The Burgundian’s Tale

Fourteen

‘Are you saying you think the wine was drugged?’ Bertram demanded eagerly, his brown eyes sparkling with the excitement of the chase.

The housekeeper eyed him with growing unease, obviously regretting her moment of indiscretion and wishing she hadn’t confided in us. But of course, it was what she had meant, or at any rate meant to imply. She said nothing and looked anxiously at me.

‘Hold hard a minute, Bertram,’ I began, but my protest was ignored. The lad was pursuing his own train of thought.

‘And if Master Threadgold had been drugged, it would have made it easy for someone to smother him. Roger!’ He turned triumphantly to me. ‘Didn’t you mention a cushion stuffed behind the dead man’s head? You know – when you were telling me about your viewing of the body?’

I cursed my too-ready tongue, which was prone to describe what I saw in detail. I was beginning to realize that Bertram was a sharp lad with a retentive memory and not the casual young layabout I had originally thought him.

‘There was a cushion,’ I admitted cautiously.

‘There you are, then! So all we have to decide is who murdered Master Threadgold. It must have been his niece, Alcina. Don’t you see?’ He was well away by now. ‘She must have murdered Fulk when she realized he wasn’t going to marry her, and somehow her uncle found out the truth. So she had to get rid of him, as well. She brought him the drugged wine, waited until he fell asleep, then suffocated him with the cushion. The case is solved!’

He beamed at me with the ridiculous self-confidence of the young. I could recognize myself nine years earlier, in those heady days when I was convinced that any man past the age of thirty must almost certainly be impotent, and that any person on the other side of forty was heading rapidly downhill towards senility and the grave. Ah, youth!

‘If you imagine I haven’t already thought of all this,’ I admonished Bertram, belligerent at being made to feel old before my time, ‘you’re much mistaken. But unlike you, my lad, I intend to ask a few questions before leaping to conclusions.’

I again addressed the housekeeper. ‘Mistress Pettigrew, are you certain that you didn’t see or hear Mistress Alcina leave the house after visiting her uncle?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I told you last night I didn’t set eyes on her after giving her the beaker to take up to the master with the wine.’

‘There you are!’ Bertram exclaimed.

‘I’m not anywhere,’ I snapped. ‘Mistress Pettigrew also told me last night that neither the street nor garden door was locked while she was asleep. Anyone could have entered the house during that time. And as yet we have no proof that the wine brought by Mistress Alcina was drugged. (It was, after all, a gift from Judith St Clair.) We only have Mistress Pettigrew’s unconfirmed suspicion that it might have been.’ Personally, I considered the housekeeper’s suspicion tantamount to a certainty, but I wasn’t prepared to say so at this juncture. ‘Mistress Pettigrew,’ I went on, ‘what arrangements are being made for Master Threadgold’s burial?’

She shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘Not my affair. I’ll be leaving here soon.’ She dabbed her eyes with a corner of her none-too-clean apron. ‘It’s up to Mistress Alcina now. The master’d no other kith or kin that I know of. And she’ll not want for guidance while she has Mistress St Clair to help her.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the house next door. ‘They’ll be in directly, I reckon, after they’ve been to consult with the priest at St Dunstan’s. And there’ll be others poking their noses in, you can be sure of that.’ The housekeeper sniffed disparagingly.

I glanced towards the windows. The clarity of light piercing the shutters and the muted noise reaching us from the Strand indicated that it was still comparatively early. With luck – and for the moment I had a feeling that the luck was running my way – it might be another hour, perhaps a little longer, before the efficient Judith St Clair arrived to take charge.

‘Mistress Pettigrew,’ I wheedled, ‘will you give your permission for my assistant and myself to look around the house? Naturally, we shan’t disturb your master’s body.’

She hesitated for a moment before recollecting that she was no longer in a position to give or refuse permission. This was not her home any more. I suspected that Paulina Graygoss might have given her fellow servant a hint of what to expect last night, while they were laying out the corpse.

‘If you want to,’ she said indifferently and pattered away, presumably to the kitchen, leaving Bertram and me standing amid the dust and dead flies and mouse droppings of the musty-smelling great hall.

