“Gally is eager to know our plans, to ascertain our patron’s health, to find out about our takings. Whether Master Henslowe has explicitly asked this dog to report to him on these questions, or whether Gally simply brings to his master whatever scraps he can scavenge, I don’t know. Gally is not above doing a little dirty work on his own account, for example stirring up the apprentices so as to drive down our trade. So I say, watch out for this man, don’t trust him. Don’t share a tavern bench with him. We in the Chamberlain’s are free and easy fellows, we don’t watch our tongues or guard our secrets very close. We must not allow our generous natures to be abused.”
There was still something about Burbage’s words that puzzled me. That the Chamberlain’s had rivals who might stoop to underhand methods wasn’t exactly news. Yes, we players might be relatively trusting, or careless in what we said and who we said it to, but we weren’t exactly born yesterday. And I couldn’t understand either the link which Burbage had made between Richard Milford and Tom Gally. Was he trying to blacken Richard’s memory? I’d already suspected that Richard, most probably spurned by our seniors over his new play, was being courted by Henslowe through Gally. If so, good fortune to him. Or rather – if he hadn’t been so shockingly murdered – it might have been his good fortune. The half question which had formed in my mind was put in full by my friend and co-player Laurence Savage.
“Dick, two men connected to our Company have lately and violently died, first a friend of Nicholas here and then Richard Milford. And now you warn us against loose talk and dirty dealing. Are you saying that there are worse things in store? Are you saying that Tom Gally, who is indeed known to most of us, is involved with what has happened?”
“I’m saying nothing of the kind,” said Burbage. “I will not slander any man so. But we have enemies, there is danger abroad, and two people have died violently – as you say, Laurence. Every man should be on his guard.”
This warning concluded our Globe meeting, which broke up even more sober than it had begun. If Dick Burbage had intended to bring us together and imbue us with a spirit of one-ness, his closing words had the opposite effect. What were we supposed to be on our guard against – each other? We cast watchful glances around. There was a forced quality to our jokes, and the tire-house was not, for once, a place to loiter in. Fortunately we had no performance scheduled for that afternoon.
Sitting by myself in the Goat & Monkey that evening, I continued to puzzle over Dick’s words. He’d made everyone feel apprehensive, or rather had heightened the unease which already existed. And without giving us anything specific to look out for. Did he really consider that Tom Gally – the ‘playhouse moth’, even if beetle would have been a more apt description – had taken a hand in the deaths of Peter Agate and Richard Milford? If so, it wasn’t surprising that Burbage had spoken cautiously. A mere whisper of such a suspicion could lead to charges of slander. If Gally’s aim was to disturb the well-being of the Chamberlain’s Company, then he’d certainly succeeded. Possibly, by upsetting us, he had benefited Henslowe and the Admiral’s Men too, although it was a bit simple-minded to consider that the fortunes of the two theatre companies were like a pair of buckets in a well: that is, if one was up the other must be down. It was more the case that, when the sun shone for one company, then it shone to a degree for all. And the same was true in the rain. Nevertheless, Tom Gally might be operating on his own. Pricked on by a petty spirit of rivalry, he might be one of those men who take pleasure in small, underhand victories. But to resort to murder . . .? There’s a world of difference between stirring up a handful of apprentices to be rude to a couple of foreigners and stabbing men in cold blood in the lobbies of their lodgings.
I remembered that I’d glimpsed Gally and that superannuated old player Chesser conversing together in the Devil Tavern after our performance of Troilus and Cressida. Or at least I thought I’d seen them. But so befuddled was I during the evening that I could hardly distinguish between the real and the imagined. Anyway, what did it signify if they had been there?
Simply this, perhaps. That they had been on the scene (if my memory was accurate). And if they were on the scene, then they had a part to play in the story. It was like a drama. Characters don’t just wander on, they all have function and purpose . . .
