Familiar Spirits

by Leonard Tourney

  “There may yet be murder, however, Mr. Stock,” interjected the magistrate. “Malcolm Waite was deprived of his life by a fearful shock of seeing what he thought to be Ursula Tusser at his window. The brother was dressed as his sister. Such imposture was as deliberate as it was deadly.”

  “I think, sir,” said Malvern in his ponderous tone, “that it is a plain fact that the women made use of this wretched boy, who, by what I have heard tell, was too simpleminded to have plotted this himself. Whether they paid him money or granted some favor is immaterial. They had the motive and the opportunity. See now, the boy was found with the serving girl of Margaret Waite. And in her barn! Doesn’t that argue complicity? What more proof is required?”

  The magistrate stroked his chin thoughtfully and regarded the prosecutor first, then Matthew, as though he were trying to decide which counsel to follow. Then he said, “I think, Mr. Malvern, that our good constable has thrown enough light on this darkness that we should allow him to hold his lamp a little higher. Proceed, Mr. Stock. What other revelations do you have for this court?”

  Matthew asked the clerk to call the next witness. Thomas Crispin rose in response to his name and made his way forward to the witness stand. His rage at the mistreatment of his wife, so evident in the strong set of his jaw and his blazing dark eyes, had now been replaced by a more complex set of emotions. He walked with a kind of reckless swagger, as though he were prepared to tell the whole court—and, indeed, the whole world—to go to hell.

  “Andrew Tusser was your servant?” asked Matthew when the tanner had taken his oath.

  “He was. All the town knows it,” Crispin answered brusquely.

  “You were present when he died, weren’t you?”

  Crispin hesitated at the question, then said, “He was dead when I got to the field where he’d been playing football. I was in your custody as a prisoner when the fire broke out that killed him, if you're implying I had anything to do with his death.”

  “I mean the day he collapsed and we thought he had died,” replied Matthew calmly. “You remember, Mr. Crispin. You carried the body off.”

  “I did.”

  “You confirmed he was dead.”

  “Well, I thought he was. I’m no physician. He looked dead.”

  “But how could you have made such a mistake?” asked Matthew.

  “You made it yourself, Constable Stock,” Crispin responded curtly. “You told me he was dead, in fact. There was not a wisp of breath, no pulse. The flesh was growing cold. We thought the great exertion—or perhaps the blow— had killed him. It had happened before, even to young men of strong constitutions.”

  “I don’t blame you for mistaking his death,” said Matthew. “As you point out, I made the same error. I accuse you of concealing the fact that he later revived.”

  “That’s not true!” shouted the tanner, his voice reverberating in the court and his great chest heaving. “I thought he was dead.”

  “And you saw to his burial?”

  “I did. Ask the church warden. Ask the parson, who blessed the grave and said words over the body. I paid a shilling for the stone.”

  “The parson said words over two bags of Chelmer sand and rock,” said Matthew, “sufficient in weight to give the impression there really was a body inside the coffin. There was no body because Andrew Tusser was alive. The bags were canvas. They bore your mark!”

  “They did not!” Crispin said resolutely. “They bore no mark at all. They—”

  Crispin stopped in mid-sentence, realizing his fatal error.

  Matthew turned to the judges and spoke quietly: “Either Mr. Crispin has eyes that can travel far beyond the walls of this room, or he knows exactly what bags I speak of. He has said truly. The bags bear no mark—no mark at all. But how could he know that, save they were his and he filled them and put them in the empty coffin himself?”

  • TWENTY •

  A MURMUR of confused speculation swept over the room, engulfing the jury and judges as well, and it was some time before order was restored and the trial could continue. But the focus of attention had clearly shifted. Both Margaret and Jane, still under guard on the prisoners' bench, had become anxious spectators to the case building against Jane’s husband.

  “You revived Andrew Tusser,” Matthew said.

  Crispin made no answer. Beads of sweat could be seen on his brow.

  “Speak, Mr. Crispin,” the magistrate said. “The constable has put a question to you.”

