The Laughing Hangman nb-8

by Edward Marston

  Anne was in a quandary. She wanted Philip Robinson released from the Chapel Royal, partly because she believed that father and son should be together and partly because she felt that the boy’s return would liberate her from the now irksome attentions of the butcher. A new factor had come into her calculations. Should she remain silent or should she confront Ambrose Robinson with it?

  His earnest enquiry forced her to make a decision.

  ‘Has there been further word from Nick?’ he asked.

  ‘I spoke with him at length.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He visited Blackfriars this afternoon,’ she said, ‘and watched a play there. Philip was in the cast.’

  ‘Dressed up as a woman, no doubt! Wearing a wig and daubing his face with powder! Strutting around the stage like a Bankside harlot for any man to ogle!’ He scowled at her. ‘I want my son to grow into a man. They do him wrong to force him into female attire. Philip detests it.’

  ‘That was not Nick’s impression.’

  ‘He despises every moment of it.’

  ‘Yet he gave a fine performance, it seems.’

  ‘Under duress.’

  ‘Of his own volition.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Nick loves the theatre. He spends every waking moment in the company of actors. When he admires a performance, he knows what lies behind it. I trust his judgement.’ She inhaled deeply before confronting him. ‘Your son enjoys working in the theatre. Nick says he has decided flair.’

  ‘Blackfriars is a torture chamber for Philip.’

  ‘That may not be so.’

  ‘It is so. I know my son.’

  ‘Nick has seen him on the stage-you have not.’

  ‘The shame would be too much for me!’

  ‘Philip was a most willing actor this afternoon.’

  ‘Then why does he beg me to rescue him!’ said Robinson with mounting rage. ‘Why does he plead so in every letter that he sends me? You saw his pain, Anne, you saw his misery. Were those the letters of a boy who is happy?’

  ‘No, Ambrose.’

  ‘Then why did he write them? Let Nick answer that.’

  ‘He has,’ she said levelly. ‘He does not believe that Philip sent those letters at all. They were written by someone else. Is that not so?’

  Ambrose Robinson fell silent. He looked deeply hurt and betrayed. His fists bunched, his body tensed, and he began to breathe stertorously through his nose. Eyes narrowing, he glared at her with a mixture of animosity and wounded affection. Anne took a step backwards. She was suddenly afraid of him.

  ***

  Nicholas Bracewell returned to the Queen’s Head once more. As he turned into the yard, he heard the familiar voice of Owen Elias.

  ‘So I told Barnaby that I’d translate Cupid’s Folly into Welsh for him so that he could take it on a tour of the Principality and play to an audience of sheep!’

  Appreciative guffaws came from the knot of actors around the speaker. When Nicholas came up, he saw with a shock that it was not Elias at all. James Ingram had been diverting his fellows with an impersonation of their Welsh colleague. It was the accuracy of his mimicry which had produced the laughter.

  The mirth faded when they saw Nicholas. Actors who should have been mourning the death of Jonas Applegarth looked a little shamefaced at being caught at their most raucous. They slunk quietly away, leaving Ingram alone to talk with the book holder.

  ‘You are a cunning mimic,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Harmless fun, Nick. Nothing more.’

  ‘Does Owen know that he has a twin brother?’

  ‘He’d slaughter me if he did,’ said Ingram. ‘It was an affectionate portrait of him, but Owen would not thank the artist.’ He became remorseful. ‘But I am glad that we meet again. I was brusque and unmannerly at Blackfriars. You deserved better from me. I have no excuse.’

  ‘Let it pass, James.’

  ‘It will not happen again.’

  ‘I am pleased to hear it,’ said Nicholas. ‘But you have still not told me what brought you to the Queen’s Head so early this morning.’

  ‘Eagerness. Nothing more.’

  ‘It does not often get you here ahead of your fellows.’

  ‘It did today.’

  ‘Why did you come into the storeroom?’

  ‘The door of the tiring-house was open. I wondered who was here. Nathan Curtis was in the storeroom with the body. I got there only seconds before you returned.’

