The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 1 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

  So now Leonardo knew that in spite of three witnesses who claimed the arena was empty, the murderer was there all the time! But where?

  He had a hint of the truth, but only a hint, and his time was now half used up. He had Blanchard order six soldiers to search carefully the west side of the arena for sign of footprints, for he knew the murderer would not handicap his aim by permitting the sun to shine in his eyes. In the meantime, while the soldiers searched, he detained Stewart and spoke with him.

  “When you left the field with your detachment, Monsieur Stewart,” he said, “you returned at once to the castle?”

  “Aye, marching all the way and cutting tricks. The laddies were in fine form.”

  “And was any man absent from your group?”

  “Not a one. All sixteen of them, acting as one man!” he said proudly.

  Leonardo sat down upon one of the marble benches and sighed. Momentarily he wished he were back in his garden making one of his numerous sketches of the golden oriole. Why should the oriole keep coming into his mind? Da Vinci listened a moment to the silence of his unconscious, for which he had a great reverence, and then said:

  “Tell me, Monsieur Stewart, have you enjoyed your sojourn in France?”

  “I have, aye. But many of the laddies are homesick and will be glad to leave. It’s the country here, you know. Most of Scotland is very bleak and rocky, but there are parts of Appin, where we Stewarts roam, which are like this earth here – gentle and wooded and covered with brush. It reminds the laddies of home.”

  “Footprints, footprints!” one of the soldiers cried from a quarter way up the western side.

  Leonardo hastened up to him and saw two fresh imprints of a shoe beside a stepping stone, both of the right foot. Doubtless someone – the murderer? – had missed his footing, perhaps in the excitement of a quick escape.

  The soldiers found no other print on the entire western slope.

  “At once,” Leonardo cried to Blanchard, “get those guards down from the hill – those five!” He pointed to the men who guarded the major portion of the western side. “Monsieur Stewart, would you accompany him, please?”

  The Scotsman nodded willingly and set off climbing beside the King’s minister. Halfway up, the minister sat down and rested, and instantly Leonardo took a small drawing pad and crayon from his cloak and in a few deft lines portrayed Blanchard seated, clearly indicating his dejection and fatigue.

  “Why do you draw only Blanchard?” Baron de Marigny said querulously, looking over Leonardo’s shoulder.

  “I draw what I see,” the artist replied, putting his pad quickly away and swinging around to face the Baron. “Where were you when this tragedy occurred?”

  “I was at the castle,” said Marigny, scowling. “I was not feeling well, and I stayed the afternoon in my chamber.”

  “And yet when the Queen reached the castle on her return from the day’s event, she sent you to fetch me, knowing you were ill?”

  “I was feeling better. I met them as they arrived, and when Her Majesty received the news of Laurier’s death – ”

  “And what was His Majesty’s reaction?”

  “He didn’t want her to send for you. I told you.” Marigny’s face grew suffused with anger. “But she was insistent.”

  The five guardsmen from the hill watch arrived now and lined up for Leonardo’s interrogation. Time was growing short. The sun had dipped behind the western hill and the arena lay in blue shadow. One by one Leonardo took a guardsman aside and said, conspiratorially:

  “You and I know who slipped by you twice over the hill, don’t we, Monsieur?”

  Out of five poker faces it was Leonardo’s good fortune to find one which mirrored every thought process. The guard denied joint knowledge with Leonardo, of course, but at least the Italian now knew that if one was lying, so in all probability were the other four.

  Leonardo was now sure of the solution to the mystery – so sure that he walked out of the arena, the minister Blanchard and Stewart trailing behind him. Marigny remained where he was.

  At His Majesty’s pavilion the Queen called out, “Your time is about up, da Vinci!”

  Many in the group eyed him with suspicion and hostility. Leonardo bowed and said, “One moment, Your Highness.” He turned to Count Angerville who stood surveying him calmly from beside the King.

  “Where were you seated during the performance?” he asked.

  Angerville looked taken aback. “Why, beside His Majesty, on his left.”

