Bad Money (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 6)

by Jason Vail

  Mistress Wattepas’ fingers twined and untwined and then twined again. “He went out yesterday morning. He always goes out at dawn. He takes walks, you see. Every day, first thing, as the boys open the shop. For his constitution, he says. Who ever heard of such a thing!”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Of course you didn’t. We never speak of it. It is so . . . unconventional. He isn’t gone long, an hour at most, I suppose. Yesterday he did not come back.”

  “And you’re only now searching for him?”

  “I had the boys look everywhere yesterday evening!”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t know what to do! Something has happened to him! Something terrible, I’m sure!” Mistress Wattepas blinked as if there might be a tear coming, but none appeared. Her lips were a thin line.

  “And you want me to find him?”

  “Him or what befell him. But him, if he still lives, by the grace of God.”

  Stephen nodded. “I would like to, but I’ve been ordered by Walter Henle to attend to another matter.”

  “I don’t care what Henle wants. I will pay. I’m sure he will not.”

  Stephen hesitated, torn between his desperate need for money and the obligations of honor dictated by his position.

  At that moment, the girl met his gaze. Her eyes were arresting, the color of slate. “Can you not help us, sir? There is no one else who can!”

  Chapter 9

  The women had gone by the time Harry returned from his post at Broad Gate. The sun was nearly down, the yard was in shadow, and night’s chill was setting in.

  Stephen saw Harry clump through the gate on his board with its rockers, propelling himself with his arms, his fists clad in thick leather gloves to protect them from the hazards of the street. He almost went out there, but instead he went back to the kitchen to see what progress had been made. He was glad to find that Gilbert and Edith had finished washing the money, the air still thick with the fumes of vinegar. Gilbert was counting the pennies to compare his concluding tally with the one made at the beginning to ensure that no penny went unaccounted for, except for the pile of copper coins that lay on the tabletop.

  “How much?” Stephen asked.

  “Two shillings, almost,” Edith replied with disgust. “I should have suspected something, a man like that spending so freely. I let myself be taken in.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, dear,” Gilbert said, finishing up his tally. “It could have happened to anyone.

  “It should never happen to us,” Edith said grimly. “Such a mistake could ruin us.”

  “What did Mistress Wattepas want?” Gilbert asked, shutting the lid on the chest.

  “Leofwine Wattepas has gone missing,” Stephen said.

  “What?” Gilbert and Edith burst out together, for it was an astonishing notion, and perhaps even more astonishing that they were just now learning about it, Ludlow being such a small town that one man’s business, no matter how private, was soon known to everyone, as one could see from the matter of the bad money.

  “And she asked you to find him,” Edith said.

  “She seemed quite upset,” Stephen said.

  “I would be too if my sole base of support suddenly vanished off the face of the earth,” she said.

  “Now, Edith,” Gilbert said, “perhaps she does care for him.”

  “I cannot imagine her caring for anything but herself and her position,” Edith said. “Let’s get that thing upstairs where it belongs.”

  The chest seemed no lighter for its loss of two shillings, but going up was easier than coming down, and in the darkness of the hall few, if anyone, noticed that the person carrying the load was the one who should not have done.

  Stephen went no farther than the top of the stairs. Gilbert and Edith between them were strong enough for this chest on a level floor, and they did not seem eager for his assistance beyond this point.

  So he left them and went out to see Harry, to ask the question that he had forgotten to ask before.

  Harry was eating his supper, grumbling about the fact that it was only bread and cheese, the sort of thing one usually had for breakfast, instead of the delightful leftovers from dinner.

  “Have you solved the mystery yet?” Harry asked through a mouthful of bread.

  “Swallow before speaking,” said Jennie, who was seated on the bench beside him. “You don’t want to embarrass yourself before his honor.”

  “He’s seen me eat before.”

  “And no doubt been appalled at your lack of manners.”

  Harry swallowed. “Sorry.”

