The Counterfeit Crank

Chapter Twelve

The search was in vain. Though she spent a long time scouring the streets around her home, Anne Hendrik could not find any trace of the girl. Even when she widened the search, it was all to no avail. Anne was accompanied by her apprentice, Jan Muller, a sturdy lad whose muscular presence gave her the protection that she needed, and whose urge to find the missing girl was almost as great as Anne’s own. Though he had only met Dorothea Tate briefly, the apprentice had warmed to her at once and he was distressed to hear that she had gone missing.

‘Why should she run away?’ he asked.

‘I do not know, Jan.’

‘I thought that she liked us.’

‘Yes,’ said Anne. ‘I believe that she did. But Dorothea had a troubled mind. She may have gone somewhere to be alone with her thoughts.’

‘If she had troubles,’ he said, ‘she could have turned to me.’

‘That’s kind of you to say so.’

‘I was fond of Dorothea. We all were, even Preben.’

Anne smiled. ‘Then she was indeed popular, for Preben is too shy even to look at most girls. But he noticed this one and saw how unsettled she was.’

‘I hope she was not fleeing from me,’ said Jan, seriously.

‘No, no. You are not to blame in any way.’

‘Where would she go?’

‘I wish that I knew, Jan.’

‘Does she not know how dangerous Bankside is, even in daylight?’

‘That did not stop her from taking to her heels.’

‘Let’s move farther on,’ he suggested. ‘Along the river bank.’

‘No, Jan. We’ve hunted long enough. Dorothea is not here.’

He was upset. ‘You are going to stop looking for her?’

‘We have to,’ said Anne, resignedly. ‘We are wasting our time here. I fear that she’s gone back to the city.’

‘Then we’ll never find her.’

‘No, but Nick might.’ She pondered. ‘Can you ride a horse?’

‘Well enough to stay in the saddle.’

‘Let’s go back to the house, then,’ she urged. ‘And quickly. I’ll write a letter and you can bear it to him at the Queen’s Head in Gracechurch Street. Can you manage that?’

The lad stuck out his chest. ‘If it will bring Dorothea back to us,’ he said, bravely, ‘I’ll manage anything. Let’s make haste.’

Joseph Beechcroft had regained much of his accustomed nonchalance. He was wearing his most garish doublet and his hat sprouted no less than four ostrich feathers. As he and Ralph Olgrave walked together around one of the courtyards in Bridewell, he was very encouraged by what he heard.

‘You saw them both at the Queen’s Head?’ he enquired.

‘We did,’ replied Olgrave. ‘The Welshman is a good actor, I have to concede that. Though he took two roles in the play, they bore no resemblance to each other. One moment he was a treacherous Turk, the next, the Viceroy of Sicily.’

‘What of Nicholas Bracewell?’

‘It was as Gregory told me. The man is the book holder, and reckoned to be a power in the company for all that he’s only a hired man. We saw him when the performance was done, helping the others to pack their stage away.’

‘How did two such people come to know Hywel Rees?’

‘That does not matter, Joseph. They have to be silenced.’

‘Yes,’ said Beechcroft. ‘They know far too much for my peace of mind. The last thing we need at the moment is for anyone to peep into our affairs. We’ve another banquet arranged for tonight and I wish to enjoy it without worrying about Nicholas Bracewell and his friend.’

‘You shall, Joseph. And so shall I.’

Beechcroft smirked. ‘Whom will you choose tonight, Ralph?’

‘I’ve not made up my mind.’

‘Joan Lockyer? She’s always a favourite with our guests.’

‘Then let them take her,’ said Olgrave, holding up a hand. ‘Joan is a comely wench but I’d hate to purchase a French welcome from between those ample thighs of hers. I’ll look for safer company in my bed tonight. Someone younger and freer from disease.’

‘Only a virgin would bring that surety, and we’ve few of those left in Bridewell.’

‘Alas, yes. There’s such a special pleasure in deflowering an innocent, especially if she fights as fiercely as Dorothea Tate. You missed a treat there, Joseph.’

‘So you say.’

‘And what I missed was the chance to close that pretty little mouth of hers for ever,’ said Olgrave, bitterly. ‘That would have saved us all his bother. Well,’ he added, ‘I’ll make amends in due course. She’ll not live much longer.’

‘The two men are the greater danger,’ said Beechcroft.

‘I know that well.’

‘What have you told Gregory?’

‘To wait for his moment and strike.’

‘And who’s to be the first victim, Ralph?’

‘Owen Elias,’ said Olgrave, complacently. ‘That vexatious Welshman. Even as we speak, he may already be dead.’

Owen Elias was in his element. Having adjourned to the taproom, he was celebrating the triumphant performance of The Knights of Malta with a tankard of ale and enjoying the admiration of the spectators who were gathered there. Adam Crowmere had been watching in the yard that afternoon and, at the landlord’s instigation, Elias declaimed his opening speech as the Viceroy of Sicily. It earned him a round of applause. When he saw Nicholas Bracewell come into the taproom, the Welshman knew that his friend wanted a private word with him. Finishing his drink, he sauntered across to the book holder.

