The Counterfeit Madam

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘And you men slept where?’ asked the Serjeant.

  ‘Yonder in the mid chamber, see, on a couple straw pletts, which you’ll find stowed in ahint the big kist.’

  Gil sat back and listened while the Serjeant led Attie competently through the beginning of the day. The grooms had risen first, naturally, though they had heard the women stirring soon after. One of the men had fetched bread and ale from the kitchen and all four had broken fast. The two waiting-women had also eaten in snatches as they moved back and forth through the set of chambers.

  ‘Your mistress ate nothing?’ Gil asked.

  ‘She’d not eat first thing,’ said Lowrie at his elbow, ‘not till she’d—’

  ‘Not till she’d been to stool,’ confirmed Attie awkwardly. ‘You never – you never – Nicol, that’s had several places afore this, he said he never seen anyone like the old carline neither for concern wi her belly. So they got her up, and fetched her the glass hot water she likes, and we heard her shouting about her bedgown, and then she summoned us in wi orders for the day.’

  ‘What, before she was dressed? Why should her women not carry the orders out to you?’ Gil asked.

  Attie shook his head. ‘She never trusted a one of us to carry a sensible word to the others.’

  ‘Same wi the rest of the household,’ contributed Livingstone. ‘If she wanted to say a thing she’d summon you afore her, even Archie or my good-sister under their own roof.’

  ‘So what were the orders?’ demanded the Serjeant. ‘What would she have you all do?’

  Attie shut his eyes, the better to remember, while the old women switched in unison from Pater noster to Ave Maria.

  ‘Nicol and Billy was to go find out when the Campbells would be back,’ he produced, ‘I think they’d a word for the place they lodge in, and Alan and me was to go an errand to the potyngar she favoured, which you’d ken wouldny be the nearest, and fetch a list o things, and straight back here.’

  ‘And did you?’ asked the Serjeant.

  ‘Aye, we did,’ Attie assured them, ‘for it wasny worth the beating if we’d dawdled.’

  ‘And the women?’

  ‘Likely they’d be set to getting her dressed,’ suggested Livingstone.

  ‘Aye, that was it,’ agreed the groom. ‘That was the usual. Takes an hour or two, what wi lacing her up and getting all the points tied and dressing her head, and her changing her mind, and she’s right particular how you comb her head, or so Forveleth aye says.’

  ‘Forveleth?’ questioned Gil.

  ‘Forveleth,’ Lowrie said. ‘It’s her right name. An Erschewoman, she is. Dame Isabella would aye call her Marion.’

  ‘Said she couldny abide these heathen names,’ supplied Attie. ‘A bonnie enough lass, but away wi the fairy half the time, full of ravery about one or another ill-wishing her.’ This must refer to the missing woman, Gil assumed, rather than her mistress. ‘I tried to stop her running off,’ he added, ‘but she said she’d seen a corp laid out in the middle chamber there whenever we set foot in it. Daft, I call it, for it was in the inmost one the auld carline died.’

  ‘And how long was ye about your errand?’ demanded the Serjeant impatiently. ‘When did ye get back from the potyngar’s? Which was it, any road?’

  ‘It was Jimmy Syme’s, away down the High Street,’ said Attie earnestly. Gil looked at the man, reckoning in his mind how long it might take to walk down to the apothecary shop of Syme & Renfrew in the High Street, and what short cuts might be possible. ‘And we were no that long,’ Attie went on, ‘straight there and back like we were told to, quicker than the other two any road, and then we just sat here in this chamber. They cry us waiting-men, after all,’ he said sourly.

  ‘Here? Could you see the door to your mistress’s chamber?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Attie. He waved a hand at the corner where the bedeswomen sat, from which Gil reckoned the doorway would be hidden. ‘We were yonder, waiting for the auld carline to send out for us, only the first thing that happened was Annot going in to her, and she screamed,’ he went on more fluently, ‘and started up saying My lady’s dead! and when we went to see, well, you ken what we saw.’

  ‘So when you and – Alan, was it?’ said Gil, ‘left, she was alive, and the first you saw of her after you got back, she was dead. Is that right?’

  Attie looked at him for a moment, turning this over in his mind, and then nodded.

  ‘That’s it, maister,’ he said in some relief. ‘That’s it exact.’

  ‘And the two of you were together the whole time?’