  “I did not revive him,” said Crispin through clenched teeth. “Like everyone who saw the body, I thought he was surely dead. I carried him back to the house and laid the body out. He was an orphan, but he was my servant. No one else in the town would have paid for his burial. I was putting him in his coffin when I heard him moan and then gasp for breath. He had been in a sleep. A very deep sleep. But he awoke.”

  “But you concealed the fact of his being alive and perpetrated the fraud of his burial?”

  “Yes, I did that.”

  “Why?”

  Crispin shook his head. “I’ll say no more than what I have said.”

  The magistrate said, “I warn you, Mr. Crispin. You are in considerable peril in the law’s eyes. You had better answer the constable’s questions or be prepared to endure the penalty.”

  “I know the penalty,” replied Crispin obstinately. “And I will suffer it, but I will say no more about Andrew Tusser. No, nor about his sister either.”

  Matthew walked up to where the tanner stood and looked at him keenly. “Your wife, sir,” Matthew said slowly, “is on trial here for her life. Your silence will do her very little good. What, would you compound her suffering when there is a possibility that through your confession her reputation may be cleared, her life saved? Think of your wife, sir! And of your children! These must endure the obliquity of having a convicted witch for a mother unless you speak and cause these mists of confusion and error to disperse.”

  Crispin winced at Matthew’s words. A little pulse twitched in his broad, sweating forehead, and his jaw locked firmly. Matthew realized that what was now in Crispin’s eyes was not wrath but suffering. The man was in agony, his dark eyes bright with anguish. It was not death he feared—Matthew knew that now—but something worse. What was it? Whatever it was, Matthew realized that he had found the one argument that would break the strong man’s resolve: his love for his wife. Now Matthew was sure Crispin would speak.

  Since beginning his testimony, Crispin had not looked at his wife. After the constable’s words, he did. Matthew watched as the hardness in the man’s face began to dissolve. His broad shoulders slumped and he let out a heavy sigh.

  Crispin said, “Whichever course I take, I lose. I will speak, and may God forgive my ill intents, even as he rewards the good.”

  Everyone strained to hear the tanner’s words, which were softly spoken now, heavy with defeat. Tears glistened in his eyes. “I must go back . . . tell my story from the beginning,” said Crispin, drawing his hand across his brow as if to clear his thoughts. “Else the story will make no sense at all.” The tanner paused, struggling to control his emotions. “My wife once had a brother, whom she loved greatly. Some of you here today will remember him. His name was Philip Goodin. He was a hot-tempered youth, much opposed to my marriage with his sister. He died—was killed—some dozen years or more not three miles from this place. The Elephant. The tavern still stands.

  “The night before my marriage was to be solemnized, I and a few of my friends went to this same tavern. I was the only single man among them, and it was their intent to celebrate the last night of my bachelorhood with good fellowship and drink.

  “It was late unto the night when my wife’s brother appeared among us. At first I thought that there would surely be trouble, but it was otherwise. He was in a companionable mood. He said he wished to make amends for our previous disagreements, join hands in friendship, and drink to my marriage to his sister. Because I never bore him the ill will he bore me, I
did not hesitate to take his hand. Whether he was sincere in his profession or not, I do not know—neither then or now. But while he sat with us he drank long and deep. In his drunkenness our old quarrel flared. He called me names, defamed my trade, and said his sister might find a better man to father her children. He challenged me to step outside and prove myself other than a craven coward. I refused. I told him to go home and sleep away his drunkenness. I reminded him that his father had given consent for his sister’s marriage. Within twenty-four hours we would be kinsmen. Brothers. This only made him the more belligerent.

  “Finally my friends and I prevailed upon him to leave. He did. After that a sullen melancholy settled upon us all. We stayed awhile, conversing among ourselves, until the host came to tell us it was his closing hour and we must say good night. We did, and I and one other who lived in the same neighborhood commenced our journey homeward. The moon, which was full, would have guided our steps had it not been for clouds which passed before it in fits. We had gone no more than fifty paces along the road when suddenly, the great moon being obscured, from without a thicket came this raving figure, cursing and roaring like a bedlamite.