‘Will you not have some ale, Nick?’ he asked. ‘You’ve earned it.’

‘I need to keep my head clear.’

‘When will you go there?’

‘Very soon,’ said Nicholas. ‘First, I must pass on some disturbing news. A message from Anne was just handed to me, brought by her apprentice, Jan Muller.’

‘Well?’

‘Dorothea has vanished.’

Elias was rocked. ‘She was kidnapped?’

‘No, Owen. She ran away.’

‘But why? The girl was safe with Anne. Why put herself in peril again?’

‘Only she can tell us that,’ said Nicholas. ‘According to Jan, they searched Bankside for hours but saw no sign of her. The lad is clearly upset that she’s gone.’

‘So am I, Nick. What are we to do?’

‘Try to find her ourselves. Keep your eyes open, and not only for Dorothea.’

‘Who else?’

‘That man I warned you about is here somewhere,’ Nicholas told him. ‘Leonard saw him earlier on. He may well be lurking to waylay one of us. Take care, Owen.’

Elias patted his dagger. ‘I will.’

After giving the two men a signal, Nicholas went out of the taproom with Frank Quilter and James Ingram, leaving Elias to order another tankard of ale and join in the merriment. The actor was soon singing a bawdy song to amuse the others. In the convivial atmosphere, he was completely at ease and could have stayed all evening, but he had other priorities. Downing his ale, he soon bade farewell to his friends and rolled out of the inn.

It was a fine, warm evening as he walked along Gracechurch Street in the direction of the river. By the time he turned right into Canning Street, he knew that he was being followed and even caught a fleeting glimpse of the man. Elias sauntered on at the same unhurried pace, listening for the sound of the footsteps behind him, and noting that his stalker was slowly gaining on him. Crossing the road, he turned left down one of the alleyways that led to Thames Street. Once out of sight, he darted towards a lane on his right and dived swiftly down it.

Gregory, meanwhile, increased his own speed. Spying his chance to catch his victim alone, he quickened his step until he came to the alleyway. But there was nobody in sight. Elias seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Had he let himself into one of the gardens that backed on to the alleyway? Or had he slipped down one of the lanes off it? Gregory tried each garden door as he passed but they were all bolted. When he came to the lane on the right, he sensed that Elias must have gone that way, trying to outrun him. Pulling out his dagger, he broke into a trot.

He did not get very far. As he hurried along the lane, he was suddenly grabbed from behind by Elias, who had been concealed in a doorway, waiting to strike. Before he knew what was happening, Gregory was slammed hard against a stone wall. His dagger was knocked from his grasp and Elias kicked it away. Seizing him by the throat, the Welshman pressed him to the wall and held him there by sheer power.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

‘Nobody,’ said the other, still dazed. ‘I was simply walking to Thames Street.’

‘Then you came the wrong way.’ Elias unsheathed his own dagger to hold the point under the man’s chin. ‘Now, let’s have the truth or I’ll cut that lying tongue out.’

‘I mean you no harm, sir.’

‘Well, I mean you some harm. You followed me.’

‘No, that’s not true.’

‘Then why did you have a weapon in your hand, you cur?’

‘Dangers can always lurk in an alleyway.’

‘Who sent you?’

‘Nobody, sir.’

‘Who sent you?’ repeated Elias, jabbing the point of his dagger into the man’s neck. ‘Was it Joseph Beechcroft or Ralph Olgrave? Yes,’ he said, seeing the look of alarm in the other’s eyes. ‘You know them both, I think. One of those rogues sent you to find us at the Queen’s Head.’ He jabbed the dagger again and drew blood. ‘Which one of those monsters from Bridewell was it?’

Gregory was shivering. ‘Master Olgrave, sir,’ he bleated.

‘What were your orders?’

‘To follow you, that’s all.’

‘Oh, to follow me, was it?’ said Elias with sarcasm. ‘What did you intend to do when you caught up with me? Make a present of your dagger?’ He tightened his grip on the man’s neck. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Gregory Sumner,’ spluttered the other.

‘Where do you live?’

‘Leave off, sir, or you’ll strangle me!’

‘Answer my question or I’ll squeeze every ounce of breath out of you.’

‘I dwell in the workhouse,’ admitted the other. ‘I’m a keeper in Bridewell.’

‘Then you’ll know what happened to my good friend, Hywel Rees,’ said Elias, releasing his hold. ‘You’re to come with me, Gregory Sumner. I can see that you must be a religious man,’ he taunted. ‘I’ve a lawyer nearby who’ll happily hear your confession.’

Still in pain, Gregory Sumner rubbed his neck ruefully but he was only biding his time. As Elias stepped back to look at him properly, the man came to life and tried to retrieve his discarded dagger. It was a foolish move. The Welshman was ready for him. Holding him by the scruff of his neck, Elias swung him round with vicious force and threw him against the wall, drawing fresh blood and knocking all the resistance out of him. Sheathing his own dagger, Elias tucked the other weapon into his belt then bent down to remove the shoes of the fallen man. Without ceremony, he tore off Sumner’s hose and used it to tie the prisoner’s hands behind his back.