  “That’s better.” Jennie stood up. “I suppose they’re done, then?”

  Stephen nodded. “Just took the chest back to the bedchamber.”

  “I’d better go.” Jennie hurried toward the house, glancing at the windows to the master bedchamber, which were shut but might be thrown open at any moment for the last light of the day so that expensive candles or smelly lamps fueled by pig fat did not have to be lit. Harry watched her wistfully, taking another bite out of his cheese.

  Stephen opened his mouth to ask about Feyn when Harry, first remembering to swallow his cheese, said, “What were the Wattepases doing here? Lucy Wattepas would rather be struck dead before showing her face among the common folk.”

  “Master Wattepas has disappeared. The Wattepases, you said?”

  “He’s gone missing? What rot. Probably dead drunk at the Pigeon stretched over some whore. Yes, the Wattepases, Lucy and her youngest whelp.”

  Stephen gazed across the yard. “So the girl was Lucy’s whelp and not a maid.”

  Harry opened his mouth to speak, paused and cocked an eyebrow. “I detect a bit of salacious interest.”

  “What? Nonsense. They came on business.”

  “Ha! They want you to find Wattepas! And you agreed?”

  Stephen shrugged without speaking. In point of fact, he had agreed, although it was against his better judgment, since the Feyn matter should, by rights, take precedence. He had not worked out how he would address both at the same time.

  “Did she show you any leg as an enticement?”

  “Shut up, Harry. She is a decent girl.”

  “You are interested.”

  “I am not. I can’t afford to be interested. Besides she …”

  “Is beneath you.”

  “I didn’t say that.” This was true, however, although he had not thought such a thing until Harry suggested it.

  “And she’s a Wattepas. Who’d want to marry into that family?”

  “Maurce Crauford, or so I heard. This conversation has gone well beyond where it should.”

  Harry laughed. “My favorite kind. Most people are so boring, but you’re always full of surprises, and pulling your third leg is so easy. But you did not come out to wax lustily about the comely Adele Wattepas.”

  “No, I wanted to know if you heard anything the other night.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like murder.”

  “What does murder sound like? The last time I was involved in such a thing, I remember it being rather silent, apart from a few gasps.” Last autumn Harry had strangled a man to death at the doorway to the stable. He and Stephen had disposed of the body in the privy pit, and that was the body they had thought had been discovered.

  “You heard no sounds of argument? No shouting?”

  Harry frowned. “I heard voices, I think. But they were in argument, but not all that angry. I went to see what was the matter, but no one was in the yard.”

  “When was this?”

  “An hour or so after sundown? I don’t know.”

  “But you had not yet gone to bed.”

  “I like to sit up, thinking about things.”

  “You’re not still making carvings for sale?”

  “My fingers like to keep busy. I don’t know what happens to them when they leave my hands. There is one thing, though.”

  “What?”

  “You p
romise not to tell anyone?”

  “What possible secrets could you have that might interest anyone, except perhaps Edith?”

  “Well, I did part with a carving to that fellow who died.”

  “Of Rosamond?” Stephen asked. Rosamond was the name of a girl found dead at Christmas in Saint Laurence’s churchyard. Many people thought she was a saint, although Stephen had found that she was an ordinary girl who had fallen into terrible misfortune that had eventually led to her death.

  “He’d heard about her. Like everyone, he thought her likeness might bring him luck. Apparently he thought he needed it. He seemed to be in some sort of trouble.”

  “Did he say what?”

  “No, he just seemed fretful, worried about something.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “After I’d had my supper and retired for the night. Not long before I heard that argument, now that I think about it.”

  “He came to your stall?” Stephen asked. Harry lived in the last stall on the left which was otherwise reserved for storing hay.

  Harry nodded. “Don’t know how he found me.”

  “Jennie tell him?”

  “She might have. Though everybody knows where I live. Now that I think about it, I heard the voices right after he left.”

