The Masque of a Murderer

by Susanna Calkins

  “She cannot stay with them! I know that now. But she can be so stubborn. She thinks she is helping Esther,” Lucy said, beginning to walk faster, moving past the vegetable stalls. Her thoughts were moving even more rapidly. “There are some questions we never asked.”

  “What questions? What are you talking about? Hey—Lucy! Where are you going?” Annie called, panting after her. “I’ve barely anything on my list. Cook will kill me if I forget the raisins and ginger. She’s making—”

  Lucy interrupted her. “Annie, please, will you come with me? I need to speak with someone, and I promised”—she paused, remembering Adam’s fervent words—“someone that I would not look into these things on my own.” Without waiting for Annie to agree, Lucy began to move out of the market, back onto the muddy cobblestone street. Annie followed behind her, a bit helplessly, her empty straw basket swinging on her arm.

  As they walked, Lucy told Annie about Jacob Whitby and his sister, everything she had learned so far. She also told her how Sarah believed that it was her duty to safeguard Esther, because of her promise to Jacob. She even told Annie about the conversation she overheard between Sam and Gervase the night before. All the while, Annie listened openmouthed, but did not say anything.

  “We need to know what Julia Whitby knew,” Lucy declared. “What was she going to tell her brother?”

  “She was going to tell him the name of the impostor,” Annie said, stating the obvious with authority.

  Lucy threw her arm around Annie’s bony shoulders and gave her a little squeeze. “Yes, I think that is right,” she said, smiling. It felt so good to share all of her worries with someone else who understood the family. “Perhaps there was something else, too. Something more to discover, which will shed light on this question.”

  They turned down the street where Julia Whitby’s family lived. In a tremendous stroke of good luck, a familiar figure was out front. It was Evie, Mrs. Whitby’s maid. She was clearing away the ruined rush matting from the street in front of their house. All the traffic from the carts and carriages had destroyed the matting, and the recent icy sleet had made it a slippery mess.

  “Ho there!” Lucy called amiably. “How does your mistress fare?”

  Straightening up, Evie squinted at her, taking in her bookseller’s pack. Lucy could see that her eyes were still red from weeping. She looked at Annie, too, who gave her a friendly smile. Puzzled, she asked, “You were the one who came here the other day? With the gentleman?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “I must thank you, then, miss,” Evie said, giving a little bob. “For helping with the mistress the other day. A blessing it was.” She gave a little sniff. “A sore week it’s been.”

  Lucy smiled gently at her. “I’m sure the blessing is in the care you have taken of your mistress.” She set her pack down heavily. “Ah! It’s nice to set this down.”

  “You’re a peddler?” Evie asked.

  “Bookseller, and printer’s apprentice,” Lucy replied, a hint of pride creeping into her voice. “Annie here works for the magistrate, you know, the Whitbys’ old friends. She holds the same job I once held. Chambermaid.” She held her breath when she said the last. She was gambling that Evie would feel more comfortable speaking to one of her own station. She knew, too, that the opposite was sometimes true as well. Servants could be even snobbier than their masters, looking down on those who did the most menial tasks. She knew she was taking a chance. To her relief, Evie seemed to relax when Lucy revealed her former occupation, rather than holding it against her.

  “Terrible news about Miss Julia,” Lucy said, kicking a bit of the rush matting toward the pile that Evie had been creating with her broom.

  “Gar!” Evie replied. “That it was. When the constable came to tell the mistress, I never seen her take on so.” She continued sweeping, a bit harder now, her face growing red with the effort. “Awful the way Miss Julia died.” That she didn’t add any details showed the girl was not a gossip.

  Lucy murmured something in consolation, even as a sharp memory from the past overcame her. Almost two years ago Constable Duncan had appeared at the magistrate’s own door, bearing equally distressing news. That was the first time she had met him. So much had happened since then.

  She could see now that the girl was trying not to cry. Annie, who had been watching, quietly took the broom from the maid’s bare hands and continued the task of pushing away the rush matting. Lucy held out a small linen cloth she kept tucked away in her skirts. Evie accepted it with a watery smile and blew her nose loudly.

