Bad Money (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 6)

by Jason Vail

  “Here’s your license, then.” Stephen handed Harry a rolled patch of vellum which he had obtained from the city clerk.

  “This is a foolish plan,” Harry muttered, thrusting the license beneath his shirt. “Surely there must be a better one.”

  “It’s the only plan I’ve got.”

  Harry laughed. “If you’re depending on me to save you, you are truly desperate.” He wagged a finger in the air. “If it works, and that’s a big if, my fee will be commensurate with your success.”

  Stephen did not want to contemplate the odds of success, for Harry, as often was the case, was right. “Off you go. Holiday’s over. Back to useful work.”

  “Just like that? Off you go? That’s all you have to say after subjecting me to this indignity? After leaving me alone again in this cold-hearted town? You’re not the one who will suffer these muddy streets in the cold rain! You’re not the one who will be pelted with clods of horseshit! Well, be away, then, if you must! This is the last favor I do for you!”

  Harry strapped on his leather mittens, which protected his hand from the rough ground, and swung toward Wye Bridge Gate.

  Stephen watched him for a few moments, regretting the imposition. “Sorry, Harry, you poor bastard,” he said, but not loud enough for Harry to hear. He wished he could do something for Harry, but he could not think of a thing that would help.

  Then he took up the handles of the cart and headed back to Theo’s house, the first stage on his return to Ludlow, where he expected this mad plan, if it worked, to ripen.

  Chapter 27

  Stephen cracked the shutters of his garret room at the top floor in the Broken Shield Inn, and settled on his cot, the straw filling the linen bag crinkling beneath him. The air was cool and crisp. The aroma of smoke from the many fires in town was absent, carried off by a light breeze that whispered under the eaves. Something fluttered by in the darkness, a bat perhaps. The upraised voices of a man and woman came over the fence from a neighbor’s back garden; the woman complaining about the need for butter and the man replying that they must wait until he was paid. A child said something Stephen could not make out. He had been told that when the River Teme, which flowed around two sides of Ludlow, was low you could hear the rushing of the water over the rapids even here in the center of town. The water had dropped from the spring floods, but there was no rushing that he could make out. The moon, just past full, should have risen by now, but an overcast hid it from sight, and it was pitch dark beyond the sill.

  It was like any other night. Nothing was happening; nothing seemed likely to happen. Soon it would be time to give up, admit defeat and retrieve Harry from Hereford. Stephen kicked off his boots but did not remove his clothing. He lay down and pulled his blanket to his chin. Sleep was a long time in coming.

  Sometime during the night, Stephen awoke to a thump on the roof above his head. When the thump was not repeated, he dismissed the noise as a false alarm. Then after a time, there was another thump followed by a series of thumps, well, not exactly thumps, but surreptitious bumps. He glanced toward the window. The clouds had broken and moonlight shone hard upon the roofs of the houses on the slope below the inn. Something flickered out there; he wasn’t sure what.

  Then the figure of a man squirming as if in midair was silhouetted against the moonlight: a man climbing down what had to be a rope.

  Stephen held his breath, fearful of making any noise, for his bed was noisy and in the quiet of the night, the slightest sound might alert the fellow beyond the window that all was not as he expected it to be.

  The climber swung back and forth until he was able to get a purchase on the window sill with a foot. He crouched on the sill and slipped into Stephen’s room.

  Stephen’s heart beat fast — this had to be Horwood! He let the figure get three steps in before he burst off the bed and tackled the intruder.

  The force of Stephen’s rush drove the pair into the opposite wall. Stephen hit his head and saw stars. His grip weakened, but he managed to hang on somehow, but ended up on the floor with the intruder straddling him. The man’s hands closed about Stephen’s throat, cutting off his wind, forcing Stephen’s tongue out as he gagged for breath.

  With his remaining strength, Stephen clamped a forearm down upon the intruder’s arms collapsing them and loosening the grip. He rolled, carrying the intruder away, and reversing their positions so that Stephen was now on top, although between the intruder’s legs. The intruder squeezed his legs down in a body lock and fumbled at his belt for a dagger, which he drew and struck at Stephen.

