An Honourable Murderer

by Philip Gooden

  “I never found the note,” I repeated after him.

  If I was lying, which I was, then I was pretty certain that he was lying too. He did have something to say. But he was not going to say it now.

  All this time we had been pacing together down Three Cranes Lane. No need to ask what Jonathan Snell was doing. He was on his way to work. And now we had reached the gate in the wall which led to the Snells’ yard.

  My heart was beating fast. I should walk off now towards the wharf, hail a ferry, be rowed across the water, get out on the opposite bank and go to my own place of work. Simple, no? There was a dead man lying in the workshop. They must have found him by now, surely. Whether they had or not, it was none of my business. Unless they’d also discovered a spotted handkerchief discarded near the body. Then it would be my business.

  I hovered undecided by the gate. Jonathan Snell looked preoccupied. He had not repeated his question about what I was doing in Three Cranes Lane, but asked a different one instead.

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “What? Oh, yes. I was here a couple of days ago. I spoke to your man Ned Armitage.”

  “A good workman, Ned.”

  “Yes.”

  Jonathan had his hand on the latch of the gate. Perhaps he was the first to arrive at the yard this morning. But no, he wasn’t, because I could hear the sounds of sawing and someone whistling inside. I waited for cries of alarm to come flying over the wall. Yells for “Help!”, shouts of “Murder!” None came. Was it possible that no one had yet noticed Ratchett’s corpse, lying sprawled and broken at the foot of the slide?

  Snell lifted the latch and pushed the door open. Over his shoulder I saw the well-ordered yard and a couple of men at work inside. Calmly at work.

  Ask to accompany him, or walk on?

  Curiosity was drawing me in. There was also the matter of the handkerchief. But fear whispered that I should get away now, before the cries of alarm rang out.

  “Can I come in?” I said.

  This was the test. If Snell was involved in anything criminal, then he must surely refuse me. If he didn’t, then it was proof of his innocence. Half a proof, anyway.

  “Why do you want to come in?” he said.

  “I – I think I may have mislaid something here – when I came to see Ned Armitage.”

  “Not your father’s ring again?”

  Was it my imagination, or was there a mocking glint to his bespectacled eyes? After his earlier moment of alarm, he was back in control.

  “That was elsewhere,” I said, pulling a face. “I am careless with my belongings, I regret to say, and can ill afford to be.”

  Jonathan Snell paused, his body blocking the entrance to the yard. His face was pale and, with his expression creased against the sunlight, he looked more like his father. Eventually he shrugged.

  “If you like.”

  He didn’t ask me what I was searching for. Each of us was holding out against the other.

  Snell walked over to one of the workmen, who was loading up a cart with short lengths of timber. A horse was tethered nearby. I recognized the workman as Tom Turner, the lank-haired fellow. He was whistling while he worked, apparently a happy man. He stopped as Snell approached him and the two fell into conversation. Snell seemed to have lost interest in me and the reason why I wanted to look inside his father’s workshop. That was fine with me.

  I wandered up the sloping ground and towards the double doors which stood in the middle of the frontage. This time the doors were flung wide open. I stopped a few yards off. My visits to the Snells’ yard were becoming a repeated experience, like a play practice. On previous visits I had found bodies indoors, both real and sham bodies. The sunlight was too strong for me to see the interior clearly from this distance.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Jonathan Snell was still talking to Turner. A second workman was bending over a saw-horse. The air was full of the scent of fresh-cut wood. I glanced down, then looked more closely at the ground, which was a compound of earth and sawdust and wood shavings and fragments of nutshell. In among the darker shades there was something light. Well, I had found one thing I had come for. The cutwork handkerchief lay crumpled near a pile of timber. I half remembered stumbling and falling in the yard the night before. It must have dropped out of my pocket then. Quickly I stooped and retrieved the handkerchief, which had by now assumed a quite mysterious importance in my mind.