  Francis nodded, frowning. “Angerville was on my left, and Blanchard on my right.”

  “And did His Majesty speak with you during the presentation?”

  Angerville appeared to think hard for a moment. “Only once, I believe.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Come, come, Leonardo,” the King said testily. “Where is this leading us?”

  “Perhaps to the truth, Your Highness. What did His Majesty say to you, Count Angerville?”

  “He said – ” Angerville colored, and looked abashed at the women present. “His Majesty asked me if I thought the Scotsmen wore anything under their skirts!”

  There was a ripple of laughter in the party, and some of the tenseness and hostility relaxed. Only the King glared fiercely at Leonardo.

  “Are you trying to make sport of me?” he demanded.

  “God forbid, Your Highness,” Leonardo said humbly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the Queen fidgeting, preparing to quell his questions.

  “And where, Your Highness,” he said, addressing the Queen, “were you sitting?”

  “On a bench on the opposite side of the field, where the women always sit!”

  And then, to the surprise of the entire party, Leonardo da Vinci sank down on one knee, bowed his head, and said:

  “I confess I do not deserve a higher evaluation in Her Majesty’s eyes than I already possess. I have failed to discover how Monsieur Laurier was murdered by an invisible assassin. Moreover, were I given a year, or two years, I do not believe I could solve this mystery. In extenuation, I will say that I am an old man and perhaps my powers of observation have waned. I beg now to be excused.”

  After a moment the Queen nodded. Leonardo rose, and while the King and his party watched in frozen silence, he walked slowly, almost falteringly, to the coach that had brought him.

  But Leonardo da Vinci, in addition to his other accomplishments, was also a fine actor.

  Next morning he was sitting in his garden as usual, calmly and confidently making another sketch of the golden oriole when Jacques announced the arrival of the King.

  Francis waved Leonardo back to his chair, then sat down on a bench beside him.

  “Leonardo,” he said at once, “I wish to thank you for what you did for me yesterday. I shall not soon forget it. Now do not pretend further with me. You know who murdered Laurier, and how the miracle was accomplished.”

  Leonardo said nothing, but watched the King steadily, as if he awaited further word.

  “There are times,” the monarch said, lowering his eyes, “when it is politically expedient to remove a dangerous subject. Your own countryman Machiavelli has said this. Laurier was a traitor, bargaining in secrets with a foreign power.”

  Leonardo nodded, knowing the real reason why Laurier had died; the Queen had made that plain for all to see. The King’s subterfuge was pathetic, but Leonardo’s acceptance of it made it possible for the two men to talk freely about the crime.

  “Tell me now what you know, Leonardo.”

  “I know you had him killed, Sire. When I realized the man whom you chose to commit the murder both entered and escaped from the arena with the complicity of the guardsmen, I knew they had their orders only from you. If the cause of the murder had been a simple, spontaneous grudge, and committed, say, by one of the Scottish soldiers or by Stewart himself, there could have been no such collusion.”

  Francis nodded approvingly. “And you know the man whom I picked?” />
  “The men,” Leonardo corrected gravely. “One to commit the deed, the other to replace him by your side. When I learned that you asked Angerville a question about the Scottish dress, I knew the man on the other side of you was not Blanchard. Blanchard, who had been to Scotland, was familiar with all these details, and if he’d been at your other side you’d have directed your question to him. Therefore, the man on the other side of you was someone who superficially resembled Blanchard – Baron de Marigny who looks so much like Blanchard that I mistook him for the minister when he came here to fetch me yesterday. It must have been a shock to him when I addressed him thus. He took pains to make himself up to resemble Blanchard even more, in order to deceive Her Majesty, who sat facing you on the other side of the field.”

  “Ah, yes,” the King said quickly. “Her Majesty liked Laurier – I did not wish to hurt her.”

  “Of course. And now as to how it was done – ”

  “I thought my plan would amaze and perplex!” cried the King. “And yet you perceived the truth. You must tell me your methods.”

  Leonardo pointed toward the aviary.