  “How much did you get for it? The carving?”

  “A full penny.”

  “It was probably bad money.”

  “Shit!”

  Stephen stood up. “All the money Feyn lost at dice was bad, and Gilbert and Edith have almost two shillings that’s nothing but copper.”

  “I’ve been cheated!”

  “Apparently you’re not the only one.”

  “I’d kill him myself if he wasn’t already dead,” Harry fumed. “You think that Feyn’s killer is among his circle of victims?”

  “That seems the most likely possibility.”

  “You’ve had a look at his room, I suppose.”

  Stephen nodded.

  “Did you find my carving? I’ll have it back, if you don’t mind.”

  Stephen paused in midstep. “You know, we didn’t find any carving. That’s odd. Good evening, Harry.”

  “If it turns up, you know where to find me!”

  Stephen hardly heard. His mind was on Adele. Adele — he said the name several times to himself as he crossed the yard to the inn.

  Chapter 10

  Stephen sat on his window sill despite the chill, naked except for his braises, dismayed at the prospect of the tedious inquiries that awaited him this morning, the limping from one witness to the next, the same questions and the same useless answers that more often than not led nowhere but to sore feet, especially for his bad one, and an aching back and frayed temper. He had no idea what to do about Wattepas and doubted he would find out anything, and he was at even more of a loss in the Feyn matter. At least the Wattepas matter promised a fee, which took him in the direction he wanted to go, which was as far away from Ludlow as he could get before Percival FitzAllan denounced him as a traitor. Then it occurred to him that Lucy Wattepas might not be inclined to pay anything if he came up empty, and it would be unseemly for him to press for payment then. He regretted taking the commission now. What had he been thinking?

  “I am an idiot,” he said to himself, realizing that today being Sunday there was likely to be racing on the meadow north of the castle, a time when many bargains were struck over horses. Yet he still shrank from that course. He had already sunk so low from his heady days of success in Spain, where he had acquired a fortune only to have it snatched away with the fall of Rodrigo’s castle, that he could not bear the thought of slipping any lower. But despite his hopes and best intentions, no matter how desperately he clung to what he had, he seemed to slip lower down the slope with each day. It was a waking nightmare which he could not escape.

  Then Harry swung out of the stable on his board and paused at the bench by the door where Jennie had set his breakfast, and Stephen was reminded that the bottom of the pit was far lower down than where he stood. That reminder frightened him more than he cared to admit.

  Harry looked up, a square of cheese suspended before his mouth. “You thinking of jumping?” he called. “Go ahead! It will end the misery! Just don’t expect me to speak at the wake!”

  “I know you’ll have nothing good to say.”

  “Oh, I could talk about what a devious rascal you are, but your reputation’s so bad now that I doubt I could drag it any lower.” He waved a hand. “Anyway, jump or get out of that window before some of the good wives of the town see you. You are indecent. Have a care! People will start to say this is a bawdy house. Then I’ll have to move to a more respectable establishment.”

  Stephen laughed. “It’s good to see you, Harry. Try to stay out of trouble.”

  “Trouble? Me? Before you came to town my life was uneventful!”

  Harry took out his whittling knife and applied it to the bench while he chewed on his cheese, and Stephen noticed for the first time that he had already made some progress in carving one corner with an interesting, Celtic design. Stephen wondered why he hadn’t noticed that yesterday.

  No one should try to get the last word with Harry, so Stephen withdrew from the window, for Harry was right. The tongues of the good wives of Ludlow would waggle if anyone caught a glimpse of him in the window, and there was a good chance that if he lingered one of them down the hill might do so, for it was a glorious morning, marked by an achingly blue sky, fleecy clouds, and a golden sun that promised to warm the greening countryside this spring day, which meant that at any moment one of those wives would emerge to tend her garden, and there were quite a few such gardens between him and the city wall below. It was too fine and rare a day to waste in the pursuit of answers he would never find: better to put together a picnic and take it down by the river and watch the swans and ducks in the current, get drunk before noon and dream of having his own manor house with its little stretch of river.

