Sideways In Crime

by Sideways In Crime v2 lit

  Cromwell set down heavily on one of the foyer’s bare benches. He gave the lit candelabra to a servant and sat in silence for a moment as he mused upon what Fairfax had said.

  “We must pray,” he decided after a pause.

  The general at once fell upon his knees and began to say the rosary. His servants immediately followed his example, and Fairfax soon found himself surrounded by kneeling people offering up their prayers to God.

  “Ahem, Sir Oliver,” said Fairfax, vainly attempting to get the general’s attention, “I don’t want to sound as if I do not hold the Lord Christ in the highest esteem, but we are statesmen, sir, not servants of the Pope in Dublin.”

  “Silence!” roared Cromwell and continued his prayers.

  Fairfax sighed deeply and resolved to wait for his moment. Out of deference to the king’s chief general he knelt and pretended to count beads in his hands when in fact Fairfax had only a few coins he passed from palm to palm. Sir Thomas at times entertained sentiments he dared not utter, and there were instances, such as when he was in the company of a fervent Papist of Cromwell’s sort, when Sir Thomas wished the Lollards had triumphed in times past and so created a less rigid, less orthodox form of Christianity. As a student of history, he realized he was a citizen of a nation ever on the verge of extermination and such a nation as his had to cling to its traditions, its beliefs, and its mores with a steel grip. Lax standards were something only the Moslems could afford, for they not only governed half the world from the seat of the Caesars, they had the Caesars’ wealth and thus the Caesars’ confidence.

  “Were the emissary shot by rifle, why did not I or any in my household hear the report of a rifle?” asked Cromwell, rising to his feet and bringing everyone else upright with him. “Nor did anyone passing on the street bring us news of this deed.”

  “That is part of the mystery, my Lord,” explained Fairfax, also jumping up. “The emissary’s guardsmen themselves heard nothing. A manservant, one of those poor eunuchs the Turks employ, was in the chamber at the time his master was shot. This same man swears he heard the glass break and nothing more.”

  “The assassin had an air rifle, perhaps,” suggested Cromwell, mentioning a weapon Francis Bacon had developed decades earlier. (As was characteristic of the general, when was not at his prayers or orating to a gathering, he was pacing the floor as he now was.) “Certainly a Christian weapon, Sir Thomas; the Turks themselves have no lack of powder. Or else his men could be telling us false. The armed men about him, they are Vargarians?”

  Varangians or Vikings was yet the term the British used to name the elite Norse soldiers within the sultan’s army. In contrast to the highly civilized Turks, who were admired in the city as much as they were feared, everyone in London abhorred the uncouth Norsemen, the products of a civilization that had communicated with the rest of humanity only with swords until the day the Ottomans conquered them. The late al Ibrahim had been famous for his mastery of the English tongue and for the charity he distributed to the city’s numerous and truly wretched poor on both Christian and Moslem holidays. The Norse in his employ were a shaggy, heavily armed lot, well known for their propensity to break open the heads of any who dared get in their way. Like the recent converts to any religion, the Varangians were more fanatical in their faith than were their Turkish masters, for the Turks were often paying fines and making apologies for misdeeds their guardsmen had committed.

  “They are the usual hairy men,” said Fairfax. “One of their number, one Abdul Erickson, brought me the news of the murder. He presented me with this.”

  He took from his pocket a cockleshell and gave it to Cromwell. The lord general examined it while Fairfax told him Erickson claimed to have found the item on the porch of the emissary’s house.

  “The symbol of St. James the Greater,” said Cromwell and momentarily put the shell on the collar of his dressing gown, for pilgrims to St. James’s tomb in Compostela had worn similar shells on their outer garments back before the Ottomans had conquered the last of northern Hispania and the journey to that sacred site was yet possible. “James was the patron saint of Spain. Perhaps one of the Spaniards the king has quartered in the Mews did this.”

  “Or someone wishes us to believe so,” said Fairfax.

  The Mews were of course once the royal stables, which Queen Mary had converted to the residences of the European mainland’s displaced nobility, although some who dwelt there had but dubious claims to a noble lineage. As the area once housed the king’s animals, London’s many wags had spoken many creative insults in regards to those currently living in the same location.