‘I don’t understand,’ my companion protested. ‘If we suspect Master Threadgold’s death might have been murder, why are we pretending not to know? Why aren’t we reporting it to the Sheriff’s officers? Or to Master Plummer? Or to someone in authority?’

I didn’t answer immediately, once again reviewing my reasons to see if they held water. At last, more or less satisfied, I explained, ‘Because I believe the death of Martin Threadgold really is connected to that of Fulk Quantrell, and I don’t want the murderer to be put on his or her guard. I want him – or her – to believe that he – she – has got away with this murder. When killers grow overconfident and think they’re dealing with incompetent fools, they’re liable to make mistakes. Don’t worry! Martin Threadgold will be avenged when we eventually capture whoever killed the Burgundian.’

‘You’re sure about that?’ Bertram sounded doubtful.

‘As sure as I can be about anything. Of course, if you feel that you must speak up, I can’t, and shan’t, stop you. But if you do, I sincerely believe we shall find further evidence hard to come by. The murderer will take fright and go to ground.’

Bertram considered my words carefully before allowing himself to be persuaded. It was an unexpected sign of maturity in the lad: he was not as feckless as I had thought him. On the other hand, having to explain myself and get his agreement riled me. I had not wanted, nor asked, to be saddled with an assistant, and I silently cursed Timothy Plummer’s interference in my affairs. I am much happier when working alone.

‘Very well,’ my companion finally conceded. ‘So, why are we searching the house? What are we looking for?’

‘For a start, a beaker and the flask Alcina brought the wine in. I’m not hopeful of finding either, I must admit, and in any case, they’d most likely prove nothing if we did. Both must have been rinsed clean by now: any tell-tale lees of wine are bound to have been removed. So … apart from those two items, nothing in particular, but everything in general. If I’m honest, I don’t really know what we’re looking for. We’re just looking.’

I could tell by Bertram’s expression that he found this an unsatisfactory quest, but he had the natural curiosity that is common to all human beings (men as well as women, however much they may deny it), and poking and prying among other people’s possessions is one of the most intriguing occupations that I know.

By common, if unspoken, consent, we both made for the little room above the inglenook where Martin’s body had been discovered. A keen scrutiny, however, revealed nothing more than we were already aware of; no missing beaker or flask came to light. The tattered cushion sat innocently on the abandoned chair and the cloak that had covered the dead man’s knees was still rolled up under my arm. Someone had removed it from this room; either William Morgan or somebody who had later given it to him. My preference was for the Welshman himself, but whether that made him the murderer I was still uncertain. Martin Threadgold could have been dead when William entered the chamber.

That, of course, begged the question as to why William should have been there in the first place. Had he been sent by someone? And if so, for what reason? Or was he just a casual thief, entering a house he knew to be easy of access at certain times of the day when its two occupants were known to be resting, probably sleeping? Was he in the habit of doing this – of helping himself to money or small objects that he could sell for cash? Mistress Pettigrew had said there was nothing in the house worth stealing, but it was possible that there were things of whose value she was unaware, or just items that would raise a few coins to buy a thirsty man a drink. William Morgan had been in this room some time during the previous day, of that there could be no doubt. His possession of the cloak made it a certainty – if it was indeed the Welshman who had attacked me the preceding night. But was I sure of that? I had been until that moment, but now I was suddenly beset by misgivings.

‘What are you looking at so intently?’ Bertram’s voice broke in on my thoughts and made me start.

‘Looking at?’

‘Yes. You’re staring at those shutters like a man in a trance.’

I became aware that I was indeed standing by the window, my forehead almost pressed against the wooden slats through which the sun was filtering in a desperate attempt to lighten this dark and gloomy little room. On impulse, I threw open both the shutters and the casement, letting in the sweet scent of flowers combined with the stink of the river and the warm, balmy morning air. I put one knee on the window seat and took a deep breath, at the same time scanning the garden below.

It was plain to see that this had not been cultivated for some considerable time, probably years. Weeds ran riot, choking whatever flowers and herbs had originally been planted – all except the roses, which grew in profusion among the long seeding grasses and were slowly reverting to the pale hedge- and dog-roses from which they sprang. Part of the boundary wall had crumbled and the cracked grey stones thrust their way through the smothering ivy like bones through broken skin. A tangle of loosestrife showed purple amongst the green.

