The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley (ed)

  “And what of your son? Why did he have to die?”

  Her boldness evaporated in an instant. She brought her back to Bagnet and leaned her head against the wall. “Because he was more like his father than any of us thought. He had agreed to the plan in Cork, but evidently changed his mind and told his father by message the gold was found. Young Walter and Keymis must have argued. Keymis must have panicked.”

  “And killed your son?”

  She appeared to Bagnet as almost a stick figure glued to the white wall as her hollow voice answered, “I knew Keymis was weak. I did not know how weak and stupid.”

  “And Keymis died –”

  “– at the hand of Sir Francis’ spy who boarded the Destiny in disguise and who had orders to dispatch him if he behaved strangely. Keymis must have fired at him in defence, but the man slipped the knife into Keymis’ ribs and made it look like suicide.”

  “It was that murder poorly disguised as suicide that your husband could not accept and that was your undoing.”

  She pushed away from the wall, as if switching the topic from her son to Keymis had eased the pain. She turned, and Bagnet was surprised to see her smiling. “And the joke was on Sir Francis, because although Keymis had secured two casks of ore from El Dorado, his killer did not learn the exact location before dispatching Keymis. So what he brought home is what there is. That is what I was telling Sir Francis this evening, for the one-thousandth time. Still, my share of what we brought back is enough for me to support my remaining son Carew and to promote my husband’s legend, while with his Sir Francis will have the freedom to plot against the royal marriage he opposes.”

  Bagnet sighed and then walked to the door, painfully bending to retrieve the black bag he had dropped there. “Sir Walter told me you could take care of yourself. He was right. You are a good woman of business, and until now I did not know there was such a thing, but you are. You argue like a foreclosing banker. Your husband also asked me to give you this.” With a lunge, Bagnet looped the string of the bag over her head, and the black sack hung at her chest. “He asked me to tell you that he even knew why you did what you did. He said he had left you without funds, and that he understood. But he also wanted me to hang his head around your neck so that its weight filled your heart forever. And I have a message for you from myself.” She sobbed, heaving the bag on her chest up and down. “When you made your arrangement with Sir Francis, you shook hands with the devil. Why do you think he allowed your husband to have me do my investigation? So that someone else knows! I am under orders to put what I found in writing and hand it to him. I have no doubt all reference to his part in this will somehow disappear. You will now have to dance with the devil, Mistress Ralegh. Dance well, and there will be no problem. Dance poorly, and it is you who will be in the Tower for treason, with my papers as evidence. Farewell.”

  Jessica was waiting in a carriage outside. “It was good of you to bring the body home and comfort her.”

  “I do not know how much comfort I have brought her.”

  “Oh,” Jessica said, not understanding. “Anyone would feel that way under the circumstances. We do not know what to say.”

  “But,” Bagnet said, settling back in his seat, “at least I satisfied a dead man’s wish. Let us go home.”

  Bess Ralegh did keep the bag with her husband’s head with her always, not about her neck, but in a closet, from where she would bring it out to show visitors on no provocation whatsoever, as if as a penance. In spite of the circumstances of her husband’s death, she lived in luxury and died in 1647 at the age of 83. Her son Carew became a member of Parliament and was able to purchase the lands of his father that had been lost. Ralegh’s reputation grew as the King’s declined.

  Bess did have to dance with the devil for a short while. Sir Francis died in 1626 but not before using his influence and unexplained wealth to prevent James’ plan of a royal marriage between England and Spain. Gondomar died the same year as Bacon, in Spain, in some disgrace. Andin 1853, Ralegh’s claims of the gold of El Dorado being in Guiana were vindicated when the most productive gold mine in the world was established there.

