A Prisoner in Malta (25 page)

The man showed no sign of life.

Marlowe shook the man's shoulder.

“Jen!” he called out in mock alarm, “I'm afraid this man might be dead!”

“Let's have a look,” she called back.

With her father's club in hand, Jenny rounded the bar and headed for the table where Marlowe stood.

As if finally realizing that his opossum ploy was not working, the man roused himself, pretending to wake up, and lifted his head.

Marlowe took a sudden step back, just in case the man jabbed with his blade from under the table, but a second later, shock took over. Marlowe recognized the man. He was the third man in the trio, with Frizer and Zigor, who had assaulted him on campus, and later attacked him on the road to London. He was the man who had run off.

That man locked eyes with Marlowe, but no such recognition filled his eyes. His eyes were taken almost entirely by fear.

Marlowe was momentarily at a loss.

“So,” Jenny said, coming closer, bat at the ready. “He's not dead, then?”

“Dead?” the man squeaked. “No. Just a bit in my cups, I'm afraid.”

The man's accent and demeanor were clear enough: he was from Wales, and he was terrified.

Marlowe nodded to Jenny. “He's all right.”

Jenny hesitated, but turned, after a moment, and went back to the bar.

“If you'll put away your knife,” Marlowe said softly, “I'll sit down and tell you what's happened to Frizer.”

The man's eyes bulged. “You know him?”

“He told you to meet him here,” Marlowe surmised, “if anything happened.”

The man nodded. He had not moved to put away his blade.

“But you haven't been in here for a while,” Marlowe went on, guessing, “because you hoped you were rid of Frizer, and of his friend.”

“The Spaniard”—the man nodded—“yes. He's what you would call trouble.”

“But you hid from them both—from everyone, really—after you attacked the coach on the way to London.” Marlowe's voice was very soft.

The man's look of fear deepened to a state of terror.

“How would you know about that?” he hissed.

“But now something's happened,” Marlowe answered. “Now you need their help.”

The man stared. “I just need to speak with Frizer. This was our arranged meeting place, see?”

“What's happened?”

The man looked around and only then realized that Boyle was staring at him. He leaned forward, clearly about to do something rash.

“I know you haven't yet sheathed that knife in your hand,” Marlowe said calmly. “If you move another inch, I'll stick my rapier into your heart seven or eight times, and your troubles will be over.”

“You've killed Frizer,” the man moaned. “You're in league with that Spanish devil!”

“No. Frizer is in London. The other one, Zigor, is not Spanish. And I'm not in league with anyone, not the way you mean it, anyway.”

“That's a lie. All of it.”

“No,” Marlowe repeated. “My only concern for the moment is finding a murderer.”

The man looked up, finally, into Marlowe's eyes.

“Murderer?” he asked.

“To that end,” Marlowe went on, “would your shirt or trousers happen to be missing a button?”

“What?” The man leaned back. “A button?”

Marlowe leaned closer. In the dim light of the public room it was difficult to see the buttons on the man's shirt, but slightly closer examination revealed a remarkable lack of stain, no sign of mending, and the presence of very clean wooden buttons, not brass.

“This is a new shirt,” Marlowe said, straightening up.

“How would you know that?”

“How long have you had it?”

“A week. Why do you want to know about my shirt?”

“What happened to your old one?” Marlowe pressed.

“Here, now,” the man grumbled, “what's all this about my shirt? Christ.”

Without warning, Boyle appeared beside Marlowe.

“Hello,” he said menacingly. “Put away your knife, like a nice boy, or I'll be forced to cut open your throat. Right?”

“Help!” the man cried. “Murder!”

No one moved.

The noise of the room diminished a bit, then here and there a furtive glance was the only evidence that the man's cries had been heard at all.

“We're going upstairs to my room,” Marlowe said genially, loud enough for most people in the room to hear, “and see if we can't sober you up. Your wife is very angry with you. If you don't come home today,
that's
when you'll be shouting ‘murder.'”

One man in the room chuckled; the rest seemed to lose interest in the proceedings altogether, and returned to their drink, or sleep.

