A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery

by P. F. Chisholm

  “Heneage?”

  Briscoe shook his head “Topcliffe.”

  “And?”

  “And so I told ‘im where the game would be and that we was waiting for Sir Robert to come back and…I told ‘im.”

  “Topcliffe still got yer mort?”

  Briscoe nodded, then hid his face in his hands. “I signalled when I saw the Sergeant,” he whispered, his voice muffled.

  Pickering shook his head. “Tim,” he said in a low voice, “Why didn’t yer come and tell me?”

  “’e said ‘e’d know if I did and ‘e’d kill ‘er right away.”

  Bang went the battering ram again. You had to admire the way the doors were standing up to it, thought Dodd. Surely Heneage would try gunpowder next?

  Pickering nodded once. “I’m ‘urt Tim,” he said thoughtfully, “I’m ‘urt you didn’t find a way to tell me what was going on,”

  “I know, Mr. Pickering, I’m ever so sorry, I couldn’t fink ‘ow to do it.”

  “Well, the damage is done now. What do you fink I should do about you?”

  Briscoe studied the ground, and sniffled. He muttered something Dodd couldn’t make out.

  Pickering smiled. “’Course I’m going to kill you, Tim, but what should happen first?” He put his hand up on Briscoe’s burly shoulder. “’Ave a fink about it, tell me later. Meanwhile, see Sergeant Dodd here?” Briscoe nodded. “’e needs a man at ‘is back if ‘e’s to get away and do somfink about yer mort and yer kinchin. Will yer do that? Wivvout tipping ‘im no lays?”

  Briscoe nodded convulsively and looked up at Dodd who was now halfway up the stairs.

  “Come on,” Dodd grunted, and Briscoe followed him up to the room where the girls were just staggering down the steps carrying large bags of money, but still leaving some scattered about the tables. Dodd approved of that—the money would slow the searchers down considerably. The girl called Mary stood waiting by the trapdoor and a couple of the younger ones were bunched around her, looking angry and frightened.

  “You’re slow,” she snapped. “I’ve got to lock it. Hurry up, we ain’t got all night.”

  She looked somehow familiar but Dodd couldn’t think where he might have seen her before. He went down the steps, followed by Briscoe, a long way down, to a passage that was dripping and evil-smelling but quite wide and well-flagged. It looked to have been built a long time ago. The trapdoor shut and locked behind them and there was a scraping sound of furniture going over it.

  “Wait,” said Briscoe, and paused by a grating. Dodd stood next to him and peered through the bars.

  They were at foot-level. Like giants the men with the battering ram ran past them, hit the door…And went straight through, landing with shouts and crashing on the other side of it. Stepping over their legs, delicately, came Laurence Pickering, the King of London.

  “Good evening, your honour,” he said to the Vice Chamberlain of the Queen’s Court with a perky bow. “How may I serve Her Majesty?”

  Heneage brandished a paper at Pickering. “I have here a warrant to search for ill-doers and malefactors engaged in unGodly gambling and whoring within the bounds of the City of London and I have here one warrant for the arrest of one James Enys for assisting in the escape of a prisoner of Her Majesty and a further warrant for the arrest of Henry Dodd for high treason.”

  The pursuivants were already in the building, thundering and crashing around, Palavicino and the girls carrying the coin were somewhere ahead of them but Dodd couldn’t tear himself away. From the odd angle, he could just make out Enys who was now standing very still between the two bullyboys who had hold of him, his face as white as his falling band. From the way he was part-hunched over, Dodd assumed somebody had kneed him or punched him in the gut.

  Soon the men in buff coats started bringing out the girls who had been left behind and there was a gull-like clamour of furious argument, insult, and insinuation from them.

  Heneage gave a smile of triumph. “You are James Enys, member of Gray’s Inn, Utter Barrister?” said Heneage to Enys who hesitated for a moment and then nodded convulsively. Heneage struck him across the face as he had once struck Dodd: an experiment, to see what reaction he would get.

  “Answer me properly,” he said.

  “Yes, I am now,” said Enys softly, his eyelids fluttering. “God help me.”

  Heneage slapped him again. “You say, Yes I am, your honour,” he corrected with a spiteful smile. Enys looked him gravely in the face and managed a lopsided smile in return.

