Ellery Queen’s Anthology. Volume 38, Fall/Winter 1979

Phyllis Ann Karr Blood Money

A tale of the Seventeenth Century, a tale of death and ruin, of greed and hate, of bloodshed and revenge and — money...

Were I five years younger, dear husband Hal, I would have killed myself for bringing such shame upon your memory. But to-day, let me be content to set all the matter down in this paper, and bury it in the earth above your grave. And pray you, also, be content with this much, for there has been enough of bloodshed.

That your father was a hard man, who should know better than you? Had his lordship your father been willing to lay aside his quarrel with Camden, this six years past come Shrovetide — had he bethought himself that his only son’s life hung in the balance — had he summoned Camden, who was the nearest surgeon — but no, having sworn to ruin Camden’s repute, he must needs send to Saltash for Trevane, for sottish, worse-than-useless Trevane — and that when your pressing need was for physic that same night! And so now we lie apart, with cold earth and sod and stone between us, when you might have been still in my bed.

I pray you, Hal, do not judge me in haste. I have a horror of judgements which cannot be undone. This present disgrace took root when you and I were little more than children, in 1616 when your father sued and won his unjust judgement against Thomas Penhallow, and, when Penhallow would have appealed, the Justice replied to him in the words King James had used to Star Chamber, that “it is better to maintain an unjust judgement, than ever to be questioning after sentence is passed.” So that Penhallow was ruined, losing house and lands and all, and it was rumoured his child starved and his wife left him because of it, too.

Penhallow had reason enough to hate your father, Hal, but he dropped from sight, and for fifteen years his lordship had no thought of him save to gloat now and again over those words of his late Majesty, words which could be turned to such convenient use.

But some while after you were buried, your father went to work on Master Carnsew and Sir Edward, and by wearing them down he was able, last year, to buy out both their shares in the Wheal Nancy mine. And one day going to see his new mine, and standing to look on at the men who were drawn up out of the shaft, he met with one who, on stepping into the light of day, stood gazing back at his lordship. Then your father peered more closely, and saw beneath the grime and ore dust and coating of years, and knew this man to be Thomas Penhallow.

We searched and made enquiry (for after Harkness refused to stop longer in Wilharthen House your father had made of me, though a woman, a sort of secretary; a clever economy it was for him, seeing he need pay me no more than food, gowns, and chamber in Wilharthen, which he must have provided me in any case; nor could I leave him like Harkness, having nowhere to go). But all we learnt from the enquiry was that Penhallow had been three or four years in the Wheal Nancy, working as a tributer, for a share of the ore he brought to surface, and a good man for finding out new lodes; and the mine captain thought he had come from the Great Pelcoath when it filled with water, but how long he had been at Pelcoath, or where he lived before that, the mine captain could not say.

Your father privately fed a hope that now Penhallow had seen his old and powerful enemy, he would leave of his own will; but when the man did not do so, his lordship began to cheat him of his earnings. Your father had learned well enough, Hal, the arts of juggling accounts and corrupting assayers. To my shame, I also helped him cast up his columns of false figures — there are so many little persecutions a man may put upon his daughter-in-law day by day, she living alone under his roof.

But Penhallow did not leave — only his pile of ore grew less, which diminished your father’s profits a little. Then, in the next fortnight there was a cave-in that shut up the new tunnel, and although no men were trapped therein, yet no ore could be got from it for three days while they dug it out again. At the last, his lordship went again to see how he might have more tin out of the miners, when Penhallow’s core, having come up after their morning’s time below, and playing at quoits, a quoit flew astray and narrowly missed your father, who would believe not otherwise but that it had come in malice from Penhallow’s hand.

Whether indeed Thomas Penhallow meant your father some bodily mischief, or your father merely chose to believe it was so, his lordship now made up his mind he must see to the man he had wronged fifteen years ago, before that man saw to him. There was a certain worthless fellow called Ned Curnow working at the Nancy, or rather signed on to draw his month’s pay, for little ore he ever brought to surface. They said that some traces in his speech and bearing shewed him to be a gentleman or gentleman’s son fallen into low estate, and scarcely a day passed but Curnow was in mischief of some sort, and often serious mischief.

The mine captain pointed him out to your father, that same day of the quoit, and remarked he wished to turn this Curnow out of the mine. His lordship questioned the captain more closely, and ended by telling him to have the fellow come round to see him at Wilharthen House.

Curnow did not come round until two mornings after, and being let in by Bosvannion (our new steward, Hal; old Parsons died a fortnight after you), and finding us in the parlour, he bowed, and looked at me as a man looks at a woman, past my thirtieth year as I was, and still in the mourning I have meant never to lay aside. Then, taking an apple from the bowl on the table, he sat in the oaken armchair, which used to be your favourite, and put his feet on the settle.

Three weeks before, this vagabond had been whipt through the streets of Saltash, and stood in the pillory, and cared not who knew it, and yet he bore himself as if Wilharthen were an ale-house, and your father his drinking companion. Only to me, Hal, did Curnow shew respect. I sat on and sewed. Your father had brought me far enough into his confidence that, though he did not tell me in so many words all that was in his heart, he cared little whether I went or whether I remained.

His lordship told Curnow of the enquiries he had made. “It was only by the grace of Sir Edward Chilwidden,” said he, “that you were not banished to the galleys when you would not say the name of your home parish, and it is only the lightest thread holds you from the Stannary Gaol now.”

“Send me up, then,” said Curnow, “to galleys or gaol, whichever you will.”

The rogue had washed his face, I think, before coming up, and perhaps even his hair, which fell long and golden on his shoulders; but his beard was untrimmed and the rags he wore left the dust of the mine on all they touched, and he was like a man who has lost all joy and desire and hope, so that he no longer cares how long he lives or when he dies.

