A Plague of Sinners (28 page)

‘Write that in your report and you will make a great fool of yourself,’ I heard myself say.

The two scribes opened their eyes wide and turned pink. Newcourt’s head snapped up like a puppet. A quiet whining noise came from somewhere close to Dowling’s mouth.

Arlington, in the meantime, raised his arms out wide. He shook them as if seeking to straighten his sleeves, folded his arms meaningfully, then made great play of crossing and uncrossing his legs. All the time he smiled gently as if I had suddenly made his day interesting. Like the cat that ponders whether to bite off the mouse’s head or else shake it by the tail.

The men behind his shoulder stared at me as though they strained to remember every detail of my face in the expectation of never seeing it again.

Time for me to explain whilst I had a tongue to waggle. ‘Wharton is not dead.’

Arlington blinked and looked only marginally less inclined to recommend my execution. ‘Mr Lytle.’ He leant forwards. ‘He died twice. The second time in front of your eyes. Is that not what you just told me a moment ago?’

‘It is what I thought at the time, your lordship.’

He frowned quizzically. ‘Either he had the plague or he didn’t, Mr Lytle. You said you saw him dead.’

The sky outside shone blue and cloudless. ‘So I thought. Now I see the ruse, your lordship.’

‘Another ruse, Mr Lytle?’

‘I have just realised. Strange.’

Arlington sighed and let his arm fall limp about the arm of his chair. ‘Because it did not seem strange before? If you choose to suggest to his face that a lord is a great fool, then you had better have a good story to tell.’ He waved a hand.
‘Please cast from your mind the need to soothe my soul with platitudes and save your efforts for the sake of enchanting me with your wisdom and unanswerable logic.’

My career wilted fast and needed quick watering. ‘Yes, your lordship.’ I managed to speak, finding it difficult to think beyond fear of the consequences of not successfully negotiating the next few minutes.

‘Your lordship.’ Dowling at last found his voice, though I fervently hoped he was not about to join me in the predicament I fashioned for myself.

Arlington levelled his calm gaze upon the butcher. ‘Yes?’

‘Your lordship, I agree with Harry that the circumstances are strange enough to warrant further consideration.’

‘I am sure Harry will thank you for giving him some time to contemplate, but I assure you that I do not.’

‘Yes, your lordship.’ Dowling bowed his head again, but Arlington’s eyes were already back to me.

‘Your lordship,’ I began. ‘It is only through relating this tale I realise how it does not sit snug. Some of your own observations go towards the construction of a new theory.’

He watched me with feline grace. ‘Perhaps you ought concentrate on the detail of these observations, since I doubt you have formed a theory yet, but do it quickly.’

‘Well, your lordship, the first odd circumstance is the state of the Earl’s finances.’

‘How so?’ Arlington purred. ‘He is well off, as I told you. Odd that he is not a pauper?’

‘Aye, odd indeed. For the estate is run down and half the house closed. There are few servants and the last remaining gardener is soon to leave. If the Earl was so well off, then where did he keep his money?’

‘Odd perhaps,’ Arlington conceded, ‘but of little relevance to Wharton’s death.’ He raised his brows and avoided my eye. ‘Perhaps I am misinformed as to the strength of his finances.’

‘Perhaps you are,’ I agreed. ‘But another possibility is that he and Lady Wharton are planning to leave England and have already been directing their funds accordingly.’

‘Not a compelling argument,’ Arlington said bluntly.

‘The tokens,’ I said. ‘He appeared at the Compter with brown spots upon his chest, raised brown spots. I immediately assumed he was plagued and he was quick to confirm it.’

‘He died in front of you, Lytle,’ Arlington exclaimed, impatient.

‘No,’ I remembered exactly. ‘He made me wonder if he had already tortured Liz Willis to death. Then he told me I should hurry to the Tower if I wished to save her. Then finally he sneezed and fell over. I spent no more than a few seconds checking he was dead, and that without touching him, for who in their right mind would lay a finger on a plague victim?’

‘It would be the same story if he did die of plague,’ Arlington pointed out. ‘Why do you assume he feigned death?’

‘Because the tokens appeared so quick,’ I said. ‘Yet what other signs were there? I saw no swellings. He seemed feverish, but no more so than if he had run down the street.’ I shook my head. ‘As you reflected, the timing was remarkable. He kills five men he would be rid of, then contracts the plague in time to kill four more men in some peculiar act of redemption.’

‘My point exactly.’ Arlington seemed willing to be persuaded.

‘Once discovered at Bedlam then his plan was in tatters,’ I realised. ‘Chelwood would know, you would know, the whole world would know. Where then was his plan to withdraw discreetly?’

