The English Agent Read online

  After a moment she responded. “We might answer that question if we followed after Ned, back to the Bell. We could make certain my father is all right. But—”

  “Very likely that Dr. Lopez has done his magic and all is well on that account. And Lopez will be gone by now.” Marlowe sucked in a deep breath. “Do you know where?”

  She avoided his gaze. “I’m afraid I cannot say.”

  “Right.” Marlowe sighed. “Well, our aim is to see to it that William the Silent is not murdered. And the man who means to kill him is on the North Sea by now. We have no time to lose.”

  Marlowe headed out the door, angling for the river.

  Leonora sighed heavily. “You won’t make it out of this barn,” she called after him, “let alone across the ocean.”

  “I have faith in your ministrations.”

  “Marlowe,” she began.

  “Are you coming?” He stepped into the dawn-lit alleyway, looking both ways. “I think it’ll be easier to get to a ship if an attractive woman does the asking.”

  She shook her head. “Yes, but where could we find an attractive woman at this hour?”

  “Well,” Marlowe allowed, not looking back, “with Ned gone, you’ll have to do.”

  Marlowe eased into the street. The sun was just barely over the horizon. A shot of golden light blasted the street, blinding, obscuring the path and making dark places darker. Dust motes from hay and animals and the ordinary refuse of the street floated in that light, turning like dancing atoms, spinning the night into morning.

  Marlowe kept close to the buildings, partly because it was difficult to see with the sun in his eyes, partly in order not to be seen by anyone standing in the shadows. Leonora caught up with him, fell silent, and stole behind him toward the waterside.

  There were several men going about morning rituals: grumbling, laughing, spitting. One of them walked to a boat that had been pulled up onto the shore and began to drag it back toward the black water.

  Marlowe took a breath and then strode very deliberately toward the man.

  “A very good morning to you,” he called out.

  The man looked up, startled.

  “I was just wondering,” Marlowe continued in a very jaunty manner, “how I might gain passage on some ship or other bound for the Netherlands. Today.”

  The man straightened up and glowered at Marlowe. He was old and thin; his beard was patchy and his eyes were red. His brown clothes had not been washed in a year.

  “Today?” He squinted. “For the Netherlands?”

  Marlowe nodded enthusiastically.

  “Well that’s what you might call a coincidence,” the old man mused. “You see, just such a ship sat in the river only last night. But it’s away. It left during the night, which is curious. They don’t sail much at night, these big ships. You might, if you had a good horse and a bit of luck, catch it at the end of the river, at Mersea Island, just before she slips out onto the ocean.”

  “You think a horse could beat that ship?” Marlowe asked.

  “Well,” the old man said, scratching the back of his neck, “the river wanders, narrows, and generally impedes a craft that large.”

  “You saw the ship in the river? Last night?”

  The man nodded.

  “What manner of ship was it?”

  “Was a Dutch caravel, it was,” he answered. “Sleek.”

  “What makes you think it was Dutch?”

  “Well,” the man answered lazily, “there was the matter of the Dutch flag. That was my first hint.”

  Marlowe smiled. “I see. And you saw it leave?”

  “Leave? No. I just happened to be on my way home from the public house, when I saw the man who shot you climbing aboard.”

  Marlowe blinked. Leonora appeared beside him.

  “This is a nice quiet town,” the old man went on. “Not much happens, but when it does, I know about it.”

  “You saw our encounter with the man who got on the ship?” Leonora asked.

  “I did. I’m the oldest member of our Night’s Watch here in Maldon.”

  “You watched as this man was shot,” Leonora asked accusingly, taking a step in the old man’s direction, “and did nothing?”

  The man squinted.

  “I watched as you tended his wounds like a doctor,” he replied very steadily, “and I watched as you dragged him back up to Edwin’s barn.” He sniffed, staring Leonora in the eye. “And then I got in my little boat, here, and rowed myself very delicately out to the Dutch ship, tied a tricky line about the rudder, just enough to make the whipstaff hard to work.”

  Marlowe smiled. “Just enough to slow them down, but not enough to make them stop until morning.”