‘Come, sir,’ said Elias, lifting the man up and putting him over his shoulder. ‘I want you to meet a friend of mine. But I warn you now,’ he added with a growl. ‘Do not dare to bleed over me on the way.’

Edmund Hoode felt so much better in himself that he was able to read A Way to Content All Women once more. Indeed, by the afternoon, he had even made a tentative stab at writing a new scene for it. Doctor John Mordrake was responsible for his recovery. Having identified the poison that had been keeping the patient drowsy and confused for so long, Mordrake concocted his own remedy and administered it in person. As a result, Hoode’s brain was functioning again. His body was still tired, but his mind was racing and eager to make up for lost time.

One of the clearest indications of his improvement was the return of his subdued lust for the landlady’s daughter. When Adele came into his room that evening, Hoode hoped that she had come to change the sheets on his bed and allow him to watch her nubile body as it bent and swayed before him. In fact, the girl was only delivering a message. As she spoke, Hoode stared with idle pleasure at the expressive dimples in her cheeks and at the delicate arches of her eyebrows.

‘There’s someone below who would speak with you, Master Hoode,’ she said.

‘Did he give a name?’

‘Yes, sir. It was Tom Rooke.’

‘Tom Rooke?’ he echoed. ‘But that’s the name of a character from a play of mine called The Faithful Shepherd. Are you sure that is what he is called, Adele?’

‘I am,’ she said. ‘But this fellow is no shepherd. I can vouch for that.’

‘What sort of man is he?’

‘Not one that my mother would let into the house, sir. He’s a scurvy beggar. But he insists that he’s a friend of yours, and will not leave until he has seen you.’

Hoode was mystified. Outside of his play, he knew nobody by the name of Rooke and was not acquainted with any beggars. Curiosity took him down the stairs. When he reached the front door, he opened it to find himself looking at a bedraggled creature with a filthy cap, a patch over one eye and his arm in a sling. Either side of him was an officer but Hoode ignored them. His only interest was in the crooked figure who had sent up the name of Tom Rooke. He was certain that he had never seen the man before.

‘Do you know me, sir?’ croaked the beggar.

‘No,’ said Hoode, turning his head away in disgust, ‘and I’ve no wish to know someone who stinks as much as you. Away with you, man!’

The beggar raised himself to his full height and lifted the eye patch up. Slipping his arm out of the sling, he put both hands on his hips and used his real voice.

‘Will you deny me now?’ asked Nicholas Bracewell.

Hoode was amazed. ‘Nick!’ he gasped. ‘Is that you?’

‘It is, Edmund. I did not think to fool you so easily, but it seems that I did. Had you looked at my companions, you’d have seen that they, too, are old friends.’

‘Frank and James,’ said the playwright, recognising Quilter and Ingram and shaking each by the hand. ‘What mean these disguises?’

‘All will be explained in time,’ said Nicholas. ‘I must be brief. I called simply to see how remarkable a recovery Doctor Mordrake has brought about, and to tell you what happened after I left here last night.’

‘I thought that you went off to see Michael.’

‘And so I did. By the time I’d delivered him and Doctor Zander to a magistrate, it was far too late to call back here. And today has kept me fettered to the Queen’s Head.’

Hoode blinked. ‘What’s this about a magistrate?’

Nicholas gave him an abbreviated account of what had taken place in Cornhill. Hoode was extremely angry at Doctor Zander but, in spite of what had been done to him, managed a vestigial sympathy for Michael Grammaticus.

‘Ambition is a cruel master,’ he said. ‘It drove Michael much farther than he was able to go. I’ve been at the mercy of that ambition myself. I know the overwhelming urge to see your play performed upon a stage. It’s like a madness.’

‘Michael will pay dearly for it,’ said Nicholas. ‘But we must away, Edmund.’

‘Dressed in those rags? Will you beg in the streets?’

‘We’ll not allow that,’ said Quilter sternly, taking Nicholas by the arm.

Hoode laughed. ‘You’d make a good officer, Frank. But do not treat my friend Tom Rooke too harshly. I need him for one of my plays. And when he’s Nick Bracewell again,’ he went on, grinning happily, ‘I need him for all my plays.’

Nicholas slipped his arm back into the sling and replaced the eye patch. After giving the playwright a wave, he twisted his body into a grotesque shape and limped away between the two officers. Hoode went back inside and met Adele on the stairs.

‘No,’ he told her. ‘He was no friend of mine. I’ve never set eyes on that mangy creature before.’

Lawrence Firethorn did not know what sort of reception he would get at home. On the ride back to Shoreditch, he was not certain whether his wife had mellowed or if a night apart from her husband had merely hardened her heart. When he reached the house in Old Street, therefore, he tethered his horse to the gatepost in case he needed to make a swift departure. Finding that the front door was no longer locked, he took it as a good omen and stepped inside.

‘Margery!’ he cooed. ‘Where are you, my sweetness?’

