The Scottish Play Murder (A Restoration Mystery)

by Rutherford, Anne

  “Good morning, Constable,” she said as she removed her fine leather gloves to fold them into her left hand. Today she wore a dress, the better to avoid setting the constable against her too much for indeterminate gender. He was the sort who liked things ordinary and obvious, so that he didn’t need to think too hard about them. Surely he would much more appreciate a low feminine neckline and a narrow waist, even if his chances of touching either were absolutely nil.

  He leaned back in his chair and narrowed his eyes at her as if unable to see her quite clearly. That was probably the case, and she could see that he was also having trouble remembering her, though he’d last seen her but a month before. But then recognition lit his eyes. “Ah. Mistress Thornton. What brings you here?” A glance past her at the doorway told her he was expecting someone else any minute, probably his friends. She knew he was in the habit of drinking with them of a morning, and a perverse urge to delay him in that came and went. As much fun as it might be to watch him panic, she had better things to do with her time than to engage Pepper in unnecessary small talk while his friends waited for him to become available.

  “I feel you should be alerted to a murder that has taken place.” Her tone was somewhat casual, as if she’d just dropped by for a chat and this had occurred to her but a moment ago.

  “Another relative in need of rescue?”

  A tart reply rose to her lips, but she held the inside of her lower lip between her teeth and did not say it. Piers had nearly been hung last summer, and to argue the question of Pepper’s reluctant role in his rescue would accomplish nothing. “I’m only here as a responsible citizen in hopes of justice for the poor sailor who was killed.”

  He heaved his unwieldy bulk forward and leaned his elbows on his desk, then rested his chin on his clasped hands. His moist, red lips pursed and thrust out when he spoke—and sometimes when he didn’t—and his jaw didn’t move, for he seemed unwilling to make the effort to hold up his head enough to clear his hands. “Yes, I’m aware of the incident. A Spanish sailor who came too close to an English knife outside the Goat and Boar. I’m surprised there was even any talk about that death.”

  “Why shouldn’t there be?”

  “’Twas only a Spaniard. And a pirate, I believe. Hardly worth the effort of investigating.”

  “’Tis your job.”

  “My job is what I deem it should be. Were I to hunt down every criminal in Southwark, the streets would be emptied and silent. And who, then, would go to see your plays?”

  “Not everyone in Southwark is a murderer, Constable Pepper. However, we are each and every one of us a potential murder victim. Particularly if this sort of crime is allowed to go uninvestigated and unpunished.”

  “I daresay there are some of us who do not pick fights in dark alleys in the middle of the night, and who are quite safe from wandering murderers.”

  “You’re saying it is the Spaniard’s own fault he is dead?”

  “Certainly he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “You can’t know that. You haven’t asked even one question of those who may have heard something about the man. For instance, I have it on good authority he was involved in an altercation at the Goat and Boar the night before. Were you to ask questions in that place, you might find someone who knows something about why the Spaniard was killed. That might lead you to the killer.” She leaned forward and said in an intense, low voice, “You might even find an eyewitness who could testify at trial.” She nodded to affirm her words, and straightened again.

  Pepper sat back in his chair, looking terribly amused. “My dear Mistress Thornton, surely you can’t believe that. You know very well that, were I to walk into the Goat and Boar, the place would fall dead silent in an instant. And it would stay that way until the moment I walked out, no matter whom I might address in the meantime. Only then would it burst forth in a low roar of chatter, not about the dead Spaniard, but about me. Not a soul would speak to me, nor would they to anyone they thought might speak to me. I could ask questions until I was blue in the face, and the answer would ever be silence. Further, Mistress Thornton, the same would be true of any other man who took this office, for the people of Southwark fear authority. When the light of truth and justice shines on them, they scurry like rats into their garbage-filled holes.”

  Anger rose and turned Suzanne’s cheeks hot crimson. “I’m sure that if you asked the right questions, couched in the right terms—”

  “I would hear nothing but silence. If a pin dropped it would sound as a clang. If I sat, all nearby would move away. Run away if they could. Most would leave the public house entirely. And I would be left with nothing. Looking for witnesses would be a complete waste of my time. Unless you think I should resort to arrest and torture of innocent witnesses for the sake of gleaning information . . .” His eyebrows raised as he let that hang in the air for a moment. Then he reached back to a bookshelf behind him where sat the opened bottle of brandy, and he poured some into the glass on his desk. He drank it at one gulp, then sat back again to regard her with his fingers laced across his stomach.

  “Perhaps if you sent an agent of some kind? Someone who could ask the necessary questions?”

  “Are you volunteering, then?”

  Suzanne had been thinking about the young clerk in the outer office, but realized that if the boy set foot in the Goat and Boar he would be at the mercy of a roomful of expert liars and might come away missing his purse, and never mind gaining any truth. She said, “Have you nobody you could send?”

  “I don’t care to associate with the rabble found in such places, and know nobody who might have even a sliver of a chance at success. Except, of course, yourself, who are one of them as I could never be.”

