The church grew quiet then as the vicar mounted the pulpit and called them into prayer. When he began his sermon, Duncan put his head close to hers. “Is that her?” he whispered, pointing his finger ever so slightly toward a young woman a few pews ahead of him. She was seated beside an elderly man dressed in faded gray breeches and shirt.
Lucy shook her head. “No, Miss Water’s hair is darker.”
Hearing them, a man seated in front of them turned around, giving them a warning glance.
“Pardon,” Lucy mouthed. The man turned back around.
“What about her?” Duncan whispered again. Lucy shook her head.
They did this several times. “This isn’t working,” Lucy whispered. Catching the eye of an elderly woman leaning against the wall, she stood up and gestured to the woman to take her seat. Gratefully the woman slid into the pew that she and Duncan had vacated. Annie didn’t even seem to realize that they had left her.
She and Duncan made their way down the side aisle, trying to bring as little attention to their movements as they could. Fortunately, the vicar had just called everyone to stand, and they were able to walk hastily toward the front of the church, stepping carefully among the parishioners who lined the walls. She kept her face down, hoping if Miss Water were there she wouldn’t see Lucy first. Duncan stood slightly behind her, so that the back of her shoulder was touching his arm.
Peeking out through her lashes, Lucy could tell that she had a far better vantage point to see the congregation than before. She let her eyes sweep over the church, especially toward the front where the most important families usually sat in their inherited pews. She studied each brunette female in turn. Some noblewomen, some servants, a few gentry. One or two looked enthralled by the vicar’s sermon, but most wore the same slightly bored expression that she was used to seeing on the faces of churchgoers at home.
A woman delicately blowing her nose into a bit of red silk caught her attention. Lucy caught her breath, and she craned closer. The woman was seated next to an older man who was nodding his head at the vicar’s words. Could it be—? Yes. It was the woman who called herself Rhonda Rivers. The woman whom Lucy believed was Rhonda Water.
Reaching slightly backward, Lucy tugged on Duncan’s sleeve. He leaned in. “Do you see her?” His breath tickled her cheek.
She nodded, not wanting to lose sight of Miss Water. Eventually, when the vicar bestowed his final blessing on the congregation, Lucy and Duncan began to move their way to the back, keeping their eyes on Miss Water, so that they would not get caught in the crush of the congregation leaving the church. As people passed them by, eager to get home to their Sunday suppers, Lucy could see that Miss Water was still standing beside the older man, who she could see now was dressed as an Oxford fellow. She assumed he was Rhonda’s father, Master Water. He had become engaged in a conversation with some other men. As Lucy watched, Rhonda said something to the man and left his side, making her way out of the church. Lucy followed, hoping Duncan would look after Annie.
Miss Water moved out onto High Street, turning toward the church graveyard. It was there that Lucy caught up with her.
“Miss Water?” Lucy said. “May I have a word?”
Miss Water stared at her. “You!” she exclaimed. “Whatever are you doing here?” She looked anxiously around. “How did you know my name.”
“I came to find you.”
“However did you discover where I live?” the woman looked about anxiously. “I know I never told you.”
Lucy pulled out her crumpled copy of the London Miscellany. “It’s here, in the first line. See, Darius wrote an anagram for you, within the acrostic. Rhonda Water. That’s how I knew your full name.”
Miss Water’s eyes misted over. “He loved puzzles, Darius did.”
“You had told me your father taught at Oxford,” Lucy went on, feeling her stomach churn a bit. She did not want to cause the woman any more distress. “From there, it was not too hard to discover a scholar of the mystic East who had a daughter named Rhonda. It wasn’t too hard to learn that he was at Merton College. We knew you would attend church. And the rest”—Lucy waved her hand—“well, here we are.”
Miss Water pulled out her own much handled copy from her pocket. “How many times have I read these words, without realizing he had anything more to say to me. How could I have missed it?”
“You were grieving,” Lucy said softly.
The woman continued to stare at the poem. “Was that all he said? Did you find … anything else?”
“Not in the poem. If there is anything else hidden in there, we could not find it.”
