by C. S. Quinn
Burned into the soft metal on the underside was a symbol he recognised. It was a crown, over a loop of knots.
Charlie held the snapchance to his arm, considering its size against the image he held of Maria’s dead sister.
One of these snapchances had been used to brand the body. He was sure of it.
Charlie turned the possibility in his mind along with the musket part.
Then against the soft tolling of the death bells his ears suddenly picked out a different sound. A noise like someone close-by.
A dog or cat, he reasoned. Then it came again. Louder this time. Too loud for a creeping animal.
Before he could make a decision to hide the door creaked open behind him and a pallid face swung suddenly into view. Silhouetted against the frame the figure held aloft an iron bar. It inched through the doorway with an assassin’s assurance.
‘Tell me what you know,’ demanded a muffled voice. ‘Or I shall stove in your skull.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Blackstone and the Mayor were ushered into a low room which smelt of unwashed bodies.
Inside, lit by the smoky light of a whale-oil lamp, Amesbury was laid almost horizontal on a chaise lounge. The soldier of fortune had his great brown leather boots stacked in front of him. And he wore his usual heavy army cloak – lest anyone forget his military brilliance.
Amesbury wore his brown hair long and curled like the King, with a dandyish little moustache. His large body he held comfortably, like well-worn armour.
A gaudily-painted woman lay against his shoulder, whilst another dangled grapes towards his mouth, giggling affectedly. His pet monkey skulked about the floor snatching up scraps of grape skin.
Amesbury sat up very slightly as Blackstone and the Mayor entered. The women fell back a little, clinging to him protectively.
The monkey sat up on its haunches as though joining the conversation. No one knew exactly where Amesbury had found the pet. But he’d spent time in the navy and the rumour was he’d won it in a game of Hearts.
‘Welcome,’ said Amesbury. ‘This is a little place I come sometimes. We may talk here privately.’
‘It stinks of sin in here,’ announced Mayor Lawrence. ‘Could you think of no other place we might meet?’
Above them a rhythmic thumping started up. The two women smirked at one another.
‘I wanted to be sure we were not overheard,’ said Amesbury.
As he spoke the door broke open and a half-dressed aristocrat fell into the room. Three laughing girls came rolling after, each in various states of undress.
‘You must keep your promise!’ said one, attaching herself to his boot. ‘The whole barrel or the old madam.’ And shrieking with merriment the little group fell back into the room they’d come from.
Keeping his expression neutral Blackstone crossed the room and closed the door they’d fallen through.
The loud laughing and shouting grew slightly quieter.
‘Amesbury,’ Blackstone bowed only slightly. He did not trust the King’s advisor, who had switched sides several times during the Civil War.
‘What is it you wished to discuss with us?’
Amesbury shined a buckle on his military cloak with a calloused thumb.
‘I hear there has been another witch-murder,’ he said.
Blackstone was silent for a moment. He had no idea how Amesbury had gained his information.
Mayor Lawrence made a little huff of annoyance.
He had recently purchased a pair of spectacles from Cheapside and his pallid eyes were horribly magnified behind the scratched round lenses. The leather arms struggled to reach around the bulky face.
‘We have put the King’s money to find the thief taker,’ he said. ‘You can be sure he will be found.’
‘Can you be sure it was the thief taker you suspect in any case?’ asked Amesbury.
Blackstone had always wondered the same thing himself. The country was overrun with religious fanatics since the upheaval of Cromwell’s Puritan ways. Many had far greater motive than the thief taker.
‘This spell seems to have been made against His Majesty,’ continued Amesbury. ‘And we know King Charles has many enemies. Many who fought for his father in the Civil War had their lands confiscated and were disappointed when his son did not return them.’
‘You were one of those men as I remember,’ said Mayor Lawrence.
Amesbury smiled. ‘I am hardly concerned with that,’ he said. ‘I busy myself preventing uprisings. Every day we put down some faction or another.’
‘The second murder was made with a rosary,’ he continued. ‘An implement of Catholic prayer. Is the thief taker Catholic?’
‘It doesn’t signify,’ blustered the Mayor. ‘There are hundreds of Catholics in London who keep their faith secret.’
Amesbury considered this. ‘Yet Catholics are those who have lost the most,’ he observed. ‘That would be motive enough, to cast some unholy spell against His Majesty, would it not? Perhaps it would be sensible to widen our net.’
‘And do you have any suspects of your own in mind?’ asked Mayor Lawrence sarcastically. ‘The King’s mistress for example? For all the people say Louise Keroulle and her brother are witches.’
At the mention of Louise and her brother, Blackstone noticed something in Amesbury’s face shift. Then the expression had passed, and he wondered if he had imagined it.
‘The dead girl worked at Adders Gaming House,’ he said. ‘I have spoken to Mr Adders and am told a new member joined only a few days before her death. A Thomas Malvern.’ He paused for a moment.
‘Adders is of the impression that Malvern is not their usual sort of member. He had no family estate and was extended no credit. But Malvern had plenty of ready money, and so they were happy to let him bet.’
‘That does not sound so suspicious to me,’ said Lawrence. ‘Surely those clubs will allow any inside, who have the means.’