So what was Chesser’s part in all of this? He hated the playhouse and feared it as a nest of devils, even if he couldn’t keep himself away from the players’ haunts. He appeared to be engaged on a lone mission to ‘save’ young men like Peter Agate from being infected by the play-sickness. Chesser was not the absurd figure I’d first taken him for. But if he was no longer the clown that didn’t mean that he was necessarily the villain. Would he go so far as to kill a man in order to preserve that man’s immortal soul from damnation? Perhaps. There are individuals, plenty of them good men, who would consider the sacrifice of the body a small price to pay for the salvation of the soul. I remembered the fierce eye, the iron grip on my arm in Paul’s Yard, as he told me to avoid the fate of my friend.
This was only speculation, impure speculation. None of it really got me any closer to the mystery of who’d been responsible for Peter’s and Richard’s deaths, their foul murders.
Murder most foul . . . I mused . . . murder most foul, strange and unnatural, as in the best it is. As WS describes it in Hamlet.
Best, worst, foulest.
And then this word ‘foul’ set off a train of ideas in my head.
The early draught of a play is called the ‘foul papers’, because of its blotchy and disorganized state. Richard Milford had trusted me enough to want me to read The World’s Diseas’d in this early form, since he valued my opinion. Despite the compliment, I didn’t much like the play. When the subject had been raised in the private box at the Globe where I had met Richard’s rustic patrons, Lady Vinny Venner had seized on the phrase ‘foul papers’. “Is it horrid?” she’d said hopefully. “Is it dirty?”
Neither she nor her brother had then read the play, although it was already at the printer’s. I wondered whether in the interim one or both had bent themselves to the task of reading it, even if Lord Bumpkin claimed to have better things to attend to. But if and when they came to open up the book – and on the assumption that they’d get past Richard’s flowery dedication – what would they find? A lurid tale of lopped limbs, lust and double-dealing, a tale in which an incestuous sister, named Virginia, ultimately dies in the arms of her bloodstained brother Vindice. Would it not strike even a couple as slow-witted as this pair that their own poet-playwright had made an unfortunate choice of name for his lascivious heroine? Would they laugh it off or treat it as a mortal insult? Wouldn’t it appear as though Richard Milford – clever, citified Richard – was laughing up his sleeve at his rustic benefactors? Which was exactly what he was doing, with his ‘subtle messages’.
There was an even more serious implication in all of this. Had Richard been hinting that young Lord and Lady Venner were actually incestuously attached? Perhaps he was. I didn’t know them well, and didn’t want to know them at all, but Robbie and Vinnie did appear to be close as brother and sister. Unnaturally close? Perhaps. Or maybe it was merely that they were both cut from the same coarse cloth.
Like the imputation that Tom Gally might have stooped to murder, this imputation of incest would be a dangerous slander if it got abroad. And get abroad it certainly would when The World’s Diseas’d was published and – even if it was never intended for open sale – distributed among the Venners’ private circle. If Richard Milford had lived he might well have been looking about for a fresh patron. And if he’d lived he might well have found it hard to land another patron, considering his propensity to stab the patron in the back, using his pen rather than a dagger. If he’d lived . . .
Brother and sister had been the last people to see Richard alive, apart from the murderer. The Bumpkins had left the Milfords at the door of the couple’s lodgings in Thames Street around one o’clock in the morning. What if .
. . if the noble lord and lady, outraged by the contents of the play, by the way Richard had poked fun at them, by the slanderous implications of a name . . . what if the lord and lady had waited for a few minutes so as to give the young couple time to prepare for bed, then returned to the front door, rapped loudly and, when Richard opened up, fallen on him? It didn’t have to be both of them, of course. It ought to be the man (those powerful, meaty hands; the little porcine eyes). It was a man’s job. On the other hand, I could visualize Virginia Venner wielding a dagger as readily as any tragic heroine. She possessed enough of her brother’s fleshy strength.
I cast my mind back to the previous night.
