A Plague of Sinners (4 page)

‘He was killed.’ I spoke gentle as I could. ‘Slain.’

She looked to the unlucky child, as if her thoughts turned straight to their welfare rather than the demise of her husband. We waited in awkward anticipation of her interest in the nature of the killing. Conroy’s brown eyes sparkled like those of a great bear. She stood stiff, chest rising and falling with the steady tides of her breathing. ‘How was he slain?’

No need to discuss wine bottles and coins. ‘Hanged by the neck at the Vintners’ Hall,’ I said. ‘Dowling and I are charged with finding the murderer.’

She allowed her eyes to wander unbridled from the bottom of Dowling’s filthy, shapeless trousers to the tip of his spiky hair. Then she stared at me as if I was the killer.

‘What enemies did he have?’ I asked.

‘He has no enemies that I know of,’ she replied, lips shrunk tight. ‘Though his business is in London.’

‘What of family?’ I asked.

‘His family are all dead.’ She breathed deeply. ‘I trust you will spare me further questions.’

Dowling twitched unhappily. The child stared unseeingly, as if blind.

‘We brought his body with us, your ladyship,’ I said.

She paled.

I nodded. ‘In a plain box.’

She stood stiff, staring out the window. ‘Indeed,’ she whispered. Conroy stepped silently to her shoulder. ‘I cannot
bear the thought of sleeping tonight beneath the same roof.’ She turned to Dowling. ‘You must think me cruel.’

He shook his head. I would not wish to sleep under the same roof as Wharton’s body neither, the state it was in. ‘Would you have us take it to the church?’ I offered.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, with strange eagerness. ‘I expect we should arrange for his burial quickly.’

‘His family are all dead then?’ I repeated. Surely someone must still be alive.

Fear and doubt dissolved, leaving only anger. ‘Have you come here to interrogate me?’

‘No.’ I clapped my hands. ‘We will take the body to the church immediately.’

She bowed her head silently, still regarding me like I sought to entrap her.

Dowling bowed stiffly. ‘Thank you.’

I hadn’t seen him bow before. What he thanked her for, I struggled to comprehend. It was us that fetched her husband all the way from London.

‘Conroy will escort you,’ she said, and beckoned him with one finger, face frozen once more in a mask of icy disdain. Then she walked away, she and the monstrous child. By the time they reached the door, at the end of the great hall, they stood two tiny figures, close together like little dolls, alone and unloved. An image flashed through my mind, a picture of them still stood there in same pose in twenty years’ time, dusty and web-covered, in an evening dusk. I shivered.

‘What ails you?’ Dowling growled.

‘I am becoming psychic.’

‘Follow me, gentlemen.’ Conroy squared his shoulders and set off at sharp pace in the direction we had come.

As we walked I contemplated once more the behaviour of her ladyship. Strung tight as her own bodice. She spoke of her husband as if she hardly knew him and was quick to declare his family dead. I detected not a trace of grief.

Meantime, Conroy shepherded us out the house. ‘Wait here,’ he ordered, once we reached the wagon. ‘I will saddle a horse for myself and we will begone.’

Dowling climbed up onto the wagon and stared into space, sullen sulk pasted upon his sagging chops.

‘You spoke as with another man’s teeth,’ I declared. ‘I have never seen you so butter-tongued.’

‘Aye, well.’ Dowling clamped his mouth closed. The tips of his ears glowed red. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Speak to me, Dowling, as you usually do, without subtlety or consideration.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry.’

‘You think I spoke to her roughly.’

He nodded, regarding me with condescending pity. Then he shook his head and clucked like a chicken.

Let him cluck, for he did not judge the good lady well. She was not about to cry unto God, nor indeed to anyone at all.

‘I have seen no other servants but him and the stablehand.’ I watched Conroy disappear into the stables. ‘The Earl was hard up.’

‘Else he was neglectful,’ Dowling replied.

True. If Wharton cheated Burke then surely he had monies. I wondered who else might tell us something. ‘I want to have a quick look at the gardens round the back.’

