An Ensuing Evil and Others by Peter Tremayne Read Free Book Online Page B

confirmed the innkeeper.
    Constable Drew mounted the stairs and knocked at the first floor, front right door. There was no answer. He did not hesitate but entered. The room was deserted. It was also untidy. Clothes and papers were strewn here and there. Master Drew peered through them. There were some play parts and a page or two on which the name Bardolph Zenobia was scrawled.
    He took himself downstairs and saw the big innkeeper again.
    “Maybe he has gone to the theater?” suggested the man when he told him the room was deserted.
    “It is still a while before the time of the matinee performance.”
    “They sometimes hold rehearsals before the performance,” the innkeeper pointed out.
    Master Drew was about to turn away when he realized it would not come amiss to ask if the innkeeper knew aught of the youth whose body had been discovered. He gave the man a description without informing him of his death. But his inquiry was received with a vehement shake of the head.
    “I have not seen such a young man here nor do I know him.”
    Constable Drew walked to where the Globe Theatre dominated its surroundings in Bankside. Master Hardy Drew had been a boy when the Burbage brothers, Cuthbert and Richard, had built the theater there fourteen years before. Since then the Globe had become an institution south of the river. It had first become the home of the Lord Chamberlain s Men, who, on the succession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne ten years ago, had been given gracious permission to call themselves the King’s Men. Master Drew knew Cuthbert Burbage slightly, for their paths had crossed several times. Cuthbert Burbage ran the business side of the theater while his brother, Richard Burbage, was the principal actor and director of the plays that were performed there.
    Master Drew entered the doors of the Globe Theatre. An elderly doorman came forward, recognized the constable, and halted nervously.
    “Give you a good day, Master Jasper,” Master Drew greeted him.
    “Is aught amiss, good master?” grumbled the old man.
    “Should there be?” The constable smiled thinly.
    “That I would not know, for I keep myself to myself and do my job without offending God nor the King nor, I do pray, my fellow man.”
    Master Drew looked at him sourly before glancing around. “Are the players gathered?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Who is abroad in the theater?”
    Master Jasper looked suspicious. “Master Richard Burbage is on stage.”
    The constable walked through into the circular auditorium, leaving the old man staring anxiously after him, and climbed the wooden steps onto the stage.
    A middle-aged man was kneeling on the stage, appearing to be measuring something.
    Master Drew coughed to announce his presence.
    Richard Burbage was still a handsome man in spite of the obvious ravages of the pox. He glanced up with a frown. “And who might you be, you rogue?” he grunted, still bending to his task.
    Drew pursed his lips sourly and then suddenly smiled. “No rogue, that’s for sure. I might be the shade of Constable Dogberry come to demand amends for defamation of his character.”
    Burbage paused and turned to examine him closely. “Are you a player, good master?”
    “Not I,” replied Drew, “and God be thanked for it.”
    “How make you freely with the name of Dogberry, then?”
    “I have witnessed your plays, sir. I took offense to the pompous and comical portrayal of the constable in Master Shakespeare’s jotting. Much Ado about Nothing was its title and, indeed, Master Burbage, Much Ado about Nothing was a title never more truly given to such a work. ‘Twas certainly Much Ado about Nothing.”
    Richard Burbage stood up and brushed himself down, frowning as he did so. “Are you, then, a critic of the theater, sir?”
    “Not I. But I am a critic of the portrayal of a hardworking constable and the watch of this fair town of ours.”
    “How so, good master?”
    “I judge because I am a constable myself.