The Braithwaites were silent for a moment, staring at Matthew with drawn, confused expressions. He had given them much to take in; he knew that they needed time to absorb it all, to come to trust him. Then Sir Henry said: “But who would want to kill my son—or, for that matter, the other men? Does a monster walk the Temple? Why hasn’t the truth been proclaimed and the murderer openly sought? ”
“Yes,” added Lady Braithwaite. “Had it been so, perhaps my son would be alive at this moment to speak for himself. ’ ’ “Master Hutton wanted the murders to be investigated quietly, for the sake of the Inn’s good name. I was chosen.” “By Master Hutton?” asked Sir Henry.
“And by Sir Robert Cecil.”
The well-known name had the effect Matthew intended. The Braithwaites regarded him with more respect than before. With the quiet authority he might have used with one of his own house, he asked them to sit down.
“Did your son ever speak of some secret society—one he might have been a member of?”
“What nonsense is this?” Sir Henry said gruffly. “Secret societies? No, he never mentioned one. Nor can I believe he would make himself a member of such a group. ”
Lady Braithwaite agreed with her husband and said she trusted Matthew was not imputing any scandal or treason to her son. “It’s true, Crispin was occasionally unruly. But we put that down to the wildness of youth. He was,” she said with a sob, ‘‘only twenty.”
“We provided him with what money he needed,” Sir Henry said. “He spent his money on books. Of course, he required additional sums—for clothing . . . entertainment. There’s no purpose living in London if one must live like a monk.”
The unconscious play on the name of one of the victims reminded Matthew of Keable’s irreverent remarks about his father and his provident purse. All the young men were well provided for—a great pool of money if put to some common purpose. No, the four dead men had not denied themselves much, except perhaps for Giles, the bencher. His father dead, he had not been well off like the others. Was that important?
Matthew said: “Had you noticed any strange new manner in your son since he took up residence in the Middle Temple?”
It was the mother who wanted to know what Matthew meant by that. Like her husband, she was still on edge, defensive of the dead son, not entirely trusting of this modestly dressed, unassuming inquisitor who claimed to be Cecil’s agent.
“I meant a change in habit—or attitude—toward yourselves—or the servants, perhaps.”
Lady Braithwaite said: “Only that when he came home last he seemed to linger abed of mornings longer than he was wont before. I thought he might be unwell. He said he only needed rest. Sometimes I’d come into his chamber and find him fallen into a kind of trance betwixt sleep and waking. Sometimes he was difficult to arouse from his lethargy. I thought to call Master Millcock, but Richard told me not to. He made light of a mother’s fears, insisting that he was as fit as ever, that he slept more because of long hours of study, although I never saw him read at home.”
“Did he ever mention Litchfield, Monk, or Giles to you?”
“Oh yes,” replied Sir Henry, to whom the question had been directed. “And why shouldn’t he? He knew all three well. As for Giles, I was acquainted with the man myself. His father, Edmund, and I were chamberfellows in our youth, having both been Templar brethren. The family was from Norfolk.”
“Did he ever mention someone named Prideaux?”
“I don’t think so,” Sir Henry said. He looked inquiringly athiswife. She shook her head. Then Sir Henry said, “While my son said nothing of Prideaux, I knew one of that name. Or heard him spoken of. There was a Christopher Prideaux who was a figure of scandal in Norfolk a half dozen years ago, I believe. Master Millcock told me the story, and I do believe my old friend Edmund Giles was victimized by this man.”
Interested, Matthew asked what this Prideaux had done.
“He was a false physician and apothecary, who made indecent use of his medicines, for which he was brought to speedy justice for his crimes and rightly hanged, I think. There is also a Prideaux in the City—a great practitioner in the Exchequer and an expert in the law common and civil. I can think of no other by that name. ”
“Well,” said Matthew, “at least one of these persons is connected with the law, and there may be something in that. As for this Norwich apothecary, he seems too far removed to have an interest in these matters. Besides which, the man is dead.”
