The English Agent

by Phillip DePoy

  “Leonora is in a chair, beside you,” he said in low tones.

  “Holding my hand,” Beak answered, as if in a dream.

  “Someone comes into the room.”

  “Yes.” Beak breathed out. “I hear it. Leonora does not. She’s fallen asleep. I try to open my eyes, but a moment later, there are gurgling noises, and loud, heavy breathing. Leonora kicked my bed. Then the other one left again, dragging his foot out the door.”

  Marlowe didn’t move. “He was dragging his foot?”

  “Step. Drag. Step. Drag. Very laboriously.” Beak fell silent.

  Marlowe began humming again, then louder and louder.

  At length he stopped suddenly and said, very pointedly, in a loud, clear voice, “Mr. Beak?”

  Beak’s eyes snapped open.

  “Christ. Her killer. He walked with a limp!” he cried.

  “Yes,” Marlowe affirmed.

  Beak twisted toward Marlowe.

  “It’s witchery, what you just did!” he said.

  “No,” Marlowe assured the man, “it’s ancient knowledge from the Far East. Dr. Lopez is a well-traveled man and has acquired certain abilities. He taught me a few of them.”

  “So the villain is a cripple,” Beak sighed. “That’s something to go on.”

  “Possibly,” Marlowe answered carefully, “but I believe that he is momentarily wounded and will recover, thus losing the limp. A man who is permanently lame has found a way to walk that, to him, is normal. He does not move, as you put it, laboriously.”

  “Which means?” Beak asked.

  “I’ve got to find him quickly,” Marlowe answered. “Not give him time to heal.”

  Just as Beak was about to respond, the baker crashed into the room, staggering toward Marlowe with a monstrous kitchen knife in his hand.

  “Get away from him or I’ll kill you where you stand,” the baker hissed.

  “John!” Beak shouted. “No!”

  Beak managed to sit up, but the baker was enraged, and paid no attention to him.

  Marlowe glanced at Beak. “I don’t want to hurt him, but I’ve already wasted time dealing with him.”

  Beak strained forward, coughed, and shouted, again, “John!”

  The baker raised the knife and threw himself forward onto Marlowe. The sheer size and weight of the man knocked Marlowe against the wall. Searing pain from his unhealed gunshot wound momentarily distracted him, and the baker stabbed at Marlowe’s shoulder, cutting through his black doublet. Unable to move his arms under the mass of his attacker, Marlowe kicked at the baker’s ankles with such force that he heard bones crack. He raised his knee into the man’s crotch as hard as he could, and the baker howled. With all his might Marlowe pushed against the wall with his elbows, sending him forward against the baker. The baker dropped the knife he’d been wielding. It clattered to the floor, and seconds later, so did the baker. He was writhing in pain, doubled over.

  Marlowe’s dagger was in his hand and he leapt onto the unfortunate baker. He held his blade to the man’s throat.

  “Mr. Marlowe,” Beak called out desperately. “John is not himself. Please do not harm him. He was in love with Leonora. He’s destroyed by grief.”

  Marlowe kept his blade at the man’s gullet and leaned close, his mouth almost on the man’s ear.

  “My grief is equal to yours,” Marlowe rasped, “I can assure you of that. The difference is, I’m going to find her killer, and you’re going to stay out of my way. Is that clear?”

  The man cried out, a half-animal sound.

  “If you come at me again,” Marlowe assured the man, “I will kill you and think nothing of it. Do you understand?”

  “John,” Beak implored, “Mr. Marlowe is here to help us. He’s here to find our Leonora’s killer. You must understand that!”

  The big man would not stop struggling, and did not appear to hear Marlowe or Beak.

  “Unless,” Marlowe went on, “John is, himself, the killer, and only wants to prevent me from discovering that.”

  John went silent. All strength seemed to leave his body, and he stared up at the ceiling.

  “What?” he asked, barely comprehending what was happening. “You think that I would kill Leonora?”

  Then he began to sob as a child would.

  Marlowe exhaled, stood, and examined his shoulder. There was blood, and his doublet was cut. But the doublet was black, the better for hiding blood, as Lopez often said.