  Then I moved towards the entrance to the workshop. In front of me was the familiar array of items, including the red trunk. The lid of the trunk was wide open. (Had I shut it the previous night after finding the curled-up figure? I couldn’t remember.) I was pleased to see the mannequin figure, still in his clothes, sitting once more on top of the pile of tarpaulins. I almost waved to him. He was back where he should be. I had already glanced towards the area at the bottom of the stairs and the slide. The floor was empty. There was no body. Ratchett had gone.

  Your suspicion is not without wit

  With a final burst of trumpets, Truth came down to earth with hardly a bump. Considering his bulk, Truth dismounted gracefully enough from his flying throne and looked around at those awaiting his judgement. Truth had a question to answer. Hope and Resolution had summoned from on high this mighty figure, who knows all things in the past, present and future. Hope and Resolution accordingly stood in postures of expectation while the less reputable of us – such as Suspicion, Ignorance, Rumour and the rest – cowered at the corners of the stage, shielding our faces from the glare of Truth. Don’t ask me how they’d done it, but the Snells had contrived an effect which seemed to turn the area where Truth (or rather Ben Jonson) was standing into a blaze of light. From out of this blaze loomed Jonson’s red visage, like the sun in winter.

  The question which Truth had to answer was whether the new-found peace and concord between England and Spain would endure down the ages. Now, common opinion on the street might have been that the new-found peace would be lucky to endure until Christmas. But this was the Masque of Peace. So the answer to the question, ‘Will this last?’ was, yes, it would last. It had to be the answer. It was written. Ben Jonson himself had written it, and he was about to deliver his own lines. The necessity for eternal peace was also written down in a treaty which would be sworn to and signed the next day in the chapel at Whitehall.

  Truth opened his mouth:

  O speak aloud, you denizens of earth.

  Give reason why you call across the firth

  To those far distant, and unequall’d skies,

  That squared circle of celestial bodies,

  And bring down from heaven’s synod

  This Truth who sometime is a god,

  intoned Jonson.

  There’s a funny thing about masques. The characters in them are always announcing who they are, although their costumes usually signal this clearly enough. And they are always calling on others to explain why they (the others, that is) have done something, even though it’s bloody obvious most of the time.

  We’d reached the closing stages of Ben’s celebratory piece. The audience chamber of Somerset House was packed with the great and the greater. The greatest of all – King James himself (the first of that name to rule England but the sixth of Scotland) – was absent, but we had his consort Queen Anne on stage beside us, playing the English Peace. I don’t think anyone had really believed the King would turn up. He did not have his predecessor Elizabeth’s appetite for plays. In fact there was some question as to whether he really liked them. We’d put on WS’s As You Like It for him at Wilton House during the plague time and Abel Glaze swore that he’d caught the royal gob in mid-yawn during the performance and had overheard him saying at the end in his Scots lilt, “Oh weel, oh weel” like a man emerging from a tedious sermon.

  But if we didn’t enjoy the King’s company we had his Queen’s. I could see her clearly at this moment, little more than a dozen feet away. Fortunately I’d been permitted to abandon the gauzy mask which was part of my Ig
norance outfit. Jonson said I looked as though I was taking part in a children’s game of blindman’s-buff. Instead of wearing the mask he told me merely to look stupid and mulish, and (to his credit) made no comment about the lack of acting skills which would be required. So I was able to see the Queen. I’d seen her before of course, since she’d attended a couple of our performances as King’s Men but she had been a spectator rather than a participant.

  What can I say about Anne, as witnessed in action and from close quarters? She could not have held a candle to our late Queen, nor do I think she would have attempted to. She was a bony, beaky-nosed creature with a sallow face, not obviously attractive. Inevitably, I thought of the rumours which were swirling around her and the King. About how she was no longer welcome in his bed but kept up her separate establishment here in Somerset House. About how the King’s affections were currently directed towards the Pembroke brothers, whose family owned Wilton House, while his wife consoled herself with her three children and her devotion to music and dance.

