The Scottish Play Murder (A Restoration Mystery)

by Rutherford, Anne

  “You think this pirate is the man who killed Larchford?”

  “I couldn’t say for a certainty, but it’s entirely possible. In any case, I’m willing to bet he has better knowledge of who the fourth man is than he has told me. You would be remiss in not questioning him.”

  “I agree.” A fire had lit up beneath Pepper, it seemed, and he rose from his chair in a flurry of excitement. His face flushed and he hurried to his overcoat and hat. “Let us fly to the docks and apprehend this miscreant!”

  Suzanne also rose and donned her cloak and muff as she considered how easily one could make Pepper do anything so long as one remembered what his priorities were. The man didn’t hate crime so much as he loved approval from the king. The prospect of catching Larchford’s murderer was the only thing that would have convinced Pepper to go out in the cold like this. She followed him, eager to see what would happen to the man who had assaulted her last night.

  Pepper hired a carriage for the trip to the docks. He flagged one down in the street outside his office, and climbed in before Suzanne. However, he did think to reach down to help her up once he was seated. She pulled her cloak around her and settled into the seat next to him, and the driver urged the horses to a trot.

  A side trip was necessary, to request a contingent of five soldiers to make the arrest. They seemed to be the same five that always accompanied Pepper, and the men seemed accustomed to being under the constable’s command. They piled into and onto the carriage, three in seats opposite Suzanne and Pepper, and the remaining two standing on the outside. Today they were armed with guns rather than pikes, Suzanne imagined for the sake of advantage in the close quarters of the ship belowdecks. The men sat silent, disciplined, looking neither to right nor left as they rode to their mission. Suzanne understood somewhat how the queen must feel, surrounded by guards who were not allowed to speak to her. The smell of wool, leather, oiled steel, and young men filled the carriage in a way Pepper could never have done by himself. Suzanne thought it rather pleasant.

  At the dock Pepper directed the carriage driver to take them all the way to the ship Maiden and they rolled onto the echoing wood, hooves thumping and wheels rattling, parting the dock workers before them. Suzanne craned her head out the window to find the Dutch “toad,” and spotted it ahead, sitting high and empty on the river’s surface. The soldiers piled out of the carriage near the gangplank, and Suzanne and Pepper followed. Without much ado, Pepper ordered the soldiers up the gangway and to arrest anyone they found aboard. He and Suzanne would remain on the dock. The five soldiers in red coats hurried single file up to the deck, weapons at the ready, and they disappeared through the door at the rear.

  Suzanne wished she could go with them. And with a gun in her hand, so that perhaps it could go off accidentally-on-purpose and—oh, dear—put a hole in that pirate’s head. It made her pace and tap her foot to wait and not know what was going on belowdecks. Pepper stood quietly, his hands stuffed into his coat pockets and his chin buried in its collar, watching the ship for signs of activity, though there were none. The winter wind buffeted his hat and his wig slipped a little, but he ignored it. Suzanne hugged her muff to her and for the first time wished she’d worn a dress with heavy woolen skirts and linen petticoats rather than breeches and tights that were thin protection against the cold. The wind blew around the hem of her cloak and up her legs. She hunched her shoulders and wished the soldiers would hurry.

  She’d thought there might have been a lot of noise involved in arresting a pirate on his own ship. Gunfire, perhaps, or at least some shouting. But she heard nothing until the contingent of redcoats returned to the deck of the ship with the nasty fellow held between two of them. He came quietly, and squinted at the daylight, though the sky was gray with deep overcast. When he saw her waiting on the dock, he stumbled and began to resist, and had to be drawn along by his captors. He dug in his heels, but they lifted him to break his purchase and drew him onward.

  When the sailor was near enough to hear, Pepper said to Suzanne, “Is this the man who came to your bedchamber last night, Mistress Thornton?”

  “It is,” she replied.

  Then he addressed the captive. “Tell us your name, man.”

