Dark Entry by M. J. Trow

asked.
    ‘Christopher Marlowe, sir, Secundus Convictus of Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge.’
    Winterton waved him to the chair. Marlowe looked across at Eliza and smiled. She bobbed and doubled back, grateful to slide back into anonymity again, if only for a short while.
    ‘You found the body, Master Marlowe?’ Winterton asked. The clerks scratched away.
    ‘I did, sir,’ he said. Then, to the clerks: ‘Can you spell the name? Only, my own college seems to have difficulty with . . .’
    ‘Marlowe!’ Another voice ended his sentence. All eyes turned to the back of the Hall.
    Winterton slammed the tip of his staff of office down on the floor by his feet to order silence. ‘Who are you, sir?’ he asked.
    ‘I am Dr Gabriel Harvey,’ the voice called, ‘formerly Fellow of Pembroke Hall, now of Corpus Christi. What was he doing there? How did an undergraduate come to have access to the rooms of a graduate – and from a different college?’
    There was hubbub in the room, until Winterton’s staff of office thudded on the woodwork again. ‘Enough!’ he thundered. ‘In my courtroom, sir, I ask the questions.’ He waited until the murmurings had died down. ‘Well, Master Marlowe,’ he said, fixing the man with his terrible stare. ‘Explain yourself.’
    ‘If I may, my lord?’ Another voice, gentler than Harvey’s and in its gentleness compelling, came from the back and a slender, robed figure emerged from the crowd.
    Winterton looked exasperated. If he’d known he was in for a day like this, he’d have rolled over in bed and given the job to his deputy. ‘And who might you be, sir?’ He did his best to keep his voice under control.
    ‘I am Professor Michael Johns, of Corpus Christi College. I hate to call what my learned colleague Dr Harvey has to say into question, but technically, according to college statute, Master Marlowe was, as of two days ago, Dominus Marlowe.’
    ‘There has been no ceremony!’ Harvey countered, stung by the man’s interference.
    ‘Indeed not,’ Johns said quickly, ‘namely because Dominus Marlowe elected to wait until such time as he was able to go through said ceremony with his fellow Parker scholars. The statutes are on his side, Dr Harvey.’
    ‘Are they?’ Harvey rasped. He was standing nose to nose with Johns now, his eyes burning and his jaw flexing.
    ‘Apparently so.’ Winterton was determined to end this wrangling then and there. ‘And I will have the law observed, sir!’
    For a long moment, Harvey hovered. From the tension twanging through his body like a bowstring, he looked for all the world as if he were about to strike Johns down. Then he looked at Marlowe, sitting quietly with his back to them both. ‘You, sir,’ he snapped at him, ‘are a disgrace to Corpus Christi and to this university. Not even in your robes.’
    ‘Indeed not.’ Marlowe stood up, spinning on his heel to face Harvey. ‘Any more than I was when I found Ralph Whitingside’s body. I had no wish to dishonour the name of Corpus Christi then and I have no wish to dishonour it now.’ He smiled and that smile made Harvey spin away, striding for the door.
    ‘Make a note of that man’s name,’ Winterton instructed his clerks, still pointing at Harvey’s retreating figure. ‘Contempt of court. He shall be fined five shillings. Now –’ he cleared his throat as Johns bowed to him before resuming his seat and Marlowe took the witness chair again – ‘for the benefit of the court’ – he nodded to the jury – ‘some of you gentlemen are not of the University, so it behoves me to explain. As an undergraduate, this witness had no automatic right of entry to another scholar’s rooms. As a graduate, that is different . . .’ The coroner leaned forward in his seat. ‘Although I fail to see, Dominus Marlowe, why you didn’t just walk in through the front door . . .’
    Marlowe smiled. ‘Old habits, my lord,’ he said, ‘and the front gates were locked.’
    There