  Ingram spoke with his usual open-faced honesty and Nicholas had no reason to doubt him. The tension between the two of them had gone completely. The book holder was glad. Fond of the actor, he did not want a rift between them.

  ‘Let’s into the taproom,’ he suggested.

  ‘Not me, Nick,’ said the other pleasantly. ‘It is too full of reminiscence about Jonas Applegarth for me. You know my feelings there. I would be out of place.’

  They exchanged farewells and Ingram left the innyard.

  The atmosphere in the taproom had lightened considerably. Members of the company sat in a corner and traded maudlin memories of the dead man, but most of the customers were only there to drink and gamble. Laughter echoed around the room once more and the serving-men were kept busy. Alexander Marwood could never be expected to smile, but his despair was noticeably less fervent than before.

  Nicholas joined the table at which Lawrence Firethorn and Owen Elias sat. Both had been drinking steadily. They called for an extra tankard and poured the newcomer some ale from their jug.

  ‘Thank heaven you’ve come, Nick!’ said Elias.

  ‘Yes,’ added Firethorn. ‘We are in such a morass of self-pity that we need you to pull us out. Marwood still swears we have performed our last play in his yard.’

  ‘He has done that often before,’ said Nicholas, ‘and we always return to confound his prediction. Tomorrow is Sunday and our stage would in any case stand empty. That will make our landlord think again. Two days without a penny taken in his yard! His purse will speak up for Westfield’s Men.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Firethorn. ‘The last twenty-four hours have been a nightmare. One author turns my marital couch into a bed of nails, another gets himself hanged and my occupation rests on the whim of an imbecile landlord! I might as well become a holy anchorite and live on herbs. There’s no future for me here.’

  He drank deep. Elias saw the chance to impart his news.

  ‘I found Naismith,’ he said. ‘The dog admitted that he had been shadowing Jonas through the streets.’

  ‘Did he throw that dagger?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘Unhappily, no. I’d have welcomed the excuse to carve him up and send him back to Banbury’s Men in a meat-pie. Hugh Naismith is too weak to throw anything, Nick. He is not our man.’

  ‘Then we must look elsewhere.’

  ‘What have you learned?’

  ‘Much of interest but little that ties the name of the murderer to Jonas Applegarth.’

  ‘Choose from any of a hundred names,’ said Firethorn. ‘Jonas spread his net widely. Enemies all over London.’

  ‘That was not the case with Cyril Fulbeck,’ reminded Nicholas. ‘Few would pick a quarrel with him. That cuts our list right down. We look for a rare man, one with motive to kill both the Master of the Chapel and Jonas Applegarth.’ A new thought made him sit up. ‘Unless I am mistaken.’

  ‘About what?’ said Elias.

  ‘The Laughing Hangman. Do I search for one murderer when there are really two?’ He thought it through. ‘Jonas was hanged in the same manner as Cyril Fulbeck, it is true. And I heard what I thought was the same laughter. But ears can play strange tricks sometimes. Sound can be distorted in chambers and passageways.’

  ‘It must be the same man,’ insisted Elias.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Coincidence could not be that obliging.’

  ‘We are not talking of coincidence, Owen, but of mimicry. Someone who saw the first man hanged could dispose of a second in the identical wa
y. Someone who heard that peal of laughter at Blackfriars could bring the same mockery to the Queen’s Head.’

  ‘Why go to such elaborate lengths?’ asked Firethorn.

  ‘To evade suspicion,’ said Nicholas. ‘What better ruse than to use the method of one killer as your own and put the crime on his account?’

  ‘Your reasoning breaks down,’ decided Elias. ‘Only someone who actually saw the first victim could know the necessary detail. Only a trained actor with a gift for mimicry could reproduce a laugh like that. Where on earth would you find such a man?’

  Nicholas said nothing. He was preoccupied with the thought that he had just been talking with that very person in the innyard. Motive, means and opportunity. A perfect cloak for his crime. James Ingram had them all.