  “Your honour is of course, most wise and just,” he said in his court-voice. “I am most grateful for your honour’s elucidation in this matter.”

  Heneage’s lips thinned and he raised his hand again. However for no good reason, he seemed to think better of it.

  Dodd found his hand gripped so hard on his swordhilt, it hurt. He forced himself to relax and take his hand away. No point drawing a sword in a little tunnel, there was no room to wield it. He thought he had most of the whole mess worked out now, but not all of it, and he stared at Heneage as if the simple pressure of his gaze could damage the bastard.

  “Your honour,” came Enys’s low voice. “Who was it saw me…”

  “The boatman you hired. Did you think I wouldn’t find him?”

  Enys nodded, looking at the ground. The print of Heneage’s hand was bright red against the pockmarks.

  At last Heneage turned away from Enys to shout at the pursuivants who were crashing and ripping through Pickering’s gambling room to bring any money to him. The girls were being loaded into one of the boats, still arguing and cursing and complaining that the Bridewell was becoming a pesthouse.

  “Well, Mr. Heneage, ain’t you going to arrest me too?” asked Pickering conversationally.

  A muscle twitched in Heneage’s cheek. “Later,” he said. Pickering chuckled quietly.

  “Queen’s Warrant still in force then?” he said. Heneage said nothing.

  That was interesting but Dodd heard another loud banging and crashing above. They had better get on. He hurried along the passage and then paused at a side turning.

  “Whit is this place?”

  “Smuggler’s passage,” said Briscoe, “to get the wine in and out of the bonded warehouse.”

  “Ay then, there’ll be a door ontae the river to get to the Pool.”

  Dodd scratched with his dagger on the corner and then went down it. The passage tilted downwards and came to a grill that seemed to be locked. There had to be a mechanism or a lever or…

  Briscoe had leaned down and pulled and the grill came up. They ducked under it and he let it go down again. A wooden door that was part rotten from the damp was a little further on. When they peered around the door, they found watersteps washed by the river.

  As always the Thames was busy in the twilight. Dodd put his fingers between his teeth and whistled sharply. A boatman paused, changed direction, and came up to the steps. “Where to, masters?”

  “Pool o’ London, the Judith of Penryn.”

  “No chance, mate, I’m not shooting the bridge now. I’ll take you to the bridge and you can walk.”

  Dodd shrugged and stepped into the boat, followed by Briscoe, who sat down in the back.. no, the stern…his face working.

  “Never seen no one take a boat at them steps before,” said the boatman. “What are they from?”

  “Ah, a private house. Of a merchant,” lied Dodd, even though Pickering would probably never use the place again and the Tunnage and Poundage men would have lost a useful source of income.

  “Hm. Shows you never can tell. I thought I knew every set of watersteps on the river. I was telling my lord of Southampton just the other night that…”

  Dodd was thinking as hard as he could. If Heneage truly did have a warrant against him for treason, then the only possible sensible place to hide was the Judith. And he hoped that the man who called himself Vent would be there as well. But now he had the time to think, he realised that there was someone el
se he urgently needed to talk to first. He tapped the boatman on the shoulder as he prosed on and on about the Earl of Essex who seemed to be a very fine fellow and said, “Ah’ve changed ma mind, I wantae go to the Blackfriars.”

  The boatman tutted and rolled his eyes. “Well that’s double, with the tide as it is. Are you sure?”

  “Ay,” said Dodd. He was too. He glanced at Briscoe in the back…stern of the boat but the man was too hangdog and miserable to say anything about the change of plan. He had better not try any signalling. Still Dodd was annoyed with himself about that: he had noticed the man was hollow-eyed but he had done nothing about it.

  On impulse he leaned over and touched the man’s shoulder. “Mr. Briscoe,” he said, “Ah need tae find a man by the name o’ Will Shakespeare and Ah cannae spare much time for it. He could be at Somerset House, he could be at the Earl o’ Southampton’s place, or he could be…”

  He didn’t want to risk Somerset House just yet, if ever, and the Earl of Southampton had gone to the court according to Carey. That left two places.

