The Dance of Death (23 page)

‘Monsieur d'Harcourt,' Eloise reproved me, as Gallic as I was being Anglo-Saxon, ‘took his baggage roll and left while you were speaking to John. Presumably he is well acquainted with Calais and can find his own lodgings without our help.'

‘Never mind the Frenchie,' Robert Armiger interrupted angrily. ‘Where's Oliver? That's what I want to know. Why hasn't he come ashore like the rest of us?'

I caught a little of his uneasiness. To the best of my knowledge, Oliver Cook had stayed up on deck throughout the voyage. Why he should now have gone below was a mystery. And why he was remaining there, when he must be aware that
The Sea Nymph
had docked, was an even greater one.

I called to one of the sailors and asked him to fetch the ship's master. When he came, Robert Armiger explained the situation. ‘His baggage is here,' he added, kicking a somewhat worn and scuffed leather saddlebag with one foot.

‘I'll have the vessel searched for him, Your Honour,' the master said, irritation mingling with a note of concern that he could not quite keep out of his voice. ‘You're certain he hasn't come ashore already and wandered off on his own?'

‘No,' Jane Armiger answered firmly. ‘I've been watching for him ever since I got ashore. He . . . Well, he isn't exactly the sort of person you can miss.'

‘I suppose he couldn't have left the ship before the rest of us?' Eloise suggested.

Jane shook her head. ‘We were all standing in a group as
The Sea Nymph
was berthed. I even noticed Monsieur Harcourt. But I don't remember seeing Oliver.' Her little, flower-like face puckered anxiously and she wrung her delicate hands. (I recall thinking that I'd never actually seen anyone do that before.) ‘Wherever can he be?'

William Lackpenny took a hasty step forward, as though about to comfort her, before recollecting that it was not his place to do so. Instead, he looked reproachfully at Robert Armiger.

That worthy, however, was unmoved by his wife's distress. ‘The fellow's a damned nuisance,' he burst out. ‘What does he mean by keeping us all waiting like this? I warn you, Jane, I'm not prepared to hang around here until he's ready to appear! As soon as Master Chapman's man returns, we're off to whatever lodgings he's found for us.'

It struck me that his bluster hid a growing anxiety.

‘Your brother-in-law must be still aboard somewhere,' I said, trying to sound positive. ‘Maybe he went below deck towards the end of the journey and fell asleep. Facing into all that wind and rain crossing the Channel, as he insisted on doing, must have tired him out in the end.'

‘The conceited fool has the constitution of an ox,' Robert Armiger snorted. ‘This is probably his stupid idea of a joke, just to get us worried.' He turned furiously on his wife. ‘Your brother is an ignorant dolt!' he spat at her. ‘This is your doing, I suppose, persuading him to ask for leave of absence and come with us to France. If I'd only known what you were plotting, my girl, we'd have stayed at home. You're as big an idiot as he is!'

Jane burst into tears. Eloise, glaring at Robert Armiger, went forward and put a consoling arm about the other woman's shoulders, forestalling William Lackpenny's attempt to do the same.

‘You speak out of turn, sir!' she said coldly. ‘Can't you see that your wife is frightened?' She went on, turning to me and putting into words what none of us had so far dared to mention, ‘Is it possible, do you think, Roger, that Master Cook might have fallen overboard?'

I frowned at her, but this bald statement of her worst fears seemed rather to calm Mistress Armiger than otherwise.

‘That's what I've been wondering,' she murmured tremulously.

Before anyone else could say anything,
The Sea Nymph
's master returned to report that no trace of the missing passenger could be found. ‘We've searched the ship from prow to stern, sirs. We've looked in every place where even the smallest man might stow away, but without result. The gentleman's not on board, and you can take my word for that.' He chewed a broken fingernail. ‘You're sure he didn't precede you off the ship?'

‘No,' Jane assured him, her voice breaking. ‘He didn't. He . . . he's fallen overboard and drowned. Oh, Oliver! Oliver!'