  ‘Oh, aye, maister,’ Attie assured him. ‘The whole time. Never took our een off one anither.’

  ‘Then why did Alan run off?’ demanded Maister Livingstone.

  ‘Aye, that’s the nub o it,’ agreed the Serjeant. ‘If the two o ye could speak for one another, he’d no need to run off and cast suspicion on hissel, and the same for the two other lads.’

  ‘He never said,’ said Attie doubtfully. ‘But him and Nicol’s brothers, see, maybe he wouldny want to stay here on his lone.’

  ‘What had the two of ye to fetch from the potyngar?’ asked Livingstone. Lowrie looked up from his notes, and nodded. ‘Was it paid, or do we have to take it back and get it struck off the slate?’

  ‘Alan had it by heart,’ said Attie, ‘five or six different – all on the slate, maister – and he put them all in the breast o his jerkin, and I’m thinking he never took them out when we got back here.’ He looked uneasily at Livingstone’s expression, and counted on his fingers. ‘An ounce o root ginger, an ounce o cloves. Flowers o sulphur two ounce – that’s all I recall, maister, but I ken there was more. Was it a nutmeg, maybe? Or senna-pods?’

  ‘Oh, if he’s got that lot on him we’ll smell him out readily enough,’ said the Serjeant, laughing heartily. ‘You’ll can set that great dog o yourn after him, Maister Cunningham.’ He tilted his chair back, then forward again with a thump. ‘Right, I’d say that’s all I want from you the now, lad, we’ll hear what the woman has to say that’s no run away. Tammas, away and find her, I think she was to be in the kitchen.’

  His scrawny constable left obediently. Livingstone said rather sharply to Attie,

  ‘And you can get about the tasks I gave you, my lad. We’ll need the mortcloth, and the hatchments have to go up at the door.’

  ‘But where do I get them all, maister? It’s no our house, I’ve never a—’

  ‘Ask at the kitchen, you great gowk! St Peter’s bones, the old beldam was right enough calling you scatterwits.’

  Attie turned to go, and checked as a shadow darkened the door to the courtyard.

  ‘Here you all are!’ said John Sempill. ‘There’s never a soul answering your door at the house, Eckie, and I want the title to Balgrochan back, for the old dame never gave us the right papers. What’s afoot, then, what’s come to the old carline? They’re saying out in the town it’s murder.’

  ‘Aye, maister, it is that,’ pronounced the Serjeant with relish. ‘Were you acquaint wi the corp, then?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Sempill, scowling at him. ‘She’s – she was my wife’s godmother. So what’s come to her? Have you no taken whoever it was yet?’

  ‘Just gie it time, maister,’ said the Serjeant. ‘Ah, here’s the woman. Sit there, lass, and tell me your name.’

  Annot, tearstained and tremulous, halted on the threshold at sight of Sempill; he stared back at her with round pale eyes, then abruptly turned away saying to Gil,

  ‘Are you in this and all? What’s ado? What came to her, then, if it wasny an apoplexy?’

  ‘Someone drove a nail in her head,’ reported Livingstone before Gil could speak. ‘She’s done and dunted, John, and quite a bargain for some of us.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Gil said. ‘When did you see her?’

  Sempill paused a moment, like a man trying to reckon times. Behind him the women of St Agnes’ embarked on anoth
er round of the rosary.

  ‘I’m no right sure,’ he said finally. ‘But she was well enough when I saw her,’ he added aggressively, ‘it was never me that nailed her down. How could you—’ He stopped again, looked from one hand to another with small gestures as if holding nail and hammer, looked at Annot and the bedeswomen. ‘What, right through her veil and cap and that? Must ha been a mighty dunt! Can I see her? Will she be fit for my wife to view?’

  ‘No just yet,’ said Livingstone, ‘they’re still washing her. Come away, John, and let the Serjeant get questioning folk, though he’ll maybe want a word wi you—’

  ‘No, no,’ said the Serjeant, waving grandly. ‘That’s no a bother, her own folk’ll tell me all I need.’

  Sempill was persuaded away with a mutter of Malvoisie, the two note-takers picked up their instruments, and the Serjeant drew a deep breath and began.

  It was clear almost immediately that Annot was not going to be a helpful witness. Asked her name she stumbled and stammered over the formal Ann, the everyday Annot, and two forms of her surname, which was either Hutchie or Hutchison.