‘Then he should have fled.’

‘Aye, the natural response, yet Wharton is not a natural man.’ I gripped Dowling’s shoulders and squeezed. ‘He feels no fear,’ I recalled. ‘He told me himself. The experience of seeing a man in pain served to rid him of his own fears. His plan failed the first time, so he merely repeated it.’

Arlington rubbed his hands. ‘Go on.’

‘He said I was there as witness and so I was. That is why I am alive. He needed someone to watch him die. In the meantime he killed four more men that might scrutinise his death too closely.’

‘Now I am listening, Lytle,’ Arlington said. ‘Though not yet persuaded.’

‘Lady Wharton.’ I removed myself from Dowling, given his fondness for the lady. ‘She has behaved very strange this whole week.’

‘I have met Lady Wharton,’ Arlington mused. ‘She did not strike me as an odd woman. A little shy perhaps. Anxious, perhaps. Any woman would be anxious married to Thomas Wharton.’

‘We had not met her before, your lordship, and if our experience of her is different to yours, then that may be further evidence of my argument. At St Albans she was very strange indeed. She did not grieve, nor shed a tear. She told us nothing about him and told us to take the coffin to the church.’ I gave a short bow. ‘Which you yourself said was odd.’

‘I didn’t think she behaved strange,’ Dowling muttered.

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘But then you behaved strange yourself that day. I think she entranced you.’

Dowling blushed red about the tops of his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

‘When we visited her she implied with ferocious gravity that her husband rarely came home, that he was barely an acquaintance, that she could not be expected to know much of his daily life.’

Arlington raised an eyebrow. ‘I will leave aside the fact I have no idea what “ferocious gravity” is and ask you instead why this should strike you as odd. Wharton by all accounts was a murderous vagabond. Lady Wharton, as I recall, is quite a splendid woman.’ A wistful look shimmered across his eyes.

‘Your lordship, the last piece of evidence you just told us yourself.’

‘What evidence is that?’ he asked, doubtful.

‘You said Lady Wharton was here in London and had already collected his body.’

‘What of it?’ Arlington demanded. ‘Is it not natural for the widow to collect her husband’s corpse?’

‘For some,’ I agreed. ‘But why then did she not come running the first time he was killed? The day after his death and she was still at home, supposedly unaware he died. When we told her the news she showed few signs of distress, claimed to know nothing of his life and sent the body to the church. It all makes more sense if it was not his death, nor his corpse.’ Even Dowling looked up now, interested. ‘But this time she is already in London? Why did she come to London at all? For she did not have time to receive the news at St Albans and travel here. If she has already collected the body, then she was already in London.’

Arlington nodded sagely. ‘Indeed.’

‘Even if she was in London for some reason, how did she find out of his death? He died in some sick house on Broad Street before the day had dawned. Who told her he was there?’

‘That is odd,’ Arlington agreed.

‘And the reason she
had
to collect the body so quick is that if we were to inspect it, we would find the tokens to be false and the man alive,’ I concluded. ‘I wager she is already on the way back to St Albans.’

Arlington clasped his hands behind his back, then turned to his scribes once more. ‘I hope you have written this all down,’ he barked. ‘I would have it on the record how Mr Lytle here helped me formulate my thoughts clear and lucid.’ He caught my eye. ‘For I believe it was I that mentioned the odd timing of Wharton’s affliction. It was I mentioned how odd she sent her husband’s corpse to the church. I who raised the issue of her sudden arrival in London. And I who remarked on the topic of his finances.’ He looked to Newcourt. ‘Not so?’

‘Of course, your lordship.’

‘Indeed,’ I ceded happily, eager to proceed.

He snapped his fingers again. ‘Then that is how it shall be written. So what now will you do to apprehend him?’

‘First, your lordship, we must find his body before it is disposed of. If I am right then there is no body, and even now Wharton sits alongside his wife on the road back north. We must ride to St Albans and demand to see a body. Unless we see Wharton himself laid out cold, with tokens upon his chest that cannot be washed off nor prised off with a knife, then we cannot assume he is dead. If I am right, then they must return to St Albans, so there are witnesses to the Earl’s new burial. As soon as they have done what needs to be done, then they must flee the country, which in itself will be difficult now the plague is upon us. He has only three options, I think. Hide himself away in the house at St Albans, hide by himself somewhere outside London, else travel north and find a ship at a port where the plague is not yet arrived.’

Arlington snapped his fingers decisively. ‘Very well. How may I presume to help?’

‘Your lordship, if you might provide us with six capable soldiers.’