  The pirate looked from him, to Suzanne, then to Pepper again. “What?”

  “Tell us your name. You must have a name.”

  The idea of refusing to reply flashed across his eyes, but only for a moment. “’Tis Chauncey. Chauncey De Vries.” His voice shook, and his eyes darted from Pepper to Suzanne, to one of the soldiers, then back to Pepper.

  “Chauncey De Vries, you are under arrest for piracy, attempted rape, and the murder of Henry, Earl of Larchford.”

  “What?” He resisted afresh and tried to twist away from the soldiers holding him, but they kept a good grip on his arms. Though he dropped all his weight on them and struggled to be free, the soldiers held him up and made him stand on his own feet. “No! I didn’t do it!” He shouted at Suzanne, “Tell ’im! Tell ’im I didn’t do it! You know I didn’t do it! I told you yesterday where I was!”

  “Put him in the carriage,” Pepper ordered the soldiers. They complied, and Pepper looked askance at Suzanne regarding what the pirate had said. She replied with only a shrug, as if she had no idea what he might be talking about. Pepper let it go, and Suzanne was glad of that. He wouldn’t be pleased later on once he learned of De Vries’s excellent alibi, but by then he would be invested enough to charge him with last night’s assault for the sake of justifying the arrest. It wouldn’t matter that he’d not killed Larchford.

  They all took their seats in the carriage, De Vries sitting between two soldiers opposite Pepper and Suzanne. He stared death at her the entire way to the lockup, and she pretended not to notice by keeping her gaze out the window. He was on his way to an interrogation, and though she knew he was innocent of the charge of murder, he was quite guilty of both piracy and attempted rape. She was not the least bit sorry for his predicament.

  At the lockup, De Vries was taken into a barred room for questioning. At first Pepper wasn’t going to let Suzanne inside. He blocked her path to the door and lowered his voice for a private exchange.

  “This isn’t for a woman to watch.” There was an of course tone in his voice. He seemed to assume she would agree.

  She did not. In her best don’t be silly tone, she said, “I’m no woman, Constable. I’m an old tart. There isn’t much you can do to him that would be any worse than what’s been done to me at one time or another. In my life I’ve been raped and robbed, insulted and slandered, I’ve had bones broken and my lip split, I’ve starved, I’ve been left in the cold, and I gave birth in a whorehouse, surrounded by people who didn’t care much whether I or my baby survived. This man tried to kill me last night. You must understand I’m no sheltered lady likely to cry foul when you press him with violence.”

  “You had some misgivings over our approach to Lady Larchford.”

  “Of course I had misgivings. Lady Larchford has never pointed a loaded pistol at my head nor threatened to rape me or murder me. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, has she ever done so to anyone else. By all indications, the poor woman never even knew of her husband’s involvement in criminal activity. This miscreant in that room is a pirate and has admitted to plundering British ships. This nefarious fellow has quite sown what he is about to reap.”

  Pepper thought that over, then nodded and gestured she should join him and the soldiers in the room with the prisoner.

  The interrogation room was not large. It had but one window for light, high on the wall and barred with iron slightly larger in diameter than her thumb. A rough wooden table stood in the center of the floor, and four chairs without arms, two on either side. De Vries had been placed in one of the chairs and his wrists shackled to the table with thick iron cuffs secured with a key lock and attached with an iron chain of heavy links. His feet were likewise shackled to an eyebolt in the floor, on a short, heavy chain that allowed no movement. Peppe
r took a chair on the other side of the table, and gestured to Suzanne she should take a seat in the corner, in a heavy armchair. So she was pleased enough to sit, a fly on the wall of these proceedings. Three of the five soldiers in Pepper’s contingent stood against the wall, their arquebuses at ready, while the remaining two took up posts outside the door. They closed and locked it from that side.

  “All right, then,” said Pepper as he adjusted his breeches for the sake of comfort on the hard wooden chair. “De Vries, you know why you’re here.”

