“And why was the Spaniard there? Did he speak Gaelic as well?”
“He did, oddly enough. Diego Santiago had no fewer than eleven languages. ’Twas a friendly conversation at first. He hated the English as much as Angus and I, and it was a common theme between us.”
“Why, then, did he call you a thief?” Ramsay hesitated to reply, and Suzanne guessed he wanted to lie. She said quickly so he wouldn’t, “I’m told someone called you a thief; I don’t expect it was Angus, since he’s not the one whose life you threatened.”
Ramsay sucked a bit of air between his front teeth in irritation, then said, “Diego had sold me some whisky, ’tis all. After I’d taken delivery of it he doubled the price. When I said I wouldnae give him what he wanted, he shouted in English for all to hear that I was a thief. I could hardly stand for that, and got up from the table to leave so I might not kill him.”
“You couldn’t simply give back the jug?”
“’Twas far more than only a jug. ’Twas some several barrels.”
“What would you do with that much whisky?”
“Sell it, of course, which was why I no longer had it to give back. A Scot selling whisky in London can turn a tidy profit, for there are few enough making excess of it up north and even fewer carting that excess southward. I was in a position to sell a supply Diego had obtained, and was prepared to pay the agreed-upon price but no more. I told him so when I took delivery, but he had a convenient memory failure when we next met and I tried to pay him. He called me a thief in English so all the Englishmen in the room would hear, hoping to embarrass me into giving him his new price. I told him he would take the money we’d agreed upon and not a farthing more, and got up from the table to end the fruitless conversation. The little pendejo came at me with a knife, and I disarmed him. Told him if he called me that again, I’d kill him.”
“Would you have killed him if he had?”
“Of course. I’m no liar, and always do what I say I’ll do.”
“You would murder but not lie?”
“Och, not murder. Fair fight. Though a fight between that disgusting little cockroach and myself would hardly have been fair. That is why I let him go that night. I gave him a chance to save himself, and he took it.”
“You don’t seem to like this Santiago fellow very well. Why were you socializing with him?”
Ramsay shrugged. “He was Angus’s friend. He had some whisky he wanted to sell. I bought it and sold it again. Nothing more. Even when he demanded more money than we’d agreed on, it was only business. It turned ugly when he tried to embarrass me in English.”
“And you were embarrassed.”
“Nobody calls me a thief, and it matters not who is there to hear it. Not so much redressing embarrassment, but defending my honor.”
“Did you pay for the whisky?”
“The following day, after we’d both calmed and were no longer filled with anger, I gave Diego what I owed him, and not a farthing more.”
“And he accepted that?”
“He had no choice.” She opened her mouth to reword her question, and he held up a hand to stop her. “To answer your true question, there was no further argument. We met at the Goat and Boar, I handed over the purse full of coins, and then I left. I’ve not the slightest notion what happened to him after that, beyond that someone killed him.”
“Do you remember who else was in the public room?”
“It was empty of everyone save ourselves, being early in the evening. I saw nobody in the room, nor outside the tavern in the alley. Even Bank Side had very little traffic that time of day.”
“And where’s the whisky?”
“Sold. Three barrels, sold to three establishments throughout London. One went to the Goat and Boar; you can ask Young Dent if you like.”
Suzanne knew Daniel would be pleased to learn there was now whisky at the Goat and Boar. She considered Ramsay’s words for a moment, then said, “I know you didn’t kill Angus, and now I doubt you killed Diego. Do you know of anyone who might have wanted the both of them dead?”
Ramsay shrugged again, and shook his head. “I didnae know either of them well enough for that. You knew Angus far better than I did, I think.”
Suzanne considered that, then said, “I knew him only for his music. I rarely saw him without his bagpipe or drum in hand. He was never the center of attention unless he was playing something loudly.”
“Aye,” said Ramsay, and a bit of sadness crept onto his face. “The man let his pipes speak for him. He was quite an excellent player; I wish I’d known him longer.”
