“Those men weren’t sent by the Pope,” Marlowe muttered, his eyes darting everywhere.
“Obviously,” Boyle groaned. “The Pope doesn’t hire hashish-mad Arabs to do his work.”
The public room was quiet. A few men were dozing, dead drunk, at tables. Several other men were drinking quietly. Jen the barmaid offered ale, and Boyle argued with her for a full five minutes about breakfast. It was late for breakfast, Jen pointed out. Boyle insisted he would be dead without it. In the end, a handsome bribe won the day, and breakfast was on: boiled eggs, last night’s beef, oat muddle, black bread and butter, and more ale.
That settled, Boyle closed his eyes and slumped in his chair, breathing heavily.
Marlowe seethed.
“I suspect Bartholomew,” Marlowe whispered.
“Hm?” Boyle muttered.
In his mind’s eye Marlowe was standing in front of the professor, in the classroom, knowing that several shadows were lurking in the room just beyond, listening. Bartholomew had known they were there.
“Suppose Professor Bartholomew is not the man he seems to be,” Marlowe said, barely out loud.
“What man does he seem to be?” Boyle’s eyes were still closed.
“He seems to be a doddering college professor, but let us suppose that he is, in fact, a spy.”
“What?” Boyle said loudly, his eyes flying open and lighting up. “A spy?”
“Sh,” Marlowe insisted harshly.
One of the unconscious men moved. Marlowe tried not to look directly at him, caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. The man had his head down on the table, feigning sleep, and Marlowe saw that he had a knife in his lap.
“I posit, at least,” Marlowe said, whispering even softer, “that Bartholomew’s a villain. There were men in his class antechamber, and they followed me to your rooms, overheard you say we were going to the church, and set about to attack us there.”
Boyle barely lifted his head.
“That old man hired Arab assassins?” he managed to say. “Not likely.”
“You don’t understand,” Marlowe began.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, Marlowe saw the man with the knife move again.
Boyle rested his head on the table once more. “I have a much simpler explanation. Someone has seen through this ridiculous disguise you’re wearing, and reported you to the local authorities, and they sent men after you.”
“Those men weren’t from Cambridge!”
“Here comes my food!” Boyle sat up.
Jen, smiling, was on her way with enough food for five men. Boyle’s bribe had been substantial.
As she wafted past the man with the knife, she bumped his table very slightly. The man did not move or speak.
Jen danced easily the rest of the way, loudly clattering the plates and bowls onto the table in front of Boyle.
As she did, she leaned close to Marlowe’s ear.
“Did you notice the gent at the table what I bumped?” she whispered quickly.
Marlowe nodded slightly.
“Did you notice he’s got a dagger in his lap,” she went on, “and he’s only just pretending to be asleep?”
“You are a remarkable girl, Jen,” Marlowe said. “I think I would kiss you this moment, if I weren’t afraid.”
“Afraid?” She straightened up.
“I know how to fight a man’s dagger,” he whispered, eyes heavy-lidded, “but there would be no defense against the taste of your mouth.”
“Oh.” Jenny tried to steady herself, but the girl was unused to the poetry of seduction. For a heartbeat or two, she forgot how to breathe. Still, she did her best to seem unaffected. She looked down at the table, then back up to his eyes, and finally composed her flushed face.
“Well, at least let me get out of your way before your friend starts his breakfast revelry.” She managed a wink. “And you go carving up that boy over there.”
Marlowe’s eyes did not watch her leave. He simply looked down at the food in front of him. But under the table, in that relative darkness, his right hand found the small knife he had tucked in his boot.
Boyle attacked his food with the same ferocity that he had killed the assassins in St. Benet’s Church. Marlowe’s eating was only slightly more sedate. He hadn’t realized how famished he was until he’d tasted the first bite of egg.
With one eye on the mystery man, and the other on his plate, Marlowe continued to puzzle out what had happened so far that morning.
“Those men who attacked us were hired killers,” he said softly to Boyle, his mouth full.
