The Devil in Velvet

by John Dickson Carr

  “Here are ill-balanced scales,” he fussed. “I am too poor a man for … Still! Let us make it a matter of (say) three or four grains that are gone.”

  “And the original amount you dispensed?”

  “’Tis in my book. One hundred and thirty grains.”

  Evidently they doled out poison with a ladle. But this would just cover the three-weeks’ time, the amount administered, to account for Lydia’s symptoms.

  “Now the devil fly away with all this!” blurted out George. “What we desire to know—”

  “Softly!” said Fenton, with a warning look. “Gently, or you spoil all.” He turned back carelessly to the apothecary. “The name of the buyer, now …”

  “Nay, sir, she would give no name.”

  The shop, though grimed and dingy, was pleasantly flavoured with the scent of some drug Fenton could not identify. At the ominous word she, it was as though a noose had fallen round Lord George’s neck.

  “Yet she is of your household,” the apothecary said to Fenton. “Or so I think.”

  “True. Describe her.”

  “The girl, for I dare not call her wench, was of good, meek, modest deportment. Her age may have been eighteen or nineteen. She had a shawl round her shoulders, and clogs on her feet. Ay; and she had most remarkable dark-red hair, which did flame in the sun. I could tell her for honest and virtuous as soon as I clapped eyes on her.”

  “Kitty,” whispered George, and struck his finger tips softly on the counter. “D’ye hear, Nick? Your cook-maid. Kitty.”

  Fenton’s expression did not change.

  “Yet surely, Master Apothecary,” he said, “you must have pressed her with questions: as, how she came there, who sent her, and so on?”

  “That I did, Sir Nicholas!” affirmed the other, leaning over the counter and giving a crafty leer. “As you shall hear! She said to me she wished to buy arsenic, ‘as much as should go into the largest pocket.’”

  Then the apothecary excitedly acted it out.

  “‘Come, my dear,’ says I, all a-wheedle, ‘now why do you desire that?’ She said ’twas for the rats, very large rats. They were a-swarm in the kitchen of the house, she being a poor servant; they ate food, and chewed away wooden stuff as well, and put her in great fear.”

  “Pray continue.”

  “‘Then tell me, my dear,’ says I, like a father (thus), ‘who are your master and mistress?’ She replied that they were Sir Nicholas and Lady Fenton. Certes, Sir Nicholas, I had heard much of you because of your swor … your high repute i’ the House of Commons. ‘Who bade you go and seek poison?’ says I. ‘Why,’ says she, ‘my lady mistress.’”

  “Lydia?” muttered George in amazement, and stared at his companion. Fenton remained impassive.

  “‘Now then, my dear,’ says I, ‘a last question.’ And I regarded her with cunning wisdom, thus. ‘Do you describe for me,’ says I, ‘your mistress.’”

  “Master Apothecary, are you acquainted with my Lady Fenton?”

  The little man spread out his hands.

  “Sir, sir, have I that honour? No; the trap of it lay thus: not in what she might say, but how she did say it. Would she stammer and hesitate, or speak sweetly plain? Would her eyes shift, or meet mine in candour? Ah, it sufficed even for my cunning!”

  “And how did she describe my Lady Fenton?”

  “Why, sir, as I should have expected. As being something tall, with lustrous black hair in abundance, with grey eyes oft changing colour, and a skin milk-white.”

  Now the silence stretched out unendurably.

  “That’s not Lydia!” said George, in a low, half-strangled voice. “That’s … that’s …”

  “Softly, George! —Master Apothecary, did the girl chance to mention the Christian name of this lady?”

  “Nay, sir, she … Stop!” muttered the apothecary, and clucked his tongue. “Lord, I had forgot! ‘If you doubt me,’ says she, raising a ripe upper lip to smile, and plucking at the buttons of my coat in modest friendship, whilst I—Hem! ‘If you doubt me,’ says she, ‘the first name of my master’s true mistress, for the moment, is Magdalen or Meg.’”

  Fenton lowered his head.

  On the counter, unnoticed till then at his left, lay the apothecary’s thick walking-stick of twined carved oak. Absently he picked it up and weighed it in his hand.