‘In the kitchen,’ she announced in a rasping voice.

‘I’m back early today, as you will see.’

He went into the kitchen where his wife had been talking to her brother-in-law as she mixed some dough in a bowl. Jarrold could see that Margery was throbbing with displeasure. Not wishing to come between the couple at such a delicate moment, he gave a nervous smile and tried to steal away, but Firethorn flung his arms around the man to embrace him.

‘Thank God you came to stay with us, Jonathan!’ he declared. ‘You’ve been our salvation. Westfield’s Men owe you so much.’

‘They owe me nothing, Lawrence,’ said the other man, quailing before the frank display of emotion. ‘If anything is owed, it’s my apology. I hoped to get to the Queen’s Head this afternoon to watch the play, but I was detained by a bookseller with whom I was doing some business. Will you forgive me?’

‘After what you did, I’d forgive you anything.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Margery, suspiciously. ‘You’ve hardly had a word to say to Jonathan since he’s been here, yet now you greet him as if he’s the best friend you have in the world.’

‘I do so on behalf of the whole company,’ said Firethorn. ‘Has your brother-in-law not told you what help he rendered us, Margery?’

‘No, Lawrence.’

‘How could I tell what I did not even know about?’ said Jarrold.

‘Have you ever heard such modesty?’ cried Firethorn, taking him by the cheeks to plant a kiss on his forehead. ‘But for you, Jonathan Jarrold, all would have been lost. But for you, Edmund would have languished in his bed forever. But for you, that wicked doctor would have gone on poisoning him while Michael Grammaticus reaped the benefit of his absence. You exposed their villainy.’

The bookseller was baffled. ‘Did I? When was this?’

Firethorn explained how Doctor Mordrake had been called in, and how Zander and Grammaticus had been arrested for their crime. Jarrold was shocked to hear that his former customer had been involved in such gross deception, but glad that the information he supplied about Stephen Wragby had been crucial. For her part, Margery was torn between joy and remorse.

‘Edmund recovered?’ she cried with delight. ‘Back with us again?’

‘He will be very soon,’ said Firethorn.

‘And this is where you were last night? Helping to catch those two villains?’

‘Yes,’ lied her husband, seeing a way to get off the marital hook. ‘They fought hard, Margery. By the time that Nick and I hauled them off to a magistrate, the city gates had been closed. I know that I promised to be back early, but I had to look into the truth of what Jonathan told me about Michael Grammaticus.’

‘I only spoke of him to Nicholas Bracewell,’ said Jarrold.

‘Nick and I have no secrets.’

‘What will happen to The Siege of Troy? Michael claimed to have written it.’

‘We’ll perform it as a play by Stephen Wragby.’

Jarrold was about to ask another question but he was elbowed gently in the ribs by Margery. Realising that he was now in the way, he mumbled an excuse and backed out of the kitchen. She gazed up lovingly at her husband.

‘It appears that I mistook you, Lawrence.’

‘I bear no grudge, my love.’

‘But I locked you out of your own house.’

‘You felt that you had good cause.’

‘Why did you not explain it all to me this morning?’

‘Because I had to get to the Queen’s Head early and did not wish to disturb you. As you’ve heard, my love, I’ve had much on my mind these past few days.’

‘And all that I did was to add to your woes.’

‘You were not to know, Margery.’

‘I feel so mean and unjust,’ she said. ‘You’ve every right to despise me.’

He laughed artlessly. ‘Why on earth should I do that?’ He spread his arms. ‘Come to me, Margery, and we’ll say no more about it.’

She hurled herself into his embrace and surrendered willingly to his kiss, leaving the imprints of her flour-covered hands on the back of his doublet. After a moment, she pushed him away and wrinkled her nose.

‘I can smell horse dung,’ she said.

Dorothea Tate took some time to find her bearings. Having crossed London Bridge on her own, she searched for the place by the river where she and Hywel Rees had spent their nights when they first came to the city. It brought back some happy memories and she stayed to enjoy them until she was driven away by other vagrants who had claimed the refuge as their own. Dorothea wandered aimlessly, sorry that she had let everyone down by fleeing without explanation, but driven by the fear that she had been an unfair burden. She felt that it was wrong of her to impose on compassionate people like Anne Hendrik and Nicholas Bracewell. Now that they had helped her over the death of her friend, it was time for her to stand on her own feet again.

When she grew hungry, she begged some stale bread off an old woman in the market and drank water from a pump. It tasted brackish. Dorothea spat it out. Recalling the meals she had been served in Bankside, she was full of regrets but she did not even think of returning. Since she had run away, she believed, they would not have her back again. Theirs was one world, hers another. She trudged on until her feet brought her to a building she recognised with a tremor of fear. The facade of Bridewell towered over her and seemed to crush her spirit. It was then that she realised why she had come. An unseen hand had guided her to the workhouse. This was where she could get revenge.

