by S. D. Sykes
“You see how modest he is,” said Mother. “Yet he has solved the mystery of many, many murders about the Somershill estate. Not to mention the killing of his own sister’s husband, Walter de Caburn. But I expect you have heard of that particular case, John?” She poked a stray hair under her veil. “Yes, indeed. The murder of Lord Versey is very well known in England.” She cleared her throat, in order to underline her next statement. “Among our circle, at least.”
Bearpark lifted the spectacles to his nose, peering at me curiously through the disconcerting circles of glass. “Is that why you were examining Enrico’s body?” he said. “Because of your interest in mysteries?”
I coughed. This room was stuffy for once, as a fire had been burning in the hearth since dawn. “I wanted only to understand how Enrico died,” I said quickly. “I thought you could convey my thoughts to—” Once again, I wanted to say to the constable. “To whomever might be interested,” I said instead.
Bearpark held my gaze. “Tell me. I’m interested.”
I coughed a second time. “If you’re sure.”
He grunted. “I just said I was, didn’t I?”
“Very well then,” I said with some hesitation. “Enrico was badly beaten before death. Perhaps even tortured.”
The old man’s face fell. “Tortured?” He paused to catch his breath. “Are you sure about that?”
I nodded awkwardly, regretting having used the word.
“We didn’t hear anything?” he said. “This house is large, but I have many servants. Surely someone would have heard such an assault?”
“But it was Giovedì Grasso,” I answered. “So perhaps the noise of the carnival drowned out the sounds of an attack?” I said. “And don’t forget that most of your servants were allowed to attend the carnival, so there were fewer people than usual in the house.”
Bearpark sank back into his chair, scratching at his forehead with his twisted hands. “I still can’t believe it,” he blustered. “Not in my own house. I was here all day with Monna Filomena, and we heard nothing.”
“Did you fall asleep at any point?” I asked.
“No! Of course not,” he roared. “I never fall asleep in the daytime.” I didn’t dare to disagree.
“’Tis a shame that I was not here then,” said Mother, with her usual talent for poor timing. “For there is little that misses my ears.” Then she folded her arms petulantly. “But I was forced to spend all day at the carnival with that pair of clot-poles, Bernard and Margery.”
“You wanted to go,” I said with some frustration. “You made quite a fuss about it, if you remember?”
Bearpark ignored Mother’s interjection and held his head and groaned. “I can’t believe that my own grandson was tortured and murdered here. In my own house.”
“There is another possibility,” I said quickly. “The attack happened elsewhere, and Enrico’s body was returned to Ca’ Bearpark. Probably by the man I chased away from the water gate.”
Bearpark looked up at me. “Why would anybody do that?” He said. “Surely a murderer would try to hide his victim?”
“Perhaps this man wasn’t the murderer?” I suggested. “It’s possible that he only found Enrico’s body, and thought it should be returned? Perhaps he is even a friend of Enrico’s?”
“Then why did he run away when you called to him?” said Bearpark, shaking his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“People often flee in such circumstances,” I said. “Even if they are completely innocent.”
“Then it’s a pity you did not catch him, Lord Somershill. He could have answered these questions.” The old man reclined in his chair and looked upward, in an attempt to hide more tears. “So. Will you help me to find Enrico’s murderer?” he said, once he had wiped his face clean again with his hand.
I had problems of my own, without the distraction of an investigation. “I can’t,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Bearpark fixed me with a glare. “I see,” he said, his voice now spiked with affront. “My grandson was not known to the King of England. Is that it?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I’m just concerned that we may have to leave for Jerusalem at any moment, and I wouldn’t wish to start something that I couldn’t finish.”
Mother interrupted. “What nonsense, Oswald. You know, full well, that there’s no settlement between Venice and Hungary.” I went to reply, but she didn’t give me the opportunity. “Even if the war were to end tomorrow, the galley masters will not sail the pilgrim ships until all of their boats are full. Which may not happen until April at the earliest.” She stopped briefly for breath. “You know what these captains are like. They keep everybody waiting, and will only set off for Jaffa in one of their convoys.”