  ‘I give up!’ moaned Elias.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The villains multiply before my eyes. First, I thought our killer and our dagger-thrower were one man. Then you separate them. Now you split the hangman into two as well to give us three in all. By tomorrow, it will have grown to four and so on until we are searching for a whole band of them!’

  ‘I am lost,’ admitted Firethorn. ‘What is happening?’

  ‘Confusion, Lawrence!’

  ‘Do we have any idea at all who murdered Jonas?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elias with irony. ‘Nick pulls a new suspect out of the air every minute. Each one a possible killer. We’ll get them all to sign a petition, then pick out the name that pleases us most and designate him as Laughing Hangman.’

  ‘Mompesson!’ muttered Nicholas.

  ‘My God! He’s added another suspect to the list.’

  ‘Andrew Mompesson.’

  Nicholas remembered where he had seen the name before.

  Chapter Eleven

  The miracle had happened at last. After a lifetime’s fruitless search, Edmund Hoode finally found his way into the Garden of Eden and discovered Paradise. Cecily Gilbourne was a most alluring Eve, soft and supple, at once virginal and seasoned in all the arts of love. She was a true symbol of womanhood. Hoode’s ardour matched her eager demands, his desire soared with her passion. Hearts, minds and bodies met in faultless rhyme. Their destinies mingled.

  It was several minutes before he regained his breath. He used the back of his arm to wipe the perspiration from his brow, then gazed up at the ceiling. The Garden of Eden, he now learned, was a bedchamber at the Unicorn. When he turned his head, he saw that his gorgeous and compliant Eve had freckles on her shoulder. She, too, was glistening with joy.

  What thrilled him most was the ease with which it had all happened. A rose. A promise. A tryst. Consummation. There had been no intervening pauses and no sudden obstacles. No inconvenient appearances by returning husbands. Everything proceeded with a graceful inevitability. It was an experience he had always coveted but never come within sight of before. In Hoode’s lexicon, romance was a synonym for anguish. Cecily Gilbourne offered him a far more satisfactory definition.

  Her voice rose up softly from the pillow beside him.

  ‘Edmund?’

  ‘My love?’

  ‘Are you still awake?’

  ‘Yes, Cecily.’

  ‘Are you still happy?’

  ‘Delirious.’

  ‘Are you still mine?’

  ‘Completely.’

  She pulled him gently on top of her and kissed him.

  ‘Take me, Edmund.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Again.’

  He kicked open the gate with his naked foot and went into the Garden of Eden, not, as before, with halting gait and wide-eyed wonder but with a proprietary swagger. Edmund Hoode had found his true spiritual home.

  ***

  The silence seemed interminable. Anne Hendrik was petrified. She stood there unable to move, unable to call out for her servant and incapable of defending herself in any way. The menacing figure of Ambrose Robinson loomed over her. She felt like one of the dumb animals whom he routinely slaughtered.

  Cold fury coursed through the butcher. The veins on his forehead stood out like whipcord as he fought to contain his violent instincts. When he took a step towards her, Anne was so convinced that he was about to strike her that she shut her eyes and braced herself against the blow. It never came. Instead, she heard a quiet snivelling noise. When she dared to lift her lids again, she saw that Robinson was now sitting on a chair with his head in his hands.

  Her fear slowly shaded into cautious sympathy.

  ‘What ails you?’ she asked.

  ‘All is lost,’ he murmured between sobs of remorse.

  ‘Lost?’

  ‘My son, my dearest friend, my hopes of happiness. All gone for ever.’ He looked up with a tearful face. ‘It was my only chance, Anne. I did it out of love.’

  ‘Love?’

  ‘The loan, those letters…’

  ‘You are not making much sense, Ambrose.’

  ‘It was wrong of me,’ he said, lurching to his feet. ‘I should not have deceived you so. You deserved better of me. I will get out of your life for ever and leave you in peace.’

  Wiping his tears away, he lumbered towards the door.

  ‘Stay!’ she said, curiosity roused. ‘Do not run away with the truth untold. What is going on, Ambrose?’

  He stopped to face her and gave a hopeless shrug.

  ‘You were right, Anne.’