‘Soldiers.’ Arlington stood and stretched. ‘Newcourt.’ He pointed. ‘You will accompany Mr Lytle and Mr Dowling to the Tower and request six good men of Sir John.’ He seemed pleased with himself. ‘I meantime will look forward to soon learning as to your progress.’ He looked to me and Dowling. ‘Well done again, good fellows.’

We watched Arlington’s scribes pack up their journals and their quills and follow him out the door. Arlington walked with a swagger, confident and pleased.

‘That went well,’ I murmured.

Dowling looked at me with a white face, otherwise devoid of expression.

I turned to Newcourt. ‘When can we pick up our soldiers?’

Newcourt put his hands on his hips and cocked his head. ‘Since Sir John is no longer talking to Lord Arlington, since Arlington has denied him everything he requested, I cannot tell you.’

‘Arlington pledged us six soldiers.’

‘No.’ Newcourt shook his head. ‘He told me to accompany you to the Tower to
request
six soldiers. If the request is denied then he will write it in his report.’

‘Can we not inform Sir John of that?’

Newcourt smiled, a thin smile of anger and resentment. ‘You mention Arlington’s name, and you will find yourself staring from Traitors’ Gate watching your body float past you in the river.’

I turned to Dowling. ‘Let’s begone then.’

A sprawling pile of mattresses, sheets and assorted linen lay about the front of the house at Broad Street, awaiting burning, guarded from those that would sell it as clean. A second man washed the red paint from the door with a stiff brush and a bucket of water.

The coffin was gone from the front room and the corpse from the back room. Up the stairs Wharton’s chair stood empty. No body, no thing to find. Someone had swept the floor clean. I had hoped to find one of those ‘tokens’. I returned to the street, disappointed.

‘Were you here when the bodies were taken?’ I asked the two men.

The man scrubbing the floor shook his head. The man guarding the bedding materials grunted and nodded.

‘Who fetched them?’ I asked.

‘Bearers,’ he replied. ‘One carried the coffin. They took the corpse out on a board.’

‘Just one corpse?’

‘Aye, one coffin, one corpse.’

‘What of the other body?’

He pursed his lips. ‘Weren’t no other bodies that I know of.’

‘Others had been here afore you arrived?’ I asked.

‘I suppose.’ He looked away, uninterested.

Something niggled ’twixt my ears, but I had little time for long rumination. I returned to Newgate where Dowling prepared for our departure. It was almost ten o’clock already. We would need to leave soon to be sure of returning to London by nightfall.

I arrived to find the wagon prepared and hitched to three enormous horses, huge beasts with hooves like dish plates. Dowling stood talking to three men, two of whom I recognised as fellow butchers. He hurried over on spotting my approach.

‘I have found three men to ride with us, Harry, though I want you to promise me to behave with good sense.’ He laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘I would not see them come to harm.’

Each wore a knife at his belt. Two carried boning knives and the third a large, square cleaver.

Dowling introduced me to two lean, young fellows, one with hooded eyes and short, cropped hair, the other shaggier with trace of a smile upon his lips. ‘Luke and Isaak are brothers.’ The third man was short and rotund, shaven-headed and quiet spoken. ‘Gyles owns the wagon we have used afore.’

‘They will need certificates of health,’ I realised, anxious to leave.

‘I procured them this morning,’ said Dowling. ‘While you slept.’

We didn’t leave the City until almost eleven. I climbed upon the wagon next to Dowling. The butcher’s horses were strong but slow, each step an exhibition of rippling muscle. I sat tense and silent, unable to still my anxiety that we would arrive too
late, find the house empty and Wharton gone. What if they decided to forgo any pretence of burial and left forthwith? What if they decided not to return to St Albans at all?

At Whetstone we asked after the day’s traffic. Yes – three riders passed that way earlier in the morning – one woman and two men. Same story at each turnpike, each description painting clearer in my mind a picture of Wharton, his wife and the man Conroy. Though we rode slowly, the distance between us remained constant, no more than two hours. We passed though St Albans in early afternoon. The town baked under the towering sun, flagging in the midst of gathering miasmas. Red crosses adorned the doors like roses in bloom.

No one came out to greet us at the Old Palace, and the stableman was gone. Three horses chewed happily on grass and drank from buckets of water, their hides warm and wet. A ball of twine lay in the long grass next to a twisted tree. Curtainless windows gazed down upon us like blind eyes. Then I saw movement, a head withdrawn.

‘Up there.’ I pointed. ‘Someone’s watching.’

Four butchers stared at the small, square frame.

I strode through the weeds towards the kitchen door. A thick metal bolt barred our way, secured with a padlock.