She cast me a bewildered glance as I attempted to pull her to one side. “It’s been a long time since I’ve investigated a murder, Mother,” I whispered. “I’m not sure that I possess the skills any longer.”
Mother had no intention of keeping this conversation private. “Nonsense again, Oswald,” she said loudly. “You haven’t lost the ability to find a killer. Look at you.” She poked a finger into my chest. “Racing to be the first to look upon the dead body. Chasing a man from the murder scene. Drawing conclusions from a few scratches and a tiny spot of blood.”
“Anybody could look upon Enrico’s body and conclude that he had been tortured, Mother. It does not take the skills of a genius.”
Mother folded her arms. “Don’t be so sure, Oswald. Your mind is quite unlike anybody’s I have ever known. Sharp as the blade of a falchion.” Then she gave a despairing sigh. “Even though you deny yourself enough food and sleep. A man cannot survive on watery broth and a few shavings of hard cheese, you know.”
Bearpark interrupted. “So, will you help me or not, Lord Somershill?”
“Of course he will.” Mother glared at me. “Won’t you, Oswald?” Mother took my hand, and this time she did succeed in whispering. “For the sake of Christ. Say that you’ll do it. The poor man is desperate.”
“I can’t,” I said weakly, before turning my back and heading for the stairs to my bedchamber. How could I undertake a murder investigation at such a time as this, even if the victim had been a friend of mine? I felt guilty for refusing to help, but I needed to concentrate on finding the funds to repay my colossal debt to a man who would not listen to excuses. It was Vittore’s face that came to mind, as I placed my foot upon the bottom tread of the staircase. How well I remembered the smug flush upon his ruddy, porcine cheeks as I had signed my foolish letter, declaring that I owed him forty ducats. Forty! At the thought of this sum, my legs felt weak and my bowels began to loosen. How, in the name of Christ and all the angels and archangels of Heaven, was I to find such an amount? And if I couldn’t conjure up this money, then I had a clear enough idea of the consequences. It was then, as I began to climb the stairs, that a thought occurred to me. I would never have asked under usual circumstances, but desperation is a piercing spur.
I cleared my throat, turned around, and made my way back across the room to Bearpark. “Of course, I could undertake the investigation for a fee,” I said, aware that Mother was glaring at me in stupefied shock. Nevertheless, I would not be deterred from continuing. This was a good idea. Or, at least, it was the only idea I had. “I always charge for my services as an investigator,” I added, at which point Mother’s jaw nearly dropped onto her chin.
Bearpark was not shocked, however. Instead he regarded me with something of a wry smile. He had been a merchant for long enough to know an opportunist when he saw one. “Is that so, Lord Somershill?”
I struggled to hold my nerve. “My mother was correct,” I said. “I am an experienced investigator, but this would be a difficult case.” I coughed to disguise a sudden urge to laugh, such was the absurdity of my lie. “There has to be some compensation for such danger,” I added.
Bearpark’s smile faded. His tongue moved about inside his cheeks while he studied my face. I e
xpected him to demand an apology for my impertinence, or to ask me to get out of his sight. Instead he laid his hands in his lap. “Ah yes. Danger.” He paused for a while, and sucked at his lips. “Very well,” he said, drumming his fingers against his legs. “I’m not averse to your proposal. In principle.” Mother tried to interrupt, but Bearpark silenced her with a raised hand. “I could use the skills of a young man.” He leaned forward and fixed me with a stare, his eyes rheumy and bloodshot. “It will take a young man to find Enrico’s murderer.”
I had to stop myself from cheering, for, against all of my expectations, this foolish gamble had paid off. “We would have to discuss the fee, of course,” I said quickly. “I can guarantee a successful outcome, but my charges are not insignificant.”
“Oh, you will be paid well enough,” said Bearpark with a sniff. “Have no fear on that account.” He hesitated, before straightening his tunic and putting his hand to his chest. His voice was now a low croak. “Draw nearer,” he said, “there is something you should know, before you agree.”
