by Mike Ashley
“I don’t . . . I don’t understand . . .”
“Do as I say, John. I’ll explain to you anon.”
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray.
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
The two men rode in silence through a town now muffled by steadily falling snow. Citizens were only fleetingly visible . . . black, crow-like shapes darting here and there against the glaring whiteness, scurrying in and out of doorways, staying no longer than they needed to in the biting chill. However, there was none of the frenzied selling and buying so common in the weeks preceding Christmas; there was no laughter, no misrule, no joyous greetings. London . . . at least this south-eastern corner of it, was a city in fear.
Urmston said nothing, even as the great edifice of All Hallows loomed towards them over the snowy thatchwork roofs. Kingsley regarded it with awe-stricken eyes. He still didn’t know what it was his master had learned, but he knew the spy-catcher well enough to take him seriously. The servant held no doubts at all that on this afternoon, the identity of the Flibbertigibbet would be known. For this reason, he carried a dagger as well as his sword, and had donned an old shirt of mail beneath his sheepskin jerkin. He could only hope and pray that the letter he’d delivered to the Tower had reached the Constable promptly, and that as many soldiers as possible would respond.
When they reached the forecourt of the ruined church, they dismounted. Urmston blew on his gloved hands. “You’ve been very patient with me, John,” he said, as they gazed up at the lowering building. Sculpted gargoyles stared back down at them . . . ironic, that these openly diabolic countenances had been allowed to remain while the saints had been defaced. “But all will be revealed. Shall we go inside?”
Urmston led the way, his servant nervously following. Before he went in, Kingsley glanced back. Nothing moved in the narrow ways between the closest tenements . . . all the facing shutters were closed. Doubtless this was to keep out the cold, though it might also have been to shut out this reviled and now-feared relic of the Catholic past.
Inside, the church was criss-crossed with slanting winter light. With every window broken and most of its doors torn from their hinges, there was no discernible change in temperature. The water in the font was lost under a film of ice; through the various gaps in the roof, snowflakes tumbled down, coating the broken floor-tiles and smashed woodwork.
“The last time I was here, I developed a theory,” Urmston said. Echoes of his voice rang back from the high vaults. “The murders, I declared, were related to the statues in this very church.”
Kingsley nodded. He glanced at the once-glorious effigies, at the savage marks they bore of axe and mace. Urmston continued to stroll, veering towards the southern wall, where the image of St Lucy stood. Though it had been brutally attacked, the venerable woman was still identifiable for the plate she carried on which a pair of eyes were visible, Lucy being the patron saint of the blind.
“This statue, I think,” said the investigator, “is the final proof of it. It was always possible that the coincidence of murders and certain saints’ days was an accident of fate. After all, several feast-days have passed on which there were no killings. St Callistus on 14 October, St Martin on 11 November, and most recently, St. Nicholas on 6 December. It occurred to me that I might have drawn a frightfully inaccurate conclusion. However, the murder today disproved that.”
“Because Callistus, Martin and Nicholas are not represented here?” Kingsley said. “But Lucy is?”
Urmston nodded. “Exactly. There have only been murders on the feast-days of the saints represented here. We therefore know for a fact that our killer has been in this church.”
“But, my lord . . . who is he?”
His master held up a cautionary finger. “As a result of what we saw here, we originally found ourselves hunting a Catholic deranged by the events of reform.”
“And that led to the arrest and torture of an innocent man,” Kingsley exclaimed.
Urmston’s brow creased. For a moment, his normally flint-hard eyes expressed regret. “That was my fault . . . I won’t forgive myself easily. Nevertheless, the thinking was good. Given the same circumstances, I would probably take the same line again.”
“So we still hunt a religious maniac?” Kingsley said.
Urmston nodded. Then his eyes hardened. “But this time no deranged Catholic . . . this time a deranged Protestant.”
The servant was shocked, and not a little outraged. “My lord . . . the Church of England is now a successful institution. What possible reason could a Protestant have for these atrocities?”
