A Plague of Sinners

by Paul Lawrence

  ‘All this so God would forgive him his trespasses?’

  ‘Yes, your lordship.’

  Arlington stood up and walked behind his two busy scribes, checking what they wrote. Once they finished he placed his arms behind his back, ready to address us. ‘Well, Mr Lytle, let me avail you of a few facts I should like you to remember.’ He cleared his throat. ‘First, you and Dowling have investigated this affair on my behalf and have done so successfully. You made some mistakes along the way, errors you might have avoided had you chosen to seek my guidance. But you are not experienced, and taking into account your inexperience, you have done remarkably well. Are we agreed so far?’

  ‘Yes, your lordship.’

  ‘You too, Dowling,’ Arlington waved his hand royally. ‘You have done well too.’

  Dowling bowed his head obediently. ‘Thank you, your lordship.’

  ‘Second, gentlemen, the Earl of St Albans was not the King’s torturer. If torturer he was, he conducted such activities solely on his own behalf, else in league with Lord Chelwood. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, your lordship,’ we answered together.

  ‘Third, Perkins’ death is fortunate, for I don’t know where he got the idea that I had anything to do with Wharton’s death, nor that I had any involvement with torture. I had nothing to do with his death, nor was I a friend of Wharton’s.’

  We nodded.

  ‘Fourth, I do not understand this sudden and dramatic desire for penance.’

  ‘No, your lordship,’ I answered in truth, for nor did I.

  ‘Fifth, I am concerned that you left in your wake a trail of bodies, some alive and some dead. I am still not sure how to explain to the King how you came to leave those two poor souls in his Wardrobe. And you left the Earl’s body behind while you went running off to the Tower to rescue someone who was in no danger whatsoever.’ He wagged his finger like he scolded an urchin upon the street. ‘It is as well Lady Wharton was in London and able to send her own man to collect him.’

  ‘Write that in your report and you will make a great fool of yourself,’ I heard myself say.

  The two scribes opened their eyes wide and turned pink. Newcourt’s head snapped up like a puppet. A quiet whining noise came from somewhere close to Dowling’s mouth.

  Arlington, in the meantime, raised his arms out wide. He shook them as if seeking to straighten his sleeves, folded his arms meaningfully, then made great play of crossing and uncrossing his legs. All the time he smiled gently as if I had suddenly made his day interesting. Like the cat that ponders whether to bite off the mouse’s head or else shake it by the tail.

  The men behind his shoulder stared at me as though they strained to remember every detail of my face in the expectation of never seeing it again.

  Time for me to explain whilst I had a tongue to waggle. ‘Wharton is not dead.’

  Arlington blinked and looked only marginally less inclined to recommend my execution. ‘Mr Lytle.’ He leant forwards. ‘He died twice. The second time in front of your eyes. Is that not what you just told me a moment ago?’

  ‘It is what I thought at the time, your lordship.’

  He frowned quizzically. ‘Either he had the plague or he didn’t, Mr Lytle. You said you saw him dead.’

  The sky outside shone blue and cloudless. ‘So I thought. Now I see the ruse, your lordship.’

  ‘Another ruse, Mr Lytle?’

  ‘I have just realised. Strange.’

  Arlington sighed and let his arm fall limp about the arm of his chair. ‘Because it did not seem strange before? If you choose to suggest to his face that a lord is a great fool, then you had better have a good story to tell.’ He waved a hand. ‘Please cast from your mind the need to soothe my soul with platitudes and save your efforts for the sake of enchanting me with your wisdom and unanswerable logic.’

  My career wilted fast and needed quick watering. ‘Yes, your lordship.’ I managed to speak, finding it difficult to think beyond fear of the consequences of not successfully negotiating the next few minutes.

  ‘Your lordship.’ Dowling at last found his voice, though I fervently hoped he was not about to join me in the predicament I fashioned for myself.

  Arlington levelled his calm gaze upon the butcher. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Your lordship, I agree with Harry that the circumstances are strange enough to warrant further consideration.’

  ‘I am sure Harry will thank you for giving him some time to contemplate, but I assure you that I do not.’