  He smiled back. “And now it’s morning. I was about to nip down the river myself to report your murder to the authorities. But seeing as you’re not quite dead, you might consider this: get you on a fast horse, hie you to Mersea Island, and catch the bastard yourself.”

  “Excellent suggestion.” Marlowe took Leonora’s elbow. “Come on.”

  “But,” Leonora protested, “there’s something very strange about all this.”

  “I agree,” Marlowe whispered. “But our better course lies in stopping a killer. Time enough for other mysteries when that’s done.”

  Leonora begrudgingly agreed with a small but explosive sigh, and began to run toward the barn. Marlowe barely kept apace, but they were into the stables in no time.

  “If we ride fast enough,” Leonora said, “can we really catch the ship before it sets to sea?”

  “I think I understand what our night watchman has done,” Marlowe answered, breathing heavily. “He’s hampered the rudder, which means the ship cannot possibly sail true. Especially as dark as it was last night. The ship might easily have run afoul of the shallows, on either side of the river, perhaps even nudging the shore a time or two.”

  “Which would slow it down considerably.” She nodded. “But I’m concerned about your wound.”

  “That’s very touching,” Marlowe grinned.

  “If you tear the stitching I’ve done to your side, you’ll be useless. I could kill the Frenchman myself, but I’d have difficulty getting his body onto a horse and taking him back to the inn.”

  Marlowe stared. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Identify the man,” she said as if it were obvious. “Walsingham will be able to find out who he is. Then we’d have a key to the entire plot.”

  “Plot?”

  Leonora began to saddle one of the horses. “There is more to this than the assassination of a Dutch leader who is moderately favorable to the Crown of England. Surely you can see that.”

  Marlowe swallowed. She was right, of course.

  “Walsingham would not have sent Lopez to fetch me,” he said, mostly to himself, “unless there was more at stake than the—this actually is a part of a larger scheme against the Queen.”

  Leonora finished tightening the saddle around the first horse and turned to face Marlowe.

  “Yes,” she said simply. “I have been assured that you would not have been activated otherwise. Despite our differences, I concede that Walsingham has a nearly supernatural belief in your abilities to solve a murder or, in this case, to prevent one. That is your primary duty on Her Majesty’s secret service, is it not?”

  Marlowe did his best to make his face a blank, give nothing away. He was uncomfortable knowing that this very odd person understood so much of his relationship with the Crown.

  “I think we had better saddle the other horse,” he answered, not looking her in the eye, “and ride as fast as we possibly can, for the sea.”

  SEVEN

  MERSEA

  Not many hours later, Marlowe stood in the sand at the edge of the North Sea, watching the waves roll away. Leonora had taken the horses to the stable and then gone to fetch a bite of food. She hadn’t been gone for half an hour when Marlowe saw, crashing through the water in slow but wild zigzags down the River
Blackwater, a Dutch caravel, the vessel that he was certain held the French assassin.

  Marlowe smiled to think what a dreadful journey the wretch had endured, owing to the Maldon night watchman’s sabotage.

  This should be an easy matter, he thought. Simply wait for the ship to dock for repair, board the scow, and apprehend the bruised and shaken murderer.

  He headed for the dock area. He was delighted to see Leonora already there, a small parcel in her hand. Marlowe’s stomach began to growl and his side suddenly ached worse.

  “Oatcakes,” she called out, “and boiled eggs.”

  To Marlowe those words were a call to banquet.

  “Why am I so hungry?” he asked her as she drew nearer.

  He wondered at the way her green dress and leather breeches seemed none the worse for recent adventures, while his own clothing looked as if it had been worn by angry badgers.

  He also spent a moment too long lingering on her eyes. When he realized he was staring, he began to cough. The coughing hurt his side, and that made him gasp.

  Leonora rushed to him.

  “You got out of bed so soon,” she chided. “Let me look at the binding.”

  “No,” Marlowe snapped. “Just let me eat fifty or sixty oatcakes and I’ll be fine.”

  She glared. “Well. I suppose it’s good sign that you’re hungry.”