“Perhaps,” said a cold, angry voice, “he feels that the atrocities committed by Bloody Mary demanded a firmer reply than those tentative measures taken by Good Queen Bess!”
The two investigators turned slowly. Facing them from the passage to the sacristy stood the Constable of the Tower, Reginald Ratcliffe. He was harnessed for action . . . heavy gauntlets, a thick leather tunic, his sword drawn. Noticeably, however, he was alone. It didn’t look as if a single soldier from the Yeomen of the Guard had accompanied him.
“Perhaps,” Urmston replied, “he too is a dangerous fanatic.”
Ratcliffe smiled thinly: “Perhaps he was raised in an atmosphere where churches were despoiled and saints defaced.”
Urmston nodded: “And the next step of course, from desecrating the images of the saints, was desecrating their holy days.”
“With a sacrifice in real flesh and blood,” Ratcliffe added, “as the Roman Mass requires!”
Kingsley could scarcely believe what he was hearing. “You . . . you?” he finally stammered.
The Constable of the Tower began to circle them, swishing his rapier. “This servant of yours needs a lesson in manners.”
Urmston loosed the strap on his own sword-hilt. “This servant of mine always minds his manners . . . for those who deserve it.”
“It’s easy for you to be judgmental,” Ratcliffe sneered. “What can you know . . . a royal courtier, a sycophantic dandy.”
Kingsley ripped out his sword and dagger. “Let me ram those words down his gullet . . .”
“Stay calm,” Urmston counselled.
“While you were still at your mother’s teat, being cooed over and mollycoddled,” Ratcliffe scoffed, “I was riding with my father under the warrant of Thomas Cromwell, breaking down church doors, arresting traitorous monks and nuns. While you were learning not to pee in your swaddling, I was learning how to chisel away the faces of saints and angels, how to piss on their slashed and spat-upon portraits . . .”
“You must be proud,” said Urmston.
“Oh, I am. Never more so, though, than when I was eighteen . . . when I had to stand and watch as my father burned at the stake under that hell-cat Mary! For the attack he made upon this very church!”
Kingsley snorted in derision. “How can religious war justify these demented murders?”
“Don’t look too deeply into it, John,” Urmston advised. “The mind of an unholy demon is impossible to fathom.”
“You dare call me unholy!” Ratcliffe snapped. “You, who tried to save that Spanish bastard from the rack!”
“Enough talking!” Kingsley said, advancing. “Put up your sword, you’re arrested of murder.”
The Constable’s lip curled. “I don’t think so.”
“Neither do I,” Urmston put in. “John, hold your ground!”
The servant protested. “My lord, it’s two to one . . .”
“Hold your ground, I say!” Urmston eyed Ratcliffe warily. “The woman killed this morning was flung twelve feet over the mud-flat. Either by a man of truly gigantic stature . . . which Lord Ratcliffe plainly is not. Or by two men!”
“Very clever,” said a bass voice to their rear.
The investigators turned, shocked. Despite his bear-like proportions, Morgeth the jailer had stolen up on them almost unawares. He was about ten yards away when they spotted him. He
stopped in his tracks, but his sword and dagger were already drawn.
“The partner in crime,” said Urmston slowly. “I might have guessed.”
It was more of a revelation to Kingsley, whose gaze flickered between Morgeth and the Constable as if he couldn’t quite believe it. The idea that one person had embarked on so ghastly a crime-spree was horrible enough, but two? . . . that was inconceivable.
“Minds equally damaged by hatred,” said Urmston, as though reading his servant’s thoughts.
“Not as damaged as you will be!” Ratcliffe retorted. “At them!”
Then, everything seemed to happen at once. The two killers approached from either side, the Constable of the Tower warily, but Morgeth with a charge and a bull-like bellow. Instinctively, Kingsley backed away from him; he might have been a veteran of the last Anglo-Scottish war, but he was neither as young nor as physically powerful as the burly jailer. He raised his weapons defiantly, but in the time it took Morgeth to scramble the ten yards between them, Urmston drew and cocked the firelock pistol he’d been hiding under his cloak, and discharged it over his servant’s shoulder. The first thing Kingsley knew, there was a flash of flame and an almighty crash in his right ear . . . then smoke was everywhere and Morgeth reeling backwards, his left shoulder smashed and mangled by a livid, fist-sized wound. The jailer’s expression of murderous rage swiftly transmuted to one of disbelieving agony.