“Oh yes?” I said, now feeling a little apprehensive.
Bearpark cast a glance toward Mother, and then pulled me to within inches of his mouth, allowing me no escape from the sourness of his breath. “Come back later alone,” he said, “we’ll discuss it then.”
As Mother and I left the room, Filomena hurried past us, risking another stolen glimpse only when her husband wasn’t looking. This time I read something different in her eyes—not thanks this time, but apprehension, and suddenly I had the feeling that she had listened to our conversation from wherever she had been hiding. And, though she claimed to speak no English, she had understood every word.
While I waited for this next audience and the agreement of my fee with Bearpark, I started my investigation—there was no time to sit around and be idle, for I had seven days left to repay my debt, and no more. I began by interviewing members of the Bearpark household, in the hope of speaking to the last person to have seen Enrico alive. It seemed the obvious place to start, so I interviewed every valet, lady’s maid, scullion, groom, and cook in the house, though they each told me the same tale. Enrico had returned to Ca’ Bearpark directly after I had seen him in the Calle Nuova the previous morning. He had eaten a late breakfast of stale bread and olive oil, before retiring to his bedchamber in order to catch up on the sleep he had clearly missed the night before. Because it had been the day of Giovedì Grasso, nobody had checked his room, nor offered him a meal later that day. The servants were embarrassed, even sheepish, about this admission, as somebody in the household should have looked in upon their master, but it seemed that the carnival had taken precedence over their duties, and they had completely forgotten about him. So, after his sighting at breakfast, Enrico’s day was somewhat shrouded in mystery.
My next step was to search Enrico’s bedchamber, finding nothing of interest except his collection of fine clothes. It was upsetting to handle these garments. Tunics, capes, and fitted cotehardies of silk, velvet, and leather, each decorated with golden threads, brocades, and embroidery—clothes that I had often seen my friend wear. Once I put such gloomy thoughts aside, I remembered instead that Enrico had been dressed in only a simple linen chemise and a pair of hose when I found him at the water gate, leaving me to wonder if he could have left the house at all between his last sighting by the servants and my discovery of his body. If Enrico had left Ca’ Bearpark, then his clothing must have been removed or even stolen from his body before it was returned.
I called for Enrico’s valet, asking the man to look through his master’s wardrobe to see if anything was missing, but this man had been appointed only recently and seemed to know so little that our conversation was pointless. Having dismissed the fellow, I remained in the room in the hope that some obvious clue would present itself. The chamber was fresh with the smell and spirit of Enrico—as if he might appear at any moment, in one of his fine outfits, and laugh at me for having been gulled by an elaborate hoax. Just the sort of joke to amuse his friend on a carnival night. I smiled at this thought, before the reality of his murder stung sharply at my breast. This was no trick, and all that was left of Enrico’s young and vibrant life was an empty, melancholic room. I left immediately, for this was the type of place where my shadow could easily be found.
I then concentrated my search in the warren of chambers that were located on the ground floor of Ca’ Bearpark, beyond the water gate. My own feeling was that Enrico had been murdered somewhere in this house, despite Bearpark’s assertion that this could not have happened. I believed that the man I had chased from the water gate was Enrico’s killer, not a kind Samaritan who was returning a dead friend to his family. If nothing else, then how could he have transported the body to Ca’ Bearpark, other than by the canal? And yet he had fled on foot, leaving no abandoned boat. And yet, on the other hand, if this man was the murderer, then why had he been lurking by the water gate so long after the murder? By the temperature and stiffness of the corpse, Enrico had been dead for at least two hours when I found him.
I decided to put these thoughts to one side and concentrate upon finding a secluded spot where Enrico could have been tortured and killed, hoping to find bloodstains or some other obvious signs of violence on a floor or wall. At this lowest level, Ca’ Bearpark was a sprawling and incomprehensible building, and it was easy to become disoriented in the dark passageways that lay beneath the house like a network of burrows. The servants’ quarters lay beyond the water gate, and beyond this cramped accommodation was a network of storerooms designed to hold Bearpark’s stock. There was a lingering scent of cloves and cinnamon in these rooms, but otherwise the shelves themselves were empty.