The contrast with the St Clairs’ garden could not have been greater. There, all was order and neatness, culminating in the beauty of the willow tree, stooping to look, Narcissus-like, at its own reflection in the river, trailing its branches across the surface of the water. This was the tree that, according to Martin Threadgold, his brother had planted for the wife he had abused; a strangely tender gesture for such a brutish man. But then everyone, I supposed, had some saving grace, some moments when his better nature predominated …

I pulled myself up short. I was growing philosophical, God save the mark! A sure sign of advancing years! I should have to watch out for this deplorable tendency and nip it in the bud. I smiled at Bertram.

‘There’s nothing more to find here. Let’s look at the rest of the house while we have it to ourselves.’

We descended the hidden staircase to the great hall and made our way through the door into the rabbit warren of rooms and passages beyond. But this inspection, alas, yielded little of any value to my pitifully slim store of knowledge. I was no nearer discovering my murderer than I had been three days earlier on first arriving in London. Bertram, of course, wavered between the almost total certainty of its being William Morgan and the conviction that our killer was Alcina Threadgold. Just at present, the former was favourite for immediate arrest. My demands for a motive, for a positive link between the two men, were either ignored or merely served to convince my companion – for the next five minutes at least – that Alcina was the culprit.

‘Perhaps they’re both in it together,’ he suggested with a sudden burst of inspiration.

I couldn’t deny that the lady had had a strong motive for disposing of Fulk Quantrell, and therefore, eventually, might also have had one for getting rid of her uncle, depending on what he knew. But I felt that she and the Welshman were unlikely allies; and for some reason that I couldn’t quite explain, even to myself, I was reluctant to view Alcina as a suspect. Why this should be so, I had no idea, but I had an uneasy suspicion that I ought to know. In the end, I concluded that there must be something lodged in the deepest recesses of my memory, like a fishbone in the gullet, worrying and scratching at me; but for the moment I was unable to draw it out. It was a sensation I had often experienced in the past, but over the years I had learned to let these things go. My memory would regurgitate whatever it was in its own good time. For now, I would do well to follow my instinct to move slowly and cautiously towards the solution of this case.

I kept my promise to Mistress Pettigrew and left Martin Threadgold’s body undisturbed, but this didn’t prevent me from taking a good look around his bedchamber. (Promises, after all, depend on how you word them.) At first, I thought I was wasting my time; the room offered practically nothing in the way of furnishings, and what there were were either shabby and broken or torn. Moreover, Bertram was unhappy at his proximity to the corpse and anxious to get out of the room as quickly as possible. The sickly-sweet smell of corruption and decaying flesh, and the angry buzzing of several predatory flies were starting to make both of us feel ill. The bile was rising in my throat.

‘There’s nothing to be found here or anywhere else in the house,’ I grunted, wondering why on earth I had ever thought there might be.

But leave no stone unturned has ever been my motto, particularly when it satisfies the nosy streak that my mother and, subsequently, scores of other people have accused me of possessing. And I have always prided myself on my strong stomach, which rarely turns queasy at the sights and smells other people find so distressing. So I was disgusted to feel a wave of dizziness and nausea as I followed Bertram to the door, and steadied myself by leaning heavily against the wall to the right of the bed head. To my horror, I seemed to become enveloped in the tapestries, which only released me from their dusty, tattered tentacles as I pitched through the wall into an empty space beyond.

Winded and more than a little shaken, I lay still for perhaps half a minute, then struggled painfully to my feet. In Stygian darkness, I cautiously felt all round me and judged I was in a chamber hardly bigger than an oubliette. The walls were rough stone and mortar except for a single wooden panel, presumably the entrance that had opened to let me in. I was forced to stoop to avoid hitting my head against the ceiling, but there were no other obstacles. The room – if one could dignify it by that name – was empty.

‘Chapman, where are you?’ I could hear Bertram’s anxious voice on the other side of the wall.

For answer, I pushed against the wooden panel, expecting it to revolve as it must previously have done in order to let me in. Nothing happened. I pushed again with greater force, but to no avail. I began to panic, thumping the wood with both fists.