Deep in her pocket, her hand gripped the large stone that she had picked up from beside the river. Dorothea had grabbed it as a means of defence, but it could also be used in attack. She felt the rough contours with her fingers. They would never anticipate an assault from her. If she could somehow get close enough to Joseph Beechroft — or, better still, to Ralph Olgrave — she could dash out his brains with her weapon. Finding a place in the shadows, she sat down to watch and wait.

Dorothea was still keeping Bridewell under surveillance when two officers dragged a beggar into view. The man was lame and had his arm in a sling but that earned him no sympathy. The officers pulled him to the gatehouse then pushed him to the ground. Knowing what lay ahead for the beggar, Dorothea wanted to reach out and comfort him. One more anonymous victim was about to suffer an ordeal.

Nicholas Bracewell cowered before the gatekeeper’s searching gaze. One of the officers hauled him to his feet while the other handed over a writ.

‘What’s his name?’ asked the gatekeeper.

‘Tom Rooke,’ replied Frank Quilter, ‘but it might as well be Tom o’Bedlam for he talks nothing but nonsense. He’s been whipped at the cart’s-arse so we’ve no more use for him. Lock him up and throw away the key.’

‘We’ll want work out of him,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘One arm may be useless but we’ll find labour for the other. Leave him to me, friends. I’ll take care of Tom Rooke.’

Quilter and Ingram nodded a farewell and set off again. After checking the writ that committed the prisoner to Bridewell, the gatekeeper wrote details of the newcomer in his ledger. He then summoned another man, who promptly punched the beggar to make him move. Nicholas scrambled forward through the main gate.

‘What’s your name?’ said the keeper.

‘Tom Rooke, sir,’ croaked Nicholas.

‘You’ll be plain Tom in here. Remember that.’

‘I will, sir.’

‘What’s wrong with your arm?’

‘I cut it badly, sir.’

‘Every beggar pretends to have a bad arm or leg or foot,’ sneered the keeper, tugging the limb free of the sling and producing a yelp of pain. ‘It’s an old trick to get out of doing heavy work.’

He examined the arm. Nicholas had bound it with filthy strips of linen that had been soaked in pig’s blood beforehand. His fair beard was grimed and he had rubbed dirt all over his face. Leonard had given him some sour milk from the kitchen at the Queen’s Head and he had poured it all over his ragged clothes. The keeper reacted to the stench.

‘You stink of foul vomit,’ he complained. ‘We ought to toss you into the Thames to clean you off, you leprous scab! Put that arm back in the sling and follow me.’

Nicholas did as he was told and went across the first courtyard, taking careful note of its design and dimensions and seeing that Dorothea Tate’s description of the place had not erred too much. When they went through into the next courtyard, he saw young boys helping to unload boxes of food from a cart. The keeper turned on him.

‘That’s not for the likes of you,’ he said, ‘so you can look away.’

They went through a door and climbed a winding staircase. Nicholas was led along a passageway to a large oaken door that the keeper had to unlock. Both of them entered a long, narrow room with a number of soiled mattresses along one wall. There was little in the way of furniture beyond a small table and a single stool. The keeper pointed to the mattresses.

‘You’ll sleep in here,’ he told Nicholas. ‘Choose someone else’s mattress and they’ll soon let you know it with their fists. Tomorrow, we’ll put you to work.’

‘How many of us are in here?’

‘Enough.’

‘Will I be fed today?’

‘No,’ said the man, gruffly. ‘Only those who work can eat in Bridewell.’

The keeper went out and locked the door behind him. Nicholas was able to straighten up and lift his eye patch so that he could inspect the room in more detail. It was not difficult to identify the mattresses that were in use. Meagre belongings lay beside each of them. Since the mattress at the far end of the line was the dirtiest and most shredded, he knew that it would be his. Light flooded in. The three windows all overlooked the courtyard where the boys were still unloading produce from the cart.

According to the sketch that was drawn from Dorothea’s memory, Nicholas was in the same room where Hywel Rees had been kept. It was from one of the windows that he must have seen the girl being taken reluctantly to the feast in the hall. If that was the case, Nicholas wondered how the Welshman had been able to get out in order to go to the girl’s rescue. The window was too high from the ground for him to drop down with any safety, and the door far too solid to force.

Nicholas remained at a window to watch. There was no sign of either Joseph Beechcroft or Ralph Olgrave, but a number of other people came into view. Some were obviously inmates, forced to do whatever chores were necessary, and there were several keepers on duty as well. But he also noticed a few men who came and went from doors on the opposite side of the courtyard. They moved around with complete freedom and, judging from their attire, they could hardly be described as paupers. Nicholas asked himself what function they had in Bridewell.

When the cart had been unloaded, one of the boys was clipped around the head by the keeper and sent through an archway to do another task. The keeper then took the second boy towards the door through which Nicholas had come. Leaving the window, Nicholas went to the last mattress and dragged it away from the others, then he put his arm back in the sling and arranged the patch over his eye. He crouched on his mattress and waited. After a while, the door was unlocked and a weary young boy came in, only to have the door locked immediately behind him. Seeing Nicholas, the boy stopped.

‘Who are you?’ he asked, warily.