‘Go quick then,’ Dowling snapped.

I followed the path beneath a brick archway and saw a man wrestling with a tree and a ball of twine. He was trying to tie it to a stick, but the tree had grown too much already, its trunk all bent and twisted.

‘Hoy!’ I cried. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

He looked up for a moment, but didn’t reply.

‘Why are there so few servants around the place?’ I asked.

‘Hah!’ he exclaimed with bitterness. ‘A good question! By next week there will be two servants fewer besides, for me and my boy have been told we must leave.’

‘Why? Have you not done a good job in the garden? Methinks it a fine garden!’ Actually it resembled the head of a man long overdue a good haircut.

‘I have worked here nigh on thirty years,’ he said. ‘But this estate is poor, though it is not my place to say so.’

I nodded. ‘I can see there is a story to be told.’

‘Hah! A simple enough story. The Earl gained tenancy on this estate and the tenancy expires before two more years are up. Those were the terms and don’t ask me how I know it.’

‘How do ye know it?’

‘All in the house know it!’

‘So he does not own it?’

He looked at me like I was a fool. ‘A tenant does not own the property he resides in.’ He shook his head and muttered mournfully.

‘Does the Earl not visit?’ I asked.

‘Aye, he visits.’

‘Mr Lytle!’ Conroy’s strong accent called out from behind. The gardener busied himself with stringing, head down and silent, while Conroy watched me, cold-eyed and grim as his mistress. He turned and headed back towards the front of the house.

The local church appeared bright and happy, cheerful square facade sat on bright green grass framed by a perfect blue sky. We left the cart upon the street, close to the gate. As we arrived the church was emptying after evensong. The usual mix seen anywhere in England. First to emerge were the poorest and the shabbiest, since they were not assigned pews and so sat at the back. Some avoided my eye, resigned to another miserable day. Others glared, curious or aggressive. I found myself distinguishing between those who might deserve the plague and those not, an uncharitable thought for which I quickly repented.

‘We will take the coffin about the side and through the vestry,’ Conroy declared. ‘One of you help me carry it.’

Indeed it was light enough for two men to carry, since it was made only of thin pine. So thin it might snap in two if they did not carry it carefully. Dowling was closer in size to Conroy, so I was left alone.

A fellow with lively blue eyes and a thick grey beard appeared at my elbow, pipe in hand, shovel in the other. ‘Who’s in the box?’

‘The Earl of St Albans,’ I replied.

He took the pipe from his mouth. ‘Well, well,’ he declared, and stuck the pipe back in. ‘What did he die of?’

‘He was killed.’

He sucked sharply at the pipe. ‘Well, well. Who killed him?’

‘I don’t know,’ I confessed. ‘It’s our job to find out, but we haven’t found out much.’

He nodded and blew out a mouthful of smoke. ‘My brother works in the palace gardens, worked there thirty years. Not no more.’ He tutted. ‘Not right.’ He puffed at the pipe again. ‘The Earl dead, you say? Will they find another earl you reckon?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Can’t give it to the brother, that’s for sure.’ He frowned. ‘Hope not anyway. Wouldn’t want a lunatic as a lord, would ye?’

‘His brother is a lunatic?’

‘Aye.’ He pulled the hat off his head and brushed back thick hair with gnarled old fingers. ‘The boy is the son of the brother.’

‘What boy?’

He met my eyes with sideways glance. ‘Have you not been to the palace then?’

‘You mean Lady Wharton’s son?’

The old fellow pointed with the stem of his pipe. ‘That’s not her son. That’s the son of the brother of the Earl, what is now a lunatic and has been for twenty years. They say he went mad when they handed him the boy. Now he is at Bedlam.’

‘The boy cannot be older than ten years,’ I protested.

The old man took one last long draw before tapping the bowl out upon his heel. ‘I don’t know about that. But the Earl has a brother, I know that, and the boy is the brother’s son.
My
brother told me.’ He put the pipe in his pocket and stretched his arms out wide. ‘Back to work then,’ he declared. ‘I hopes they let me dig the hole.’ He grinned. ‘That’d be something to tell my brother.’ He shambled away, back betwixt the gravestones.

