A Missed Murder

by Michael Jecks

  I was by now feeling quite sorry for myself, and the sight of a cloud moving across the sky with a sort of heavy, yellowish look to it, promising at the very least a foul form of rainstorm, didn’t help. I was just about to give up, when I glanced to the east and saw a familiar group approaching me. It was the Lawyer, Willyam, Leadenhall Bob – and Agnis.

  They were walking straight at me, and I shrank back into the doorway where I was hiding. As luck would have it, as they passed me, the rain began – first a fine drizzle, but then a sudden cascade of water, as if Heaven had decided to empty all its chamber pots at once. The four paid no heed to the doorway where I was hiding, but instead bolted past me and onwards.

  This was worth investigating, I thought. I trailed after them, regretting not wearing a hat, but also glad of the rain’s coolness soothing my injuries. The downpour also concealed my steps. It was as loud as gravel hurled at the ground – a rattling, crackling, spitting noise that was all but deafening. It certainly hurt my head in its current damaged state.

  It was when they reached a door and passed inside that I looked about me to see where they had come. And then I realized: it was the bowling alley where Mal was based.

  ‘Best to get out of the rain.’

  I nearly screamed as Humfrie tapped my shoulder, it was so unexpected.

  ‘Come along,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of this weather.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Seeking to preserve my master,’ he said imperturbably. He was, at that moment, craning his neck around me and peering in through the doorway. ‘Come, let’s go and see if we can make sense of this affair.’

  He led the way inside, and I followed him along the corridor to the main gaming chamber. At this time of day it was more or less empty, and the three men and Agnis were prominent.

  ‘Oh, I’d best leave,’ I said. They were talking to Mal.

  I had no desire to meet with him again. The last two times, my best view of him had been his nostrils, and that was not a pleasant sight. Now he looked even more alarming. He wore a fixed glower and stood facing the three as they spoke quietly. Then his eyes rose and I groaned as they locked on me.

  Humfrie’s hand grabbed my shoulder as I tried to escape. ‘Come with me.’

  I tried to slap his hand away, but he had a grip like a vice and he pulled me forward. I hung my head as we drew nearer and did not dare look at Mal’s face. But then something like defiance flared, and I lifted my gaze to stare at Agnis. She had the decency to look ashamed, as though she could guess what I was thinking. Although, as soon as I saw that, I looked at Willyam. I had told him, and he had guessed much, so what was he doing here with her?

  ‘You brought me a little snack, eh, ’Umfrie?’ Mal rumbled. ‘Good. I’ve been looking forward to this!’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ Humfrie said. He still had my arm in his grip. ‘What is your interest in all this?’

  ‘I just want to pull ’is ’ead off,’ Mal said, as though surprised. It was obviously the most natural desire in the world to him. ‘The snivelling little shite has been a pain.’

  ‘No, not you, Mal, this maid here,’ Humfrie said, pointing at Agnis.

  She seemed to pale, and then bright spots of colour rouged her cheeks, and a flush began, fascinatingly, below her neck and began to rise. I was watching it with interest as she spoke.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Who do you work for? The Spanish?’ Humfrie demanded.

  ‘No! I work for our Queen,’ she said, and glanced at the other three.

  Willyam stepped forward, his hands held up as though placatingly, and faced me. ‘Agnis has to be taken to be questioned. I’ll look after her.’

  ‘Well, there’s no need for that,’ I was about to say, when Humfrie shook his head. ‘She stays here.’

  ‘I don’t think—’ Willyam began, but Humfrie didn’t allow him to finish.

  ‘No, boy. She stays.’

  I nodded vigorously, as though that was the thought that had been in my own mind all along.

  Mal rumbled slowly, ‘What is all this?’

  ‘She has been acting like a paid assassin,’ Humfrie said. ‘She wanted other people to do her bidding for her, but she has been steadily working towards achieving her master’s aims. She tried to have a Spanish spy saved, and have an Englishman murder another man to foment trouble. She would have had the Englishman killed afterwards, no doubt.’

  Mal frowned. It was like watching the ice on the Thames trying to move in midwinter. ‘So what?’

