reeve had penetrated Westfield’s Men to learn their plans. Nicholas Bracewell was looking forward to giving the musician a message from the whole company. In their own ways, Agnes and Reeve might turn out to be valuable associates as well.

  His mind turned inevitably to Edmund Hoode. It was the playwright who was bearing the brunt of the punishment. Having been imprisoned in the Counter himself, Nicholas had some notion of the miseries of confinement. He had withstood them but Hoode was a weaker vessel. Nicholas wanted to rush back to London to bend all his energies to secure the release of his friend but it would be a pointless journey. The only way to liberate Hoode from the Marshalsea was to solve a
second murder in Greenwich.

  He was still contemplating the possibilities of the day ahead when he finally drifted off to sleep. An hour or more drifted by in blissful slumber. A clicking noise brought him awake. He opened his eyes but the darkness weighed down in them. When he sat up, he could still see nothing. What he did do was to catch her light fragrance. Emilia Brinklow had come of her own volition into his bedchamber.

  She moved in silence across the room, then gently peeled back the sheets. Climbing in beside him, she lay quite still. He heard her breathing deepen as she fell asleep. Nicholas was moved. She had come to share his bed. Emilia wanted nothing more than his company and the protection that it conferred. The moment she was beside him, she was able to relax. She trusted him.

  Nicholas was surprised how unsurprised he felt. Her arrival seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Had he tried to analyse it, the situation would have yielded up all sorts of warnings and contradictions but he was in no mood to spoil an affecting moment. She was there. At a time of real crisis, she chose the place where she most wanted to be. Nicholas accepted that fact with gratitude. He soon faded back into sleep himself.

  Sunlight was fingering the curtains when he awoke next morning. He felt refreshed and invigorated. How long he had slept he did no know but one thing was certain.

  Emilia Brinklow no longer lay in the bed beside him.

  ***

  Lawrence Firethorn and Owen Elias set out on horseback at first light. Their rough and nondescript attire had been borrowed from the costume stock of Westfield’s Men. With their plain caps and coarse jerkins, they looked like two watermen taking a day off from their oars. As they rode side by side along the street at a rising trot, Firethorn gave a snort of contempt.

  ‘Look at me, Owen!’ he exclaimed. ‘To what depths have I fallen! I am accustomed to the robes of an emperor or the armour of a soldier king. At the very least, I play a duke or an earl. But this! I feel like a dung-collector!’

  ‘That is exactly what we are, Lawrence.’

  ‘I deserve better.’

  ‘You will get it if this day’s work bears fruit.’

  ‘One rotten apple is all we seek. Maggotty Maggs.’

  ‘Then we must dress the part.’

  ‘I’ll wear my Freshwell face.’