  “My head ached so,” Evie said. “The mistress was wailing and the master was shouting. All the while they kept asking me questions. What did I know? I didn’t know anything. Cook said they’d toss me out if they found I wasn’t telling the truth. I told them over and over I didn’t know anything. She only wrote that note. I couldn’t even read it.” Tears began to threaten again. “Only the constable was kind. He spoke in a nice soft voice. Didn’t yell at me.”

  “He is kind,” Lucy agreed, with what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “Did you tell him anything?”

  Evie shook her head. “Didn’t know anything. I’d have liked to have talked to him more, though.” She made a funny clucking sound. “He’s a handsome sort, ain’t he? No tongue-pad, trolling about, that’s for certain. A good man, I could tell.”

  “Evie,” Lucy said, trying to ignore the girl’s simpering, “could you tell me something? The other day, when I was helping tend to your mistress, you told me that you thought Miss Julia had received some letters of late. Letters that had put her in a strange state. Could you tell me more about them? Where’d they come from? Who sent them?”

  Evie looked back up, her eyes suspicious again. “Why do you want to know that? What business is it of yours?”

  “Please,” Lucy said, seeing how skittish the young woman was growing. This could be the only chance she had to speak with her. “You must not feel you are betraying Miss Julia by telling me what you know. Indeed, you are doing her the greatest service, if you can help bring her murderer to justice. I am sure the constable would appreciate it.” Even though she felt a quick flush of shame over using the girl’s obvious interest in the constable, Lucy continued to look at her steadily.

  The servant’s face had grown pinched. “Do you think those letters had something to do with what happened to Miss Julia?” she asked. “They just kept asking me if she’d said anything to me. I told them the truth. She hadn’t said anything. My mum always said I couldn’t put two thoughts together; always said the Lord had not given me a whit of good sense.” She looked at Lucy in great consternation. “I should have told the constable, do you think?”

  “Perhaps. I don’t know,” Lucy said, trying to contain her excitement, mindful of the maid’s fragile emotions. The girl could know more than she realized. “Please, Evie. Who gave you the letters?”

  Evie hesitated. “They were not letters. Not really. Printed pages, though. Like the kinds you buy.”

  Lucy pulled a tract out of her bag and showed it to Evie. “Like this one?”

  Evie nodded.

  “Could you tell us who gave them to you?” Lucy asked.

  At Lucy’s encouraging smile, the young servant sighed. “I told Miss Julia that there had been a knock at the door, and when I opened the door the letter was there, under a rock.” She looked down, red rising up in her sallow cheeks.

  Annie and Lucy exchanged a knowing glance over her head. “Someone gave them to you, to give to her?” Lucy asked gently. When Evie didn’t answer, she continued. “Was it a man?”

  The tears that had threatened to break now dripped down Evie’s face in earnest. She began to sob out something about a man who’d approached her in the market several times. Though the lass was scarcely coherent, Lucy managed to piece it together. Three times a man had passed one of the tracts to Evie to give to her mistress, the last time right before Miss Whitby had left in a state.

  “Did you look at
them?” Lucy asked.

  “Nah, he told me not to. He promised me things, laces, ribbons, and the like, if I gave them to her without telling anyone.” She frowned at the memory. “She told me not to speak with the man again. Even though she was not giving me extra coins or such fancy trappings. So I lied and said they’d been pushed through the door. When I asked her if I should take them to her father, she grew quite affrighted and remorseful like.”

  “What did the man look like?” Lucy asked, holding her breath.

  The servant pursed her lips. “Handsome. Kept a wrap around most of his face—it was so cold, you know. Shopkeep, I’d wager. He’d been out selling different things. One day spices, the next day perfumes. From the Orient they were. Struck me as odd, it did. He was a sweet talker, though.” Evie frowned. “Said he was an admirer of Miss Julia. Nearly knocked me over when he said that. Being that she was a dried-up old spinster and all.”