  But he had work that could not be avoided.

  Stephen met Gilbert in the hall, where they collected their breakfast and went out to the yard, neither of them enthused about the task ahead, but Gilbert a little more so than Stephen, for it allowed him to avoid the chores that Edith might heap upon him if he stayed home, even though it was Sunday. There was no escaping chores at an inn.

  Rather than head straight out the gate, Stephen paused to inspect Harry’s work on the bench. As he knelt for a close view, Gilbert wiped his hands on his coat, and said, “So Harry’s taken to defacing our property, now? I will have to have a sharp word with him. This can’t be tolerated.”

  Stephen stood up. “If you’re worried about the value of your bench, I’ll take it off your hands.”

  “What do you want a mere plank bench for?”

  “I want to see where Harry takes this.”

  “I don’t know. It is such a fine bench. And you can’t afford a decent pair of stockings at the moment, let alone a bench like this.” Since Randall’s wounding at the second battle for Clun, neither of them had seen a penny in wages.

  “Quit being difficult. It’s only a few planks pegged together. No one uses it but me and Harry.”

  “I suppose,” Gilbert said, turning toward the gate. “Although I don’t see what good a mutilated bench is going to be to you.”

  “I am fond of the bench. I shall miss it when I go. Perhaps I will take it with me as a reminder of all the good times we have had together while sitting upon it. Perhaps I will ask Harry to add a likeness of you upon your mule. That is a sight I do wish to remember.”

  “It is unseemly to make light of someone’s suffering,” Gilbert said as they turned the corner onto Broad Street and headed up the hill.

  “You have to admit, it is a funny sight.”

  “Yes, clinging for dear life with death on either side. It is a long way down.”

  “I know. I’ve fallen many times.”

  “Really? I would never have thought.”
/>   “Even the best take a spill now and then, you know.”

  “I suppose that’s true. I attended the death of a lord who broke his neck in a fall from his horse some years ago.” Gilbert wagged a finger at Stephen. “Which is why I am opposed to getting about upon a horse.”

  “Or in your case, a mule.”

  “I do it only because I am forced to do so, and would appreciate it if you would not make fun.”

  “Well, I’ve never laughed out loud at your misadventures with the mule.”

  This conversation might have gone further, but they reached John Spicer’s wine shop at the corner of Broad and High, where they turned toward the castle. John the Younger, who ran the shop, waved at them from the doorway and called “Good morning!” which required them to answer.

  If Stephen or Gilbert expected the exchange to consist of mere civilities, they were disappointed, for John asked, “Have you learned anything yet?”

  “Not yet,” Stephen said. “We’re still making our inquiries.”

  Gilbert suppressed a grin, since they had not made any inquiries yet.

  “Ah,” said John, disappointed at not being the first to learn some new gossip.

  “You wouldn’t perhaps have seen Wattepas Friday morning, would you?” Stephen asked, stabbing in the dark.

  “Why, yes, in fact I did. He went by the shop, like he did every morning except Sundays. I hardly remarked upon it at the time. Is it important?”

  “Where did he go?”

  “That way.” John waved toward the east.

  “Toward Galdeford Gate?”

  “Well, I don’t know if that’s where he was going, but in that direction.” John frowned, remembering a detail. “Always in a hurry in the morning, rushing so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He always seemed to be in a rush. He’d hurry by, said good morning, of course, but only out of politeness, and distracted like, as if his mind was on something.”

  “I see,” Stephen said, although he didn’t see what this had to do with anything. He let silence fall to encourage John to go on.

  John did. “When he came back, he didn’t seem so much in a hurry. Not glad to be getting to work, I guess. Although, I must say, it must be good to have journeymen and apprentices who can put out the work and all you have to do is watch them. That’s hardly work at all.”