Hue and Cry

by Shirley McKay

  ‘No jest.’ Paul leaned forward. Gilchrist shuddered at the hot breath on his cheek as he answered with the drunkard’s earnest slur, ‘I found him this morning, dead as is dead, sir, long dead. Twas a shock, you understand, and the reason that my master prescribed me drink strong liquor. Which you see,’ he was helpless once more, ‘I have done, sir.’ He belched.

  ‘Aye, aye, but you found him dead you say,’ Gilchrist said impatiently. ‘Master Locke will have made the arrangements?’

  ‘Nay, sir, not he. All night he was closeted dark with the patient, then this morning he comes out with a look to his eye and quite disarranged, in his shirt, and his shirt, sir, now mark you, was covered in blood.’ Paul paused for effect.

  ‘He was bloodied? That’s strange.’

  ‘Aye, sir, so says I.’ The servant admired his own cunning. ‘So I said to him as innocent as you may please, “Had ye the surgeon?” though I knew no surgeon had passed through the house, for I know my brave master will not call the surgeon. He claims he can’t afford one, and must bleed the wretch himself. But you know, sir, my family and I have been bled here at the kirk door every winter time and summer these last twenty years, for fending off the plague, and Mr Parker, sir, has never spilled a drop. My master’s clothes and hands were red, and there were bandages besides and sheets, and the water pot so black I shrank to touch it. Well then, “No surgeon,” says he, “but the patient does ill, very ill, though the crisis has passed. You must leave the man to rest, Paul. He wants for nothing now.”’ Paul gave a hollow laugh. ‘That’s true enough.’

  ‘But you had not seen a body?’

  ‘Whisht, for I come to it. My master washed and dressed and presently said he would have to go out. He left me behind at my work.’

  ‘Whereupon you disobeyed your master and peeked into the room.’

  Paul was convinced enough by his own tale to feel genuinely hurt. ‘Peeked, sir? Not I. But the doctor was gone such a very long time, that I was set to thinking of the poor man left alone, without a drop to drink. No nourishment had gone into the place for two or three days. He is a man for all his sins, and I’d not let my dog die of thirst.’

  ‘Truly? How commendable. Have you a dog, do you say?’ Gilchrist asked dryly.

  ‘Well, no, sir, no dog, tis a figure of speech. But I thought to offer him drink, sir. As I believed my master had not meant to have been gone so many hours.’

  ‘An act of great charity. Were you not feart of the blood?’

  ‘I had put it behind me. But when I unlocked the door and went into that room with no other purpose than to bring a drink to ease a dying man, I found . . .’

  He leant a little closer for the climax. Gilchrist took out his handkerchief.

  ‘Aye, man, well, you found him dead,’ he pressed impatiently behind it. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I can be sure of it, because my master’s books were flat open all round the room, with their pictures of innards and entrails, and his instruments lay wet beside the bed, and the corpse in the sheet, sir . . . my master had cut off its head.’

  ‘Good God, the thing was headless?’

  ‘Aye, sir . . . well, no . . . .the head was on him right enough, but tied with ribands, bound together, eyes bulging blinder than a villain on the gibbet. You see, it was an awfu’ shock, and so my master chancing in upon the moment sent me here for liquor for a cure.’

  ‘You were discovered with the corpse? Then how did he explain it?’

  ‘He says, sir, bold as you will, “Tush, Paul, tis not as it seems, the man isn’t dead, but only seems so.” As if without a head he might return to life again, by force of his experiments. And he’s quite calm and quiet, only his friend there was angry and feart enough, God knows, to give up the game there and then. Anyway, he persists, “He’s not dead, he’s not dead,” but I know what I saw. So what do you think, sir? Is it witchcraft?’

