Sleep of Death (17 page)

‘Oh excuse me, sir.’

‘That’s all right, Francis.’

‘You remember that you was asking me questions about Sir William and how I found him?’

‘You were very informative.’

‘Thank you, sir. And now it’s gone.’

‘I don’t absolutely follow you, Francis.’

‘My shirt.’

Here he drew out in the air a T-shape which I took to be the garment in question.

‘Your shirt has gone? Ah, your shirt. The one you were wearing when you found your late master.’

‘Sir William, yes. It has gone from the trunk which lies under my bed.’

‘Perhaps one of the other servants in your room has taken it.’

‘I have asked Alfred and Will and Peter and they have said no and besides they are bigger men than me so why should they take my clothes when they would not fit?’

His brow creased like rumpled washing.

It seemed as though the unfortunate Francis expected me to do something about his missing shirt, even that he held me partly responsible for its disappearance, perhaps because we had previously discussed the item of clothing. It was curious, I thought, that the garment he was wearing when he found Sir William – and the sleeve of which he had employed to wipe away a silvery mark from the dead man’s cheek – should apparently have vanished. Or it was not curious at all, and I was imagining all sorts of oddness where all was straight and even.

‘I’m sorry to hear this, Francis, but I, er, expect your shirt will turn up again,’ I said, sounding to my own ears like some harried mother reassuring a small child. ‘It is a small thing, after all.’

‘A man like me may measure his worth in the world by his shirts, and one or two further items,’ said Francis with dignity. Having got this off his chest, he withdrew.

It must not be thought that, even while I was busy in the house of Sir Thomas and Lady Alice trying to discover something about the death of her first husband and growing more and more certain that there was nothing to discover, I was undutiful in my playing. Quite apart from Master Burbage’s warning of the sanctions that waited on those who missed rehearsals, I had something stronger to urge me across the river every morning. My love of the profession, my hopes for advancement in it, both ensured that I was prompt in attendance. However small my parts, whether I was playing a respectable citizen or a boorish rustic, a Roman poet or a courtly poisoner, I was careful to have my lines off pat and not to trespass beyond the bounds of what I was set there to say and do. A licensed clown can carry out much of his own business, as I had indicated to Sir Thomas and Lady Alice, while the leaders of our company such as Master Burbage and Master Phillips have their own style which the crowd loves. But the newcomer does best when he holds quiet to his place while looking all about him. Besides all this, there was an air of intentness and responsibility which shaped everything that the Chamberlain’s did, in contrast to my time with the Admiral’s Men. It was as if we knew that we were engaged in a serious enterprise – why, we were holding the mirror up to nature.

True, the reason why many of our audience came to see us in pieces such as
A Somerset Tragedy
was because the plays were full of what Master Mink called fighting and fucking and fury. Burbage & co could not have afforded to turn their back on this gaudy stuff even if they’d wanted to. Nor do I believe that they would have wished it. To be a player, however elevated and respectable, is always to have the smell of the crowd in your nostrils, and that is a stench which you grow to love. Sometimes from the boards I would look out across the press, the sea of bobbing heads, bare and bonneted, the clouds of smoke wreathing upwards from dozens of pipes, the gallants who took their seats on the sides of the stage, the shadowy ranks of the galleries where well-to-do folk like the Eliots paid for their privacy and (perhaps) pleasures unconnected with the play. Underneath the lines being declaimed, I heard that continuous susurration which accompanies a crowd and which falls away altogether only when a prince dies or a courtesan gets her come-uppance. Out there in the press, bargains soft and hard were being negotiated, favours exacted, gossip exchanged, pockets plundered, ale gulped, pippins picked at by dainty teeth. Yet for all that, the press or congregation was with us and we with them. The Globe was like some mighty ship, and its glowing white walls were her sails, spread to take us into uncharted territory, while the utterance of speakers on stage and off, sacred and profane, was the breath that filled those sails.

And, no, even in the midst of these elevated thoughts, I did not forget my lines.

