“My examination of the dead man is complete.”
Hudson waited, then rasped, “And what are the results?”
“Well, Williams’ facial and head wounds lead me to believe, as a surgeon and barber of some two years’ good –”
“Get on with it!” Hudson roared, blowing out the candle on his desk. Greene quickly relit it.
“Well, given the severity of the blows – the broken nose and smashed eye sockets and dislocated jaw – I would say almost certainly that Williams was most probably beaten to death by someone. That is to say, Master, he was likely murdered.”
Hudson groaned. “We know he was murdered, you fool! We already have the murderer locked up.”
“Oh, well, just confirming the facts, then.” Wilson burped again. This time one of his front teeth tumbled out of his blackened gums and rattled down onto the planking. “I, uh, found splinters in the dead man’s skin, Master,” he said, covering up his mouth, “which would indicate that he was most likely struck with a wooden club of some sort, as opposed to, say, a man’s fists, or a metal bludgeon of some sort.”
“What do you make of that, Henry?” Hudson asked.
Greene winked. “I’d say this man’s got scurvy, Master, and a bad case at that. You best drink some boiled tamarack bud, surgeon, take a taste of your own decoction.”
Hudson frowned. “No. I meant –”
“All of the timber was locked tight and dry in the hold till today, Master,” Greene said, scratching his chin. “But there’s driftwood about, I suppose, if you dig deep enough. And . . .”
“Yes?”
“There’s the bos’n’s club, Master – three knocks on the head for cursing and all that. Mr Juet could certainly get his hands on that, and know how to use it.”
“Yes,” Hudson agreed. He dismissed the surgeon. Then he dismissed the whole distasteful subject from his mind. “What say you play your flute for me tonight, Henry?” he asked, clapping his friend on the shoulder.
Greene started. “Uh, perhaps the fiddle, Master?” he suggested.
“Just so.”
For most of the night, the north wind whistled through the rigging, hurtled ice pellets rattling against the ship’s sides, clawing cold into the vessel and the hearts of her shivering crew. But in the depths of early morning the wind died down and the clouds broke, and the dancing Northern Lights paintbrushed the pitch-black sky in brilliant hues of green and red and blue, dazzling the man on watch and setting the timber wolves to howling.
Hudson awoke at bitter dawn. The clear skies meant a further drop in temperature, but he stood out of bed with the resolve of the deep-water Arctic mariner, the ice-water in his veins bracing him against the brutal weather. Today was an important day, for today construction on the house – the building that would be the crew’s home during the long, dark, cold winter ahead – was to begin.
Hudson and the ship’s carpenter, Philip Staffe, had quarrelled violently only days before about the house. Staffe had claimed that the order for construction had been left too late, that it was now too cold to build anything. Hudson had dismissed that as nonsense. Then Staffe had insisted that he was a ship’s carpenter, not a house carpenter, and would not, therefore, assist in the construction. Hudson had struck Staffe, threatened to hang the man, and there had been ill feeling between the two. Eventually, however, the carpenter had agreed to build the house.
Hudson cleared ice away from the window of his cabin with a dampened hand and looked outside. His eyes widened when he spotted two men armed with muskets striding into the forest on the starboard side of the ship. It was his friend Henry Greene and his enemy Philip Staffe, and Hudson bristled with rage.
Not even bothering to don his cloak, he rushed out of his cabin and up onto the deck, yelled, “Get back here, you two!” But the men were already disappearing into the forest hundreds of yards beyond, and a flock of geese honking loudly overhead served to drown out Hudson’s command.
He balled his hands and gritted his teeth. Staffe was desperately needed in the house construction, and here he was gallivanting off for a day’s hunting. And Greene! How could his supposed friend, who Hudson was paying out of his own pocket since he was not on the company books, take up with a man Hudson had so recently fought with?
“Bloody traitor!” Hudson roared, shaking his fist. Then roared again, “Bylot!”
The mate was bedded down in the fo’c’sle, but the ship shook with the Master’s bellow and all aboard heard it. Bylot rolled out of his hammock and threw on his threadbare coat and stumbled out onto the deck. All was brittle and icy cold, and it took his breath away.