I too, Hal, I had lost all joy, all desire and hope, and there have come lines into my face, and silver hairs amongst the chestnut. I would look very seldom in my glass but that it was your gift to me.

So your father talked for some minutes to Curnow, sounding him, as I have seen him sound the mettle of a mare before buying, or the honesty of a judge before bribing, whilst Curnow sat and ate his apple. The colour of Curnow’s eyes was between green and grey, and he looked at your father as I think he might look at a long deep shaft in the mine.

At length his lordship came to the point, and offered Curnow fifteen pounds for doing away with, for killing Thomas Penhallow.

Curnow put back his head and laughed. “So I am to murder a man,” he said, “and be paid for ’t, too. How if I were to go to the magistrates with this tale?”

His lordship replied that “I have the magistrates in my purse, and the judges, too.”

Curnow threw the core of his apple into the fire. “I misdoubt it,” said he, “if you pay them in proportion as you offer to pay me.”

Then they haggled over the money as if Penhallow had been a pound of fish or a pile of ore, and at last Curnow settled for twenty-five pounds. His lordship gave him ten, and told him to return when he had done it, and to come at night. Curnow bowed to me again in leaving us, and looked once more into my eyes, as a man looks at a woman. I dropt my eyes to my seam. (Your father had money enough, Hal; I could have sewed with good thread, that was not forever knotting and breaking.)

I had no power to stop this thing, Hal, but what great difference was there, after all, between how your father had dealt with Thomas Penhallow fifteen years ago and how he would deal with him now? In any case, whatever we keep hid from outsiders and strangers, it is no life to go about in ignorance and suspicion of those under the same roof with you, those on whom you depend, and I judged it better I should know, than only suspect.

This was why I sat up with your father into the night, to see the play run out to its end. His lordship had sent the steward on some errand to Launceston, and ordered Betty to her room an hour before sunset, to stay there all the night as punishment for some fault he pretended she had made in sweeping her kitchen, all so that we would be alone. And I much thought he meant to settle all likelihood of Curnow ever telling of the crime he had committed.

There had come no word nor even rumour from the mine during the day, and we did not know whether Curnow would return on this night or another — or indeed, I thought, ever. Your father sat and studied over his accounts. You remember how he loved his accounts, Hal; as others love their coin, and more, for there was ever the hope of catching some mistake I had made in casting them up, for which he might take me to task. I nodded over my book, and as the hours passed I rose to pour out a glass of wine from the silver bottle which had been your mother’s pride.

“I would advise you against it, Margery,” said your father grimly.

I smelled the wine. It was hippocras, sleep-heavy with many spices. I brought back the glassful and set it at his elbow, rather than my own. He did not drink. “Why did you not find some means of killing Penhallow by your own hand?” I asked.

“Penhallow would not have trusted himself near enough my hand,” said your father. “Nor would I have trusted myself near his.”

“Perhaps Ned Curnow will not trust himself near your hand again, neither,” said I, measuring my words.

“I took the man’s measure,” said his lordship. “There is fifteen pounds in the balance. He will come.”

I thought that your father had but applied his own scale to Curnow, while that insolent man with neither hope nor desire nor fear in his grey-green eyes had likely taken better measure of his lord-ship. But I did not speak this thought, and so we waited.

Somewhat after midnight a storm broke, and, thinking Curnow would not come, I might have sought my bed; but every moment I delayed would lengthen out into another moment, and yet another, and so I sat on, scarce thinking, with my book open in my lap.

Your father had laid aside even his accounts, and all was still, excepting only the thunder and rain without. A mouse ventured into the middle of the floor. Your father said, “We must find another cat,” and at the sound of his voice the mouse scurried away.

Close on to one, Curnow came, knocking at the door in the pattern they had arranged. His lordship sent me with a rushlight to bring in his hireling. Curnow was wrapped in a ragged sodden cloak, and trailed mud and filth wherever he stepped, yet on seeing me, he gave me a greeting which shewed he had indeed had gentle breeding once.

When we were come again into the parlour, his lordship stood with the silver bottle in one hand already and a fresh glass in the other. “Have you done it?” he asked.

Curnow unwrapped the cloak and tossed it down on the bench. Beneath it he carried in one hand his miner’s pickaxe of iron. The rain had wetted him through, cloak and all, but had not utterly rinsed away the blood and bits of hair from the flat-headed end. Curnow stepped forward to shew it his lordship at closer hand.

His lordship looked closely at the blood, and nodded. “There is your fifteen pounds, safe in the purse,” said he. “But drink you a glass of hippocras before you go, to warm you against the weather.”

“Tom Penhallow told me much about you before he died,” replied Curnow, “and there is one thing which I owe his soul.”

And turning the pickaxe to its sharpened end, he drove it into your father’s skull. The poisoned wine mingled with the blood and streams of filthy water, and the silver bottle took a great dent as it fell and struck the floor.

Curnow let fall his pickaxe with your father’s corpse, and turned to me. He smiled. “Here is enough of murder for the day, my lady,” he said. “But do not follow me, lest you take a chill in the storm.”

I smiled at him then as a woman smiles at a man. “There will no one come until the morning,” I said. “Time enough to take off your clothes and dry them by the fire.”

Hal, your father never did but one good work in the whole of his life, and that was the begetting of you, and that he undid again the night he let you die for his stubborn heart. Yet he was your father, and my father-in-law, and murdered, and he had at least the bowels to leave me better provided for by his death than he had in his life. Let his slayer go out into the night and the storm, and by morning was it likely they could find so much as his trail?

Forgive me, Hal, my husband, but how else could I keep Ned Curnow until the morning, when he could be taken, save in my bed?