Two days after Francis had come to see me, anxious for his missing shirt, he was found face down on the muddy foreshore which lay between the wall of the Eliots’ garden and the river. He had evidently slipped and struck his head on a large stone embedded in the ooze. The tide might have lifted him up overnight and carted the body off altogether so that he was never seen again, but he had fetched up against a rotten pile that protruded from water like a diseased finger. As the tide receded he had dropped into the mud again. He was discovered by a boatman who recognised his crinkled features and wiry frame as those of one of the Eliots’ servants.

T
his was too easy.

I arranged to meet him using Adrian as a go-between. Adrian is serviceable and malicious, and believes that he has a touch of the demonic about him. Hence the black apparel and saturnine gaze. He pulls his hat upon his brows, and looks and looks. He sees himself as a plotter, a cunning politician. Certainly he spent his time in my lady Alice’s household lining his own pockets. It was only William’s blindness to what was going on under his nose that enabled Adrian to remain so long in his position as steward – and it was only a matter of time before he was caught out and exposed. Our player had a hand in that business, and by his piece of legerdemain exposed the steward as a common thief. I am amused that Adrian considers himself to be an innocent in all this and blames the player for dishonesty. I remind him that he really did intend to steal my lady’s necklace. He reminds me that it was I who suborned him to steal it. Nevertheless, Adrian hates our player (so do I) and is waiting for a chance to make him atone. This fact may be useful.

In the meantime, Adrian is down on his luck despite all that pocket-lining, and for a consideration will carry out any small task, provided it be devious. I told him to accost Francis in private, and arrange a meeting between us. I did not want to see Francis face to face myself. He would have wondered. He might have taken fright and refused me an interview. Adrian had to provide some vague talk about a shirt, and the offer of a little money if he would see me alone for a moment. Not too much money, mind, because nothing rouses a man’s suspicions so quickly as an over-large reward for a small business. Without saying who was behind this, Adrian was to tell Francis that someone had important matters to communicate to him – to do with the shirt. With so little a thing may a man be ensnared. I almost wish that the shirt had been something slighter, perhaps a handkerchief. Why, a man’s life might be laid down for a handkerchief.

The little servant came out of the side gate of the main garden. It was late in an autumn evening and a thin, insinuating mist had started to rise from the river. He did not like being out at this hour, no doubt believing, like many simple souls, that he would be blasted by the night air. If it hadn’t been for the promise of money, and more importantly, the mention of his shirt I don’t suppose he would have appeared at all. And oh the shirt! You would have thought from his anxiety that it had been woven of the finest holland rather than the coarse cheap thing it actually was – dowlas, filthy dowlas. I would not have have worn it on my back for ten pounds. Francis saw me standing in the shadows – or rather he saw my shape.

‘Master—’

I could hear the apprehension in his voice. He was shifting around like an animal about to be slaughtered. I was afraid he was going to bolt back through the door, so I put on my calmest, most reassuring manner.

‘No master now but a friend, Francis.’

‘I hope so, sir.’

‘Master Adrian has talked much of you and tells me what a fine servant you are.’

‘I do my best, sir.’

‘You were present when the body of Sir William Eliot was found, I know.’

I had grown used to the dark and so, even with the mist swirling about us, I could almost see the start he gave at this unexpected subject. When Francis spoke there was a tremor of pride in his voice.

‘It was me who found the late master. In his hammock.’

I resisted the temptation of saying, And it was I who put him there. Instead I said, ‘There are worse places to die than in one’s hammock. To pass from a little sleep to a larger one.’

‘Another gentleman spoke to me recently of . . . that same thing. He wanted to know how I discovered Sir William and other things.’

‘Such as?’

‘How my lady carried herself. What were her words that came at me when I was feeling the darkness on the other side of the wall. He had a deal of questions.’

‘It is Master Revill that you mean?’

‘Him, sir, the player.’

‘Francis, accompany me, would you? I have something to show you.’

‘Pardon me, sir, but could not this business be conducted indoors?’

‘No house but has hidden eyes, Francis.’

This reply seemed to satisfy him, for after a pause he continued, ‘Master Adrian, he said you had a shirt. It has gone from the trunk under my bed these two days. A man like me may measure his worth in the world by his shirts. I have little else.’

‘You have hit on the very matter that I wished to talk to you about – your shirt.’