Dowling emerged with Conroy. They stopped to exchange brief partings.

‘Wait,’ I called, running over.

Both stopped.

‘Is it true the Earl has a brother who is a lunatic at Bedlam, who is the father of that boy we saw?’

Conroy’s ears and neck turned red. He drew his sword and raised it to my chest. He pressed the tip of the blade into my sternum and twisted it. My flesh tore and my blood spilt forth in a warm flow upon my shirt.

Dowling stepped forward and shoved him away. ‘Enough!’

I looked down and saw a big red circle.

Conroy lowered his weapon, sheathed it, then pulled hard at the front of his coat. ‘Do not come back,’ he said, hoarse. ‘You are not welcome.’ With that he turned on one heel and marched back to the church.

‘I suppose I spoke harsh to him too?’ I said to Dowling. The cut upon my chest was three inches wide.

Dowling watched Conroy retreat, anxiety scored into his craggy face. ‘Who told you Wharton had a lunatic brother?’

Many were afraid of lunatics, believing lunacy to be the mark of the Devil.

‘It matters not,’ I said as I watched Conroy disappear. ‘Since it is evidently true.’

My father (now dead) sent me to Cambridge to learn theology. I took happily to drink instead, also gambling and benevolent women. Time not dedicated to one or other I spent in the company of John Ray, a phytologist with whom I used to walk the morning fields in search of new plants. A pleasant way to clear the head. So it was next morning I treated the wound on my chest with mine own preparation of powdered middle fleabane while studiously avoiding Jane. She bustled about the hallway and my front room, stacking my belongings in small piles ready for transportation.

‘I told you to return in good haste,’ Jane growled, unable to resist sniffing at the wound as I dressed it. She was a passionate advocate of Sir Kenelm Digby’s sympathetic powder, the main ingredient of which purported to be moss harvested from dead men’s skulls. She viewed the
red flesh with furrowed brow, afore running a finger across my damp forehead. ‘You are feverish,’ she declared triumphantly.

‘It will pass,’ I assured her.

She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a wet towel. ‘A pleasant ride through the countryside can but help.’ She slapped it across my forehead and stood back with folded arms. ‘What time do you wish to leave?’

I placed a piece of linen across the wound and reached for my shirt. ‘Not for a little while.’

‘This afternoon?’

I edged towards the door, where waited my jacket. ‘Perhaps next week.’

She breathed hard through her nose, eyes shining green against the red of her hair and the pink of her face.

I held up my hands afront of my chest. ‘Lord Arlington summoned us to the Vintners’ Hall. He ordered us to investigate a murder.’

She stamped her foot so hard, the floor shook. ‘What nonsense! There are men slain every night. They fall over as they walk! You said we could leave.’ She jabbed a finger at my wound. I knocked her hand aside.

‘We will,’ I assured her. ‘It shouldn’t take us long to find the man who did it.’

‘You and the dunderhead butcher?’ she snorted.

‘
You
might leave today,’ I suggested. ‘And I will follow.’

‘Hah!’ She stabbed again at my chest. ‘You would have me travel alone?’ She thrust her freckled face in front of mine, so close I could have kissed her, had I wished to have my lips bitten off. ‘Do you not care?’

‘I do care,’ I protested. ‘Few take as good care of their
servants as I do. Most people who leave, leave their servants behind to manage their property.’

She placed her hands upon her wondrous hips and bared her teeth. I opened the door and ran down the street afore she thought to bar the way, not stopping until I reached Knightrider Street.

I gathered my jacket about my shoulders and bid my heart stop beating, striding slowly. The sun shone high already and sweat poured down the ridge of my back. I wondered again how I permitted her such latitude. Perhaps because I trusted her judgement. Part of my own being raged as violent as she, that to stay here was madness. Yet I could not pass up the opportunity to impress Arlington. I thought of this wine merchant he told us of, the man whom Wharton cheated. One conversation with him might be all that was required to solve the crime. First, though, I needed to discover how Liz fared.