  ‘She’s a foreign agent, Mal,’ Humfrie said.

  ‘So let’s kill ’er,’ Mal said. His hand reached for the knife in his belt.

  ‘No!’ I blurted.

  Have you ever been in a tavern where there is a loud noise from men shouting and laughing, singing and swearing, and just as you are giving a pithy comment on one of the ugliest exhibits there, the room is suddenly hushed, and everyone hears your words with precise clarity? It was like that now. Suddenly, I was aware of my scalp creeping back on my skull as though trying to retreat behind my neck. My eyes widened as Mal slowly turned to face me. The ice cracked, and a smile slowly spread over his features.

  ‘You, eh, little man? I owe you for two knocks on the ’ead already, and now you try to tell me what to do?’

  He pulled his bread knife from his belt. I could see that the grey steel blade had already earned a shallow curve from where he had been forced to sharpen it regularly. Bread knives never earned that sort of curve where the blade has been worn away. It was the sort of erosion a man might see on a butcher’s knife, but not on a blade designed for carving slices of bread.

  I gulped. He approached, and I snatched my arm from Humfrie’s grip. Then I remembered the gun and hauled it from my breast, pointing it at his face. There was a small tapping noise, but I ignored it. ‘No closer!’

  ‘You’ll kill me, like you did the Spaniard last night?’ he sneered.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘I’m terrified.’

  ‘Jack!’ Agnis called.

  ‘Not now!’

  ‘But, Jack!’

  ‘Quiet, Agnis!’

  Humfrie sighed. ‘She’s trying to tell you that the ball fell out of the barrel when you drew it, Jack,’ he said.

  I looked down. The tapping I had heard was the sad sound of a ball of lead plunging to the ground, bouncing twice and then rolling away. In its wake was a small pile of powder. I looked up at Mal’s face. He grinned, and I snatched at the pouch of balls on my hip. As luck would have it, the damned thing snapped its restraining cord, and the pouch emptied as Mal took a step forward.

  It was some years ago that I last saw jugglers and acrobats. It was up at Smithfield, during the fair, and I was entranced. At the time I was only, oh, about sixteen years old, I suppose, and the sight of a small, wiry fellow climbing up a tall ladder, which was held at the base by his companion, to perform a handstand on the very top, while the brawny lad at the base set the ladder on his shoulders and carried the ladder and his friend, held me spellbound. You cannot keep a London mob quiet, but that day they were silent in wonder. And, judging by the way that hands kept moving, men were offering good odds on the two coming a cropper, with the topmost potentially breaking his neck when he fell. There was an audible groan of disappointment when their act came to an end, with the boy at the top springing down with a somersault. An English crowd expects blood.

  But that wasn’t my point. After these two, there was a pair of jesters, who came on to much applause and performed various feats that had the crowd roaring with delight. One balanced himself hilariously on a log that would keep rolling. He fell, and people laughed; he climbed back on and fell forward, and the people cheered; he tried to stand on it, and after much waving of his arms and outward thrusting of his chest and arse, gradually came to a form of equilibrium, until the second jester kicked the log, and the man was forced to gesticulate wildly, before tumbling to the ground once more. The audience bellowed their a
musement. This was more to their taste. Raucous, rowdy, rumbustious, the London mob thought these two were hilarious.

  And that was exactly what I thought when Mal took his first step on to those little balls of lead. His foot tried to hold its place on the floor, and his hands waved backwards to keep his balance as first one foot and then the other slid inelegantly forwards and backwards, his face registering utter dismay as the laws of balance, which his body was fully used to accommodating, were temporarily removed.

  There was a sort of appalled consternation in that room as everyone darted from the path of Mal’s whirling blade, because the fool didn’t have the sense to let it fall. Instead, it slashed about, narrowly missing Leadenhall Bob in its passage.

  And then the display was over. With a gasp, both of Mal’s feet shot from beneath him, and he landed on the ground.