  “Have you seen him recently?” Lucy asked. “Is he here now?” She gestured toward some of the street-sellers at the end of the street.

  The servant looked around. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him since the last time I gave her the message. Not fifteen minutes after that, she said she had to leave. To see Mrs. Wiggins.” She stopped, looking puzzled. “She never had a sweetheart, you see, so I thought perhaps she was going to run off. Lord knows she could have some diversion in her life.”

  Thoughtfully, Lucy thanked her. As she walked Annie back to the market, she resolved to stop by to see the constable on the way home.

  * * *

  Arriving at the jail a little later, Lucy called out, “What news, Constable Duncan?” as she stepped inside.

  The constable did not smile in return. “I cannot talk now, Lucy,” he said as he tossed Hank a beating stick. “We’ve just received word there is a scuffle over at Jackson’s coffeehouse. A couple of shifty fellows, knocking each other about. We need to restore order.”

  Since there was no one in any of the cells, they simply locked the jail and hurried down the street. Lucy trotted after them.

  Seeing that she had accompanied them, the constable frowned. “Go home, Lucy,” he said sternly. “A brawl is no place for a woman.”

  Lucy did not slow down. “Fiddle-faddle,” she replied. “I need to speak with you.”

  “I mean it, Lucy,” the constable said more tensely, glaring at her over his shoulder. “Hank, could you ensure that Miss Campion finds her way home?”

  “He is mad who quarrels with women or beasts,” Hank said, quoting an old proverb by way of reply. “Besides, I think you need me here,” he added as Lucy smirked at the constable.

  Her smirk fell away then when they began to hear terrible shouting. This was not the tussle she had assumed. This looked like an out-and-out brawl.

  “Please, Lucy,” the constable said to her again. Hearing the slight note of pleading in his voice, she relented.

  “I promise I will stay back,” she said.

  The constable and Hank looked at each other. “Ready?” the constable asked, his voice tight and hard. The bellman nodded grimly in return.

  Holding their beating sticks in the air, they moved into the fray. “Break it up, break it up,” they began to cry, pushing the crowd away.

  Lucy watched anxiously from a safe distance. She could see the flash of their clubs as they moved through the crowd. At first, when the spectators caught sight of the constable, they began to jeer and laugh. Seeing a constable brought down would be as entertaining as the men brawling, it seemed. However, as he and Hank continued to wield their sticks with strength and purpose, it became clear who would remain standing. At that point, the crowd began to disperse, their sport ending.

  Now she could see just a few bloodied men at the center of the spectacle, still landing tired blows upon each other. At least their fight seemed to be only with fists. She saw the constable and Hank nod at each other before each grabbed one of the men and wrestled him to the ground. They pulled the men’s arms behind their backs and laced them tightly together with a bit of rope.

  Hauling them up at the same time, Hank managed to knock the heads of the two ruffians together, causing them both to groan loudly.

  “Clumsy me,” he said, broadly grinning all the while.

  “What was this fight about?” Constable Duncan demanded.

  Both men looked at him with sullen expressions.

  “Ale,” the scrawnier of the two men said.

  “Coffee,” the burlier man said.

  At that point, the two men began to shout loudly at each other again. It seemed that the new coffeehouse had taken up residence directly next to the alehouse that had been there at least a hundred years. The tavern-keep was angry that the owner of the coffeehouse was stealing his customers. They were then arrested for disturbing the peace.

  Hearing the church bells chime for the hour, Lucy knew she had to get back to Master Aubrey’s. As Hank single-handedly wrestled the two men back to the jail, the constable turned to Lucy. “All right,” he said. “Tell me what’s so important.”

  She told him what she had learned from Evie, as well as the conversation she had overhead between Gervase and Sam. “I am worried that they did something to the searcher,” she said.

  He nodded. “I will look into it.”

  As she started to go, he touched her arm. “And thank you, Lucy. For telling me, and not keeping these secrets to yourself.”