  “I have the man in the Mews to assist us,” suggested Cromwell in one of his characteristic outbursts of enthusiasm strangers often misinterpreted as fits of anger. “Jean Baptist Colbert; he is attendant upon the Capet family, the scions of an ancient Gallic line.”

  “Another of your priests?” asked Fairfax.

  “No, he is some manner of banker,” said Cromwell. “Colbert thinks as logically as you and I, but he likewise understands the mind of the devious, a subject alien to us.”

  Fairfax lifted an astonished eyebrow and half expected the lord general to laugh at his own remark. He quickly remembered this was Cromwell, the most humorless man left in Christendom, and apparently the general’s talent for deception was so great he had even deceived himself.

  Within the hour Cromwell was properly dressed in his black coat and cape, and he and Fairfax and twenty of their retainers were standing inside the crowded space of the first floor of the aforementioned Jean Baptist Colbert’s residence. The home was made of uncovered brick and rough-hewn timbers, but Mr. Colbert in the flesh was as handsome as spring and several times as gaudy. Dressed in scarlet cloak and cape and sporting a well-trimmed Van Dyke beard the young dandy must have fussed over every morning, the perfumed Mr. Colbert was as cheerful as the lord general was glum. Watching the young banker and Cromwell from a distance while Colbert was informed of the facts of the case, Fairfax remarked how Colbert’s animated cheerfulness and his dark eyes and hair contrasted with the solemn and very blond Cromwell. Sir Thomas would soon also deduce that Colbert and Cromwell were identical twins when it came to energy, for both men were equally driven toward achieving whatever goals they aspired to, and it was this bond of both wanting to achieve in the shortest possible time that made the two of them better workmates than one would at first expect.

  “The cockleshell, the English rifle, the familiarity the killer must have had with the neighborhood,” declared young Colbert when had heard the preliminary details; “these point toward a murderer who has long dwelt in London.”

  “I suspect one of the Spaniards the king has here in the Mews,” said Cromwell and nodded his agreement with what Colbert had said, and all of the retainers murmured similar sentiments.

  Sir Thomas cleared his throat to gain the others’ attention and said: “Be that as it may, gentlemen, and I do not challenge any of your assertions, I have to say, before we dive further into this matter, that our object here is not merely to punish the guilty. We must additionally strive not to create a reason for the Turks to attack us.”

  “Let them come!” boomed Cromwell. “Those our navy does not drown will perish before our New Model Army!”

  “There does have to be a resolution someday, Sir Thomas,” added Colbert. “Better we fight the infidels in this generation than wait till they are more numerous still.”

  Fairfax had heard this sort of warmongering language before. Both British patriots and the many, many descendants of mainland refugees often gave themselves up to talk of slaughtering the tens of millions within the Ottoman Empire, despite the hard truth that the Turks could put ten men on the battlefield for every one Britain could. The lord chamberlain was thankful that he and the easily persuaded king were in charge of the kingdom’s affairs and not men sharing the opinions of the stalwarts standing before him.

  The group of them went first to the emissary’s quarters a
nd examined the dead man’s corpse, which by then had been removed to another portion of the house. The physician, one Dr. Collins, had arrived to examine the body while Fairfax was fetching Cromwell and Colbert. The team of investigators found the good doctor standing beside the shrouded corpse, surrounded by no fewer than fourteen Varangians. The Norsemen wore turbans similar to those of their Turkish masters, but they otherwise attired themselves in the fashion of their pirate ancestors; they each had large straight swords attached to their belts and had several dueling pistols stuck in the leather bandoliers crossing their chests. Dr. Collins looked uncomfortable stranded among the cluster of hirsute and angry men, and he was relieved to have some armed British company.

  Dr. Collins showed Colbert and Cromwell the lead slug he had removed from the emissary’s heart and the small hole it had made in the plump, middle-aged man’s side.

  “Not as wide as a barn door, yet will do,” commented Fairfax.

