From the Charred Remains (9 page)

With that, Tilly ran from the room, knocking a stool over in her haste.

“That was strange,” Lucy said, righting the felled stool.

“Did you believe her?” the constable asked.

“Yes. At least I mostly believed her,” Lucy replied. “I do think she was genuinely surprised to find out that the bag had been found in the barrel with Darius. I don’t think she had anything to do with the murder herself. Even she couldn’t be so foolish to visit a constable if she’d played a part in Darius’s murder. She came here for the trifles, to be sure.”

“Agreed,” Duncan said, moving his arms briskly. Being in the cramped space seemed to wear on him. “That doesn’t mean, of course, that she doesn’t know what happened. Certainly, we know a little more than we did before.”

He sat back down and gazed at his hastily scratched notes. “I’m more interested in what the contents can tell us about who was in the tavern when Darius was killed. Who was at that last hand of cards? Did he have an enemy prior to the game, or did he make an enemy there? Was this a gambling game gone bad? One man kills the other?”

“Over a game?” Lucy asked. “A man would murder over cards?”

The look Duncan gave Lucy was pitying. “I’m afraid so.” He continued to muse out loud. “Why, then, did the killer leave the winnings? Why leave them with the body? Why not take them?”

“Besides, Tilly said Jack was the one with the winning hand,” Lucy pointed out. “You’d think Jack would have been the one who was murdered, not Darius.” She frowned. “Do we know for sure the body wasn’t Jack Durand’s?”

“One, Dr. Larimer did think the man had Eastern skin and features,” he said, using his fingers to count off his points. “Two, this would fit with your Miss Rivers’s assumption that the murdered man was someone she knew from Persia. Three, Tilly had assumed, without us telling her, that it had been Darius—the ‘foreign gent’—who’d been murdered. Remember she said she’d seen the other men when the church bells started warning about the fire. Perhaps she’s even seen Durand since; I got the feeling they were friendlier than she cared to admit. I think it’s safe to assume that the murdered man is Darius, and not Durand.”

“So Darius was the victim then.” She thrust aside an image of Miss Rivers, grieving at the Golden Lion. Lucy scratched her elbow. “Hmmm. I still got the feeling Tilly was lying about something. I can’t explain it.”

“Let’s think about this again.” He pulled the bag out from under the table. Carefully dumping everything out on an overturned wooden barrel, Duncan started to divide the contents into four piles.

“The bag may have been Jack’s. If he won the stakes, he probably scooped everything into it. The cards, then, were probably his. We know the poem had belonged to Darius.”

“The money could have belonged to anyone,” Lucy added, feeling unhelpful. “Perhaps the French coins belonged to Darius? Picked them up on his travels from Persia.”

“Yes, that could be.”

“The chess piece could have belonged to Jack?” Lucy ventured again, feeling like she was picking through jackstraws. “Do you think a gambler would carry a game piece with him?”

“Perhaps. Though I don’t think of chess as a gambler’s game.” He stopped.

Lucy glanced at Duncan. Their conversation seemed to be over. He was studying the signet ring again, flipping the coat of arms and the hunting scene. “A valuable piece?” she asked. Again he didn’t respond. She turned to go, feeling inexplicably piqued.

At the door, he called to her. “Lucy, wait. It’s just occurred to me.”

“What?”

“Well, it’s just this. Clearly, Tilly knows that the bag survived the Fire, and Miss Rivers knew you had found the poem. Indeed, Miss Rivers knew to approach you directly.”

“So?” She could see he suddenly looked agitated. “They figured it out.”

“This means that others, including the murderer, might figure out the same.” His voice grew taut. “Let me know immediately if anyone else inquires into the contents. Will you do that for me, Lucy?”

His sudden fervor startled her. She had been about to respond in a flippant way, but instead she simply meekly nodded. “Yes, I will,” she promised. She paused as she reached the door, noticing that the tallow chandler who used to own the dwelling had carved his sign—a taper and flame—into the wood.

“Odd, isn’t it?” Duncan said from behind her. “The candlemaker’s shop being one of the few establishments around here to survive the Great Fire. There by the grace of God.”

Shivering, Lucy could not keep her hand from knocking on the wooden doorframe as she passed through it. A futile gesture to be sure, but one she still hoped would keep bad happenings at bay.

