The Silent Murder (Master of Defence Book 4)

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘She’s not dead of the Plague, man!’ snapped a second new voice. ‘We don’t want no strangers poking around in this!’

  Tom rounded on them. ‘We want someone to poke around on it, Master Danforth,’ he snapped. ‘For ‘tis murder – murder sure enough.’

  No sooner had he delivered himself of this than Tom stopped, as though turned to stone himself. Over Quin’s shoulder, he could see the glimmer of a single candle-flame coming across the courtyard; and above it, a most ghostly cloud of golden ringlets. There seemed to be no body – just a head floating through the air, the head that was hidden by the bell-tower’s shadows on the body up above him, floating closer across the courtyard as he watched.

  As Tom observed the spectral vision approach, he quite forgot to breathe until it settled silently at the door and he realized it was not a ghost at all. It was a fleshly woman wrapped in a black travelling-cloak; and the woman hanging in the belfry was not who he had supposed her to be, after all.

  Lady Margaret stood for just a second, looking past their gaping faces; then, as silently as ever, she fainted dead away, her vital spirit snuffed out as abruptly as the flame of the candle that she dropped as she fell.

  Tom, taking a great, tearing breath, turned back and raised his candle to the highest stretch of his considerable height to reveal the mottled, staring death mask of Agnes Danforth gaping down at him – Agnes Danforth, dressed in her mistress’s golden robe.

  When he turned back, St Just was sweeping his fainting mistress up into his arms. With no further word he strode off towards the castle keep. Tom crossed to Martin Danforth, who was standing riven with the exact opposite to the emotion that sang in Tom’s heart. Quin, unexpectedly, put an arm round his shoulder and, with Wainscott, led him into the chapel and down to the family pew, where he sat silently, shaking, apparently at prayer.

  Ben arrived then. ‘What’s to do?’ he asked, his eyes huge.

  Tom told him.

  ‘So you’ll complete a crowner’s quest yourself?’ asked Ben.

  ‘As best I can. For there is no doubt that we have murder and more.’

  ‘What more?’

  ‘The woman is dead, Ben, and would appear to have been dead for some time. Dead people do not suspend themselves from bell-ropes.’

  ‘They do if they’re trying to hang themselves.’

  ‘Then where, pray, is whatever she was standing on to achieve the height? And why did the full weight of a strangling body, convulsing into death, fail to ring the bell and alarm the whole of the castle?’

  Ben’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened.

  ‘Stop playing the codfish, Ben, and help me look around.’

  Side by side by candle-light they searched the floor on hands and knees.

  ‘This is a waste of time,’ said Ben after a while. ‘What is there to see on dusty flagstones as hard and impossible to impress as the Devil’s own heart?’

  ‘Those round marks and the specks of black immediately beneath your candle-flame to begin with. And take care: the specks are not dust, as you suppose, but powder.’

  ‘Powder?’ Ben frowned and lowered the flame, still not understanding. One of the black specks flared and spat in the heat. Ben reared back as though stung. ‘Oh. That sort of powder. D’ye think she was blown up there, then?’

  ‘Hush!’ The order came with the shuffling sound of footsteps on flagstones.

  Polrudden Quin led Martin Danforth past Agnes’s body and away across the courtyard. The Reverend Wainscott lingered in the doorway.

  ‘Get to bed, sir,’ Tom said softly. ‘There’s no work here for a man of God. I’ll send for you when ‘tis time for prayers and preparations.’

  Alone at last, the pair of them continued to quarter the floor, but by now it was clear that Ben had a point. There was little more to be found.

  ‘Well, we have found enough to proceed to a little proof. We know how if not who, yet.’

  ‘Or why,’ added Ben, getting into the way of the grim game.

  ‘Why? Because she was wearing My Lady’s robe. Perhaps. Or perhaps that is too simple. Let us go to the powder store.’

  ‘But, master; it is Agnes Danforth. How could she be confused with Lady Margaret, even in the golden robe?’

  ‘In the dark – or near-dark. And from behind. We will see. Ah, here is the door, and unlocked. For pity’s sake be careful with that candle. There are ten thousand thousand atomies in here like the one you ignited on the floor. But I see we do not have to search too far...’

