‘I cannot say. Thomas did not discuss his work with me. I explained that to you. All I know is that he paid regular visits to the workshops at the palace to consult with Sir Godfrey. And then those visits stopped.’
‘Why?’ asked Firethorn.
‘Thomas would not tell me.’
‘Did you have no inkling of your own?’
‘None, Master Firethorn. It was not my place.’
Nicholas was curious. ‘How soon after these regular visits broke off did your brother meet his death?’
‘Less than a month.’
The three men were exercised by the same thought. Thomas Brinklow was not killed at the behest of a spiteful enemy who lusted after the former’s sister. He was removed out of the way so that his papers could fall into the hands of Sir Godfrey Avenell. Something in among those drawings and calculations was a sufficient motive for murder.
Nicholas Bracewell spoke for all three of them.
‘Have you nothing of your brother’s work to show us?’
‘Go to Deptford and you may see many examples of it,’ she said. ‘The royal dockyards worship the name of Thomas Brinklow. They will show you his navigational instruments.’
‘I hoped for something here in the house.’
‘It was all consumed in the fire.’
‘Some tiny item must surely survive,’ he continued. ‘He lent his skills to the design of this beautiful house. Did he not also create something to use or display in it?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Except one trifling gift for me.’
‘Gift?’
‘It is hardly worth mention, Nicholas. I would certainly not offer it as an example of Thomas’s genius. He was a man who could invent telescopes to read the heavens and devices to plumb the depth of the sea. A simple knife is but a poor epitaph for him.’
‘Knife?’
‘He gave it to me to unseal letters.’
‘May we see it, please?’
‘If you wish, but what interest can it hold for you?’
Nicholas was adamant. ‘Send for it, I pray.’
‘I’ll fetch it myself directly,’ she volunteered.
In the short time it took her to get the knife, the three friends had agreed on the likely motive for the first murder. It was grounded in the scientific and engineering experiments of Thomas Brinklow. He had been killed for his papers. Failure to steal them had led Freshwell to the gallows with his tongue cut out and Maggs to the Isle of Dogs. What was so important about the mathematician’s work that justified such a wholesale waste of human life?
Nicholas Bracewell was made aware of another anomaly.
‘Maggs told you that they found the place on fire?’
‘Yes, Nick,’ said Elias. ‘It was not their work.’
‘Whose then was it? Someone started that blaze.’
Emilia came back into the room bearing a long, thin knife with a pearl handle. At first glance, it looked no more than an attractive implement for domestic use but Nicholas had second thoughts when he handled it. The knife was unusually light in his grasp and gave off a peculiar sheen. He passed it to Firethorn who was quite intrigued.
‘Your brother made this for you?’ he asked.
‘In his workshop.’
‘From what metal?’
‘He did not say.’
‘It is lighter by far than any knife I have seen,’ said Nicholas, taking it back into his own hands. ‘Yet its balance is perfect and its edge well-honed. May I test it against my dagger? I am loathe to damage it if it is the only keepsake you have of your brother.’
‘This house is keepsake enough,’ she said, realising that the knife might after all hold significance. ‘Do as you think fit with it, Nicholas.’
He slipped his dagger from its sheath and used it to clip the blade of the knife sharply. The latter withstood the blow without a blemish. Nicholas hit the blade much harder next time but it was still equal to the test. He passed the dagger to Owen Elias, then held the knife in front of him by its handle and its tip so that it lay horizontal. The Welshman lifted the dagger and smashed its blade down against the target.
‘Aouw!’ he yelled, shaking his hand. ‘I have jarred my wrist. It was like striking against solid stone.’
Nicholas examined the two weapons. There was a deep nick in the blade of his dagger but the knife was unscathed.
‘Germans,’ he murmured.
‘Speak up, Nick,’ ordered Firethorn.
‘Germans. The two men who brought Master Chaloner here last night spoke to each other in German.’
‘This is Greenwich,’ said Elias, ‘and full of musicians from the palace. They come from all nationalities and you may hear a dozen languages in the streets. French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese. Even German, I daresay.’
‘They were no musicians, Owen. But armourers.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because the best craftsmen in Europe were brought to the palace to make armour in its workshops. Most of them were German. They are experts at their work. They know how to bend the finest metals to their will. The finest-and the strongest.’
He held the knife out on the palm of his hand.
***
When Topcliffe lifted the poniard from the table, Edmund Hoode went weak at the knees. Wrists manacled, he had been hauled out of the Marshalsea and taken by prison cart to the house of the interrogator. Richard Topcliffe was seated behind a long table when the prisoner was brought in by the two gaolers. He made Hoode stand directly in front of him so that he could appraise him in minute detail, searching-or so the playwright feared-for the points of greatest weakness and vulnerability about his anatomy. As Topcliffe picked up the little dagger, Hoode feared that it would be used to cut a first morsel of flesh but his host reached instead for one of the large red apples in a bowl. Slicing it in two, he looked up quizzically at his guest.
‘Remove the manacles,’ he said.
‘We have orders to keep him restrained,’ said one of the gaolers. ‘He may be desperate.’
Topcliffe was curt. ‘I will not have the fellow trussed up in irons before me. Remove them without delay and then remove yourselves.’ The two men hesitated. ‘Master Hoode will not try to run away. I can vouch for him.’
The playwright had neither the strength nor the will-power to take to his heels. He was grateful to have the manacles unlocked and pulled off the wrists that they were chafing so badly but he would have preferred his two companions to remain. As the gaolers left the room, he hoped that they would linger nearby. Richard Topcliffe was the last man in the world with whom he cared to be left alone.
His host bit into the apple and chewed it slowly. He was much older than Hoode had anticipated, perhaps sixty, and his grey hair had an almost saintly glow. The doublet and hose of black satin came in stark contrast to the whiteness of his face. His body was lean, his shoulders rounded, his hands covered in knotted veins. Hoode found it difficult to believe that a man who looked like a retired bishop could possess such an insatiable appetite for cruelty.
Then he looked into Topcliffe’s eyes. They were dark whirlpools of malice that seemed to contain the frothing blood of his countless victims. Hoode felt as if he were staring at an evil force of nature. No further torture was needed to make him submit. Those eyes caused pain enough.
Topcliffe’s voice was like a poniard between his ribs.
‘Welcome to my home, Master Hoode.’
‘Thank you,’ gulped the other.
‘I have been asked to speak with you in private.’ He swallowed a piece of apple and sat back. ‘How do you like the Marshalsea, sir?’
‘I do not.’
‘Are the food and company not to your liking?’
‘Indeed, they are not.’
‘Then let us see if we can improve your accommodation. If you help me, I will see what I may do to assist you. I do not like to see you suffer so.’ He wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘And carry such an abominable stink.’ He glanced down at a sheaf of papers in front of him and read something that made him click his tongue in admonition. ‘You have been reckless, Master Hoode. Seditious libel is no light matter.’