I approached Seething Lane from the north, past St Olave’s. I walked slow, ready to turn should I spot a watcher outside their door. But the street was clear save for two women, walking arm in arm, chattering furiously. Surely they would not be so oblivious were there a fresh red cross there to attract their attention.

I knocked, and Edward opened the door, Willis’ servant, tall and silver-haired. His mouth smiled but his eyes did not. He took a short step sideways, reluctant it seemed, to let me pass. The hall smelt of vinegar, sign that the house had been scrubbed and scoured.

Liz emerged from the dining room dressed only in an old morning gown. ‘Harry,’ she greeted me in sober tones. Her face gleamed clean and pale. She placed a hand upon my sleeve. ‘You have come back.’

‘I came to see what happens.’

‘Come in then.’

I allowed her to pull me gently over the threshold and up the stairs to a bright room overhanging the street below. She sat upon the edge of a wide-armed chair and turned her green eyes upon me. Today they gleamed like glass, bright and sharp, bereft of warmth.

‘I told the churchwarden where to find him,’ I told her.

‘I know you did,’ she whispered.

‘Did you hear anything of it?’

She bowed her head. ‘Yes. The churchwarden discovered it and told Mrs Hedges and she will have him buried. Tomorrow, I think.’

‘You look tired.’

She nodded. ‘We spent all that night cleaning the house. Mrs Allen, the searcher, arrived shortly after dawn.’ She dabbed at her eyes and bowed her head. ‘She was very good.’

Something was wrong. My chest weighed heavy with dread. ‘So all is right?’

‘No,’ she exclaimed, tears flowing. ‘James is gone.’

My mouth dried as I struggled to recall the face of the eager young man who had helped me that night. ‘Dead?’

‘No!’ she cried out. ‘At least that’s not what I meant.’ She sniffled. ‘He became feverish soon after you left, so I sent him to his bed. In the morning he was gone.’

‘He has relatives?’

‘No.’ She shook her thick auburn hair about her slender shoulders. ‘He has lived with us since he was a boy. He is almost my age.’ She attempted to dry her face with a flimsy mouchoir. ‘He wouldn’t leave without telling us where he went. I am afraid something is wrong.’

I recalled the memory of James wiping sauce from Hedges’ face, eager to help, careless how close he put his face to the body. That night had been a grand adventure for him. Liz said he became feverish. Feverish with plague was clearly her fear.

I leant over and took her hands gently. ‘I am sorry, Liz.’

Her hands tensed. I wondered if she blamed me for James’ departure. It had, after all, been my idea to deposit Hedges upon the street. My idea that James helped to carry him. On the other hand perhaps Hedges contracted the plague here, while he ate, and James contracted the disease from here also. I thought of letting her hand go.

‘I wish I could do something,’ I offered, without thinking.

She raised her pretty chin and turned those eyes upon me once more. My soul grew little wings and tried to fly out my throat. ‘Perhaps you can,’ she murmured.

‘Name it.’

She selected her words with great deliberation. ‘Will you help us find James?’

‘Of course,’ I replied, fearful what this might lead to. ‘Where have you looked?’

‘Father has been walking the streets since yesterday. He is out there now.’ She turned to the window. ‘I don’t know where he looks, but I doubt he will find him.’

I detected some lack of faith in her bitter tone, and wondered what it meant. Had Willis disappointed her some way? I first met Oliver Willis while conducting an investigation on behalf of Lord Arlington. I had been assigned to follow him on the basis he might be complicit in the illegal trade of wool, working with smugglers to sell the luxury goods they received in payment. So I followed him dutifully until he became curious, and apprehended me one day at the Exchange. By
that time I was convinced of his innocence, since he spent most of his time arguing with a bellicose merchant whose customers lived mostly in the north of England. When I told him why I followed him he provided me with some intelligence as to the guilty parties. Though I did nothing with it, the men were arrested shortly after, for which Oliver professed his undying gratitude. Through Oliver I met Elizabeth.