It was now nearly noon, and in the passage outside the Treasurer’s office, footsteps and muffled voices could be heard. Through the leaded windowpanes Matthew could see a flock of Templars advancing across the quadrangle. Their mood was cheerful—and why should it not be, Christmas being so close and all the Hall decorated accordingly? The weather too had warmed, and apparently the memory of their dead brother was no longer fresh enough to cause a stay in their own headlong rush to ultimate dissolution. He thanked the Braithwaites for the information they had given and promised to let them know if he discovered anything. “Bring my son justice,” Lady Braithwaite said, her pale face streaked with tears. “Find his murderer.”
Matthew solemnly promised them he would.
He showed the Braithwaites to the door and said good-bye again.
When they were gone, Phipps stuck his head around the comer. “The doddering pater held up well under the circumstances, like the old campaigner he is,” Phipps said, grinning. “But the mother is the wonder.”
Matthew made no reply. He was still watching the Braith-waites move slowly down the passage and through the doors, as though practicing for the fUneral procession to come. He was weighed down by their grief and the burden of this new promise and was in no mood for the clerk’s flippant comments. But his silence did nothing to deter Phipps.
‘‘Could you believe the woman? Such winter blood! Imagine, to insist upon remaining while your own son is cut open and his innards fingered promiscuously by an unfeeling surgeon. Jesus God, I have seen more emotion displayed over a dead spaniel.”
“She contained her grief admirably, I thought,” Matthew said sternly, much resenting the clerk’s cynical tone and the relationship Hutton had forced upon him. He almost regretted that Phipps had betrayed Keable’s confidence. It had almost given him pleasure before to think of Phipps as the murderer, or at least an accomplice. But Matthew supposed that solution was now out of the question. Phipps was in Hutton’s good graces, and Matthew was obliged to wring from Keable whatever he may not have told to Phipps. Matthew didn’t like Keable either, but his instincts told him that whatever else the proud young man was guilty of, it wasn’t murder.
“Your wife, sir. She’s at the gate and sent me to fetch you.”
“Thank you, Flowerdewe,” said Matthew. He had been on his way to dinner, hoping to talk to Keable. Keable would have to wait. Joan would come first.
They found a quiet place to talk in the garden. A little stone bench, shaped like a bow. Then he suffered her chastisements. He was up and abroad prematurely, in open defiance of his physician’s instructions. This was what came of her lack of supervision. Matthew smiled and offered no defense, waiting for Joan’s mothering to spend itself.
When it did, he told her about Phipps’s new revelation; how Hutton had practically appointed the man Matthew’s assistant.
“What Keable told him in confidence, he betrays to Hutton—a fine confederate indeed,” Joan said. “The smoothfaced villain.”
“A truly contemptible man,” Matthew agreed. “But I shall tell him nothing I wouldn’t broadcast from the housetops, despite Hutton’s orders.”
“Phipps said nothing as to the purpose of this secret meeting Keable observed.”
“No.”
“Or the identity of the fifth man.”
‘‘ Probably Prideaux. ’ ’
“Ah, him. He sits at the center of this mystery and mocks,” she said. “While we run around in confusion and doubt.”
He told her what he had le
arned from the Braithwaites too.
“A northern man, this apothecary,” Joan said. “Tell me, whence came the other gentlemen?”
Matthew tried to remember. Since his arrival at the Middle Temple, so many facts had passed over his head, through his brain. Which was significant, which not? He rattled off the answer to her question as though by rote memory. “Braith-waite is from Knoll’s Cross, Surrey. Litchfield and Monk were sons of London merchants. Giles from Norfolk.”
“Then there’s a link,” she said, brightening.
“A weak link. The apothecary was hanged five years ago.”
“But you assume, husband, that Sir Henry gave you the whole story. Say, however, this apothecary wasn’t hanged, but escaped. Did you not say he had this information from Master Millcock? You know how these tales are twisted in the telling.”