‘My name is Tom Rooke,’ said Nicholas, in the cracked voice he had practised earlier. ‘I’m convicted of vagrancy and sent here. What do I call you, lad?’

‘Ned. Ned Griddle.’ He approached slowly. ‘What’s wrong with your arm?’

‘I was stabbed in a brawl, and lost a lot of blood.’

‘They’ll want you to work in here.’

Nicholas held up a hand. ‘Stay back, Ned. I do not smell too sweet.’

‘Have you been in Bridewell before?’

‘Never,’ said Nicholas, adjusting his sling, ‘but I had a friend who was sent here recently. I hope to see him again.’

‘Who is he?’

‘A young Welshman by the name of Hywel Rees. Do you know him?’

‘I did,’ said the boy, sadly. ‘I liked him. Hywel was discharged.’

‘So soon? Why was that, Ned?’

‘They said he caused too much trouble. There was a girl he knew, she was in here as well, but they would not let him see her. So Hywel escaped.’

‘How?’ asked Nicholas. ‘If he’d jumped from the window, he’d have broken his legs. There’s no way out.’

‘Hywel found one,’ explained Griddle. ‘He climbed on the roof and worked his way along until he came to an open window. He went through it. That room was not locked because I later saw him run across the courtyard to the hall.’

‘Brave man! The girl must have been Dorothea, then.’

‘Did you know her as well, Tom?’

‘A little,’ said Nicholas. ‘They’d not been in London for long.’

The door was unlocked again and four youths came into the room. Thin and dishevelled, they had obviously been working hard because they all dropped down on their individual mattresses. One of them fell asleep at once, the others barely gave the newcomer a glance. Ned Griddle’s mattress was the one next to Nicholas. He squatted down on it and slipped a hand inside his shirt. Making sure that the others did not see him, he passed Nicholas a piece of the bread he had scrounged from the kitchen. Both of them munched in silence for a few minutes.

‘How many of us are there altogether?’ said Nicholas at length.

‘No more than fifty or sixty in all,’ replied Griddle, ‘most of them girls.’

‘I heard there were the best part of two hundred people here.’

‘There are, but they’re not all sent for punishment. Many of them live here.’

Nicholas was surprised. ‘They live in a workhouse?’

‘Master Beechcroft rents out rooms to them,’ said the boy. ‘He makes more money that way. He sells what we make but it brings only a poor profit.’

‘What sort of work do we do?’

‘We make nails, draw wire, cut timber to size. When my brother was here, they had him unloading supplies on the wharf. We’ve no skills, Tom,’ he complained. ‘Hard labour is all we’re fit for. Those with skills are the ones they treat much better.’

‘Skills?’

‘Look at Ben Hemp, for instance. They’ll never let him out.’

‘Why not?’

‘He brings in too much money,’ said Griddle, resentfully. ‘That’s why he has a room of his own to work and sleep in. Ben is a cunning forger. He makes false dice and packs of cards for cony-catchers. He was taught by the best in the trade.’

‘Oh,’ said Nicholas. ‘And who was that?’

‘A fiendish clever fellow, according to Ben. A true master of the art.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Lavery,’ said the boy. ‘Philomen Lavery.’

Philomen Lavery dealt the cards with nimble fingers and shared a disingenuous smile among the people sitting at his table. Because it was his last night at the Queen’s Head, he had invited some of those who had played regularly with him to partake of food and drink in his room. It had put the visitors in a pleasant mood. They were sorry that Lavery would be leaving and taking his cards with him. None of the actors was there but Adam Crowmere had drifted in to play for a while. He soon accepted that he was not going to win. After losing every game in a row, he rose from the table with a chuckle.

‘I’m not going to let you rob me of my last penny, Master Lavery.’

‘Sit down again, Adam,’ coaxed the dealer. ‘You may yet have good fortune.’

‘Not at cards. Everyone at the table has better luck than me tonight.’

‘It was not always so. There was a time when you emptied all our purses.’

‘Then lost the money the next night,’ said Crowmere, amiably. ‘A card table has too many risks. To tell the truth, I prefer dice. Real skill is involved there.’

‘Yes,’ said one of the other players. ‘I’m a man for dice as well.’

‘Nothing gives me the same thrill as a game of cards,’ argued Lavery. ‘Turn one over and it could mean the difference between wealth and beggary.’

‘The same is true of dice,’ said Crowmere. ‘One throw could make you rich.’

‘Or very poor, Adam, if you do not have the knack of it.’

‘I have that knack, Master Lavery. At least, I used to have.’

‘I confess that I do not possess it.’

‘Then you must stay with your beloved cards. I know that you feel much safer with them, and they clearly favour you this evening. Dice would give the rest of us more of a chance to win back what we have lost.’

Lavery blinked up at him. ‘Do you really believe that, Adam?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said the other.

‘You feel at a disadvantage with cards?’

‘Only when I play against you.’

‘Yet you’d be prepared to wager on the throw of a dice?’

‘Time and again.’

