Master Drew held up his hand to silence him. “Cease your concern, good master. I shall leave you to your best efforts. One thing I have to tell you. You must find a new player for the part of King Hal this evening. Master Keehan is permanently indisposed.”
“Confound him!” cried the elderly man. “What stupidity has he indulged in now?”
Master Drew smiled grimly. “The final stupidity. He has gotten himself murdered, sir.”
Arriving back at the Red Boar Inn, he found Master Pentecost Penhallow moodily cleaning pewter pots. He started as he saw the dour look on the constable’s face.
“You lied to me, Master Penhallow,” Master Drew began without preamble. “You knew well that Will Keeling was no gentleman, nor had private mean. You knew that he was a penniless player named Keehan:”
Pentecost Penhallow froze for a moment, and then his shoulders slumped in resignation. “I knew,” he admitted. “But I only knew from last night.”
“Are you a frequent playgoer then, Master Penhallow?”
The innkeeper shook his head. “I never go to playhouses.”
“Yet you paid a penny and went to the Globe last night. Pray, what took you there?”
“To see if I could identify this man Keeling… or whatever his name was.”
“Who told you that he was a player there?”
“Two days ago, one of my customers espied him entering the inn and said, ‘That’s one of the King’s Players at the Globe.’ When I said, nay, he be a gentleman, the man laid a wager of two pence with me. So I went, and there I saw Master Keeling in cavorting pretense upon the stage. God rot his soul!”
“So you realized that he was in debt to you and little wherewithal to honor that debt?”
“Indeed, I did.”
“So when you returned home in the early hours of this morning, you went to his room and had it out with him?”
When Penhallow hesitated, Master Drew went remorsefully on.
“You took a knife and stabbed him in rage at how he had led you and your family on. I gather he gave faked jewels to your daughter and promised marriage. Your rage did wipe all sense from your mind. It was you who killed the man you knew as Will Keeling.”
“I did…,” began Master Penhallow.
“Na! Na, tasyk!” cried a female voice. It was the young woman the constable had seen on the landing that morning. Penhallows daughter, Tamsyn.
“Cosel, cosel, caradow,” Penhallow murmured. He turned to Master Drew with a sigh. “This Keeling was an evil man, Constable. You must appreciate that. He used people as if they meant nothing to him. Yet every cock is proud on his own dung heap. He crowed at his vice when I challenged him. He boasted of it. His debt to me is but nothing to the debt that he owed my daughter, seducing her with his glib tongue and winning ways. All was but his fantasy, and he ruined her. No man’s death was so richly deserved.”
The young girl came forward and took her fathers arm. “Gafeugh dhym, tasyk,” she whispered.
Penhallow patted her hand as if pacifying her. “Taw dhym, taw dhym, caradow,” he murmured.
Master Drew shook his head sadly as he gazed from father to daughter and back to father. Then he said, “You are a good man, Master Penhallow. I doubted it for a while, being imbued with my prejudice against your race.”
Penhallow eyed him nervously. “Good Master Constable, I understand not-”
“Alas, the hand that plunged the dagger into Master Keehan was not your own. Speak English a little to me, Tamsyn, and tell me when you learnt the truth about your false lover?”
The dark-haired girl raised her eyes defiantly to him.
“Gorteugh un pols!” cried Penhallow to his daughter, but she shook her head.
She spoke slowly and with her soft accent. “I overheard what was said to my father the other night; that Will… that Will was but a penniless player. I took the jewels which he had given to me and went to the Dutchman by the Blackpriars House.”
Master Drew knew of the Dutchman. He was a jeweler who often bought and sold stolen goods but had, so far, avoided conviction for his offenses.
“He laughed when I asked their worth,” went on the girl, “and said they were even bad as faked jewels and not worth a brass farthing.”
“You waited until Will Keehan came in this morning. But he came in with Hal Cavendish.”
“He was in an excess of alcohol. He was arguing with his friend. Then Master Cavendish departed, and I went into his room and told him what I knew.” Her voice was quiet, unemotional. But her face was pale, and it was clear to Master Drew that she had difficulty controlling her emotions. “He laughed-laughed! Called me a Cornish peasant who had been fortunate to be debauched by him. There were no jewels, no estate, and no prospect of marriage. He was laughing at me when-”
“Constable, good Constable, she does not know what she is saying,” interrupted Pentecost Penhallow despairingly.
“That was when you came in,” interrupted Master Drew. “One thing confused me. Why was it left until morning to raise an alarm? I supposed it was in the hope that Keehan would die before dawn. When he did not, good conscience caused you to send for a physician but hoping that he would depart without naming his assailant. That was why you asked me if he had done so. That was your main concern.”
“I have admitted responsibility, Master Constable,” Penhallow said. “I will admit it in whatever form of tale would best please you.”
“You are not a good teller of tales, Master Penhallow. You should bear in mind the line from this new play in which Keehan was to act which says, as I recall it to mind, ‘men of few words are the best men.’ Too many words allow one to find an avenue through them. Instead of saying nothing, your pretense allowed me to discover your untruths.”
“I admit responsibility, good Constable. She is only seventeen and a life ahead of her, please… I did this-”
“Enough words, man! Unless you wish to incriminate yourself and your family,” snapped the constable, “I have had done with this investigation.” He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a purse. “I found this in Master Keehans room. The physician took his fee out of it. There is enough to give Master Keehan a funeral. Perhaps there might be a few pence over, though there is not enough to clear his debt. But I think that debt has now been expunged in a final way.”
Pentecost Penhallow and his daughter were staring at him in bewilderment.
Master Drew hesitated. Words were often snares for folk, but he felt an explanation was needed. “Law and justice sometimes disagree. You have probably never heard of Aristotle but he once wrote, ‘Whereas the law is passionless, passion must ever sway the heart of man.’ Rigorous adherence to the letter of the law is often rigorous injustice.”
“But what of-?”
“What happened here is that a penniless player met his death by the hand of a person or persons unknown. They might have climbed the wall and entered by the open window to rob him. It often happens in this cruel city. Hundreds die by violence, and hundreds more by disease among its teeming populace. The courts give protection to the rich, to the well connected, to gentlemen. But it seems that Master Keehan was not one of these; otherwise, I might have had recourse to pursue this investigation with more rigor.”
He turned for the door, paused, and turned back for a moment.
“Master Penhallow, I know not what conditions now prevail in your country of Cornwall. Do you take advice, and if it be possible, return your family to its protective embrace and leave this warren of iniquity and pestilence that we have created by the banks of this foul-smelling stretch of river. I doubt if health and prosperity will ever be your fortune here.”
The young girl, eyes shining with tears, moved forward and grasped his arm. “Dursona dhys!” she cried, leaning forward and kissing the constable on the cheek. “Durdala-dywy!.. Bless you, Master Constable. Thank you.”