The Burgundian’s Tale

Fifteen

This left very little room for a man of my height and girth to get through, so I tried pushing the door further open, but it refused to budge. I then pressed the unlocking device again, but nothing happened. Obviously, this would only work if the door were closed. Exasperated and uneasily conscious that I was wasting time – time in which Mistress St Clair might return to the house – I removed my boot from the aperture, allowed the panel to swing shut, then took off both boots and, when I had once more unlocked the door, shoved them, side by side, into the vacant space. Now there was enough leeway for me to enter with ease.

This ‘fly trap’ was roughly the same size as the one in Martin Threadgold’s bedchamber, being, I judged, no more than two to two and a half feet square – about as big as a large cupboard. The main difference was that the walls were panelled and a shelf, some five or six inches wide, ran along the back wall. A carved wooden box stood at one end of it and proved to be unlocked when I lifted the lid, but the contents were disappointing. Two gold chains, a necklet and matching bracelet of quite small emeralds set in silver – and, as even I could see, poorly set, at that – a gold-and-agate thumb ring, half a dozen pearl buttons and a jade cross on a silken string. Judith St Clair might be a wealthy woman, but one thing was certain: she didn’t waste her money on the adornment of her person.

Beneath the shelf, on the floor, was a much larger box on which I had stubbed my stockinged toes as I stepped over my boots into the chamber. This, too, was unlocked – and indeed why shouldn’t it have been, stored as it was in the ‘fly trap’? – and held only a man’s rolled hose, tunics, cloaks and bedgowns, all laid up in lavender in the vain hope of discouraging the moths. (Several overweight and overfed little monsters flew at me angrily as I raised the lid.) These, I presumed, were the clothes of either the late Edmund Broderer or Justin Threadgold or perhaps both; the sad remains of Judith’s first two marriages.

There was nothing else except for an oddly shaped key hanging from a hook driven into the front of the shelf. I guessed that this must be the key which opened the ‘fly trap’ from inside, but I was not about to close the door in order to confirm this theory. I preferred to step back outside and pick up my boots, whereupon the panel completed its interrupted journey and closed with a quiet, but menacing thud.

I gave a hasty glance around the rest of the room, but nothing appeared to have been added or removed since my last visit; so, uneasily aware that time was passing, I slipped on my boots, opened the door once more and began to descend the ‘secret stair’. I was about halfway down when someone below called, ‘Who’s there?’

I jumped and almost lost my footing, but my panic was momentary. I had recognized the voice as that of Betsy, the bigger of the two kitchen maids. Like a fool, I had forgotten the presence of the girls in the house, but I consoled myself with the thought that at least I would be able to allay their suspicions more easily than those of Paulina Graygoss or William Morgan. I took the remaining steps in a single leap (trying to show off and giving my spine a nasty jar in the process) and treated Betsy to my most charming smile.

It didn’t work. ‘What were you doing in the mistress’s bedchamber?’ she asked suspiciously. ‘Does Mistress St Clair know that you’re poking about among her things?’

‘Er – no. And I’m hoping you won’t tell her.’ I tried again with the smile and this time was slightly more successful.

‘Are you still looking for clues about Master Fulk’s murder?’

‘Yes.’ Nothing but the truth could explain my presence in Judith St Clair’s chamber.

‘You don’t suspect the mistress, do you?’

As questions went, that was a difficult one. I gave her my stock answer. ‘I suspect everyone.’

‘Even me and Nell?’

‘Well …’

‘Oh, we wouldn’t mind if you did. It might be quite exciting.’

I had never considered that being a suspect in a murder enquiry was anything but nerve-wracking and something to be avoided at all costs. I laughed.

‘I must go,’ I said. ‘I came in over the garden wall and through the back door, but do you think you could let me out at the front? – provided the coast is clear, that is.’

‘I’ll look out first and make certain,’ she offered. (The smile must have worked even better than I’d hoped.)

Nell suddenly appeared from the kitchen and Betsy briefly explained my presence to her. With the morals of her kind, Nell seemed to find nothing reprehensible about my rummaging among Mistress St Clair’s belongings, and I guessed that she had often done it herself when Judith was absent. It was one of the ways servants took revenge on their masters and mistresses for their long hours, poor wages and being constantly at everyone’s beck and call.