  Nearly all of Southwark was populated with that sort of rabble. Even Suzanne was astonished that the man entrusted with enforcing the law had no way of talking to the people who might tell him what was going on. Other constables, in areas where lived honest and responsible citizens who were pleased to volunteer themselves as witnesses and apprehenders of criminals, could get by as passive receivers of facts, but here in Southwark the populace was not nearly so honor bound. But she replied, “Count your blessings your office isn’t in Whitefriars.”

  “Nonsense. Were I in Whitefriars there would be no expectations of me, and even you wouldn’t be here to harass me to do the impossible.”

  Suzanne had to allow as that was true, since that district was nearly a law unto itself, with no influence at all from law-abiding folk.

  Pepper shifted in his seat, and looked up at her with a considering gaze. She returned it, wondering what he was thinking. In the silence, she could almost hear machinery clanking inside his head. Huge gears that moved slowly, but once they got going they moved steadily. Finally he leaned forward again and said, “Mistress Thornton, I think I may have an idea that will make both of us happy.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Go on, Constable.” She could certainly guess what he was about to say, and held hope she was wrong.

  “You appear ever frustrated with how crime is addressed in this district. You can’t seem to accept the limitations of my office.”

  “Crime is not addressed in this district, and that is my frustration.”

  “So you see my point.”

  She was certain she didn’t, but knew he would never understand why, so she declined to reply.

  He continued. “In other areas of London, a shout of ‘thief!’ will bring on a chase by ordinary passersby that results in the arrest of a culprit. Here in Southwark it only empties the street and leaves the victim alone in his distress.”

  “Sometimes. As I have mentioned, Southwark doesn’t compare to Whitefriars, where honest men dare not even go.”

  “Most times, I assure you, the rats scurry in Southwark. So, Mistress Thornton, I propose a plan to you. If you are so desirous of arrests and investigations, then let you do them yourself.”

  “Me? Go looking for criminals? I’m a woman.
”

  “Why not you? You’re a woman who knows everyone in Southwark and yet are connected to the palace in ways I am not. You’ve shown a talent for deduction. Your conclusions regarding the death of William Wainwright last month were spot-on. Your observations were acute, and your logic flawless. Furthermore, your energy in pressing the matter was nearly intolerable.”

  Never mind that she’d at first thought William’s accidental death a murder and had been quite wrong. But he had a point. She had solved the thing without any help from Pepper. “I doubt I could do that again. The death last month happened at the theatre; the facts of it were right under my nose. And I was highly motivated to prove my son had not killed William.”

  Pepper shrugged and sat back. “Then don’t do it again, as you please. It matters not to me whether the Spaniard’s murderer is ever found. Southwark is better off without foreign rubbish dirtying our streets; I would as soon search down the killer to reward him as to prosecute him.” He reached for his bottle once more, saying, “Unless there’s something else you wish to address, I’m sure you know where the door is and can find your way out.” He poured himself some more brandy, and sipped on it, now ignoring her as if she’d already left.

  Suzanne didn’t move. She stood there, thinking. The way he’d put it, the idea intrigued her. Could she find the killer herself? Would men talk to her who wouldn’t talk to Pepper? Maybe they would. She’d lived in Southwark since before Piers was born, and knew nearly everyone in it on one level or another. They all knew her, at the very least for her new prominence as the woman who had saved and restored the Globe Theatre. She could do it.

  A thrill rose in her. The sound of voices in the anteroom told her Pepper’s drinking companions had arrived, but suddenly she didn’t want to leave. Instead she drew a chair nearer to the desk and sat in it. She leaned forward and said in an intense whisper, “Promise me, then, Pepper, that when I find the murderer you’ll arrest him.”

  “Only if I can be assured of a conviction. The magistrate hates to bring people to trial and then have the culprit go free.”

  “I would never present a proof that wasn’t sound.”

  “Done.” He held out a hand for her to shake on the agreement, then waved her off. “Go now. I have other business to attend to.”

  Suzanne complied, and her mind leapt to what questions she would ask and of whom. She barely noticed the two men she passed on the way out of Pepper’s office.

  Chapter Five

  Suzanne went directly to the theatre, seeking Arturo to interrogate him again, this time more directly and with greater purpose. She needed to know more about the altercation between Ramsay and the Spaniard. It was so unlucky Arturo hadn’t been there the night of the murder, for he would surely have been able to tell her the name of the culprit, without room for doubt. As it was, she was reluctant to jump to the same conclusion Arturo had, that Ramsay had killed the pirate just because he’d threatened to.

  However, she never found him. Instead, on arrival she was accosted by Piers and Daniel in the green room. Having glanced around the room for Arturo, when she turned to make her way out she found they’d followed her in. “Mother,” said Piers, “we need a word with you, please.”

  Daniel stood behind Piers, and nodded. She said, “Daniel. I didn’t see your carriage out front.”

  “That would be because it isn’t out front. My driver expects to return when tonight’s performance starts at three o’clock. Last time I was here it took some damage from boys throwing rocks. Far safer to have my driver remove it than to allow the neighborhood boys to have at it as they please.”

  And far safer than letting his carriage be seen in front of Suzanne’s home too often or for too long.