  ‘I think not,’ Gilchrist said softly. His mind had worked quickly. ‘Down your voice a little, I will tell you what I think. Doctor Locke is an uncommonly clever man. He has trained among anatomists who believe the physician must dirty his hands if he is properly to comprehend his art. What these men do for instruction is to take apart the frame which God has put together limb by limb, as if in the parts they might make sense of God’s whole living mystery of man. In short, they dissect, anatomise, Paul. Now, Master Locke’s books are filled with drawings of dissections made by other men, and these are most instructive, but there is none so instructive as a fresh corpse to work on. You see,’ he went on smoothly, ‘the law allows men like Locke perhaps two or three dead men a year, the perpetrators of the most heinous forms of crime, to practise their anatomies within the schools. But there are very strict limits on these, and the doctors, who are good men, mark you, are often frustrated in their yearning to know more about the workings of the flesh. What I think has happened here is this, and in part I blame myself for it, because I gave the man into his hands. Your doctor finds his patient – a murderer, recall – has fortuitously died. The doctor ought at once to give the corpse up for burial. But instead he sees a chance and takes it. Within a day or two, his practice done, he’ll sew the whole together, wrap him up and market him again as freshly dead. There’s none alive would look upon his face. It is a crime perhaps, yet does no hurt. Consider this: by dying, Colp denied the law the right and proper justice of his death. Is there not some justice therefore in this fitting desecration of his corpse?’

  ‘It’s horrible,’ protested Paul.

  ‘But just. You may let go your burden, for in a day or two your master will give up the last of him for burial. Be aware, if the word were to spread you might yourself be tainted with the crime, and you would hang.’

  ‘I? But I knew nothing of it. You know that.’

  ‘You will realise of course that I could not admit to any part or knowledge of the case. But I’ll keep your secret safe. God be with you, Paul, be easy, and I’ll pray for you.’

  Gilchrist could scarcely have hoped for a more satisfactory outcome to his questioning. It was Providence indeed that he had met Paul in the tavern. That Colp was dead was grand enough, but the stain upon Giles Locke had been an unexpected gift. Aye, it would out before long, whenever the time appeared ripe. He distrusted, nay feared was not too strong a word, the recent appointments, the hateful interference and prescriptions of the Crown. As for physicians, damn them all. ‘They are a godless lot,’ he observed fondly to the tavern lass pouring out his wine. He patted her behind.

  Colp was dead, the physician ripe for his disgrace, and the wine, though not to Gilbert Strachan’s standards, was drinkable enough. Indeed his sun shone fair. It was only later, much later in the afternoon when he awoke from napping with a furred and aching head that he remembered Paul had said – but how had he forgotten? – ‘Only his friend there was angry and feart’. Too late he remembered to wonder, what friend? Paul had long since fled, his confidence shattered. And waking, his pleasures ran cold.

  The Merchant’s House

  Hew had walked down to the harbour where the brisk sea wind and bare expanse of water helped to put the world back in perspective. The visit to the tower room had unsettled him. He half believed, with Paul, that Nicholas was dead. He felt as he had once done as a child when he had come upon a hanging in the street. This was not a commonplace for Hew, for his family did not jeer and jostle with the crowd, and the image of that swinging bulbous face had stayed with him for days.

  The harbour also was a place of execution, picked clean by the scavenger gulls. The slabstones were smeared dark and wet. And though the fishermen were gone, their pickle-fingered women casting entrails to the waves, the reek of the herrings remained. A cat on the wall considered the gulls, feigning indifference. It was coloured like marmalade, a gingerbread tom.

  In the cool September sunshine Hew watched the little boats sail out, unsteadily buoyant with oilcloths and sea-kists, returning from the ships moored on the horizon. Someone –
the harbour-master, was it? – asked him rather brusquely whether he had business here, and he felt conscious of his strangeness, answering, ‘No business, sir, no, none at all.’

  He had not slept. At the clearing of the mists he had been ready for the town, while his father stood out in his nightcap, dispensing advice. ‘Your cousin Robin Flett . . . his wife is young. He minds her charms, and keeps her close confined. Now, of course, she is confined, he keeps her closer still. Don’t vex him, I would counsel you, with inward looks or gestures. He is a proper man.’

  ‘Then properly, I’ll deal with him.’ Hew had answered grimly. ‘You cannot think my sister will requite him quite so well. For when was she inclined to keep her place?’

  ‘Hush, we’ll hold her to it. When you find a better, I’ll be glad to see her there. Now, take the letters, child.’

  The child made small the parent, not the son. Hew had looked at him, diminished in his shirt, and bitten back the words. He tucked the letters in his belt and took his leave.

  The voice reminded him that he had business still. He shook himself. The gingerbread cat took a gamble, and leapt on the trail of a one-legged bird. It missed its quarry by a claw and, nonchalantly furious, began to wash its fur.

