Peter Tremayne - An Ensuing Evil and Others

“Constable, good Constable, she does not know what she is saying,” interrupted Pentecost Penhallow despairingly.

“That was when you came in,” interrupted Master Drew. “One thing confused me. Why was it left until morning to raise an alarm? I supposed it was in the hope that Keehan would die before dawn. When he did not, good conscience caused you to send for a physician but hoping that he would depart without naming his assailant. That was why you asked me if he had done so. That was your main concern.”

“I have admitted responsibility, Master Constable,” Penhallow said. “I will admit it in whatever form of tale would best please you.”

“You are not a good teller of tales, Master Penhallow. You should bear in mind the line from this new play in which Keehan was to act which says, as I recall it to mind, ‘men of few words are the best men.’ Too many words allow one to find an avenue through them. Instead of saying nothing, your pretense allowed me to discover your untruths.”

“I admit responsibility, good Constable. She is only seventeen and a life ahead of her, please… I did this-”

“Enough words, man! Unless you wish to incriminate yourself and your family,” snapped the constable, “I have had done with this investigation.” He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a purse. “I found this in Master Keehans room. The physician took his fee out of it. There is enough to give Master Keehan a funeral. Perhaps there might be a few pence over, though there is not enough to clear his debt. But I think that debt has now been expunged in a final way.”

Pentecost Penhallow and his daughter were staring at him in bewilderment.

Master Drew hesitated. Words were often snares for folk, but he felt an explanation was needed. “Law and justice sometimes disagree. You have probably never heard of Aristotle but he once wrote, ‘Whereas the law is passionless, passion must ever sway the heart of man.’ Rigorous adherence to the letter of the law is often rigorous injustice.”

“But what of-?”

“What happened here is that a penniless player met his death by the hand of a person or persons unknown. They might have climbed the wall and entered by the open window to rob him. It often happens in this cruel city. Hundreds die by violence, and hundreds more by disease among its teeming populace. The courts give protection to the rich, to the well connected, to gentlemen. But it seems that Master Keehan was not one of these; otherwise, I might have had recourse to pursue this investigation with more rigor.”

He turned for the door, paused, and turned back for a moment.

“Master Penhallow, I know not what conditions now prevail in your country of Cornwall. Do you take advice, and if it be possible, return your family to its protective embrace and leave this warren of iniquity and pestilence that we have created by the banks of this foul-smelling stretch of river. I doubt if health and prosperity will ever be your fortune here.”

The young girl, eyes shining with tears, moved forward and grasped his arm. “Dursona dhys!” she cried, leaning forward and kissing the constable on the cheek. “Durdala-dywy!.. Bless you, Master Constable. Thank you.”

Smiling to himself, Master Drew paused outside the Red Boar Inn before wandering the short distance to the banks of the Thames. The smells were overpowering. Gutted fish and offal. The stench of sewerage. Those odious smells, to which he thought that a near lifetime of living in London had inured him, suddenly seemed an affront to his nostrils. Yet thousands of people were arriving in London year after year, and the city was extending rapidly in all directions. A harsh, unkind city that attracted the weak and the wicked, the hopeful and the cynics, the trusting and the swindler, the credulous and the cheat. Never was there such an assemblage of evil. The Puritan divines did not have to look far if they wished to frighten people with an image of what hell was akin to.

He sighed deeply as he glanced up and down the riverbanks.

A boy came along the embankment path bearing a placard and ringing a handbell. Master Drew peered at the placard.

It was an announcement that the King’s Players would be performing Master Will Shakespeare’s The Life of King Henry V at the Globe Theatre that evening.

Master Whelton Keehan would not be playing the role of King Hal.

Master Hardy Drew suddenly found some lines from another of Will Shakespeare’s plays coming into his mind. Where did they come from? The Tragedy of Macbeth! The last performance Whelton Keehan had given.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow ,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death .

Out, out brief candle!

Life’s hut a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more .

The last French shot had fallen a full quarter-mile aft of the Deerhound as she slipped into the sheltering fog that was rolling down through the Oresund from the Kattegat and across the Kjoge Bight, south of Copenhagen. That had been twenty minutes ago, and since then there had followed an uneasy quiet, free of the noise of battle; the sea’s quiet of creaking wooden spars, the fretful snap of canvas and the whispering waves against the sides of the twenty-two-gun sloop as she became immersed in the thick white mist that now concealed her from her vengeful pursuer.

Captain Richard Roscarrock, captain of His Majesty’s sloop Deerhound , stood head to one side, in a listening attitude on the quarterdeck, hands clasped tightly behind him, lips compressed. Finally he raised his head; his shoulders seemed to relax.

“Hands to shorten sail, Mr. Hart.” He turned to the midshipman next to him, a lad scarcely out of his teenage. “Quietly does it,” he snapped hastily as the youngster raised his hand to his mouth to shout the order. “Quietly all! We don’t want Johnny Frenchman to hear us. We’ll take in the tops’ls and mains’l. Pass the word! And have the hands take a care for the damage on the mainmast; the main topgallant mast seems to be badly splintered. And for heaven’s sake, get a couple of hands to secure the mainstay; it’ll cause damage if it swings loose for much longer.”

Midshipman Hart brought his hand to his forehead so that his original motion ended in a cursory salute. He went forward to gather the hands.

Gervaise, the first lieutenant, moved closer to his captain. His voice was quiet. “I don’t think the Frenchman has followed us, sir,” he observed. “He’s probably beating back into the Baltic now that he has discovered we are in these waters.”

Roscarrock agreed mentally but gave a noncommittal grunt by way of response. He had been long enough in command to realize that it was not politic to discuss his thoughts with his juniors.

Unstead, the second officer, joined them. “Did you see the cut of her, sir? I’ll bet ten guineas on that being the Epervier of Rambert’s squadron.”

“Will we try to rejoin Admiral Gambier, sir?” pressed Gervaise.

Roscarrock sniffed to indicate his irritation. “In good time, Mr. Gervaise. And I am well aware of what ship it was, Mr. Unstead. We’ll haul to and will use the cover of this fog to assess our situation. The French gunners were good, and we have sustained some damage. Look at our mainmast.”

The sloop had encountered the French seventy-four-gun man-o’-war by accident, sailing around the headland of Stevns Klint and running abruptly under her guns before Roscarrock could wear the ship, turning the helm to windward. The Frenchman had opened fire almost immediately on the smaller vessel. The French guns had inflicted a lot of damage on the English sloop before her swifter sailing ability, good seamanship, and the descending fog across the bight had allowed a means of escape.