  In Ben Jonson’s piece she moved elegantly and spoke her few lines clearly with only the trace of an accent. Maybe it’s not my place to compliment a queen, but I’d say that her performance was especially creditable since she had not attended a single rehearsal. I wondered whether she had gone through her words and moves in private with her ladies-in-waiting. But, take away her titles and the deference which surrounded her, and there was nothing very regal about Anne of Denmark. I’d met our Elizabeth once, you see, and stammered my way through our conversation, scarcely daring to look her in the face. But in my humble view the Virgin Queen laid down a standard for royalty which will not easily be matched, let alone outdone.

  The audience for the Masque of Peace was more attentive than I’d expected. For one thing they didn’t have the King to distract them. If James had been present then most eyes would have been on him, most of the time. He was known to dislike this sort of attention, and maybe that was one of the reasons why he’d decided to stay away. But for a noble audience there were other diversions apart from watching the monarch or the play, diversions usually to do with the after-effects of food and drink. I’d made knowing comments to WS about them being pissed or asleep but there was little sign of that. Instead there was polite applause for the music, only a little chattering while we were declaiming our lines (though none at all while the Queen spoke hers), and even the occasional gasp at the staging.

  The arrival of the Spanish Peace in particular provoked gasps of delight from the women – and groans of desire from the men – and much clapping. This was mostly to do with the beauty of Doña Luisa de Mendoza, and her scanty costume. I’m afraid Anne couldn’t compete in this area, even though she too was showing a fair bit of bosom. The shell-clad William Inman ushered La Paz across the Ocean, delivering lines about how his waves curtseyed and his billows bowed down low at the sight of this beautiful voyager. Meantime, in the background, Sir Fabian Scaridge – one-time barber, now full-time knight – puffed and panted as a Favouring Wind.

  When Truth came down to earth there was, apart from the tootling trumpets, absolute silence in the audience chamber. This was not just because the spectacle of Ben Jonson descending was impressive enough – and he did look more god-like than the unfortunate Sir Philip – but because everybody must have been aware that a man had fallen to his death at this very point in the action a few days earlier. But this version of Truth, decked out in the very robe that Sir Philip had worn during his fatal plunge, landed safely and began to speak. And went on speaking.

  And still Jonson was rambling on:

  For Truth will shortly put men’s foes to flight

  And bestow on all an universal light

  with plenty more in the same vein. I was sure he’d added a few extra lines once he’d taken over Blake’s part. Even more than most actors, Jonson liked being centre stage. I caught the eye of Giles Cass who, in the role of Suspicion, was half kneeling on the opposite side, right hand held up to shield himself from Truth’s dazzling glare. Like the other negative qualities, Suspicion would shortly be banished from the stage. Cass winked at me. I felt uncomfortable. It suggested that we were somehow in collusion.

  Cass had spoken to me before the performance while we were backstage, in among the scaffolding that supported the backdrop and curtains and the whole apparatus of the gallery. I was peering between a gap in the curtains, watching the audience take their seats. I noticed that the two groups, English and Spanish, were tending to sit in different parts of the hall. They were easily distinguished anyway. The Spanish were even more elaborately dressed than the members of the English court. The women were darker and more attractive. The men looked prouder than their English counterparts. Their ruffs were wider – when some of them looked down, their bodies would surely have been hidden from their eyes – and their hats higher. Two tides of language met from opposing sides of the audience chamber. Whether they mingled it was hard to say. Perhaps they mingled at the edges.

  I sensed someone standing by my shoulder and, turning, was surprised to see Giles Cass. He was costumed as Suspicion, wearing the cloak covered with its painted eyes and carrying his elaborate lantern. He placed the lantern on the floor and peeked through the gap in the curtain. He seemed as interested in the gathering audience as a true player would have been.

  “All eyes, Master Cass?” I said.

  “That is Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire,” he said, putting his mouth to my ear and extending a finger through the gap. He was indicating a chubby-faced, clean-shaven individual who was seating himself near the front. “He has been talking to the Spaniards about the treaty. Did you know that he is living in open adultery with my Lady Penelope Rich?”

  “And there is Charles Howard,” I said, determined not to be outdone in the courtier-spotting stakes. Howard was the Earl of Nottingham, the Lord High Admiral, the white-bearded but vigorous gentleman whose example had prompted Ben Jonson to go in search of an afternoon brothel.