  There was a powder-barrel just inside the door and it took the pair of them only an instant to tilt it and to roll it past the little doorway that opened on to the cliff, and over to the church, for it was empty and easy to manage.

  ‘You see?’ said Tom, settling it in place, ‘how well it fits the marks.’

  ‘And showers forth powder,’ acknowledged Ben.

  ‘An easy step up, and...’

  ‘That’s how it must have been done, master. I calculate there’s enough room for a second man to stand up there too...’

  ‘Ah. You see that, do you, Ben? Well observed. One very strong and agile man, perhaps, might have achieved it, but...’ He paused, holding the dead woman gently, as he reached back for his dagger. ‘Two normal men working together is much more likely. Get ready...There!’

  As Tom spoke, he sliced the bell-rope as high above Agnes’s head as he could reach and lowered her to Ben. Sharp though the dagger was, the process was difficult, and sufficiently violent to swing the bell. It rang just once as Agnes came free.

  By the time Tom had descended and helped Ben to lay the body on the floor of the church, both Quin and St Just were there. This was a fortunate thing as far as Tom was concerned, for it was easy and quick for the four of them to move the body on to a ladder from a nearby workshop and carry her into the keep.

  They laid her on an old table in a small storage cellar at Quin’s suggestion, and, while he and St Just went off to comfort Agnes’s broken-hearted brother, Tom and Ben lit all the flambards and candles they could get.

  ‘The more light we cast upon the situation, the more readily we will see the answers,’ said Tom grimly.

  ‘I can already see more than I would wish,’ said Ben. ‘Her face will haunt me for a while, I fear.’

  ‘If ye don’t want your face to look like that, Ben, then don’t get hanged.’

  ‘I’ll try and avoid it, master.’

  ‘But still and all...’

  ‘What?’ Forgetting his unease at the staring eyes and protruding, purple tongue, Ben craned over to see what Tom was looking at, mindful of the brilliance he had shown when looking at the body of the messenger at the start of this.

  The Master of Logic was easing the bell-rope gently away from the dead woman’s throat, revealing beneath the thick hemp an area of livid bruising and, opposite, the telltale swelling that spoke of a broken neck.

  ‘Been to many hangings, Ben?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘Ever managed a close look at the body afterwards?’

  ‘Never this close!’ And would never want to! said his tone, though Tom, well aware of Ben’s predilection for violence, was not so sure.

  ‘Well, let us dispense with the Socratic method, at least, for there is no a priori knowledge to plumb with my questions. Observe instead; and learn. The eyes and tongue tell us the woman died of strangling, as is usual in hanging; but she was not hanged by this bell-rope or we would have heard the bell – as we did when we cut her down and raised the alarm, indeed.’

  ‘I see,’ said Ben. ‘So she was hanged somewhere else. Then why in Heaven’s name...’

  ‘What is also usual in hanging is that the Adam’s apple is crushed. But women have no Adam’s apple – therefore we should find the windpipe crushed instead. And do we? Feel here.’

  ‘No. That seems sound enough to me, though I’m no doctor...’

  ‘Good. Strangled, then, but not hanged. Certainly not hanged where she was fou
nd. And then there is the broken neck.’

  ‘I have seen necks broken at hangings.’

  ‘As have I. But only when the victim’s friends have caught him at the heels and pulled him down a-purpose to snap his neck and ease his suffering.’

  ‘Could not that have been done here?’

  ‘I can conceive, with some effort, of a situation...But let’s not waste our time. The final proof of death by hanging is the rope-burn. It is a most distinctive mark, as though the weave of the rope were branded into the flesh of the neck. And can you see it here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No. No mark, no crushing, no pulling by the heels. No hanging, then.’ Tom straightened. He took the dead woman by the shoulders and lifted her. ‘Hold her, Ben, while I lift her head. I want to...Ah...’ As Ben accepted the weight of the woman’s torso, Tom eased her head over a little so that he could inspect the knot in the bell-rope. ‘An added proof,’ he said. ‘Such a simple knot was held in place only by her dead weight. Had she struggled or been pulled by the heels to break her neck, it would have come undone – easily. There, you see? And with the rope out of the way...’