Betsy led our little procession up the main staircase, towards the great hall. I followed. Nell brought up the rear.

‘Do you really find out what’s happened to people who’ve disappeared or got themselves killed?’ the latter asked.

‘Sometimes.’ I decided I was being far too modest, so added firmly, ‘More often than not.’

We had traversed another corridor and ascended a second, much shorter flight of stairs before she spoke again. As we at last entered the great hall and Betsy padded over to the street door, Nell said, almost offhandedly, ‘P’raps you could find out what happened to my young brother then, when you’ve discovered who killed Master Quantrell.’

‘Your brother?’

‘Yes. He was called Roger, too. Used to work here, helping William Morgan in the garden; but about two years since, he just up and left. Vanished. Haven’t seen him since.’

Memory stirred. I recalled Gordon St Clair mentioning the brother of one of the kitchen maids and seeming peeved that the lad no longer reported for work.

‘How old was he?’ I asked, and was told that Nell thought he might have been about ten when he disappeared. So he would be twelve or thereabouts now.

‘Maybe he just ran away,’ I suggested. ‘Boys of that age do. They get all kinds of nonsensical notions into their heads. They think it could be fun to go for a soldier or stow away on a ship. It isn’t, of course. Quite the opposite. But they don’t know that until it’s too late.’

‘I don’t think Roger was that sort,’ Nell demurred. ‘He liked gardening. He liked planting things and digging in the earth.’ She shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘I daresay he’ll turn up again one day, like a bad penny.’

Betsy, who had been reconnoitring outside the street door, now turned and hissed at me, ‘There’s no sign of the master or mistress. They must still be next door. But I can see your friend. He’s over on the other side of the road, buying a pie. Two pies,’ she amended hungrily.

‘That sounds like Bertram.’ I slipped my arm about her waist and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek by way of thanks.

‘What about me, then?’ Nell demanded, coming alongside and proffering her lips.

I kissed the tip of her nose instead. I didn’t believe in favouritism. Then I made my way across the Strand to Bertram’s side and nipped one of the pies – fish, unfortunately: it was Friday – from his hand before he realized I was there. He protested, but faintly, too relieved to see me to make much fuss. And indeed, I was only just in time. As we stared across to the Threadgold house, Alcina, Judith and Godfrey St Clair emerged, followed by Jocelyn, the priest from St Dunstan’s, Paulina Graygoss and William Morgan. I was amused to note that while I had been next door, they had also been joined by all three Jolliffes, who were having no compunction in adding their mite to the general discussion being carried on amongst the group. Only the housekeeper and the Welshman took no part.

Bertram and I were too far away to hear what was being said, but I could tell by Judith St Clair’s stiff-necked attitude that she considered her neighbours’ intrusion into her affairs unwelcome. I touched Bertram on the arm.

‘Let’s go back to the Voyager. It must be gone ten o’clock. This pie’s rotten. The fish is all bones and no flesh.’ I spat out the contents of my mouth on to the road. ‘I fancy one of Reynold’s good dinners.’

My companion flung an arm around my shoulder and, without saying a word, urged me forward.

We chose fish pies again, but these were vastly different affairs from those Bertram had purchased from the pieman in the Strand. A thick suet crust enclosed succulent pieces of eel, and the sauce oozed out all over the plate when they were cut – sauce which we mopped up later with chunks of good wheaten bread. Bertram, stuffing himself while he was able, to augment the meagre fare of Baynard’s Castle, had a second helping.

While we ate, we assessed what we knew about the murder of Fulk Quantrell. And it wasn’t much. In spite of my conviction that I had twice been attacked by William Morgan, I couldn’t prove it. The cloak, which I had assumed to be his, had proved a false lead, belonging as it did to Martin Threadgold and having last been seen in his possesion by Felice Pettigrew. I was sure enough in my own mind that William had stolen it for his own use when he entered the Threadgold house and found Martin either asleep or dead. That, of course, raised the question: had he killed Martin? And if so, was he also the murderer of Fulk?

‘Well, I’d say “yes” on both counts,’ Bertram said thickly, raising his plate to his mouth and drinking the remaining sauce, afterwards licking his lips clean. He had evidently abandoned Alcina as the possible killer of her uncle.

‘Why?’ I asked, leaning forward and speaking quietly. We were in a secluded corner of the ale room and there was a good deal of noise and clatter going on all around; but some people have very acute hearing, and I had no wish to make them free of our conversation.