  “Dear old Charles Howard!” said Cass, standing back and dabbing at his lips. “His new bride was heard singing on their wedding night but nobody knew whether it was to keep the old man awake or to get him to go to sleep.”

  “Perhaps it was from joy,” I said.

  “And, look, there is our great Secretary.”

  Sir Robert Cecil was being carried in a chair to the principal place at the front of the audience, the one that the King would have occupied had he been present. It was a mark of Cecil’s standing – although ‘standing’ was not the appropriate word for him – that he should take this central position. The little hunchbacked figure was helped from his chair and fussed over by several attendants while he took his seat. I felt uneasy at seeing Cecil, even though I was mostly concealed behind the thick curtains.

  “You know the King calls him his beagle, he is so serviceable,” whispered Cass in my ear. I was almost disappointed that Cass could only refer to Cecil’s new nickname and had nothing to say about the great man’s bedchamber habits, since this seemed to be what interested him.

  “No, I didn’t know he was the King’s beagle,” I said. “How should I know that? Look, I am all Ignorance.”

  I tried to make light of it but grew still more uncomfortable. I did not want to be the recipient even of gossip from Cass. I wonded why he’d fastened on me. His fastidiously wiped lips still carried the scent of liquor. I would have moved away but he put a hand on my shoulder.

  “I hear you have been asking questions about the death of Sir Philip Blake,” he said.

  I went cold.

  “I haven’t – well, one or two questions maybe. The seniors in my Company were concerned about the effect of – of what happened – on the reputation of the King’s Men. One of them asked me whether there was anything strange about it. I meant no harm.”

  “If you ask me,” said Cass, “Sir Philip was lucky.”

  Curiosity overcome unease for a moment.

  “Lucky? To have fallen to his d
eath?”

  “Our Secretary, Sir Robert Beagle, was pursuing him. He thought that Blake was plotting against the Spanish peace. Now, isn’t that ridiculous!”

  I shrugged, trying to dislodge the man’s hand from my shoulder. I’d rather have been doing anything else at that instant, even flying in a chair twenty feet above the ground.

  “I once heard Cecil say,” said Cass, “that he would welcome Blake’s death. And now he is dead. And so I say it’s a good thing – for Sir Philip Blake and for Sir Robert Beagle. A convenient death.”

  “I know nothing of this,” I said.

  “Keep it that way,” said Giles Cass. “Ignorance is best.”

  I turned and looked him in the face. The dapper man winked at me.

  And now here was Cass, at the end of the masque performance, once again winking in my direction. This did not make for a quiet mind. Who was he with? Was he a secret Raleigh supporter, as his Mermaid tavern comments had suggested? Or was he really with Cecil, who was no friend to Raleigh? As to Cass’s remarks about Sir Philip Blake and his supposed plotting against Spain, they made little sense either.

  At last Ben Jonson reached his peroration as Truth. It was official. Peace between England and Spain was here to stay. It would endure longer than the mountains, it would outlast the oceans, it was a monument to the far-sightedness and magnanimity of the Spanish King Philip and the English King James. With this dollop of flattery and with an obeisance in the direction of Queen Anne, Truth at last shut his gob.

  We concluded with some music and dancing, and then the Masque of Peace was finally done, with much clapping and cheering. Straightaway the non-professionals in the cast jumped from the stage and paraded around to receive the congratulations of their friends. All at once there was refreshment everywhere. It seemed to rain wine while delicate sweetmeats were scattered about the room like manna. Lord and Lady Fortune, Sir Fabian Scaridge with his good wife Agnes, Lady Blake and Maria More, Bill Inman and the rest were surrounded with back-slappers and cheek-kissers. Even the Queen’s whitened complexion was showing red. Our noble actors glowed with the gratification of a good job well done. And why shouldn’t they? There is almost nothing better in this world than being part of a company at the end of a successful performance, quitting the stage in the knowledge that you have pleased others for two hours of our shared earthly existence.