  They laid her flat again and Tom leaned down over her throat. ‘What do we see? Finger-marks. You see them? Four fingers across the throat. Note that: fingers, not thumbs. Strangled from behind, therefore. A struggle, leading to a broken neck – and fortunately for the killer, for he seems only to have one hand; or to have only had the chance to use one hand. For see, there is only one set of finger-marks.’

  ‘Perhaps he was holding something in the other hand? A dagger?’

  ‘If he had a dagger out, why not use it? But the thought is good. Perhaps he held her wrists. No. There would be bruising. And look for a scratched face, for there is blood beneath her nails. Any bruising on her head or face?’

  There was none, but as Tom’s examination proceeded to the body beneath the golden robe, there were more bruises – sharp-edged bruises and larger, mottled areas, ill-defined.

  At last, as a high window up at the roof of the cellar was revealed by the glimmering of dawn, Tom declared himself satisfied. ‘I know how it was done and, I think, where.’

  ‘And why?’

  ‘Still the golden robe, Ben.’

  On that answer, Tom led the pair of them out of the cellar and up into the great entrance hall. Then, with none of the guilty secrecy they had used on the night before last, they ran up to Lady Margaret’s chamber.

  ‘But why the bell-rope?’ asked Ben, as they pounded up past the armoury.

  ‘A message. This man – these men – like sending messages, Ben.’ Tom’s steps slowed as he came to the foot of a flight of stairs. The flight was narrow and quite steep. Tom crouched and brought his candle low, studying each step before placing his foot up on it. Halfway up, he struck the wall on either side quite hard with his fist. At the top, there was a long corridor. It was dark, for there were no windows here – the double walls held the cannon out on the balcony beyond and the only grille that gave light from that looked into Lady Margaret’s chamber beyond.

  ‘But to whom is this message addressed?’ demanded Ben, following Tom along the corridor to an apparently solid wall at its end, beyond Lady Margaret’s tightly closed door.

  Then, as in the bell-tower, Tom raised his candle to the full reach of his great height and saw much more than he had expected. ‘Who knows?’ he said thoughtfully, lowering the candle. ‘But the last one was to Robert Poley.’

  Poley! What in God’s name can the likes of Poley have to do with the murder of a housekeeper in the depths of Cornwall?’

  ‘At the very least,’ said Tom, leading his apprentice back down the narrow stairwell, ‘it can tell him – tell us all, in fact – how easily it could have been the Countess.

  ‘Which is what we have been warned about all along, have we not? – in the picture, and in the secret passage at Elfinstone, and now again with Agnes – how easily it could have been the Countess. Time and time again.’

  Twenty-four: Markets, Meetings and Mysteries

  ‘The letters have been sent,’ insisted Tom, gently. ‘It cannot be cancelled now. I feel it would be a serious mistake to change your plans in any case, My Lady.’

  ‘He’s right, My Lady,’ said Martin Danforth quietly. ‘It would hurt poor Agnes’s soul more than the terrible manner of her death to know of the damage such a cancellation would cause – no matter how good the reason.’

  ‘And if the feast continues a-Thursday, preparations must be made today as you had planned,’ insisted Polrudden Quin. ‘Cook and all her helpers are primed and at the point for action.’

  ‘And we must therefore to market,’ concluded Tom.

  Is there no more you can tell me of her death?

  ‘Of the manner of it? No, My Lady. It is as I have said. Whoever killed her came in silently through the trap from the gun emplacement and jumped down into the end of the corridor that runs past your rooms. He came up behind Mistress Agnes at the top of the stair and took her from behind, trying to choke her. She fought and they fell. There was no sound of alarm, for he was too swift to give her a chance to scream. There was no sound of falling, for the stairs are stone and set between two thick stone walls; moreover, they lead from one stone passageway to another, all within the very fabric of the place.You could hunt a stag down those stairs without anyone hearing a sound.

  ‘When they came to the foot of the stairs, Mistress Agnes was dead of a broken neck and the man that had killed her was bruised and perhaps scratched; shaken, but well enough to proceed.’

