The thin-faced man glanced up. “Ah, at last. You have not come a moment too soon to this place, Master Constable. He has barely a moment more of life.”
“God send you a good morrow, Doctor Tate,” replied Constable Drew in black humor. He knew the elderly physician and acknowledged the man before he moved to the bedside.
The young man was, indeed, barely conscious and obviously feverish. There was a bluish pallor that lay over his skin, which showed the swift approach of death.
“Master Keeling,” he said loudly, bending to the dying man’s face. “Who did this thing? Who stabbed you?”
The young man’s eyes were open, but they were wandering about the room. He seemed to be muttering something. The constable leaned closer. He could just hear the words, and their diction indicated a person of some education.
“What’s that you say, good fellow? Speak clearly if you can.”
The lips trembled. “Oh for… for a Muse of fire… that would ascend the… the brightest heaven of invention…”
Master Drew frowned. “Come, good fellow, try to understand me. Answer you my simple question…. What manner of knave has done this to you?”
The young man’s eyes brightened, and Master Drew suddenly found a hand gripping his coat with a power that one would have not thought possible in a dying man. The lips moved; the voice was stronger. “Once more unto… unto…” He began to cough blood. Then suddenly he cried loudly, “Let the game begin!”
The voice choked in the man’s throat. The pale blue eyes wavered, trying to focus on the constable’s face, and then the pupils dilated as, for a split second, the young man realized the horror of the imminent fact of death.
The constable gave a sigh and removed the still-clutching hand from his jacket and laid it by the side of the body. He whispered softly: “Now entertain conjecture of a time, when creeping murmur and the pouring dark fills the wide vessel of the universe….”
“What’s that?” demanded the physician grumpily.
“No matter,” Master Drew replied as he moved aside and gestured to the body. “I think he has run his course.”
It did not need the physician’s quick examination to pronounce that the man was dead.
“What was the cause of death?” asked Master Drew.
“A thin blade knife, Master Constable. You will see it on the table where I placed it. It was left in the wound. One swift incision was made in the chest, which I deduced caused a slow internal bleeding, thus allowing him to linger between life and death for the last several hours.”
“Presumably not self-inflicted?”
“Most certainly not. And you will notice that the window is opened and a nimble soul might encounter little difficulty in climbing up with the intention of larceny.”
“You have an observant eye, Master Physician.” The constable smiled thinly. “Can it be that you are interested in taking on the burdens of constable?”
“Not I!” laughed the physician. “I need the prospect of a good livelihood.”
Master Drew was turning the knife over in his hands. It told him nothing. “Cheap,” he remarked. “The sort that any young coxcomb along the waterfront might carry at his waist. It tells me little.”
Doctor Tate was covering the body with the bloodstained sheet. “Poor fellow. I didn’t understand what he was saying at the end. Ranting in his fever, no doubt?”
“Perhaps,” replied the constable. “But articulate ranting nonetheless.”
Doctor Tate frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps you don’t frequent the Globe?” The constable smiled. “He was reciting some lines out of Master Shakespeare’s play The Life of King Henry the Fifth.”
“I didn’t take you for one who frequents the playhouses.”
“A privilege of my position,” Master Drew affirmed solemnly. “I am allowed free access as constable. I find it a stimulation to the mind.”
“There is too much reality to contend with than living life in make-believe,” dismissed Doctor Tate.
“Tell me, good Doctor, did the young man say aught else before I came?”
“He said nothing but raved about battles and the like. Something about St. Crispin’s Day but that is not until next October, so I do not know what he meant by it.”
The physician had turned from the body and was packing his small black bag.
“I can do no more here. The matter rests with you. But I would extract my fee before I depart.”
“Take your fee and welcome,” sighed the constable, glancing round the room. It was untidy. It appeared as if someone had been searching it, and he asked the physician if the room had been disturbed since he had arrived.
The physician was indignant. “Think you that I would search for a fee first before I treated a gentleman?” he demanded.
“Well, someone has been searching for something.”
“And not carefully. Look! Some jewels have been left on the table there. I’ll take one of those pearls in lieu of a coin of this realm.”
Master Drew pulled a cynical face. “A good profit in that, Doctor Tate. However, I’ll not gainsay your right.”
The physician swooped up the pearl and held it up to the light. The smile on his face suddenly deepened into a frown, and he placed the pearl between his teeth and bit sharply. There was a crack, and the physician let out a howl of rage. “Paste, by my troth!”
Master Drew walked over and examined the other pieces of jewelry scattered nearby. There were some crushed paste jewels on the floor. A small leather purse also lay there with a few coins in it. He took out the coins.
“Well, paste jewels or no, he was not entirely destitute. There is over a shilling here, which will pay for a funeral if we cannot find his relatives. And here, good physician, three new pennies for your fee.” He grinned sourly. “I wager that the three pennies are closer to the value of your service than ever that pearl, had it been real, would have been.”
“Ah, how is a poor physician to make a decent living among the impoverished derelicts along this riverbank, Master Constable? Answer me that, damme! Answer me that!” The physician, clutching his coins, left the room.
Master Drew gazed down at the shrouded body of the young man and shook his head sadly.
An educated young man who could recite lines from popular theatrical entertainment but who used cheap paste jewelry. Surely this was a curious matter? He turned and began to search the room methodically. The clothes were many and varied, and while giving an appearance of rich apparel, on closer inspection were actually quite cheap in quality and often hastily sewn.
He noticed that there were some papers strewn around the room, and bending to pick them up, he saw a larger pile on the floor under the bed. He drew these out and examined them. It was a text of the play The Life of Henry V by Will Shakespeare. The lines of Henry V had been underlined here and there.
“Well, well, Master Keeling,” the constable murmured thoughtfully. “This sheds a little light in the darkness, does it not?”
He gathered up the script and turned out of the room, closing the door. There was nothing more he could do there.
The innkeeper was awaiting him at the bottom of the stair. He appeared anxious. “The physician says the gentleman do be dead now, Master Constable. Did he identify his assailant?”
“Indeed he is, Master Penhallow. Some words with you about your gentleman guest.” Master Drew frowned suddenly, and an idle thought occurred to him. “Pentecost, is that your first name, you say?”
“That it be,” agreed the man, somewhat defensively.
“Your parents being no doubt pious souls?”
“Not more so than anyone else.” He was defiant, but then he realized what was in the constable’s mind. “Pentecost be a good Cornish name; the name of my mothers family. Pen ty cos means ‘dwellers in the chief house in the wood.’”