“You want John Williams’ coat?” Hudson growled at the bewildered man.
“I _”
“It’s yours.”
Bylot made for the mainmast, dug the coat out of the pile of clothing there and flung it on his shoulders.
“Morning, father,” John said, sidling up to Hudson’s elbow. “I see you’ve changed your mind about who gets the coat.”
“I will not provide comfort to those who consort with my enemies,” Hudson replied tersely. “Mr Greene has betrayed me.”
“As I warned you he would, father.”
Before Hudson could say anything, John added, “Why not search his cabin, as well, while he’s away? I hear he’s been hoarding food against your orders.”
Hudson yelled at the mate, where he was cavorting on the hatch in his new coat. “Bylot! You and John will search Mr Greene’s cabin – immediately. Be on the lookout for food or anything else the ungrateful thief shouldn’t have.”
After a cold, angry breakfast of salt pork and hard biscuit, Hudson made his way down into the ship’s hold, William Wilson, great, profane bear of a bos’n accompanying him.
Robert Juet was huddled in a corner. He glanced up as the men approached. “Morning, Master,” he grated, a sour smile on his wrinkled monkey-face. Then he sniffed the chill air and added cheekily, “Is that the Spice Islands I be smelling this morning?”
Hudson bristled. The little, old man had always been a cynical, insolent cur, and a demotion and imprisonment were not about to reform his character. “Why did you kill Mr Williams?”
“Did I?”
“Who did, then?”
“Not me.”
Hudson rubbed his nose, tugged on his beard. “You stood watch when Williams was most likely killed. Did you see or hear nothing?”
Juet stared down at his chained feet. “Well . . . the truth is . . . I was asleep most of my watch.”
“Malingerer!”
Juet glanced up, the wrinkles on his face creasing into a mock-hurt expression. “I was keeping good watch, Master, over the ice and snow – the frozen treasures of the Orient. But I got tired with the eyestrain of looking at all those precious gems and just set my head down in the galley for a moment and –”
“More like you got bloody tired of heating the bloody sandglass to make ’er run faster,” Wilson snarled, pawing his nose.
Juet glared at the giant. “I didn’t kill Williams,” he said to Hudson.
“Your bootprints were found in the area of Mr Williams’ body.”
“What bootprints?”
Hudson shook his head, exasperated. “Do you deny discussing mutiny with Mr Williams earlier in the evening?”
“With Williams? Yes.”
“Mr Greene says –”
“Aye, Mr Greene,” Juet hissed, rattling the chains that bound him.
Bylot and John Hudson found their Master at the helm, staring out at the endless expanse of ice and snow on the bay, his beard made whiter still by the frost.
“Look what we found in Greene’s cabin, father,” John gasped, running to his side, holding out Greene’s heavy, wooden flute. He showed his father the chips and cracks in the boxwood instrument. “It was hidden away in his chest, wrapped in a blanket. It would make a mighty fine weapon, I think.” He swung it like a club.
“He would not play it for me last night,
” Hudson mused.
John blew on the instrument, and the sound was anything but sweet.
“What else did you find?”
“This, Master,” Bylot spoke up. He opened the hefty sack he’d been holding and dumped its contents out onto a pile of rope. Salt pork and cod, dried peas and cheese and biscuit poured out, many days’ rations.
John said, “Williams was known to have hoarded his rations, too, yet no food was found amongst his belongings.”
“Mr Bylot,” Hudson gritted, “when Mr Greene returns from his hunting party, have two sturdy men seize him and place him in irons – with Mr Juet.”
Henry Greene was furious when he spotted Robert Bylot wearing the warm winter coat he’d been promised. He came aboard the ship just as sunset was setting off the ice crystals in the late-afternoon air, and grappled with the mate. But William Wilson and Arnold Ludlow quickly grabbed him, thrust him kicking and screaming into the hold and locked the hatch above him.
Bylot straightened out his new coat, thrust his hands into its pockets to get them in order. Then he pulled his right hand out, clutching a slip of paper. “Look here, Master!” he shouted.