  ‘What do you usually get?’ the Serjeant asked her. ‘What does most folk call you?’

  ‘Annot,’ she said miserably. ‘Save for my mistress, that calls me – called me Sparflin Annie.’

  ‘That’s a good one!’ said the Serjeant. ‘And are you a sparfler, then, Annot?’

  She shook her head, blinking away more tears, and Lowrie put in,

  ‘Her mistress had names for all her servants, Serjeant, none of them very complimentary. Attie Scatterwit, Marion Frivol, Billy Blate.’

  ‘And none of them true,’ said Annot, with a faint flicker of old indignation.

  Gil studied her. She was a small, well-rounded woman, probably past thirty, and would be comely when her face was not puffed with weeping. She was dressed well but without show as fitted her station, in a gown of dark blue broadcloth, good linen on her head, her only jewellery a cross on a cord and the beads at her girdle. Why her mistress would call her a spendthrift was not immediately clear.

  She was now attempting to deal with the beginning of the day, stopping and starting and muddling herself. The Serjeant was showing signs of irritation; with an effort, Gil pulled himself together and applied himself to his duties.

  ‘Mistress Annot,’ he said. She turned her eyes on him. ‘Attie tells us your mistress called the men in to give them their orders before she was dressed. Is that right?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, that’s – well, no afore she was dressed, exactly, for we’d – she’d never ha sat there in her shift, we’d to—’

  ‘That was her usual way,’ said Lowrie.

  ‘How was she clad?’ Gil persevered.

  ‘Her bedgown about her and yesterday’s cap over her hair,’ Annot said with a sudden access of coherence, ‘for we’d combed her and washed her hands and face, and she’d drunk her glass o hot water, though it wasny to her liking—’

  ‘What’s no to like in a glass o hot water?’ demanded the Serjeant. ‘Daft way to start the day, to my thinking. No nourishment in it.’

  ‘It was – it wasny – she said it wasny hot,’ Annot stammered, ‘though it burned my fingers.’

  ‘Humph!’ said the Serjeant.

  ‘What happened next?’ Gil asked. ‘After the men went away, what did you and Marion have to do for your mistress?’

  ‘She’d go to her prayers,’ Annot bit her lip, then nodded. ‘Aye, that was – for she aye – so she dismissed us, bid us return in an hour.’

  ‘An hour!’ repeated the Serjeant. ‘Was she praying for the whole o Scotland by name? So you left her an hour. Was she well when you went back?’

  ‘Oh aye. Well, she must ha been, for she called us in herself – and then we – she would have us wash her – and we’d barely – as soon as her clean shift was on her she would go to – she would—’

  ‘Go to stool,’ Gil prompted when she hesitated. She nodded at that. He frowned, trying to concentrate. ‘She needed a stick to walk, or else support. So you had to help her across the room?’ She nodded again. ‘And were you and Marion both still present?’

  She stared at him, puzzled.

  ‘We were both washing her. Oh I see, yes, the both of us was getting out her clean cap and her comb and that while she sat there, until – for she shouted at us, Get out my sight you pair o – so we went, I went out to the kitchen to get anither bite o food—’

  ‘Why had you not had a bite when she was at her prayers?’ Gil asked.

  ‘I wasny hungry at the time,’ she said simply.

  ‘So you went straight to the kitchen,’ said the Serjeant. She nodded, sniffling. ‘And where did the other woman go, this Marion? Was she at hand all the time you were away? Never tell me you leave your mistress unattended?’

  ‘Aye, for she’d – if she bade us – I reckoned a quarter-hour would be—’ Annot swallowed, glanced at Lowrie, and said, more coherently, ‘My mistress sent the both o us from her, so we went.’

  ‘But where was the other one? Tell me that!’ demanded the Serjeant.

  ‘Was she about the house?’ Lowrie suggested. ‘Or did she step out for a bit?’

  At that Annot’s face crumpled.

  ‘I canny say,’ she wailed, ‘for I’ve no a notion, only it canny have been Marion that – she never – I canny tell where she was! And then she came to the kitchen, and we – we got talking, so we did, and it was longer than I meant to leave her! And then when I came back she was, she was,’ she scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve. ‘I’ll see her face afore me the rest o my days, I’m certain o’t.’

  ‘Mistress Annot,’ said Gil. ‘The man that came in just now.’