  Cromwell recognized Fairfax’s words as coming from a play, and he took the opportunity to condemn all diversions that did not edify as well as entertain. Colbert said he never had time for any diversions because of the work he did for the Capet family and the British crown. The emissary’s guardsmen, who had reluctantly retreated a step to give the eminent men room enough to get near the body, meanwhile made some angry grunts to one another, no doubt calling down curses upon these Christians they blamed for their master’s death.

  “The thing is as clean a missile as I ever seen fired from a gun,” said Dr. Collins while Cromwell and Colbert examined the slug. “I would swear it has never actually been shot.”

  “That is the effect of an air rifle,” said Colbert. “Pressure of the atmosphere inside the weapon propels the bullet rather than an explosion. The marksman cranks the pressure as high as it can go,” (he showed in pantomime how it was done) “and then he releases the compressed air when he pulls the trigger.”

  “Where is the one called Abdul Erickson? I mean the one I spoke to earlier?” Fairfax asked the Norsemen, for he could not see that most ferocious guardsman present. “And the eunuch who was with the emissary when he was struck; where is he?”

  Through gesture and some broken English the guardsmen explained that the manservant was awaiting them upstairs in the bedroom. “Abdul go to send message,” said one of the hairy men, meaning that Erickson had gone to send a letter across the Channel, informing his Turkish cohorts that the emissary had been murdered.

  “God’s wounds!” swore Fairfax. “Then we are short on time. We have to move along, gentlemen.”

  Fairfax led Cromwell and Colbert to the bedroom and showed them the broken windowpane and the bloody spot on the floor left where the emissary had fallen. The still terrified manservant explained he had been undressing his master when he heard the glass break. “Selim fall,” he said in his high-pitched voice. “Magic.”

  “We are on an upper floor,” noted Colbert, looking out the damaged window. “The shot could not have come from the street. The assassin had to be hidden in the building opposite. Do you know what that place is, Lord Fairfax?”

  “There is a public house on the ground floor,” said the lord chamberlain. “Its entrance is on the other side of the structure. The upper story is divided into rooms the landlord lets out to travelers with public business here in London. The rooms are not as squalid as one might suppose. A member of Commons keeps his city residence in one of them. How far across would you say the second story over there is, Mr. Colbert?”

  “Thirty, forty paces,” guessed the handsome young banker.

  “And then the bullet had to pass through a heavy glass pane before it struck the emissary,” added Fairfax. “These air rifles, if this were an air rifle, are accurate to perhaps a hundred feet. Would you allow one of your soldiers to use such a weapon in battle, General Cromwell?”

  The lord general scowled and shook his head.

  “An air rifle is a toy, sir,” he said. “Boys use them to kill small birds. To give one to a man on the battlefield would be to send him forward unarmed. But I see your point, my lord,” said Cromwell, going to the window to have a look of his own. “There cannot be six men in the kingdom capable of making such a shot.”

  “I doubt there are as many as six,” said Fairfax. “This was done by a rare marksman.”

  “I beg to disagree,” said Colbert, sounding rather too pleased to be disagreeable. “Some of the displaced aristocracy in the Mews hunt with nothing other than air rifles, as they cannot afford the powder the king sets aside for the army and navy.”

  “He speaks the truth,” said Cromwell.

  “Some of these starving kings and their retainers in the Mews can hit a mark at two hundred paces with such a rifle,” proclaimed Colbert.

  “Are you one of these marksmen, sir?” asked Fairfax in a not overly friendly manner.

  “But no, my lord,” said the handsome man of Frankish lineage. “I never have time for sport. Now I think we should examine the room directly across the street from this one. There, as you yourself have said, is where the killer must have lain in wait.”

  Another fifteen minutes passed, and the innkeeper had been roused and had opened the door of what must have been the assassin’s room for the group of investigations, which by now included several of the hairy Norsemen, who had tagged along with Cromwell and Fairfax’s group and were following what was said as well as they could. The window opposite the emissary’s residence had been left slightly ajar. A chair was still sitting at the same window, and a stack of boxes had been piled beneath the sill, giving the marksman a place to steady his weapon. The avid Colbert sat himself in the chair and demonstrated once more in pantomime what the killer must have done; he laid an imaginary rifle across the boxes and pulled an invisible trigger.