“We?”
“Constable Duncan and myself.”
Miss Water turned away. “Oh, Lucy!” she cried. “I asked you not to involve the constable! My poor Darius is gone, there’s nothing we can do for him now.”
“Except inform his family of his death,” Lucy said. “Don’t they deserve to know the truth?”
“Yes, I suppose.” She rubbed her hands against her skirt. “You must think mighty poorly of me.”
“Why ever would you say that?” Lucy asked, noticing for the first time how mud had splattered across her own skirts. Standing beside Miss Water, in her beautiful, tailored clothes, Lucy felt like an absolute peasant. Her mother would not have been pleased, had she been able to view them right now.
Miss Water sighed, and sat down on a small stone bench. Instead of answering, she pointed to a white gravestone with a beautifully carved angel a few feet away. “That’s my mother’s grave,” she said.
Lucy knew the pain of losing a parent. “I’m sorry,” she said, even as she wondered what that sad fact had to do with anything.
Hearing the question in Lucy’s voice, Miss Water continued, “My mother died a year ago. Distemper, I think, although Father said otherwise. We were living in London at the time.”
Lucy nodded. A year ago the plague was just starting to hit London, although in the beginning no one wanted to admit it. Many people hid when members of their families had taken ill, even as their sons and sisters lay dying, or else the King’s army or the London authority would be likely to quarantine them all in their houses, imprisoned until they all succumbed to the inevitable.
“After she died, Father had to get away. Get away from London. He took me away to the furthest place he could think of. A place he had long studied from afar.”
“Persia,” Lucy stated. “Where you met Darius.” She had a quick image of a woman standing in robes, amid the fragrant flowers of a beautiful hanging garden, waiting for her beloved to appear. Come to the garden in spring. There’s wine and sweethearts in the pomegranate blossoms.
“Yes,” Miss Water said, interrupting her momentary reverie. “I never knew his last name. He was just Darius to me, beautiful, lovely Darius.” Then angrily she added, “I don’t know what he was doing in a place like the old Cheshire Cheese. He didn’t drink much, and he never gambled. What was he doing playing cards?”
The whole journey to Oxford was for naught, Lucy thought. “Perhaps you’d like to claim some of the other items that he had with him?”
“What kinds of things?” Miss Water asked, a slight catch to her voice.
“Well, a small ivory brooch. That might have belonged to another man, though.”
“A brooch? That would seem strange to take if it belonged to someone else.”
“A signet ring,” Lucy said. “With a coat of arms on one side, and a hunting scene on the other.
Miss Water shook her head. “Darius had no such thing. What else?”
“A green elephant. Made of jade, I think. Duncan said it was a rook, from a chess set. Wait, what’s wrong?”
Miss Water had paled, and looked like she was about to faint. Tears had sprung to her eyes. She was trying to speak, but seemed quite overcome, half crying, and, inexplicably, half laughing. Truly, she looked quite hysterical.
Lucy looked about anxiously. She saw the well she had taken a drink from ear
lier, and brought Miss Water a dipper full of water. She watched Miss Water drink, waiting impatiently for her to speak.
Finally, she did. “The murdered man!” Miss Water uttered, her voice oddly strangled.
“Yes?” Lucy asked. “What about Darius?”
“No!” Miss Water said. Inexplicably she began to giggle. “Don’t you see? Oh, how you can see? It wasn’t Darius. The murdered man was someone else! Darius must be alive!”
Lucy stared at Miss Water. “Whatever do you mean?” Perhaps the shock over Darius’s death had finally touched her wits.
The woman swayed back and forth. For a moment, she was quite overcome. Finally, she spoke. “Tahmin. It must have been Tahmin. Oh, poor Tahmin.”
“Tahmin?” Lucy asked. “Who’s Tahmin?”
Wiping the tears from her face, Miss Water stumbled to explain. “Tahmin was Darius’s friend. Or even his manservant. He was so protective of Darius, he sometimes seemed like his bodyguard. But Darius was just a translator, why would he need a bodyguard?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said, trying to follow Miss Water’s wild speech. “Tell me why you no longer believe the murdered man was Darius? You were so sure, when we first met at the Golden Lion. I told the constable.”