‘Over here,’ Dowling called. I followed his voice across the terrace to an enclosed courtyard. He rapped a fist against two thinner glass doors, also locked.

‘Thou shalt not be afraid of destruction when it cometh,’ he sighed regretfully before crashing his boot through the glass. A few more hefty kicks and the door shattered completely, admitting us entry to a large, square room with yellow painted wallpaper.

Sheets covered the floor and furniture. Dust swirled about
chairs and table legs in little eddies, as a light breeze swept through from outside.

Gyles tugged the corner of a sheet and more dust billowed into the air. ‘No one livin’ here,’ he said.

Footsteps sounded from behind the door as if to contradict him, heavy and fast. The door flew open and Conroy appeared, wearing the same tailored costume he had worn afore, though today it was crumpled, his shirt soiled.

‘What in God’s name have you done?’ he demanded, staring at the broken glass upon the floor.

I stepped towards him. ‘Where is Lady Wharton?’

‘She is not here,’ he said, scanning us all, paying particular attention to the assortment of knives. ‘I’ll thank you to leave afore I have you punished.’

‘We know they are here,’ Dowling growled, pushing past and into the passage beyond, discovering Lady Wharton listening at the door.

‘You,’ she hissed, tight-jawed. She wore a simple woollen skirt and linen jacket, appropriate for riding.

‘Yes, madam.’ I bowed. ‘Come to look around your house.’

She regarded me like I was mad.

‘Where is your son?’ I asked.

‘Resting,’ she snapped. ‘Now will you kindly begone. You have no authority.’

‘We have Lord Arlington’s authority,’ I replied.

‘Nonsense!’ she exclaimed, eyes wide. ‘You have no such thing. Now I insist you leave.’

I spoke low and soft. ‘As I said, madam, we will look round your house.’

She shook her head, perplexed and distracted. ‘Why should you want to search my house? My husband is dead. Would
you not leave a widow to grieve? This is abominable.’ She glared at Dowling, appealing to his soft belly.

‘Your husband is not dead,’ said Dowling.

She paled, as though pricked. ‘I have just come back from London with my husband’s body and you tell me he is not dead?’ She stumbled on her words like an actress struggling to remember her lines.

‘We passed every turnpike this morning and no one has passed with a coffin,’ I said. ‘Show us the box.’

Conroy stared into my eyes as if he would tear them out. ‘He lies at rest in the church.’

I watched Lady Wharton put her head in her hands. ‘I think not,’ I said. ‘I think it is a ruse. If two of us were to leave for the church that would leave three of us against you and Wharton, and Wharton is a murderous beast.’

Lady Wharton gasped, apparently outraged.

‘Dead or not, Lady Wharton, he is a murderous beast,’ I reasoned. ‘I spoke to him last night and he happily confessed to all the blood he spilt.’

I wondered how near Wharton was, whether he too stood close, listening. I led the butchers down the passage out towards the main hall, a wondrous space, with huge panelled walls and painted ceiling. Yet the walls were bare and all furniture had been removed. Lady Wharton emerged from behind Conroy and positioned herself at the bottom of the staircase, hands clasped at her waist, haughtiness regained.

Isaak, Luke and Gyles stared up at the frescoes as though they had never been inside a big house before. I breathed hard to quell the frustration within, contemplating the impossibility of our task. The house was huge and the grounds vast. Wharton could happily flit from place to place leading us a dance for as
long as he chose. Conroy’s mouth curled in a great sneer.

I could think of little else to do other than lead us on a long meander about the ground floor, room to room, each one bare and bereft of hiding places, Conroy and Lady Wharton following us each step. I sensed their silent mockery, their desire for us to give up and leave.

Twenty minutes later we arrived where we started. I tapped my knuckles against the wood-panelled wall to see if it sounded hollow or solid, uncomfortable beneath her withering gaze. ‘These old houses often have hidden panels and the like,’ I whispered to Dowling.

‘Aye,’ Dowling raised his brows, resigned, ‘and we stand little chance of finding them.’

‘We will go upstairs now,’ I declared.

Lady Wharton barely nodded, then stepped aside inviting us to climb the wide staircase. Long, dark corridors stretched left and right.

‘Where will you go first?’ she asked.

‘Your bedroom,’ I replied, frustrated.

The room was bare as the others we had seen. The bed itself was dismantled, curtains gone, sheets and mattresses stowed away. All that remained was the naked tester and a truckle.

‘You are leaving today?’ I asked.

‘The tenancy expires,’ Lady Wharton replied, eyes darting to Conroy.

I recalled my conversation with the gardener six days before. ‘You have almost two years left on the lease.’