‘Why what?’ Bertram swigged his ale.

I sighed. ‘I’ve asked you this before. Why would William Morgan want to murder either Fulk Quantrell or Martin Threadgold? What grudge, what reward, links him to either man?’

Bertram squirmed a bit on his stool, but eventually announced defiantly, ‘He didn’t like them. They’d annoyed or injured him in some way, at some time or another.’

I considered this proposition, but found it dubious.

‘You might kill one person for such a reason,’ I agreed reluctantly, ‘but not two.’

Bertram remained defiant. ‘They say it’s easier to do murder a second time, once you’ve committed the first.’

‘Maybe …’ Then I shook my head. ‘I’m not saying William Morgan’s innocent, but I’d want a better reason than sheer vindictiveness for him to be the guilty party.’ I saw Bertram open his mouth to argue, but waved him to silence. ‘Don’t bother asking me why. It’s just a feeling, but I’ve learned to trust my instincts. So! What else do we know?’

‘We know Alcina took Martin the wine which was … which we believe to have been drugged.’

I smiled faintly. ‘You’re learning, lad. And we also know that some hours before Fulk was murdered, he had told Alcina bluntly that he had no intention of marrying her. He claimed to have a sweetheart in Burgundy. She was very upset and left the embroidery workshop in pursuit of him. She said she visited her uncle, a story Martin Threadgold confirmed. But …’

‘But he’s dead, as well,’ Bertram finished slowly. ‘Now there’s a thought, chapman. Suppose Alcina’s story wasn’t true, and her uncle had threatened to expose it for a lie. Perhaps he was blackmailing her. Wouldn’t that have been a motive for her to kill him?’

‘Perhaps. But we must not let ourselves get carried away. Everything we’ve said so far is supposition. Maybe we’re wrong and Martin wasn’t drugged and murdered. We must concentrate our attention on Fulk.’

Bertram grimaced and finished his ale. ‘That’s opening the floodgates to a whole torrent of suspects: Jocelyn and Godfrey St Clair, all three of the Jolliffes, as well as Alcina herself.’

I nodded glumly. ‘You’ve forgotten to mention Lionel Broderer and his mother. Not that I think Martha Broderer a likely suspect, but she might have killed on her son’s behalf if she considered that Fulk was robbing Lionel of his just deserts.’

My companion chewed his bottom lip. ‘What else do we know?’

‘Fact or hearsay?’

‘Both, I suppose. After all, if we rule out hearsay, there’s not a lot left.’

I laughed and patted Bertram on the back. ‘Timothy Plummer will live to be proud of you yet. Cynicism is of far greater value to an investigator than wide-eyed enthusiasm.’

Bertram looked pleased at this unexpected praise, and was about to say something when he paused, frowning, staring at a group of newcomers who had just entered the inn.

‘Now what’s he doing here? I didn’t think the Voyager was one of his haunts. I thought he frequented the Bull, in Fish Street.’

‘Who are you talking about?’ I enquired, following his gaze.

‘Brandon Jolliffe.’

A man was outlined against the bright sunshine blazing in through the open ale-room doorway, but with his back to the light, it was difficult to make out his features. He was certainly short and stocky. Then, suddenly, having spotted us, he changed direction and came towards us.

‘It’s not Brandon,’ I said. ‘It’s Lionel Broderer.’

As the man approached and his face could be seen more clearly, it became obvious that he was a good deal older than Master Jolliffe.

Bertram smiled, a little sheepishly. ‘They look similar at a distance,’ he excused himself.

I had to admit that they did, at the same time experiencing an uneasy stirring at the back of my mind, as though some fact that I couldn’t quite pin down was nudging me towards a connection that I was unable to make. I made a desperate effort, but it was already too late. Lionel had drawn up a stool to our table and was greeting me like a long-lost friend.

‘Roger! We meet again. Do you have any idea of what’s happening in the Strand? If I know Judith, she’s taken charge. All the same, if you should happen to see Alcina, would you tell her that I was asking about her? I should be only too happy to render her any assistance in my power.’

‘We’ve already visited the Threadgold house this morning.’ I smiled sympathetically. ‘And you’ve guessed aright, I’m afraid. Mistress St Clair has everything under control. I doubt there’s anything left for you to do by this time.’