“Yes.” Boyle nodded and went back to his plate. His cheeks were puffed out and his face was only inches from his bowl of porridge. “Bartholomew had nothing to do with it.”
“I don’t know that,” Marlowe snapped. “In fact, I have some reason to believe that Bartholomew would betray me.”
Boyle hesitated for an instant, glancing Marlowe’s way.
“You mean,” Boyle whispered slowly, “that he knows your true identity.”
Marlowe nodded once.
“By the way,” Boyle grunted, once again resuming his bacchanalia, “have you noticed the man over there with his hand on his knife?”
“As it happens, I have,” Marlowe answered. “So have you, and so has Jenny, our barmaid. That poor man may be the worst actor in this scene. I suppose I’ll have to go and tell him that.”
“Actor? God in heaven.” Boyle shook his head. “You really ought to get your head out of the clouds, Marlowe. Forget the theatre. Maybe go to sea.”
Ignoring Boyle, Marlowe stood and announced, “Got to piss. Don’t eat my breakfast while I’m gone.”
“No promises,” Boyle answered.
Marlowe noticed, just as he stepped away from the table, that Boyle’s left hand disappeared, though he continued to eat with his right.
Marlowe, his eye on the alleyway door, nodded to Jen, who was behind the bar. As he did, he seemed accidentally to bump the table where the bad actor was pretending to sleep.
Once again, the man didn’t move a muscle.
Marlowe, louder than necessary, leaned close to the man and said, “Pardon.”
The man showed no sign of life.
Marlowe shook the man’s shoulder.
“Jen!” he called out in mock alarm, “I’m afraid this man might be dead!”
“Let’s have a look,” she called back.
With her father’s club in hand, Jenny rounded the bar and headed for the table where Marlowe stood.
As if finally realizing that his opossum ploy was not working, the man roused himself, pretending to wake up, and lifted his head.
Marlowe took a sudden step back, just in case the man jabbed with his blade from under the table, but a second later, shock took over. Marlowe recognized the man. He was the third man in the trio, with Frizer and Zigor, who had assaulted him on campus, and later attacked him on the road to London. He was the man who had run off.
That man locked eyes with Marlowe, but no such recognition filled his eyes. His eyes were taken almost entirely by fear.
Marlowe was momentarily at a loss.
“So,” Jenny said, coming closer, bat at the ready. “He’s not dead, then?”
“Dead?” the man squeaked. “No. Just a bit in my cups, I’m afraid.”
The man’s accent and demeanor were clear enough: he was from Wales, and he was terrified.
Marlowe nodded to Jenny. “He’s all right.”
Jenny hesitated, but turned, after a moment, and went back to the bar.
“If you’ll put away your knife,” Marlowe said softly, “I’ll sit down and tell you what’s happened to Frizer.”
The man’s eyes bulged. “You know him?”
“He told you to meet him here,” Marlowe surmised, “if anything happened.”
The man nodded. He had not moved to put away his blade.
“But you haven’t been in here for a while,” Marlowe went on, guessing, “because
you hoped you were rid of Frizer, and of his friend.”
“The Spaniard”—the man nodded—“yes. He’s what you would call trouble.”
“But you hid from them both—from everyone, really—after you attacked the coach on the way to London.” Marlowe’s voice was very soft.
The man’s look of fear deepened to a state of terror.
“How would you know about that?” he hissed.
“But now something’s happened,” Marlowe answered. “Now you need their help.”
The man stared. “I just need to speak with Frizer. This was our arranged meeting place, see?”
“What’s happened?”
The man looked around and only then realized that Boyle was staring at him. He leaned forward, clearly about to do something rash.
“I know you haven’t yet sheathed that knife in your hand,” Marlowe said calmly. “If you move another inch, I’ll stick my rapier into your heart seven or eight times, and your troubles will be over.”
“You’ve killed Frizer,” the man moaned. “You’re in league with that Spanish devil!”