  ‘Yes, your lordship.’ Dowling bowed his head again, but Arlington’s eyes were already back to me.

  ‘Your lordship,’ I began. ‘It is only through relating this tale I realise how it does not sit snug. Some of your own observations go towards the construction of a new theory.’

  He watched me with feline grace. ‘Perhaps you ought concentrate on the detail of these observations, since I doubt you have formed a theory yet, but do it quickly.’

  ‘Well, your lordship, the first odd circumstance is the state of the Earl’s finances.’

  ‘How so?’ Arlington purred. ‘He is well off, as I told you. Odd that he is not a pauper?’

  ‘Aye, odd indeed. For the estate is run down and half the house closed. There are few servants and the last remaining gardener is soon to leave. If the Earl was so well off, then where did he keep his money?’

  ‘Odd perhaps,’ Arlington conceded, ‘but of little relevance to Wharton’s death.’ He raised his brows and avoided my eye. ‘Perhaps I am misinformed as to the strength of his finances.’

  ‘Perhaps you are,’ I agreed. ‘But another possibility is that he and Lady Wharton are planning to leave England and have already been directing their funds accordingly.’

  ‘Not a compelling argument,’ Arlington said bluntly.

  ‘The tokens,’ I said. ‘He appeared at the Compter with brown spots upon his chest, raised brown spots. I immediately assumed he was plagued and he was quick to confirm it.’

  ‘He died in front of you, Lytle,’ Arlington exclaimed, impatient.

  ‘No,’ I remembered exactly. ‘He made me wonder if he had already tortured Liz Willis to death. Then he told me I should hurry to the Tower if I wished to save her. Then finally he sneezed and fell over. I spent no more than a few seconds checking he was dead, and that without touching him, for who in their right mind would lay a finger on a plague victim?’

  ‘It would be the same story if he did die of plague,’ Arlington pointed out. ‘Why do you assume he feigned death?’

  ‘Because the tokens appeared so quick,’ I said. ‘Yet what other signs were there? I saw no swellings. He seemed feverish, but no more so than if he had run down the street.’ I shook my head. ‘As you reflected, the timing was remarkable. He kills five men he would be rid of, then contracts the plague in time to kill four more men in some peculiar act of redemption.’

  ‘My point exactly.’ Arlington seemed willing to be persuaded.

  ‘Once discovered at Bedlam then his plan was in tatters,’ I realised. ‘Chelwood would know, you would know, the whole world would know. Where then was his plan to withdraw discreetly?’

  ‘Then he should have fled.’

  ‘Aye, the natural response, yet Wharton is not a natural man.’ I gripped Dowling’s shoulders and squeezed. ‘He feels no fear,’ I recalled. ‘He told me himself. The experience of seeing a man in pain served to rid him of his own fears. His plan failed the first time, so he merely repeated it.’

  Arlington rubbed his hands. ‘Go on.’

  ‘He said I was there as witness and so I was. That is why I am alive. He needed someone to watch him die. In the meantime he killed four more men that might scrutinise his death too closely.’

  ‘Now I am listening, Lytle,’ Arlington said. ‘Though not yet persuaded.’

  ‘Lady Wharton.’ I removed myself from Dowling, given his fondness for the lady. ‘She has behaved very strange this whole week.’

  ‘I have met Lady Wharton,�
� Arlington mused. ‘She did not strike me as an odd woman. A little shy perhaps. Anxious, perhaps. Any woman would be anxious married to Thomas Wharton.’

  ‘We had not met her before, your lordship, and if our experience of her is different to yours, then that may be further evidence of my argument. At St Albans she was very strange indeed. She did not grieve, nor shed a tear. She told us nothing about him and told us to take the coffin to the church.’ I gave a short bow. ‘Which you yourself said was odd.’

  ‘I didn’t think she behaved strange,’ Dowling muttered.

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘But then you behaved strange yourself that day. I think she entranced you.’

  Dowling blushed red about the tops of his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

  ‘When we visited her she implied with ferocious gravity that her husband rarely came home, that he was barely an acquaintance, that she could not be expected to know much of his daily life.’