The tears for Angus she’d been swallowing all morning finally overcame her. The trembling returned so that she had to grip her knees to still her hands. Her heart clenched and suddenly it was hard to breathe. She pressed her lips together and stared hard at the ground before her.
Ramsay reached over to touch her chin and turn her face toward him. “I apologize, mo banacharaid. It must be painful for you.”
It was, but Suzanne didn’t want to discuss it with Ramsay, who was too much a stranger. “Not so painful that I can’t turn over every stone to find his killer.”
“I think you will.”
“Find the killer?”
“Turn over every stone.”
That made her smile. Then she excused herself to retreat to her quarters while the theatre doors were opened and the audience filled the benches.
*
THE following morning Suzanne was awakened by a pounding on the outer door of her rooms. She came half awake and listened as Sheila came from the kitchen to answer it, but couldn’t hear what was said. She rose to sitting, expecting Sheila to come wake her, for the pounding spoke of an urgency that surely would require Suzanne’s personal attention.
She was quite right.
“Mistress,” said Sheila, her voice tinged with alarm. “I’m terribly sorry, but there’s a boy here says you must come immediately at the behest of Constable Pepper.”
Suzanne peered at her maid through eyes glued shut with sleep. She rubbed the sand from them and said, “Constable Pepper?” He hadn’t responded to the message she’d sent yesterday that he should come to the theatre. Surely he wasn’t about to demand a report on her progress in finding the murderer of the Spanish pirate. Perhaps he wanted to tell her about Angus. She hadn’t mentioned him in her message. If he was summoning her to tell her about the new murder, it was possible he might know something about it she didn’t.
Or else he was simply refusing to come to the theatre at her request.
In any case, keeping on Pepper’s good side might be to her advantage in the long run, so she rose from the bed to dress and called for whatever breakfast might be at hand for her to wolf before leaving to attend the constable. Today she wore her breeches and doublet, for she had become accustomed to them, and today was in no mood to cope with a skirt.
The boy guided her through the streets in a hurry, and she found it a chore to keep up with him without breaking into a trot. After a couple of turns she realized they would end up on Bank Side. “Where are we going, boy?”
“The Goat and Boar,” he replied, keeping a pace one step ahead of her no matter how quickly she walked. So she slowed and made him slow also, lest he lose her. She was nearly forty, and didn’t care to attempt to keep up with a ten-year-old running down the street. He turned to speak over his shoulder. “There’s been a murder.”
Another? Three so nearby in so short a time was unusual even for a crowded city like London. That would explain why Pepper was out and about so early, for it surely looked bad to have so many bloodied corpses lying around his district. She asked, “Who was killed?”
“Dunno, mistress. All I know is it’s someone important.”
Someone important? Also unusual, for any place. And at the Goat and Boar? How embarrassing for the victim’s family. Probably some earl or duke dallying on the wrong side of the river, caught by a jealous husband and murdered for his folly. Why Pepper wanted h
er present for this was unfathomable.
She dismissed the boy as she turned down the narrow alley off Bank Side where stood the Goat and Boar. At nighttime the door would be open and light from hearth and candles would be visible from the alley. Patrons would be coming and going, and there would be talk and laughter heard from inside, for Young Dent did a lively business every night of the year. But now, with the sun barely up over the eastern horizon, the tavern appeared little more than a small door in a wall of Tudor-style beams and whitewash, overshadowed by the upper storey which hung over the alley like a furrowed brow. That door was locked with a key and barred from the inside, and Young Dent lay fast asleep upstairs with his young wife. No window looked out on the alley from inside, not even from the upper stories. It made a dead end at the rear of a storage building where an importer kept his wares, and where there was no door nor window. The entrance to the Goat and Boar was the only opening onto the alley other than the access from Bank Side several yards away.