  14

  The next morning, Lucy showed Master Aubrey all the testimonies about Jacob Whitby she had painstakingly assembled over the last few evenings.

  “I was thinking that we could call it The Last Dying Breath,” Lucy said, showing him her handwritten pages. Her script was still not overly neat, but she had rewritten anything that looked particularly strange or illegible.

  “See, this first part tells how he was struck down, in the prime of life, by Mr. Redicker, cloth merchant,” she explained, her nervousness making her speak quickly. “In the next part, I have Jacob Whitby’s sinner’s journey, what he told me in his own dying words. After that, I have the words from his wife and his dearest friends, speaking of his spiritual conversion, lamenting his death and the loss of his good works.”

  Both Lach and Lucy watched Master Aubrey peruse the tract. He did not say anything as he read, so Lucy continued to speak in a breathless way. “Naturally, in this piece, I did not mention anything about his sister Julia’s death.” Or Jacob’s belief that he had been pushed in front of the horses, she added to herself.

  “Hmph,” Master Aubrey grunted. “I was planning to sell at the Fox and Hound this morning, and then meet a few chaps there for my noon meal. I was not planning on composing the type today.”

  “We can do it, sir,” Lucy said.

  Lach frowned at her. “I can do it, sir. She can help me.”

  Master Aubrey looked at them. “All right, then.” He gave some quick instructions to Lach about the length of the quarto, and what to include on the recto and verso. “I expect the first two parts to be set by the time I return this afternoon.”

  “Yes, sir,” they both dutifully replied.

  As soon as Master Aubrey had departed, Lach turned to her. “I will compose the piece. You can clean the hearth and take care of the pots.” When she made an indignant sound, he added, “You can help with the typesetting, of course.”

  “I am sure that Master Aubrey expected me to compose the piece,” she protested, picking up a quoin. “I wrote it, after all.”

  “I am sure he did not,” Lach said curtly. “Not when you think composition starts with simply putting quoins together.”

  “Well, show me, then,” Lucy said, setting the quoin back on the table. When he didn’t reply, she added, “I’ll do your chores for the rest of the week.”

  He grunted. “Starting with those pots!”

  Lucy stood beside him then to watch the composition process unfold. Even though she had worked for Master Aubrey for six months, she had not yet measur
ed and laid out a tract from the very beginning of the process.

  Lach began to work, composing the different sections so that it would become an eight-page piece. Although she didn’t like the high-handed way he ordered her about, Lucy had to admit that he was very deft in arranging the parts of the tract. Within the hour, Lach had sectioned off the different parts, assembled the various woodcuts and necessary plates, and used the quoins, wedges, and crossbars to separate the text and images accordingly. They used the plainest type, all ten and twelve font, which seemed appropriate to tell a tale of a sinner’s journey. Only the title would be in the more elaborate Gothic font.

  For the next thirty minutes, they worked, Lucy trying to ignore the ache in her lower back. Setting type was always difficult, painstaking work. Sometimes she sat for a while on one of the tall stools, but bending across the type was still a bit painful.

  As she pieced together the words of the tract, putting in each letter backward as she had been trained, she recalled how each person had testified about Jacob’s spiritual journey. She thought, too, about Julia Whitby. What had she known?

  Without her realizing it, Lucy began to slow down.

  “Lucy!” Lach cried harshly.

  The quoin she was filling with the tiny lead type flew out of her hand, spilling onto the floor and skittering in every direction. She stared in dismay first at Lach and then down at the mess.

  “Lucy!” Lach growled.

  “I am sorry, I am sorry,” she said. “I will take care of it.” She began to scramble around. To her surprise, Lach put down the quoin he’d been filling and began to help her, even though he grumbled under his breath the whole time. Finally they had picked up all the pieces. Still sitting on the floor, they leaned back.

  Lach mopped his sweaty brow with a dirty bit of cloth. Rather than wiping his face clean, unfortunately, he had smudged ink all over his cheeks and forehead. The result made him look ridiculous.