  “I confess I thought it more devil than man, and in my surprise and natural desire to defend myself being thus attacked, I threw a mighty blow at it. My fist caught the attacker full upon the face. I heard the crush of bone. He fell down and just then the moon showed her face bright and clear, casting on all the scene a lurid light, by which I saw the battered bloody countenance of my wife’s brother, flat upon his back upon the ground.

  “Too stunned to speak to my friend, I knelt beside the body to see how Philip was. Would to God he had been as Andrew Tusser years afterward—asleep only, although he seemed dead.”

  Crispin’s voice broke; he stifled an anguished sob and hid his face in his hands. After a few moments, during which not a word was spoken and hardly a breath heard in the room, the tanner continued. “He was stone-cold dead. My ill-considered blow had killed him.”

  “Why did you not make these facts known then?” Matthew asked, much moved himself by the tanner’s narrative.

  “My first thought was to do so. The blow was self-defense. I meant no harm. I had given him my hand in friendship and was prepared to offer him a brother’s love. His intemperate nature was his fault, no worse than that. Yet it brought about his death. A sad tragedy. But then I thought of how my wife-to-be might think of me. The slayer of her own dear brother. Even though she were to understand the cause, would she ever forget that I was the means, that Philip Goodin’s blood was on my hands? No, it was awful to think of. Awful for both of us. We were to be married the next day, you understand. Was ever a bridegroom so cursed as this?”

  “Cursed indeed,” murmured the magistrate. “But what has this sad tale to do with Andrew Tusser and the present case?”

  “The companion and witness of my self-defense was Malcolm Waite,” said Crispin after a moment’s pause. “Standing over the body of Philip Goodin, we laid a plan whereby we would conceal the nature of his death. He understood my fears, you see, Malcolm Waite. We wanted to make it seem Philip was robbed and beaten by highwaymen. We stripped him naked and took his purse, the coins in which we later put in the church poor box for conscience’ sake. Malcolm Waite gave me his word then that he would never tell a living soul what had transpired. We went home. The next day, my wife and I were married. Philip Goodin’s body was not discovered until later.”

  “Was he not missed at the wedding?” asked the magistrate.

  “He was, sir, but it was only thought he stayed away because of his objections to our marriage. It caused my wife and her father some sadness, but no considerable grief.”

  “And did Malcolm Waite keep his promise?” Matthew asked.

  “For years he did so,” said Crispin, “and I suppose it may be said he kept the promise until the end of his life. Yet I feared it might be otherwise. It fell out this way. When his fortune changed, as everyone knows it did, his health failed him. His business went from bad to worse. In his desperation he came to me for assistance, which I gladly gave according to my means, for I was in a prosperous way and my generous nature is well allowed. But his requests, first uttered with modesty, became as insistent as they were frequent. They grew into demands. I shoveled money after money into the great hole of his misfortune.

  “Soon it became evident that I was now to pay the price for his long discretion. My wife’s grief had been deep when Philip’s body had been discovered, and was made worse by the fact that his murderers were never known or punished. I feared the truth now would be more bitter than before and my wife’s love would turn to deadly hate should she discover it was I who killed her brother. I had no choice but to give Malcolm whatever he wished. But he was a poor husbandman of my goods. They did him little good.”

  “You could have explained the circumstances,” Matthew interjected. “It was not your fault.”

  “Yes,” continued Crispin. “I could have explained. But would she have believed it? She would have said, surely, ‘Self-defense you call it. Wherefore did you conceal this so-called truth from me all these years if it be truth indeed and not some lately concocted lie? You lied for years, by your own admission. Why should I believe you now?’ Such a response I expected from her. Feared it worse than death. But then a new danger appeared to make matters worse.” “Which was?”