As I made my way into the farthest chambers, I had the impression of walking gradually downward, as the floor sloped and the ceilings became lower. I held my lantern aloft, and made my way into the very last room at the end of a passageway, where Enrico’s body was laid out upon a table, awaiting his burial. He was attended by one of the oldest servants in the house—a woman who sat in near darkness with only a small smoking candle as company. A long black veil nearly obscured her face, and her hands held a rosary.
I was a guest in this house and known to this woman, and yet she was still reluctant to allow me to examine Enrico’s body. When I ignored her objections and lifted the silk veil from his face, she babbled some rebuke at me before grasping the length of cloth from my hands and returning it to its previous position. I tried politeness and my clearest Venetian to reassure her of my good intentions, but when this approach had repeatedly failed, I spoke harshly and told her to let me continue or to leave the room. She chose the latter option, shuffling away angrily, while declaiming the ungodliness of the English and their allegiance to the Devil.
Now I found myself alone with Enrico’s body, and suddenly my resolve to continue this investigation waned, for the thing that lay before me had once been my friend, and now what was it? Nothing but a slab of skin, hair, fat, and bone. I took a deep breath and told myself to be stronger. I had the chance to examine Enrico’s body a second time, before it was taken away for burial, and I needed to take full advantage of this opportunity. Where they would bury his body, I could not say—given Bearpark’s insistence upon keeping Enrico’s murder quiet, so they could hardly dig up the floor of the nearest church and place him alongside the other dead of this sestiere.
I put this thought to one side, for a good death was not a preoccupation that I shared. I had seen enough bodies thrown into pits during the years of the Great Plague, to know that, if there is a God, then He will accept you, no matter where or how you are buried. For my own part, I hoped only to nourish the roots of a tree or the flowers of a meadow with my earthly remains. I came from the earth and would return to it. As food for the worms.
Now alone with the body, I lifted the silk veil again to find that Enrico was still dressed in the same chemise and hose that he had been wearing at his death, and I guessed that the women of the house
hold had been unable to undress him before his body had become too stiff to handle. They had made an attempt to clean away the blood from his clothing at least, but the white linen of his chemise remained stained with red. His corpse was not yet stinking, but the fishy, fermenting odor of death still reached my nostrils with its unique perfume. This was a scent that I had not smelled for many years, but I recognized it from my days at the monastery, when I had prepared the dead of our brotherhood for burial. Because of this work, I understood each stage of death intimately—from the first flaccid heaviness of the body before the rigid constrictions of rigor mortis set in through to the final bloated distortion as the flesh begins to slip from the bone. Death held no fear or disgust for me. In fact, I might say I found it comforting. For each of us will end this way, no matter who we are or how we live.
I worked quickly now, in case the old woman returned, noting the placing of Enrico’s bruises and cuts. The injuries were mainly to his chest and face, suggesting that he had been punched repeatedly. Some of his teeth were missing, and there was matted blood in his hair—though once again the women had also made an effort to wash this viscous mess away from his scalp. And then I noticed something that was so obvious that I should have seen it before. When I had discovered Enrico’s body on the steps to the water gate, it had been only his boots that were trailing into the water of the canal, but now I could see that his hose was wet too, right to the tops of his legs. My next task was not pleasant, but had to be undertaken. I pressed my nose against the weave of the wool, needing to be certain that Enrico had not simply wet himself upon death, as I knew, from experience, that the body will release its fluids as soon as the spirit flees. But this was definitely water and nothing else.
I was replacing the silk veil upon Enrico’s face when I heard footsteps echoing along the stone floor of the passageway outside, and I expected to be confronted at any moment by the truculent old woman—but it was Bernard, the English pilgrim, who appeared through the gloom. For once he was alone, and more unusually still, he began our conversation by saying something that made sense.