5

Later, Lucy stood in front of the magistrate’s house. She could see light inside only from the kitchen, where Cook was preparing supper. John was probably stoking the fire or polishing silver, and Annie was no doubt stirring pots or chopping up carrots. Doing the tasks that Lucy used to do. The rest of the house was still dark, suggesting that the magistrate was not at home. Adam, she knew, had taken up temporary residence with the other surveyors. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he was supposed to return for the Sabbath in a few days’ time.

An unexpected lump rose in her throat. Other than the magistrate, she had not told the others yet she was leaving. Lucy shook herself. “No melancholy for you, Lucy girl,” as her mother used to say. “The sun’s still likely to come up tomorrow, just the same.”

Inside, Lucy found Cook finishing up a warming stew, a bit of lamb, a bit of beef, all thrown together with some barley, potatoes, and onions. The September nights were growing chilly, so she gratefully held the steaming wooden bowl by her nose. As they ate together, Lucy looked around at her little family—John and Cook who’d been like parents to her, and Annie, who’d been as sweet and dear as her own true sister.

Hearing her sigh, Cook stopped her fork midway to her mouth. “All right, lass. Out with it. You’ve been sighing since you got home.”

Lucy could not put off telling them about her apprenticeship any longer. She took a deep breath. “I’ve apprenticed myself to Master Aubrey.” She focused on scraping the last bits of stew off the sides of her bowl. Without looking up, she added in a low tone, “I’m aiming to keep house for Will. He needs someone to look after him. I’ll be leaving in the morn.”

At the last, Annie let out a soft wail. Cook and John stopped chewing for a moment, exchanging a glance. Neither seemed particularly surprised. Like Lucy, they had known for some time that she had no place in the household, since she was neither servant nor family. A friend she was, to be sure, but London’s community would not think much of a friendship between a magistrate and his former chambermaid. Especially one now apprenticed, un-woman-like, to a master printer. No one liked it, but that was the way of it.

“You’ll still come around for pie,” Cook predicted, causing Lucy to smile.

“Of course,” she replied, blinking away a tear.

“Fare thee well, child,” John said softly. Lucy warmed to the intimate address used among family. She tried to avoid looking at Annie sulking in the corner.

No one spoke much after that. They were nearly finished eating when the magistrate returned home. Like John, Lucy rose to greet her former master, fetching him a bowl of the piping hot stew and a mug of ale. Ever since his wife had died and his daughter had become a wandering Quaker, Master Hargrave seemed to draw comfort from his servants even if, as before, he rarely supped with them in the kitchen.

Tonight, though, he surprised them by sliding his long legs onto the long bench across from Cook and John. “I’ll have my supper here. It’s been a long day. I should enjoy a bit of company. No, no girls, don’t move off.” He patted the bench next to him, and smiled when Lucy and Annie sat back down. A quiet smile lit his eyes. “It may be a long time where we will all break bread together. I take it, Lucy, you’ve told them about your change in employment?”

Lucy nodded, her throat suddenly tight again. She wondered if he had noticed their downcast state. She was grateful when the magistrate continued. “I’m pleased that Lucy has found work with my good friend. We’ll miss her to be sure, but she’ll come around. Right, Lucy?” She nodded again, pleased that Annie looked a little more mollified. “Now, tell me. What have you been doing at good Master Aubrey’s? Has my old friend treated you well today?”

“Yes, sir. Indeed he has,” Lucy replied. “And how have you fared, sir? The sessions must be more full than usual?”

“I have observed what I can only describe as a universal resignation. Complaints to be sure, but an odd lack of repining among sufferers. It is almost as if they expected this calamity.”

Cook nodded at Annie to stack the dirty dishes by the washbasin. “I heard tell,” she said, “that a flock of sheep had been found butchered outside Warwick. Before the Fire.”

“What are you on about?” John asked his wife. “What difference does that make?”

“Ah, but the only thing taken from each carcass was hard fat,” Cook responded. “Tallow.”

Annie nodded. “That makes sense,” she said. “
I
heard the Fire came from a fireball.” She pronounced this with the grave authority of the young. “’Twas likely Robert Hubert.”

Lucy kicked Annie under the table. Master Hargrave did not like when people accused poor Robert Hubert of setting the Fire. It made no matter that the watchmaker claimed to have thrown a candle through the open window of the Fariners’ bakery, starting the Great Fire. “Annie,” the magistrate said, in his gentle firm way. “The man’s wits were addled. He scarcely knew to what he was confessing.” Seeing Annie’s chastened look, he patted her hand. “That reminds me,” he said, laying a copy of the
London Miscellany
on the table. “Lucy, is this the piece you were out selling today?”

