“Oh, of all the bloody wenches he could have pronged, why in God’s name did he have to choose Henry Darcie’s daughter?” Kemp moaned, putting his head in his hands and overacting, as usual. “We are undone! We are all undone!”
“Well, for one thing, ‘tis not so certain that ‘twas Smythe who did the choosing,” Shakespeare said. “Remember, I was there when she arrived. ‘Twas she who came knocking on our door in search of him, and insisted upon waiting for him to return while I went to deliver my rewrite of the play.”
“And you let her stay?” Kemp said, in a tone of outrage. “Alone in an inn, in a room shared by two men, unchaperoned?”
“Well, if she were alone, then she would be unchaperoned, wouldn’t she?” Shakespeare replied.
“You can save your poet’s word games, you know damned well what I mean!” said Kemp, angrily. “ ‘Twas your fault, then, that this whole miserable event happened in the first place!”
“How exactly do you arrive at that ridiculous conclusion?” Shakespeare countered. “How was I supposed to know whose daughter she was? I had never even heard of Henry Darcie. On the other hand, when she first arrived here and went up to our room, every single one of you was right here, wassailing and gorging yourselves on bread and cheese and meat pasties, toasting the success of the last performance. Which, I might add, would have been a miserable failure had I not doctored up your play for you.”
“Oh, I see! So now ‘tis you who are the savior of the company, is that it?” replied Kemp. “Why, you insolent young puppy-”
“Be quiet, Kemp, for Heaven’s sake!” interrupted Speed. “This is getting us nowhere. For one thing, the play was not working, and he fixed it. And I, for one, did not hear anyone disputing that fact after the performance. For another, our friend, Shakespeare, is absolutely right. We were all here, Dick and John included, when the girl arrived and asked for Smythe and none of us paid her any mind. ‘Twas not as if Elizabeth Darcie had never attended the Theatre before. She had been to many of our performances together with her father and she had met us all. We simply were not paying attention. We all saw her, but we did not notice her, because we were all much too busy celebrating.”
Kemp snorted. “Well, I cannot go paying attention to every wench who happens to pass by!”
“You pay no attention to any of them,” Speed replied, wryly, “and we all know why.”
“The question is, what are you lot going to do now?” asked Stackpole. “The girl’s parents are going to be concerned that she is missing. The sheriff’s men may be called out.”
“Oh, that is all we need!” wailed Kemp. “We shall all wind up in the Marshalsea!”
“No one is going to prison,” Shakespeare said. “None of us has done anything wrong. Smythe, admittedly, looks to be somewhat at risk, but the rest of us have not broken any laws.”
“It makes no difference,” Kemp said. “Henry Darcie has influential friends. Powerful friends. He shall have the playhouse shut down and we shall all be out of work!”
“As a principal investor, if he has the Theatre shut down, then he only ends up taking money out of his own pocket,” Shakespeare said. “And I have never known a merchant willing to do that.”
Before long, Fleming and young Burbage both arrived. When they’d heard what happened and whose daughter was involved, they had wasted no time in getting there. They were quickly informed of what had transpired in their absence. By that time, Smythe rejoined them. He was alone. No sooner had he come into the tavern than they all surrounded him, peppering him with questions and accusations.
“Enough!” Stackpole shouted at them all. “Leave the lad alone! Give him a chance to speak!”
Smythe glanced at the burly innkeeper gratefully and thanked him.
“First things first,” said Shakespeare. “How is she?”
“She has calmed down a bit and is resting,” Smythe replied. “I gave her some wine. She will sleep now, I think. She has had quite a fright, indeed.”
Stackpole brought him an ale. “There ya go, lad. On the house.”
“Thanks, Court.”
“What happened?” Speed asked.
Smythe related everything Elizabeth had told him, from the time they first met when she came to the Theatre in Gresham ’s coach to her report of Gresham ’s murder.
“Oh, God!” said Kemp, running his fingers through his hair. “Now we have a murdered nobleman! This just keeps getting worse and worse!”
“Be quiet, Will,” said Burbage, with an annoyed glance at Kemp. “Did she see who did it, Tuck?”
Smythe shook his head. “She does not recall seeing or hearing anyone or anything. They were engaged in an argument, it seems, and she was furious with Gresham for the way he’d treated her and wished that he would be struck down. The very next moment, he was.”
“Good Lord!” said Fleming.
“She said he gave a sort of grunt and fell against her. She almost went down herself, trying to support his weight, and then noticed a dagger protruding from between his shoulder blades. She quite understandably panicked and took to her heels. She ran straight back here.”
“The poor girl!” said Fleming.
“I do not understand,” said Burbage, frowning. “How could he have been stabbed and she not have seen who did it?”
“I was a bit confused about that, too,” said Smythe. “It took a while to calm her down and she does not seem to remember what happened very clearly. But she does recall that there was an alleyway behind them, so my conjecture is that someone threw the dagger from within the alleyway.”
“Threw it!” Fleming said. “Lord! It might have hit the girl!”
Smythe shook his head. “I doubt it. She said it had gone in up to the hilt. That much, she remembers vividly. Whoever threw that dagger knew what he was about.”
“What do you mean?” asked Burbage.
“He means the man was an assassin,” Shakespeare said.
“What!”
“An assassin!”
“But how could you know that?” asked Burbage.
“It only stands to reason,” Shakespeare replied. “There seems to have been no attempt at robbery. And Gresham ’s clothes alone would have fetched a tidy sum, to say nothing of his jewelry and what he must have had in his purse. Elizabeth certainly would not have deterred a robber who was willing to kill to get what he wanted. So, if the man was not killed for what he had, then he was killed for who he was. Somebody wanted Anthony Gresham dead.”
“But there is no way you can know any of this for certain,” Kemp said.
“No, not yet, anyway,” Smythe replied. “But for the moment, I can think of no other explanation.”
“So then she simply left the body lying in the street?” asked Kemp.
“What did you expect her to do, pick it up and carry it back here?” said Speed, with a grimace.
“Well, I merely meant that someone would certainly have discovered it by now,” said Kemp.
“That would be a reasonable assumption,” agreed Burbage. “Men are killed on the streets of London every night, but they are not often noblemen. The sheriff’s men will surely be asking questions.”