“No,” the man protested weakly.

Then he dropped his knife. It thudded onto the dirt and straw floor. Marlowe and Boyle each took one of the man's arms, weaving through tables toward the stairs. In no time they were up the stairs and into Marlowe's room.

By the time the door was closed behind them, the man seemed to have resolved himself to his fate.

They sat him on the bed frame. Marlowe pulled up a chair to sit in front of him, staring into his eyes.

“I have a number of questions to ask you,” Marlowe began, “so I want you to pay attention. Believe me when I say that we have no intention to kill you.”

The man looked at Boyle, then back at Marlowe. He sat back on the bed, nodding slowly.

“First things first,” Marlowe continued, “tell me your name.”

“Tom.”

“Right, Tom, where have you been since you tried to kill those men on the coach to London?”

“After it went wrong,” Tom answered, “I went back to my little farm, I did. That's enough of the rough business, I says. Needed the money, but not like that. Had my fill of that Ingram Frizer. He's a drunkard and a liar.”

“Yes,” Marlowe encouraged, “so why are you here today looking for him?”

“Need his help,” Tom muttered, obviously disgusted with himself.

“What kind of help?”

“It's those men!” Tom snapped. “Thinks that a uniform and a dead eye gives them the right to toss up my farm, frighten the wife, kill my chickens—all because they're looking for the same men you're talking about: the doctor and his friend. The ones in the London coach.”

Marlowe glanced toward Boyle.

“What were their uniforms like?” he asked.

“They was blue, deep blue,” Tom said, “with great black gloves and odd headgear.”

“When did you see them?”

“Yesterday, late,” he answered.

“And when you purchased this new shirt?” Marlowe asked.

“It wasn't a
purchase,
” the man insisted. “I come home to the farm with blood and grime on my work shirt, and the wife, she give me this one what she's made for the finer occasions. It itches like the devil. I'm not to soil it. And every time I sit down, the collar chokes me. Can't wait to get back home and take it off.”

“You wore it to come to town.”

“Aye.”

“And does your other shirt, the soiled one, does it happen to have brass buttons?” Marlowe asked.

“Brass buttons?” he asked. “Why would my clothes have brass buttons? You think I'm a bleeding landlord? I work my ass to the bone!”

“What possible difference do his buttons make?” Boyle began.

“Right,” Marlowe interrupted. “Tom, then, tell me plainly: why did you murder Walter Pygott?”

Tom's look of panic returned.

“Murder?”

“The man you killed outside of St. Benet's church, near the roses, several weeks ago.”

Tom stood up quickly.

“God's my witness,” he howled, “I ain't kill a man in my life! Never!”

“Marlowe,” Boyle tried again.

Ignoring Boyle, Marlowe pressed.

“You say you went back to your farm after you fled the encounter with the London coach,” he said to Tom.

“I did!”

Marlowe grabbed a handful of Tom's shirt and started for the door.

“Let's go verify that with your lady wife,” Marlowe growled.

“Good!” Tom yelped. “Good! You ask her if I ain't been home these past weeks. I'd got to tend the spring crops!”

“What are you growing?” Marlowe demanded.

“Barley, vetches, oats, peas, and beans,” Tom rattled. “God's truth!”

“Marlowe, damn it!” Boyle shouted. “Let this man go! He's a pawn. We're looking for knights.”

“Or a bishop,” Marlowe shot back. “But you're right, of course.”

Marlowe released his grip on Tom, who stumbled backward.

“What the hell's the matter with you?” Boyle asked Marlowe under his breath.

“What's the matter with me?” Marlowe responded incredulously. “I'm accused of a murder I didn't commit, I'm mourning the death of a friend, I'm embroiled in a plot of universal proportions, and I'm in love with a woman who can't be in love with me. And this
bleeding
beard is killing me!”

Boyle nodded, and allowed Marlowe's brief but potent tirade to evaporate in silence.

Then: “You're still in love with Penelope?”

“What?” Marlowe blinked. “No. It's—it's someone else now. But, still.”