  Stephen caught the blow, grasped the dagger’s blade and disarmed the intruder, the dagger flying into a corner.

  He had no weapon himself, having taken off his belt and put it on the floor beside the bed: a stupid oversight. So he did what he could, slamming an elbow in the intruder’s stomach. Although Stephen put his full weight behind the blows they seemed to have little effect, and as he rose to deliver another, the intruder released his body lock and kicked Stephen in the face.

  It was a glancing blow, however, otherwise that would have been the end. Even so, it propelled Stephen backward.

  Free from their embrace, the intruder slipped to his knees and glanced around, no doubt looking for the dagger, which was out of sight in the shadows.

  They rose to their feet as if by mutual agreement and began an exchange of punches, pummeling each other like mad drunkards, so carried away that the blows felt no more serious than raindrops.

  Somehow during this exchange they had pivoted about the chamber so that Stephen now faced the window and the intruder the door. Stephen struck with an elbow meant for the intruder’s head, but it hit the shoulder, yet with enough force that the intruder staggered backward, encouraged by a punch in the face, one step . . . two . . .

  There was not space enough for a third. The intruder’s thighs collided with the window sill and he toppled out, cartwheeling the four stories to the ground where he landed with a pronounced thud that sounded remarkably like a grain sack falling from a wagon.

  Stephen gasped for breath, leaning upon the sill, gazing at the body in the yard below. The first word that came to mind escaped his lips: “Fuck.”

  His great plan lay in ruins.

  “Hugo!” a voice called from above Stephen’s head. “Are you all right?”

  Horwood’s accomplices were still there — right above his head! Desperate to salvage something from the shambles, Stephen leaped for the rope that dangled in space before his eyes.

  For some insane reason, he thought it would be nothing to pull himself up, but he discovered that he didn’t have the strength and he thought that he’d join Hugo in the yard below. But with a herculean effort fueled by panic, he put one hand above the other and repeated this torture until at last he had a grip upon the roof. He chinned himself and got a forearm up. The dark figures of a man and a boy were crouched there.

  “Shit!” the man exclaimed. “You’re not Hugo!”

  The sensible thing for them to do would be to push Stephen off the roof. But they were some distance away anchoring the rope to the roof and sat transfixed long enough to enable Stephen to climb up. With Stephen no longer dangling on the edge and having no appetite for murder, they bolted toward the neighbor’s house, jumped down to its roof since it was not as tall as the inn and scrambled up toward the peak.

  It took everything Stephen had to get up and follow them.

  The race was on, one stumblebum who could barely keep his feet staggering across rooftops after burglars who slipped and slid on the shingles, and as they came nearer to Broad Street and turned south toward Broad Gate, the stumblebum was able to close the gap, scrambling up to a peak and sliding down on his bum, heedless of splinters. Stephen had been in quite a few chases in his time, both as the pursuer and the pursued, but none had been as inelegant as this.

  Several houses down Broad Street, Stephen grasped the peak of a roof where a hook, resembling the kind used on ships, had been fast
ened onto the crest. A rope snaked down the other side and disappeared into a narrow gap between the houses. The man was just disappearing into the gap, using the rope to make his descent.

  Stephen heaved on the rope to gain some slack and unhooked the grapple. He dropped them both. Grapple and rope tumbled toward and into the gap. There were cries of pain and fear from the chasm, but Stephen was beyond sympathy. Theft often was a life-and-death business, the victim cast into suffering and poverty, as Mistress Bartelot had been.

  He edged down the roof to the gap and looked in. It was too dark to see anything in there even though his eyes were well adjusted to the night. The man cried, “Raymond! Don’t leave me!”

  But Raymond did not heed the call. Stephen saw a figure at the head of the gap enter Broad Street and limp toward the gate. Groans of despair filtered from the darkness.