“No. Frizer is in London. The other one, Zigor, is not Spanish. And I’m not in league with anyone, not the way you mean it, anyway.”
“That’s a lie. All of it.”
“No,” Marlowe repeated. “My only concern for the moment is finding a murderer.”
The man looked up, finally, into Marlowe’s eyes.
“Murderer?” he asked.
“To that end,” Marlowe went on, “would your shirt or trousers happen to be missing a button?”
“What?” The man leaned back. “A button?”
Marlowe leaned closer. In the dim light of the public room it was difficult to see the buttons on the man’s shirt, but slightly closer examination revealed a remarkable lack of stain, no sign of mending, and the presence of very clean wooden buttons, not brass.
“This is a new shirt,” Marlowe said, straightening up.
“How would you know that?”
“How long have you had it?”
“A week. Why do you want to know about my shirt?”
“What happened to your old one?” Marlowe pressed.
“Here, now,” the man grumbled, “what’s all this about my shirt? Christ.”
Without warning, Boyle appeared beside Marlowe.
“Hello,” he said menacingly. “Put away your knife, like a nice boy, or I’ll be forced to cut open your throat. Right?”
“Help!” the man cried. “Murder!”
No one moved.
The noise of the room diminished a bit, then here and there a furtive glance was the only evidence that the man’s cries had been heard at all.
“We’re going upstairs to my room,” Marlowe said genially, loud enough for most people in the room to hear, “and see if we can’t sober you up. Your wife is very angry with you. If you don’t come home today, that’s when you’ll be shouting ‘murder.’”
One man in the room chuckled; the rest seemed to lose interest in the proceedings altogether, and returned to their drink, or sleep.
“No,” the man protested weakly.
Then he dropped his knife. It thudded onto the dirt and straw floor. Marlowe and Boyle each took one of the man’s arms, weaving through tables toward the stairs. In no time they were up the stairs and into Marlowe’s room.
By the time the door was closed behind them, the man seemed to have resolved himself to his fate.
They sat him on the bed frame. Marlowe pulled up a chair to sit in front of him, staring into his eyes.
“I have a number of questions to ask you,” Marlowe began, “so I want you to pay attention. Believe me when I say that we have no intention to kill you.”
The man looked at Boyle, then back at Marlowe. He sat back on the bed, nodding slowly.
“First things first,” Marlowe continued, “tell me your name.”
“Tom.”
“Right, Tom, where have you been since you tried to kill those men on the coach to London?”
“After it went wrong,” Tom answered, “I went back to my little farm, I did. That’s enough of the rough business, I says. Needed the money, but not like that. Had my fill of that Ingram Frizer. He’s a drunkard and a liar.”
“Yes,” Marlowe encouraged, “so why are you here today looking for him?”
“Need his help,” Tom muttered, obviously disgusted with himself.
“What kind of help?”
“It’s those men!” Tom snapped. “Thinks that a uniform and a dead eye gives them the right to toss up my farm, frighten the wife, kill my chickens—all because they’re looking for the same men you’re talking about: the doctor and his friend. The ones in the London coach.”
Marlowe glanced toward Boyle.
“What were their uniforms like?” he asked.
“They was blue, deep blue,” Tom said, “with great black gloves and odd headgear.”
“When did you see them?”
“Yesterday, late,” he answered.
“And when you purchased this new shirt?” Marlowe asked.
“It wasn’t a purchase,” the man insisted. “I come home to the farm with blood and grime on my work shirt, and the wife, she give me this one what she’s made for the finer occasions. It itches like the devil. I’m not to soil it. And every time I sit down, the collar chokes me. Can’t wait to get back home and take it off.”
“You wore it to come to town.”
“Aye.”
“And does your other shirt, the soiled one, does it happen to have brass buttons?” Marlowe asked.
“Brass buttons?” he asked. “Why would my clothes have brass buttons? You think I’m a bleeding landlord? I work my ass to the bone!”
“What possible difference do his buttons make?” Boyle began.
