A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery

by P. F. Chisholm

  “Yes,” said the judge, glaring at Carey over his spectacles. Carey swept a magnificent bow.

  “Then my apologies to you, my lord,” he said, “for having unintentionally misled you yesterday. It seems that this is a matter of Court faction, a complication of which I was unaware.”

  The judge nodded and rubbed the margin of his beard with his thumb. “Quite so, Sir Robert.”

  “Thank you very much, my lord,” said Carey, and led all three of them from the Hall. Behind them they heard Judge Whitehead’s weary voice. “You again, Mr. Irvine. I hope you have the correct pleadings this time…”

  Once again they needed a drink with even Enys accepting a small cup of aqua vitae. He was reading the papers he had been given very carefully, eyes narrowed, his lips moving as he reread some of the words.

  Carey was cutting into a large steak and kidney pudding which was the ordinary for that day. “Well?” he said.

  “The case has been adjourned sine die, which means indefinitely, for reasons good and sufficient to the Queen’s Prerogative. That means both the civil and the criminal case. We can apply for a new court date but this will set the proceedings back by weeks…”

  “Does the Queen no’ like my case, then?” asked Dodd, wondering if he should leave the country immediately. Then he thought of something. “Ay, but how does she know about it? Is she no’ still at Oxford?”

  Carey looked thoughtful. “Yes, we only tried to arrest Heneage yesterday. I suppose he could have sent a message the forty odd miles to Oxford and back in the time, but the man would have had to ride post and ride through the night as well.”

  “Eighty miles. Ay,” said Dodd, “ye could dae it if ye could see the Queen immediately…”

  “No, the Queen will not have heard anything about it. These papers are from Sir Robert Cecil acting for Lord Burghley who, as Lord Chancellor and Lord Privy Seal, may wield the Queen’s Prerogative during pleasure.”

  Carey nodded. “Hm. Interesting. I wonder…Hm. Must ask my father.”

  “Can I no’ sue Heneage then?”

  “You can continue with the litigation by requiring reasons for the adjournment and you can make representations to the Privy Council asking for the case to be heard in a different court,” said Enys, narrowing his eyes. “Obviously it would be ridiculous to take it in front of Mr. Justice Howell who is notoriously corrupt.”

  “So I get nae satisfaction?” said Dodd mournfully.

  “Well, you might…” began Enys.

  “I think I should go and talk to Her Majesty about this,” said Carey, through a mouthful of kidney.

  Dodd grunted and pushed away the rest of his pudding. He hadn’t expected much justice, but he had allowed himself to hope he would get some down here in the foreign south. Ah well, serve him right for being a silly wee bairn about it. His face lengthened as he considered the matter.

  Carey washed down the last of his meal with the reasonable beer and leaned back with his fingers drumming on the front of his doublet. “I wonder what the surnames are up to at the moment?” he said to Dodd.

  Dodd shrugged. Early autumn, the horses and cattle fat, bad weather not set in yet, but the nights not long enough. The planning would be feverish.

  “It’s October and November they’ll start at the reiving,” he said, “when they’ve killed their pigs and calves. We’ve time yet.”

  “Wouldn’t want to miss the fun,” agreed Carey, who probably meant it, the idiot. “Well then, I think I’ll find out about that corpse which annoyed my father. The inquest might not have happened yet—shall we go to the Board of Greencloth?”

  The Board of Greencloth was held in a meeting room at the business end of the Palace of Whitehall, a short walk from Westminster Hall. Carey spoke gravely to the yeoman of the guard at the entrance and they were all three admitted to a wood-panelled room whose dusty glass windows let in very little light. The corpse itself was not present for which Dodd heartily thanked God, but there were several women there. One of them was Mrs. Briscoe, as round and pregnant as a bomb. Mr. Briscoe stood behind her looking nervous as if ready to catch her when she fell. Another was a grave looking lady in a dark cramoisie woollen kirtle with a doublet-bodice and small falling band. She had grey hair peeking under a white linen cap and black beaver hat, and a very firm jaw. Behind her stood a pale-faced young woman in dove grey furnished with a modest white ruff.

