An Honourable Murderer (15 page)

The simplest thing would be to go and enquire in the neighbourhood. I was close by. I wouldn't have to go and knock on the front door. I could probably find out who lived in Salisbury Court by a casual enquiry.

It turned out to be easy. The very first person I asked was able to tell me. This was an individual who looked as though he might have spent a bit of time in Bridewell himself. He was leaning against a wall lopsidedly. He didn't move from the wall during our brief exchange. He repeated my words slowly, chewing them in his mouth.

“Salisbury Court?”

“Yes. Who lives there?”

“That'll be the Mon-sewer.”

“Monsewer? A Frenchman?”

Nothing too unusual in that. There were quite a lot of French people in London (like Blanche of the Mitre).

“Yes, a Mon-sewer like I said. His name is . . . let me think . . . let me think now . . . his name is . . .”

“Perhaps this'll refresh your memory.”

My penny saw the light of day for only the fraction of a second.

“Mon-sewer La Boderie is his name. It comes back to me now. It's a French name.”

This name meant nothing to me either. I shrugged.

My lopsided friend said, “He's the leg-it, La Boderie.”

The leg-it?

Ah, the legate.

La Boderie was the French ambassador in London.

I
cursed myself, profoundly. I'd turned into a spy. Partly out of gratitude – because John Ratchett had rescued me from a pair of assailants on the river bank – and partly out of greed, I had turned into a spy. Or been turned into one. True, I'd been led by the nose, believing that I was working for the Council at two or three removes. But that was my fault too. Ratchett had chosen not to enlighten me, and so allowed me to sink into a quagmire of my own making. I was more angry with myself than with him. And, more than being angry with both of us, I was frightened.

What did La Boderie the French ambassador want? I hardly had to ask myself the question. The answer was simple. If the English were coming to an accommodation with their old enemy in Spain, then this was naturally of concern to the French. No doubt Monsieur La Boderie had quite a few eyes and ears at his disposal out on the streets of London and inside its grand houses. He'd want to be kept informed. He might even want to interfere.

What did Nicholas Revill want? The answer to this was also simple. To get out of the situation with a whole skin.

As far as I was able to see, I had no choice but to do as John Ratchett had instructed. That is, to enquire into the circumstances of Sir Philip Blake's death. With luck, I could present Ratchett with an account that showed it was a straightforward accident, even if an unusual one, and so finish with the whole affair. The plump red-doublet had a hold over me – the threat to inform on me as a spy to the Council – and my only defence would be that I'd acted in ignorance. Ignorance might have been my part in Ben's masque, but even I knew that it wasn't much of a defence in law.

Best not to think about what might happen. Best to hasten back to Somerset House and attempt to sweep up a few fragments of evidence which I could assemble into a ‘report' for Ratchett.

It wasn't very far to Somerset House from the spot where I was presently standing near Salisbury Court. The afternoon – still only the afternoon despite all that had happened! – was hot and heavy. As I strode back towards the Strand, sweat broke out all over my body, partly brought on by thoughts of what dire consequences might follow if I fell into the hands of the Privy Council. I might be put to the question. I might be put on the rack.

Master Revill, you admit that you have been providing information to the French ambassador. You are a spy.

But I didn't know who I was providing it for! I thought it was for you, for the Council I mean.

Ignorance is no defence in law. You must know that.

I didn't pass on anything important . . .

So you're not just a spy but a useless one.

. . . because there was nothing important to pass on, I swear.

Let us be the judge of that. Three pounds a time you were paid – three pounds for nothing? Fetch that rack a further turn, master gaoler.

No! No! Stop. Please. I'll tell you anything you want. What do you want to hear?

What do you want to say, Master Revill?

I heard Giles Cass make comments about the Spaniards in the Mermaid tavern I heard him questioning why we were making peace with them but he speaks Spanish you know I heard Martin Barton comment on the corruption of the court I heard a man called William Inman make a joke about the Spanish peace he said it would prove poxy and rotten I heard Lady Blake –

Lady Blake?