  PERFECT ALIBI

  PHILIP BOAST

  One individual that we have already encountered in several of the stories is Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626). A scheming and highly intelligent individual, Bacon was arguably one of the most obnoxious people in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. He was certainly not one to have as your enemy. It was he who was the chief prosecutor of the Earl of Essex on the charge of treason in 1601. Although the shrewd Elizabeth could see through Bacon, James I probably saw much of himself in the man and, for much of James’s reign, Bacon’s advance was secure. He became solicitor-general in 1607, attorney-general in 1613 (it was he who conducted the prosecution of Somerset in the Overbury trial), Lord Chancellor in 1618 and eventually Viscount St Albans in 1621. But if ever the phrase “pride cometh before a fall” applied to anyone, it applied to Bacon. His enemies succeeded in convincing the House of Lords that Bacon accepted bribes for favours. Bacon offered no defence and was imprisoned but soon released and retired to his estates. There Bacon involved himself in academic and scientific studies – he had always had a fine and enquiring mind. He even wrote a Utopian novel, New Atlantis, in 1624 where he became the first to promote a new society through the study and advancement of science. One can well imagine Bacon in these final years, keen to solve any problems presented to him.

  Philip Boast (b. 1952) has written a number of historical epics, often with a fantasy or religious theme, including Sion (1999), the story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and Deus (1997), which deals with the legacy of a crime committed in London in the thirteenth century.

  1624

  The girl ran for more than her own life; she ran for two. She ran crying the name “Joabin! Joabin!” but no reply came from the dark.

  Her name was Ann, a comely maiden of seventeen or so, with mistletoe in her chestnut hair, her curls now black with wet, invisible in the dark. But moonlight above the rainclouds revealed her terrified white face, and her ankles flashed beneath the hem of her blood-red, rain-blackened dress as she ran.

  With a gasp for breath she knelt behind the gorse by Long Ditch, looking back. Still the house lights shone merrily on the hill, small now in the dark; but the lamp swung closer, and she heard footsteps.

  Then the rain poured, hiding the sound of them.

  She jumped the ditch, slid back, clawed through last season’s brambles to the top, ran into Two-Acre Field. Heavy cold mud sucked the pretty red shoes from her feet. She slithered barefoot across the plough-furrows, her sodden dress held her down like an iron weight; gasping she dragged the velvets over her head, threw them away. She ran on, but her pursuer ran faster. Rain turned to sleet but she was past cold. From the field-boundary she glimpsed the lit windows of the village in the dell, and beyond it the scattered glow of St Albans Town, but the lamp swung close behind her now, too close.

  Then came a muffled curse as the light was dropped, but was snatched up at once, and again came the mud-splashing footsteps, louder.

  She ran into Old Wood. Twigs caught her hair like fingers; she screamed, and behind her the footsteps ran faster, the lamp bobbed between the treetrunks like a terrible glowing eye, and she hid behind an old oak to let it go by. But her heart thundered. And her breath gasped in her throat.

  She raised her arm to ward off the blow.

  Sleet turned to falling snow.

  “Ganymede!” His withered, horny hand slapped my smooth-shaven arse, squeezing my cheek to show he remembered last night. “What, still a-bed, my Lady Gay Ganymede?”

  “’Tis not yet dawn, my lord,” I complained. My name, I’ll explain, is neither Ganymede nor any shortening, but Toby; and I’m no lady but a manservant and as male as we come, as many a lady and gentleman would swear, if any told truth under oath.

  He is, of course, Francis, Viscount St Albans, and almost universally reviled since his fall from power,
which as Lord Chancellor was second only to the King’s. Everyone, in London at least, knows our Francis Bacon is the greatest lover of men who ever lived, after the King; unlike the King he possesses the greatest mind of any man living, bar none. So he tells me.

  Even his enemies admit it.

  “Why so early, my lord?”

  “No My-lords lie between us while I call you Ganymede.” His wrinkled lips tasted of orange and cloves. “I’ll wear my green hat with the pearls.”

  “’Tis sold, Francis.”

  “The purple with gold.” I shook my head. “Black with silver?”

  I fetched it. Great God he looked older since his friends deserted him, his allies betrayed him, the £40,000 fine gutted him. His palace near St Albans sold, only these few Gray’s Inn rooms left in London, his magnificent clothes pawned for rent money, which hurt him more than anything. There was a horrible uncertain light in his eyes as he turned to me. “Well?”

  “You peacock,” I said.