  The men who served on the board filed into the room, led by Hunsdon who already looked bored and was carrying his white staff of office. The others were pouchy-faced and dully-dressed, men of business who ran the complex administration of the palace. A couple of them were distinctly green about the gills which might have been because they had gone to the crypt to view the body in question. Or it might have been the green baize cloth that covered the trestle table boards in front of them, a cloth which made some sense of the name of the Board. All of those waiting bowed to the members of the Board who sat down. One drank some of the wine in a flagon before him and took a little colour from it.

  “We are here,” intoned Hunsdon, “to enquire as to the probable identity and cause of death of the corpse found by Mistress Wentworth, Queen’s Chamberer, at the Queen’s Privy Steps. Have we all viewed it?”

  Everyone nodded, one swallowed again. “I have had the body cried three times in the cities of Westminster and London. Has anyone any…”

  The grey-haired woman stepped forward and curtseyed to Hunsdon. “My lord, I am here to claim the body which I have identified as Mr. John Jackson who went missing in London some three weeks ago.”

  Hunsdon’s bushy eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Indeed, mistress. And you are?”

  Carey was staring at the woman with his lips parted in a half-smile and his eyes narrowed. “Hm,” he said, in a tone of great interest.

  “His cousin, sir, Mrs. Sophia Merry, gentlewoman.”

  “Ah.”

  Mrs. Briscoe had a puzzled expression on her face, mixed with some relief. Hunsdon looked shrewdly at her. “And you, mistress? Have you anything to say?”

  “Oh, ah.” Mrs. Briscoe seemed confused at being addressed so courteously. “Um…I thought it was my bruvver, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “You are willing to yield the body to Mrs. Merry?”

  “Oh yes, my lord, if she’s sure. I’m not, see. His face…Might not have been him.” She looked down and frowned.

  Mr. Briscoe put his arm across her shoulders and whispered in her ear. “My lord, may I sit down?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Of course, mistress,” said Hunsdon, no more eager to have her go into labour there and then than any man would be. One of the court attendants brought up a stool for her to sit on.

  The rest of the inquest went quickly. No mention was made of the man’s missing feet, all the attention was on the dagger-wound in the back and the missing joint of his finger. The Board of Greencloth found that Mr. John Jackson had been unlawfully killed or murdered by person or persons unknown and released the corpse into the keeping of his cousin Mrs. Sophia Merry.

  They all bowed, the Board filed out of the room, and moments later they were in the little alley behind Scotland Yard where were the kilns that fired the staggering quantities of earthenware the palace kitchens used.

  “Why did Poley say, which corpse?” Dodd asked, the thought having just struck him. “Do a lot of deid men wind up in the Thames?”

  “Of course, it’s very convenient if you don’t care about the dead person coming back to haunt you—no questions and no shroud money. Dead children too, dead babies. He could have been joking.”

  “Or he could have known of more than one that he’d heard tell of or had to dae with.”

  “He could. I think I should ask the watermen.” He stopped and frowned. “Except I can’t because I haven’t got Barnabus, damn it. They wouldn’t talk to me and if they did they’d lie.”

  “Whit about the hangman?”

  Carey smiled. “Hughes? Hm. I don’t know if t
he watermen would talk to him, but I wonder if…”

  He immediately changed direction and headed northwards. Dodd sighed and followed, whilst Enys looked bewildered.

  “Verrah impulsive gentleman, is Sir Robert,” said Dodd to the lawyer. “If ye’d like to tag along, I doot he’ll notice now he’s got a notion in his heid.”

  Enys nodded, rammed his robe and the papers back into his brocade bag, slung it over his shoulder, and hurried after them.

  Mr. Hughes lived near his normal workplace at Tyburn, in a pretty cottage surrounded by the shanties of the poor. He had his doublet off and his sleeves up and was working in his garden, carefully bedding out winter cabbage.

  Carey stood by the garden wall watching with interest. After a while Hughes looked up and took his statute cap off.

  “Well sir,” he said.

  “Mr. Hughes, what would you say if I told you that the man you executed on Monday was the wrong one?”

  “I’d say, they’re all innocent if you listen to…”

  “No, I meant, genuinely was the wrong man.”