She was having a conversation with Jonathan Snell. He is –

We know who he is.

They were talking about chairs and falling down.

Chairs and falling down?

Yes, chairs and falling down.

There was a clap of thunder from not far off. If I hadn't been so absorbed in my thoughts of the rack and the things I would confess to – that is, to everything – I might have jumped. Instead, I stopped dead in the street, as the first blobs of rain started to fall in their idle summer fashion. I was struggling to recall the exact words which had passed between Lady Blake and the engine-man during the eavesdropped conversation.
Then this will come down
, was what she'd said, pointing at the diagram, and
Oh, it'll come down all right
, he'd replied. Were they talking about the seat from which Sir Philip had plunged to his death only a couple of hours before? What else could they have been referring to?

For the third time that day I passed through the gatehouse of Somerset House, just as the rain was coming down in thicker blobs and the thunder beginning to close in. There was a flash of lightning as I crossed the great courtyard and I picked up speed. It is surprisingly easy to gain access to these fine places – much easier than it would be to get inside a peasant's hovel. There are so many people coming and going all the time. The gatekeeper wasn't interested and if anyone else thought to ask your business (which they generally didn't), they could be fobbed off with any old answer.

The audience chamber where the ill-fated rehearsal had taken place was still occupied. There were several Spaniards about. But I was relieved to see that the body had gone. It was probably laid out in one of the adjacent rooms, or perhaps had already been returned to the Blakes' mansion further along the Strand. A linen cloth was spread out over the area of the stage where Sir Philip had hit the ground. The chair no longer dangled overhead in space.

Ben Jonson was deep in conversation with Giles Cass. Jonson glanced up as I passed and for a moment didn't recognize me.

“I lost something,” I said, gesturing vaguely.

“Oh yes,” said Jonson.

“We have all lost something,” said Cass. “A great life has been forfeit.”

I nodded gravely, as one does at that kind of stuff, and passed on. I slipped around the back of the stage. Things were exactly as they had been a few hours earlier when I'd shinned up the ladder to show Sir Philip where he should go. I glimpsed the barrel-shaped windlass which controlled the ropes. Once more, I grasped the ladder and clambered up. I was no longer much bothered about heights. There were other and more pressing matters to be worried about, like being interrogated by the Privy Council.

Outside, the thunder volleyed around Somerset House.

For some reason I'd expected the platform above the stage to be empty but there were two figures standing on the far side. The Snells, father and son. Like Jonson and Cass down below, they were talking earnestly. To one side of them stood the empty chair, hauled up from below. It was darker than before on the floating platform. I sensed rather than saw the lightning which flickered into the audience room.

The two men looked round when they heard the creaking of the boards.

“Who's that?”

“Nicholas Revill, the player.”

“What do you want?” said the father.

“I lost a ring. It's my father's. It might be somewhere around here. I came up earlier with Sir Philip – to show him the way.”

“Oh, that was you with him, was it?” said the son in a friendlier tone than his father's.

I pretended to cast around on the floor.

“You won't find much by this light,” said Jonathan senior. One of the little oil lamps was flickering by his feet. He picked it up and for an instant I thought he meant to offer it to me, but instead he and his son huddled around the chair from which Sir Philip had plunged to his death. They whispered while the thunder banged about outside. I got down on my hands and knees and felt about for a ring which I would never find since it was safely stored in my room at Thames Street.

“And I tell you it has been,” I heard the son saying.

“No. You cannot tell so easily,” said the father.

“Show
him
. See what he says,” said the son.

“Him? Why?”

“Nick,” said young Jonathan over his shoulder. “Take a look at this.”

I crossed the platform. With the aid of the oil lamp, father and son were examining not the chair but one of the supporting ropes which had snapped. The son held the end of the rope closer to the light and peered intently through his spectacles. I had the clear impression that the father was unhappy with what the son was doing.