“You should not have done that,” Miss Water said, frowning. “How can it possibly matter now?”
“The constable’s job is to restore order. Find justice.” Lucy cocked her head sidewise. “How do you know it was—Tahmin, did you say? Not Darius.”
Miss Water waved her hand. “’Twas the rook, you see. Tahmin never let it out of his sight. I think it was his good-luck charm. Darius used to josh him about it. It makes sense. Tahmin was the card player, the gambler. Not Darius.”
Lucy thought back to Jacques’s description. “Sickened by cards,” he had said. From the way that Miss Water had described the two men, she was beginning to agree that it was indeed Tahmin, not Darius, who had been murdered in the tavern. “What’s the matter?” Lucy asked. Miss Water had gripped her arm.
“Father is coming. Please leave me. There is nothing more I can tell you.”
“Tell me who Tahmin was,” Lucy said. “Please! His last name! He’s been buried in an unmarked grave in Houndsditch. Carted away by the raker! Don’t you think his family, his parents, deserve to know what happened to him?”
Miss Water quivered, her eyes filling with tears. “I am heartfelt sorry. Truly, I am. I would send a letter if I could, but I have no idea where to send it. Oh!” she suddenly sounded a bit scared. “Here’s Father!” she whispered. In a louder voice, “I’ve nothing else for you!”
Lucy gave a quick bob as she passed Master Water on her way out of the graveyard, but did not speak to the man. He looked annoyed.
“Who was that?” she heard him ask his daughter. “Did you know that young woman?”
“No, Father! She was just seeking a bit of silver, for which I did not oblige.”
“Good girl, Rhonda,” Lucy heard him reply. “The Fire’s brought too many beggars to Oxford. We must not indulge them, or we’ll never be rid of them.”
* * *
Lucy’s cheeks were still flaming as she marched up to Duncan where he stood with Annie by the church’s great stone entrance. Beggar indeed!
“Hey, slow down!” the constable said. “What did you find out about Darius?”
“He’s not Darius, for one thing,” Lucy said, without slowing down.
“What?” Duncan said, scrambling after her. “What did she say?”
“Lucy!” Annie called. “Wait for us!”
Striding down High Street, back toward the Scholar’s Head, Lucy could not help but think about Miss Water’s pale, tear-stained face. “She seemed so scared of her father,” Lucy said, finally slowing down. “He did not approve of his daughter’s love.”
Lucy kicked a rock on the road, watching it ricochet into the carcass of a dead rabbit, before sinking into the decaying pulp of flesh and fur. She looked away in disgust. “A wasted trip, I’m afraid. We’re no closer to bringing a murderer to justice.” She looked at Duncan, daring him to disagree.
“Why do you say that, Lucy?” he asked patiently. “I’ve not understood a single thing you’ve said, this whole way back from the church.”
Beside him, Annie nodded her head emphatically in agreement. “Yes, Lucy, what did she tell you?”
Having reached Ivan and the cart, Lucy stopped. She looked squarely back at Duncan. “I had told her she could have the contents of the bag back and—what?” she broke off, seeing Duncan’s face tighten.
“You told her what?” he roared.
Annie gaped at him a moment before climbing back into the cart. Ivan continued to placidly brush his horses, in preparation for their long journey back to London.
“I thought she should have the contents of the bag back,” Lucy said, defiantly. The constable’s reaction was not what she had expected.
“You had no right to tell her that!” Duncan exclaimed. “We don’t even know those items rightfully belong to her anyway! Especially since you said the dead man wasn’t Darius at all.” Something flickered in his face just then. “How did you know that?” he asked, a bit reluctantly. “What did she say?”
She told him quickly about the rook, and Miss Water’s conviction that the man could only have been Darius’s faithful friend Tahmin.
After that, Duncan didn’t say anything, but started untying the horses from the post. His disappointed silence suddenly made Lucy angry.