  With my facility for common sense, I was ready to hurry from the door. The sight of Mal on the floor would be enough to make any man make for the exit, I reckon, but for me there was even more pressing urgency, since it was my internal organs that he was keen to investigate. But the best plans often go ballocks up, as I have learned over the years. I span, I set my foot on the ground ready to hurtle away, and as I did so, a kind of dull bemusement spread over me.

  You see, my first foot was moving as intended, and then so was my second, but for some unearthly reason I was apparently still fixed to the spot. There are times when a fellow knows that something is wrong, but cannot quite put his finger on the issue at hand. That is how it was for me. I suppose I had the firm conviction that, no matter what, I wanted very badly to be somewhere else. My mind was entirely focused on that. As I have mentioned, when running from someone, the main aspect of the escape is to bear in mind that you want to be away, not where you want to go to. So while my legs moved, my brain was already halfway through the door, and when it came to realize that I hadn’t moved, it did so with a form of surprise, or even mild offence. I could almost believe it was issuing a gentle rebuke to my legs for not fulfilling their part of the bargain.

  That was when I realized that I had fallen prey to the same mishap as Mal. I was running on balls the size of marbles and making no headway.

  And then, just as I realized the problem, I performed a significant forward dive, as I believe such gymnastics are called, and landed flat on my breast, winded. The gun tumbled from my hand, and I lay there, staring at it like a shackled hound gazing at a bone one foot too far for him to reach.

  For a few moments, I didn’t have a thought in my head. One occasion, sitting in a tavern, I struck up a conversation with a fellow who told me he had nearly died once, and how he felt his soul leave his body, staring down at it on the ground before him. I think I was in a similar position now. My mind was still way out in the passageway, hurtling away from Mal, and hadn’t quite caught up with the idea that my body was lying prostrate.

  Mal was snorting and blowing like a bull about to charge, and that was enough to call my mind hurriedly back to me. It slipped in with a soft regret, as though reproaching me for failing to keep up.

  I tried to lift myself, but as I did, I became aware of something else: my ankle had been badly wrenched, and it was absolutely impossible to put any weight on it. I cast a look over my shoulder and saw that Mal was sitting upright, his face a furious purple colour as the anger rose in him. It was plain to me that he would not be in the best of tempers, and I didn’t want him to catch me, so I tried to rise to my feet, but even as I was trying, I saw that another person had entered the room.

  It was Jeffry’s daughter. She gave a little squeak on seeing everyone in the room, and then darted across the floor and picked up the pistol, holding its weight with a thoroughly professional grip, I thought. The damn thing was so heavy that I had found it wobbling in my grip, but she took it up in both hands, which looked infinitely more effective, I noticed.

  ‘Get away from him!’ she cried.

  I don’t know what she thought I was likely to do, but whatever she feared, the gun had emptied itself, and I wasn’t overly bothered when she pointed it at me. Especially since she didn’t know to move the dog holding the flint over to the wheel. The gun was no risk to anyone.

  ‘I’m all right, Maudie,’ Mal said.

  ‘I can’t get up,’ I said. ‘My ankle …’

  ‘I don’t care about you,’ she snapped at me in her charming manner. ‘Just keep away from my Mal.’

  ‘Your Mal?’ I repeated, glancing over my shoulder.

  I thought again of seeing Mal at the tavern. This wench had been there then, and Mal had gone to her. Now, of course, I realized that he was walking to his woman. At the time, I suppose I just thought he was negotiating the price of a quick rattle with her, but now I saw that there was more to their feelings.

  ‘You aren’t … with Mal?’ I managed.

  ‘What if I am! He’s more of a man than most.’

  ‘But, maid! He killed your father,’ Bob said.

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ she sneered.

  ‘Jack here saw him take two purses from your father,’ Willyam said.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  I tried to make sense of this. ‘You said your father was a dreadful gambler, that he often came here. Humfrie saw him pay over two purses. Your man here took it gladly, so I was told.’

  ‘Gladly?’

  ‘As if he’d just been given the keys to the Queen’s jewels, is how I heard it.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, and her eyes were on Mal. ‘You soft-heart!’