‘Bertram! I’m here, behind the wall. I know it sounds silly, but–’ The panel once more swung inwards and Bertram was standing beside me in the blackness.

‘I’ve seen one of these things before,’ he announced delightedly, pleased to be able to air his superior knowledge. ‘It’s called a fly trap. You can get in, but you can’t get out without the proper key.’

‘But we don’t have the key,’ I pointed out with enormous self-restraint. ‘And now, thanks to your stupidity, we’re both trapped inside and nobody knows where we are. I doubt if the air in here will last more than half an hour.’

‘We’ll have to shout, then.’ Bertram didn’t seem at all perturbed.

‘I very much doubt,’ I retorted with asperity, ‘that we shall be heard. Mistress Pettigrew is most probably in the kitchen, and in addition, I suspect she’s somewhat deaf.’

‘In that case,’ my young friend responded cheerfully, ‘we’ll just have to wait until Mistress St Clair arrives from next door.’

‘We don’t know when she’ll be here. It could be hours yet before she comes.’ My temper was getting shorter by the minute as I felt the sweat begin to trickle down my back. The air was already growing fetid and my heart had started to thump unpleasantly. I drew my knife from my belt and felt up and down both sides of the wooden panel. ‘You say these “fly traps” have keys, therefore they must have locks. In which case, we’ll just have to try picking this one.’ And I made a desperate effort to remember all that Nicholas Fletcher, my fellow novice at Glastonbury, had taught me.

The first rule, of course, was to keep a steady eye and hand, two things in this hell-hole that were well nigh impossible. I couldn’t even see the lock.

‘Calm down, Master Chapman,’ Bertram said with a chuckle. I could have sworn he was smirking. ‘Give me the knife. The locks to these things are always in the middle of the door and have a double mechanism that it’s almost impossible to undo without the key. Unless, of course, you have the knack.’

‘And you do?’

‘I was with my father when he installed one in a house at Holborn some years ago. Now, stand back and give me room.’

He ran his fingers lightly over the surface of the wooden panel, then nodded. ‘Yes, here it is, just where I said it would be; plumb in the centre.’ He took my knife, fiddled for a moment, twisted the blade first this way, then that, then back again, and finally gave a triumphant grunt as the door swung outwards. Seconds later, we were both safely back in Martin Threadgold’s bedchamber.

I wiped the sweat from my face and tried to avoid looking at my companion’s smug expression.

‘What are these so-called “fly traps” used for?’ I asked in a shaken voice.

‘Well, the one whose lock and mechanism we installed at Holborn – we didn’t build the trap itself, you understand. My father’s a serifaber, not a builder – was for use as a safe. The owner of the house intended it as a store for his coin and plate.’

‘But thieves can get in.’

‘But they can’t get out again, can they? Not without the key. Not unless they know the secret of the lock, like me. So if someone does try to rob you, you’ve caught the thief. That’s why they’re called “fly traps”.’

‘But supposing someone falls in accidentally, as I did?’

Bertram shrugged. ‘You were just unlucky. You must have touched the hidden spring. It’s not that easy to do unless you’re trying to find the entrance.’

I glanced involuntarily at the dead man on the bed. Martin Threadgold had told me yesterday that these three dwellings had once been a part of the Savoy Palace: whorehouses, he had thought, standing at a distance from the principal building. But perhaps they had also been used as treasure stores. I wondered if the two neighbouring dwellings had ‘fly traps’ as well.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ I urged. I was more upset by my recent ordeal than I cared to admit.

We made our way back through the shuttered gloom of the house to the great hall, only to discover Mistress Pettigrew in the act of opening the street door to Judith and Godfrey St Clair, who were closely followed not just by Alcina, but also by Paulina Graygoss and Jocelyn. Instinctively, realizing that our presence would be unwelcome, both Bertram and I shrank back into the shadows, but I held the door between the passageway and the hall ajar.

‘William has gone for Father Arnold at St Dunstan’s. They’ll be here directly.’ Judith’s voice carried clearly across the intervening space. ‘You can bring us some wine, Felice, here, in the hall, while we’re waiting.’