  “By the help of the golden oriole, there, who started a train of thought. I mentioned to Marigny yesterday how the oriole was hard to sketch in his natural habitat, which is among the green and yellow of the woods. His plumage blends into the background of sun-shot leaves in a protective coloration, making him virtually invisible. It is the same with the uniforms of soldiers, which are designed in many cases to help throw a cloak of invisibility about the soldier. It is common knowledge. The brilliant tartan of the Scottish warrior does this, paradoxically. The terrain within the arena, with its red earth and green shrubbery is much like the country of Appin, where the Stewarts live and fight. Stewart himself told me this. And when he climbed up the slope on the shadowed side of the arena with Blanchard, and they rested a moment, I was moved to make a quick sketch of Blanchard, partly because Blanchard was all I saw. He appeared to be sitting alone, unless one focused one’s eyes especially to detect Stewart beside him . . . Curiously, was it not Blanchard who suggested to you this means of achieving invisibility?”

  The King nodded.

  “As I reconstructed it,” Leonardo went on, “Laurier stood in the center of the field, waiting for the last spectator to leave. He must have seen Blanchard come over the hill and wondered at it. Perhaps it delayed his putting the trumpet to his lips. Blanchard threw the knife at the defenseless soldier, and when the Angervilles turned and saw Laurier clutching his throat, Blanchard must have already crouched upon the side of the hill, with a borrowed tartan concealing him. The sun was still up, and his was the shadowed part of the hill, so he must have been virtually invisible. Then when the Angervilles ran from the arena to fetch help, Blanchard completed his escape.”

  Suddenly Francis seemed to lose interest.

  “Thank you, thank you, Leonardo, you have explained it all with wondrous accuracy. And now I must go – I am needed at Amboise. I shall visit you again shortly.”

  The King was hastening across the sunny garden when Leonardo stopped him with a final question.

  “And what about Monsieur Blanchard? He is to be rewarded for his pains?”

  The King whirled around, open-mouthed. Then, as a look of faint concern appeared, he shrugged.

  “Poor man, Blanchard,” he said. “Her Majesty must have learned he did it, too. They found him by the castle pond this morning, with a hunting knife in his chest. A pity, too, for it was a fine reward I promised him!”

  And with that the King disappeared behind a hedgerow, and Leonardo da Vinci, citizen of the world, contemporary of Machiavelli, sat peacefully down to sketching the elusive golden oriole, almost invisible in the sun-brilliant foliage.

  A SAD AND BLOODY HOUR

  Joe Gores

  Joe Gores (b. 1931) has excellent credentials for writing detective stories. For twelve years he was a private detective in San Francisco. He has written ten novels and over a hundred short stories and has been a three-time winner of the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award. He has also written for cinema and television. His TV work includes scripts for Columbo, Kojak, Magnum and Remington Steele.

  It may not take you too long to work out who the mystery detective is in the following story, but once you’ve done that you may discover there is much more of a challenge for you in identifying the sources of the 396 quotes which are turned into dialogue in the story. The events are those which, four centuries on, inspired Anthony Burgess to write A Dead Man in Deptford (1993).

  Perhaps it was unscanned self-love, concern for the first heir of my wit’s invention, that brought me back to London from the safety of Dover where The Admiral’s Men were presenting Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. It was a grisly visit, for elevenhundred a week were dying of the plague. This scourge of God had carried away few of my acquaintance save poor Kit, but his loss was heavy: our friendship had been much deeper than mere feigning.

  I finished my business with Dick Field and in the afternoon returned to my rented room on Bishopsgate near Crosby Hall. When I ascended the dank ill-lit staircase to my chamber I found a lady waiting me within. As she turned from a window I saw she was not Puritan Agnes come to see her player husband, but a pretty bit of virginity with a small voice as befits a woman.

  “Thank God I found you before your return to the provinces!”

  Her words, and the depths of her steady blue eyes, made me realize that she was only about five years younger than my twenty-nine. With her bodice laces daringly loosened to display her bright red stomacher beneath, and wearing no hat or gloves, she might have been a common drab: but never had I seen a bawdy woman with so much character in her face. As if reading my thought she drew herself up.