Five soldiers stood at the end of that nameless alley, just beyond the entrance to the tavern, their backs to the warehouse wall. They wore breastplates and bore pikes, and appeared to be guards from Whitehall. This must be a special discovery indeed, for the king to have sent help to a lowly constable such as Pepper.
Just behind the line of guards stood Constable Pepper, staring down at a pile of something by his feet. Today he wore ill-fitting blue breeches, a pale green hat with yellow plume, and a faded doublet in a purplish color that managed to argue with both his breeches and hat. The plume draped from his hat without fluff or enthusiasm, and only the very end of it drifted back and forth when he moved. His leggings sagged at the ankles and it was difficult to tell whether they were well worn or several centuries out of date. His cloak appeared new, but it was also a dull gray-brown that agreed only with the cobbles beneath his feet.
Suzanne, looking down, noticed that the pile on the ground before them was a mutilated man.
Pepper looked up as Suzanne approached, and for a moment frowned before he recognized her, as if he’d forgotten he’d sent for her. As one of the soldiers stepped forward and barred her way with his pike, Pepper said to her, “I see you’re dressed for work.”
“Is that what I’ve been summoned for?” She looked down at the brightly colored, well-dressed lump of humanity on the ground, and blanched. The body was hardly recognizable as a person. Its head had been smashed like a rotten pumpkin, the pink brain matter splattered hither and yon. There was no face to speak of, though a piece of something lying just to the side may have been a nose. The torso was caved in at the ribs. There was less blood here than there had been with Angus, but still a pool of it surrounded the body. The legs were the only parts of the corpse still intact. The dead man wore fashionable silk breeches that were a golden brown color, white silk tights, and dove-gray-dyed calfskin shoes with bright, golden buckles that must have been the envy of everyone in Whitehall. Suzanne said, “He was wealthy, for a certainty. Have you any idea who he is?”
“Well,” said Pepper, not taking his eyes off the gruesome sight. “His signet ring suggests he’s Henry, Earl of Larchford.”
Suzanne recognized the name. Of course Daniel knew him, and had mentioned him once or twice in the past. “Larchford. How terrible.”
“You knew him?”
“Never met him. Unusual for someone formerly of the world’s oldest profession, I know, but there you have it. Even I haven’t banged everyone.”
Pepper gave her a bland look, unwilling to give her the satisfaction of laughing at her joke. Then he returned his attention to the body at his feet.
“So why am I here?” asked Suzanne. With two fingers she gently lifted the guard’s pike in order to duck under it. Then she picked her way around to Larchford’s other side, careful not to step in the blood. Besides not wanting to leave her own footprints everywhere, cleaning blood from her shoes was not her idea of a pleasant afternoon and she’d already done it once recently.
“I need your expertise regarding bodies found in the vicinity of the Goat and Boar.” He nodded in the direction of the closed and locked entrance of the tavern.
“My expertise? How do you figure that?”
“As we discussed before, I don’t frequent the place and am unfamiliar with its clientele. I expect you can help me with this.” His tone suggested he’d never considered she might not care to help. “This is the very spot on which was found the body of that Spanish pirate that so concerned you the other day.”
“You mean, now that you’ve got a corpse of someone who matters, you want to find the killer?”
He straightened again to peer at her. “That is exactly what I mean. Surely you understand that the king will want Larchford’s killer apprehended.” Plainly he wondered why she even needed to bring it up. He returned his attention to the body and continued. “Now, tell me, what do you think happened here?”
Suzanne stared at him, unbelieving. Now he was demanding she do his work, knowing she had no interest in this victim. She knew he was lazy, but this was worse than laziness. Pepper was showing her a sense of entitlement far beyond reason for someone of his middling status. But since she was there, she drew a deep breath, set aside her anger, and looked down at the corpse again.
“What do you see, Suzanne?”
“Mistress Thornton, if you don’t mind, Constable.”
“Very well, then. What do you see, Mistress Thornton?”
“I see . . .” What did she see? A mutilated body and a great deal of blood. But there were other things. “I see a man killed by a bludgeon of some sort.”