  He reached for the parcel she had in her hands.

  “Then it’s a very good sign.” He reached in and grabbed. “I’m beyond starving!”

  Leonora kept her eyes on the approaching ship.

  “Here comes our man,” she said softly. “He’ll be the worse for wear.”

  “I was just thinking that.” Marlowe swallowed an oatcake whole. “We’ll just meet him when the ship docks, should be easy to take him then.”

  She smiled as the ship jolted against the bank, righted itself, and then tilted with the rushing current.

  Ten minutes later they stood at the only real dock on the East Mersea shore. The vessel was having difficulty making its way the last hundred feet or so. A man who looked as if he’d been shaken in a giant tumbler of dice, face white, head bruised, leaned over the side and shouted to Marlowe.

  “For the love of God catch this rope and secure it, man,” he wailed. “We’ll haul ourselves in.”

  Without waiting for an answer, the man tossed a thick roll of rope toward the shore. It unwound neatly, but landed ten feet short, in the drink.

  “Go on,” the man yelled. “Dive in and get it!”

  Marlowe smiled. “Can’t swim,” he lied.

  Leonora cast her eye about, saw a fishing net nearby, hanging on several pylons, fetched it, and brought it to Marlowe.

  “Use this,” she commanded. “You can snare the rope and pull it our way.”

  Marlowe shook his head. “I’m enjoying this.”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” she whispered.

  Without another word she tossed the net wide, holding onto a single round at the rim, and the long drawstring with her other hand. The net landed expertly across the slowly sinking rope. She jerked the drawstring, and in seconds the rope was headed toward the dock.

  “Nicely done,” Marlowe said teasingly.

  “Shut up,” she answered.

  Marlowe reached down, with some difficulty, and retrieved the rope from the water, tied it to the closest post, and stood back.

  “There,” he shouted to the ship.

  The man didn’t answer. He only set to work, with other members of the crew, to the slow task of hauling themselves to haven.

  When, at last, they were secured, and the plank was lowered, Marlowe drew his rapier. Leonora took a few steps back and produced two wicked-looking daggers.

  “You have a Frenchman onboard,” Marlowe said calmly. “He killed a friend of ours and we’re going to take him.”

  The man who’d spoken to them was wheezing and bent over. He was dressed in a drenched brown coat and pants, no shoes, a kerchief tied around his head. He was, perhaps, forty years old, plump, and milk-eyed.

  He only managed to say, “Got off.”

  Marlowe took a quick step toward him, halfway up the plank, the point of his rapier headed directly for the man’s ample midsection.

  “He got off the ship!” the man repeated louder—and angrier. “When he saw we’d been scuttled, he put a pistol to my head and made me ram the shore. Me! The captain! He jumped ship, I’m saying. Most likely got a horse and arrived here at Mersea Island before morning. Christ what a rotten night I’ve had!”

  “Damn it,” Leonora swore softly.

  “Is there another ship he might have caught here,” Marlowe asked the poor captain. “You were taking him to the Netherlands.”

  “How should I know?” the captain raged. “Ask Willie!”

  “Willie?” Marlowe repeated.

  “Harbormaster,” the captain said, “now kill me or get out of my way, I don’t much care which.”

  Marlowe whirled about. “Harbormaster.”

  * * *

  It took the better part of an hour to find Willie the Harbormaster. He was asleep on the floor of a nameless public house close to the docks. He was wrapped in a worn blue cape, a once fine item of clothing that had seen the dirt of too many barroom floors. Rousted, he complained with an assortment of the rudest curses Marlowe had ever heard, and then demanded rum.

  That secured, he was willing to be questioned. The three of them sat at a table not big enough for one in a room barely large enough for three.

  “Was there a ship here last night that departed for the Netherlands before this morning?” Marlowe asked harshly.

  “Aye,” Willie growled, and then he drank deeply.

  “Why?” Leonora asked. “One’s just come in this morning bound that way.”

  “There’s always a ship or two here,” Willie answered. “We’re a busy little place. I works like an ass, and paid about the same.”