“I don't see exactly what . . .” I said, peering at the rope end.

“It's been cut, Nick.”

“But not at
this
point,” said the father, seizing hold of the rope with one long-thumbed hand and using the other to jab at some ragged strands of hemp. “It's not been cut here. This is frayed. It's given way.”

“It's given way because of the strain, father,” said Jonathan, taking back the rope end. There was excitement in his voice. “Look, Nick. Even I can see it. This strand has been severed deliberately – and this strand – and this one too . . . all on the same side. Cut with a knife.”

He began to unpick the end of the rough rope, and exhibited one length of fibre after another. I'm no expert but there was a difference between the way in which some strands terminated cleanly while others seemed to have been torn apart. As if he was eager to convince me, the younger Jonathan Snell stood up and craned out over the side of the gallery. His spectacles glinted in the light. Hanging from the main frame by only one hand, he reached for the other dangling rope which had held the chair and snapped. Snell was as nimble as a monkey. Here was someone with a head for heights. He scrabbled for the second torn rope and brought it back into the little circle of light. After a moment's examination he nodded.

“There is the same pattern here. Some strands cut, the rest left to give way under the weight. This has been cleverly done. Too many strands severed and the chair might have fallen straightaway. Too few, and the ropes would have held up without breaking. Sir Philip would have reached the ground in safety.”

A clap of thunder resounded overhead, as if whoever had control of such grand effects in the sky was showing his skill in dramatic timing. The Jonathan Snells and I were silent as the implications of the younger one's words sunk in. In his excitement he'd hardly seemed aware of those implications himself, and had talked of the thing being ‘cleverly done', almost with admiration.

“Who would do such a wicked act?” I said.

I was genuinely shocked. So, it seemed, was father Snell.

“Be careful, son. You are saying that Sir Philip was unlawfully killed.”

“Look at the evidence.”

“It is not as easy as that.”

“Don't you see, father, that if the rope was cut deliberately then it was not our fault? Yes, it is a terrible thing that Sir Philip has died, terrible, but it is nothing to do with us. We aren't responsible. The evidence here says otherwise.”

“You are a fool, Jonathan,” said his father. “Who was responsible for this area? You were. Why was Sir Philip not strapped in?”

“Because the belts were not ready, father, you know that. You were up here while he was being helped into the chair, I was over the other side.”

“If anyone is to be accused of an . . . unlawful killing . . . then it would be you,” said the father, almost fiercely. “The idea is nonsense. You must forget it. Take it as an accident. It is absurd to claim otherwise – dangerous even to think otherwise.”

They had almost forgotten that I was there. A horrified bystander, I could see the logic in the argument of each man. The son's was a somewhat cold-blooded argument, maybe – but it's a natural enough response in a disaster to try to shift the blame elsewhere. Except that in this case shifting the blame meant turning an accident into a murder. And the father had a point too. If the death of Sir Philip was what he'd termed an ‘unlawful killing' then the first person the authorities would look to would be the person who had charge of the floating platform: Jonathan Snell the younger.

“I do not think that
this
was accidental,” said the son, holding up one of the rope ends.

“Who do you point the finger at then, Jonathan?”

“I don't know.”

“Then remember that when you point a finger, your other fingers are turned back towards you.”

This reasoning, or the finger-picture at any rate, subdued the son. Calmed him down.

“What shall we do?” he said.

I was sorry to see both men so helpless. The son seemed to me an honest, intelligent apprentice while the father was an inventive individual, in love with his pulleys and his windlasses.

“Gentlemen,” I said, “I have a suggestion.”

Some time later I climbed down from the aerial platform, leaving the Snells still picking over the chair and the ropes. I think I'd convinced them to go along with my plan for the time being. ‘Plan' was putting a gloss on it, maybe, but I couldn't think of anything else since a ‘time being' was all I had. A very little time being indeed before I must report back to John Ratchett.