Ratcliffe, who hadn’t yet joined the fray, seemed stunned. He held his ground for a moment, then with a furious shout, threw himself forward. Urmston cast the empty pistol aside and whipped out his rapier . . . just in time to parry a frenzied blow. The blades flickered like streaks of silver as the two men fenced, though Urmston quickly gained the upper hand, driving his foe back towards the sacristy door. Kingsley, meanwhile, wasn’t immediately able to assist his master. The mortally wounded Morgeth was still on his feet, and though his left arm now hung dead and useless, with sheer brute strength, he bullocked his way back into the fight.
Kingsley deflected one wild thrust, and cut the jailer across his neck, but like an enraged animal, Morgeth continued to attack. Indeed, a moment later, his point found Kingsley’s chest, but though it punctured the leather and sheepskin, it lacked the force to penetrate the steel mesh below. The servant was then able to smash the blade down with his sword, and drive in with his dagger . . . it plunged to the hilt in Morgeth’s stomach. Kingsley twisted it, and yanked it upwards, ripping meat and muscle alike. Boiling blood flowed out over his hand. The jailer’s eyes almost started from his burning-red face. The servant released the dagger and backed away. With a gasp and gargle, Morgeth sank down to his knees, then pitched forward on to the flagstones.
Ratcliffe, a skilled swordsman but no match for the trained Urmston, now realized the game was up. Already bearing bloody slashes across his hands, arms and face, he savagely cut and thrust at his opponent, driving him two steps back, then turned and fled through the sacristy door. Urmston took a second to regain his breath, then followed, the puffing, panting Kingsley close at his heels. They hurried along a dark passage, which wound behind the back of the altar, then fed them out into a snow-deep graveyard. Night was falling, but Ratcliffe’s trail was clearly visible . . . bright drops of blood interspersed with deep sliding footprints. The fugitive was evidently trying to weave his way through the headstones towards the distant wrought-iron gate. This appeared to be his ploy, but Urmston and his servant pursued carefully; at any moment, the madman could leap out and ambush them.
Reginald Ratcliffe, however, Constable of the Tower, Custodian of Royal Prisoners, would not be leaping out at anybody ever again.
The investigators rounded the next corner, and found him lying prostrate in the snow . . . his weapons discarded, a red stain slowly spreading in his fluffy white hair. Over him, lowered an ape-like shadow. Urmston and Kingsley slowed to a halt, at first unsure what this new horror was. The ape-thing rose to full height, shouldered its nobbled club and then came forward, grinning, through the swirling flakes. Immediately, they recognized the thick black beard and wicked little eyes of Jack Cutter, the ruffian of The Black Prince.
“Better late then never,” said Urmston.
The footpad gave a surly shrug. “I got your message, but I had to take my father home before I could come.”
“Well . . . it was a timely intervention, all the same.”
Cutter kicked at the prone body. “So this is the dreaded Flibbertigibbet, eh?”
“One half of him,” Urmston replied.
“Doesn’t look like much, does he?”
“They never do.” Urmston began wiping down his rapier with a piece of rag. “Think you can carry him?”
Cutter snorted. “Not a problem.”
“Good. I’d suggest you take him to the Tower, but the Marshalsea Prison is closer. Bind him, carry him there, and present him to the warden with this note.” Urmston handed over a letter. “It will fully explain the order of events.”
The ruffian took it, but for moment looked uncertain. “You sure there’s money in this for me?”
“You’re not stupid, Cutter. You know as well as I do, there’s a £500 reward.”
“And I won’t have to split it with you?”
Urmston shook his head. “We’re paid officers of the Crown. We don’t get rewards.”
Kingsley had been listening to this exchange with growing disbelief. Now he felt he had no option but to intervene. “My lord . . . this is intolerable!”