Hudson took the piece of paper and unfolded it, read: ‘I, Henry Greene, of London, do hereby agree that I owe John Williams, of Ipswich, the sum of twenty pounds, that amount being a gambling debt to be repaid in full no more than one year from the date of this note.” The note was signed, “Henry Greene”, dated “December 1, 1609”, almost exactly one year earlier.
“What is it, Master?” Bylot inquired anxiously.
Hudson stroked the frozen tendrils of his beard. “Evidence,” he replied thoughtfully.
“I’ll bet that we have no further trouble this voyage,” John predicted early the next morning.
Father and son were at the house site, watching the crew fumble with tools and nails, their fingers almost too numb to grasp them. “Greene and Juet are villainous men, I’ve always said so. Juet plotting against you, Greene using you, consorting with your enemies. It’s good that they’re both locked –”
John’s mouth fell open, but no more words issued forth. He was staring at Robert Juet and Henry Greene, as they approached the clearing in the bush, free and unencumbered.
“They seem to have made up their differences after spending some time together,” Hudson stated with satisfaction, observing the two men in casual conversation. They saluted and grinned as they walked by. “Good. Their help is needed in building the house.”
“The help of murderers and thieves?” John squeaked.
Hudson grunted and shook his head. “You overplayed your hand, son. That note you wrote – about Greene owing Williams twenty pounds – and placed in the pocket of Williams’ coat, was your undoing.” Hudson gestured disdainfully with his mittened hand. “You see, Greene is illiterate, like most of this rabble.”
“But – but I saw him writing the log – in your cabin, father.”
Hudson snorted. “He was merely copying what I had written first. I was trying to teach the man the rudiments of reading and writing, helping him as I have so often helped him. But he is a poor student, I’m afraid. And a worse friend.”
Hudson looked at his son. “You did a good job of copying his chicken scratch. When did you do it?”
John sighed and hung his head. “I spent yesterday afternoon working on it – put it in the pocket of Williams’, er, Bylot’s coat just before Greene came back from hunting.”
“I suspected so, and now you have confirmed it. The other culprit could have been Edward Wilson, for he knew about the investigation we were conducting, as well, and is literate, and loathes Greene as much as you do.”
John looked up. “I was only providing motive. But what about Greene’s broken flute, is that not the murder weapon?”
“Remember, one room for the officers and one for the men!” Hudson yelled at his harried carpenter.
Staffe twisted his head around and nodded, then turned back and cursed. The building of two rooms had further angered the already sorely disgruntled crew; they feared there would be two messes, and an unfair distribution of food, as a result.
Hudson looked again at his son. “When I realized someone had deliberately put the note in Williams’ coat to further implicate Greene in his death, I began to wonder if there wasn’t more trickery at play in the whole affair. So, I confronted Mr Greene with his broken flute and the extra food, and he told me the real story of his finding Williams in the bush.
“He’d remembered the heated words Juet and Williams had exchanged the previous evening, for he’d heard them himself, and he sought to put it to advantage, to implicate his enemy in Williams’ death. He retrieved his flute, therefore, not wanting to rouse anyone with a musket shot and having no other weapon at hand, and Juet’s boots. Then he battered Williams’ face with the musical instrument and made bootprints in the snow to make it appear that the man had died violently and deliberately, at Juet’s hand. But Williams was already well-frozen, so he had to cut his own fingers to provide the blood that was necessary at the scene.”
“And – and . . . you believe him?”
“It makes sense – he has no reason to lie, for it clears Juet of the crime.”
“And himself!”
Hudson winced as a gust of wind sent snow spraying into his face. “He admits stealing Williams’ food – like he tried to steal his coat – but there never was any murder, son. Williams was a sick man to begin with, and he got himself drunk on grog and wine and wandered off and fell asleep in the snow and froze to death, as I suspected originally.” Hudson slapped his mitts together and spat on the ground, clearing his palate and mind of the whole unsavory affair.
“Both men have promised to be loyal and faithful and well-behaved for the rest of our voyage. And they will be needed to help sail the ship when the ice breaks.” The heavy lines on the Master’s face lifted momentarily. “When we sail for the Northwest . . .” he paused when he noticed the dirty look from Philip Staffe “. . . for England in the springtime.”