“If it were not for me, I dare say you wouldn’t have known anything about this crime! You wouldn’t have known about Darius, or Miss Water, or Tahmin, or Jacques Durand! Not anything!” She couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of her mouth. “I gave up two days to go on this ridiculous journey. Everyone’s questioned why I’ve been helping you so much, and I have to say, I don’t know!”
The constable seemed at a loss for words then. She glared at him, before turning away.
Lucy spent the next three hours gazing stonily at the passing scenery along the London road. She wouldn’t even look in Duncan’s direction in case he turned around. Consequently she developed an ache in her neck from her strained position.
Only when they finally stopped at a coaching inn to exchange horses did Duncan try to make stilted amends for his harsh words. “I’m sorry, Lucy,” he had said, watching her rub the crick in her neck. “I was angry because I thought you told Miss Water about the items because you didn’t think we’d catch Darius’s—well, Tahmin’s—killer.”
“I would never think that way.”
“I know.” Duncan ran his hand through his dark hair. “My superiors want me to drop my pursuit of this murderer, to turn my attention to other matters. I can’t rest easy until I do. Every day that passes, the murderer will be harder to catch.”
Lucy nodded, the bitterness somewhat lessened between them. She climbed back into the cart. As she settled in, Duncan stood beside her. “I appreciate your help, Lucy. I do. You’ve got a keen mind. I’m utterly capable of admitting that you’ve helped me think through this crime. You’ve discovered some helpful information.” He paused. He glanced at Annie, who seemed to have been rocked to sleep by the steady clip-clopping of the horses. “I know, too, that not everyone in your acquaintance is happy that you’re helping me.”
Adam’s face flashed through her mind and she looked away.
“I certainly don’t want to cause you any problems. Nor do I want any strife between us.” Duncan touched her arm where it rested on the wagon. “I hope you will accept my apology.” He moved away then, to reclaim his seat next to Ivan.
Annie opened her eyes. “You’ll forgive him, right?”
Lucy swatted at her. “Wretched girl. Were you awake the whole time?”
Annie smiled. “The constable needs us. We can’t let him down.”
11
The next morning, back in London, Lucy finished inking a new piece called A True Account of Joan Little,
Moll Cut-Purse. Even though she was not supposed to run the press by herself, she laid one of the pieces of paper carefully on top.
“Master Aubrey will be so surprised when he returns, and Lach too!” she said, smiling to think of the looks on their faces. Using the long lever she pressed with all her might, bringing the great lid on top of the paper and type.
To Lucy’s dismay, she heard a sickening crunching sound from within the press. Quickly raising the cover back up, she tore off the paper and looked at the typeface in consternation. The woodcut she had used, the one Master Aubrey preferred for pieces that portrayed an ill-bred woman, had completely shattered.
Swearing, Lucy began to extract the delicate slivers of a woodcut from the press. “Must have tightened it too much so that it popped out a bit!” she muttered. “Dolt!” she berated herself. Thank goodness neither Master Aubrey or Lach were around. She could only imagine what the printer would say when he saw the broken woodcut. Deduct the cost from her wages, that was certain. Even worse, how Lach would smirk. She grimaced even thinking about how the apprentice would mock her.
Her mood didn’t improve when Sid walked into the shop. Lucy groaned. “Truly, Sid, I have no time for your nonsense right now.”
“Is that a kind way to speak?” Sid asked. “Here I come with a note for you from the magistrate, with nary a thought for myself, and you only have harsh words for me.”
“A note? From the magistrate?” Lucy stood up, wiping her hands on her apron. Annie had mentioned that Sid was still hanging about the magistrate’s household, doing odd jobs here and there. It seemed that the magistrate had begun to trust the former pickpocket with more personal duties. “What’s it say?”
“Dunno,” Sid said, shuffling his feet. “I never went to no Dame’s school.”
“Oh, Sid, you must learn to read.” Lucy said, taking the note gingerly, careful that her ink-stained hands not mar the letter. She had never received a note from the magistrate before.
From the Charred Remains (Lucy Campion Mysteries) Page 13