“Right,” Marlowe interrupted. “Tom, then, tell me plainly: why did you murder Walter Pygott?”
Tom’s look of panic returned.
“Murder?”
“The man you killed outside of St. Benet’s church, near the roses, several weeks ago.”
Tom stood up quickly.
“God’s my witness,” he howled, “I ain’t kill a man in my life! Never!”
“Marlowe,” Boyle tried again.
Ignoring Boyle, Marlowe pressed.
“You say you went back to your farm after you fled the encounter with the London coach,” he said to Tom.
“I did!”
Marlowe grabbed a handful of Tom’s shirt and started for the door.
“Let’s go verify that with your lady wife,” Marlowe growled.
“Good!” Tom yelped. “Good! You ask her if I ain’t been home these past weeks. I’d got to tend the spring crops!”
“What are you growing?” Marlowe demanded.
“Barley, vetches, oats, peas, and beans,” Tom rattled. “God’s truth!”
“Marlowe, damn it!” Boyle shouted. “Let this man go! He’s a pawn. We’re looking for knights.”
“Or a bishop,” Marlowe shot back. “But you’re right, of course.”
Marlowe released his grip on Tom, who stumbled backward.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Boyle asked Marlowe under his breath.
“What’s the matter with me?” Marlowe responded incredulously. “I’m accused of a murder I didn’t commit, I’m mourning the death of a friend, I’m embroiled in a plot of universal proportions, and I’m in love with a woman who can’t be in love with me. And this bleeding beard is killing me!”
Boyle nodded, and allowed Marlowe’s brief but potent tirade to evaporate in silence.
Then: “You’re still in love with Penelope?”
“What?” Marlowe blinked. “No. It’s—it’s someone else now. But, still.”
“Yes,” Boyle agreed, “but still, that’s quite a lot to have on your mind, everything you just said.”
Marlowe exhaled and felt the weight of what he’d said. “Yes. It is.”
“But Tom
, here, is probably not to blame.”
Marlowe glanced at Tom’s terrified face.
“No,” Marlowe admitted. “Probably not.”
“And,” Boyle went on, “he might have useful information for us.”
Tom took another step backward. “I don’t.”
“You do, in fact,” Marlowe said. “About these men who came to your farm, killed your chickens.”
“Those bastards,” Tom swore.
“They tried to kill us this morning,” Boyle said simply.
“But we killed them instead,” Marlowe added.
Boyle turned to Marlowe. “You realize that the bodies have probably been found by now. There’s liable to be quite an imbroglio brewing at the church, and on campus.”
“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Marlowe admitted.
“You killed all of those men?” Tom asked, awestruck. “Just the two of you?”
“We killed five,” Boyle said slowly. “How many were there at your place?”
“At least a dozen,” Tom answered.
“There are more?” Boyle shouted.
“You may as well know,” Marlowe told Boyle, “that Tom and his compatriots, including one Ingram Frizer, attacked a London coach in which I was traveling a few weeks ago.”
Boyle nodded curtly. “I gathered.”
Tom’s eyes opened wide. “That was you?”
Marlowe turned to Boyle. “There. This disguise works!”
“It works for people who don’t know you,” Boyle admitted.
“My point is that when Tom and Frizer attacked us, I told Lopez that I couldn’t believe they were the best the Pope could muster. Lopez warned me that they were only the first. The men who attacked us in the church were not only trained assassins, they may be a contingent of troops poised to invade our country.”
“Invade our country?” Boyle asked.
Marlowe turned to Tom.
“Did they speak at all when they were at your farm?” he asked.
Tom shook his head. “They was gabbling some incoherent tongue.”
“Were they Arabs?” Marlowe asked.
“Couldn’t say,” Tom confessed. “Never seen an Arab. But they was wild and strange.”
“What better way for the Pope to keep his hands clean,” Marlowe mused, “than to hire infidels as murderers? Assassins have no souls to worry about.”
A Prisoner in Malta Page 19