  “I am Anne Page, daughter to Master Thomas Page and until recently maid to Mistress Audry, wife of Squire Thomas Walsingham of Scadbury Park, Chislehurst.”

  All things seemed that day conspired to remind me of poor Marlowe, for Walsingham had been his patron since Cambridge.

  “Then you knew Kit?”

  “Knew him?” She turned away as if seeking his swarthy face in the unshuttered window. “With his beard cut short like a Spaniard’s, full of strange oaths and quick to quarrel for his honour! Knew him?” She turned back to me suddenly. “Were you truly his friend? By all the gods at once, I need a man to imitate the tiger!”

  “I am young and raw, Mistress Page, but believe me: sorrow bites more lightly those who mock it.”

  “Say rage, rather! Oh, were I a man my sword should end it!” Her eyes flashed as if seeing more devils than hell could hold. “Didn’t you know that last May when Tom Kyd was arrested, he deposed that Kit had done the heretical writings found in his room?”

  “The players were scattered by the closing of the theatres.”

  “On the strength of Kyd’s testimony a warrant was issued; Kit was staying at Scadbury Park to avoid the plague, so Squire Thomas put up bail. But then a second indictment was brought, this time before the Privy Council by the informer Richard Baines. On May twenty-ninth I was listening outside the library door when the Squire accused Kit of compromising those in high places whose friendship he had taken.”

  I shook my head sorrowfully. “And the next day he died!”

  “Died!” Her laugh was scornful. “When he left the library, Kit told me that two of Squire Thomas’s creatures, Ingram Frizer and Nicholas Skeres, would meet him at a Deptford tavern to help him flee the country. I begged him be careful but ever he sought the bubble reputation, even in the cannon’s mouth; and so he now lies in St. Nicholas churchyard. And so I wish I were with him, in heaven or in hell?”

  “But why do you say cannon’s mouth? His death was – ”

  “Murder! Murder most foul and unnatural, arranged beneath the guise of friendship and bought with gold from Walsingham’s coffers! Kit was stabbed to death that afternoon in Eleanor Bull’s tavern!”

  I shivered, and heard a spy
in every creaking floor-board; it is ever dangerous for baser natures to come between the mighty and their designs, and Squire Thomas’s late cousin Sir Francis, had, as Secretary of State, crushed the Babington Conspiracy against the Queen.

  “But what proof could you have? You were not there to see it.”

  “Do I need proof that Rob Poley, back from the Hague only that morning, was despatched to the tavern two hours before Kit’s end? Proof that Squire Thomas, learning that I had been listening outside the library door, discharged me without reference so I have become . . .” She broke off, pallid cheeks aflame, then plunged on: “Oh, player, had you the motive and cue for passion that I have! I beg you, go to Deptford, ferret out what happened! If it was murder, then I’ll do bitterness such as the day will fear to look upon!”

  She admitted she was a discharged serving wench with a grievance against Walsingham; yet her form, conjoined with the cause she preached, might have made a stone capable. I heard my own voice saying staunchly: “To-morrow I’ll go to Deptford to learn the truth of it.”

  “Oh, God bless you!” Swift as a stoat she darted to the door; her eyes glowed darkly back at me from the folds of her mantle. “Tomorrow night and each night thereafter until we meet . . . Paul’s Walk.”

  She was gone. I ran after her but St. Mary’s Axe was empty. Down Bishopsgate the spires of St. Helen’s Church were sheathed in gold.

  Kit Marlowe murdered by his patron Thomas Walsingham! It could not be. And yet . . . I determined to seek Dick Quiney and his advice.

  The doors wore red plague crosses and the shops were shuttered as I turned into Candlewick towards the imposing bulk of St. Paul’s. In Carter Lane the householders were lighting their horn lanterns; beyond Tom Creed’s house was The Bell where I hoped to find Dick Quiney. Though he’s now a High Bailiff in Warwickshire, his mercer’s business often calls him to London. I hoped that I would find him now in the City.