  The pirate threw an evil, sideways glance toward Suzanne. Because of his alibi, they both knew the murder was not the real issue, and there was insufficient evidence against him for a charge of piracy. He wouldn’t be there except for the assault on Suzanne. “Aye, I do.”

  “Then you understand that you’re in a great deal of trouble.”

  “I didn’t do no murder. And she knows it.” He pointed at Suzanne with his bearded chin. “I told her yesterday I was in the St. Martin’s lockup when Larchford was murdered.”

  Pepper turned to give Suzanne a long, querying look, and she only shrugged. Then he gestured to one of the soldiers and had a low, brief conversation with him. Then the soldier left the room. Pepper addressed the prisoner. “Yes, well, we’ll send a messenger to St. Martin’s to have a look at the records there for that date. If your name appears, then you’ll be cleared and no harm done. But until he returns, I think I’d like to have a little chat about your actions of last night.”

  “Last night? Why, I was asleep on the ship. All night, I were.” Now he wouldn’t look at Suzanne at all.

  Pepper sat back. “I think that’s a lie, not to put too fine a point on it. So let us take another run at this. Tell me, De Vries, where were you last night, in the middle of the night? Oh . . . at about four in the morning?” Suzanne had no idea what hour it had been, beyond that the sun had risen not long after.

  “I told you, I was asleep on the ship.” De Vries plainly wasn’t going to admit to a crime that would keep him in lockup once his alibi for Larchford’s murder had been verified. Suzanne could see he knew he was in for a rough afternoon, for beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. He could tell Pepper intended to keep him there on whatever charge he could justify, and would get a confession by whatever means he had at hand. “You’ve got to believe me.” His voice took on a note of pleading.

  “On the contrary, Chauncey. I am not required to believe anything you say. So tell me, where were you last night?”

  “God’s honest truth, Constable. I was on the ship, just a-minding my own business. That’s all I can tell you.” His fists clenched around the chains of his shackles, and he pulled steadily against the bolt in the table.

  “I can see this is going to be difficult.” Pepper turned to address the soldier directly behind him. “Fetch me the thumbikins, young man.”

  De Vries whimpered, but said nothing, his eyes on the soldier.

  The soldier went to comply. De Vries watched him go and became quite agitated. He squirmed in his seat. “No, please. Please believe me. I didn’t do nothing to that there lady. I didn’t hurt nobody. Please trust me, I didn’t do nothing.”

  Suzanne’s stomach churned with anger and disgust. Only hours before this man had wagged his cock at her and told her he would shoot her through the head if she didn’t do what he wanted. Now he was begging to be trusted.

  The soldier returned with a set of thumbscrews. The device was innocuous enough in appearance. A simple bar with three holes, and another bar with three bolts that went through the holes. A single nut on the middle bolt brought the two bars tight together. The tightening was done with a wrench that had a T handle. A far cry from the great, monstrous medieval engines that could take up half the room, and some thought more civilized. Somewhat in the way beheading by the Scottish Maiden was thought to be more merciful than the gallows.

  At sight of the instrument, De Vries drew his hands as close to himself as he could get them, and tucked his thumbs into his fists. “No!”

  “Hold him,” said Pepper. The two nearest soldiers each took a hand and pried the pirate’s thumbs from his fists. The shackle chains rattled on the table as the three struggled. Pepper unscrewed the nut on the thumbikins to make the gap between the bars wide enough to fit De Vries’s thumbs through. Then with the wrench he screwed it down tightly enough to keep him from wriggling free of it, but not so tight as to cause serious pain. But by the prisoner’s face Suzanne could see it hurt already.

  “Where were you last night?”

  “On the ship.”

  Pepper turned the nut once. De Vries’s face crumpled in pain. “Again, I ask you. Where were you last night?”

  “On the ship.”

  Once more Pepper turned the nut. The prisoner let out a cry, and threw Suzanne an evil look. She returned it with anger to match. He would regret attacking her, and that regret would come before he was even tried.