‘Then we’ll put it to the test after this game,’ decided Lavery, looking around the table. ‘As it happens, I do have some dice with me somewhere. If we can find them, we’ll see if our cheery landlord really does have the knack of which he boasts.’ He beamed at the others. ‘Are we all agreed?’

Standing at the window, Nicholas had counted four carriages. One by one, they had rolled into the courtyard to disgorge their raucous occupants. All the visitors were men and they were welcomed at the door of the hall by Joseph Beechcroft. Other guests arrived on horseback and a few came on foot. Arrayed in their taffeta, the women soon came out to join them. Nicholas gazed around the room. Most of his companions were fast asleep, uninterested in a banquet from which they were excluded and too exhausted to remain awake to talk. Ned Griddle was the only one whose eyes were still open. He crept across to the window.

‘Get some sleep while you can, Tom,’ he counselled in a whisper.

‘I like to watch,’ said Nicholas. ‘Who are these people?’

‘Friends of Master Beechcroft’s or Master Olgrave’s. They eat well.’

‘By the sound of them, they’ve already drunk well. How long will they stay?’

Griddle yawned. ‘I’ve never stayed awake long enough to find out.’

The banquet was under way. Almost thirty people were seated at the long table and all them were relishing the occasion. Three musicians played in the background and their lively airs caught the spirit of the evening. The food was rich, the wine plentiful and the guests blandished by the women in their gaudy plumage. Seated at the end of the table, Joseph Beechcroft and Ralph Olgrave looked on with satisfaction.

‘How much have we made this evening?’ asked Olgrave.

‘A handsome profit. When men are drunk, their purse strings are much looser.’

‘They get their money’s worth, Joseph.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Beechcroft, looking down the table to see one of the guests fondling a swarthy young woman with large, round breasts spilling out of her bodice. ‘I think that Master Greatorex will be pleasuring Joan Lockyer tonight. He cannot keep his hands off her.’

‘Is it not strange?’ said Olgrave with a grin. ‘Master Greatorex would never dare to venture into the stews of Clerkenwell Street, where Joan and her sisters ply their trade, yet he’ll play with her paps for hours in here.’

Beechcroft smirked. ‘Bridewell is a palace, remember.’

‘And we are its kings.’

A servant filled their cups with wine and Olgrave joined in the noisy badinage. His partner was more circumspect. While he was delighted that yet another banquet was such a success, he remembered what had happened the last time that the hall had been filled with guests. When there was a lull in the general hilarity, he turned to Olgrave.

‘The girl still worries me, Ralph,’ he confided.

‘Forget her, man. She belongs in the past.’

‘Not while she’s still alive to accuse us.’

Olgrave sneered. ‘Who will listen to the word of a beggar?’

‘Nicholas Bracewell did.’

‘And he’ll pay for his folly, Joseph. When that Welsh friend of his has been dispatched,’ he explained, ‘Gregory will follow the book holder to his lodging, for that’s where Dorothea will be hiding, I feel certain. Gregory has orders to kill them both.’

‘Good,’ said Beechcroft, reassured. ‘He’s a ready assassin.’

‘The fellow has never let us down before.’ Olgrave let his gaze travel up and down the table. ‘Now, then, which of these fine ladies shall I take tonight?’

‘Choose two, Ralph. There are more than enough to spare.’

‘One is all I need before I go home to my wife,’ said the other, as his eye settled on the youngest woman in the room. ‘Nan Welbeck tempts me, I must confess.’

‘She’s clean and fresh enough.’

‘And more than willing. There’ll be good sport for both of us, I fancy. Nan is no Dorothea Tate,’ he added with a lecherous cackle. ‘I’ll not need Gregory Sumner to hold her down for me.’

Bruised and bloodied, Gregory Sumner sat in a chair in the lawyer’s office. His legs were bare, he wore no shoes and his hands were still tied behind his back. Owen Elias was a menacing presence behind him but it was Henry Cleaton who asked all the questions, and who noted the answers down on a sheet of paper. Sumner was amazed at how much the two of them seemed to know about the death of Hywel Rees and the violation of Dorothea Tate. Involved directly in both crimes, he did his best to shift the blame entirely on to Beechcroft and Olgrave. Encouraged by an occasional sharp prod from Elias, the man tried to save his own skin by incriminating others and new facts tumbled out of him.

Henry Cleaton read carefully through what he had written down.

‘We have enough,’ concluded the lawyer. ‘Let’s take him before a magistrate.’

Ned Griddle slept as soundly as the others in the room until the breeze picked up and brushed his face and hair. He came awake to see that one of the windows was wide open. He turned instinctively to the man who had slumbered on the mattress beside him but Tom Rooke was not there. Griddle sat up and rubbed his eyes. Even in the gloom, he could see that the newcomer was no longer in the room. Casting aside his tattered blanket, he scampered to the open window and looked out. A scraping sound took his gaze upward and he gaped in wonder. Silhouetted against the night sky, the crooked beggar who had earlier had his arm in a sling, and a patch over his eye, was now moving with remarkable agility along the roof.