‘It is none of your business,’ said Conroy, hardly breathing. ‘Finish your inspection and begone.’

I walked the walls, tapping with my knuckle again, feeling foolish.

Dowling sidled up to me and spoke low. ‘He could be anywhere, Harry. You’d have to chart the outside of the house against the dimensions of each and every room to map all the cavities and spaces that might exist. He’ll be hidden well, if he be here at all. He might be hiding in the forest.’

‘Aye,’ I muttered, ‘so tell me what we should do.’

He shrugged. ‘We could watch the house, wait for them to leave.’ His miserable face belied the futility of his suggestion. ‘We need an army of soldiers to search this place.’

Lady Wharton stood taller as we emerged back into the corridor, cheeks pink and eyes aflame. I suspected she eavesdropped our whispered exchange. The corridor also was wood-panelled. If there were secret doors then we would never find them. It would be an elementary precaution for Wharton to hold a thick panel behind a thinner panel so it sounded solid. I poked my head into the rooms we passed, wandered into a few, wandered out again. Then we came to a small staircase, three steps up leading to a closed door.

I turned to Lady Wharton. ‘What’s up there?’

She lifted her chin and nose. ‘The Earl’s private chambers.’

I sensed renewed discomfort. ‘Will you unlock it, please?’

She raised her brow. ‘The Earl had the only key.’

Dowling’s right eye twitched as it did when suspicion beset him. ‘And now he is dead, you will never open it?’

‘I am in no hurry to open it.’ She lifted her chin and folded her arms. ‘When I do decide to open it, I will fetch someone to change the lock.’

I felt like putting her over my knee and spanking her. ‘You had better fetch them now, else I will break it open.’

Her lip trembled and her cheeks fired. ‘Preposterous,’ she stuttered, again looking to Conroy. There was a long
pause while both of them fidgeted, indignant.

‘Perhaps there is another key,’ she said finally, voice quavering. She nodded at Conroy, who disappeared. Disappeared where, I wondered. To fetch the Earl?

We waited in silence, me on the top step, determined to get into that room, Dowling on the other side of the corridor, silent and patient, humming to himself in thoughtful repose. At last Conroy appeared with a key.

‘My servants have a copy,’ Lady Wharton explained. ‘They are instructed to keep it clean while Lord Wharton is away.’

‘I see,’ I replied, without bothering to ask why she had not said so before. I put out my hand and Conroy gave the key to me, eyes burning.

Sun shone bright into the room that was eight paces square, lit by two windows looking out onto the woods. A serene environment, peaceful and reflective.

I ran my finger down the back of one of the leather-bound books that covered one wall.
Christian Astrology
by William Lilly and
The Resolution of All Manner of Questions
and Demands
. Next to it,
Anima Astrologiae.

‘The Earl believed in astrology?’ I asked.

‘Have you seen enough?’ Lady Wharton sounded shrilly.

Why did she seek to hurry us? I took my time, pulled out a few books, leafed through the pages looking for anything unusual; hidden notes, handwritten text, but there was nothing of interest and I had not the appetite to inspect each and every volume. I turned and faced the enormous oak desk, the most promising vassal left until last.

I lowered myself into Wharton’s great chair, with its heavy rounded arms, and made myself comfortable. Upon the desk stood an empty snuff box, a set of scales in a flat, wooden box
and a long, metal, pointed instrument, similar to that owned by Owen Price, Jane’s astrologer. On either side were three deep drawers and at the top, one small shallow drawer. In the top right-hand drawer I found a ribbon, red and faded. I held it up in front of Lady Wharton. ‘What is this?’

Lady Wharton turned crimson about her ears and neck but said nothing.

‘A red ribbon.’ I rubbed it gently between my fingers. ‘Thin and very old.’ I looked to her for understanding, but she turned away.

‘I might guess,’ Dowling stepped forward. He took the ribbon and inspected it close. ‘Indeed very old,’ he reflected. ‘I am reminded of Genesis. “And it came to pass in the time of her travail, that behold, twins were in her womb: and one put out his hand: and the midwife took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, saying ‘This came out first’.”’ He looked to Lady Wharton for confirmation. ‘His brother was a twin?’

I thought I saw a tear, yet no words escaped her mouth. Conroy’s lips twitched like he would say something.

‘You know he killed his brother?’ I said to her, returning the ribbon to the drawer. ‘He keeps the ribbon that is memorial to his brother’s birth as well as his own. Yet he burns his face off his head and hangs him by the neck.’

She turned and walked quickly from the room. Her footsteps stopped halfway down the passage and I thought I heard weeping.

‘Where is he, Conroy?’ I asked.