The Medieval Murderers - The Tainted Relic

‘He may have done. I do not take much account of such popish gewgaws but yes, I think he did mention it-now I come to think of it, sir.’

‘…now you come to think of it, Master Revill. Yet we have testimony that Ulysses Hatch intended to sell this “popish gewgaw”, as you call it, and sell it to the players.’

‘Not to us, sir,’ I said, realizing that such testimony could only have come from Wapping Doll. ‘As I said, my business at the fair was simply to buy the foul papers of an early play by William Shakespeare. My friends can confirm this.’

Jack and Abel nodded away but Farnaby no longer seemed very interested.

I became conscious of the wad of papers stowed under my shirt. I rather wished now that I had let them lie under Hatch’s body. The Justice’s words also cleared up the mystery of why Tom Gally was at the fair. Hatch had intended to sell the ‘item’ to the players, as reported to Farnaby by Wapping Doll. So Gally had not come in pursuit of the Domitian text after all, was perhaps unaware of it. Instead he was on commission from Henslowe to purchase the fragment of the cross. I was considering whether I should name Master Gally when Farnaby put another question to me.

‘Did Master Hatch show you a pistol when you were in his tent on the first occasion?’

‘Yes, sir. He kept it primed…’

‘Why?’

‘Because the world is full of rogues. They were his words.’

‘He’s right enough there,’ said Justice Farnaby. ‘This is the pistol?’

With a flourish he produced the weapon from the ground beside his chair. It had a bulbous handle and a blunt muzzle. I hadn’t noticed it before. Perhaps Farnaby was intending to shock me into a display of guilt.

‘I…I think so, sir,’ I said. ‘It’s a snaphaunce.’

‘Ah, you know your weapons, Master Revill,’ said the Justice.

Never handled one , I wanted to say, but it was too late now. I realized that, while the three of us had been stuck in our cell, there’d been plenty of coming and going between the court and the dead man’s tent, as well as the taking of witness statements. None of this put us in a good light.

‘What happened to the bird?’ said Farnaby.

The question, coming abruptly, took me by surprise.

‘You mean the raven?’

‘Yes. I have testimony that Hatch kept a bird which went by the name of Hold-fast.’

‘I do not know what happened to it, sir. The raven was in the tent earlier. When I returned with my friends he had gone. Perhaps he took fright, with his master dead.’

There was a sob from the sidelines. Wapping Doll had her hands to her face in grief.

‘Very well,’ said Farnaby. ‘Have you two associates of Master Revill anything to add to his story?’

When Jack and Abel indicated that they hadn’t, Farnaby said, ‘This is enough for the present. You may go.’

This sudden dismissal was surprising, but I caught a glance that passed from the Justice to one of the constables. I wondered just how far we would be permitted to go. Outside St Bartholomew’s Priory, we debated what to do next. It was afternoon by now. The sun hung in the sky, hot and heavy. Earlier I’d felt hungry, but now I had no appetite left. Abel was for quitting St Bartholomew’s Fair and the Smithfield neighbourhood straight away, but Jack said doing that would make us look like guilty men. Out of the corner of my vision I caught sight of one of the beetle-browed constables, undoubtedly ordered by Farnaby to keep an eye on us.

I gestured over my shoulder.

‘We’ve got Gog or Magog on our tail,’ I said.

‘Gog? Magog?’ said Jack.

‘My name for the constables,’ I said. ‘Those hulking fellows who took us in just now. They look like the wooden statues outside the Guildhall, big and ugly brutes.’

Jack looked dubiously at me.

‘They didn’t find the box or the glass vial or the piece of the cross when they searched us, so they think we must have deposited them somewhere about the fair. They’re waiting to see if we go in search of them.’

‘As I said, we should get out now,’ said Abel.

‘No we shouldn’t,’ I said. ‘Look over there. On second thoughts, don’t look. Pretend to talk instead.’

In the shadow of the priory, half hidden behind a crumbling buttress, stood two men. Like the seasoned professionals they were, my friends didn’t falter but at once entered into an energetic ‘conversation’ of the sort we often pretended to have on the Globe stage. Meanwhile, between their shoulders, I watched Ben Nightingale the ballad singer and his accomplice, the little man with the rustic hat who went by the name of Peter Perkin. They must have thought themselves quite unobserved for they were occupied with their business. Their real business, which was the lifting of purses and the division of the spoils. I’d no doubt that was what they were doing now.

The ballad singer had laid aside his lute in favour of his loot, you might say. In his outspread palm he was counting out some items that Perkin had just spilled into it, coins or trinkets presumably, the fruit of the latter’s nipping and foisting. Meantime Perkin had picked up Nightingale’s lute and was fiddling with it. I wondered that they were so bold to do this out in the open and close to Pie-Powder Court, but they were in a secluded spot and the day’s successful labour had perhaps made them careless.

But it wasn’t the sight of a couple of thieves counting out their money which interested me. Rather, it was the fact that Perkin, having put down the singer’s lute, had suddenly produced from somewhere about his person the wooden box that I’d last seen in Ulysses Hatch’s tent. The box with the lid and the star-shaped pattern. The box that had contained the fragment of the cross. So Peter Perkin had been the thief all along! And not just the thief but the murderer too, for whoever had stolen the cross fragment had surely shot Hatch into the bargain. Despite Abel’s earlier claim, Perkin the cutpurse was capable of murder after all.

As I watched surreptitiously, Perkin drew the box out into the open and showed it to Nightingale, at the same time shaking his head. As if to prove the honesty of his gesture, he opened the box and held it upside down. Nothing fell out. It was truly empty. Perkin said something else and Nightingale replied. The stiff postures of each man indicated an imminent argument.

If the two men hadn’t been so wrapped up in their dialogue they might have noticed me. As it was, Nightingale uttered some more sharp words-which weren’t audible-and shook his head so violently that his little red cap almost fell off. For answer Perkin passed him the box. Go on, his whole manner said, if you don’t believe me, take a look for yourself. There’s nothing inside, it’s truly empty.

The ballad singer seized the box and raised it to his eyes as if to give it further scrutiny. Perkin grew more determined to make his point, and he gesticulated and flapped his arms about. Nightingale’s mouth gaped, giving a good impression of surprise or disbelief. I couldn’t understand what they were on about. Once again the singer examined the interior of the box. Then he looked over the rim and saw me staring at him. And immediately his eyes flicked over my shoulder and I saw them widen in surprise or fear. I glanced round. Approaching us was the constable whom I’d christened Gog (or maybe it was Magog).

After that a couple of things happened simultaneously.

I decided that the only way to prove my-or our-absolute innocence in the matter of Hatch’s murder was to lay hands on Peter Perkin the cutpurse and Ben Nightingale the ballad singer and on the box, which, empty or not, would be proof of their complicity in theft. I say ‘decided’ but of course it was an instinctive move. Yelling something to my friends, I started off towards the shadowy spot where the two men were standing.