‘Are you angry with your father?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘For we should have left London long ago. Yet Father will not have it.’

‘Why not?’ I wondered, thinking guiltily of Jane.

‘He does not say,’ Liz sighed. ‘But it is something to do with his business, some matter unresolved.’

I squeezed her hand. ‘Well, I am glad for my sake that you stay.’

She pulled her hands away and placed them on her lap, blinking again like she would cry. ‘Harry, I wish with all my heart that we could leave London. It is only because my father has the soul of a donkey that we remain. But for that James might still be with us.’ She dabbed at her eyes again. ‘Now is not a time for courting and currying favour. Now is a time to withdraw valiantly and weather out God’s storm. Once the clouds have parted and peace reigns again, that is the day to consider our lives and not our deaths.’

A morbid speech, and not very romantic. Death and disease were ever present, and a life spent shivering in fearful anticipation was a life wasted.

She lifted her chin and managed a weak smile. ‘I do enjoy your company though, Harry, while we remain.’

‘And I yours.’

‘I know so little about you.’ She stared deep into my eyes.
‘I know you are peddled about the City as a pleasant prospect, yet in your case I cannot fathom the reason for it.’

I had no idea what to say in response. Though her words cut like a short blade to my belly, I was struck by her candid nature. Courtship, in my experience, was usually a game of tedious riposte. The suitor was obliged to find ever new ways of paying compliments to the lady, who rarely displayed the same ingenuity in accepting them. I chose to interpret her meaning as relating solely to my prospects and not my personal qualities, the thought lightening my spirit. ‘I am a King’s man,’ I replied, hoping I masked my resentment.

‘Yes, Harry, I know that, but I don’t know what a King’s man is. My father is impressed, but I don’t know why, nor do I understand whether your role is important. There are hundreds of people, nay thousands I imagine, that perform duties on his behalf. Some of those duties are quite important and others more menial. The man that keeps his closet stool is a King’s man. What do you do for the King, Harry?’

‘Well.’ I sat up. ‘As of this moment I am investigating the death of the Earl of St Albans.’

She took a sharp breath. ‘Thomas Wharton?’

‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘You know him?’

‘No.’ She shook her head, sharp. ‘Though I have heard of him. He was a scoundrel. Why are you investigating his death?’

‘Lord Arlington asked me to.’

‘I see.’ Her eyes began to well again.

I was confused. ‘Why do you weep?’

Her hair fell over her face. I restrained myself from reaching over to brush it off. She started to cry, for James I supposed. It made sense he may be plagued. If he believed himself to be
infected, then his motive for leaving was clear. The only place such a man might go would be a pesthouse.

‘Did James take money with him?’ I asked.

‘He took some clothes, not many.’ She held her fingers to her face. ‘And, yes, he took several pounds of his own money.’

To pay his way, I reckoned. He would turn up at one of the pesthouses and declare himself to be of this household, sent by his master. Then he would pay the fee and lie there. To recover or die.

‘You will help us look for him, Harry?’ she pleaded. ‘Despite what I have said.’

I concentrated on ensuring what I felt did not reach my face. Cripplegate Pesthouse would be the first place to look, a ramshackle slum of wooden sheds, the capacity of which was exceeded weeks before. I knew they built new sheds recently, and knew also how quickly the task was achieved. It was full again already, so they said, full of bodies already so diseased they served no purpose other than to propagate the pestilence. To go to the pesthouse was to take my good fortune and rub it in the Devil’s face so hard he could not help but smite me. It was not feasible. Yet it stood next to Bedlam, where Wharton’s lunatic brother resided. ‘Yes,’ I replied, unable to resist pleasing her.

‘Thank you, Harry.’ She twisted the little kerchief so it fitted up her nostril.

I allowed myself to stare at her soft lips, whilst my inner rage hopped up and down with a knife, stabbing at my guts. What had I just done? Bedlam and Cripplegate. The itinerary from Hell.