Edward Marston - The Fair Maid of Bohemia

‘Who found it like this?’ asked Nicholas.

‘A servant,’ said the landlord in halting English.

‘When?’

‘During the play. She came up here with fresh linen and found all the rooms like this.’

‘All of them?’

‘Every chamber set aside for your company.’

Nicholas went to each of the rooms in turn to see for himself. Someone had searched them in great haste and left chaos in his wake. The landlord was deeply upset. Westfield’s Men had brought a large audience to his inn and he had made a tidy profit selling food and drink to them. He mumbled his apologies and spoke of compensation for the outrage that had taken place under his roof. Nicholas paid no heed. His mind was racing with the implications of what had happened.

Hurrying back downstairs, he found that the actors had now withdrawn from the milling crowd into the privacy of the tiring-house. Inebriated with success, they were talking and laughing together. Nicholas saw at a glance that someone was missing. He pushed to the centre of the room.

‘Where is Adrian?’ he asked.

‘He must be still onstage,’ said Elias, looking around.

‘No,’ said Richard Honeydew. ‘He went into the stable to fetch his lute. It was left in there after my last song.’

‘That is right,’ confirmed Hoode. ‘I was waiting in the stable for my next entrance. Adrian quit the stage as a lutanist but rushed back on as a cuckolded husband with a foil in his hand. He’ll be here in a moment.’

Nicholas did not wait. Stepping through the window, he brushed aside the curtain and went onstage. Spectators were still standing about in groups, enthused by the wonderful performance they had seen. There was no sign of Smallwood. Nicholas ran to the stable which had been utilised during the play to great effect. Its door was shut tight. He wrenched it open and stepped quickly inside.

Adrian Smallwood lay face-down on the floor, his head smashed violently open. His buff jerkin had been ripped from his back and a long-handled knife plunged deep between his shoulder-blades. The lute floated lazily in a pool of blood.

It was a paradox. Over three hundred people had come to watch a play, yet not one of them had witnessed the real drama which had occurred at the inn. Watching a delightful romp, they missed the foul murder which took place under their noses. The killer had searched their rooms while everyone was distracted by Mirth and Madness , then used the swirling crowd as his cover when he struck down Adrian Smallwood. Or so it appeared to Nicholas Bracewell. He was convinced that the two crimes were linked but uncertain about the motives which inspired them.

When he raised the alarm, everyone was shocked to learn that one of the actors had been bludgeoned and stabbed only a short distance from where they stood. The goodwill engendered by the performance evaporated at once. While the audience was stunned, Westfield’s Men were in despair. At the very moment when they were celebrating the first success of their Continental tour, one of their number was brutally killed. All of a sudden, the English possession of Flushing seemed alarmingly foreign. They were adrift in an alien land.

Nicholas was deeply shaken. Smallwood was both a friend and an invaluable member of the company. To lose him at all was a bitter blow, but to have it happen in this way was shattering. Without understanding why, Nicholas felt an obscure sense of guilt, as if it had been his duty to protect the actor. The guilt merged with his surging anger and prompted a vow to bring the killer to justice at whatever cost. Unfortunately, the vow was easier to make than to keep. Obstacles lay in his path. It was Balthasar Davey who pointed them out to him.

‘You attempt the impossible, I fear,’ he said.

‘But I am involved in this to the hilt.’

‘I understand that.’

‘Adrian Smallwood was my fellow.’

‘If he had been a complete stranger, he would not have deserved the hideous fate which he met. I am as anxious as you to see the murderer caught and hanged, but finding him is a task for the proper authorities.’

‘I may have information that they do not, Master Davey.’

‘Then it is your duty to pass it on.’

‘I have already given a statement about how I found the body,’ said Nicholas. ‘My sole concern now is to track down the man who left it there.’

‘What chance have you of catching him?’

‘We shall see.’

‘None, sir,’ said the other politely. ‘An assassin who can work so cunningly will not be reckless enough to remain in Flushing while you and others conduct a search for him. He will be several miles away by now.’

‘Then I will pursue him!’

‘How?’

There was a calm practicality about Balthasar Davey that made him formidable in argument. The Governor’s secretary was keen to help in any way that he could, but he felt bound to oppose the course of action Nicholas wished to take. It was some hours after the play had ended. An official investigation into the murder had been set in motion and the corpse had been taken off by cart to the morgue in the English church. While the rest of Westfield’s Men were drowning their sorrows in the inn, Balthasar Davey and Nicholas were in a private room at the rear of the premises. The secretary was acquainting the book-holder with the reality of his situation.

‘Take my advice,’ he said with a sad smile. ‘Leave the town tomorrow and put this whole matter behind you.’

‘We cannot desert our fellow. That would be cruel.’

‘It is a cruelty which masks a greater kindness.’

‘Kindness!’ Nicholas blinked in disbelief. ‘Abandoning a friend at a moment like this? You call that kindness?’

‘I do. It would be a kindness to you because it would spare you untold pain and vexation. And it would be a kindness to your fellows to take them away from this unseemly business as soon as you may. I have heard actors are superstitious by nature. Keep them here to brood on the murder and that superstition will turn into morbid fear. Your company will suffer greatly.’

‘There may be a grain of truth in that,’ conceded Nicholas. ‘But we will still not forsake Adrian.’

‘Do you have any other choice?’ asked Davey. ‘You can hardly take his body with you. Pray for his soul and ride away from the scene of his murder. Tomorrow.’

‘We will at least stay for the funeral.’

‘That may not be for some days.’

‘Why not?’

‘Casualties of war,’ said the other. ‘We suffer heavy losses here. Wounded or dying men come in everyday. Many others are already waiting for burial and their turn must come before Adrian Smallwood.’

‘But he was a victim of murder.’

‘That gives him no prior claims.’

‘It should,’ protested Nicholas. ‘What sort of an uncaring place is this? Have you no human decency here?’

‘We have as much as the war allows us.’

Nicholas boiled with resentment but it was not directed at Balthasar Davey. The Governor’s secretary was not obstructing his wishes deliberately. He was very distressed at the murder, especially as it had occurred at the inn which he had chosen for the company. But living in the shadow of a long and expensive war had forced him to accept unpalatable facts. Emotion gave way to expediency. One man’s death-however gruesome-had to be set against countless others on the battlefield. In the long catalogue of slaughter, the name of Adrian Smallwood was of no particular significance.

Nicholas was still agonising over the decision.

‘I cannot bring myself to leave him here,’ he said.

‘You must.’

‘He deserves to lie in his own parish churchyard, not in some nameless grave hundreds of miles away from his home.’