John stared down at the snow, thin shoulders hunched in defeat and frustration. “I still say Juet and Greene are villainous men and should be locked up for your own protection.”
But Hudson was no longer listening. He was gazing out to the bay, his mind drifting off to the warm, open waters of the Western Sea, where sea salt and exotic spices assailed his nostrils, where riches untold awaited him. He would yet find the Strait of Anian, he was confident, come springtime.
Come springtime, when the ice finally broke and the Discovery once again set sail, Robert Juet and Henry Greene led a mutiny that resulted in Henry Hudson, his son, and seven other crew members being thrown into a small boat and set adrift on the bay, never to be heard from again.
SATAN IN THE STAR CHAMBER
PETER TREMAYNE
One of the personal tragedies early in James’s reign was the death of his eldest son, Henry, Prince of Wales in November 1612, purportedly of typhoid. He was just eighteen. The following story explores what might really have happened.
Peter Tremayne (b. 1943) is best known for his series featuring the seventh-century Irish solver of crimes Sister Fidelma, whose investigations have now been chronicled in sixteen books starting with Absolution by Murder (2004). The following story though includes another of Tremayne’s series characters, Constable Hardy Drew, who has yet to have a book all his own but who has appeared in several anthologies including my own Shakespearean Whodunnits (1997) and Shakespearean Detectives (1998). His first three investigations will be found in Tremayne’s recent collection An Ensuing Evil (2006).
The noise reminded Master Hardy Drew of the distant report of cannon except that it grew curiously louder and louder. Then he realized that he was awakening from a deep sleep and the noise had resolved itself into a furious knocking at the street door below. It was still black night. He lay for a moment in his warm bed, cursing the fact that his manservant was not at home that night. Exhaling with a sound l
ike a groan, he swung out of bed and padded across the cold wooden floorboards to the lattice window and opened it a fraction.
“Who’s there?” he demanded in his best stentorian tone. “Who disturbs the slumber of honest citizens at this hour?”
Peering down, he could see two men, one with a lantern held high, in the cobbled street below. By its flickering light he could see that they were clad in livery, although he could not discern the crests they bore, which would denote in whose service they were employed. Both men were girthed with swords.
“Be you Master Hardy Drew, the Constable of the Bankside Watch?” cried the man with the lantern, lifting it towards the upper window as if to catch sight of him.
“I am,” replied Master Drew.
“Then you must accompany us at once, Master Drew. It is a matter of urgency.”
Master Drew’s brows lowered in annoyance.
“Must accompany you?” he replied, coldly. “Whither? And by whose request?”
“To the Palace of Whitehall, good Constable. By the request of my Lord Ellesmore.”
Only a fraction of a second passed before Master Drew bid them wait but a moment to allow him to dress, assuring them that he would be down directly. It would not do to allow the Lord Chancellor of England and Keeper of the Seal to be kept waiting. It was but a short time before he was hurrying behind the two royal guards down the narrow alley that led onto the Bankside, by the dark Thames’ waters, where he found two boatmen, also in royal livery, awaiting with a skiff. No word was exchanged as he clambered into the stern of the boat while the others took up positions facing him, their faces stoic and uncommunicative. The boatmen grasped the oars and sent the little vessel speeding across the dank waters of the great river.
From Bankside, on the south bank of the Thames, across to the Palace of Whitehall, on the northern bank, it was a short distance but with the darkness and dangerous tides it took fifteen minutes to traverse the stretch of black water.
No challenge was given as they came to the jetty at the water entrance of the Palace, though clearly they were within sight of many royal sentinels. The two guards were out first, the one still holding the lantern to aid Master Drew to clamber from the boat onto the stone jetty. Then, still without a word, his guides turned and hurried forward through the gates. Guards with halberds stood watch here and there but no one issued any challenge as they hurried through arches into a series of small courtyards before coming to a door which was immediately opened to them. Here the two guards stopped and the man who had opened the door, an elderly man but also in royal livery, beckoned Master Drew to follow. He proceeded to lead him down a maze of darkened corridors before halting before a door on which he tapped respectfully.
The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunnits Page 14