She seemed likely to have hysterics. Her husband pushed Eloise unceremoniously aside and shook his wife violently. ‘Be quiet, you silly child! Be quiet! Of course he hasn't fallen overboard, not a great lump like him. It would take more than a few squalls of wind and rain to dislodge that enormous brute. The master's right. He slipped ashore ahead of us and is now wandering around the town. Probably looking for the nearest whorehouse, if I know him. Ah!' He glanced at someone over my shoulder. ‘Here's your man back, Master Chapman. Now, my good fellow, have you seen my brother-in-law Master Cook anywhere in the town?'

I turned round to encounter John Bradshaw's look of enquiry. Briefly, I explained the situation and our fears for Oliver Cook's safety. I saw at once, by his sudden unguarded expression, that he put the worst interpretation on events, but he had his features under control in a moment, and addressed Jane Armiger with his customary placid common sense.

‘No, we haven't seen him, mistress –' he indicated Philip's shadowy figure behind him – ‘but we've had too much to do, arranging stables and lodgings, to take note of everyone who's passed us. The town's that full of people! I don't doubt your husband's right and your brother disembarked before the rest of us. He was on deck for the whole of the voyage. I saw him several times whenever I ventured out of the lee of the fo'c'sle, where Philip and I were sheltering. And the light's bad. You might well have missed noticing him.'

Nobody could have missed noticing the cook, and I could tell by the quizzical look in John's eyes that he knew it as well as anyone. But his words seemed to have a calming effect on Jane Armiger and her sobs diminished. Her husband released her, and Eloise again took over as comforter, wrapping Jane's cloak more warmly about her and murmuring gently in her ear.

‘I think it would be as well,' she said, addressing the rest of us, ‘if we went at once to the inn John has found. Food and drink and rest will make us all feel better, and maybe, in an hour or so, we might have some news of Master Cook. John, will you lead the way? And afterwards, when you've seen us settled, perhaps you and Philip will come back for the baggage.'

The Blue Cat was a small inn in a side street not too far from the quay, wedged between an apothecary's shop and a baker's – not as grand as those we had stayed in previously on this journey, but clean and comfortable for all that. Three bedchambers had been put at our disposal – one for the Armigers, another for Eloise and myself, and a third, not much bigger than a cupboard, for Oliver and Will – and I discovered later that they comprised the Blue Cat's total sleeping accommodation. When I asked John how this miracle had been worked in a town already teeming with visitors, he grinned and said it was better I didn't know, which left me to draw the conclusion that a goodly sum of money had changed hands. (I feared Timothy Plummer was likely to have an apoplexy when we finally returned to London, to discover how much of his money had been spent. Or squandered, as he would no doubt call it.)

Eloise and I were favoured with the largest of the three chambers (again, John's doing), and once we were alone, we were able to express our growing concern as to Oliver Cook's probable fate.

‘He's gone overboard,' she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. ‘I feel it in my bones.'

‘I'm very much afraid you're right,' I agreed gloomily, opening the window shutters a little, in spite of the weather, and staring down into the bustling street below.

It was by now quite dark, but the busy scene was illumined with wall torches, flaring and tearing sideways in the wind, the scent of the pitch-soaked rags adding to the other smells of sea water, fish, rotting refuse and unwashed bodies that make up the stench of most big ports. It reminded me of Bristol. I felt a nostalgic pang for home, and it was with an effort that I made myself attend to what Eloise was saying.

‘Was it an accident, or was it . . .?' She raised her eyes to mine, willing me to finish the sentence for her.

‘Or was it murder?' I obliged.

‘Yes.'

I thought about it, and was still thinking about it when one of the inn servants brought up our saddlebags and deposited them, with a sigh and a thump, on the bedchamber floor. I took the hint and handed him a coin, which he eyed with suspicion and tested between his teeth, before finally taking himself off again. Eloise gave a little giggle, but sobered almost immediately.

‘Well?' she asked.

‘But if it's murder,' I answered, ‘what's the motive? That's the problem.'