  That cheered him and he peeped from the window, all silly hat and scrawny buttocks. “Snow’s melting. There’s my long-standing arrangement to sleep at Sir John Tyrambel’s house tonight at St Albans. His table’s plain but good and so’s his cellar.” This was Francis’s way of saying we wouldn’t pay to feast and get drunk tonight. Tyrambel, once a near neighbour, was a Crown solicitor, and no doubt thought Francis – who in ascendancy was Solicitor-General and Attorney-General – retained helpful influence. Naturally Francis, who nowadays had shit thrown at him in the street by most of his old colleagues, said nothing to contradict Tyrambel’s belief. Francis, I knew, thought Tyrambel had a head of oak; but compared to Francis, most people do.

  I found him a black and scarlet doublet which didn’t clash much with the hat, and a pair of boots without obvious holes, then scrabbled coins from the coal-scuttle for a carriage. Usually ostlers, like grocers and tailors, are first to hear of a fall and adjust their manners down and prices up accordingly, but this fellow was deaf, and gave over a four-in-hand and driver like the old days. Our arrival would impress even the oaken Tyrambel.

  From Gray’s Inn to St Albans is hardly over twenty miles, much by the straight Roman road mostly rutted free of January snow, so we’d arrive before dark, after which no travel is possible. Francis spent the day’s journey writing in first one book, now the other, some philosophical treatise, or scientific monograph, or play none but him will understand. “Ganymede,” he murmured, and I turned from the window pouting, neglected. But instead of speaking of love he said, “I have a theory that the underlying form of Form is numbers.”

  You see what I mean. Not so interesting as a squeeze on the knee.

  “Fascinating,” I yawned. Form is one of his words. So is Table. And Idol. These words don’t mean what you or I think they do.

  “Sufficient numbers acquire Form,” he mused. “So I realized last night when I measured the heat of moonbeams.”

  “The heat of moonbeams!”

  “Using a magnifying-glass to focus them on a thermometer.”

  “Do they? Have heat?”

  “Yes. The problem’s one of measurement. There’s no scale for defining the degrees of heat or cold. I’ll devise one,” he decided. “The Bacon Scale. There are temperatures colder than the freezing-point of water, but where shall I start? Is there absolute cold? Absolute heat? What’s its nature?” He pulled out a wooden rod. “It’s all a matter of the measurement of Manifestations. You know what this is?”

  “For measuring Manifestations?”

  “Yes. A foot-rule.” He showed me. “See, the foot scale is divided into twelve equal parts each called an uncia, an inch. Obviously everyone’s feet are different lengths. However, to establish a universal standard I sent a boy to mark a stick against one hundred feet, and this is the average.” He measured my foot. “You have dainty feet, only eight inches long.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “If all Manifestations of Form can be measured, quantified, standardized, compared, the world is explained.”

  “My feet explain the world?”

  “If only,” he sighed, “I could measure your beauty.” He added, less happily, “Or your intelligence.”

  I left him to it. He never stops.

  We arrived at Bensalem House before dark, and Francis put on his dignity. It is amazing to watch; his speech slows, authority steals over him like gravity, every gesture is laden with importance. “My good Tyrambel.”

  Sir John, called to the step by his steward Cambalaine, looked shocked by our arrival. “Such an honour, my lord.” His invitation had stood from before Yule (as older people call Christ’s-Mass), you’d have thought he’d remember – I whispered it discreetly, so that Francis need not lower himself. “Our best bedroom!” cried Sir John. “Light the fires, Cambalaine! A feast for the table! Wife!” Most satisfactory.

  Cambalaine, tall, hollow-eyed, fetchingly muscular, bowed deep.

  Francis wore his long black cloak that survived the pawnbroker, and looked around him sharply as we swept into the house.

  “Most welcome my lord!” cried Lady Eliza, dark under the eyes, hair unbound, but still handsome. Francis bent over her hand. “Lady Eliza.” She almost fainted of nerves. There was a son, Bartholomew, about fifteen, thrice taller since we last saw him, but no more confident, darting his eyes like a kicked dog, as is common with sons of lesser gentry. “And your sister?” Francis enquired. “Ann, I believe?” His memory for names is as phenomenal as his other mental abilities, he’d seen the girl but once or twice since she was swaddled.

