He slashed away with his weapon and Tarker jumped back involuntarily but he was not the target of the attack. Sir Godfrey Avenell was taking out his anger on the glistening armour, hacking away at the decorated breastplate until he knocked the whole suit over with a clatter, kicking the helmet free, then jabbing madly at the leg armour. Only when he had scored the metal in a hundred places did he pause to glare across at his alarmed companion.
‘Next time,’ he warned, ‘it will be you. Kill them!’
***
Emilia Brinklow was waiting for him when he returned to the house and they shared breakfast together. Nicholas Bracewell told of the visit to Orlando Reeve but divulged nothing of what passed between them and she did not press him on the matter. They simply ate and talked together quietly as if they had been doing it every day of their lives. Emilia was transformed. The pale and dispirited creature of the night before was now poised and alert. Her cheeks had colour, her eyes hope and her whole being had acquired a new definition. Sadness still rested on her but its weight was no longer quite so suffocating.
She made no reference, either by word or glance, to their brief time together in bed and Nicholas started to wonder if it had really occurred. Was it no more than a pleasant dream sent to ease his troubled mind? Or was it some waking fantasy conjured up by the intense pressures of recent days? Had she indeed come to him and now regretted her action so much that she had blotted it out of her mind? Did their moment beside each other perhaps contribute to her apparent recovery? At all events, it was not a barrier between them and he was grateful for that.
They remained happily at the table until midday when the constable and his two assistants arrived to resume their wayward investigation. After hours of questioning those who lived in the neighbouring houses, they had divined nothing of any significance. Nicholas again steered them through their halting routine. He also ensured that their interrogation of Emilia was neither too distressing nor robust.
The manservant who discovered the body then adjourned with Nicholas to make sworn statements at the nearby home of a magistrate. Valentine was sheltered from the need to give any testimony even though he had been first aware of the arrival of tragedy on the doorstep. Nicholas saw no point in dragging the gardener into the investigation and thereby exposing his eccentric sleeping arrangements to public gaze while only further complicating the situation for the law officers. The book holder had already taken long strides forward and he did not want three well-intentioned buffoons around his feet to trip him up.
When he got back to the house once more, he was amazed to see two familiar figures dismounting from their horses.
‘Nick, dear heart!’
‘We knew that we would find you at the house.’
Nicholas was thrilled. ‘By all, it’s good to see you!’
They exchanged embraces of welcome, then compared news. Lawrence Firethorn and Owen Elias had not tarried in the Isle of Dogs. The killing of Maggs made their own presence at once unnecessary and dangerous. Survival was the only law that existed in that human jungle. They left while they still could and were ferried across the Thames on a barge with their horses. Who despatched the naked Maggs with such brutal finality they could not tell but they felt that Freshwell’s partner in crime had somehow met his just deserts.
Nicholas took them into the house and introduced them to Emilia Brinklow. She had expected to meet the whole company after the performance of The Roaring Boy but she had been hustled away from the fiasco by Simon Chaloner and had forgone that pleasure. She was clearly honoured to meet Lawrence Firethorn, an actor whose work she revered, and she delighted Owen Elias as well by complimenting him on a number of performances. Emilia had obviously been a keen follower of the fortunes of Westfield’s Men for some time. For their part, they were charmed by her grace and composure. Firethorn was so taken with her that he even started to make flirtatious remarks. Nicholas cut short this standard reaction to female admiration by telling him about the second murder. The newcomers were duly outraged.
‘Here on the doorstep?’ exclaimed Firethorn.
‘Slaughtered by the same hand,’ decided Elias.
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘Solve one murder, solve both.’
He saw that Emilia was sinking back into her grief once more and he quickly moved on to another topic. She rallied within minutes and remembered the duties of a hostess. Sensing that the men wished to be alone, she went off to the kitchen to order refreshment for the guests and to give them the chance to talk more freely.
‘Where did you spend the night, Nick?’ said Firethorn.
‘Here at the house.’
Elias chuckled. ‘We can see why you did not rush to get back to London. A warm bed here is better than a cold lodging in Shoreditch.’
‘Mistress Brinklow invited me to stay.’
‘Say no more, Nick,’ advised Firethorn. ‘We are green with envy already. On to our discoveries in the Isle of Dogs.’
‘You found Maggs?’ said Nicholas.
‘Found him and lost him.’
Firethorn recounted the tale and the book holder was spellbound. Everything he heard tallied with what he himself had found out or suspected. Between the three of them, they had made substantial progress and they at last knew the name of the man who was the true author of all the evils that had beset the Brinklow household.
‘Sir Godfrey Avenell!’ said Elias. ‘He’s worse than Freshwell and Maggs together. At least, they were honest rogues. He hides behind his rank.’
‘I’d like to meet up with the knave!’ said Firethorn.
‘You will get your chance,’ promised Nicholas. ‘Both he and Sir John Tarker are close by in Greenwich Palace. We three must find some way to smoke the two of them out. And we may not do that until we have first uncovered the deepest mystery of them all.’
‘The deepest?’ asked Elias.
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why was Thomas Brinklow killed?’
‘The play explains that,’ said Firethorn. ‘He was the victim of a malignant enemy. Sir John Tarker hated him.’
‘It is not enough,’ argued Nicholas. ‘Sir John would do nothing without the approval of Sir Godfrey Avenell. He is the key to all this. Why did he want Thomas Brinklow dead?’
‘Were Sir Godfrey and Master Brinklow also at each other’s throats?’ suggested Elias.
‘Far from it. They were good friends. They even dined in each other’s company at the palace. Indeed, it was there that Master Brinklow was introduced to the lady who was to become his wife. And who brought the two of them together?’
Even as he asked the question, Nicholas caught a glimpse of an answer he had never even considered before. It made him revalue the whole situation. Before he could share his thoughts with his friends, Emilia returned with the promise of food and drink. They rose courteously from their seats and insisted that she rejoin them. When all four were once again seated, Nicholas explored an area which had been brought to light by the visit to the Isle of Dogs.
‘When you showed me your brother’s laboratory,’ he said, ‘you spoke of his papers having been destroyed.’
‘Why, yes. In the fire.’
‘What sort of papers were they?’
‘Drawings, calculations, inventions.’
‘None survived?’
‘None at all, Nicholas,’ she said. ‘Thomas was a careful man, as I told you. His papers were like gold to him. He kept them locked away at all times out of fear.’
‘Of what?’
‘Theft by his rivals, jealous of his success.’
‘Only rivals?’ She looked perplexed. ‘Was your brother ever commissioned to work for Sir Godfrey Avenell, the Master of the Armoury?’
‘He was. On more than one occasion.’
‘What was the nature of those commissions?’