Most Secret

by John Dickson Carr

  “Then how does he hold her fast?”

  “How does he gain most of his ends?” returned the other. “Think on that, lad! I’ll not pursue further a matter where I only suspect and don’t know. But think on it; think well. This afternoon, good fortune attending us, we’ll try to prove whether old Bygones is quite so much a fool as he must oft-times appear. And there is another question too.”

  “What question now?”

  “The question,” said Bygones Abraham, “to which we must find an answer before we visit the playhouse at all.”

  And he would say no more.

  At Whitehall Stairs they took a wherry downriver. They sat in the stern sheets, the boatman at the oars facing them with his back to the prow. Though the river itself was odorous, few smuts and smudges from chimneys blew so far out. Amid a multitude of small craft, some with little white or reddish sails, they were carried down half a mile to the Temple Stairs.

  It was not much past noon. Bygones, strutting ahead at a good pace, led Kinsmere up through the Temple gardens, underneath the arch of Middle Temple Gate, and across a crowded road to the Devil—properly speaking, the Devil and St. Dunstan—tavern just opposite on the north side of Fleet Street.

  Two floors and an attic of black beams and smoke-darkened plaster, with many-paned windows opening out like little doors, upreared to the west of St. Dunstan’s Church, not far from the turning of Chancery Lane. The inn sign that swung above, once bright-painted in red and black and gilt, showed St. Dunstan seizing the Foul Fiend by the nose with a pair of red-hot pincers.

  “Heigh-ho!” says Bygones Abraham.

  Noise and heat smote out at them from this famous haunt, three generations before so loved by rare Ben Jonson that Ben, to be near it, took lodgings above a comb-maker’s hard by. John Wadloe, the present proprietor, kept an ordinary or eating-house as well as a tavern; the atmosphere was pretty thick from meat roasting on spits in the underground kitchens. Since you might smoke tobacco in any room you pleased, not merely in some poky hole above a dish of coffee, the atmosphere had grown thicker still. And there were many of these rooms, each named for some pagan god or goddess.

  “Well … now!” says Rowdy Kinsmere.

  Bygones plunged first into the Apollo Room, to the right of the passage leading from the front door. Tables, stools, oak settles were well filled. The tapsters or skinkers—waiters, we should say nowadays—slid past with armloads of flagons and drinking jacks. Through the blatter of talk ran a click-click of snuffbox lids and an incessant tinkling from little bells hung over the leathern beer jacks called gingleboys. In a niche over the chimneypiece stood the bust of Apollo which Ben Jonson had caused to be put there, with Ben’s verses painted large on the wall above:

  Welcome, all who lead or follow,

  To the Oracle of Apollo …

  All his Answers are Divine,

  Truth itself doth flow in Wine.

  “Hang up all the poor Hop Drinkers!”

  Cries Old Sim,* the King of Skinkers.

  He the half of Life abuses

  That sits watering with the Muses.

  Those dull Girls no good can mean us,

  Wine, it is the Milk of Venus …

  Though at Bygones’s insistence they put down a good deal of drink, mainly sack out of pint pots, no mention was yet made of food. My grandfather, whose head buzzed a little, had begun to despair of getting any.

  And one aspect really troubled him. In Somerset he had been accustomed to playing host everywhere, and much enjoyed this; but Bygones would not permit it here. It was always, “Nay, I’ll pay our shot!” or, “This reckoning’s mine, hark’ee!” as they made a tour of the downstairs rooms.

  “Oh, ecod, it won’t do! I, who know everybody, see not one man I’m acquainted with. And yet the question must be answered … there’s no escaping it …”

  “Damne, man, what is this question so insistent to be answered?”

  “The King’s Company play today, whatever the piece they’ve chosen. But does Dolly Landis appear with ’em? There’s a sight o’ pretty young actresses at the King’s House, all eager for their chance. There’s Peg Hughes, there’s Mary Knepp, there’s Ann and Beck Marshall. If Dolly don’t act, if the play’s not right for her, we lose our labour and what’s to be done? Besides! He ought to be here; he should be here; he’s always here; where is he?”

  “Who ought to be here?”

  “Tom Killigrew, the master and manager of the company! A saucy fellow, a deep fellow, suffered much indulgence by His Majesty’s self. Therefore I ask myself … Stay, though!”