  She blinked at him, trying to follow his thoughts.

  ‘Sempill of Muirend, aye,’ she said after a moment.

  ‘When was he last here? Did he have word with your mistress this morning?’

  She shook her head in surprise.

  ‘Oh, no, maister. No this morning. He was here yestreen, right enough, and they had a word.’ Lowrie grunted, but did not comment. ‘Through the window, and all,’ she added.

  ‘What about?’ Gil asked.

  ‘I wasny listening. I couldny hear.’

  ‘So this Marion was about the house for a while on her own,’ said the Serjeant, returning to the immediate issue. ‘How long for, would you say? How far could she get in the time?’

  The constable looked up and offered, ‘Maybe she was at the privy hersel.’

  The Serjeant guffawed.

  ‘More than likely,’ he said, ‘by the way this death stinks.’ He laughed loudly again at his joke, sat back in his chair and went on, ‘Did you get all that writ down, Tammas? Good lad. Well, young maister, if you’ll can give us a note of the names of all these that’s gone missing, and a description, we’ll away and let you get on. I’ll get them cried at the Cross and through the town, and one o them will turn out to be the guilty party, most likely this woman wi the two names, that’s as clear as day to me.’ Lowrie looked doubtfully at Gil, and the Serjeant followed his gaze. ‘You’re agreed, I take it, Maister Cunningham?’

  Gil shrugged, being careful not to move his head more than necessary.

  ‘I’m agreed we need to talk to the servants that have run off,’ he said, ‘but I’d say there’s a lot more to learn. We haven’t got the whole story here.’

  ‘We’ve enough of it for my purpose,’ said the Serjeant, rising. ‘I’ll report all to the Provost if you like, maister, no need for you to go up the hill as well. No, no, Maister Cunningham, it’s clear as day to me, like I said. One of her servants has slain her, and small wonder, wicked crime though it is, from the way she’s treated them.’

  ‘No, surely no,’ protested Annot, sniffling, while Lowrie looked hard at his notes. ‘None of us would never do a thing like that – it’s been some wicked fellow passing that’s come in off the street and found her unattended—’

  ‘And stole nothing? Those
velvet gowns would sell for a good sum down the rag market,’ said Serjeant Anderson, ‘let alone her beads and the silver cross I saw ben there. No, no, lass, you’ll no tell me. One o them that’s run has taken their chance, finding her unattended and no others in sight, and lifted a mell and nail from the carpenters’ work across the yard. Is there no someone in Holy Writ that got slain that way, maister?’ he asked Gil, who blinked at him and answered almost automatically,

  ‘Sisera the man of Canaan. In the Book of Judges.’

  ‘Aye, I thought that,’ said the Serjeant with satisfaction. ‘And where’s Maister Livingstone to be found? In the hall, you say? Right, then. I’ll see you in good time, maisters.’ He gathered up his constable and sailed out. Gil sat back against the wall, put a cautious hand to his aching head and sighed. Lowrie raised his eyes from his tablets.

  ‘What would you wish to do now, Maister Gil?’ he asked. ‘Have you more questions for Annot here or Attie, or do you want to seek out the mell, or what?’

  ‘If the women have finished,’ Gil said reluctantly, ‘I’d as soon get another look at the bedchamber. Little chance of any sign anyway, but by the afternoon you’ll have all Glasgow tramping through it to pay their respects and destroying whatever there is.’

  ‘I’ll go and ask, maister,’ volunteered Annot timidly. He nodded, and she braced herself and set off into the other chamber. Lowrie looked down at his notes again.

  ‘Do you want to take a copy of this, or should I write it out for you? There’s one or two things they said—’

  ‘There were, weren’t there,’ Gil agreed. ‘Give me a read of it if you will.’

  Although Mistress Bowen was just completing her task when Annot tapped at the door, it was some time before Gil got access to the chamber. The process of locating Attie, the laying-out board and four stools of equal height was a lengthy one; then both Gil and Lowrie had to lend a hand in moving the body onto the board and the board into the middle chamber to rest on the stools. Annot, Mistress Bowen and the kitchen-maid who had helped her saw to the decent disposition of the linen shroud, and stood back. Lowrie reached for his purse, and Gil went to stand in the chamber door, surveying the scene. The two women had obviously turned their attention to the chamber itself when they had dealt with the corpse; the place smelled much fresher than when he had first seen it.