she wouldn’t mind seeing me again? Was I to recover her, and re-cover her once more? And then all would be fine?
Was she using the legal terminology to remind me of our little quarrel over her lawyer friend and to turn it into a joke? If she was still averse to players, who did no more than spout other
men’s words like gargoyles, then she’d made an exception to my friend from Miching, hadn’t she? He was only an apprentice player and yet she’d given him a free turn in the
bed, if he was to be believed. (I did believe him.) Perhaps players were back in favour with her. Perhaps her lawyer friend, he of the
liquid tongue
, had fallen into disfavour. I swiftly
constructed, in the confines of my head, an episode in which Nell had given him his quittance. Or perhaps it was the other way about and he had given her hers . . .
Something in me warmed towards Nell as I lay in the darkness. I sniffed at my fingers, disagreeably scented from snuffing Benwell’s rancid candle. Well, I wouldn’t hurry to recover
her, but in my own good time – say in a week or so – I’d stroll across towards Paris Garden and Lord Hunsdon’s old manor house, just to see how the land lay with my
friend.
Corpus Delicti
B ut the next day something different came to trouble me, apart from Peter Agate’s connection with Nell. It was to do with another old friend,
the playwright Richard Milford, and a little piece of work which he’d contrived. A dangerous little piece, as it turned out.
How about this for a plot?
There was once a Duke of an Italian city, somewhere with the name of Malypensa. Duke Ferrobosca was a tyrant who ruled with a rod of iron. He killed his enemies and then had waxwork effigies
made of them to tease the dead men’s families. This Duke Ferrobosca had a duchess. But then he took a fancy to a younger unmarried woman called Virginia who would not capitulate to him. So he
determined to make her his next duchess, thinking that if she would not be wooed with words she might be won with wealth.
The only problem for Ferrobosca was what to do about the woman who would soon be his last duchess. Of course – and why didn’t he think of this before? – he would have her
killed. So Ferrobosca hired an assassin called Vindice. What he didn’t know was that Vindice was the brother of Virginia, and furthermore her lover. Yes, sister and brother were passionately
and incestuously in love. This was Virginia’s real reason for spurning the Duke.
Vindice the assassin therefore had every reason to reject the Duke’s murderous commission and to keep the original duchess alive, in order that Ferrobosca couldn’t get his hands on
his sister. But, naturally, Vindice did not wish to reveal the true state of affairs between himself and Virginia, nor did he wish to have his reputation as an honest, reliable assassin compromised
by an apparent inability to do the job. In addition he needed the money. Therefore he must kill – someone. Fortunately, there was a spare body at hand. Vindice knew (in the Biblical sense) a
loose woman named Sostituta who bore a passing resemblance to the original duchess. Now, his amour with Sostituta being long since over, Vindice, villain that he is, contemplated murdering
Sostituta and presenting her body to Ferrobosca in a dimly lit room, putting the cash in his purse and making an exit before the imposture was discovered. Meantime he had warned both the original
duchess and Virginia to make themselves scarce while this trick was being played.
So Vindice murders Sostituta . . . displays the body to Duke Ferrobosca in that dimly lit room . . . purses up the cash . . . and makes his exit. All is going according to plan.
Unfortunately
, the dead Sostituta has a lover who is a Cardinal of the Church, and therefore a powerful man and a vengeful one too. Now this unholy Cardinal, Carnale by name, finds out
what’s been happening and he decides to . . .
Well, you get the picture – or the
Was she using the legal terminology to remind me of our little quarrel over her lawyer friend and to turn it into a joke? If she was still averse to players, who did no more than spout other
men’s words like gargoyles, then she’d made an exception to my friend from Miching, hadn’t she? He was only an apprentice player and yet she’d given him a free turn in the
bed, if he was to be believed. (I did believe him.) Perhaps players were back in favour with her. Perhaps her lawyer friend, he of the
liquid tongue
, had fallen into disfavour. I swiftly
constructed, in the confines of my head, an episode in which Nell had given him his quittance. Or perhaps it was the other way about and he had given her hers . . .
Something in me warmed towards Nell as I lay in the darkness. I sniffed at my fingers, disagreeably scented from snuffing Benwell’s rancid candle. Well, I wouldn’t hurry to recover
her, but in my own good time – say in a week or so – I’d stroll across towards Paris Garden and Lord Hunsdon’s old manor house, just to see how the land lay with my
friend.
Corpus Delicti
B ut the next day something different came to trouble me, apart from Peter Agate’s connection with Nell. It was to do with another old friend,
the playwright Richard Milford, and a little piece of work which he’d contrived. A dangerous little piece, as it turned out.
How about this for a plot?
There was once a Duke of an Italian city, somewhere with the name of Malypensa. Duke Ferrobosca was a tyrant who ruled with a rod of iron. He killed his enemies and then had waxwork effigies
made of them to tease the dead men’s families. This Duke Ferrobosca had a duchess. But then he took a fancy to a younger unmarried woman called Virginia who would not capitulate to him. So he
determined to make her his next duchess, thinking that if she would not be wooed with words she might be won with wealth.
The only problem for Ferrobosca was what to do about the woman who would soon be his last duchess. Of course – and why didn’t he think of this before? – he would have her
killed. So Ferrobosca hired an assassin called Vindice. What he didn’t know was that Vindice was the brother of Virginia, and furthermore her lover. Yes, sister and brother were passionately
and incestuously in love. This was Virginia’s real reason for spurning the Duke.
Vindice the assassin therefore had every reason to reject the Duke’s murderous commission and to keep the original duchess alive, in order that Ferrobosca couldn’t get his hands on
his sister. But, naturally, Vindice did not wish to reveal the true state of affairs between himself and Virginia, nor did he wish to have his reputation as an honest, reliable assassin compromised
by an apparent inability to do the job. In addition he needed the money. Therefore he must kill – someone. Fortunately, there was a spare body at hand. Vindice knew (in the Biblical sense) a
loose woman named Sostituta who bore a passing resemblance to the original duchess. Now, his amour with Sostituta being long since over, Vindice, villain that he is, contemplated murdering
Sostituta and presenting her body to Ferrobosca in a dimly lit room, putting the cash in his purse and making an exit before the imposture was discovered. Meantime he had warned both the original
duchess and Virginia to make themselves scarce while this trick was being played.
So Vindice murders Sostituta . . . displays the body to Duke Ferrobosca in that dimly lit room . . . purses up the cash . . . and makes his exit. All is going according to plan.
Unfortunately
, the dead Sostituta has a lover who is a Cardinal of the Church, and therefore a powerful man and a vengeful one too. Now this unholy Cardinal, Carnale by name, finds out
what’s been happening and he decides to . . .
Well, you get the picture – or the
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