  They had returned to the Apollo Room, each carrying a sixth tankard. Bygones Abraham stopped short.

  “Oh, body o’ Pilate! He is here; he hath been here the whole time; veritably my eyes abuse me. D’ye mark it, lad?”

  “Where?”

  “Alone? By the chimneypiece, under Apollo’s bust?—A good day to ye, Mr. Killigrew! A most happy and prosperous good day!”

  At a table before the empty fireplace, trying hard to look inscrutable, sat a wiry little man with a pointed chin and monkey-bright eyes. He was older than his youthful clothes and bearing would have indicated, being in his late fifties. He rose to his feet and ducked a brief bow, not very cordial.

  “Mr.—Mr. Bygones Abraham, I think?”

  “The same. And this is most auspiciously met! Sir, will you dine?”

  “With much thanks, I have already dined. A bumper of brandy,” and Mr. Killigrew lifted his heavy goblet of dark-green glass, “a bumper of brandy, judiciously swallowed, does some little to offset the ill humours of cooks.”

  “Your health, then!”

  “As you please.” He drank and sat down, adjusting his laced pantaloons. “Now, sir, how can I serve you?”

  “If I may crave the indulgence of a great favour …?”

  “If you must, I suppose you must. But be short, pray; I am much vexed and harassed. What’s the favour?”

  “I would present a young friend of mine. Mr. Kinsmere, may I make you known to Mr. Thomas Killigrew, Most Worshipful Master of the King’s Company of Players, true wit and true judge of skills? My young friend, sir, would desire—”

  “Would he indeed?” The little man’s monkey-bright eyes lifted to survey my grandfather. “Well, Mr. Kinesear,” he said, “and what will you read for me?”

  “Read?”

  “You are a brisk and hearty-seeming young man, not ill to look upon. It will be no fopling’s role you would essay, I’ll warrant, nor yet a comic one. Shall it be Celadon in The Maiden Queen? Almanzor in The Conquest of Granada? Or some harsher and cruder part, Hamlet or the Moor of Venice, from the old plays that begin to disgust our refined age?”

  Against a rattle of voices in the background, the tinkling of little bells on several gingleboys rose loudly and then died away.

  “Tapster,” bellowed a distant voice.

  “Sir?”

  “Tapster! Did you not hear those bells stop? The jacks are empty, God damme, Tapster!”

  “Anon, sir! By and by, sir!”

  “Mr. Killigrew, Mr. Killigrew,” Bygones Abraham exclaimed with horror, “already we are neck-deep in misunderstanding. My young friend is of the Cavalier landed gentry. He gives his patronage to the stage. But he is not an actor.”

  “Zounds, zounds, much thanks for that.” Tom Killigrew sighed. Drawing a gold comb from the pocket of a green velvet coat, he fell to combing the curls of his dark-brown peruke. “Could you guess how much my time is wasted by dolts and jack-puddings, you would pity me from the bottom of your heart. Well, well! Mr. Kinsear is no dolt or jack-pudding. But did he desire only the favour of being presented to me?”

  Bygones, standing against the table, lowered his head above his tankard as though he prayed.

  “If we might have,” he rumbled, “perhaps a trifle of information?”

  “Say on, then! But be short; I am much vexed and harassed.”

  “My friend did this day request
me to accompany him to the King’s House. Will the performance repay our trouble?”

  Mr. Killigrew stopped combing and suppressed a yawn.

  “The play is but Julius Caesar, one of the old stock pieces we share with the Duke’s Company. And yet! To guide and govern these wilful stage folk, I do assure you, is no light or simple task. Behold! Look upon this!”

  From another pocket he took a crumpled note, and spread it out on the table.

  “Look upon this, I say! Saw you ever the like?”

  Thos. Killigrew, Esq.,

  Sir:

  Beg leave to inform you the whole Roman Senate are getting drunk at the “Rose,” and swear, Damn their eyes if they’ll play today.

  Yrs. respectfully,

  J. Meaney

  “Now what a thing,” cried Mr. Killigrew, “is the temper of the artist! Even my stage hands are afflicted with it. Unless you be strict with ’em, as like as not they’ll dash on and interrupt somebody’s dying words by fetching away the bed. And, if aught more than another galls the artist’s mind or exacerbates his spirit, it’s to have his dying words cut off before he has thoroughly expired. However! You will do well to give ’em your countenance this day. The king and the court are to attend,”

  “You are sure o’ that, sir?”