  His cousin’s house, among the finest in the street, still lacked the leafy warmth that marked the south-side colleges. The windows, cased and glazed, appeared to squint upon the close, allowing neither light nor air. Hew knocked once or twice on the heavy oak door, before turning through a gate to the side of the house onto the backlands closed from the sun. The door to the netherhall stood open, permitting the daylight its passage. Cautiously, he stepped inside, and called out, ‘Robin Flett?’

  The house had a strange, medicinal smell, like green wood newly oiled. He felt his way into the central hall, and in the pricking of the light began to make sense of what he saw. It was like looking in a glass, his fears illuminate, the rafters grim and lurching like a gallows in the fog. He saw sullen purples lolling, slack and swollen blues. The hanged man’s face became a bowl of fruits.

  ‘Look out for the palettes, there! Who, pray, are you?’

  Robin Flett was watching him behind the open door. And Hew was looking not into a glass but up to ceilings bright with pictures, florid birds and trailing foliage, varnished apples, bulbous pears. Painted serpents coiled the timbers. Rags and palettes strewed the floor. Hurriedly, he stepped aside.

  ‘Coming from the sunshine to the darkness, these images unnerved me,’ he excused himself. ‘I see them now for what they are, only artist’s daubs. I am Hew Cullan, son of Matthew, here with letters from my father.’

  Robin said, ‘Hew Cullan, is it?’ somewhat doubtfully, and rubbed his beard. For Hew was a queer enough picture, with his pale mottled features and paint-puddled clothes. ‘You come through by the vennel like a thief.’

  It was a bare statement, and Hew in the darkness could not see enough of the other man’s face to be sure of the tone.

  ‘Forgive me, sir. I knocked.’

  Flett studied him a moment, as he might inspect a painting, and appeared to let him pass.

  ‘We are disordered here and do not use these chambers,’ he confirmed at length. For, as you see, we have the painter. Which is to say,’ he smiled a little sourly, ‘that we do not have the painter, since he does not come.’ He turned abruptly to the stairwell, calling out, ‘It wasn’t yet the painter, Linnet. Here’s my cousin, Master Cullan! Don’t come down.’

  ‘My wife is with child,’ he explained. ‘And the stench of the pigments is foul. Lucy has set her poor heart on ceilings – cherubim, trees and the like. I brought the artist here from Antwerp, but it turns out he’s a drunkard. As much as he paints,’ and he snorted, ‘he drinks. No matter, though. How fares your father? I do hope he isn’t dead?’ He seemed to dwell on Hew’s pale looks, then suddenly exclaimed, ‘God damn it, Lucy Linnet, I told you not to come!’

  She was standing on the stair, pale pink and almost spherical, her small hands resting shrewishly upon her swollen hip. Her lips and cheeks were bright and fresh. Beneath her curtsey, mischief flounced. Solemnly, Hew held out his hand. But Robin interceded, scolding. ‘Cover your head!’

  She kissed him on the cheek, her eyes on Hew. ‘Don’t fuss so, Robin, please, the colours are long dry. I come to greet our cousin, as is proper in a wife, and since we’re kin, he will forgive my lack of dress. But are you not to introduce us?’

  Without waiting for his answer, she threw open the shutters, allowing the sunlight to scatter the dust.

  ‘Are not the pictures pretty, Master Cullan? All the bonny beasts and flowers, And look, upon the pippin tree, the linnet and the robin, us, you see. And here’s the lark and Katie wren. Oh Robin, do you think,’ like a child she clapped her hands, ‘that we might name her Katherine, if the babe’s a girl?’

  Her husband smiled and kissed her full on the belly. ‘Katherine Flett. It is a good name, Lucy Linn.’

  Hew turned to examine the paintings. They were, in the light, unexceptional sketches: bright-coloured flora, animals and birds. Perhaps the painter shared his own ambivalence towards the merchant and his wife, for he thought he spied a sparrowhawk, shadowing the little birds below. For sure, the robin redbreast was puffed up to inordinate size, and the linnet curled below its wing had eyes upon a brighter bird astride a bigger tree.