  Well, he had expected most of this. It was in Giles’s record. But he had been compelled to test it, since Meg’s name was not mentioned there. It was only hinted at, so very intricately and so like a puzzle that long, close study could alone bring out the hidden meaning.

  But then, as Fenton was discovering, so many, many vital things were not in the manuscript! He had to grope in blindness. In fact, the record was all but useless except when …

  Then, so to speak, the shop exploded.

  “Liar!” George suddenly shouted. “Liar! Knave! Jack-fool!”

  With a big hand George lunged across the counter for the apothecary’s throat. The scales toppled, and went over on the floor with a crash. The apothecary, trying to keep some loincloth of dignity, scuttled along behind the counter in the other direction. He rounded the edge of the counter, and stood behind Fenton.

  “George! Softly! Be quiet!”

  But George, frenzied and attempting to scare the apothecary still more, did the usual thing and tried to scare him with a lie.

  “There’s been murder done,” he cried, “and you’ll be took up, too! I’ll see you at Newgate! I’ll see you at Tyburn Tree! I’ll see the cart drawn from under you …”

  Then the words ripped out.

  “Damn ye, George! Be silent!”

  Lord George Harwell stopped dead, left hand in the air and right hand crossed on his sword grip. It was the first familiar tone, or speech, or bearing, or what you like, which he had observed in Nick all that day.

  The crooked veins in his temples stood out like blue cords. His face had grown more swarthy, and he was beginning to smile. Sir Nick’s hands, set some way apart on a heavy oak cane, gripped it tightly and more tightly, as he held it horizontally against his waist.

  Yet to George, more superstitious or perhaps more sensitive than he looked, it seemed that some invisible thing bestrode Nick’s shoulders; or was inside him or round him. It was as though this fought to make him drop the cane, yet he would not yield.

  “Take care, Nick!” cried George. “When you fall in this mood …”

  Meanwhile the little apothecary, scuttling towards the door to get them away in some fashion, glanced to the left out of the large window. This window, because of wavy glass, was all but opaque to the others. But Master Wynnel, who felt himself under Sir Nick’s protection, moved close to it, looking first left and then right.

  And he shivered worse than he had shivered before.

  “Sir Nicholas—” he began. He turned round, and shied back at the sight of the face that met him.

  “Nay, man!” said Sir Nick, in a low soft growl which he strove hard to make kindly. One trembling hand dropped from the cane, and fumbled at his pocket. “Here are a couple of guineas for you; take them!”

  It was far more than the apothecary could dream of earning in a month.

  “Since I know they tell lies against you,” said Master Wynnel, “I’ll take them and not deny I need them. But, sir: you must not go from this house as yet. Let me make you comfortable in my poor back parlour.”

  “Not go from the house? How not?”

  “Court gentlemen may not know that off Fleet Street, hard by the Temple, there is a foul district called Alsatia.”

  “Is it so?” murmured Sir Nick, showing his teeth.

  “This Alsatia is a legal refuge, a sanctuary, even for those guilty of the foulest crime. The worst is called bully, or bullyrock, since …”

  George dived at the window, putting one
eye to it. Almost immediately he found a space of clear glass.

  “The rogue on the left,” gabbled the apothecary, “hath drawn back against the shops near the end of the lane. I can’t see him now. But the other man, on the right by the arch that leads to the Strand …”

  “I see him,” said George.”

  The man lounged against the old dark-brick wall, just inside the arch and at right angles to it. He lounged negligently, his right shoulder against the wall; arms folded; legs crossed in such fashion that the tip of one ruined shoe rested on the ground. There was a long broomstraw stuck in his mouth; and, as he chewed it, his lip rolled in a perpetual sneer.

  Of body he was very tall and lean. His tattered coat was fastened tightly to his body with pewter buttons to the neck. His rusty greenish breeches were laced to rusty greenish stockings, so that all, including the coat, seemed one tight-fitting garment. In an old scabbard he wore a new sword (its steel-lace guard a-glitter in a shaft of sun) which someone had bought for him. His wide low-crowned hat had a broken brim, but fastened to the side of the crown was a rosette of green ribbon. Under it the broomstraw still rolled with that perpetual sneer.

