Veil of Lies

16

Crispin moved forward as if in a dream. She knew. A moat of anger welled around that thought.

He raised his voice above the angry chatter of the others. “If this man is not your brother, then who is he?”

“I don’t know. But I do know he is not Nicholas!” Lionel trumpeted.

“It’s been years since you’ve seen him. How can you be sure?”

“We know our own brother!” said Clarence.

Crispin angled toward Philippa. Her face collapsed into horrified fear. Tears ran in double streams down both cheeks and flowed to her jaw where they stayed in paralyzed drips, too afraid to drop away. “Philippa,” he said, perhaps more gently than she deserved. “Tell me.”

Gallows fear. That’s what Crispin called the expression she wore. He saw it on many a prisoner’s face before they were led to the gallows, and then as the rope dropped over their heads; that desperate realization that it wasn’t a nightmare, that it was real and happening now.

“I meant no harm,” she whispered. She twisted her red fingers together, and sucked the spilled tears at the edges of her mouth. “I meant no harm.”

“Well, Sheriff. This is certainly a strange set of circumstances—”

“He isn’t the sarding sheriff, you jackass!” cried Clarence.

Lionel scowled at his brother.

“But maybe he will oblige us by calling the sheriff,” said Maude. “There is a great deal that needs explanation.”

Crispin gritted his teeth. There was nothing he could do. This situation had grown far beyond his ability to influence or control, and he wasn’t about to put his own head in a noose for her. Tautly he moved toward the passageway and spotted the steward. “Adam, you will have to send for the sheriff,” he said.

Simon Wynchecombe met them in the parlor and scanned their faces. He frowned darkest when passing his gaze over Crispin. “Couldn’t do what I told you,” his expression seemed to say. But Crispin lost all patience with him. He desperately wanted to get Philippa alone to ask her what was on her mind, but there was no opportunity.

The others sat in a rough half circle while Philippa stood in the center like a trapped animal. She trembled, and Crispin did not know whether he longed more to comfort her or to throttle her.

“Well, Madam,” said the sheriff, his voice rumbling deep in his throat. “You have been living a lie, calling yourself the wife of Nicholas Walcote when in fact the man in question is not Nicholas Walcote. Several questions come to mind: Why did you two perpetrate this deception? Why was he murdered? Where is the real Nicholas Walcote, and is that unfortunate also murdered?”

Philippa stared at the floor.

“Madam? I asked you a question.”

Her voice was unnaturally thin. It seared Crispin’s gut to hear such surrender. “You won’t believe me.”

Wynchecombe smiled. The white teeth under the dark mustache reminded Crispin of the carved gargoyles projecting from the eaves of churches. He is only fulfilling his obligation. But Crispin still wanted to lash out at him. A fist to those teeth would do nicely for a start.

“Speak, Madam,” Wynchecombe urged. “It will go better for you.”

She wiped her face sloppily and swallowed. Her chin trembled when she opened her mouth. “When I was hired to this household five years ago, I thought he was Nicholas Walcote. We all did. What reason had we to think otherwise? Everything seemed normal. I served as a chambermaid, and I did my job well. I was a good girl. Honest and hardworking, and not a soul had a complaint against me. Nicholas took a fancy to me. He’d come across me while I was at me work, accidental at first. Then I realized he sought me out. Two years later he married me. We put up the banns and everything. We were married lawfully!”

“That isn’t quite true,” said Wynchecombe with too much enjoyment for Crispin’s ears. “You see, you married a man under an alias. I am no man of law, but that is surely not a valid marriage.”

She looked from one unsympathetic face to another. “But the priest was there! We made our vows—”

“Under a name that was not his to give. But this matter is for an ecclesiastical court. Go on.”

Philippa took a moment to absorb this news. She ran a dry tongue over her pale lips. “A year ago he returned from traveling. On business, I thought. But something frightened him. He put locks on all the inner doors and instructed the steward to keep them locked. That was when he told me he wasn’t Nicholas Walcote.”

Maude made a shrill sound that startled everyone. Wynchecombe stared at her with irritation. “Who did he say he was?”

“He didn’t.”

“Then where is Nicholas Walcote?”

Her tears flowed again and she hugged herself. “He’s dead. Nicholas said he met the real Master Walcote some years ago while traveling. He said they looked alike but that Walcote was killed.”

“Where?”

“In Rome. He got the idea to pretend to be him. It worked so well that he just assumed his life. He only left the house to travel abroad and so no one questioned it.”