Nicholas Bracewell had no fear of heights. His years at sea had accustomed him to climbing the rigging even in the most inclement weather, and his time in the crow’s nest of the Golden Hind during a heavy swell had prepared him for anything. It was a fine night and he was clambering over a solid surface. He felt completely secure. All that he had to do was to find an open window through which he could re-enter the building. Sling, eye patch and anything else that might encumber him had been cast off so that he could move freely.

He first climbed to the apex of the roof, to take his bearings and to survey the whole building. With the sketch of Bridewell in his mind, he tried to work out where Ralph Olgrave’s bedchamber was situated. Dorothea had said that it was somewhere above the main hall. Nicholas edged his way forward in that direction. To his left was the forbidding outline of Baynard’s Castle. Down below, the River Fleet gurgled along before merging with the Thames. To his right was Greyfriars, the ancient monastery now converted into living quarters, its church renamed, its function changed forever. Ahead of him, across the water, Anne Hendrik would be asleep in Bankside. Nicholas had no idea where the girl was.

Easing himself down the angle of the roof, he reached one of the gables and felt his way around it. The window was locked. It was the same with the next gable and the one beyond it, but a fourth proved more amenable. Not only was the window wide open to admit fresh air, a candle had been lighted in the room, enabling him to see that it was unoccupied. In a manoeuvre he had used hundreds of times at sea, he grabbed the side of the gable and swung himself in through the window as if descending to the deck of a ship. Nicholas was back inside the building.

After taking a quick inventory of the room, he padded across to the door. It was locked and would not give way to his shoulder. He would need another point of access. Before he went in search of it, however, he looked around the room more carefully. A large table stood in the middle of it with two chairs beside it. Ledgers, books, papers and a series of letters were stacked neatly side by side. Using the candle to illumine the items on the table, Nicholas realised that he must have stumbled into the room that was Bridewell’s counting house.

He picked up a piece of paper and saw that it was a receipt for money paid in rent at the workhouse, clear proof that those who ran the place were breaking the terms of their contract. Nicholas’s curiosity was whetted. He leafed his way through some of the other documents and found further evidence of the misuse of Bridewell. Sitting on one of the chairs, he opened a ledger and saw that it was the account book for the institution. He studied the most recent entries. Income and expenditure were listed in parallel columns, but there was no mention of any rental money. Instead, the income appeared to come entirely from what was manufactured by the inmates and sold at a commercial price.

When he flicked back through the pages, Nicholas saw a convincing record of what seemed to be a legal enterprise that fulfilled all the requirements enjoined by the city authorities who leased the workhouse to Beechcroft and Olgrave. Anyone looking at the accounts would congratulate the two partners on the way that they had kept the institution, and balanced loss so punctiliously against profit. It was obvious to Nicholas that what he held was a counterfeit ledger, carefully devised to appease any inspectors who might pry into it.

Putting the book aside, he reached for an identical ledger that had been beneath it. When he opened it to examine the most recent entries, he found a very different story. Income was now vastly in excess of expenditure, and it came from a variety of sources. Bridewell was the home for dozens of residents who paid a considerable rent for their rooms and who, in some cases, worked at skilled trades within the building and gave a percentage of their earnings to Beechcroft and Olgrave. A name that caught Nicholas’s attention was that of Ben Hemp, the forger. The sale of marked cards and loaded dice brought in an appreciable sum.

There was an item that had especial interest for Nicholas. Under the heading of entertainment, the costs of food and drink were set down. Listed opposite them was the amount of money that guests paid for the pleasure of enjoying one of the regular banquets. The ledger was quite specific. Those who wanted more than a delicious meal in congenial surroundings were charged extra for the company of one of the prostitutes. Every penny clearly went into the coffers of Bridewell rather than to the women themselves. Nicholas thought about Dorothea Tate, dressed to entice the men then hustled along to the hall with dire threats to bring her to heel.

On its own, the second ledger was enough to reveal the fraudulent operation run by Beechcroft and Olgrave, and to ensure their conviction, but Nicholas wanted more than that. Murder and rape had also occurred, and he knew the victims of each. It was time to go in search of those responsible. Before he could do so, however, Nicholas heard footsteps coming along the passageway outside the door. When a key was inserted in the lock, he had no time to flee through the window. Replacing the ledgers as he found them, Nicholas dived behind the arras and held his breath.

Two people came into the room and closed the door behind them. The heaviness of their tread suggested to Nicholas that they were both men. He listened to what sounded like a large bag of money being dropped onto the table. Coins were emptied out and someone began to count them. Hidden from sight, Nicholas hoped that he could stay where he was until the two men left the room, but his stench gave him away. The rags that he wore were impregnated with sour milk and its reek had not been dispelled by the breeze that blew in through the open window.

While he was still hunched behind the arras, it was suddenly pulled aside by Joseph Beechcroft. He held a dagger in his other hand and the keeper who accompanied him was carrying a cudgel. Both men glared accusingly at him. Nicholas shrunk back and brought his arms up protectively. Beechcroft brandished his weapon.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘And how on earth did you get in here?’