  He was loud-mouthed, without pity or bowels, the dread of all sober men—Bully of Alsatia himself.

  CHAPTER VII

  OF SWORDPLAY IN DEADMAN’S LANE

  “DO NOT TAKE IT AMISS!” the apothecary was still begging. “These bullyrocks go from sanctuary only to kill for pay. ’Tis but natural they should be more skilled with the sword than those gently bred …”

  “Fixed to his hat,” said George, “is a green ribbon.”

  With a heavy arm Sir Nick gently pushed the apothecary aside, took two strides to the window, and looked—where George pointed—across the lane and some way up to the right. He did not look long before he straightened up.

  “The Green Ribbon Club,” he said. “My Lord Shaftesbury. His Grace of Bucks …”

  And he broke the cane in his hands with a splintering crack as though a roof beam had gone.

  On Sir Nick’s swollen face was a look of almost religious ecstasy. Had any invisible presence been trying to hold him back, it was flung out, stamped upon, flown to the wind. But his bearing was quiet and brisk.

  “George,” he said, “do you remain here and rest quiet. I’ll engage Long-legs up by the arch; I’ll draw him down, draw him down (eh, George?) until I can engage them both together. Was there ever such an opportunity?”

  But this was too much for George, who yelled back at him.

  “‘Remain here.’ ‘Rest quiet.’ —’Fore God, Nick Fenton, what d’ye make of me? D’ye forget the time, scarce eight months ago, when we stood back to back in …”

  “I—I—”

  “Heyday! Ye think me grown too fat and slow, eh?”

  “Nay, I—I would not insult you so.” Suddenly Sir Nick’s lips drew back in what he evidently thought was a pleasant grin. “Then you’d stand to’t, old friend? Good! Let be! But tuck up your wrist-ruffles, man! Up under your sleeve; that’s it! Else they intangle in the guard and you’re undone. And never, never wear a sword with a smooth-surfaced grip! Take heed, now, that silver grip don’t slip or turn in your hand! Are ye prepared?”

  “Yes.”

  Sir Nick’s right hand moved the rapier a few inches from its scabbard, shook it to make sure it was loose, and let it slip back. He shifted his sword belt a trifle.

  “I still desire Long-legs with the green ribbon,” he snapped. “Do you engage the other one. Now!”

  Sir Nick opened the door quietly and went out at his slow, soft tread. George followed him, turning to the left past the round-paned window.

  “Oh, Lord!” moaned the apothecary. “Lord, Lord, Lord!”

  And grotesquely, in his black skullcap and long black gown, he beat his hands together and danced round the tiny shop in agony.

  But an onlooker might not have seen the true reason for his behaviour.

  Master Wynnel was the gravest, soberest citizen in this lane or in any lane or alley of the district. He moved at stately pace. His solemn nod was a condescension. Durst he, in skullcap and gown, go a-flying out to watch a common brawl?

  And yet, though he had heard much of Sir Nicholas Fenton, he had never seen Sir Nick in a sword fight. Almost he would have given his life to see it.

  Human nature won, of course.

  “Lord!” bleated the apothecary and dashed out of the shop, running low. He thought, like ostriches and men in his humour, he knew where he could lurk without being seen. Some way up, in front of Marty the hay dealer’s ran a long stone watering trough for horses. If he crouched behind it, he could see across to the place where Sir Nick and Long-legs must meet.

  Sir Nick, having turned sideways to face the arch, was slowly approaching. Long-legs, still leaning negligently against the arch and chewing the broomstraw, made a sudden move.

  The man was as quick as a panther, or an acrobat at a fair. A great sideways bound, knees crooked up and feet in the air, carried him exactly before the middle of the arch, barring it. A puff of brown dust went up round his legs.

  Sir Nick stopped six feet in front of him. If Sir Nick had glanced towards his right, he would have seen the staring spectacles and black skullcap of the apothecary, hidden beyond the far rim of the watering trough. From the other end of the lane, near the spiked gate, began a quick rattle of blades; a pause; than a rattle again.

  But nobody looked, and nobody turned.