  Ordering the boatman to wait, Dodd ran up the steps and down an alley. The Mermaid Inn was half-empty, the landlord looking as if he was staring ruin in the face now Marlowe was drinking somewhere else. A greasy damp smell of fire came from the half-burned kitchen at the back. Only Anthony Munday sat alone by the bar, scribbling into a notebook and looking very dapper in a pale grey woollen doublet and hose.

  “Nobody’s here,” said Munday dolefully. “Have you seen Marlowe? He owes me ten shillings.”

  “Ay?” said Dodd, “I dinna ken where he is the day. Have ye seen Shakespeare?”

  “No,” said Munday viciously. “With a bit of luck he’s got plague and died of it.”

  “Ay,” said Dodd, having almost forgotten about the plague that was running round the city still.

  One place left to try, but Dodd decided to swing through the Temple and quietly check on one of his ideas for solving the mess in front of him. He found Essex’s court and climbed the stairs to Enys’s chamber where he had locked the door as he left. Dodd hammered on the door.

  “Mrs. Morgan,” he roared, “are ye there?” Silence. No sound of fire, no sound of breathing, nothing.

  Dodd pulled out his dagger, levered the hinges of the new door with it, and then used one of the bits of the old door to prise into the crack and break the door open. He’d pay for it after, if it came to that, but above all he needed information. The room was dim in the dusk now, so he used the tongs to pick a coal out of the fireplace and lit a tallow dip with it. The smoke was choking, but it gave just enough light.

  The place was completely empty. Dodd went through into the second room where there was a bed and a trundle under it, which bore no signs of having been slept in for some time. Somebody had put back the remains of the mattress and there was the clear print of one body in it. The jordan was emptied, most of the mess of the pursuivants search had been swept away. In no place was there any sign of Mrs. Morgan, Enys’ unfortunately pock-marked sister.

  “Ay,” said Dodd, putting the tallow dip in its sconce on the mantleshelf. He was fully satisfied he had it right. There were not three siblings, there were two. And if one brother was now calling himself Vent and hiding out on the Judith of Penryn in the Pool of London then that left…

  “What are you doing here?” It was Shakespeare’s voice, nasal flattened vowels and doleful tone again.

  Dodd drew his dagger, strode across the floor, grabbed Shakespeare by the front of his doublet and slammed him against the cracked wood panelling with the dagger threatening to split his nose. Shakespeare looked down at it cross-eyed.

  “Ah’m lookin’ for Mrs. Morgan or Mr. Enys, depending,” Dodd growled., “Ah’m also searching for the land-survey that Lady Hunsdon’s maidservant brought up from London and which ye stole, ye bastard.”

  Shakespeare’s eyelids fluttered. “I…I…”

  “Who’d ye give it tae?” Dodd bounced Shakespeare against the wall, “Eh? Mr. Heneage?” Bounce. “Mr. Topcliffe?” Harder bounce.

  Shakespeare was breathless with fright and what he said came out as a hiss. Dodd nearly slit his nose for him before he realised what Shakespeare was trying to tell him.

  “The Cecils?”

  “Sir Robert Cecil, my lord Burghley’s second son, the hunchback.”

  Dodd stopped banging the man against the wall and stared into his bland face. “That who ye serve and spy on the Hunsdons for?”

  Shakespeare flushed and nodded. “I cut young Letty’s purse while you were busy calming the horse,” he explained. “And then I took the survey to Cecil myself because…well, I thought it might interest him even though it said there was no gold. And he said that he needed to keep it secret before the matter could be revealed.”

  “Was he surprised or shocked at it?”

  Shakespeare’s very large brow wrinkled slightly. “No, he wasn’t. In fact he seemed amused to hear that my lady Hunsdon had come up to London specially to put a stop to the dealings in lands she knew to be worthless.”

  “Whit did he say?”

  Shakespeare shrugged. “Only that the horse had bolted and there was nothing she could do.”

  Dodd let go of the man’s doublet front and smoothed it out for him. “Ah’m glad I saw ye,” he said. “Why did ye come here?”

  “I…ah…was hoping to have an answer from Mr…er…Enys,”

  “And whit answer was that? How much ye wanted payin’ to keep quiet about what ye knew?”

  “No,” said Shakespeare warily, “I wasn’t going to ask her for money, only for assistance, advice.”

  Dodd paused, speechless. Her? He had assumed that Mrs. Morgan was Mr. Enys in disguise, not…

  “Her?”