  “I had it from His Majesty’s self this morning, while he was being shaved. I acquainted him with our difficulties. (Zounds, zounds, was ever a man so vexed or harassed?) ‘We must make shift as best we can, sire,’ I said, ‘since it’s your pleasure to find new words and postures for so many of our actresses.’ Yes! King and court will be there: you may depend on’t. My Lady Castlemaine, I fancy, would demonstrate she has lost nothing of … Come, no matter! And I think, gentlemen, I can promise you the piece will be well acted. With Mr. Hart as Brutus and Mr. Mohun as Cassius …”

  “But the women’s parts, good sir! What o’ the women’s parts?”

  “In Julius Caesar—faugh!—the women’s parts are nothing. Yet there may be some small heat in Fop’s corner,” said Mr. Killigrew, and went on combing his wig, “when Mary Knepp appears as Calpurnia and Doll Landis disports herself as Portia. That’s to say, if Mistress Landis is indeed with us when ’tis time to go on.”

  “Ay, but … body o’ Pilate, Mr. Killigrew,” roared Bygones, “what’s all this? If arrangement has been made for Mistress Landis to enact Portia, why shouldn’t the lass play?”

  “Perhaps no reason. Yet you have heard, beyond doubt, of her attachment to a certain well-born if truculent young captain of dragoons. And also, as I speak to you, she is here.”

  “HERE?”

  “At this moment,” replied Mr. Killigrew, putting away his comb, “she is abovestairs, in a private room, at dinner with Captain Harker. I don’t meddle in that quarter, thank’ee. I have no wish to lose more of my company, but I don’t meddle. The man who crosses Pembroke Harker is guilty of a great act of folly. Take warning, gentlemen! The man who dares even ruffle the feelings of Pembroke Harker—”

  Bygones Abraham set down his tankard with a thump.

  *Simon Wadloe, proprietor of the Devil in the very early seventeenth century.

  VI

  “EAT?” SAID THE WOMAN’S voice. “But I can’t eat, Pem! I vow I have no hunger at all.”

  It was only two minutes since Kinsmere and Bygones Abraham, after receiving directions from a tapster, had crept quietly up the rear stairs at the Devil. Here they found themselves in a darkish cross passage, with a line of closed doors, which ran left and right along the back of the house.

  Following the direction of Bygones’s stabbing finger, they turned left into this passage. They moved on tiptoe over creaky boards, holding up their sword belts against clinking, with more doors now on their right. There was no other noise except a muffled clatter of activity from below.

  “Sh-h!” hissed Bygones, making a hideous face in near-darkness.

  “Very well; I’ll sh-h. Where are we?”

  “The back windows of these rooms,” and Bygones gestured, “look out on an alley that runs in east from Chancery Lane. Beyond that alley is the back garden o’ Serjeants’ Inn. Sh-h!”

  “As you like; I’m whispering. What do we do now?”

  “You heard what the tapster said?”

  “Yes, but …”

  “Harker and his Dulcinea, so called, are in the Cupid Room. That’s the last room down the passage. Next door is Hebe, which has been vacant all morning, and that’s our vantage point. What do we do, hey?”

  “Yes?”

  “We spy on ’em, that’s what! Private rooms were created by God to be spied upon, else they’d not be private rooms, which is the first rule of diplomacy. Ontry noo, there’s devilish few of ’em without a knothole in the wall. Oh, ecod! Is anything amiss with you?”

  “Friend Bygones, ought we to do this? If those two are only disporting themselves …”

  “Disporting ’emselves?” jeered the other, all but strangling with the violence of his own whisper. “At midday, d’ye think? At midday, or not an hour past it, and in a tavern given over to men at meat and drink and carouse?

  “No, no, no! There’s other times and places if they’d a mind to dalliance. It’s in my mind, right or wrong, they’re here for discourse sake; and to hear that discourse may be very much to our purpose. Stop! Sh-h! Here’s the Hebe Room. Be silent; walk warily; pray for luck!”

  Gently he lifted the latch and pushed open the door.