  “Now a fool,” thought the shivering apothecary, “a fool, seeing Bully’s great reach and length of leg in skin-tight rags, would wager a broadpiece to a penny against Sir Nick. Yet …”

  Seen at close range, Long-legs showed a long mottled face patched with black beard stubble, and an even wider sneer. His eyes were rheumy but sharp under the broken hat. His voice was harsh and loud, but it now put on a mincing accent.

  “Would you pass here, little court gentleman?”

  “The only pass I make,” said Sir Nick, “will be through your rotted guts. —Who are ye, scum?”

  Long-legs spat out the broomstraw.

  The words were as contemptuous as though he had been flicked with fingers. Long-legs drew himself up in swelled-headed pride.

  “Cock of the hectors am I,” he cried, and struck his right fist against his chest, “that can spit a running fowl through the neck; and am here,” his lips writhed with the same sneer, “to do such for you, little man.”

  “Lug out!” snarled Sir Nick, “Lug out, cock of the hectors, and see!”

  Both blades whipped from their scabbards at the same instant.

  The thin shaft of sunlight flashed on each, a brief dazzle, before it faded into a grey sky. Long-legs gave a little hop to the left, a little hop to the right, as though to circle round his opponent and take him off side. But the quarters were too cramped; he dared not risk it.

  Sir Nick had fallen on guard: body sideways to his adversary, right foot out with a knee a little bent, left foot back and at right angles. But again, though his blade slanted straight towards Long-legs, his guard seemed too close to his body.

  “Nay!” muttered the apothecary. “Nay, now!”

  Long-legs saw it too. He dropped to the same guard position. But the blades did not cross or touch. Sir Nick’s remained motionless. Bully of Alsatia snaked out his long arm, feeling with the point, feeling again, drawing back, edging closer in …

  Then Long-legs, with all his reach, shot forward in a full-length lunge in tierce, at his opponent’s right chest. There was a clack as Sir Nick, hand moving horizontally, jerked the hand six inches to the right and parried. But even Long-legs’s agility could not dart his own right foot back to guard position before Sir Nick flung back a half-lunge in quarte.

  The point struck and drew blood, very near the region of the heart. But it was so shallow a wound that it
only infuriated Long-legs the more.

  “God rot ye!” shouted Long-legs, and lunged, also in quarte, for his opponent’s left chest. Sir Nick’s hand swept to the left across his own chest. Clack! and he knocked the thrust wide, yet so close to the body that the blades hissed together.

  Twice more the blades darted and rattled, making Master Wynnel’s scalp crawl. Then he saw a terrifying thing.

  It was a “secret” botte, or sword trick, only because men were as yet too overwrought to study it. If you fight closed-up, and venture little more than a half-lunge, your antagonist comes far to underestimate your reach. But, if you draw your right-angled left foot up close to the right foot, as Sir Nick was doing now, you will have an incredibly long leg-lunge when you go forward. Your body, almost horizontal, will be longer. Your arm and sword, rigid as a rod together, will seem far longer. …

  And Sir Nick Fenton, sword-point aimed dead for his opponent’s belly, shot forward at full lunge like a striking snake.

  “Tchaa!” cried the apothecary. And his head jerked and his spectacles fell off into the water of the horse trough.

  Only Long-legs’s acrobatics saved his life. He did not even try to parry. He gave an immense backwards leap, one leg in the air and then two, which carried him a full six or seven feet under the arch. Sir Nick, inexorable, moved slowly after him to kill or be killed.

  Bully landed staggering, but still a-snarl for battle. He landed beside the double line of red fire buckets on his left, inside the tunnel. He moved still further back, but stopped when he saw the periwig and pin-skewered hat of Sir Nick—nostrils flared, lips back in a fixed grin—shuffling towards him in silhouette against the grey light of the arch.

  “Sta-a-nd!” murmured Sir Nick, drawing out the word. “Stand, cock of the hectors! Or are you?”

  The breath whistled through Sir Nick’s nostrils. He seemed to be having trouble with his periwig, which was slewed towards one eye, and he brushed at it.

  Long-legs crouched at guard. But his small mind ran red with delight. Unobtrusively his left hand crept towards his left pocket, in which lay prepared a good handful of gravel mixed with dust and grit.