  “You can’t think that John is the killer,” Beak gasped.

  “Unlikely,” Marlowe admitted. “You would have known it was him, even in your sleep; also: he has no limp and his affection for Leonora is genuine. I believe, however, that she did not reciprocate that love.”

  “She didn’t even know,” John sighed, lying back down.

  “Well.” Marlowe put away his dagger. “Is there anyone else staying here at the inn now?”

  “John’s helped keep the changing station open,” Beak answered, “but without Mrs. Pennington or Leonora, we could not accept lodgers.”

  “Of course.” Marlowe turned to Beak. “You’ve suffered a great loss, and you have done so in service to the Queen.”

  “Why would anyone take Leonora’s life?” John moaned.

  “Why?” Beak echoed, weaker.

  “Knowing the answer to that question may well point me in the direction of her murderer.” Marlowe steeled himself. “And I swear to you that I will find the person who killed her.”

  “That won’t bring her back,” John snapped bitterly, still lying flat on the floor.

  “Where is her body,” Marlowe asked softly. “I should examine it.”

  “It’s all in vain,” Beak lamented, losing strength. “All that effort, that chasing about, and Leonora told me that you were unable to save the life of William the Silent.”

  “Yes.” Marlowe looked out the window toward the stables. “But that death was only the beginning of a larger threat. And those responsible for this greater plot doubtless passed through this changing station in the past several days. I’m certain that they are to blame for the death of Leonora Beak.”

  FOURTEEN

  Marlowe sat at the table nearest the fireplace in the Bell Inn. The sun had set and it was dark inside, save for the embers. He stared into empty space, deep in concentration.

  Further examination of the innkeeper’s room had revealed various small items which Marlowe examined with great interest. Stains on the floor were significant. There was recently dried food, possibly from the plate or bowl carried by Gelis’s son when he found the dead body. There were flat, curved slices of horse dung, which meant that someone, possibly the killer, had come directly from the stables into the room. There were traces of horsehair to add to that theory. Both Beak and John claimed that they hadn’t been in the stables for weeks, and the size and shape of the dung slices were clearly from a boot larger than those Leonora wore. Finally and most significantly: Marlowe found drops of dried blood, several near where the chair had been, several more by the door. Had Leonora managed to injure her assailant? She had certainly been capable of it.

  Her body, laid out in the kitchen, gave up few clues. Only marks on her neck that confirmed Marlowe’s suspicion that the murderer was able to sneak up from behind. Leonora had been asleep at the time. Awake she would never have been taken by surprise.

  So, Marlowe wondered, why kill Leonora at all? She was no threat. She was clearly tending to her ailing father. Why would anyone go out of his way to come to the closed inn, steal up the stairs, see that Leonora was asleep—or wait for her to fall asleep—and then strangle her? Why was just as important a question as Who.

  And though Marlowe was nearly certain that her death was directly connected to the assassination of William the Silent—and whatever subsequent plot was afoot—he had to admit that he might be wrong. He had failed enough in recent days to shake his confidence. So many doubts clouded his mind.

  Were there other Spanish agents? Had Gérard so
mehow been able to communicate with others, alerting them that he was being followed by Marlowe and Leonora?

  Worse: was it possible that Gelis, or other Travelers, were not as they seemed? Could they, in fact, have been in league with Gérard and the assassins all along? Kidnapping Marlowe on the way to the Bell was quite suspicious. Although, on the other hand, no one in the camp had tried to stop him when he left to go to the inn.

  Was there any advantage in finding out more about the third man, the portly gent who had played the part of Ned Blank’s husband—the one whom Leonora had poisoned in the barn in Maldon? Would finding out who he was be of help? Perhaps he had associates or even family who could shed some sort of light.

  Just then John came lumbering down the steps carrying a tray.

  “You want a bit of light down here,” he grumbled.

  Setting the tray on the bar, he took the small candle from the tray and lit the taper on the bar, the one Marlowe had placed in the iron pricket.

  It did not illuminate so much as emphasize the growing darkness.