  The room into which they tiptoed was not quite as dark as the passage, though it swam in dimness. On its two windows in the tavern’s rear wall, facing the door by which they entered, the shutters were still closed from the night before. Thin little spears of light, through tiny round holes in the shutters, slanted down dustily to a solid floor which did not creak.

  And the room had been used for a carouse the night before, nor had anyone troubled to clean it. From a square wooden table in the middle, on which stood a big glass punch bowl filmed over inside with what had been drunk, four chairs were pushed back and one overturned. Round the bowl, amid squat glass goblets, lay scattered playing cards and the fragments of broken pipes. The whole place had a dreary, sticky look; it reeked of stale punch fumes and tobacco smoke. On the right-hand wall was pasted a copy of the king’s proclamation against the drinking of healths.

  From the left-hand wall, which was also the wall of the Cupid Room next door, had been built out a cobblestone fireplace with a brick flue. Bygones, finger to lip, gestured in that direction.

  Also from this wall, a little distance to the left of the chimney-piece, was built out a wooden cupboard whose door stood open. With hooks inside for the convenience of hanging up cloaks or coats, the cupboard was large enough to hold at full length any insensible toper who might see daylight through a knothole below the line of hooks, and they heard a murmur of voices.

  Two seconds later they were both inside the cupboard. Bygones, after bending down and peering through that large knothole straightened up and motioned Kinsmere to look in his turn.

  “Eat?” said a girl’s voice. It was a beautiful voice, which might ordinarily have been warm and caressing, though it held little of either quality now. “But I can’t eat, Pem! I vow I have no hunger at all.”

  And then he saw her.

  Dolly Landis—little Dolly, if not so extremely little at that—sat at one side of the table, her back to the two windows. She had pushed aside a heaped platter, together with knife and two-pronged fork. Nearby stood an untasted glass of the wine called champagne, which had been imported from France only since the Restoration a decade ago.

  Dolly put both elbows on the table. She had thrown back the cowl to a grey cloak; the ringlets of dark-brown hair were a little disarranged. Underneath the cloak she wore a blue-and-orange taffeta gown, much frilled with lace and cut low at the bodice. Kinsmere thought he had never seen a prettier face, or a better figure than the one compressed into the blue-and-orange gown.

  Ah, Dolly!<
br />
  She had a pink mouth, with very little lip salve. Her brown eyes—long-lashed, intense, luminous about the whites—were fixed steadily on her companion.

  “No hunger?” said Pembroke Harker. “Or thirst either, it would seem.”

  “No, nor thirst either!”

  “Well, madam—!”

  Captain Harker, opposite her, sat back at ease in his long red coat. Hat and sword baldric were laid across a chair. His gloves protruded from his pocket. He had done himself well with a dish of roast mutton and potatoes, and finished several goblets of wine.

  “Well, madam!” he said. He sat up straight; then rose to his feet and looked down at her. “Well, madam! If you won’t eat or drink, let it be so. Therein you must please yourself. It is no concern of mine.”

  “Have you any concern for me, pray?”

  Harker lifted one shoulder.

  “You will do as you are bid, Dolly, in whatever way may prove useful. You will obey my commands instantly, unhesitatingly, with as little cavil or ill humour as may be. That is my concern; it is all you need to know.”

  “Then my welfare or happiness …?”

  “Your welfare?” echoed Harker, and addressed the ceiling. “Oh God save us, your welfare or happiness! As though you mattered two straws in this world, to me or to anyone else.”

  “I am of no consequence, know. Yet I might wish I did matter to somebody.”

  “Madam, madam, what a poor wretch you are!”

  “Yes, I—I daresay.” Dolly regarded him strangely. “Do you complain of me, Pem?”

  The indomitable Harker stared back, forcing her to drop her eyes.

  “Complain?” he said, as though wishing to be fair. “Do I indeed complain of you? Come! Let me think on this, and consider it well!”

  He left the table and strolled towards the windows, whose shutters were folded back open. There, a few yards behind Dolly’s chair, he turned round. Poised, utterly indifferent, he stood with his black periwig outlined against a window and a tangle of rooftops beyond. Then he took a few steps back and stopped. To see his face, as evidently she wished to do, Dolly was compelled to twist sideways in the chair and look up at him over her right shoulder.