  “You must have realised what I did: she had no adam’s apple, her feet were small, and her doublet had been taken in at the shoulders whilst her hose had been let out.”

  “Ye saw that, did ye?” Dodd was starting to recover a little.

  “Of course. In the theatre we go to a lot of trouble to turn boys into passable girls and women. Once I had noticed one hint, it was easy to put the others together. I think she may have been passing as a man for a while though, she does it very well.”

  “Ay, though she canna fight.” A thought struck Dodd. “That’s whit she wanted me tae teach her swordplay for, she was gonnae have a try at killing ye, Mr. Shakespeare.”

  “Why would she want to do that?”

  “Mebbe she didnae like givin’ ye the assistance ye wanted.” Dodd’s sneer made it clear what kind he thought that probably was. To his surprise and disbelief Shakespeare shook his head vigorously.

  “No, not at all. I wanted her advice.”

  “Ay?”

  “Really and truly! I thought it was marvellous what she had done, quite extraordinary. Here she is, a woman alone in London, whose brother has disappeared mysteriously, and she puts on his clothes and sword, appears in court before a judge, and sets about finding out what happened to him. A mere weak woman to do all that and even show enough learning at the law not to be discovered.”

  Dodd hadn’t thought of that part of it though he had to admit it was clever of her. He was only thoroughly annoyed with himself for not seeing through the game quicker. There had been plenty of clues, after all. Had Carey worked it out, he wondered. Shakespeare was pacing up and down now.

  “I wanted her to advise me on the law and describe her feelings as she went from woman to man and I was hoping to write her story as a play and put it upon the stage at the Blackfriars when the hall is ready for plays. Justicia or The Woman at Law. How could I possibly miss such a chance?”

  Perhaps he had been unfair to the poet. “Ay well, ye’d best be quick for Mr. Heneage has arrested her…him…Enys the lawyer for helping the escape of a prisoner of state. Ah didnae ken fully until I saw that and then I did.”

  “Arrested?” Shakespeare had gone pale.

  “Ay. Heneage raided Pickering’s
game this evening. Ah came here to be sure I was right about Enys and then I’m gaunae roust out Carey’s kin and fetch her and Mrs. Briscoe away from Heneage.”

  Shakespeare’s jaw dropped. “You can’t do that.”

  “Can I no’?” asked Dodd, full of interest. “Watch me.” At the very least they could ransome her before Topcliffe got started on him…her—had they discovered Enys’s sex yet, he wondered. He looked at Shakespeare who seemed genuinely concerned and upset and something inside him said it could do no harm to bring Cecil’s man along. So he took Shakespeare’s elbow and hustled him out of the chambers and down the stairs, down through the Temple to the river where he found Mr. Briscoe still there with the mutinous looking boatman who was lighting his stern lamp.

  “Thank ye,” he said, in a lordly fashion, giving the boatman some more of Carey’s money. “Ah’ll double that if ye’ll take us tae the Pool of London right now.”

  The boatman looked at the pile of silver in his palm and then at Dodd. “All three of you?” he asked and Dodd said “Ay.” Briscoe was looking at the planks, Shakespeare licked his lips. but neither of them disagreed. “Sure? In the dark, with the tide on the ebb?”

  “Ay,” said Dodd.

  The boatman laughed a little, leaned over, and put his hand in the inky waters. “Well the flow’s not too vicious for the bridge, but it’ll be fast.”

  “Good,” said Dodd, wondering why he didn’t get on with it.

  “I’ve never done it at night,” said the boatman with a grin, tossing the coin and catching it on the back of his hand. The Queen’s head shone bright silver from the sixpence in the light from the rising moon. “Well, we’ll see if the old girl likes us or not, eh?” With a little dip of his head, he tossed the coin again and deliberately let it fall into the river. Next minute he had shoved off from the Blackfriar’s steps and rowed the boat round to point down stream at the bridge.

  “You’d best hold on tight,” shouted the boatman. “Hold onto yer ‘ats, gentlemen.”

  It certainly was fast. The boatman rowed out into mid-stream, well away from likely eddies and whirlpools around the sandspits near the bank. You couldn’t tell easily in the darkness, but the faint ruby lights to their left seemed to be speeding past.