  “John,” Marlowe began, “might I have a word?”

  “A word?” he asked, a bit belligerently. “All you want to do is sit and talk instead of getting out and finding the villain that murdered our Leonora?”

  “I’m collecting information,” Marlowe answered, “that will help me to do just that. Sit with me for just a moment.”

  John rolled his head, but after a moment’s hesitation he came to Marlowe’s table and sat.

  “Recall the moment that the doctor and I arrived,” Marlowe began. “You were seated there. The unfortunate boy who died, he was in the corner. The clergyman was at the table next to us, and the well-dressed couple was there against the wall next to the kitchen door.”

  John only nodded once.

  “I want to know if that couple seemed familiar to you. Leonora told me that she had seen them before.”

  John grunted. “Once before. Two days earlier, I’d say, on the coach from London. Same dress, same comportment: haughty. Didn’t say much. Ate and looked around, like they might want to buy the place, it seemed to me.”

  “Odd.”

  John shrugged. “Who knows what the rich are up to?”

  Marlowe leaned forward. “Can you give me anything else?”

  “Such as?”

  “Did you overhear anything they said? Anything at all.”

  John’s lower lip pursed and he shook his head. “Not that I recall.”

  Marlowe sat back. “I see.”

  “Except that the gent told his wife not to talk so much.”

  “What?”

  “The wife,” John went on, “she was babbling, like reciting with her eyes closed. Like she was trying to remember—I don’t know. Something.”

  “I don’t understand,” Marlowe told John. “What was she saying? Can you remember any of the words at all?”

  John closed his eyes. “It was quite odd, I thought at the time, which is why I remember it. It was so strange, in fact, that I mentioned it to the doctor while he was attending to Leonora’s father.”

  “What was it?” Marlowe insisted.

  “She said, I think I’ve got this right, ‘Hang Balthazar about Chimera’s neck, and let him there bewail his bloody love.’”

  Marlowe’s head snapped back. “No!”

  John, startled by Marlowe’s reaction, opened his eyes.

  “I—I think I’ve got that right,” he stammered, “only there might be a word or two that I…”

  His voice trailed off as he stared at Marlowe’s face. It had gone sheet white.

  “I don’t know what this means,” Marlowe mumbled, obviously disturbed.

  “But you know those words.” John stared. “I can see that. Is it some sort of code?”

  Marlowe shook his head. “They’re words from a play, not yet finished. They’re from a speech by a ghost in a play called The Spanish Tragedy. It’s by a man named Thomas Kyd.”

  “Someone you know?” John asked.

  “Alas,” Marlowe answered.

  “And this man, he has something to do with Leonora’s death?”

  “Possibly. Indirectly. Without his knowledge.”

  John sat at Marlowe’s table.

  “We seldom know the damage we do,” he told Marlowe softly. “An oak doesn’t mean to let go a leaf, the leaf doesn’t mean to ripple the pond; the ripple has no intention of breaking open the eggs of a frog. But the tadpoles are no less dead.”

  Marlowe smiled, though he didn’t look at John. “An admirably observed philosophy of the blameless quality of nature. But this murder was not a natural act.”

  “Unless someone was deliberately chopping down the mighty oak.”

  That forced Marlowe to look into the baker’s eyes.

  John stared back. “I am not a well-educated man, Mr. Marlowe, but I am also not an idiot. You, the doctor, Leonora—there must be some matter of great import afoot here, or you would not be haunting this inn, and our dear girl would not be gone. You said as much: there is a greater plot.”

  Marlowe nodded.

  “I cannot tell you what is transpiring, John,” Marlowe allowed, “except to lament that I have said too much, and that you have rightly assessed the situation.”

  “Then why are you sitting here, sulking in the dark,” John asked, “instead of being about your business? Do something!”

  Marlowe returned his gaze to the empty space in front of him. “I don’t know what to do.”

  It was the first time in his life that Marlowe had ever said those words.

  * * *

  Dawn woke Marlowe. He had fallen asleep at the table. There was noise in the kitchen and it drew Marlowe up. Hand on the hilt of his dagger, he stole toward the kitchen door.