“Mace?”
She leaned down to examine the wounds. “No spikes. These wounds are all round, and nothing penetrating. About the size of a man’s fist.”
“A fist didn’t do—”
“Of course not. But that’s the size of weapon that was used. See this edge right here? How it’s curved? Put your fist there. It’s just that size.” Pepper reached down to put his fist near the wound, and it just fit inside one circular depression in the victim’s head.
“I see,” he said.
“And if you look inside the hole, it’s also more or less smooth. Whatever ball or knob hit him, it didn’t have protrusions of any kind. Probably not a mace.”
A voice came from the mouth of the alley, loud and officious. “I’ve arrived!”
Suzanne and Pepper both straightened and looked to find a tall, scrawny man striding toward them. Pepper muttered under his breath, “White.”
She said, “Yes, he is.” The fellow was very white, his face nearly gray and quite without any sort of ruddiness in cheek or even nose.
“Marcus White. The coroner.” Pepper sounded disgusted, and it was clear he didn’t much like the coroner.
White strode with great energy on long, thin, bowed legs that had a rather insectile appearance, oddly like a praying mantis walking backward. He reached them in seconds and gazed down at Larchford’s corpse, towering over them all. “I’m here,” he said, “so we may proceed.”
It hadn’t occurred to Suzanne there would be a visit from the coroner, and she had only a vague idea what his function might be. She watched him bend from the waist to examine the body. He leaned this way, then that way, then straightened and nodded. “Ayuh, this man was murdered.” He addressed Pepper. “I’ll have my clark put it in writing, and you may send your man to fetch it for you on the morrow.” He gave a slight tip to his wide-brimmed hat, then without so much as a “boo” to Suzanne, turned and strode back down the alley as he’d come.
Pepper watched him go, a sour look on his face. “It’s official, then, I suppose. This man didn’t die of natural causes.”
Suzanne also watched White leave the alley, and wondered how much money that man received for his work. She assumed he came in useful whenever a seemingly ordinary death might be suspicious, but today there was certainly no denying that Larchford had died by violence.
Once White was gone, Su
zanne bent to the body again and looked some more without touching it, but all there was to be seen from this side was a bloody mess. She straightened and said, “Might I prevail upon your men to help us turn him over?”
Pepper gestured to one of the guards, who came to help. He took Larchford’s arm and rolled him onto his stomach. The back of his head was as damaged as the front, and spongy pink brains fell here and there as the body rolled.
“His sword is still in its scabbard,” Suzanne noted. “So is his dagger.”
“Odd ending for someone so well armed, eh?”
“Larchford wasn’t noted for his prowess with weapons. He was young enough, but not terribly athletic or deft. He had a reputation for sly business dealing, and only carried a sword for show.” The thing was certainly a show of status, with a fine red leather scabbard appointed in gold, and a hilt of finely wrought gold and silver. Larchford’s family wasn’t the richest in England, but one would never know it from appearances. “Regardless, I wonder whether the man who killed him was a stranger who attacked him from behind for his purse.” But then she looked around and said, “No. I take that back. It wasn’t an anonymous robbery.”
Pepper looked around, but didn’t see what she’d noticed. “What? Why do you think that?”
“Well, aside from the fact that the killer left behind a fortune in weaponry and jewelry, look at where he is. If he were attacked leaving the tavern, he wouldn’t be on this side of the door. He’d have been headed toward Bank Side, walking away from the tavern. Something brought him into the dead end.”
“Perhaps the killer dragged the body into this dark end?”
Suzanne shook her head. “No. There are no drag marks on these dirty cobbles, and no blood in that direction. All the blood is here, and it all originates from this spot. See how it has splashed out in all directions? But none of it is on the other side of the tavern door. He was left where he fell.”
Pepper nodded and said nothing. It was the most agreeable Suzanne had ever seen him.
The Scottish Play Murder (A Restoration Mystery) Page 10