Peter Tremayne - An Ensuing Evil and Others

Fulke forced a smile.

“Helena? Methought you saw a serpent…” he began.

Drew compressed his lips in irritation.

“Concentrate, Fulke, name your assailant.”

Fulke coughed again. He was growing weaker and had not long.

“The play… the play’s the thing…”

Then his eyes dilated and for the first time he realized that he was going to die. The moment of truth came for Master Fulke in one horrible mute second before he fell back and was dead. Master Topcliff hurried in, having shaken off the terrified innkeepers wife.

“Did he say aught?” he asked breathlessly.

Drew shook his head.

“He was rambling. His last words were something about the play being the thing… what thing?”

Master Topcliff smiled grimly.

“I fear it was only a line from Master Shakespeare’s tragedy of the Prince of Denmark. I recognize it well, for it is a play of murder and intrigue that held much meaning for me. ‘The play’s the thing wherein I’ll capture the conscience of the king.’ No use to us. This is my fault. I was too confident. I let this murderer out of my grasp.”

“How did he get in? I can swear that he did not pass me at the back door.”

“Nor from the front,” vowed Master Topcliff.

He peered round. The window was still open, the curtain flapping. There was a small balcony outside, built out above the waters of the Thames. The river, smelly and dirty, was lapping just below. The window and balcony were on the side of the building, for it was built sideways onto the river, and was blind to the scrutiny of anyone watching the front and back.

They stared out onto the darkened waters. The assailant must have come by rowing boat and pulled up against the wall of the inn, under the balcony. It was high water, and easy to pull oneself up toward this balcony and then climb through Fulke’s window.

“Our man will be long gone by now. Now, truly, all we can do is return to our lodgings and secure a good nights repose. Tomorrow morning, I think we will have another word with Master Will Painter. Logic shows him as our likely suspect.”

Hardy Drew sighed with exasperation as he stared down at the actors body. “Faith, he rambled on so much. Had he known he was dying, I doubt whether he would have quoted so much from his part in this play.”

He suddenly spied a sheaf of papers on the bed. Bending, he picked them up and perused them.

“All’s Well That End’s Well,” he quoted the title. “A bad ending for some.”

He was about to replace it on the bed when he spotted a line on the pages to which the play script had fallen open. “Methought you saw a serpent,” he whispered. He turned to the old constable. “Are you sure those words ‘the plays the thing’ comes from this other tragedy you mentioned? Are they not used in this new play?”

“I have seen the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark, but I have not seen this new comedy, nor has anyone else, remember? They were just rehearsing it for its first performance.”

“True enough,” Drew replied thoughtfully. After a moment or so, with a frown gathered on his forehead, he tucked the play script under his arm and followed the old constable down the stairs, where Master Topcliff gave instructions about the body. There was nothing further to do but to return to their lodgings.

It was morning when Master Topcliff, sitting over his breakfast,observed a pale and blearyeyed young Hardy Drew coming into the room.

“You have not slept well,” he observed dryly. “Does death affect you so?”

“Not death. I have been up all night reading Master Shakespeare’s new play.”

Master Topcliff chuckled. “I hope that you have found good education there?”

Drew sat down and reached for a mug of ale, taking a mouthful. He gave an almost urchinlike grin. “That I did. I found the answer to many mysteries there.”

Master Topcliff gave him a hard look. “Indeed?”

“Indeed. I learnt the identity of our murderer. As poor Raif Fulke was trying to tell me-the play’s the thing, the thing which reveals the secret. He was quoting from the play so that I might find the identity of his assailant there. But you are right-that line does not occur in this play, but the other lines he quoted do.”

An hour later they stood on the stage of the Globe with the players gathered in somber attitude about them. Burbage had recovered his shock of the previous day and was now more annoyed at the loss of revenue to his theater by the delays. “How now, Master Constable, what now? Two of our good actors are done to death and you have named no culprit.”

Master Topcliff smiled and gestured to his deputy. “My deputy will name the assailant.”

Drew stepped forward. “Your comedy says it all,” Drew began with a smile, holding up the play script. “Herein, the Count of Rousillon rejects a woman. She is passionate to have him. She pursues him, first disguised as a man.”

There was a muttering.

“The story of the play is no secret,” pointed out Burbage.

“None at all. However, we have Bertrando, who actually plays Rousillon, in the same situation. He is a man of several affairs, our Bertrando. Worse, he has rejected a most passionate woman, like Helena in the story. Bertrando is married and likes to keep his marriage a secret, is that not so, Mistress Eldred?”

Hester Eldred conceded it among the expressions of surprise from the company.

“So one of his lovers,” continued Hardy Drew, “that passionate woman, likes him not for his philandering life. Having been rejected, like Helena in the play, she pursues him. However, unlike the play, she does not seek merely to win him back, but her intention is to punish him. She stabs him and ends his life.”

“Are you telling us that a woman killed Bertrando?” gasped Burbage. “But Fulke saw a man enter the dressing room.”

“Fulke described a man of short stature. He was positive it was a man. Unfortunately, we”-he glanced at his superior-”decided to allow Fulke to act as bait by pretending he knew more than he did. Thus lured out, the assailant murdered Fulke before we had time to protect him. Luckily Fulke was not dead. He survived long enough to identify his assailant….”

He turned to Hester Eldred. She read her fate in his eyes, leaped up with a curse, and ran from the stage.

Master Topcliff raised a hand in signal, and a burly member of the guard appeared at the door and seized her.

A babble broke out from the company.

Burbage raised his voice, crying for quiet.

Nelly Porter moved forward. “I thought you were going to accuse me. I was Bertrando’s lover, and thanks to him, my child died. I had more reason to hate and kill him than she did.”

Hardy Drew smiled softly. “I did give you a passing thought,” he admitted.

“Then why-?”

“Did I discount you? When we arrived, Hester was on stage in a dress. Now her part, as I read the play, calls for her, as Helena, to appear in men’s clothes. Yet she clearly told us that she had arrived at the theater with her lover, left him to change while she went to change herself. Presumably from her own clothes she would change into that of her part as a man. But Will Painter said that he saw her arrive with Bertrand, in men’s clothes ready for her scene. She told me that she had left Bertrando and went to change into the clothes for her scene. When we came to the theater, she was in a dress and had been so from the time of the rehearsal. She had, therefore, killed her husband while in the male clothing, changed into a dress, and joined you all on stage.”

“But her motive? If she was passionately in love with Bertrando, why would she kill him?”

“The motive is as old as the Earth. Love to hatred turned. For Bertrando was just as much a ladies’ man during his marriage as ever he had been. Hester as his wife could not abide his philandering. Few women could. She did not want to share him with others. I could feel sympathy for her had she killed in hot blood. But she planned the scene and brought her victim to the theater to stage it. She also killed Fulke when she thought that he had recognized her-”