Edward Marston - The Roaring Boy

The manservant who discovered the body then adjourned with Nicholas to make sworn statements at the nearby home of a magistrate. Valentine was sheltered from the need to give any testimony even though he had been first aware of the arrival of tragedy on the doorstep. Nicholas saw no point in dragging the gardener into the investigation and thereby exposing his eccentric sleeping arrangements to public gaze while only further complicating the situation for the law officers. The book holder had already taken long strides forward and he did not want three well-intentioned buffoons around his feet to trip him up.

When he got back to the house once more, he was amazed to see two familiar figures dismounting from their horses.

‘Nick, dear heart!’

‘We knew that we would find you at the house.’

Nicholas was thrilled. ‘By all, it’s good to see you!’

They exchanged embraces of welcome, then compared news. Lawrence Firethorn and Owen Elias had not tarried in the Isle of Dogs. The killing of Maggs made their own presence at once unnecessary and dangerous. Survival was the only law that existed in that human jungle. They left while they still could and were ferried across the Thames on a barge with their horses. Who despatched the naked Maggs with such brutal finality they could not tell but they felt that Freshwell’s partner in crime had somehow met his just deserts.

Nicholas took them into the house and introduced them to Emilia Brinklow. She had expected to meet the whole company after the performance of The Roaring Boy but she had been hustled away from the fiasco by Simon Chaloner and had forgone that pleasure. She was clearly honoured to meet Lawrence Firethorn, an actor whose work she revered, and she delighted Owen Elias as well by complimenting him on a number of performances. Emilia had obviously been a keen follower of the fortunes of Westfield’s Men for some time. For their part, they were charmed by her grace and composure. Firethorn was so taken with her that he even started to make flirtatious remarks. Nicholas cut short this standard reaction to female admiration by telling him about the second murder. The newcomers were duly outraged.

‘Here on the doorstep?’ exclaimed Firethorn.

‘Slaughtered by the same hand,’ decided Elias.

‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘Solve one murder, solve both.’

He saw that Emilia was sinking back into her grief once more and he quickly moved on to another topic. She rallied within minutes and remembered the duties of a hostess. Sensing that the men wished to be alone, she went off to the kitchen to order refreshment for the guests and to give them the chance to talk more freely.

‘Where did you spend the night, Nick?’ said Firethorn.

‘Here at the house.’

Elias chuckled. ‘We can see why you did not rush to get back to London. A warm bed here is better than a cold lodging in Shoreditch.’

‘Mistress Brinklow invited me to stay.’

‘Say no more, Nick,’ advised Firethorn. ‘We are green with envy already. On to our discoveries in the Isle of Dogs.’

‘You found Maggs?’ said Nicholas.

‘Found him and lost him.’

Firethorn recounted the tale and the book holder was spellbound. Everything he heard tallied with what he himself had found out or suspected. Between the three of them, they had made substantial progress and they at last knew the name of the man who was the true author of all the evils that had beset the Brinklow household.

‘Sir Godfrey Avenell!’ said Elias. ‘He’s worse than Freshwell and Maggs together. At least, they were honest rogues. He hides behind his rank.’

‘I’d like to meet up with the knave!’ said Firethorn.

‘You will get your chance,’ promised Nicholas. ‘Both he and Sir John Tarker are close by in Greenwich Palace. We three must find some way to smoke the two of them out. And we may not do that until we have first uncovered the deepest mystery of them all.’

‘The deepest?’ asked Elias.

‘ Why? ’

‘Why what?’

‘Why was Thomas Brinklow killed?’

‘The play explains that,’ said Firethorn. ‘He was the victim of a malignant enemy. Sir John Tarker hated him.’

‘It is not enough,’ argued Nicholas. ‘Sir John would do nothing without the approval of Sir Godfrey Avenell. He is the key to all this. Why did he want Thomas Brinklow dead?’

‘Were Sir Godfrey and Master Brinklow also at each other’s throats?’ suggested Elias.

‘Far from it. They were good friends. They even dined in each other’s company at the palace. Indeed, it was there that Master Brinklow was introduced to the lady who was to become his wife. And who brought the two of them together?’

Even as he asked the question, Nicholas caught a glimpse of an answer he had never even considered before. It made him revalue the whole situation. Before he could share his thoughts with his friends, Emilia returned with the promise of food and drink. They rose courteously from their seats and insisted that she rejoin them. When all four were once again seated, Nicholas explored an area which had been brought to light by the visit to the Isle of Dogs.

‘When you showed me your brother’s laboratory,’ he said, ‘you spoke of his papers having been destroyed.’

‘Why, yes. In the fire.’

‘What sort of papers were they?’

‘Drawings, calculations, inventions.’

‘None survived?’

‘None at all, Nicholas,’ she said. ‘Thomas was a careful man, as I told you. His papers were like gold to him. He kept them locked away at all times out of fear.’

‘Of what?’

‘Theft by his rivals, jealous of his success.’

‘Only rivals?’ She looked perplexed. ‘Was your brother ever commissioned to work for Sir Godfrey Avenell, the Master of the Armoury?’

‘He was. On more than one occasion.’

‘What was the nature of those commissions?’

‘I cannot say. Thomas did not discuss his work with me. I explained that to you. All I know is that he paid regular visits to the workshops at the palace to consult with Sir Godfrey. And then those visits stopped.’

‘Why?’ asked Firethorn.

‘Thomas would not tell me.’

‘Did you have no inkling of your own?’

‘None, Master Firethorn. It was not my place.’

Nicholas was curious. ‘How soon after these regular visits broke off did your brother meet his death?’

‘Less than a month.’

The three men were exercised by the same thought. Thomas Brinklow was not killed at the behest of a spiteful enemy who lusted after the former’s sister. He was removed out of the way so that his papers could fall into the hands of Sir Godfrey Avenell. Something in among those drawings and calculations was a sufficient motive for murder.

Nicholas Bracewell spoke for all three of them.

‘Have you nothing of your brother’s work to show us?’

‘Go to Deptford and you may see many examples of it,’ she said. ‘The royal dockyards worship the name of Thomas Brinklow. They will show you his navigational instruments.’

‘I hoped for something here in the house.’

‘It was all consumed in the fire.’

‘Some tiny item must surely survive,’ he continued. ‘He lent his skills to the design of this beautiful house. Did he not also create something to use or display in it?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Except one trifling gift for me.’

‘Gift?’

‘It is hardly worth mention, Nicholas. I would certainly not offer it as an example of Thomas’s genius. He was a man who could invent telescopes to read the heavens and devices to plumb the depth of the sea. A simple knife is but a poor epitaph for him.’

‘Knife?’

‘He gave it to me to unseal letters.’