Ingram was surprised. ‘Not conducting the choir?’
‘No, alas. Too old and too infirm, like me.’
‘You seem as well as ever, Geoffrey.’
‘I shall not look on seventy again, master.’
After more pleasantries between porter and former chorister, the visitors set off in search of the Master of the Chapel. They went up the stairs and into the playhouse. Nicholas paused to stare with admiration. It was an inspiring little auditorium with features that made the Queen’s Head seem primitive. James Ingram was also struck by the major improvements made to the theatre he had known, but neither man was allowed to take a full inventory.
As soon as their eyes moved to the stage itself, they abandoned their appraisal of the building immediately for they were looking at the most dramatic event ever to take place upon its boards. Cyril Fulbeck was indeed there, but he was in no position to talk to either of them. Hanged by the neck, he was swaying slowly to and fro, his spindly legs some five feet above the stage.
The stunned silence was broken by the sound of eerie laughter that seemed to come from somewhere in the tiring-house. The Master of the Chapel was dead and someone was enjoying his demise to the full. Rising in volume, the laughter echoed around the theatre and took on a note of savage celebration.
Chapter Four
Nicholas Bracewell reacted with speed. Running to the edge of the chest-high stage, he put a hand on it and vaulted up in one easy movement. His first concern was for the victim and he checked to see if the man were still alive, but Cyril Fulbeck was palpably beyond help. James Ingram joined him to look up at the swollen tongue, the contorted expression on the face and the slack body. The last remaining ounces of life had been wrung out of the old man’s emaciated frame. Having served his Maker with gentleness and dedication, he had gone to meet Him in the most excruciating way.
The weird laughter stopped, a door banged in the tiring-house and a key could be heard turning in a lock. Nicholas dashed through one of the exits at the rear of the stage and found himself in the tiring-house, which was divided into three main bays. Costumes were hanging from racks and an array of properties was piled up on a low table. A quick search of the whole area revealed a door in one corner, but when Nicholas tried to open it, he found it locked. There seemed to be no other rear exit from the tiring-house.
Leaping off the stage, he sprinted back down the auditorium and descended the winding staircase to the Porter’s Lodge. Geoffrey had dozed off to sleep again but he came awake as the book holder went haring past him and out into the Great Yard. Nicholas dashed up to the southern end of the building and scoured it carefully, but he could see nobody. When he tried the door in the room immediately below the tiring-house, it was also locked, as were the doors on the side of the building which gave access to the parlour and the lower hall.
Nicholas called off the search. To reach the exterior of the tiring-house, he had run well over a hundred yards, giving his quarry far too much time to escape. He returned quickly to the theatre itself via the Porter’s Lodge. Curious to know what was happening, Geoffrey had staggered up the stairs and gone into the auditorium. The hideous sight halted him in his tracks. Nicholas was just in time to catch him as the porter’s legs buckled beneath him. Ingram, who had been peering through one of the arched windows that looked out on Water Lane, hurried across to help him. They carried the porter to a bench and lowered him onto it, taking care to stand between him and the stage in order to block out the sight of the hanged man.
Geoffrey was wheezing heavily and trembling all over. One hand clutched at his breast. Tears flowed freely. It was minutes before he was able to utter a word.
‘Not Master Fulbeck!’ he groaned.
‘That is how we found him,’ said Ingram softly.
‘He was my dear friend.’
‘Mine, too, Geoffrey.’
The porter tried to rise. ‘Let me cut him down!’
‘Rest,’ said Nicholas, easing him back onto the bench.
‘Cut him down!’ insisted the old man. ‘I’ll not leave Master Fulbeck up there like that.’
‘I’ll do it straight,’ agreed the book holder.
While Ingram remained to soothe the porter, Nicholas clambered back up onto the stage. The rope from which the Master of the Chapel was dangling went up through a trap-door in the ceiling. Nicholas could see the elaborate winding-gear above that enabled scenic devices and even actors themselves to be lowered onto the stage during the performance of a play. A facility of which Cyril Fulbeck would have been very proud had been used to engineer his death.
Nicholas ran into the tiring-house, went up the ladder to the storey above and found the windlass that controlled the apparatus. Slowly and with reverence, he lowered the dead body to the stage, then returned swiftly in order to examine it. Cyril Fulbeck’s bulbous eyes seemed to be on the point of popping out of their sockets. His skin was a ghastly white, his neck encircled by an ugly red weal. But it was the trickle of blood on his shoulder which interested Nicholas. When he rolled the corpse gently onto its side, he saw an open wound in the man’s scalp.
As he lay the man on his back again, Nicholas observed that the hem of his cassock was torn, that his black stockings were badly wrinkled and that one of his shoes had come off. He released the noose and lifted the rope clear of its victim. Slipping back into the tiring-house, he chose a large cloak from among the costumes and used it to cover the entire body.
‘Let me see him!’ sobbed Geoffrey. ‘Let me see him!’
‘Stay here, old friend,’ advised Ingram, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘You have seen enough.’
‘He was driven to it, Master Ingram.’
‘Driven?’
‘To take his own life. ’Tis shameful!’
‘Suicide?’ asked Nicholas, joining them again. ‘Who or what might have driven him to that?’
‘It is not my place to say, sir,’ said Geoffrey, ‘but this I can tell you. Master Fulbeck was very unhappy. It broke his heart, some of the things that went on here. He told me once that his spirits were so low that he was even thinking of putting an end to his misery.’ He pointed to the prostrate figure on the stage. ‘And now he has!’
‘Calm down, calm down!’ said Ingram, patting him on the back. ‘Master Fulbeck may not have died by his own hand.’
‘He did not,’ confirmed Nicholas.
The porter flinched from this new intelligence.
‘Murdered!’ he gasped. ‘Never! Who would lay a finger on Master Fulbeck? He was the gentlest soul alive.’
Nicholas sighed. ‘Gentle but weak. Unable to defend himself against attack. Who else has been in the building today?’
‘None but Master Parsons and the choristers. The boys all left this afternoon.’
‘And Raphael Parsons?’ said Nicholas.
‘He stayed for a while with Master Fulbeck, then left.’
‘You saw him go?’
‘Not with my own eyes. He left by the other exit.’
‘Through the door in the tiring-house?’
‘He always comes and goes that way.’
‘How, then, can you be certain that he quit the building? That door is a long way from the Porter’s Lodge.’
‘I spoke with Master Fulbeck not an hour since,’ explained Geoffrey. ‘He came to the Lodge to draw some water for refreshment. ’Twas he told me that Master Parsons had gone. I think that words had passed between them again. Master Fulbeck was very upset.’
‘Did he say why?’ probed Nicholas.
‘No, sir. Nor was it my place to ask.’
‘Did anyone else visit the theatre this evening?’
‘Not a soul.’
‘Is there no chance that somebody may have come here and escaped your notice?’
The porter was affronted. ‘Nobody came, sir. I can vouch for that. Old I may be, but blind and deaf I am not. No man alive could sneak past Geoffrey Bless. Even when my eyes close in sleep, my ears stay wide open. Nobody passed me.’