Edward Marston - The Laughing Hangman

‘We pay our actors,’ said Nicholas. ‘Do you pay yours?’

‘I’ll hear no more of this!’

‘Answer me but one thing.’

‘Away with you both or I’ll summon a constable!’

‘Master Fulbeck’s keys.’

‘What of them?’

‘Have they ever been found?’

Raphael Parsons made them wait for a reply, his eyes flicking around the theatre before finally settling on Nicholas with a defiant glare.

‘They have not been found.’

‘So they are still in the possession of the murderer?’

‘We may presume as much.’

‘Beware, Master Parsons,’ said Nicholas. ‘He can gain access to this theatre again by means of those keys.’

The manager was unperturbed. He walked to the door and opened it for them to leave. The visitors exchanged a nod. To remain any longer would be a waste of time. Nicholas felt that they had learned far more from the manner of his answers than from anything that Raphael Parsons had said. When he questioned the two friends earlier, the theatre manager had been calm and plausible. Cornered by surprise on his own territory, he was resentful and uncooperative.

As they walked to the door, Parsons stopped them.

‘Come tomorrow and pay to gain entrance,’ he suggested.

‘Why?’ said Nicholas.

‘Because you will not only see a fine play finely acted on a stage fit to bear it. You will witness our revenge.’

‘Against whom?’

‘Master Foulmouth himself. Jonas Applegarth.’

‘What do you play tomorrow?’

‘ Alexander the Great . An old play on an old theme but with a Prologue newly minted to cut the monstrous Applegarth down to human size. Westfield’s Men are soundly whipped as well. They who attack Blackfriars will suffer reprisals.’ He wagged an admonitory finger. ‘Deliver that message to your lewd playwright. We’ll destroy his reputation entire. We’ll hang him from the roof-beam with a rope of rhyming couplets and strangle the life out of his disgusting carcass!’

Easing them through the door, he closed it firmly behind them. They heard a key turning in the lock. As they descended the stairs, Ingram glanced over his shoulder.

‘Master Parsons has grown testy,’ he said.

‘We came unannounced into his domain and caught him on the raw. He has a malignant streak, no question of that. I would not care to be one of his young actors.’

‘Nor I, Nick. It was never thus in my day.’

‘You were trained as well as any of our apprentices.’

‘And shown great kindness. Times have changed.’

The porter was waiting at the foot of the staircase to detain Ingram in conversation. Nicholas drifted out of the building and retraced the steps he had taken when in pursuit of the murderer on the earlier visit. Pausing at the rear of the theatre, he looked at the various avenues of escape which the man could have taken. If he had run fast, he might have been clear of the precinct before Nicholas reached the spot where he was now standing. Or he might have gone to ground in any one of the nearby streets and alleyways.

By way of experiment, Nicholas broke into a trot and dodged around a few corners. When he came to a halt, he saw that he was standing in Ireland Yard. He studied the houses with interest before he walked back towards the theatre. As he strolled past it, the rear door was unlocked and a dozen or more figures emerged. Wearing white surplices over black cassocks, they lined up in pairs and march away in step, the choirboys at the front and the vicars choral behind them.

‘Philip!’ called Nicholas.

One of the boys turned in surprise to look at him. The resemblance to Ambrose Robinson was clear. His bright young face was puzzled by the salutation. The boy was pushed gently from behind by another chorister and the procession wended on its way. Nicholas was impressed by the sense of order and assurance about them. Philip Robinson was an integral part of the whole. He did not look like an unwilling prisoner. Nicholas watched him until the column vanished out of sight.

***

The journey took an eternity. Owen Elias was soon regretting his offer to safeguard the drunken Jonas Applegarth. The playwright kept stopping in the street to accuse innocent by-standers of unspeakable crimes, to hurl verbal thunderbolts at every church they passed, to kick at the stray dogs which yapped at his heels and to relieve himself unceremoniously against any available wall. When Elias tried to remonstrate with him, Applegarth either turned his vituperation on the Welshman or embraced him tearfully while vowing undying friendship.

Celtic patience finally snapped. Applegarth reviled him once too often and Elias expressed his displeasure in the most direct way. Grabbing the bigger man by the scruff of the neck, he dragged him towards a horse-trough and threw him in head-first. Applegarth hit the water with a fearsome splash. His face was submerged for a full minute as he emitted a hideous gurgling sound. Then he managed to haul himself out of the trough and fell to the ground.

He lay there twitching violently like a giant cod on the deck of a fishing vessel. His clothes were sodden, his hair and beard dripping and his hat floating in a puddle beside him. After expelling a pint of water from his mouth, he let out a bellow of anger and tried to get up. Elias put a foot in the middle of his chest to hold him down. Applegarth replied with an even louder bellow but it soon gave way to rumbling laughter. Instead of lambasting his colleague, he turned his derision upon himself.

‘Look at me!’ he said, wobbling with mirth. ‘The most brilliant playwright in London, flat on his back in the mire! The greatest ale-drinker in England, spewing out rank water. The fattest belly in Christendom, staring up at the sky! Is this not a pretty sight, Owen?’

‘You deserved it.’

‘Indeed, I did.’

‘You went well beyond the bounds of fellowship.’

‘I am the first to acknowledge it.’

‘The horse-trough was the best place for you.’

‘No, my friend,’ said Applegarth, as remorse wiped the grin from his wet face. ‘It is too elevated a station for me. A swamp would be a fitter home. A ditch. A dunghill. Find me a hole big enough and I’ll crawl into it with the other vermin. Why do I do it, Owen?’

‘I’ll tell you in the morning when you’re sober.’

Reaching down, he took the other in a firm grip and heaved backwards. Jonas Applegarth swung slowly upright. He looked down at the state of his apparel with revulsion.

‘My wife will assault me!’ he moaned.

‘There may be others keen to do that office for her.’

‘My doublet is stained, my breeches torn, my stockings past repair. I am an insult to her tailoring.’ He felt his head in a panic. ‘Where’s my hat? Where’s my hat?’

‘Here,’ said Elias, retrieving it from the puddle.

‘I dare not go home like this.’

‘You will and you must, Jonas.’

‘What will my wife say?’

‘That is her privilege. But I marvel that you rail against religion so when you must be married to a saint. Who else would put up with you?’

‘True, true, Owen,’ agreed the other. ‘She is a saint.’

‘A martyr to her husband.’

Applegarth remained solemn and silent all the way home. He was a sorry sight as he was admitted to the house by a servant. Elias waited long enough to hear the first shriek of complaint from the resident saint before turning away. Movement in the shadows then alerted him. He was reminded why he had accompanied Applegarth in the first place.

Pulling out his dagger, he ran diagonally across the street to the lane on the opposite side but he was too slow. All he caught was the merest glimpse of a man, darting down the lane before disappearing into the rabbit warren of streets beyond it. Elias stabbed the air in his anger.