from the Moluccas. Looking down Long Southwark to the bridge, he saw nothing but people, wains and farm beasts, packed tight in an endless stream. He shuddered at the thought of what might have been, had the hellburner done its foul work.
St Augustine Inn was less than a furlong from the gaol. Shakespeare walked straight in, for the door was open. A family of ten huddled in the first room he saw, a drab band of whores in the next. He asked after Ingram Frizer. No one would admit to knowing him. He looked in all the tenements. There were only poor families, whores and rats. Not a clue as to his whereabouts.
The windows were shuttered at Robert Poley’s splendid, timbered townhouse in Birchin Lane, just north of Lombard Street. Yet it was not entirely empty, for a housekeeper answered the door to Shakespeare.
‘I would speak with Mr Poley,’ Shakespeare demanded.
‘I fear he is not here, master,’ the woman said. She was an honest-looking woman in her thirties. Shakespeare looked at her questioningly and wondered why any decent goodwife would wish to work for a villain such as Poley.
‘When will he be back?’
‘He has left for the summer, master. Gone to the country to escape the pestilence. I just come here to dust and look out for the place while he’s away.’
‘Did he say which part of the country?’
‘Norfolk, I do believe. He said he would be travelling for a few weeks and that he might go to the Low Countries for a while. He has a friend with him, sir, one Nicholas Skeres.’
Shakespeare looked at the woman’s eyes yet more closely and could see no dissembling in them. So Poley and Skeres had left town, and Frizer was gone, too. Well, that was most convenient for them. Shakespeare cursed beneath his breath, then smiled at the woman and thanked her for her assistance. There was only one more place to try: Deptford.
It was a journey of no more than half an hour by tilt-boat. Shakespeare paid the watermen, then strode across the green to the fine house of Ellie Bull. He hammered at the door, with more than a hint of impatience. He was well aware that Cecil would be in a fury if he had any idea what he was about and would damn him for not devoting his time to the Scots prince or the Spanish woman. But since the arrival of his brother, there was this matter of Marlowe again, this murder; he was convinced of it. It had lain unquestioned too long.
Mrs Bull eyed him warily. ‘Yes, master, how may I help you?’
‘I am John Shakespeare, an officer of Sir Robert Cecil.’
‘Yes, sir, I know that.’
‘You are well informed, mistress.’
‘You were here at the inquest on poor Mr Marlowe, here in my humble house.’
Shakespeare looked up at the facade of the building. There was nothing at all humble about it. Ellie Bull had clearly been left a widow of some means, for the house had a large frontage, all in a single wood frame, and a pleasant aspect with views across Deptford Green and the river. It was well away from all the other housing in the village.
‘I would come in and talk with you.’
‘And why would that be, sir?’ Ellie Bull stood her ground and crossed her plump arms across her ample bosom. She would have been a comely girl in her younger days, and still had an attractive blush to her cheeks. But there was a hint of hardness about her, too, the hardness of a woman of business who liked gold and would not give an inch in the getting and keeping of it. ‘I have no knowledge of the sad events in my house. I had let the room to the gentlemen for their afternoon of gaming and drinking, and the next thing I knew, there was a brabble and an accidental death. That is all I know or can tell you, Mr Shakespeare.’
‘Did you hear the fight?’
Mrs Bull hesitated.
‘It is a simple enough question, mistress. There was a violent quarrel. You must have heard something, for you were in the house, bringing them refreshments of ale and sweetmeats from time to time. Yes?’
‘I may have heard something… but I paid it no heed. Young gentlemen will fight and brawl now and then. It is their nature. No concern of mine.’
‘But you heard something?’
‘I suppose I did. Yes, now that I come to think of it.’
‘What time was that?’
‘As I recall, the inquest was told it was six of the clock.’
‘That is not what I asked, mistress.’
‘If the inquest said six, then six it was.’
‘Who was in the room that day? Did men come and go?’
Mrs Bull began ticking off names on her fingers. ‘Well, there was Mr Marlowe, of course, and Mr Poley. Oh, and the poor lad who killed him in the terrible accident, Mr Frizer. And I believe there was one other, a jolly, red- bearded fat fellow — that’s him, Nicholas Skeres. Fine gentlemen all.’
‘Do you know where they are now? Where is Frizer?’
‘The only one I know of is Mr Frizer. I do believe him to be in the Marshalsea.’
‘No, he has had his pardon.’
‘Well, then, I am mighty pleased for the lad, for he did not deserve to be incarcerated for defending himself. Any man must have the right of self-defence.’
‘Where might he have gone?’
‘Home?’
‘No. He is not there.’
‘Well, he is certain not here, so I could not say.’
‘What of the fifth man? There was a fifth man in the room.’
Mrs Bull looked puzzled and began counting off names on her fingers again, then shook her head. ‘No, sir, four was the number.’
‘What manner of house is this, Mrs Bull? For it is surely no tavern, nor inn — yet these men — these five men — treated it as a taproom that day. Or if not a taproom, they had some other purpose. So I say again, what manner of house is this?’
‘It is my dwelling-house, sir, and respectable. My late husband and I did bring up twelve children within these walls, though none survived, God rest their poor little souls.’
‘If it is nothing but a dwelling, why were Poley, Marlowe and the others here that day?’
‘It was a favour, sir, a favour for a friend. Now, if you have learned all you require, I must be about my chores.’
‘I am not finished with you. This matter is Council business, ordered by Sir Robert Cecil. I will have answers from you, for I believe there were five men here that day and that Marlowe died earlier, more like three or four of the clock, and that one man had to slip away unobserved. I believe you all conspired to lie about the time of death in case anyone in the vicinity saw this fifth man leave. It would not have done to link him with the death.’
The warm cheeks of Ellie Bull suddenly took on the sharp-edged aspect of the business woman that she was. ‘You can name your names, Mr Shakespeare, and speak of Sir Robert Cecil and the Council, but I tell you this — I am kin of Cecil and old Burghley and I will not be intimidated by you, nor have words put in my mouth. The tale was told at the inquest, and that is that. The matter is at an end. Good day.’ She stepped back into the spacious innards of the house, and slammed the door shut in Shakespeare’s face.
‘If you were going to murder a man, Joshua, why go to the bother of luring him to a house in daylight? Why share a few cups of ale and then stab him through the eye? Why not, instead, wear a cowl, slide up to your intended victim in a side-street by night and cut his throat? Or run the man through with a sword?’
Joshua Peace was examining the lacerated tongue of a woman found dead, probably murdered, near the archbishop’s palace in Lambeth. ‘You have a very good point, John.’
‘Which means that Poley and the others did not take Marlowe to Widow Bull’s house to murder him. Why, then, was he there? If they had wanted to play at cards and take ale together, why not go to a tavern or inn? There are plenty of those in Deptford.’
‘Perhaps the widow offered them a good price for ale… or a fair sirloin of beef?’
‘The widow Bull does not need the money. There is something else: she is well connected, claiming some