She thought about this for a moment or two, nibbling an elegant forefinger. ‘Well,' she said at last, ‘don't let us forget that Oliver quarrelled violently with Master Armiger, nor that we believe him to have been responsible for Master Lackpenny's black eye. I never for one second credited the story that Will walked into a door. And then again, Jane herself must have realized that Oliver was going to be a stricter chaperone than her husband, who's far too set up in his own conceit to conceive of a rival to his manly charms. She and Will would find it difficult, with Master Cook around, to carry on their secret meetings.'

I shook my head over this last suggestion. ‘No. Not Jane Armiger. If Oliver Cook was murdered – and I'm not entirely convinced of that – he was thrown overboard. Taken unawares and heaved over the side. But only consider his size and weight. His sister couldn't possibly have done it. Besides,' I added, a thought striking me, ‘wasn't she below with you all the time she was aboard?'

‘I think you're right.' Eloise began to loosen the silver net that bound her still boyishly short hair. ‘Now you mention it, I don't recall her going up on deck on her own.'

‘No, but Robert Armiger joined you both in the cabin a short while after I did. Don't you remember him cursing Lackpenny for a fool for trying to prove himself as good a man as his brother-in-law?'

She ran her fingers through her fair curls and nodded. ‘Will came in shortly afterwards. He was soaked to the skin.'

‘That proves nothing. The weather had worsened considerably by then.'

‘But it means he was alone for a while with Master Cook.'

‘But so was Robert Armiger,' I pointed out. ‘He went up on deck before the rest of us to see if land was anywhere in sight. He could have tipped Oliver over the side then. And if it's a choice between him and Will Lackpenny, I'd choose him. He's by far the stronger of the two. Moreover, if it wasn't him, surely he'd have noticed that Oliver wasn't where he'd left him.'

Eloise shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. Or if he did, he could just have presumed that Master Cook had taken himself off to another part of the deck. And if we're assuming murder, what about the mysterious Frenchman, Monsieur d'Harcourt?'

I grunted. ‘I keep forgetting him. On the other hand, if we start casting him in the role of murderer, what does it make him? Certainly not the innocent traveller taking his way home aboard an English ship. No, no! Forget Master Harcourt. It complicates matters beyond all reason. We're not even sure that Oliver's disappearance is murder. It could easily have been an accident – an extra large wave, a buffet of wind that even he couldn't withstand – or he might not be dead at all. Perhaps he did disembark before the rest of us without being noticed and will turn up presently, asking in that lovable way of his why, in Beelzebub's name, we're all making such a bloody fuss, and curse us for a pack of womanish fools.'

That made Eloise laugh, and sliding off the bed, she began to unpack her saddlebags prior to pulling the bed-curtains and performing her vanishing trick behind them. At the same time, one of the inn servants came upstairs with a ewer of hot water. The familiar evening ritual of the past five days had begun. I experienced an uneasy qualm: it occurred to me that, except in one vital respect, we were falling into the habits and routine of a married couple. With a great effort, I conjured up the faces of Adela and the children, but realized that it was becoming daily more difficult, that, very often, Eloise's features would superimpose themselves on my wife's, while the children's were growing increasingly hazy.

The sooner this adventure were played out and finished, the better.

Unfortunately, it seemed to be getting ever more confusing and, probably, dangerous.

Fourteen

My sleep that night was disturbed by dreams – nothing of any significance or much that I remembered clearly the following morning, except one sequence when I was standing in the cloisters at St Paul's and the skeletons from
The Dance of Death
all left the walls and cavorted round me, nodding and grinning. I could hear the clicking of their bones as they gradually drew closer, a circle tightening like the noose about a felon's neck. The sweat was pouring from my body and I could barely breathe. I gasped for air, great rasping sounds forcing themselves from my chest and throat. One of the skeletons reached out a hand and took me by the shoulder.

‘Wake up, Roger!' Eloise's voice, full of alarm, sounded in my ear as she shook me violently. ‘What is it? Are you ill?'

I struggled to sit up, shivering suddenly as the chill of the bedchamber – the fire had long ago dwindled away to ashes – stroked my clammy skin. ‘No, no!' I assured her. ‘Just riding the night mare, that's all. Thank you for rousing me. I'm well enough.'