‘‘But, Joan, say Prideaux the apothecary is he upon Giles’s list; what sense does that make? At least the London Prideaux is allied to the Inns by profession.”
‘‘Giles was from Norwich, this apothecary from the same. I grant that may be a mere coincidence.”
“Coincidence indeed. Norwich is a goodly town of at least fifteen thousand souls. A man must be from somewhere.”
“Well, you visit your lawyer and I—”
“Now, I hope you don’t intend to travel to Norwich,” he said, suddenly fearful that that was just what his wife might be intending to do.
She laughed pleasantly, kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, good goose. It’s much too cold and wearisome a journey. Why, I would not do it were it high summer and the roads as firm as iron. But I do intend to find out more about this apothecary of whom Sir Henry spoke, and I will not need to make my way to Norwich or to ask the haughty Millcock, who thinks the world and all of himself.”
“Well, I for my part will better spend my time talking to the lawyer, but first I must find Keable. The man is clever and cautious and I doubt he’ll yield much unless it serves his purpose, but if I fail to speak to him, there will be the devil to pay with Hutton. Phipps has persuaded him that Keable is knee-deep in all these murders.”
“Go your way, Matthew, and I’ll go mine,” Joan said. “Let’s meet here when Paul’s strikes two. Between us both we may find some stronger thread to unravel all this mystery.”
Seventeen
AFTER she said good-bye to Matthew, Joan had second thoughts about Prideaux, the apothecary of Norwich. It was, as her dear husband had pronounced with masculine certitude and the annoying implication that an alternative view was airy female silliness, a tenuous thread that might lead nowhere at all. And yet she knew how to confirm the story of Prideaux’s malpractice, and since in doing so she could at the same time determine Nan Warren’s progress, she thought the pursuit of the thread was no waste of time. After all, she had to do something while Matthew was pursuing his own threads at the Middle Temple.
She collected Robert where she had left him waiting her at Temple Gate and steered them both toward Bishopsgate Street, telling him only that she had to see an apothecary there. It was Joan’s thinking that if apothecaries were anything like clothiers, they kept abreast of each other’s business and that certainly a scandal of the proportions suggested by Sir Henry’s story would make the name Prideaux a hiss and byword among his brethren in the trade.
It took her a while to find the house she remembered, and since there were several apothecaries in the neighborhood, Robert inquired of her whether the first they passed would not do as well as the next. He was tired of walking, he complained. His feet were sore, the air unhealthy and smoky, and the crowds in the street displeased him. But since Joan hoped to see Nan as well, she insisted they continue, and at last she saw the house she remembered.
Robert waited outside while Joan entered the shop, which was small, with a low ceiling and a counter running the length of the back wall, lined with bottles and vials and powders. A cross-looking woman of about fifty stood behind the counter, her ruddy, fleshy arms folded upon large, drooping breasts.
“What will you have, mistress?” said the woman, whom Joan took to be Nan’s landlady, Mistress Browne. “A clyster or unguent, perhaps? An emetic or soothing ointment useful for bums or the scab? A tonic for the dropsy or palsy or gout?”
“I’m looking for an ointment for my father,” Joan said confidently, having concocted this fiction as she walked in the door. “But I forget its name. Father used it with much success.”
“You’ve forgotten its name, you say?” said Mistress Browne disapprovingly. “What is your father’s affliction?”
“Gout.”
“A curse, a pure curse.” The woman turned and began searching the vials and bottles on the wall behind her. She took down a small green vial and examined it briefly. “Here it is. Just the thing. It won’t take me a minute to mix up a batch. Sixpence it is.”
“Oh, I don’t think that will do,” Joan said, meaning the concoction offered her and not its price. ‘ ‘The vial was much different in appearance.”
“Vials often differ in appearance,” Mistress Browne responded indulgently. “It’s what’s in the vial that matters.”