  “The matter is as plain as day,” said Cromwell.

  “Yes, I am amazed at the progress we are making,” noted Lord Fairfax.

  “Good man,” said Colbert to the innkeeper, “to whom did you rent this room tonight?”

  The poor fellow shook with fear to be in the dangerous presence of so many prominent men.

  “I don’t know his name, your lordships,” he said, trembling. “He paid in coin. He said his name was Charlie. He’s a tall, sickly-looking gentleman. His skin’s as yellow as old paper. My wife says he’s one of the ex-royals from the Europe side what the king has put up in the Mews. I can’t tell why he would want a room here tonight when his own home is so close.”

  “I say, I may know this fellow!” declared Colbert, rising from his chair. “Is he slender as well as tall?”

  “Yes, your lordship,” said the innkeeper. “He’s as thin as a scarecrow.”

  “Does he go about in dirty, white leggings?”

  “Why, yes, your lordship.”

  “Long, prematurely white hair and sallow skin?”

  “His hair’s white alright. I can’t tell if it’s pro-mat-turic. And his skin’s yellow, not that other thing.”

  “It is Charles Habsburg!” Colbert proclaimed to the others. “I swear: that’s the very image of him. He is German, of course, but his family claims a connection to some obscure and long dead king and queen who were supposedly the rightful rulers of Spain.”

  “Which would explain the cockleshell,” chimed in Cromwell. “Saint James was the patron saint of the Spaniards. The man must have killed the emissary out of some misplaced effort to win a measure of revenge. I warrant we will find the weapon at his home if we search it immediately.”

  “I have no doubt you will,” said Fairfax, although the irony in his voice was wasted upon Cromwell and Colbert.

  The sun had not completely risen before they had proceeded to the shabby row house of Mr. Charles Habsburg and had roused the poor man and his family onto the street while Cromwell’s men ransacked the building in search of the air rifle. Watching the sickly man shiver in the cold while his fat wife cursed the out-of-uniform soldiers in the lord general’s employment, Lord Fairfax d
oubted Mr. Habsburg had the strength to climb the stairs to a second story, let alone turn the crank on a powerful weapon. Certainly this pale figure had not been out of doors often enough to learn how to shoot. The troopers had been within the house for only a half an hour ere they triumphantly emerged, one of them carrying above his head a large air rifle like a trophy.

  “That isn’t mine!” protested the hapless Mr. Habsburg.

  Nonetheless, Cromwell’s agents fell upon him and were prepared to carry the unfortunate man away when Fairfax intervened.

  “We will retire to my rooms in Parliament, gentlemen,” he announced. “There we will resolve this matter to my satisfaction.”

  “But, my lord,” started Colbert, “the matter is as clear as day: this man--”

  “This sorrowful man no more shot the emissary than I did,” said Fairfax. “But we will bring him to my rooms in Parliament. He looks to be in need of a full breakfast, and we can feed him there. Come along.”

  So they progressed to the Parliament Building, whereat Fairfax had Mr. Habsburg and his family sent to the servants’ quarters and given something warm to eat.

  “Let him set by a fire,” Fairfax instructed his men. “The man looks as though he might perish if not handled with the gentlest care.”

  “We must keep a guard on him,” said Cromwell.

  “If that eases your concerns,” allowed Fairfax. “Now,” he said to those who remained in the small chamber wherein the lord chamberlain did most of his paperwork, “before I make my report to the king, I will need to speak to the man who assisted our feeble suspect in this murder.”

  “Of whom do you speak, sir?” asked Cromwell, although the general should have let Colbert speak for him, as the young man simulated surprise better than he could.

  “Whoever fired the fatal shot across the street knew when and in which room the emissary would be this past night as he prepared for bed,” explained Lord Fairfax. “Only a member of the emissary’s household could have provided the assassin with that information. Indeed, I suspect only a trained warrior, such as the emissary’s guardsmen, could have made the shot. The first man in my suspicions is this Abdul Erickson, who alone of the emissary’s retinue has fled the city. I suspect if we were to search this man Erickson’s belongs--or his person when he is overtaken--we will find this man has possession of more gold than an honest guard could earn in five years of duty.”