  Pepper said, with strained patience, for by now he was surely longing for his brandy and wished to return to his office, “Tell me what you did last night. We know what happened; we only require you to admit it. Come clean, and perhaps it will go easily on you.” It was not exactly a lie, for the torture would stop if he admitted what he’d done. Anything that went easily after that would be extra and beyond the scope of Pepper’s promise.

  “I did naught last night. I drank some rum and slept on the ship. I never did nobody no harm.”

  Two more turns of the screw, and De Vries emitted a high squeal. He struggled with the soldiers who held him down. Tears began to run down his cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I didn’t do nothing!”

  Pepper turned the nut once more and there was a crack. The prisoner screamed and wept over his broken thumb. “No! Please stop! Please stop!”

  “Tell us.”

  “I attacked her! Take them off! Please, take them off!”

  “How did you attack her? How did you get into her room?”

  “I stayed after the play. Hid in the bog below the galleries until it were safe to come out.” Suzanne’s mouth dropped open at the patience it must have taken to sit in a stinking latrine below ground level, from sunset till nearly dawn. But then he said, “I fell asleep, and when I woke up everyone had gone or gone to bed. That’s when I came out. Please, please take this off!”

  Pepper ignored his plea. “Then what?”

  “I sneaked through the place and found the mistress’s quarters. She keeps her door unlocked; it were easy enough to go in and tie up her maid with the kitchen twine she kept.” He stared at his broken thumb, which had turned purple, and his entire hand was swelling horribly. He continued, talking fast now since he knew the quicker he confessed the sooner the thumbscrew would come off. “I went into her bedroom, and stared at her until the staring woke her up. Then I told her not to make a sound or I’d fire my gun.”

  “You said you’d blow her head off.”

  “Aye, I did that.”

  “Then what?”

  “I pulled out my willie and waved it at her. Then she panicked—”

  “She dodged away from you and you fired your gun at her.”

  “Aye. She got away and started screaming.” In spite of the pain in his voice, it took on an edge of how dare she.

  “Calling for help.”

  “Aye. Please take this thing off my thumbs!”

  “Then what?”

  “I ran.

  “You drew your dagger.”

  “Aye, then I ran. Her friends chased me from the theatre, and I made my escape in the dark street. And that is all.” He held out his thumbs in the vise, and finally Pepper loosened the nut with its wrench. Once the device had been removed, De Vries wept over his thumbs. Surely he knew he was a dead man. Pepper now had a confession from him and testimony from Suzanne. Once he was convicted Suzanne could have Daniel convince the king that executing De Vries would make a good example to the populace and there would be no pardon. The crown
wouldn’t have to prove he’d been a pirate, and it was irrelevant that he’d not murdered Larchford. De Vries was as good as dead, regardless of anything else he’d done.

  Pepper gestured to the guards that they should take the prisoner to a cell for the night, and one of them released the shackles from the table and floor. As they hauled De Vries to his feet to take him from the room, he looked over at Suzanne, who calmly returned his gaze.

  Today she felt as hard and unfeeling, cold and calculating, as Lady Macbeth herself.

  Pepper addressed Suzanne. “Most women shrink from torture as a means of obtaining information or confession. They claim it doesn’t work.”

  “It doesn’t work. Information obtained by torture is ever unreliable. De Vries would have said anything to have made you loosen those thumbscrews. It just happens that he was guilty and had something true to say which would accomplish that. He didn’t make up a story because he didn’t have to.”

  “So the end justifies the means?”

  “Nonsense. The end had nothing to do with it. That he will be executed is nothing more than icing on the cake. This interrogation and his broken thumb are an end in itself. He fully deserved what just happened to him, for what he did to me.”

  “For that does he deserve execution?”

  “For that he deserves a broken thumb. As for the execution, he’s a pirate, guilty of treason. What he deserves is to be hung and gutted. What he will get will be a merciful hanging.”