‘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 way. 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 resource
ful 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.
‘I think that I must beg your pardon,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘For putting you in bad favour with your husband. I should not have told him that we met in Blackfriars. I fear he may have upbraided you for talking to me as you did.’
‘No, no,’ she lied.
‘Master Hay is a private man, I know that.’
‘He is a genius, sir. I am married to a genius.’
‘Why is he not with you this morning?’
‘He has gone ahead. I rush to catch up with him.’
‘Then I will ask one simple question before I let you get on your way.’
‘Please do not, sir. I know nothing.’
‘This is no secret I ask you to divulge. Your husband talked openly of it yesterday.’
‘Then speak with him again.’
‘I would rather hear it from you.’
When they reached a corner, he put a gentle hand on her shoulder to stop her. Joan Hay looked up into his face with frightened eyes. Timorous at the best of times, she was now in a mild panic.
‘Master Hay told me that he was once in prison.’
‘Only for one day,’ she said defensively.
‘There must have been some error, surely? Your husband is the most law-abiding man I have ever met.’
‘He is, he is.’
‘What possible charge could be brought against him?’
‘I do not know.’
‘You must have some idea.’
‘It was a mistake. He was soon released.’
‘Thanks to the help of the Master of the Chapel.’
‘Yes, I believe that he was involved.’
‘So why was your husband arrested?’ pressed Nicholas.
‘Truly, sir, I do not know.’
‘He could not have been taken without a warrant. Did they come to the house? Was he seized there?’
Joan Hay glanced nervously around, fearful of being late for church and anxious to shake off her interrogator. She was patently unaware of the full details of her husband’s temporary incarceration, but Nicholas still felt that he might winkle some clue out of her.
‘Let me go, sir,’ she said. ‘I implore you.’
‘When the officers came for your husband…’
‘Discuss the matter with him.’
‘Did they take anything away with them?’
‘Some documents, that is all.’
‘Documents?’
‘Do not ask me what they were for I know not.’
Nicholas stepped aside so that she could continue on her way. He felt guilty at harassing an already harassed woman but the conversation had yielded something of great interest. It gave him much to ponder as he headed for his own church in the neighbouring parish.
***
The jangling harmonies of London finally brought Edmund Hoode out of his protracted sleep. Expecting to wake up in the Garden of Eden, entwined in the arms of his beloved, he was disconcerted to find himself alone in a dishevelled bed at the Unicorn with a draught blowing in through an open window. As his brain slowly cleared, the full force of the bells hit his ears and he put his hands over them to block out the sound.
There was no trace of Cecily Gilbourne, not even the faintest whiff of the delicate perfume which had so intoxicated him the previous night. Had she fled in disappointment? Was their love shipwrecked on its maiden voyage? Hoode closed his eyes and tried to remember what had actually happened. Paradise had been recreated on the first floor of a London inn. He had been offered an apple from the Tree of Knowledge and had eaten it voraciously. It had been inexpressibly delicious.
The problem was that Eve had given him another apple. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth and possibly more. Before he collapsed in sheer exhaustion, he recalled looking around a Garden of Eden that was littered with apple cores. Eve, meanwhile, was straining to pluck another down from a higher branch. Her pursuit of knowledge was insatiable.
When Hoode struggled to sit up, he realised just how insatiable Cecily Gilbourne had been. She had left him for dead. His muscles ached, his stomach churned and his body seemed to have no intention of obeying any of its owner’s commands. After long hours of sleep, he was still fatigued. His mouth was parched and he longed for som
e water to slake his thirst.
With a supreme effort, he rolled off the bed and got his feet onto the floor. They showed little enthusiasm for the notion of supporting him and he had to clutch at a bench to stay upright. Blown by the wind and buffeted by the bells, he staggered across to the door, using a variety of props and crutches on his way. What kept him going was the thought that Cecily might be in the adjoining chamber, waiting for him to join her before breakfast was served. But the door was locked.
Hoode leant against it while he gathered his strength. A question began to pound away at the back of his skull. Why did he feel so unhappy? After such a night of madness, he should be overwhelmed with joy. Having tasted the sweet delights of Cecily Gilbourne, his mouth should be tingling with pleasure. Yet his palate was jaded. What had gone wrong?
His body rebelled and threatened to cast him to the floor. Legs buckled, arms went slack and his neck tried to disassociate itself from his head. The bed was his only salvation but it now seemed to be a hundred yards away. Marshalling his forces for one desperate lunge, he flung himself across the room, kicked over a stool, a table and a chamber-pot on the way, then landed on the bed with a thud, resolving never to move from it again.
He was still lying there, moaning softly and idly composing his own obituary, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was a letter, protruding from beneath the pillow, clearly left by Cecily Gilbourne. His heart lifted. He was not, after all, an abandoned lover in a draughty bedchamber. She had penned her gratitude in glowing terms before stealing away and affirmed her love. That thought made him open the letter with fumbling enthusiasm, only to drop it instantly in alarm.
Cecily was a laconic correspondent. One word decorated the page and it struck an inexplicable terror into him:
“Tonight.”
***
Royal command had delayed the funeral of Cyril Fulbeck until that morning. It was no insignificant event. The Master of the Chapel was a loved and revered member of the royal household and the Queen insisted on paying her personal respects to him. Since she only returned from Greenwich Palace on Saturday evening, the obsequies could not take place until the following day.
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