  “Oh – she – she’s –”

  “Sick again,” Sir John said. “I sent her to spend the winter months at my sister’s house on the coast. The sea air is a tonic.”

  Francis nodded. “The ailment is in her lungs, then.”

  Sir John said, “Yes –”

  “A contagion caught in the village,” spat his wife.

  “Forgive us.” Sir John guided Francis personally to the stairs. “We’re worried for her health. Ann, though much-loved, is a trial to us, strong-willed, difficult. Not the first time I’ve sent the girl to her Aunt Salomana for special care.”

  Francis’s portmanteau, laden mostly with old shoes and motheaten coverlets for weight, was hauled to his room. Naturally I was to sleep on straw in the corner, but the broad bed was plenty for two, and soft. A fire roared but the weather warmed at last, and Francis threw open the window to observe the behaviour of raindrops on glass. “Each drop stands proud, there is a tension on the surface,” he called. “Only when smeared do they flatten and run.”

  “Your head’s wet,” I called from the bed. “You’ll catch a chill.”

  He turned, the drops standing on his cheeks like beads, for we’d not washed lately. “I have a theory, Ganymede. Science should proceed first by describing how things work, by observation. And only later by understanding why, by experiment.”

  This is how Francis makes wise men tear their hair, for he thinks thoughts never thought before. Yet they make an odd kind of sense; and do not make him too weary for love.

  Supper in the great hall was a poor affair, not the food which was solid and plentiful, or the wine which was excellent, but the company: plainly Sir John and his wife were distracted, and young Bart barely picked his food. Francis helped him with chicken legs leaving nought but bones for me, servants and dogs. A young man, Jack – from a good household behind the hill, Sir John assured Francis – arrived on some small business. “One day you may marry my Ann, eh, Jack,” Sir John said cordially, with an eye on Francis. Jack’s breeches, once pricey, were a little frayed, she’d be a good catch for him. The gleam in Jack’s eye revealed similar hopes.

  “But she never looks at me,” he complained. “Perhaps you could speak to her, Sir John, on my behalf.” Francis glanced at me. The boy seemed very keen to wed a sickly girl, but he was on hard times.

  Francis finished with marchpane, syllabub and soft cheese (his teeth being stum
ped), then in our room threw me the ham-hock and house-cheese he’d concealed in his robes. “’Tis the unhappiest family I ever heard of,” he commented, combing his straggly white beard ready for bed. “The girl’s sickness has cast a dark oppression on them.” And it was at that exact moment we heard a man’s shouts outside, and footsteps running, and a knocking on the door. And a frantic knocking it was, with much shouting, and then a moment of silence as the door was opened.

  I jumped from bed naked as I was, and leant from the window.

  There below, by the light cast from the open door, I saw a short man in rugged farming clothes. His eyes were wide, staring, his mouth hanging open like a man who, I swear, has seen Hell. In his hands he held a bloody shovel, still dripping.

  “Dead!” he cried, and a scream came from within the house.

  I ran downstairs pulling on my breeches, but Francis was first. Lady Eliza had fainted clean away, huddled in her skirts. “Cambalaine!” shouted Sir John, and the steward wrestled the shouting man to the ground.

  “Bring him inside,” Francis ordered, and the man was dragged in and pushed on a chair. “A gardener, by his clothes?” Francis barely glaned at him. “What’s a gardener doing out at this time of night?”

  “My gamekeeper,” panted Sir John. “’Tis Quinzy.”

  “Dead sir,” Quinzy said, shaking.

  “Who’s dead?” Sir John demanded loudly.

  Francis took his shoulder. “Attend to your wife, Sir John.” By now Lady Eliza half-sat against the wall, her hair over her handsome ruined face.

  “’Tis her.” Her eyes were dull. “’Tis Ann.”

  “It cannot be, she’s with my sister in Weymouth,” Sir John said firmly. Then, gently: “My heart, distress not yourself.”

  Dully: “Run away with that monster. You said so yourself. Stop her.”

  Quinzy called, “No, master and mistress, not run away, ’tis your own sweet daughter I found lying dead in the woods.” His face buckled. “’Tis poor sweet Ann who never hurt a soul!”