‘Malvern wore a plague doctor habit,’ continued Amesbury. ‘Which he refused to relinquish, even after Adder’s girls requested it. They thought Malvern played a trick to disconcert other gamblers. But the costume, of course, would also hide his face.’
Blackstone and the Mayor waited patiently for Amesbury’s train of thought to conclude.
‘It seems to me strange that a suspicious kind of character should join the club only a few days before one of their girls is murdered,’ he continued. ‘I would have you both find out more about this Thomas Malvern. Visit some other gaming houses. See what you might discover.’
Mayor Lawrence had screwed his fat face in indignation. ‘We do not have the resources to make these kinds of enquiries.’
Amesbury smiled. ‘I would count it as a favour,’ he said, his tone making it clear there was no compromise on the issue.
Blackstone bowed. ‘It will be done.’
‘I have also heard that a witch was released from prison in Wapping last month,’ continued Amesbury. ‘This would seem worth pursuing.’ He raised his hand as the Mayor began to protest.
‘This I shall do myself Lawrence. You need not trouble yourself. Save your energies for bringing us the thief taker.’
‘Why did this require us to meet secretly?’ asked Blackstone. Though he knew the answer. Amesbury did not have the King’s permission to be making enquiries.
‘It is better not to trouble the King with such things,’ said Amesbury dismissively. ‘And there is another matter.’
He rang a little bell and a boy-servant came in with a bowl of drinking chocolate. He began whisking it manfully.
‘Would you gentlemen care for a little chocolate?’ asked Amesbury. ‘It is a little affectation I picked up in the colonies.’
The Mayor shook his head vehemently, and Blackstone, though tempted, gave his own shake of decline.
Amesbury picked up the cup, tiny in his calloused soldier hands, and took a draft.
‘His Majesty asks that coin counterfeiters be looked to.’
; Lawrence gave a gasp of frustration. ‘Coin counterfeiters? The city is on the brink of riot. Mobs have come from the countryside and run half mad with terror that Londoners will infect their villages. What does it matter if a few forged groats are spent?’
‘I only extend policy from His Majesty,’ said Amesbury. ‘Counterfeit coins are so widespread they threaten to ruin the economy.’
Blackstone privately doubted that the King had much say in the policy Amesbury circulated.
Amesbury was made for Civil War and political unrest. Armies led by him were virtually indestructible, but he was utterly without loyalty. King Charles had only made him a close advisor in a bid to keep him Royalist.
‘There is talk His Majesty might desert the City,’ said Blackstone.
‘Morality costs money,’ shrugged Amesbury, ‘and King Charles has very little. Parliament makes sure of it.’ His expression was blank, giving no indication he’d advised the King one way or another.
‘But how are we to enact any policy without funds?’ demanded the Mayor. ‘Already we run short of wages for the gravediggers and nurses. We need more fires to clean the air and more pits to bury bodies. How is such a thing to be done?’
Amesbury took out his eating knife and began picking his teeth.
‘My great fear gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Is that they cannot be done.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
‘Tell me what you know,’ demanded the voice. ‘Or I shall stove in your skull.’
The raised iron bar was silhouetted in the blacksmith’s doorway.
Several thoughts merged in Charlie’s head at once.
‘Maria?’ he said. ‘Is that you?’
The iron bar raised a little higher.
Charlie was so shocked he said the first thing which came into his head.
‘You still owe me a guinea,’ he said.
The iron bar lowered fractionally, in confusion, and then she rallied.
‘What do you know of my sister’s murderer?’ she demanded, raising it up again.
He eyed the iron bar. ‘There is no need for your weapon,’ he said. ‘I come to clear my name, that is all. Why are you here?’
‘The same reason as you. I thought a blacksmith might have made the thing which marked Eva. So I waited and watched for you to arrive on Thames Street. Then I followed you.’
‘And did you realise then that you wrongly accused me of your sister’s murder?’ That I was an innocent man trying to clear my name?’
Maria waved her weapon, stepping closer. Like Charlie she had made a mask of linen to protect her face and kept a hand covering her mouth. She shut the door behind her with a single hand.
‘Where did you get the key?’ She wielded the weapon menacingly.
‘Peace!’ Charlie raised his hands. ‘It was left to me as a foundling! I know no more of what the mark means than you.’
Charlie voice rose in exasperation.
‘I do not even believe in the power of witches!’ he protested. ‘I am a rational man. I think those who buy spells and potions are foolish.’
Maria let the weapon fall a little.
‘Why do you carry the key?’
Charlie’s free hand moved to it defensively. ‘It was left to me. That is all. It was the only thing I was found with when I entered the Foundling Hospital.’
Maria seemed thoughtful for a moment, and then her brows knitted in understanding.
‘Then you have your own mystery to solve,’ she said. ‘That is what brings you here. You think to find your mother or something like it.’
‘I come to clear my name, that is all. From the wrongs you have done it.’
But Maria seemed to have an unerring ability to know he was dissembling.
‘You also must wonder why that key was left to you,’ she repeated. ‘Do not think me a fool Charlie Thief-Taker. If you only sought to evade capture you could escape whilst plague rages and be easily forgot. You have as much reason as I to find out this man who left the mark.’