  “Ursula. That wretched girl. She was no witch, you know, only a silly child with a handful of conjurer’s tricks to catch attention and make herself more than she was. But that was just my opinion. Others regarded her talents more highly. My sister and brother-in-law, for instance. They were of a credulous disposition, and when I discovered it was Margaret’s desire to communicate with Philip’s spirit, I knew there was a single motive to her wish: to know the perpetrators of his death. I feared no busy spirit coming at Ursula’s command, but I knew that Malcolm knew the truth. Every day his confused mind, the victim of his wasting body, gave him less control over his actions and thoughts. My fate was in his hands, and trembling uncertain hands they were. I feared that somehow the truth of Philip Goodin’s death would be disclosed.”

  “There were also his increasing demands upon your purse,” Matthew said. “Which brings us to Andrew Tusser.”

  Crispin nodded affirmatively and cast down his head. “Andrew much resembled his sister in face, and once in their childish play I saw him don that wig that she had made of her own hair. They pretended each to be the other. He was a simple lad indeed, whose constant mischief proceeded more from his lack of wit than from guile. The deception was my idea. When he awoke from his trance, 1 told him what had happened, gave him something to eat, and told him the whole town thought he was dead. He laughed. He thought it was a good jest. He wanted to walk down High Street at noon and give the burghers a fright. I told him I had a better plan. I knew his bitterness at his sister’s death. They were very close, you know. I agreed that she had been grossly wronged and said I shared his desire for revenge. I reminded him of how Malcolm and Margaret Waite had testified against Ursula at her trial, concealing their own participation in her mysteries. ‘What should I do, then?’ he asked, hearing this. I told him to conceal himself in the Waites’ barn. He knew of the old cellar long unused. So did I. My father had helped Malcolm’s father to dig it. I told him what a pleasant revenge it would be to give Malcolm a good fright if he would put on his sister’s wig and gown he had of hers and haunt the house for a week or more.”

  “And he agreed to this scheme?” asked Matthew.

  “Readily,” said Crispin. “He had no love for Malcolm. Malcolm had once threatened to whip him for some abusive language he had used, and that, compounded by Malcolm’s testimony against Ursula, made Andrew’s loathing all the more intense. His simplicity, you see, had not lessened his capacity for vengeance.”

  “So he disguised himself as his sister, as you instructed,” said Matthew.

  “He did. I knew Malcolm’s condition. I kne
w his health was failing more each day and that he would never stand the strain. The wish was father to the event itself. What more is there to tell? The foolish boy enjoyed the little trick he played, unmindful of my plan to make him the instrument of murder. He kept it up, appearing first to one and then the other. He came and went as he pleased, hiding out in the barn. I suppose he told someone—probably the girl who died with him.”

  “You suspected he had died in the fire,” said Matthew. “It was you who was prowling around the ruins of nights.”

  “I believed that during the riot he would find refuge in the hiding place and therefore must have been trapped there when the barn was set afire. I needed to be certain. I was afraid if someone else found the body first, he would conclude

  as you did, Mr. Stock, that I had concealed the boy’s revival for my own ends.”

  “And what of your wife and her sister—these poor women who stand in jeopardy because of your stratagems?”

  “That was never in the reckoning. God knows I love my wife,” said Crispin, with moist eyes. “I had no way of knowing that first her sister and then she would be accused of witchcraft. After the charges were made, I could see how my own device for sealing Malcolm’s lips had made my burden worse. But what could I do? I couldn’t reveal the identity of the ghost for fear of revealing my own murderous intent and what I most dreaded, that my wife should discover it was my hand that killed her brother.”

  Crispin turned to look where his wife was sitting. She was returning his gaze, her eyes also filled with tears. But whether in her gaze there were compassion and forgiveness as well as grief and shock would remain to be seen.

  Then the magistrate ordered Matthew to take custody of his new prisoner and said the charge against him was to be murder—murder of such a strange and perverse sort as never to have been heard of before in England and certainly to rival the devilish practice of the Italians and the French, who were the most famous murderers in Europe. The magistrate had to speak loudly to make himself heard over the excited talk that now reigned in the courtroom and had broken forth at the end of the tanner’s confession.