  I looked at Mal. It was not a description I would have used, but to my astonishment, Mal was reddening. I said, ‘But if your father had brought that money back, you would still have your house! I don’t understand!’

  ‘Then you’re a pretty fool, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘I didn’t think a man could be as dull-witted as you looked, but I must have been wrong. Those purses were my dowry. I hadn’t realized my father had paid them over when I saw you, but Mal told me, and all was well. We marry as soon as the banns are read.’

  ‘I … oh … I see.’

  And I did. It made a lot of sense. Jeffry had come here not to pay off a debt, as I had assumed; he had come to give the money to Mal to help the happy couple set up their home. But …

  ‘You were so angry with him when he didn’t turn up. You said he was a—’

  ‘Well, he did like his gambling. He disappeared, and I couldn’t find him, and I thought my dowry was gone the way of so many pennies over the years, into a wager. My poor darling, did they hurt you?’

  The whole group of us turned to face Mal at that point. His face was now the colour of a beetroot, and he held his head a little lower on his shoulders, like a man embarrassed. ‘I ’ad a job to do.’

  ‘I know, my darling,’ she said with a smile that turned my stomach. To see these two cooing over each other was sickening. She, who could have been an attractive wench, given a little education with a new dress and the like, and he, who, when he had ‘a job to do’, was probably out snipping off a man’s fingers, or sawing at his throat with his bread knife, were so ill-matched that I quite had my breath taken away. I could not speak for some moments, which was probably no bad thing.

  It was Lawyer Abraham who brought us all back to the present.

  ‘Where’s the girl gone?’

  He was quite right. At some point in the proceedings, Agnis had disappeared.

  Humfrie was the first to recover. He took a quick look about the chamber. ‘Is there another way out of here?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mal said, pointing to the rear. ‘Out there.’

  Humfrie took to his heels. Meanwhile, there were several of the slugs of lead nearby, and I picked up some few, shoving them into my pouch. The drawstring was snapped, but the pouch seemed to hold them still. I folded it over and slipped it into my jack before rolling to my backside and trying to stand. Eventually, Willyam came to my aid, helping me up and steadying me while I tottered. Jeffry’s daughter Maudie, for that was th
e name Mal called her by, was still standing with the gun pointing at each of us in turn. I reached out and grabbed it, and as I did, she pressed the trigger. There was a click and a loud whirr as I took it back, and I winced, but I knew I was safe, really. The dog was not resting on the wheel, and the mechanism span it without raising a spark. I glared at her. ‘You could have killed me!’

  ‘You shouldn’t have snatched it from me!’

  ‘You shouldn’t have pointed it at me!’

  ‘What else could I do?’

  ‘Go to your man, wench!’ I snapped. My ankle was hurting like hell, and I was seriously disappointed that Agnis was the culprit who had got me into so much trouble.

  ‘How is it?’ Willyam said, looking down at my foot.

  ‘Horrible!’

  ‘You’d better rest it.’

  I nodded.

  He looked at Mal, who was now being cosseted by Maudie. Occasionally, I felt a slashing glance from his eyes, but tried to ignore it. Leadenhall Bob and the Lawyer were bemused. Only Willyam and I were fully aware of the implications of all this, I think. We exchanged a meaningful look. Gradually, we made our way out to the main door, and thence into the dim twilight made all the more gloomy by the night’s cookfires, leaving the others behind.

  ‘We have to find her before … before she can do any more harm,’ Willyam said.

  What could I say? It was plain enough that he was right. Agnis was a dangerous little slut, as she had demonstrated, and I didn’t like to think that she could become convinced that I was a danger to her, and thus try to persuade someone else to try to assassinate me. So with Willyam helping me, I hopped and hobbled along the roadway, until we reached her home.

  ‘You can’t make it up all the stairs and ladders,’ he said, staring up at the building.

  ‘No,’ I agreed with relief. It was enormously tall, and the topmost storey, from here, looked as high as a mountain to me with my blasted ankle.

  Willyam glanced down at my boot and nodded. ‘Well, wait here, then, and we’ll see what we can do, eh?’

  ‘I could do with a drink.’