She looked suddenly guilty. ‘I confess I may have been mistaken for bringing the guards. Though you cannot think too ill of me. I want to see my sister’s murderer brought to justice and I feared you might run before information could be got of you. That is typical of the common sort.’
‘And accusing innocent men and trying to have them arrested and tortured, is that the way of the finer sort?’ retorted Charlie. ‘I have the whole city on my tail Maria! The King himself has sent men to bring me in.’
‘It matters not in any case,’ said Maria. ‘We are here to the same purpose. We might help each other,’ she added.
Charlie eyed her suspiciously. The last time they’d met she had tricked him with embarrassing ease.
‘Why should I trust you? You might have guards ready to pounce as we speak.’
‘No more than I should trust you,’ said Maria. ‘You bear the mark of a murderer, and your soft-hearted story could be nothing more than a feint.’
They glared at each other.
‘I give you my word,’ said Maria finally. ‘I do not try to trick you. Only to find out my sister’s killer.’ She stooped to put the iron bar on the floor. ‘See?’
Charlie stood for a moment, weighing up the options. He had to concede that it would take two people less time to make a search of the premises than one. And with watchmen headed back anytime soon it seemed sensible to use her help.
‘We make a quick search,’ he concluded. ‘Watchmen saw me come into the court and they will soon return. But after we leave you must promise not to follow me from here.’
Maria gave the tiniest begrudging incline of her head.
‘And you must agree to believe me that I am innocent of any murder,’ he added.
‘I have no choice for now. Though if I find some evidence you have lied to me you shall be sorry for it,’ she concluded.
Charlie resisted a retort, returning his attention instead to the task at hand.
‘I found something,’ he said, pointing. ‘That barrel was full of musket firing parts. A hundred at least. And by the looks of things there were many more. And they bear the mark. The same that was made on your sister.’
Maria was silent for a moment.
‘Someone making muskets?’ she said finally. ‘An uprising?’
Charlie nodded. He was impressed. She was more perceptive than he had given her credit for.
‘But why should such a man want to harm my sister?’
‘I know not. But I thought to make a search,’ he answered. ‘Though it seems as though someone has been here before us,’ he added, looking at the ironwork flung carelessly across the room.
‘I have a tinderbox,’ said Maria, striking the flint as she spoke, ‘and this little candle stump. So we might see better.’
Walking towards the edge of the room she held her candle over the strewn objects. Then Maria stopped suddenly by the bed.
‘It is sticky here, underfoot.’
Charlie knew before he reached her.
‘Here,’ he said, stepping forward and taking the lighted candle from her. ‘Let me attend to the looking of this.’
The slick of dried liquid flashed ominous red in the flame and joined a dark shape under the bed. Charlie turned his head up to Maria. Her face had a faraway look about it and her mouth was set downwards.
‘Is it the blacksmith?’ she whispered.
Charlie nodded.
He inched closer holding his hand steady. Keeping his distance he extended his arm towards the body.
Charlie swallowed as the leather-like skin came into better view.
The blacksmith had been tortured. Part of his lip and nose had been cut away and dark blood blisters were all that remained of his fingernails.
Half his head was missing where a heavy metal hilt had splintered his skull.
‘Someone has swung some heavy thing into his head,’ said Charlie, straightening up to block Maria’s view of the extent of the blacksmith’s injuries.
&nb
sp; ‘I think the person who had those rifle parts made wanted to cover his tracks,’ he added.
‘Might it not have been a simple robbery?’ asked Maria.
‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘There are torture marks on him. A burglar would not have done that.’
Maria was silent for a moment, and Charlie regretted telling her the details.
‘We should keep looking,’ she said. ‘The killer might have left some clue.’
‘These are likely our best clues,’ said Charlie, holding up a snapchance. ‘Guards are headed for the house Maria. Better we leave now.’
But as he spoke he spotted something. The pigeons trussed in a row to the fireplace. A single wing of one was lolling free.
The sight roused his thief taker’s intuition.
There was something about the injury which did not tally with the way dead birds usually hung.
He walked over to inspect the broken wing.
‘Someone has cut a quill for a pen,’ he murmured, looking at the neat incision. ‘That could hardly have been the blacksmith. A man such as he does not write.’
The feather had been cut adeptly by someone literate enough to carry their own pen knife. An educated man. He logged the fact.
‘What of those firing mechanisms you spoke of?’ asked Maria, interrupting his thoughts. ‘Might they not lead us to him?’
Charlie nodded slowly. ‘For muskets he will need gunpowder.’
A man’s voice on the street brought their conversation to a standstill.
‘Which house is it?’
They both froze.
‘That one seems to have its padlock hanging free.’
Charlie glared at Maria.
‘You did not put the padlock back!’
‘How was I to know you were not clever enough to stay free of the watchmen?’ she hissed.
‘There is a plague cross on the door!’ shouted one of the guards.
Charlie and Maria exchanged glances.
Another voice sounded out from the street.
‘Then take a quick look within and we can both be free of this hellish place.’
‘I do not mean to take long about it.’