“Yes,” Boyle agreed, “but still, that's quite a lot to have on your mind, everything you just said.”

Marlowe exhaled and felt the weight of what he'd said. “Yes. It is.”

“But Tom, here, is probably not to blame.”

Marlowe glanced at Tom's terrified face.

“No,” Marlowe admitted. “Probably not.”

“And,” Boyle went on, “he might have useful information for us.”

Tom took another step backward. “I don't.”

“You do, in fact,” Marlowe said. “About these men who came to your farm, killed your chickens.”

“Those bastards,” Tom swore.

“They tried to kill us this morning,” Boyle said simply.

“But we killed them instead,” Marlowe added.

Boyle turned to Marlowe. “You realize that the bodies have probably been found by now. There's liable to be quite an imbroglio brewing at the church, and on campus.”

“I hadn't even thought of that,” Marlowe admitted.

“You killed all of those men?” Tom asked, awestruck. “Just the two of you?”

“We killed five,” Boyle said slowly. “How many were there at your place?”

“At least a dozen,” Tom answered.

“There are more?” Boyle shouted.

“You may as well know,” Marlowe told Boyle, “that Tom and his compatriots, including one Ingram Frizer, attacked a London coach in which I was traveling a few weeks ago.”

Boyle nodded curtly. “I gathered.”

Tom's eyes opened wide. “That was you?”

Marlowe turned to Boyle. “There. This disguise works!”

“It works for people who don't know you,” Boyle admitted.

“My point is that when Tom and Frizer attacked us, I told Lopez that I couldn't believe they were the best the Pope could muster. Lopez warned me that they were only the
first
. The men who attacked us in the church were not only trained assassins, they may be a contingent of troops poised to invade our country.”

“Invade our country?” Boyle asked.

Marlowe turned to Tom.

“Did they speak at all when they were at your farm?” he asked.

Tom shook his head. “They was gabbling some incoherent tongue.”

“Were they Arabs?” Marlowe asked.

“Couldn't say,” Tom confessed. “Never seen an Arab. But they was wild and strange.”

“What better way for the Pope to keep his hands clean,” Marlowe mused, “than to hire infidels as murderers? Assassins have no souls to worry about.”

“I have no idea what you're on about,” Tom began, “but them men was lunatics, raging. The wife and me, we hid inside. But then one of them pulls me out and starts talking in English.”

“They questioned you about me and the doctor.”

“Yes.”

“And you told them?”

“What could I tell them? I says you was gone. You killed one, the rest wounded, I barely escaped with my life, and only wanted to be left alone.”

“You told them that the coach went on to London.”

“Oh.” Tom looked down. “Well, yes. I did that.”

“What in the hell is going on, Marlowe?” Boyle finally demanded. “There's more to this than the murder of that idiot Pygott or some girl you fancy.”

“Well.” Marlowe smiled.

And he began to wonder at once if lying, or at least avoiding the truth, was beginning to come a little too easily.

“Then do you mind telling me,” Boyle huffed.

“I think we should go back to the church,” Marlowe interrupted, almost to himself.

“Back to the church?” Boyle exploded.

“No one saw us there earlier,” Marlowe said lightly. “We'd only be students, come to pray. We need to see what's going on there.”

“When do I get to see Frizer?” Tom interrupted.

“You don't,” Marlowe snapped. “You're coming with us. How good a farmer are you?”

“Best in all of Cambs,” Tom said firmly, “if you want to know the truth.”

“Then why did you throw in with Frizer?” Boyle muttered.

“Don't know much about farming, do you?” Tom answered Boyle. “It's been cold hard winters for as long as I can remember. And when the snow and ice is there, it's wind and water for sup. I told him, I told Frizer, I was out come spring. And now it's spring, so there's an end to it.”

“All right.” Marlowe grinned at Tom. “Could you tell if a certain patch of grass had benefited from a feeding of blood?”

Tom tilted his head. “I suppose I could. Fed the barley and oats with the blood of them dead chickens just before I come into town.”