  ‘The pictures are remarkable,’ he answered tactfully. ‘I thank you, sir, my father is still well enough. However he grows old, and is concerned for my sister. You were kind enough to offer her a home and he had hoped to see her settled here. But I fear in your present confusion, it may not be opportune.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Robin unexpectedly. He dropped his voice. ‘It will be most convenient. My linnet, I pray you, go ask the girl to fetch wine. You’ll drink a cup of claret. Hew? We’ll sit among the paintings. Here are stools.

  ‘Believe me, you are welcome,’ he acknowledged privately. ‘I’m glad to have your sister at this time. I have been at my wits’ end to know how to comfort Lucy while I’m gone. You see, she bears her frail condition ill . . .’

  ‘Frail!’ thought Hew.

  ‘. . . And I have put off sailing several times. Now the winds are strong, I can delay no longer. I shall speak plain. Margret has the falland evil – no, sir, do not frown, my youngest sister died with it; I see no shame. But nonetheless, you will allow, it is a private sickness, and in this it serves us well. My wife has want of friends. In truth, she has made friendships I wish to discourage, and I would not have her go among the world when I’m abroad. Well then, Meg shall be her company. Now, do not mind the works, for she shall share her bed with Linnet, where the air is pure and clean. It’s providential her affliction keeps them both confined.’

  Confinement, thought Hew, was appropriate enough for this jewel-encrusted coffin of a house. Its freshness masked a dark sense of enclosure. He thought of Meg, and of the long-dead sister, nameless, kept indoors.

  ‘You understand?’ persisted Robin.

  Hew murmured recklessly, ‘Like birds.’

  His answer seemed to satisfy, for Robin gave a small tight smile. ‘I have had horoscopes drawn,’ he confided suddenly, ‘and am assured, no trace of this unhappy stain shall taint my child.’

  ‘The girl has gone to market.’ Lucy had returned, a banquet balanced on a tray, with all of the pride of an infant who bakes her first bannock. ‘Look what I found for us. Marmalades! Robin brings ships full of suckets and sugarplums, Hew, and I shall grow fat, you must help me. Here, these are cherries.’

  She offered a sticky red sweetmeat, close enough almost to touching his lips. Hew felt a wave of nausea. He shook his head. He took solace in the sharpness of the wine, gulping deep to clear his thoughts. Robin, for his part, allowed his wife to sweeten him by sips, with the pressing of a nectarine, a pippin and a plum.

  ‘So Meg will come?’ said Lucy, and she clapped her hands again. ‘How soon?’

  ‘Tomorrow, if you wi
ll,’ Hew promised. ‘I can ride with her. I will be living at St Leonard’s, where I have taken employment as a regent, beginning next week. I think I may arrive a little early, for the man I am to share with is already in possession.’

  Lucy nodded eagerly. ‘I have heard that the last regent there was taken for the murder of the Strachan boy, though the Strachans do not talk of it, and there is indeed a great mystery shrouds the affair.’

  She sensed her husband moving to protest, and popped another candied plum into his mouth.

  ‘But I’ve heard very little of late,’ she pouted, ‘for Robin forbids me the town. I may not see my friends. He’s told the minister that I’m too frail for kirk, which as you see, is a wicked lie. Is aught spoken in the college of the crime?’

  ‘I have not had much converse there,’ Hew answered carefully, ‘as yet. But I believe I heard the rumour in the town. Forgive me, sir, for you must know the family. I do not mean to gossip on their grief.’

  ‘Tis no good thing. But aye,’ the man conceded, ‘I know Gilbert Strachan well, indeed we both have a part share in the Angel, which sets sail tomorrow. His loss affects him cruelly. Tis a pitiful sight, to see a brave man brought so low. So I confess I am uneasy to hear the matter talked of lightly.’

  ‘I have no wish to make light of it,’ Hew replied earnestly, ‘and I applaud your proper feeling. The truth is, I knew the last regent. As boys we shared rooms in the college. So I confess, I am uneasy to have heard him indicted for murder.’

  Lucy’s eyes grew very wide. ‘You shared a bed?’

  ‘Whisht, Lucy, pray!’ It was as close as Robin came to irritation with his wife, and then at once he softened it, saying, ‘Shush, forgive me. I’m weary, my love, with so much to be done. And you mustn’t tell our cousin I have kept you from your friends, for you know how it pains me. You are indeed too ill for kirk. You seldom find the strength to dress before noon. I have spoken with the minister, and have asked him here to pray with you.’