  Odd to see father and son in the same room, and even more strange that they were plainly in agreement over something. More often than not they were at odds, sniping at each other or complaining to her about each other. But today Suzanne found herself facing a unified front, made even more unified by the close resemblance between the two. Like bookends, one merely grayer than the other. She replied, “Of course, Piers. What seems to be the matter?”

  “It’s that Ramsay fellow.”

  “Yes, I understand you dislike him.”

  “Nobody likes him.”

  “I doubt that, but you think he’s a murderer.”

  Piers blinked, and only then did Suzanne remember that the only complaint he had against Ramsay was that the Scot appeared a “weasel.” Even Daniel only suspected Ramsay of swindling jewels from Scottish nobility. Until now they hadn’t known Arturo thought he’d killed the Spanish pirate. “A murderer, you say?”

  “Arturo thinks so. Ramsay had a fight with the Spanish pirate, and threatened his life the night before the man was killed.”

  Daniel stepped forward, asserting his authority as earl and a former King’s Cavalier. “Suzanne, you must send him away at the very least. Or have him arrested. Yes, I believe arresting him would be far better. Then you would have the gratitude of Scottish nobility.”

  Suzanne peered at him, wondering whether he really thought this stern approach would move her to obey. They’d been apart for many years, but surely he knew her better than that. Bitter sarcasm rose. “Well, that should be worth quite a lot to a former tart living in Southwark, particularly since my only connection to any sort of nobility wishes to deny that connection, and God forbid anyone should ever notice the resemblance between you and Piers.”

  Daniel and Piers shot each other glances as if they’d both just realized they looked like each other, then returned their attention to her.

  Suzanne seated herself in a chair next to a table laden with pots of paint, scatterings of crayons and pins, and boxes of powder. Some ostrich and peacock feathers lay about, wafting in the air with her movement. “In any case, how would I arrest him?” she said. “Unlike yourself I have very little authority or influence to detain anyone, particularly a man. And most particularly a man who is larger than myself. I would need support in that. Ordering people about has never been a terribly successful tactic for me.”

  “Very well, then, I’ll have him arrested.”

  “You certainly will not, Daniel. You will never mind Ramsay, and keep away from him until I tell Pepper I want him arrested. Which may not happen, because in fact I hope to prove him innocent of the crime. The troupe needs him for Mac . . . the Scottish play.” She glanced at the ceiling, for a moment unsure whether it might collapse at her utterance, then shook the thought away. She wagged a finger at Daniel to drive home her point. “I will not tolerate any talk of that Gordon fellow from the Highlands, and none about that Spanish pirate.” She was deeply sorry she’d mentioned Arturo’s theory to Daniel and Piers.

  “Very well, Suzanne,” said Daniel. “And what was that nonsense that you don’t order people about?”

  She made an exasperated noise, then waved them both off as if shooing a sheep. “Go. Leave me in peace.” They turned to leave, and she said, “Has either of you seen Arturo?”

  Piers gestured in the general direction of the stage. “I’m sure he’s in rehearsal somewhere about the place. He’s rarely absent.” He and Daniel left, muttering to each other about keeping an eye on Ramsay themselves if she wouldn’t.

  It was nearly time to eat, and Suzanne could smell her dinner cooking downstairs. The savory smells made her mouth water, and she headed in that direction. She went down the spiral stairs to her quarters, to find Ramsay waiting for her outside the door. A shiver of alarm skittered through her, and she glanced up the stairs to know whether he could have overheard the conversation in the green room. Perhaps not, but she regarded Ramsay’s expression by the candlelight in the windowless room and was only satisfied when she saw no hint of emotion other than good cheer. “Good day, Diarmid,” she said. “What brings you here?”

  “Naught but your beauty, mo banacharaid.”

  “That’s Gaelic, yes? What does it mean?”

  “My dear female fr
iend. Or slightly better than friend, as in a cousin.”

  She laughed, and it was a laugh that loosened the habitual tension in her heart. He was joking, but she was willing to play along because it amused her. “Rather like the way Horatio calls me ‘niece,’ though I’m not.”

  “Rather,” said Ramsay.

  “Come,” she said. “Have dinner with me. It appears my usual company has forsaken me.”

  “’Tis my pleasure to amuse the woman who has taken me in and given me gainful employment.” He followed her into the apartment of rooms tucked into the basement of the ’tiring house, directly behind the stage. One side of each room had a window that opened onto the cellarage below the slanted stage, and on the other side near the ceiling were slightly larger windows paned in thick, diamond-shaped glass, which looked out over the street behind the theatre. An iron fence outside stood a few feet from those windows, in order to protect them from damage by the residents of Southwark. Though the glass was heavily rippled, colored shapes of the legs and skirts of passersby could be discerned moving past them, and there was much light on this sunny day. The sitting room, with its white walls and pale stone floor, was nearly as bright as the stage outside. No fire burned in the hearth today, and though there was a bit of a nip in the air the room was comfortable enough.

  “Sheila, please bring dinner,” Suzanne called to the back. “I’ve one guest today; we’ll eat at this table.” More often than not, when Daniel was present for a meal they ate there; Sheila would have been surprised to have been asked to set any other table. Then to Ramsay, Suzanne said, “Please, have a seat.” She gestured to Daniel’s customary chair.