So much had happened in twenty-four hours, and I had not been in my right mind for most of that time! I tried to remember the attitude of Richard Milford in the Middle Temple hall, his posture, his expressions, while he was standing between his patrons. He’d looked at me and I’d registered defensiveness, even hostility in his glance. He knew that I couldn’t take Robbie and his sister seriously. But perhaps Richard’s guarded look had nothing to do with me and was rather a response to an accusation, a verbal attack from his patrons. Had they suddenly understood that they were being held up to ridicule in The World’s Diseas’d? Had he suddenly understood that they weren’t as stupid and thick-skinned as he’d imagined? That you cannot accept patronage and then snigger at your patron behind his back? Certainly the Venners had looked red, redder than usual. From anger? From heat and drink?
There were far too many ‘maybes’ and ‘perhapses’ in this account, too much iffing speculation. At least, the Bumpkins would be questioned by the coroner because they were the witnesses who’d left Richard and his wife shortly before the former’s death. But I didn’t believe that the brother and sister would be as hard pressed as I had been by Alan Talbot, who’d almost assumed my guilt over Peter Agate’s murder. The Venners were coarse sprigs of the nobility but they remained noble. Once a lordling always a lordling. In the absence of any firm evidence linking them to Richard’s demise, a certain deference would be paid to them. They’d be taken at their word.
What did link this pair to Richard Milford was their patronage and his grateful, if hypocritical, acceptance of it. He had dedicated his poetic Garland to R.V. THE ONLY BEGETTER and also The World’s Diseas’d. The play, at present with Nicholson the bookseller, might hold more clues which could be somehow communicated to the authorities. I’d read the piece, but with an impatient, critical eye, and without any suspicion at the time that the playwright might have drawn his characters from life. Now I needed to examine more carefully a tragic piece which had turned out, tragically, to be Richard’s last work. The problem was getting hold of a copy of The World’s Diseas’d, since they were doubtless intended for private distribution only – if that was still going to happen after the demise of the author. The most I could do was to call by on Benjamin Nicholson tomorrow and request him to show me the play. I could claim, quite truthfully, to be a friend of Richard, someone concerned for his legacy as a writer. And I really should go and see Nicholson anyway about that debt, perhaps give him something on account.
So, while sitting solitary in a dim corner of the Goat & Monkey – although all the corners of the Goat & Monkey were dim – I pursued my thoughts. Mere speculation, at the moment. But an advantage of private speculation is that you don’t have to justify it to anyone.
It was the mystery of Peter Agate’s death which affected me more deeply than Richard’s. Not only because I was implicated in his murder and was still waiting for Coroner Talbot’s decision (His blood was on you . . . I may recall you later), but because Peter’s arrival in London lay partly at my door. Like me, the squire’s son had come to find his fortune in the capital. And when he’d had doubts soon afterwards about whether a player’s life was really for him I’d encouraged him to stay on. Would that he had returned home to our village, to his father and sisters! He’d still be alive and his blood – literally and metaphorically – would not have been on my hands. If I was to exonerate myself and obtain justice for my dead friend, then it was my duty to search out his killer. Even if I might find myself as his next victim.
And despite the snugness of the dim ale-house corner a chill spread over me, because I suddenly saw the whole affair in a different light. I breathed deep and attempted to think slow.
Like everyone else, I’d supposed that the person the murderer of Peter had intended to get rid of was Peter himself. But my friend was killed in the lobby of my lodgings in the uncertain light of a foggy afternoon. We were about the same height, the same age, Peter and I.
You can see where I’m headed. Nevertheless I tried not to jump to conclusions (as you’ve perhaps just done) but to take the matter one step at a time. You can understand my reluctance to jump to conclusions.
One question was whether the murderer had followed his victim back to Dead Man’s Place – or whether Peter was, like Richard Milford, already inside the house and had been summoned by a rap at the door.
In my mind, I put myself in the murderer’s shoes. They are a surprisingly comfortable fit.