  Another man might have quailed at an attempt to clamber down the gap, but Stephen had experience in such climbing. In Spain, they had climbed up and down such shutes while in full armor as an exercise in strength and agility. The only difference now was that he had no toes on his left foot for purchase on one of the walls. But there was nothing for it except to try. He edged into the gap, his right hand and foot on one wall and left on the other. It wasn’t as bad as he had feared, and he was able to make it to the bottom without killing himself.

  The man had reached the street on hands and knees. He turned at Stephen’s approach.

  “Please!” the man cried. “I surrender!”

  Stephen panted, hands on knees to recover his breath. At last he knelt on one of the thief’s arms and unbuckled his belt, which had a dagger hanging from it that might be used against him. Stephen said, “On your stomach, hands behind your back.”

  The thief rolled over as ordered and did not resist when Stephen brought his wrists together. Stephen secured the thief’s arms with the belt and pulled him to his feet, an act that required almost more strength than Stephen had left, for the fellow was solidly built even if he came up only to Stephen’s shoulder. But the effort met failure as the thief collapsed with a cry.

  “My leg! You’ve broken my leg!”

  Stephen felt the leg in question. “I don’t think it’s broken. It’s probably only a sprain.”

  “I’ll be able to walk to the gallows after all,” said the thief, who seemed to be recovering from his panic. “What a relief.”

  Stephen sat in the street beside him as much to recover his strength as to consider what to do now. It was not that far to the Broken Shield, but seemed an impossible distance if he had to carry the thief.

  “What’s your name?” Stephen asked.

  The thief hesitated. “Ralph.”

  “Ralph, how would you like to avoid the gallows?”

  “How would that miracle come to pass?”

  “I have a few questions. If you answer them, I’ll see what I can do to save you.”

  “What could you do, an ordinary bloke like you?”

  “I’m the deputy coroner of this town. Small a job as that is, I have some influence.”

  “So this whole thing was a trap.”

  “Of course it was a trap.”

  “That beggar in Hereford we got the word from, Harry, or whatever his name is, you put him up to it?” Ralph asked in disbelief. “Dropping that there was silver at the inn?”

  “Let’s just say I let information slip knowing that it probably would come to you.”

  “That’s too clever.”

  “Thank you. Cleverness is a trait I have always admired.”

  “So, you’re clever enough to see that I’ll not be hanged?”

  “I’ll make no promises about that. You never know what the undersheriff here will do. But I think I can manage it.”

  “I’m not telling you the lad’s name.”

  “I don’t want to know his name. That was Horwood who tried to get in my window, wasn’t it?”

  “Tried? You say he only tried? That’s not how it sounded to me.”

  “That’s what we’ll say.”

  “It was.”

  “Were you up here last month with him? With a red-haired boy?”

  Ralph nodded.

  “That was Ollie, wasn’t it? He was one of Horwood’s boys?”

  “Sad thing, that. It happens now and then,” Ralph said, with a nod. “He’s not the first boy we’ve lost.”

  “I had no idea burglary could be such a dangerous business.”

  “It do have its perils.”

  “You broke into an old woman’s house across the street from the inn.”

  “Yea.”

  Stephen went on, “You took a horde of silver spoons. Where are they?”

  “Long gone.”

  “Sold, I suppose.”

  “No, they wasn’t.”

  “Horwood still has them?”

  “Course he don’t have them.”

  “What became of them then if they weren’t sold?”

  “Somebody else’s got them.”

  “A dealer in stolen goods?” Stephen thought of Will Thumper. There must be many more like him.

  “No, we work for a gentleman who likes to collect silver.”

  Of all the things Ralph could have said, Stephen had not expected this. “You steal silver for a gentleman? Would his name happen to be FitzSimmons? Nigel FitzSimmons?”

  “No, his name is Crauford.”

  “Maurice Crauford?”

  “The very same. Do you know him?”

  “We’re old friends.”

  Chapter 28

  “So,” FitzAllan said when Stephen finished his report in the King’s hall of Hereford castle, “you expect me to invade Crauford’s house, just because you accuse him? What is your evidence?”