He looked so downcast that I whistled to a passing pot boy and ordered him a mazer of ale. He could buy his own fish pie: my generosity didn’t extend that far.

‘Strange, Martin going like that,’ he remarked, after he had thanked me. ‘He was only saying to me the other day that he felt better in health than he had done for a long time. He suffered from attacks of breathlessness, you know, but thought they had lessened since that stretch of the Thames had been cleared of some of the muck and sediment on the river bed. Farringdon Without has always been one of the more public spirited and progressive wards.’

The pot boy brought Lionel’s ale, which he downed almost in one gulp, letting out a great ‘Ahhh!’ of satisfaction and wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

‘You were thirsty.’

He nodded. ‘The workshop gets very hot this time of day.’

‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘do you recollect a young boy who used to work in Mistress St Clair’s garden?’ Even as I spoke, I wondered why I always referred to the house and garden as Judith’s and never Godfrey’s. Perhaps because it was her house, where she had lived ever since her marriage to Edmund Broderer. As Lionel looked puzzled, I went on, ‘He’d have been about ten or so at the time. Nell’s younger brother.’

‘Nell?’ His frown deepened.

‘One of the kitchen maids.’

‘Oh! Yes, I think I know who you mean: the little, thin one. That’s right.’ He broke off to shout for another mazer of ale before returning to his ruminations. ‘Yes, I’d forgotten all about him. So he was Nell’s brother, was he? I don’t think I ever knew that. Nothing like her to look at. Square-set little fellow. Why do you ask?’

‘Nell mentioned to me today that he’d disappeared. Vanished a couple of years ago without telling anyone where he was going.’

‘Probably stowed away on one of the ships berthed along the wharves. Boys of that age want adventure.’

‘That’s what I said. But Nell seemed to think he wasn’t that sort. Liked gardening. Not the adventurous kind, according to her.’

Lionel swallowed his second cup of ale with as much gusto as the first, then stared thoughtfully into the empty pot. ‘Is this important?’

I pursed my lips. ‘I don’t know,’ I answered frankly. ‘Probably not. On the other hand, it might be. The truth is, any facts are better than no facts, and at the moment, I don’t feel I’m any closer to solving the Burgundian’s murder than I was three days ago.’

‘I tell you what,’ Lionel said, ‘come back with me to the workshop. My mother’s there today, helping out, as two of the girls are sick with the bellyache. She knows a great deal more about Judith and her household than I do. She gets all the gossip from Paulina Graygoss. You couldn’t exactly call them friends, but Mother has a knack of wheedling information out of people.’

‘Thank you. I’ll do that if you think Mistress Broderer won’t mind.’

Lionel roared with laughter. ‘Mind! She’ll welcome you with open arms. Apart from the fact that she’s fond of a good-looking young man, she’ll be delighted with any excuse to rest her eyes a while. She finds some of the close work more trying than she cares to let on.’

I glanced at Bertram. ‘Do you want to come?’

But I wasn’t surprised when he refused, giving as his reason that he ought to get back to Baynard’s Castle and report to Timothy Plummer. Time spent in the company of someone old enough to be Lionel Broderer’s mother lacked excitement. So I said goodbye to him, finished my ale and followed Lionel across the street to Needlers Lane.

Martha Broderer was as pleased to see me as her son had predicted, rising from her stool to embrace me warmly before planting a smacking kiss full on my lips.

‘This is a pleasant surprise,’ she said with a smile. ‘I was only saying to Lal yesterday that I wished you would pay me a visit.’

‘For any particular reason?’ I asked.

She punched me playfully, and rather harder than I cared for, in the ribs. ‘Are you fishing for compliments, my lad? If so, you won’t get them from me.’ But she winked broadly, nonetheless.

I blushed and denied the accusation, conscious of the giggling girls behind me. I had imagined – I don’t know why – that Dame Broderer would be helping at the table where the purses and belts were decorated; but it became obvious that she was assisting, if not actually directing, two other women who were embroidering a magnificent cope.

‘For the Bishop of Bath and Wells,’ she told me, noticing my interest. And indeed I might have guessed, had I thought about it, by the border of white saltire crosses worked on a blue background: the cross of Saint Andrew. She eyed me curiously. ‘Do you know Robert Stillington?’