I follow my friend through the fog, trailing his tall dark shape down the street. I wait until he nears the front door in Dead Man’s Place and then put on speed to enter just behind him. He feels the brush of wind as a second person comes into the lobby. Peter turns round. He must turn round since he is due to receive his wounds in the front. Before that happens he opens his mouth in doubt or surprise. He says something like “Who are . . .?” or “What do you . . .?” but I cannot hear clearly for the blood pounding in my ears. And then I plunge the knife into Peter’s chest. I am shocked by the resistance the blade meets. I have never done this before. But I am a strong young man. He is a strong young man too and, even though he has been given a fatal wound, he will not die straightaway. He begins to flail about, to strike out at his assailant. He batters me with his arms, and I am compelled to strike at him several times over. Probably unawares, I make noises. Grunts, shouts. He also makes noises as he breathes his last. Then – finally! – he falls back against the door and I can see that this man will never rise again even though he is still bubbling and breathing and bleeding.
It is time for me to leave before company comes. I force back the front door against the weight of his falling frame and flee into the street. The fog is thick. I run through the streets. When I have got a little way off, I realize that I am still holding the murderer’s knife. Do I throw it into one of the ditches that criss-cross this part of Southwark or even into the mighty river itself? I can sense rather than hear the slurp of water within a few yards of where I’m standing while my breath adds thicker plumes to the white air. Why discard a serviceable knife though? There is no one here to see me. What is thrown away can be retrieved and used against me, however deep it’s buried. And the knife might come in handy once more. So instead of throwing it away, I tuck it inside my clothing. I notice that there is blood on my ungloved hands. On my face too probably. And on my clothing, though I’m wearing something dark which seems to have already absorbed the stains. I didn’t deliberately choose those dark clothes this morning. It must have been providence that I put them on.
Never mind all that. Hands can be washed. Clothes can be burnt. Consciences can be ignored.
I breathe deeply, surprised at how winded I am. This killing is a tiring business. And then, I return to . . . where do I return to? . . . to wherever it is that I have come from.
Another scene comes into my mind, different in its details but the same in essence. I am still wearing the murderer’s shoes and they don’t pinch me at all. In this scene, I go boldly up to the front door in Dead Man’s Place, rap loudly and wait. If the landlord answers I have some excuse at hand. But the landlord doesn’t answer. Instead it is the man I am looking for. A tall dark shape opens the door and says something like “Yes . . .?” or “What do you . . .?” but I can’t hear clearly because of the blood which is already pounding in my ears an
d therefore, knowing my target, I plunge the knife into this man’s chest. He staggers back into the dimly lit lobby. I spring inside after him. And the rest you know.
Now let’s change parts. Handy-dandy. I will step out of the murderer’s shoes and back into those of N. Revill but only for a moment. Now I will put myself in Peter’s place, take up his role on that afternoon, walking home down the fog-bound street, as I might actually have been walking home myself. I sense someone slip through the door behind me, I spin round to confront him, I say “What . . .?” etc . . . or, in the alternative scene, I will go downstairs, summoned by a rap at that same door, and, opening it, experience a terrible blow in the chest.
For some reason it was easier for me to envisage myself in the former role, that of the murderer, than as his victim. It is more satisfying to play the villain than the victim.
Now I have arrived, reluctantly, at the conclusion which I was so reluctant to leap at before. There’s no escape.
What if Peter had been killed in mistake for me?
Suppose that Revill was always the intended victim.
We looked alike. At least we had looked quite alike as boys. I remembered Peter’s father confusing me with his son on several occasions. True, we’d grown unalike, just as we’d grown up and grown apart. But a stranger – if he’d been watching from a distance, in the fog, down a street, or if he’d come to the door of a dimly lit lobby – a stranger might well have taken me for Peter Agate. Or taken Agate for Revill. Especially since Peter’s lodgings were actually mine. Master Revill the player lives in Dead Man’s Place. A tallish, darkish-haired young man is seen turning in there, or he comes to the door in answer to a summons. What is more reasonable than to suppose that that man is the player?
Let’s kill him then . . .
My hands were shaking. I put my tankard slowly down on the table in the Goat & Monkey, and took several deep breaths. I was convinced that the scene had unrolled as I’d played it out in my head. One of the scenes, anyway. It didn’t much matter whether Peter had been trailed in the street or whether he was already inside the house. The end was the same. The surprise, the sudden attack, the bloody murder.
Alms for Oblivion Page 14