Annie beamed at Lucy. “I told him we were the ones who found the body.” Clearly, the truth was of little concern to her. Under Lucy’s steady gaze, her smile turned a bit sheepish. “I mean, we were there when the body was found.”

Lucy turned her attention back to the magistrate, trying to read the set to his face. In the past, she’d heard him disdain some of the penny accounts. “Yes, I wrote it,” she admitted reluctantly.

Master Hargrave smiled. “I thought as much. There’s a womanly sensibility to the piece that I fear is much lacking in old Horace Aubrey. I think you may indeed have found your calling.”

Warming under his pride, she could not help but brag a little. “I learned something interesting about this poem,” she said. “When I was out selling.”

“Oh?” The magistrate said, clearly happy to indulge her. “Do tell.”

Quickly, she recounted her conversation with Miss Rivers.

His eyebrows raised. “You actually met the woman for whom this poem was intended? What a remarkable occurrence!”

“Yes. I realize now she’d been outside Master Aubrey’s shop. She must have heard him tell me to go to the Golden Lion, and that’s when she told me—”

The magistrate’s smile faded slightly. “You mean this woman followed you?”

Hearing the concern in his voice, Lucy hastened to ease his worry. “No, no. I think it was all right. She was just upset, you see, and for good reason. I reckon she just wanted a bit of privacy.” Lucy began to speak even more quickly, hoping to distract him. The last thing she wanted was for the magistrate to tell her he didn’t want her peddling pamphlets out in the streets. She was no longer in his employ to be sure, but she did not want to jeopardize his good opinion of her. “See, it’s an acrostic.” Proudly, she pointed to the column of descending letters. “‘Nasrin I’m Here’ it reads. Her name isn’t actually Nasrin, you see. The Persian name for rose is Nasrin, while the Welsh name is Rhonda.”

“How fantastic!” the magistrate exclaimed.

“There’s more. See, the person who wrote this poem was Miss Rivers’s—” She paused, searching for the word. Lover? She couldn’t use that word with the magistrate. Friend? The word seemed too benign, given Miss Rivers’s display of emotion. “Sweetheart,” she decided upon. “This sweetheart wrote this letter—or is it a poem?—to let her know he was coming to see her.”

A gleam appeared in the magistrate’s eye. Though he had seemed tired a few moments before, the idea of a puzzle had perked him up. She’d seen him the same way when tackling a Greek translation or pondering a particularly elusive passage from More’s
Utopia.
“You know, Lucy, monks used to create acrostics to send messages to each other. Until Henry the Eighth dissolved the monasteries, I’ve heard tell this is how they would keep tabs on each other, and of course, the archbishops.”

“I think acrostics have become more common now,” Lucy ventured. “Master Aubrey showed me several of the Fire acrostics. Roger L’Estrange seems to quite enjoy them. He’s the licenser to the Stationer’s Company, you know. I don’t think Master Aubrey likes him so well.”

“That’s probably because L’Estrange was appointed by the King to censor what Master Aubrey publishes. ’Tis not surprising my friend doesn’t take to him.”

“I see,” Lucy said, temporarily diverted by this information. Then she remembered the other thing she had learned from Miss Rivers. “The other part is a passage from another poet. Someone named Rumi.”

The magistrate glanced at the words, a frown furrowing his brow. “Fascinating!” Then he murmured something under his breath that Lucy did not quite catch.

“Pardon, sir?” she asked.

“Come with me, Lucy,” he said. Without another word, Master Hargrave left the room. They heard him open the door to his study.

Lucy glanced at Cook, who shrugged. “Go ahead. Annie can sweep up the crumbs.”

Master Hargrave had left the door to his study open. Lucy stood for a moment at the threshold not wanting to step on the new red carpet. It was one of the few luxuries he’d purchased for his home since they had moved in. She watched him pull some sheets of fine white paper out of a desk drawer and dip his quill in his pot of ink.

Seeing her, he rubbed his hands gleefully. For all the world, he looked like a young boy who had just received a great gift. “Come in, Lucy. Come sit down!” He picked up the
Miscellany
again. “Yes, it’s an acrostic,” he said. “And yet, I think there’s more to it. Let’s look at this verse, line by line.”