  As he came near, he could tell that the noise was, in fact, someone crying softly. Marlowe nudged the door open and found John staring down at Leonora’s dead body, laid out on the kitchen table.

  John looked up and saw Marlowe standing in the doorway. He quickly wiped his sleeve across his cheeks and sniffed.

  “There you are,” he said. “There’s our Leonora. I’m afraid that I suffer your malady: I don’t know what’s to be done.”

  “Done?”

  “We’ve not the money to see her buried in the church,” John lamented, “and her father cannot bear the idea of putting her into the ground near the inn. Says he’d be daily reminded. I am at a loss for what to do.”

  Marlowe forced himself to look at her face.

  “She’s not for the earth,” he said, his voice thick. “She was a gallant companion and a fierce warrior. She must be given a wilder end than tame mewing and graveside chatter.”

  “Aye,” was all that John could say.

  “The River Rib is not quite wide enough,” Marlowe said, mostly to himself, “but it will have to do.”

  Some hours later John and Marlowe stood on the banks of the River Rib, Mr. Beak seated on a chair between them. Each held a burning candle. It had taken a while to make a small raft of broken limbs and dry hay from the stables. They had dressed Leonora in a simple black gown and folded her hands across her heart holding a simple cross of willow woven around her dagger. The raft was held to the bank, against the river’s gentle current, by a horse’s bridle in Mr. Beak’s hand.

  “I would like to say about Leonora,” John began softly.

  “No words about her!” Mr. Beak interrupted. “What good are words? They cannot hope to contain my grief, or my love. And death comes to everyone.”

  “All live to die,” Marlowe agreed. “The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike. Let my actions henceforth justify her death.”

  With that Mr. Beak let go the horse’s bridle. Marlowe tossed his candle onto the raft. John and Beak did likewise. In moments the dry hay was ablaze. The river carried the burning barge slowly away.

  Before it was out of sight, Marlowe had gone.

  FIFTEEN

  As Marlowe rode toward
the Travelers’ encampment, his mind pieced together a small puzzle. It was small because it consisted of few parts, and only some of them were missing.

  Ned Blank was the only suspect in Marlowe’s mind. Ned lied in Maldon, killed the stable master, and then returned to the Bell. Why? The Bell was his contact point. He had been there before; he went back and waited for a sign, or instructions. There he witnessed Leonora’s return. Fearing detection, he stole into her father’s room and strangled her.

  His part in the assassination of William was unclear, but earlier at the Bell he had rehearsed lines from Kyd’s play, one that was soon to be mounted at Burbage’s playhouse in Shoreditch called The Theatre. Ned was associated with the Earl of Leicester’s Men, a troupe that also included the renowned comic actor Will Kemp, with whom Marlowe was passingly acquainted and from whom intelligence might be obtained.

  A complication: Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester and founder of the acting company, was Philip Sidney’s uncle. Philip Sidney was in love with Penelope Devereux, an object of Marlowe’s affection. Penelope had, only the year before, played a part in a plot to assassinate the Queen. She had done so to free herself from marriage to Sir Robert Rich in the hope of marrying Philip. Philip was, however, newly married to Frances Walsingham, with whom Marlowe was also severely smitten.

  In short, a trip to London, and The Theatre, was fraught with more complicated and emotional drama than any single stage could hold.

  Still, the way seemed clear: go to Shoreditch, speak with Kemp or otherwise find Ned; get Ned to confess to Leonora’s murder. He only had two days in which to do it. As the encampment came into view, under the noonday sun, Marlowe’s mind was made up, and speed was of the essence.

  Gelis stood up as soon as he saw Marlowe coming.

  “You’re back sooner than expected,” he allowed. “Have you solved the murder?”

  “Possibly,” Marlowe answered as his horse walked into the middle of the encampment.

  Three large covered carts and several other smaller wagons were strewn carelessly about the open plot in the woods. One large fire was relatively central. Children were running back and forth playing tag; a woman was singing as she stood near the fire, skinning a rabbit.