  This does not answer all of our questions.

  ‘Nor all of mine, My Lady. But it tells us all we need to know for the moment. I must urge that you do not change your plans but that you proceed ever watchfully. And we will have our eyes at all times riveted to you.’

  And to Hal.

  ‘And to the Baron of course, My Lady.’

  ‘And it is at Saltash Narket,’ added St Just, ‘where we nay alert the nearest justice.’

  ‘There will be a watch constable there,’ insisted Quin. ‘Perhaps a sergeant, or even a captain on market day.’

  ‘If there isn’t,’ said Tom, ‘I can take the ferry into Plymouth and see the watch captain there – there’s a permanent watch on the docks, I know – and he’ll tell me who next to contact – other than the Baron, of course.’

  And there we can look for news of Percy and Dr Rowley. Lady Margaret acquiesced at last. I have sore need of my secretary if you are resuming your tutelage of Ben.

  ***

  They set out in two coaches – one for the Countess and the Baron and the other for Cook and her helpers. The men rode – Tom, Ben, Quin and St Just in the lead, the castle’s butcher and two of his boys on ponies behind. Anything worth buying at the market in the way of particularly promising lambs, sheep or calves they would drive back on foot this afternoon. The beef had been butchered long since and was hanging ripening in the castle’s shambles with the game, the game-birds and the bigger fish and dolphins already caught and prepared. Chickens, ducks and geese beyond the castle’s own supplies would be basketed atop the cook’s coach. Fine-woven baskets sat beside them, waiting to contain blackbirds, larks and doves that would be baked in pies and dipped in honey and stuffed or used as stuffing. Fish and eels, freshwater and salt, would be bought fresh and wrapped in straw before being packed in the long box above the back axle of either or both of the coaches. In the largest there was already a big compartment prepared to take the oysters. Fruit, vegetables and herbs that took Cook’s fancy would ride inside with herself and her girls.

  The castle was in all respects self-sufficient, and much of the land through which they were driving down along Rame Head was the old demesne designed to bring it all the supplies and provisions it would need; but this was a special occasion, which required just that little bit of extra preparation.

  It was fortunate indeed that Agnes Danforth’s lengthy absences at Elfinstone had caused
Martin to train up an assistant housekeeper upon whom he and Lady Margaret could rely to prepare the rest of the castle’s accommodations almost as effectively as Agnes would have done – as effectively, in fact, as the feast itself was being prepared, though it was typical of Lady Margaret that she was busily involved in the practicalities of both. Where many another, more languid, countess would have been content to stay all day abed preparing for the exigencies of party-giving, Lady Margaret rolled up her sleeves and got down to work with the rest.

  Saltash market was set in the square on the corner of Fore Street. The weather was clement, so that only a few of the stalls were set inside the Market Hall. All the clamour and bustle echoed cheerfully, therefore, under the wide blue sky. No sooner did they arrive than they split up. Tom went through the market in search of a tailor with some grasp of London fashions and a stock of shirts, hose, waistcoats, doublets and cannions or galligaskins. Also a bootmaker well stocked with Spanish leather – though this was less important, for Tom’s own boots had not yet been declared beyond all help though badly stretched. This he was willing to accept, particularly as a looser fit was coming into fashion.

  Though Tom had promised Lady Margaret that he would seek out the local watch, he had been less than honest in this, for he had every intention of slipping across on the ferry and seeking out the dock watch at Plymouth for news of Robert Poley and his Spanish spy.

  It was typical of Tom that he should seek out the tailor first. He found one hard by the church of St Nicholas and St Faith. Master Moss proved surprisingly well stocked – even in sizes fit for Tom’s tall frame; and the tailor’s eye for fashion had been schooled by local seafarers who often had business up in the City or at Court. The only compromises Tom had to make were in the matter of colour, accepting dark russet slashed with tobacco – which was, at least, all the rage as a colour as the weed was all the rage for smoking. On the other hand, there were only breeches loose at the knee instead of the tight galligaskins he normally favoured; but then, as an enquiry and a cursory survey discovered no bootmakers, it looked as though loose breeches and stretched boots would have to do as the newest fashion in any case.