His master gave him a quizzical expression.
“This cut-throat will be a rich man by midnight tonight!” the servant protested.
Urmston considered this, as he watched Cutter grab up the lifeless shape of Ratcliffe and throw it over his brawny shoulder. He nodded. “At least his limbless father will benefit.”
“But Cutter’s a villain!” Kingsley said. “He doesn’t deserve it!”
Urmston smiled to himself. “I know.”
Cutter was now making his way through the gravestones towards the gate. Kingsley shook his head in bewilderment. “My lord, why didn’t you just summon the Watch . . . have them assist us? At least we’d have saved the State Department £500!”
His master thought about this, but then shook his head. “No, this way is better. This way, we get to see Lord Walsingham’s face . . . when he has to hand over the purse.”
The Vasty Deep
Peter T. Garratt
The Elizabeth period is wonderfully rich in events, characters and settings for mystery stories. In the following story Peter Garratt (b. 1949), by profession a clinical psychologist, reintroduces his investigator, Hamlet Christian, last seen in “Loves Labours, Lost?” in Shakespearean Detectives (1998) in a mystery that takes us further back in history to the time of Owen Glendower.
Had either of the documents that were delivered that morning arrived by itself, I would have been hard put to decide what to do about it. As, however, the two disagreeable parchments arrived in quick succession, making a decision was not so difficult.
I had washed and was breaking my fast sparingly with rye bread and apples when the Player Queen arrived as a messenger from the Earl of Derby’s men, now sadly renamed the Countess of Derby’s men, with the manuscript of a play. The youth had lost his queen’s voice completely, and was therefore demoted to sweeping the stage and running errands till he would be ready for men’s parts.
I was born a prince, and though necessity had forced me to leave my homeland and seek a precarious living in London as a privileged investigator, until that day it had not occurred to me that I might fall further down the rough steps to the cellars of society, and do the work of a clerk. It is true that many of the English nobility dabble in writing plays, and the note from the Player King invited me to use my erudition to make improvements as I saw fit, but it was clear that my main task was to make a fair copy of the scrawled manuscript, and in particular to make separate copies of the main parts for the actors. It seemed the regular cler
k was ill.
The play did not even have a definite title. It was unclear whether it was Henry IV, or Hotspur, or Sir John Fastolfe. I gave the youth an apple as I started to read it. I reached a section which introduced a strange Welsh mystic called Owen Glendower. I knew nothing of him, but was fascinated to learn that he claimed to have power over demons, to be able to learn from them. I had good reason to wonder about supernatural beings, as to whether they told truth, or always served the Master of Lies.
Then another messenger arrived. He was fat and surly, and wore a large black hat and a short, embroidered doublet; like a faded version of the outfit made famous by the Queen of England’s father. He said: “Mr Christian? That is, Prince Hamlet Christian?”
“Mr Christian will do.” I took his letter, which was brief. It came from the owner of the madhouse where my soul-diseased, treacherous former friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had been confined. It stated that his fees were due for the care of these moral lunatics. Though he earnestly wished to continue offering the best possible treatment, and in particular, to stop them reinforcing their delusion (that they were agents of my uncle the King of Denmark) by writing to that corrupt monarch, they had made good progress, and if his fees went unpaid, he would have no compunction about unleashing them onto the community as sturdy beggars.
I considered stalling, but with work in hand, however clerical, decided I had no choice but to offer the keeper’s messenger the bulk of my meagre savings, to purchase a little time. Before the oddly dressed fellow left, I put on my antic disposition, and wrote a letter for his master to send to King Claudius Christian, as though I was myself in his care. I wrote that I was now quite recovered from my madness, and had been rewarded by a visitation by the spirit of King Knut, who had informed me that I was to be the next king of both England and Denmark. After reflection, I crossed the last part out, writing instead that Knut’s spirit had urged me to ensure the eternal friendship of England and Denmark. I felt that would cause less trouble if the letter was read by Secretary Walsingham, as it undoubtedly would be.