“But my father would take no other. ”
Mistress Browne scowled. “I assure you that this remedy is most effective for its purpose. Many the customer has come in, aggrieved by gout, constipation, rank cancers, and boils, and has taken health’s road thereby. Its price is not so dear as you might suppose. Did I say sixpence before? By the Mass, I meant but four.”
Joan shook her head. ‘‘I suppose I must go elsewhere.”
‘‘Elsewhere you’ll find nothing but what I haye in store,” Mistress Browne insisted.
‘‘My father lived in Norwich many years and there had a good physician and apothecary in whom he placed his confidence. It was this same person who prescribed and sold him the cure, a rare medication he had learned from a Turk, I think.”
‘‘Oh, those Turks know less about the virtues of herbs and plants than is commonly supposed,” replied the woman with an air of quiet superiority.
‘‘I think the apothecary’s name was Prideaux,” Joan said.
At the mention of Prideaux’s name, the expression on Mistress Browne’s face suddenly altered. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘‘What did you say the man’s name was?”
‘‘Prideaux.”
‘‘You speak foolishly, good woman,” Mistress Browne said coldly. ‘‘There never was such an apothecary of Norwich that I can remember, and my husband and I used to live in those parts. Now, if you will have the remedy I offered you, well and good. Otherwise, my time is as valuable as yours, I’m sure. Good day to you.”
With these words, Mistress Browne turned abruptly and disappeared through a curtain that led into the back of the shop.
Displeased with the woman’s rudeness, but satisfied that Mistress Browne had indeed heard of Prideaux and for some reason was concealing the fact, Joan went out into the street and told Robert that he must accompany her to still another apothecary, for this shop did not have what she wanted. Robert sighed, and again complained that he was very tired from walking and standing, but when Joan offered to send him home alone so that she could continue on her way unescorted, he said he wasn’t that tired.
They started back the way they had come but had only gone a few yards when Joan saw Nan walking toward her on the opposite side of the street. Joan was about to call out a greeting to her Mend when she noticed that Nan was not alone. With her and engaged in conversation with her was the physician who had attended Matthew at the Middle Temple, Master Leyland.
She was so taken aback by seeing Nan with Leyland that she turned a comer quickly to avoid being seen by them, although, having done so, she was not sure why. When they had passed and she had answered Robert’s peevish query as to what new destination she had chosen, she went out into Bishopsgate Street and looked after Nan and her companion. She watched while they went into the side door of the Brownes’ shop before continuin
g on her way again.
But not so exuberantly as before. The chance encounter with Nan and Leyland had undermined her confidence in Nan. Yet Joan was not sure why it should. Joan had always understood that Nan knew many Templar gentlemen. It was not unreasonable therefore that she might also be acquainted with a physician who regularly met their medical needs. The other possibility, however, was that Leyland was one of Nan’s customers and that even now they were in Nan’s upstairs chamber, doing what Nan did for money.
Joanns sense of fairness bade her suspend so harsh a judgment. There were, after all, other explanations for Nan’s being with Leyland other than a precipitous fall from newfound grace. One of which was that Nan was ill and required Ley-land’s care. But Nan had not looked sick a moment before, but her buxom self, energetic and winsome. On the other hand, Nan might have met Leyland by chance in the street. He might have sought directions to the apothecary shop, and Nan, being the good soul she was, had offered freely to be his guide since she lived upstairs. Or Nan may have known Leyland honestly, as a customer of the Gull, and encountering him in the street, she naturally commenced to walk with him.
Deciding to suspend judgment for reason and charity’s sake, she put these disturbing speculations out of her mind as she approached an apothecary shop she and Robert had passed earlier. This establishment was larger and finer than Mistress Browne’s and boasted a handsome bow window in which the apothecary’s goods were on display. The inside of the shop made the same positive impression, with neatly stocked shelves and the apothecary and two of his apprentices behind the counter waiting on a half dozen customers in the shop.
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