I laughed. ‘I’ve seen him, of course – I come from that part of the country – but only at a respectful distance. Do I look the sort of man who would be on speaking terms with a bishop?’

‘False modesty doesn’t become you.’ Martha Broderer rapped me sharply across the knuckles with her spectacles (I had seen her whip them off her nose the moment I came in). ‘You don’t look the sort of man who’s on speaking terms with a royal duke, but you are.’ She went on, ‘A strange man, the Bishop. I always think there’s something a little shifty about him.’

‘He was very friendly with the late George of Clarence,’ I offered in support of her statement. ‘I’ve always been convinced that there was some intrigue between them. Stillington was arrested round about the same time as the Duke, but later released.’

I watched idly as the other two women laid strand after strand of sapphire-blue silken thread side by side on the linen, then stitched them together to form a solid block of colour.

‘That’s called couching,’ Dame Broderer explained. ‘Now, isn’t it time you told me why Lal’s brought you to visit me? I’m sure there’s a reason, and it isn’t for the sake of my beautiful eyes.’

‘I should just think not,’ her son said jovially. On entering the workshop, Lionel had gone to have a word with the two men, Jeb Smith and Will Tuckett, who were setting up mesh on the wooden frames, preparatory, I guessed, to beginning a new wall hanging. But now he strolled across to join us. ‘He wants to pick your memory, Mother. Do you remember the young boy who used to work in the garden for Cousin Judith?’

Surprisingly, Martha Broderer nodded. ‘Yes. He was called Roger, the same as our friend here, and he was always referred to as Nell’s brother although they had different fathers. Their mother, if I recollect correctly, was called Eleanor Jessop. A pretty girl, widow of a Thames boatman. Judith took her on to be her tiring woman. She died – Eleanor, that is – when Roger was born, and Judith had the boy raised to work in the household. When he was old enough, he started helping William Morgan in the garden and around the house.’

‘You don’t happen to know what became of him?’ I asked, continuing to watch, fascinated now, as one of the women eased herself beneath the sewing frame and began stitching the blue threads from the cope’s other side.

‘Undercouching,’ Dame Broderer informed me briefly before answering my question. ‘He disappeared about two years ago. Just vanished overnight. No one knew why and nobody seemed to care. Certainly Judith made no move to find him.’

‘Who was his father – do you have any idea?’

There was a short but quite audible silence. I was still watching the embroidress, but after a second or two, I turned my head to look enquiringly at Martha Broderer.

She gave me a limpid smile, but her eyes just failed to meet mine.

‘Who can say? The boy might have been anyone’s. Does it matter?’

I didn’t answer directly. ‘Your son remembers this young Roger as a heftier child than Nell. Is that your recollection, too?’

Again, there was a certain hesitation. Martha Broderer gave a little laugh. ‘Almost everyone is heftier than Nell,’ she prevaricated.

‘Roger was a solid lad, Mother,’ Lionel protested. ‘You know he was. Now I come to think of it, he reminded me very much of what I was like as a child.’

Dame Broderer made no comment, but replaced her spectacles on the bridge of her nose and turned her attention back to the Bishop’s cope. She took a huge medallion of azure velvet from a neighbouring table and placed it carefully in the centre of the garment.

‘We’ll embroider this with cloth of gold and silver thread,’ she decided. ‘It will be the centre-piece when His Grace turns his back to the congregation.’

The woman who had been undercouching heaved herself up from beneath the frame and gave it as her opinion that a smaller medallion of white velvet, sewn into the centre of the blue and embroidered, in its turn, with golden thread, would be even more eye-catching. Martha Broderer said tartly that she thought it might be overdoing things, but then, on reflection, and given the vanity of the Bishop, perhaps not.

The third woman, who had so far said nothing, suddenly addressed me. ‘You were asking about the boy who used to work in Judith St Clair’s garden. Nell Jessop’s half-brother.’ I nodded. ‘Well, you know, I thought I saw him the other day when I was going to visit my sister, in Holborn. I was walking up Faitour Lane. I can’t be certain, but it looked like him, only a little older.’

‘Faitour Lane?’ Dame Broderer asked sharply. ‘What would he be doing there?’

The woman flushed uncomfortably, glancing askance at Lionel and me. ‘He … He was coming out of one of the whorehouses,’ she said.