  ‘Philip did not send those letters?’

  ‘No,’ he confessed, ‘but they are exactly the letters that he would have sent, had he the time and opportunity to write. I know my own son. Philip is in torment at Blackfriars. Those letters only said what he feels.’

  ‘Did you write them yourself?’

  ‘With these clumsy hands?’ he said, spreading his huge palms. ‘They are more used to holding an axe than a pen. No, Anne. I only wrote those letters in my own mind. A scrivener put them on paper at my direction.’

  She was baffled. ‘Why?’

  ‘To reassure me. To tell myself that my son really did love me and want to come home to me. When I’d read those letters enough times, I truly began to believe that Philip had indeed sent them.’ His chin sank to his chest again. ‘And there was another reason, Anne.’

  ‘I see it only too clearly.’

  ‘It was a mistake.’

  ‘You used those letters to ensnare me,’ she said angrily. ‘To work on my feelings and draw me closer. And through me, you brought Nick Bracewell in to help.’

  ‘You spoke so highly of him. Of how resourceful he was and what a persuasive advocate he would be. That was why I was so keen and willing to meet Nick.’

  ‘And to deceive him with those false letters!’

  ‘They are not false. Philip might have written them.’

  ‘But he did not, Ambrose. You beguiled us!’

  ‘How else could I secure your help?’

  ‘By being honest with me.’

  ‘Honesty would have put you straight to flight.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Because of the person I am,’ he said, beating his chest with a fist. ‘Look at me. A big, ugly, shambling butcher. What hope had I of winning you with honesty? When you thought I lent that money out of friendship, you took it gladly. Had I told you I gave it because I cared, because I loved, because I wanted you as mine, you would have spurned it.’ A pleading note reappeared. ‘What I did was dishonest but from honest motives. I worship my son and so I inveigled you and Nick Bracewell into working for his release. Because I dote on you-and this is my worst offence-I used Philip as a means to get close to you. To make you think and feel like a mother to him. I was trying to court you, Anne.’

  ‘There was a worse offence yet,’ she said vehemently.

  ‘That is not so.’

  ‘I see it now and shudder at what I see. You dangled your own son in front of me like a carrot in front of a donkey. That was disgusting enough. To mislead Philip as well was despicable.’

  ‘I did not mislead him.’

>   ‘Yes you did,’ she accused. ‘We were not the only dupes. He had his share of false letters. You wrote to him to tell him that he would come back to a happy home with a second mother. You used me to tempt Philip back.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘It was the one thing that might bring him home.’

  ‘You don’t know Philip.’

  ‘I know him well enough to understand why he likes it in the Chapel Royal. He has escaped from his father. No wonder he enjoys it so at the Blackfriars Theatre.’

  ‘I want him home!’ shouted Robinson.

  Anne walked to the front door and opened it wide.

  ‘Do not expect me to help you, sir,’ she said crisply. ‘There lies your way. Do not let me detain you. I’ll be no man’s false hope to wave in front of an unwitting child. Farewell, Ambrose. You are no longer welcome here!’

  He glared at her for a moment, then skulked out.

  ***

  Sunday morning turned London into a gigantic bell-foundry. The whole city clanged to and fro. Bells rang, tolled, chimed or sang out in melodious peals to fill every ear within miles with the clarion call of Christianity and to send the multifarious congregations hurrying in all directions to Matins in church or cathedral. Bells summoned the faithful and accused the less devout, striking chords in the hearts of the one and putting guilt in the minds of the others. Only the dead and deaf remained beyond the monstrous din of the Sabbath.

  Nicholas Bracewell left his lodging in Thames Street on his way to his own devotions. Recognising a figure ahead of him, he lengthened his stride to catch her up.

  ‘Good-morrow!’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘May I walk with you?’

  ‘I am late, sir. I must hurry.’

  ‘May I not keep your haste company?’

  Joan Hay was not pleased to see him and even less happy about the way he fell in beside her. Keeping her head down and her hands clutched tight in front of her, she bustled along the street. Nicholas guessed the reason for her behaviour.