It appeared the playwright had taken his own life. It looked like that. Yet he had not, Nick thought. He couldn’t put his finger on the reason – he was too shaken, too confused at this moment – but Dole had not killed himself. This was a murder.
Nick took a couple of steps back from the body so that he was standing just outside the entrance to Dole’s room. He twisted round as he heard footsteps rapidly mounting the stairs. His first thought was that it was the murderer returning to see that the business was complete, or to retrieve something he’d left behind, or to take care of an inconvenient witness…
Nick fumbled in his clothing. He sometimes carried a small dagger, even though it was against the law for a man of his rank to do so. Yet today he had nothing with him, no means apart from his hands of defending himself. He could have retreated into Dole’s room, where the dead body, framed by the doorway, dangled from its makeshift noose. But he did not. Instead he shrank against the wall to one side of the tiny area between the top of the stairs and Dole’s door. He readied himself to lash out with his arms and feet.
A shape, the head and shoulders only, emerged at the top of the stairs. It paused for an instant as though to take in the scene before it. Nick couldn’t see who it was but he could hear breathing. Then the man made a kind of leap up the last couple of steps and whirled about as he reached the top. He was carrying something, a stick most likely. He struck out with it and, by chance, the blow caught Nick in the guts. He gasped in pain and doubled up on the floor.
He had no chance to defend himself properly. All he could do was to curl up and wrap his arms about his head for protection as the man rained down blows on him. From somewhere in the distance, among the blows and the attacker’s grunts and his own involuntary cries, he heard a voice, a woman’s voice. This seemed to go on for many minutes, although it was probably less than a single one. Then came the woman’s voice, nearer at hand, saying: ‘Stop, I tell you, stop!’
And, mercifully, the blows faltered and then ceased.
‘There now, Mr Revill,’ said the woman. ‘That should ease your discomfort.’
Nick Revill winced as she applied the tincture to his face and bare arms and shoulders, which had borne the brunt of the blows. Nick was sitting, dressed only in his hose, on the bed in the woman’s chamber. She was perched on a stool facing him, dabbing at the weals and bruises with a tincture which, she said, was a mixture of plantain and arnica. Sara Atkins was the landlady of the house where Christopher Dole had lived and died. She was the mother of Stephen, the young man with the close-set eyes. In the aftermath of the attack Nick had forgotten his false identity and announced that he was Nick Revill of the King’s Men. Sara Atkins was contrite, not because he was a player with a famous company but because she was a good-hearted woman. And perhaps because she felt guilt over her son’s behaviour.
For it was Stephen Atkins who had attacked Nick. His story was that, after directing Revill to Christopher Dole’s room on the top floor, he suddenly grew anxious that the visitor might be some sort of thief or ne’er-do-well. Without consulting his mother, and arming himself with a stave, he ran up the stairs, pausing at the top when he glimpsed the suspended body of the playwright through the open door. He could not see much more, since the only illumination came through the little window in Dole’s room. Stephen’s instinctive reaction was that the recent arrival at the house must have done this thing. At least that’s what he claimed. To protect himself he went on the attack, winding Nick with a lucky stroke and then continuing to rain down blows on the player until Mrs Atkins appeared and commanded him to stop. This was the explanation he gave to his mother even as Nick was being helped to his feet.
Sara Atkins was more clear-headed than her son. She asked Nick for his name. She asked what he was doing in her house. (‘Visiting Christopher Dole. I’m a player as he is – as he was.’) Then she turned to her son and questioned how long had elapsed between the visitor’s arrival and Stephen’s rush up the stairs. When she heard that it was no more than a couple of minutes, she said that there would hardly have been time for their visitor – ‘What is your name again, sir? Ah yes, Nicholas Revill’ – hardly time for him to have disposed of their unfortunate lodger. After making sure that Nick could stand unaided, she went towards the body, which was hanging in the deep gloom of the room and put out a gentle hand, almost stroking the dead man’s face. Then she pointed out that her lodger had grown cold, and so must have been gone for some time.
‘Poor Christopher. This is a dreadful thing,’ said Mrs Atkins, shaking her head and closing the door of the little upper room. She was quite composed, considering what had happened. Nick was ushered by her into her chamber on the floor below.
Stephen didn’t comment on the corpse or apologise for his actions but continued to look at Revill as though the player might still be a thief or even a murderer. Mrs Atkins told him to go and fetch the headborough to report Dole’s death. The snow was falling again and it was almost completely dark outside.
‘A dreadful thing,’ the landlady repeated after she’d finished with her application of ointments. She was referring to Christopher Dole, not Nick’s injuries. ‘A terrible crime.’
‘Why do you say crime, Mrs Atkins?’ said Nick, carefully drawing on his shirt again.
‘Self-slaughter is a crime,’ said the landlady. ‘A crime against God. What are you doing, Mr Revill? Stay here.’
Nick was pushing himself off the bed while Mrs Atkins attempted to keep him there with a hand on his shoulder. She was quite an attractive woman, small, with a firm jaw and wisps of black hair poking from under her cap. Attractive enough that Nick had been conscious of sitting facing her while dressed only in his hose. Attractive enough that he shrugged off his hurts in a manly way rather than making much of them.
‘I must look at the body again.’
‘Why?’
‘You say that Mr Dole killed himself and I admit it looks like that, but I will show you that it cannot be.’
Nick picked up one of the candlesticks that stood by the entrance to the bedchamber and clambered up the stairs once more, Sara Atkins behind him. The blows that Stephen administered were beginning to smart. Nick felt angry with the landlady’s son even if, on the face of things, his suspicions might have been partly justified. At the top, he again opened the door of Christopher’s room. By the light of the candle, he had his first clear sight of the playwright’s swollen face, his head canted to one side against the beam, his tongue protruding from his mouth as the home-made noose bit into his neck. It occurred to Nick that he had not seen Christopher Dole alive. Now he would never have the chance to ask him whether he really was the author of The English Brothers.
Aware of Mrs Atkins close behind him, he raised the candle and glanced rapidly about the room to see if he’d missed anything on his first look round. But every surface was bare, apart from the top of the desk where stood the stubs of two burned-out candles and a pile of half a dozen books. He took the top one. A scrap of paper tucked inside it fluttered to the floor. Nick bent and picked up the paper. There was a scrawled line of writing on it. He couldn’t read the words in the poor light but they didn’t appear to be in English. Hurriedly, he stuffed the paper inside his shirt.
Then he examined the book. It was a copy of The English Brothers, identical to the one Nick was carrying. Not proof exactly, but a sign that Dole was the author. Nick remembered that the dead man’s brother, Alan, was expecting some item to be returned to him. What was it? It couldn’t be the disputed play, since the bookseller already had a copy. He opened the dead man’s chest but there appeared to be nothing inside apart from a heap of undershirts. There was no sign of anything of value in the room.