  Hughes put his cap back on again slowly, narrowing his eyes.

  “I’d be very surprised, sir.” Something about his eyes said he wouldn’t.

  “You never get substitutions?

  “Never, sir, though I suppose it could happen.”

  “What about the priest? Fr. Jackson?”

  “What of him?” Now the eyes were wary although the mouth was innocent.

  “It wasn’t a priest, in fact it was a friend of my mother’s called Richard Tregian.”

  Hughes came to the gate of the garden and opened it. “Come inside, sir,” he said, with a bow. “Try some of my fruit wines.”

  The main room of the cottage was clean and swept though bare. They sat at the small wooden table that had a bench beside it and one stool and Hughes bustled into the storeroom to bring out a pottery flagon with a powerful smell of raspberries. He poured them a measure into horn cups, then sat down on his stool and braced his hands on his knees.

  “Mr. Topcliffe brought him on the day. I had not seen him before to weigh him and calculate the drop, but Mr. Topcliffe said it was no matter, he was to be dead before he was drawn and gave me a purse for it as well.”

  “Did he speak?”

  “No sir, he was in…er…no condition to speak, he had been given the manacles and then he had been waked for a while and could hardly hold his head up nor see straight.”

  “Waked?” asked Carey.

  Hughes studied the floor. “He had been stopped from sleeping for many days, sir. It sends a man mad and kills him quicker than starving. Topcliffe prefers…other methods, but waking is a speciality of Mr. Vice Chamberlain.”

  Carey had a look of disgust on his face. “And what was the purpose of this waking?”

  “Dunno sir, usually it’s to make him talk so they’ll let him sleep, but sometimes all they get is nonsense and vapours of the brain from the poisonous humours, sir.”

  There was a penetrating silence.

  “And it don’t show, sir,” Hughes added, still staring at the floor, “So the mob don’t get too sympathetic.” More silence. Dodd realised that Carey was using it as a weapon. “See, if it’s a Papist priest, I wouldn’t mind sir, not since they sent the Armada—I heard tell they tried again this summer too, sir, only God saved us again. But this…I was worried, see, sir, cos he didn’t look like a priest.”

  Carey blinked. “How could you tell?”

  Hughes looked up with enthusiasm for the first time. “Oh it’s remarkable what you can tell from a man’s body and his clothes, if you know what to look for. See, your papish priest is always doing some sort of penance, see, and it shows. Like most of them have knobbly knees, see, from kneeling at their prayers.”

  Carey shook his head. “Could mean he’s a courtier, I’ve got knobbly knees myself from kneeling in the Queen’s presence and I’m no priest.”

  “True, sir. But it all goes together, you see. Or if he’s been wearing a hair shirt, even if it’s been taken from him, he’s usually got a rash in the shape of a shirt on his body and often a lot of lice cos they don’t take them off at all, sir. Or if he’s been using the discipline—that’s a little scourge with wires on it—you’ve got the marks of that—sort of criss-crossing scratches as if he’s been rolling in a bramble bush, more on the shoulders ‘cos they’re easier to reach…”

  Carey’s head had gone up, as had Dodd’s. They exchanged satisfied glances. Enys was staring at Hughes in some kind of mute horror.

  “So you could see none of that on Richard Tregian?” asked Carey.

  “No sir, nor he didn’t say nothing except gibberish, but still Mr. Topcliffe would have him gagged—in case he made some kind of Papist sermon which Topcliffe couldn’t allow, so he said.”

  “What kind of gibberish, Mr. Hughes?” asked Enys.

  “Ahh…Funny words like Trenever and Lanner and Kergilliak, couldn’t make head nor tale of them. Bedlam he was, far as I could tell. Slept like a baby while he was being dragged on a hurdle to Tyburn which is something you don’t often see and gave the mob a bit of a turn, too.”

  Carey nodded.

  “Course it’s not my place to ask the likes of Richard Topcliffe the wheres and whyfores but I…I was troubled, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cos I asked to see the warrant and it was for Fr. Jackson right enough but it didn’t look right.”

  “Why not?”