‘We are talking now, sir.’

‘Somewhere more removed. Why, this is almost a thoroughfare.’

This was nonsense. Mixen Lane leads nowhere but to the river, and who would be going down there on a cold misty autumn night? The only passengers would be drunks who had lost their way or groping couples too poor to pay for a straw pallet in a flea-ridden leaping-house, and thinking to recline on the soft stinking banks of our Thames.

‘Come Francis, I mean you no harm, and look what I have here – see!’

With a flourish that would have befitted the stage I produced the shirt from under my cloak. It seemed to glimmer as I passed it over, although for all that was to be seen in the misty darkness I might have shown him a piece of bed-sheet. Francis reached out eagerly and clasped the unwashed item. I believe he even put it up to his nostrils and snuffed his own scent. The question that would have sprung to my lips in such circumstances – why had I taken this garment into my hands? – did not occur to the simple servant or, if it did, he chose not to voice it.

‘There are one or two other things I must discuss with you, Francis, and they concern the death of your late master. I have to tell you’ – and here I leaned closer to him and whispered confidentially – ‘that I suspect foul play was involved. I need your help. I need your head in this matter, but we must discuss it elsewhere.’

I took him by the arm and turned in the direction of the river. When you speak soothingly to an animal and caress it, the creature will follow you at heels, even though it is half aware that it goes to its doom; even so I urged Francis to accompany me with mild words and a gentle touch. He permitted himself to be led by the nose. The lane sloped down towards the water and turned into a muddy slide. The tide was out, and the slime and stones that spend half their long lives under the filthy water were revealed to the nose if not the eye. I sensed rather than heard the river’s black rush beyond the bank of the mist.

‘Here, sir?’

He was frightened again.

‘This is away from prying eyes, is it not.’

‘It is night, sir, and quiet and misty. Who is see to us?’

‘Just so.’

He tried again. ‘It is not healthful to be out and about so late.’

‘We shall not be long. Anyway you are close to the house and that should bring you comfort.’

Behind us, though unseen, loomed the garden wall. It was in there, over the wall, last spring that I had . . . And now here, almost in the same spot again, I was to . . . perhaps there is no end to this process once it has been begun. Murder breeds murder. It is the slippery slope, like the muddy chute which leads down to the banks of our river. It is even as the descent into hell, easy and easier still the further that you slide down. Facilis est descensus Averno.

‘Why should I need comfort?’ said Francis.

‘It is a comfort to be close to the familiar, when one is in extremis.’

Poor man, he did not understand exactly what I meant but he knew what was going to happen. I held him by the upper arm, but tenderly. If he had wanted to, he could have broken away, have slithered and scrabbled across the mud and pebbles up into the safety of Mixen Lane and the side-door of his master’s house. Even in the darkness he should have found his path by the upward slant of the ground. He was a quick, nervous man, and might possibly have outrun me; but I knew he would not attempt to leave my grasp.

‘You knew I was there, Francis?’

‘I do not think so, sir.’

‘No matter. You my not have seen me but I have seen you. You jerked your head round, so, as you crossed the garden which lies over that wall.’

In the darkness I mimed the sudden movement of the head which I remembered him making. His upper arm tensed under my grasp. Perhaps he was able to see me now. The mist on the river gave off a queer dirty yellow light as if it were sickening from within.

But if Francis saw me now, he had not glimpsed me then, on the day that I murdered William. Francis, the good servant sent in quest of his master, had turned his white face straight at me but his eyes were not accustomed to the growing dark and I was obscure among the budding foliage. To me, on that evening in early spring, the scene appeared almost light as day. I had owl-sight. The moon was up, and the evening star hovered atop the wall. Moments later I had heard him gasp as he stumbled across the body of my enemy, which swayed slightly in the airs of evening. Then there were torches and confusion; flickering lights while the body was hoisted from the hammock; a woman wailing, one of the servants and not my lady Alice. But before all that to-do I had witnessed the action which Francis performed: delicately, he extended his arm and brushed at the cheek of his deceased master. It was a gesture that spoke well for him, it was a gentle and gracious movement. It was also the gesture that would now ensure his death.