  Arlington raised an eyebrow. ‘I will leave aside the fact I have no idea what “ferocious gravity” is and ask you instead why this should strike you as odd. Wharton by all accounts was a murderous vagabond. Lady Wharton, as I recall, is quite a splendid woman.’ A wistful look shimmered across his eyes.

  ‘Your lordship, the last piece of evidence you just told us yourself.’

  ‘What evidence is that?’ he asked, doubtful.

  ‘You said Lady Wharton was here in London and had already collected his body.’

  ‘What of it?’ Arlington demanded. ‘Is it not natural for the widow to collect her husband’s corpse?’

  ‘For some,’ I agreed. ‘But why then did she not come running the first time he was killed? The day after his death and she was still at home, supposedly unaware he died. When we told her the news she showed few signs of distress, claimed to know nothing of his life and sent the body to the church. It all makes more sense if it was not his death, nor his corpse.’ Even Dowling looked up now, interested. ‘But this time she is already in London? Why did she come to London at all? For she did not have time to receive the news at St Albans and travel here. If she has already collected the body, then she was already in London.’

  Arlington nodded sagely. ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Even if she was in London for some reason, how did she find out of his death? He died in some sick house on Broad Street before the day had dawned. Who told her he was there?’

  ‘That is odd,’ Arlington agreed.

  ‘And the reason she had to collect the body so quick is that if we were to inspect it, we would find the tokens to be false and the man alive,’ I concluded. ‘I wager she is already on the way back to St Albans.’

  Arlington clasped his hands behind his back, then turned to his scribes once more. ‘I hope you have written this all down,’ he barked. ‘I would have it on the record how Mr Lytle here helped me formulate my thoughts clear and lucid.’ He caught my eye. ‘For I believe it was I that mentioned the odd timing of Wharton’s affliction. It was I mentioned how odd she sent her husband’s corpse to the church. I who raised the issue of her sudden arrival in London. And I who remarked on the topic of his finances.’ He looked to Newcourt. ‘Not so?’

  ‘Of course, your lordship.’

  ‘Indeed,’ I ceded happily, eager to proceed.

  He snapped his fingers again. ‘Then that is how it shall be written. So what now will you do to apprehend him?’

  ‘First, your lordship, we must find his body before it is disposed of. If I am right then there is no body, and even now Wharton sits alongside his wife on the road back north. We must ride to St Albans and demand to see a body. Unless we see Wharton himself laid out cold, with tokens upon his chest that cannot be washed off nor prised off with a knife, then we cannot assume he is dead. If I am right, then they must return to St Albans, so there are witnesses to the Earl’s new burial. As soon as they have done what needs to be done, then they must flee the country, which in itself will be difficult now the plague is upon us. He has only three options, I think. Hide himself away in the house at St Albans, hide by himself somewhere outside London, else travel north and find a ship at a port where the plague is not yet arrived.’

  Arlington snapped his fingers decisively. ‘Very well. How may I presume to help?’

  ‘Your lordship, if you might provide us with six capable soldiers.’

  ‘Soldiers.’ Arlington stood and stretched. ‘Newcourt.’ He pointed. ‘You will accompany Mr Lytle and Mr Dowling to the Tower and request six good men of Sir John.’ He seemed pleased with himself. ‘I meantime will look forward to soon learning as to your progress.’ He looked to me and Dowling. ‘Well done again, good fellows.’

  We watched Arlington’s scribes pack up their journals and their quills and follow him out the door. Arlington walked with a swagger, confident and pleased.

  ‘That went well,’ I murmured.

  Dowling looked at me with a white face, otherwise devoid of expression.

  I turned to Newcourt. ‘When can we pick up our soldiers?’

  Newcourt put his hands on his hips and cocked his head. ‘Since Sir John is no longer talking to Lord Arlington, since Arlington has denied him everything he requested, I cannot tell you.’

  ‘Arlington pledged us six soldiers.’

  ‘No.’ Newcourt shook his head. ‘He told me to accompany you to the Tower to request six soldiers. If the request is denied then he will write it in his report.’

  ‘Can we not inform Sir John of that?’