The housekeeper muttered something under her breath, but obedience was natural to her, and she turned and shuffled across the hall. I gripped Bertram’s arm, pulling him in the direction of a flight of steps to our right, which I guessed led down into the kitchens – a guess which proved correct. As in the St Clair house, there was also a stone-flagged passage with a door at one end that led into the garden. I ushered Bertram through and we found ourselves in the overgrown wilderness we had seen from the upstairs window.

In its ruined state the garden wall was easy enough to climb, and in a matter of minutes we had both dropped to our knees in the alleyway between Martin Threadgold’s property and the St Clairs’. Brushing my hose clean of grit and dirt, I eyed the opposite wall meditatively.

‘Everyone’s out,’ I said. ‘Now’s our chance to have another look around.’

Bertram shook his head decisively. ‘Not in this livery, Chapman. I daren’t. I can’t afford to be caught trespassing in someone’s house. Especially not someone like Mistress St Clair, who has influence with Duchess Margaret. I’ll go back to the Voyager and wait for you there.’

And no doubt indulge in a beaker or two of Reynold Makepeace’s best ale, I thought grimly, which you’ll instruct him to add to my reckoning. Meanly, I nipped his little scheme in the bud.

‘You’ll stay outside,’ I told him, ‘and if anyone shows any sign of returning, you’ll waylay them.’

Bertram looked sceptical, as well he might. He didn’t even bother to enquire how he was to perform this feat. He knew my real motive for keeping him away from the Voyager as well as I did.

‘Try not to be too long,’ he said caustically. ‘Here, you’d better give me that cloak. You must be tired of dragging it around with you, and it might prove a hindrance.’

Gratefully I surrendered the article in question, scaled the St Clairs’ garden wall, not quite with the ease with which I had climbed its neighbour, and landed this time more heavily and with even less grace. For a moment, I was afraid I had wrenched one of my ankles, but after a few hesitant steps, all seemed to be well.

I had counted on the fact that the garden door would be unlocked, and I was not disappointed. It opened easily into the kitchen passage, and halfway along were the arch and the ‘secret’ stair. Luck was certainly with me this morning, for when I reached the top of the steps leading to Mistress St Clair’s bedchamber, that door, too was unbolted.

I eased myself inside, where my feet gratefully encountered the softness of the embroidered carpet. Today, the two chests standing against the opposite wall, with their carvings of grapes and vine leaves, were properly closed. No belts or sleeves or scarves spilled over the sides. The bed under its dazzling counterpane was neatly made, the Daphnis and Chloe curtains pulled back and carefully wound around the bedposts beneath the canopy. A fresh candle – wax, of course, not tallow – had already been inserted into the candlestick ready for the coming night. This was a household where efficiency was highly prized.

I noticed also, which I had not done on my previous visit, that the walls were hung with the same beautifully crafted embroidered tapestries that I had seen both at the Needlers Lane workshop and in Lydia Jolliffe’s parlour. They covered every inch of the grey stone walls except … except for one wooden panel near the bed head. My heart lurched excitedly. Was it possible that this house also boasted a ‘fly trap’? And was this it?

These three houses were very similar in many respects, both outside and in. And why shouldn’t they be? If they had indeed been a part of the Savoy Palace and built for the selfsame purpose, then it was more than likely that they contained many identical features. I already knew that this one and the late Martin Threadgold’s had a ‘secret’ stair. Why not, then, a ‘fly trap’? But this time I would not be caught. Forewarned was forearmed.

I walked round the bed and surveyed the wooden panel. Bertram had spoken of a hidden spring which I had accidentally triggered when I fell against it; so, now, I extended my arms to their full length and, with my hands, cautiously began pressing the surface.

Nothing happened for what seemed like an age, but was probably no more than ten or twelve seconds. Then I spotted a mark right in the centre of the wooden panel: a tiny circle with a thread-like circumference of silver, almost invisible until the light struck it at just the right angle. Hastily, I took off one of my boots and pressed the circle with the tip of my index finger. Immediately, the panel swung inwards, staying open just long enough, I judged, to allow someone to step inside. Then it began to close again. But this time it remained ajar, unable to move any further, jammed against the tough leather of my boot.