  “There was a ship here last night that just happened to be bound for the Netherlands?” Marlowe demanded.

  “No,” Willie complained. “Christ. It was the Orion bound straight for Domburg, like always. Waiting for first light. But up comes a bleeding Frenchie what wants to go to Delft, he says. Wants to leave by the light of the moon, he says. And when I tells him no, he give me this!”

  Willie tilted his head toward Leonora and showed a bloody wound across his forehead.

  “Then he cuts the captain of the Orion,” Willie went on, “and then, nice as you please, gives him a purse of gold fat enough to sink the ship.”

  Marlowe nodded. “At what hour?”

  “Hour?” Willie snarled. “No idea. Between midnight and dawn’s all I could tell you, and that’s the truth.”

  He finished his rum and held out the cup.

  Marlowe stood.

  “I really hate to suggest this,” he said to Leonora as he headed for the door, “but I think we’re going to have to ask a favor of that fat little captain whose life I just threatened.”

  Leonora was right beside him. “As soon as you fix his ship.”

  * * *

  After a bit of snarling negotiation with the fat captain, Marlowe spent a soggy hour untying the devilish knot attached to the ship’s rudder. The Maldon night watchman had done a superb job. The rudder would work, but only enough to keep the craft from crashing into the shore or turning sideways. It would have been impossible for the whipstaff up on deck to make any subtle navigational choices.

  “Thought you couldn’t swim,” the captain called down for a second time.

  “I’m wading, not swimming,” Marlowe answered, shivering in the water. “What’s the name of this boat I’m saving for you?”

  “Told you,” the captain sniffed. “My Beauty.”

  Marlowe took a moment to examine the scow. All its paint was gone, if ever it had been properly painted. It stank of tar patches and sweat. It was too small for the North Sea crossing, with questionable accommodations below deck and a fi
lthy crew of five—not enough men.

  “My Beauty, indeed,” Marlowe mumbled.

  The last knot finally succumbed to Marlowe’s combination of cursing and tugging, and the rudder was free, little the worse for wear.

  Dragging himself out of the drink, Marlowe shook off and trudged up the bank, across the dock, and onto the gangplank beside Leonora.

  All he said was, “I’ll pay the same as the Frenchman, to go to the same place he wanted to go.”

  Captain Darling—the man’s name was Jacob Darling, further exacerbating Marlowe’s sense of the ironic—seemed only too glad to have Marlowe’s money. But he balked at the mere idea of taking a woman onboard.

  “Jonah, I calls it!” And he spat. “No!”

  “Ah, I see the problem,” Marlowe answered before Leonora could object. “You think this person is a woman. Well. Between you and me, this is Ned Blank, the famous actor—plays women’s roles in the London theatres.”

  Captain Darling glared. “No.”

  “Test me,” Leonora snapped defiantly, taking Marlowe’s cue, doing her best to sound like a young man.

  “How do you mean, test you?” Darling asked thickly.

  “Who’s your best fighter?” Marlowe responded. “On your crew, who’s the best?”

  “Oh.” Darling looked around. “That would be the Scot, Duncan.”

  With that a monster the size of three men lumbered forward: shirtless, hair dripping with greasy sweat, face a mass of stubble and pimples, and muscles like boulders.

  “Fine,” Leonora said matter-of-factly, her hands jammed down into the pockets of her dress.

  Darling grinned. “Duncan?”

  “What?” the great ape growled.

  “Toss that woman in the river, there’s a good boy.”

  Duncan scowled, momentarily trying to decide what some of those words meant, it appeared. Then he set his sights on Leonora, nodded, and stomped his way across the deck and down the gangplank toward her.

  Leonora did not move. She smiled.

  Duncan was nearly on top of her when she pulled her hands out of her pockets and blew a yellow dust into the big boy’s face.

  Inertia kept Duncan moving forward, but he began to cough and gasp.

  Leonora stepped aside neatly, as if it were an act of manners, and allowed Duncan to lumber forward, tilting, until he reached the dock and fell down face-first, so hard that it cracked the boards beneath him. He lay very still.