  Newcourt smiled, a thin smile of anger and resentment. ‘You mention Arlington’s name, and you will find yourself staring from Traitors’ Gate watching your body float past you in the river.’

  I turned to Dowling. ‘Let’s begone then.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  TO FIND A THING HID OR MISLAID

  Be careful to take your ascendant exactly, and consider the nature of the question.

  A sprawling pile of mattresses, sheets and assorted linen lay about the front of the house at Broad Street, awaiting burning, guarded from those that would sell it as clean. A second man washed the red paint from the door with a stiff brush and a bucket of water.

  The coffin was gone from the front room and the corpse from the back room. Up the stairs Wharton’s chair stood empty. No body, no thing to find. Someone had swept the floor clean. I had hoped to find one of those ‘tokens’. I returned to the street, disappointed.

  ‘Were you here when the bodies were taken?’ I asked the two men.

  The man scrubbing the floor shook his head. The man guarding the bedding materials grunted and nodded.

  ‘Who fetched them?’ I asked.

  ‘Bearers,’ he replied. ‘One carried the coffin. They took the corpse out on a board.’

  ‘Just one corpse?’

  ‘Aye, one coffin, one corpse.’

  ‘What of the other body?’

  He pursed his lips. ‘Weren’t no other bodies that I know of.’

  ‘Others had been here afore you arrived?’ I asked.

  ‘I suppose.’ He looked away, uninterested.

  Something niggled ’twixt my ears, but I had little time for long rumination. I returned to Newgate where Dowling prepared for our departure. It was almost ten o’clock already. We would need to leave soon to be sure of returning to London by nightfall.

  I arrived to find the wagon prepared and hitched to three enormous horses, huge beasts with hooves like dish plates. Dowling stood talking to three men, two of whom I recognised as fellow butchers. He hurried over on spotting my approach.

  ‘I have found three men to ride with us, Harry, though I want you to promise me to behave with good sense.’ He laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘I would not see them come to harm.’

  Each wore a knife at his belt. Two carried boning knives and the third a large, square cleaver.

  Dowling introduced me to two lean, young fellows, one with hooded eyes and short, cropped hair, the other shaggier with trace of a smile upon his lips. ‘Luke and Isa
ak are brothers.’ The third man was short and rotund, shaven-headed and quiet spoken. ‘Gyles owns the wagon we have used afore.’

  ‘They will need certificates of health,’ I realised, anxious to leave.

  ‘I procured them this morning,’ said Dowling. ‘While you slept.’

  We didn’t leave the City until almost eleven. I climbed upon the wagon next to Dowling. The butcher’s horses were strong but slow, each step an exhibition of rippling muscle. I sat tense and silent, unable to still my anxiety that we would arrive too late, find the house empty and Wharton gone. What if they decided to forgo any pretence of burial and left forthwith? What if they decided not to return to St Albans at all?

  At Whetstone we asked after the day’s traffic. Yes – three riders passed that way earlier in the morning – one woman and two men. Same story at each turnpike, each description painting clearer in my mind a picture of Wharton, his wife and the man Conroy. Though we rode slowly, the distance between us remained constant, no more than two hours. We passed though St Albans in early afternoon. The town baked under the towering sun, flagging in the midst of gathering miasmas. Red crosses adorned the doors like roses in bloom.

  No one came out to greet us at the Old Palace, and the stableman was gone. Three horses chewed happily on grass and drank from buckets of water, their hides warm and wet. A ball of twine lay in the long grass next to a twisted tree. Curtainless windows gazed down upon us like blind eyes. Then I saw movement, a head withdrawn.

  ‘Up there.’ I pointed. ‘Someone’s watching.’

  Four butchers stared at the small, square frame.

  I strode through the weeds towards the kitchen door. A thick metal bolt barred our way, secured with a padlock.

  ‘Over here,’ Dowling called. I followed his voice across the terrace to an enclosed courtyard. He rapped a fist against two thinner glass doors, also locked.

  ‘Thou shalt not be afraid of destruction when it cometh,’ he sighed regretfully before crashing his boot through the glass. A few more hefty kicks and the door shattered completely, admitting us entry to a large, square room with yellow painted wallpaper.