'Alice?'
'Yes!' hissed the landlord. 'When she took him up to her room, he was as quiet as a lamb. Five minutes later, she's screaming for dear life and the scurvy knave is beating her black and blue. The poor drab is in the hospital with both arms broken. But that's not the end of it, sir.'
'What do you mean?'
'The dog smashed a window upstairs and leans out to hack at our sign with his sword.'
'The Cardinal's Hat?'
'He'd have cut it down if we hadn't chased him off.' The landlord cleared his throat and spat on the floor. 'It's the same man in the drawing. If ever he steps in here again, they'll have to carry him out in his coffin!'
Sympathy and excitement stirred inside Nicholas. He was sorry that another girl had been so grievously assaulted but he was elated to have picked up the trail at last.
Redbeard had broken cover. Nicholas would stay at his heels.
*
Anne Hendrik sat in her favourite chair and worked at her sewing by the light of a large candle. Her needle rose and fell with an easy rhythm. It did not pause for a second when the front door opened her lodger returned. Anne kept her eyes and her mind on at she was doing, except that her needle now jabbed into the material with a touch of venom.
Nicholas Bracewell was puzzled. A warm smile and a welcome usually awaited him at the house. This time he had not even elicited a polite enquiry about how his day had gone. Anne sewed on.
'You have a visitor,' she said crisply.
'At this time of night?'
'The young woman insisted on seeing you.'
'Woman?' He was startled. 'Did she give her name?'
'No,' replied Ann tartly. 'Nor would she tell me what her business with you was. It was a private matter, she said. I showed her up to your chamber.' Her voice hardened as he took a conciliatory step towards her. 'Don't keep your visitor waiting, sir.'
He gestured his bafflement then went up to his bedchamber, lapping on the door before going in. The young woman leapt up from a chair and went over to him.
'Nicholas Bracewell?'
'Yes.'
'Thank heaven I've found you!'
She clasped his hands tightly and tears formed in blue eyes that looked as if they had cried their fill. The woman was short, neat, pleasantly attractive, no more than twenty and wearing a plain dress beneath a simple gown. Nicholas caught a whiff of the country. One glance told him why his landlady had been so offhand with him. The girl was clearly pregnant. Anne Hendrik had seen a distressed young woman in search of Nicholas and assumed that he was the father of the child.
He ushered her gently to a chair and knelt in front of her. The room was small but well-furnished and impeccably clean. She looked out of place in such comfortable surroundings.
'Who are you?' he asked.
'Susan Fowler.'
'Fowler?...Surely you are not his daughter?'
'No,' she replied in hurt tones. 'Will was my husband.'
Fresh tears trickled down her flushed cheeks and he took her in his arms to comfort her, letting her cry her fill before she spoke again. His head shook apologetically.
'I'm sorry. I had no idea that he was married.'
'It was almost two years ago.'
'Why did he say nothing?'
'He wanted it that way,' she whispered. 'Will said the theatre was a world of its own. He wanted somewhere to go to when he had to get away from it.'
Nicholas could sympathize with that desire but he still could not fit this attractive young housewife alongside the blunt and outspoken Will Fowler. There was a naive willingness about her that seemed unlikely to ensnare an actor, who, just like his fellows, had always taken his pleasures along the way with much more worldly creatures.
'Where do you live?' he asked.
'In St Albans. With my parents.'
'Two years ago, you say?'
'All but, sir.'
It began to make sense. Two years earlier, the company had toured in Hertfordshire and given a couple of performances at Lord Westfield's country house in St Albans. The relationship had somehow started there and, unaccountably, led to marriage. What now assailed Nicholas was a shaming guilt. They had laid Will Fowler in his grave without a thought for this helpless woman. How did you find out? he wondered.
'I knew something had happened. He always sent word.'
'When did you come to London?'
'Today. Will had spoken about The Queen's Head.'
'You went there?'
She nodded. 'The landlord told me.'
Nicholas was mortified. Of all the people to report a husband's death to a vulnerable young wife, Alexander Marwood was the worst. He could make good news sound depressing. With a genuine tragedy to retail, he would be in his macabre element. Pain and embarrassment made Nicholas enfold Susan Fowler more tightly in his arms. He took the blame upon himself. Sensing this, she squeezed his arms gently.
'You weren't to know.'
'We thought he had no next of kin.'
'There'll be two of us come September.'
He released his grip and knelt back again. Susan Fowler had been told that he was the best person to explain the horrid circumstances of her husband's death. Nicholas was as discreet as he could be, playing down certain aspects of the tale and emphasizing that Will Fowler had been an unwitting victim of a violent and dangerous man. She listened with remarkable calm until it was all over, then she fainted into his arms.
He lifted her on to the bed and made her comfortable, releasing her gown from her neck and undoing her collar. Pouring a cup of water from the jug on his table, he dipped a finger in it to bathe her forehead. When she began to stir, he helped her to sip some of the liquid. She began to rally.
'I'm sorry, sir.'
'There's no need. It's a trying time for you.'
'I miss Will so much.'
'Of course.'
'That man...at the tavern...'
'He'll be caught,' promised Nicholas.
Susan Fowler soon felt well enough to sit up with a pillow at her back. Now that her secret was out, she wanted to talk about it and did so compulsively. Nicholas was honoured that she felt able to entrust him with her confidences. It was a touching story. The unlikely romance between an ageing actor and a country girl had started with a chance meeting at St Albans and developed from there.
The picture that emerged of Will Fowler was very much at variance with the man Nicholas had known. His widow spoke of him as kind, gentle and tender. There was no mention of his abrasive temper which had led him into so much trouble and which had finally contributed to his death. Susan Fowler had been married to a paragon. Though the time they spent together was limited, it had been a blissful union.
Another surprise lay in store for Nicholas.
'We married in the village church.'
'Did you?'
'Will called it an act of faith.'
'All marriages are that,' he suggested.