  “If you do not act quickly, the stolen goods will be gone,” Stephen said, “once word gets here that Horwood’s dead.”

  “I asked, what is your evidence besides this Horwood’s dying gasps? Your say so isn’t enough. It didn’t work at Bishop’s Castle. Why should I take a chance here?”

  “Because I think there is a link between Crauford and FitzSimmons. FitzSimmons needs silver for his plan. Crauford has been getting it for him.”

  FitzAllan waved a hand before his face as if batting at an irritating insect. “A guess.”

  “But they’re friends.”

  “We’re all friends, or acquaintances, anyway, on both sides. The fact people might know each other doesn’t make them accomplices in crime. Or rebellion either, for that matter. I know Crauford, for God’s sake, and FitzSimmons, too. Will you accuse me next?”

  “No, my lord. But what else can explain Crauford’s sponsorship of these thefts? There have been quite a few of them. He must have fifty pounds in silver by now.”

  “He does have a house, here in the bishop’s quarter,” FitzAllan said in a softer, more contemplative tone. “Your informant is right about that. Look, the problem is that if we invade Crauford’s house, we will offend him. He has Prince Edward’s ear. It’s the only reason he got his command in the first place. Nobody else would trust him with men. He’s an idiot. He cuts a fine figure on a horse and at the dance, but I wouldn’t trust him to swing a sword or to stand fast in battle. Yet he is the Prince’s friend, and so in the end, we risk offending the Prince, not mention the bishop, who resists the authority of anyone to arrest his tenants but his own bailiffs. Are you willing to do that? On the word of some person from the streets whom you’ve not even had the courtesy to identify? Other than this Horwood fellow?”

  “Well, perhaps you can lend me a half dozen bailiffs. If I fail, you can say I acted without your authority.”

  FitzAllan smiled thinly. “Better it should fall on your shoulders than mine. You’ve enough enemies already, young fellow. I suppose it can’t hurt to have a few more.”

  Crauford’s house lay in the middle of Broad Caboches Lane. It was an impressive three stories of red stone, flanked on either side by equally prosperous houses belonging
to canons of the cathedral, which was visible at the end of the street. It ran almost a hundred feet along the street and reared up with such grandeur that it fairly shouted that its possessor was a man of great wealth. It was not what Stephen had expected.

  “What now, sir?” the leading bailiff asked at Stephen’s hesitation.

  “There won’t be but a caretaker, his wife and a boy, according to my informant. Crauford’s gone off to Windsor and his command.” Stephen waved at the front door. “Proceed.”

  The bailiff nodded, stepped around the cart they had brought with them and pounded on the door. When no one answered, he pounded again. “Open up! In the King’s name!”

  “Coming! Coming!” an elderly man’s voice called from beyond the door. “No need to knock it down!”

  The door opened. The elderly man stood in the crack. His gray hair was neat and combed straight back from his forehead, which was high, square and regal. Blue eyes stared at his visitors without the slightest degree of anxiety at this unexpected event. He wore a fine red linen shirt with a silver badge in the shape of a hart on his left breast.

  “What can I do for you?” asked the elderly man, whom Stephen took to be a steward and who did not bother to introduce himself.

  “We’ve come to inspect the house for stolen goods,” the lead bailiff said.

  “Stolen goods!” the steward said. “Nonsense. By what right?”

  “By the King’s right. That’s all we need. Now, out of the way or be knocked aside.”

  The elderly man’s eyes flicked to Stephen, who by the cut of his clothes, even if they were careworn and had a few threads hanging loose, had to be in charge. “All right, all right. No need to be rude. We’ve nothing to hide.”

  The door eased open and the steward backed away.

  The door, which opened on the south end of the house, was separated from the hall to the right by a wooden partition.

  “You know the master isn’t here,” the elderly man said to Stephen as he passed through the door. “You’re not one of the sheriff’s men. I don’t recognize you.”