Simon Hawke - A Mystery Of Errors

As she railed at him, she kept advancing, backing the astonished man away from her, until they had approached a narrow alleyway. She didn’t even notice. She simply could not hold her temper anymore and she kept at him relentlessly.

“But, milady… but… Elizabeth!” he kept saying, over and over, vainly trying to get a word in edgewise as he kept backing away from the unexpected onslaught.

“You knave ! You worm ! You miserable cur dog! You lying… faithless… dishonorable… misbegotten… loathsome guttersnipe! If there were any justice in the world, then by God, you would be struck down where you stand this very instant!”

Gresham gave a sudden, sharp grunt and his eyes went very wide. He gasped and fell forward into her arms, dragging her down. She cried out with alarmed surprise and fell to her knees, unsuccessfully trying to support his weight. Then she noticed the dagger sticking up out of his back, the blade buried to the hilt between his shoulder blades. Shocked, she released him and he dropped lifeless to the ground. Elizabeth screamed.

The insistent hammering on the door and the shouting woke them both from a sound sleep they had only recently fallen into, aided by copious celebratory pints of ale. Shakespeare was the first to rouse himself, though he could not quite manage to raise his body off the bed. It seemed to take a supreme effort just to raise his eyelids.

“God’s wounds,” he moaned, “what is that horrifying row? Tuck? Tuck!”

There was no response from the inert form beside him in the bed.

“Tuck, roast your gizzard! Wake up! Wake up!” He elbowed his roommate fiercely. Just outside their door, the noise was increasing.

“Wha’? Whadizit?” came the slurred and querulous response.

“There is a woman shrieking at the door,” said Shakespeare.

“Tell her we don’ want any,” Smythe said, thickly, without even opening his eyes.

“What?”

Smythe grunted and rolled over. “Tell her t’ go ‘way.”

“You damn well tell her!”

“Wha’? Why the hell should I tell her?”

“Because she is screeching your damned name!”

“Wha’?”

“Get out of bed, you great, lumbering oaf!”

It began to penetrate through Smythe’s consciousness that he was being beaten with something. It took a moment or so longer for him to realize that it was Shakespeare’s shoe, which the poet was bringing down upon his head repeatedly.

“All right, all right, damn you! Stop it!”

He lashed out defensively and felt the satisfying impact of his fist against something soft. There was a sharp wheezing sound, like the whistling of a perforated bellows, followed by a thud.

“Will?”

There was no response. At least, there was no response from Shakespeare. From without, there was all sorts of cacophony. Smythe could hear frenzied hammering on the door, voices, both male and female now, raised in angry shouts, running footsteps, doors slamming open…

“Will?”

He sat up in bed and the room seemed to tilt strangely to one side. “Ohhhhh…” He shut his eyes and brought his hand up to the bridge of his nose. Somewhere right there, between his eyes, someone seemed to have hammered in a spike while he’d been sleeping.

“Tuck! Tuck! Oh, wake up, Tuck, please!“

He recognized the voice. It was Elizabeth Darcie. And she sounded absolutely terrified. He shook off the pain in his head, not entirely successfully, and lurched out of bed.

“I’m coming!” he called out.

“Ruaghhhh!” The growling sound from the floor on the opposite side of the bed scarcely seemed human.

“Be quiet, Will! And get up off the floor!”

“Oh, bollocks! I shall stay right here. ‘Tis safer.”

Smythe unbolted the door and opened it. Elizabeth came rushing into his arms. “Oh, Tuck! You must help me! ‘Twas terrible! Terrible!”

There was a crowd gathered just outside his door. Several members of the company were there, or what little was left of the original company since Alleyn had departed. Dick Burbage was not present, for he did not lodge at The Toad and Badger, but stayed at his father’s house. Will Kemp, however, was there in his nightshirt, as were Robert Speed and several of the hired men who had rooms at the inn.

“What the devil is going on?” asked Kemp, in an affronted tone. “What is all this tumult?”

Elizabeth was sobbing against Smythe’s chest and clutching at him desperately.

“What is this?” demanded the inn’s proprietor, the ursine Courtney Stackpole, elbowing his way through the onlookers. “What is the cause of all this noise?”

“I do not know… yet,” Smythe replied, holding Elizabeth protectively.

“He’s dead!“ Elizabeth sobbed. “Oh, Tuck! He’s dead! Murdered!”

“Who is dead?” asked Speed. “Who was murdered?”

“Murdered?” Kemp drew back. “Good Lord! Who? Where? Here?“

Everyone started talking at once.

“Silence!” Stackpole bellowed. “Go on and get back to your rooms, all of you! We shall determine what has happened here.” He turned to Smythe. “Who is this lady?”

“Her name is Elizabeth Darcie,” Smythe replied. “And I am going to take her inside where she may sit for a moment and compose herself.”

“We still have some wine, I think,” said Shakespeare, from behind him. “A drink might do her good.”

“Darcie?” Speed said. “Not Henry Darcie’s daughter?” He took a closer look. “Good Lord, it is! God save us!”

“Who is Henry Darcie?” Stackpole asked, as Smythe led the distraught Elizabeth back inside the room and shut the door.

“Only one of the principal investors,” Speed replied.

“What, in the company?” said Shakespeare.

“In the playhouse itself,” Speed replied. “Henry Darcie is one of the principal investors in the Burbage Theatre.”

Shakespeare groaned. “Oh, no.”

“Wait a moment,” said Kemp. “I remember now! That was the same girl who was here before. She was the one with Smythe in… oh, no !”

“Will,” said Speed, “Sweet Will, pray tell us he did not bed the daughter of one of the Theatre’s principal investors.”

“He did not bed the daughter of one of the Theatre’s principal investors,” Shakespeare replied.

“Oh, no,” said Speed, shutting his eyes. “And now he’s got her mixed up in some murder?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Speed!” Shakespeare replied. “She was here earlier this evening and left calmly, with her virtue intact, I am assured, without any talk of death or murder, and since then, Smythe has been in our presence all night long! Use your head, man! This is something that has happened only since she left!”

“But who is it that’s been murdered?” Kemp asked. “And where? And how? And what has she to do with it? More to the point, what have we to do with it?”

“I imagine Tuck is attempting to ascertain those very things even as we speak,” said Shakespeare. “In any event, we are not going to learn anything by congregating in the corridor. I suggest we all repair downstairs until Tuck can speak with her and then tell us what has transpired.”

They all trooped downstairs, where Stackpole opened up the bar and, behind shuttered windows, they sat anxiously, drinking ale by candlelight and discussing what to do. They decided that Dick Burbage should be informed as soon as possible, and John Fleming, too, since both were shareholders of the company and Dick’s father was in business with Henry Darcie. A couple of the hired men were at once dispatched to their homes. Otherwise, they did not yet know anything about the murder that Elizabeth had spoken of, such as who has been killed or how or where, but foremost in all their minds was the singular fact that one of their ostlers, and to all intents and purposes, one of their company, for Shakespeare had arranged a part for Smythe as a hired man, had become involved with the daughter of one of the principal investors in the Burbage Theatre.