  “The ink, sir. The warrant was nicely done in Secretary hand, but the places where Fr. Jackson’s name went and the date, the ink was darker there, like they’d put it in later. They’re not supposed to do that. Each death warrant is for each person, it’s not respectful otherwise. You can’t just have a general warrant with spaces to fill in to hang anyone you fancy…”

  “No, indeed. Is there anything else you can tell us about Richard Topcliffe?”

  “I don’t like him, sir. Bring him to me when I’m working with a proper warrant for him and I won’t charge you a penny for the rope nor nothing for my services.”

  “Do you often have cases like this?” Hughes paused, took breath to speak, paused again with reluctance.

  “Not often, no sir,” he admitted. “Mr. Secretary Walsingham did it a couple of times, but this year…”

  Carey was scratching the patch on his chin where his goatee beard was regrowing. “More?” he asked.

  Hughes seemed to remember something and stopped suddenly, gulped. “Couldn’t say, sir,” he mumbled.

  Dodd sipped his raspberry wine and was stunned. He had never tasted anything so delicious in his life. He drank a little more and then finished the cup. Perhaps Janet was right in her planting of fruit bushes. He wondered if the blackberry wine Janet made for her gossips to drink and which he had always disdained as fit only for weak women was anything like this wonderful stuff. He had to concentrate to pay attention to what was going on.

  Carey leaned across to Hughes. “Mr. Hughes,” he said, “thank you, you’ve been very helpful. Would you mention to your brother in law that I appreciated his compliment and so did my father?”

  Hughes nodded and stopped looking so frightened. “I’ll mention it. He…er…he was wondering if you would be interested in a primero game at Three Cranes in the Vintry on Thursday evenings—he had heard you were quite a player.”

  Carey coughed modestly. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Mr. Hughes, Her Majesty and Sir Walter Raleigh regularly beat me hollow.”

  Hughes’ gaze was steady. “Perhaps you should try your luck at the Three Cranes, sir.”

  Carey smiled. “Perhaps I shall. Thank you, Mr. Hughes.”

  ***

  Now nothing would do but that they must walk south to Westminster to the crypt by the palace to take another look at the mysterious corpse with no feet, to see as Carey said if his knees were knobbly or not. When they arrived they found the crypt empty and no sign of a corpse, embalmed or stinking. Carey was annoyed.


  “She collected the body already?” he demanded. “That’s smart work.”

  “Gentleman’s cousin, since the Board of Greencloth concluded killing by person or persons unknown. She collected him wiv a litter, sir, for immediate private burial,” said the churchwarden in charge of the crypt. “I have her name in the book here, sir.” He was pointedly not opening the pages and finally Carey got the point in question and handed over a penny. The name and address at the sign of the Crowing Cock were neatly written there, and the woman had made her mark as well.

  They took a boat to the Bridge and walked to the street by London Wall where there was no house with the sign of the Crowing Cock and nor had any of the neighbours ever heard of a Mrs. Sophia Merry.

  Sitting on a bench at yet another alehouse, drinking beer, Carey was scowling with thought. Enys had said nothing whatever the whole time but finally Carey noticed him again.

  “Mr. Enys,” he said irritably, “have you no cases to attend to?”

  “No sir,” said Enys humbly, “I told you. Mr. Heneage has seen to it my practice is almost extinct.”

  “Why are you tagging along?”

  “I might be of some assistance…”

  Dodd snorted. “It’s allus better to let the women clear up after a raid on their own, otherwise they start sharpening their tongues on you for letting it happen.”

  Enys coloured up. “I had no intention of…”

  “Did I say it was ye? I was speaking in general.”

  Enys steepled his fingers. “I will of course be on my way, as you are quite right, my sister has much to do. But I have been wondering about this matter.”

  Carey lifted his brows forbiddingly. “Oh yes?”

  “The gentleman from the river was…not unknown to me. I told you, I think, that my family were church Papists. We went to church when we had to but in our hearts…in my parents hearts we still considered ourselves Catholics.”

  “What do you consider yourself now?”

  “A good obedient subject of the Queen who worships where I am told,” said Enys without a tremor. “I have no interest in the ambitions of any Bishop of Rome nor Spanish king to take this land under the colour of a crusade, except to do whatever I can to stop it.”