“What did you do once you discovered his secret?”

“What could I do? I knew we was in trouble. I couldn’t say nought to nobody!”

“You knew it was unlawful. Why did you not come to me?” asked the sheriff.

“I didn’t want to think of what would happen—”

“You didn’t want to lose your position, you mean.”

“That’s right!” she screamed, throwing back her head and staring at each tight-lipped Walcote in the circle. “Why should I? I’d given up enough, haven’t I? Peace of mind. Me soul. Which of you would go back to being a servant? I’d a done anything to stay where I was!”

Almost too eager, Wynchecombe asked, “Even murder?”

She plunged her knuckle between her lips in a vain attempt to take back her words. “No, I never killed nobody. I don’t know who killed my Nicholas—”

“Make her stop calling him that!” Maude shouted.

Philippa tossed back her head. A braid unwound from its careful coiffure and dangled at her shoulder. “I don’t know what else to call him.”

“He’s a criminal,” said Lionel. “Call him that.”

“He’s dead.” Crispin spoke from behind them. “At least have mercy on that. And he was murdered.”

“Yes, and she did it!” Clarence stood and pointed an accusing finger at Philippa.

“To what gain?” asked Crispin. “This very inquisition?”

“Ah, you think you’re clever,” said Lionel. “But she did not know that Nicholas had brothers and that we could identify him. She thought to be sole heir.”

Crispin’s sneer vanished. The man was right. Was the secret too much for her to bear? That was a better motive for murder than some fabled Italian syndicate.

Then he remembered. Why didn’t she mention the cloth?

“We are the heirs,” said Lionel. He threw his shoulders back triumphantly.

“At least you said ‘we,’” grumbled Clarence.

Maude stood to rest her hands on her husband’s shoulders. “That is so. Lionel and Clarence are the heirs. She has no rights at all. And I daresay, she wasn’t even lawfully married to the man she lived with for three years.”

“What’s to be done with her?” Clarence asked.

“Throw her out!” roared Maude. “We certainly don’t need that kind of chambermaid in this household. She’d stir up more trouble, I’ll wager.”

“Well, woman,” said Wynchecombe. “You heard your mistress.”

Lionel lurched toward the sheriff, but Wynchecombe’s glare stymied his progress. “You’re not going to arrest her?” he asked. “She stole Nicholas’s money!”

“And surely she killed that man upstairs,” Maude added.

Wynchecombe’s glance slid toward Crispin. Only the corner of his mouth drew up in a smile. “Shall I arrest her?”

“Possibly, my lord.” Crispin rested his hands behind his back, the only way to keep from wrapping them around Wynchecombe’s throat. “But I would wait. There is more here than meets the eye. I make a solemn promise to you, Lord Sheriff, to keep an eye on her and report to you her whereabouts. She can’t go far.”

“Indeed,” the sheriff chuckled. “Very well, Guest. She is your responsibility. If I decide to arrest her and she can’t be found, then I suppose you shall hang in her stead. It looks like everyone wins.” He clapped his hand on his sword hilt. “I will, of course, require a surety to allow her into your custody.”

She shook her head at Crispin. He knew it would be a rich sum. He also knew she recently paid him with a full pouch and probably had nothing left on her person.

With reluctance, Crispin reached into his purse and pulled out the coin pouch. Easily gotten, easily gone. “Will this be sufficient?”

The sheriff took it and measured it in his palm. He smiled. “Why Crispin. You are full of surprises today.” The sheriff’s smile took in everyone before he pocketed the money pouch, turned, and swept out of the room.

Once the sheriff left, the Walcotes moved collectively to one side of the room opposite Philippa; an army taking its defensive position.

“I think it time the wench leaves,” said Maude.

“I will help her collect her baggage,” said Crispin, but Lionel harrumphed himself forward and waved his hand in the air.

“No, no, no. None of it belongs to her, after all, now does it?”

“I suppose you’d like me to go off naked!”

Both Lionel and Clarence raised their brows but Maude slapped her husband’s shoulder and offered an insincere smile. “She may take what she is wearing and return it when she can.”

“Very charitable,” muttered Crispin. Philippa looked up at him defiantly, and he motioned for her to go. “Masters, mistress,” he said in parting. “I trust you do not mind seeing me again. I am still investigating a murder.”

“So you say,” said Maude, staring meaningfully at Philippa. “But it seems to me that you put yourself to far more trouble than necessary.”