The Widows Guild: A Francis Bacon Mystery (The Francis Bacon Mystery Series Book 3)

by Anna Castle

  “Bless you, my chum.” Ben, stark naked with his hair standing up in all directions, had obviously just staggered out of bed. He ate his pie where he stood. Then he found a cleanish towel and scrubbed himself from neck to knee.

  “It’s going to be another bright day.” Tom stripped to the skin and gave himself a good rubdown with his shirt. He donned fresh linens and chose a nondescript costume for their investigations that day: dust-colored galligaskins, a brown linen doublet, and thin beige nether stocks. He chose a hat with a wide brim and plain leather band.

  Ben nodded with approval. “Respectable, but not memorable.” He always dressed according to that theme.

  “And comfortable,” Tom said. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us. Should we stop by Mr. Bacon’s for instructions on the way out?”

  Ben shook his head. “He won’t be up until dinner, if then. Yesterday drained him completely.”

  They decided to visit the silk merchant’s house in Bermondsey first while the tide still ebbed since it was downstream from their usual wharf. The journey took longer than they expected despite that advantage. Half the London wherrymen had joined the navy, offering their skills in defense of the queen. Everyone appreciated the gesture except when trying to get somewhere in something like a reasonable time.

  When they finally made it down past London Bridge to Bermondsey, they found the Rouncey house without difficulty. It had been sold a few weeks ago by the Privy Council, exercising their statutory right to confiscate the property of a confirmed recusant. The agent who met them in the hall told them the widow had gone back to her family in Yorkshire, and the household staff had been dispersed to other positions. The children were grown and had their own establishments.

  Yes, he could find out where, if they insisted, but he did have his own work to do. He knew nothing whatsoever about the murder, but as far as he knew, nothing outside the chapel had been stolen. It was just as well — he could hardly sell a house full of popish fripperies in these troubled times, could he? No windows or doors had been broken; he would certainly have noticed that.

  “He wasn’t much help,” Tom said as they let themselves out the gate to the wharf.

  “I wish we could have come earlier,” Ben said. “The sheriff should have asked these questions while the staff was still in residence.”

  “Maybe somebody told him not to.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Don’t believe it or don’t want to believe it?”

  Ben gave him a dark look but said nothing.

  “I have the feeling Mr. Bacon’s not telling us everything he knows,” Tom said. His real question was: Did Ben know it too?

  “Oh, I sincerely doubt you want to know everything,” Ben said, echoing Tom’s words from yesterday, thus effectively blocking another question.

  Never mind. Let them keep their secrets. Tom had his own trail to follow.

  He stopped to examine the old-fashioned lock on the iron gate. “God’s bollocks, I could almost pick this myself.”

  The back gate was set into a brick wall about eight feet high. The wall stood well back from the river at the top of a long soggy meadow. With any kind of moon and the tide at flow, the thieves could have pulled their boat well up onto the grass, picked the simple lock, and slipped into an open window without making a sound or showing a light.

  They paced back and forth on the dock, brushing gnats from their noses, speaking little until a wherry finally came. They stopped at a vendor by the bridge for sausage rolls and beer before heading onward up the river to Baron Hewick’s small estate in Chelsea.

  The new baron had already taken possession. Though busy sorting out his father’s affairs, he granted them a few minutes in his library. The tall, slender man had been a member of Parliament and had recently led a good-sized militia to the muster in Wiltshire, where he had his own manor. His angular features mirrored those of the ancestor portrayed in a painting on the library wall, but he assured them that his religious views were faultlessly correct. He admitted to having been reared in the rituals of the Catholic Church, but then he’d spent a year at Cambridge and come home an ardent Protestant. His family never failed to fill their pew at the front of their parish church.

  He’d volunteered all that before they even asked about the chapel or the manner of his father’s death. Apparently, he had recently concluded negotiations with the Privy Council concerning his father’s estate. He’d had to seal a bond guaranteeing his mother’s good behavior in order to reduce the penalty they’d originally imposed.

  “I’ve sent her up to Somerset to live with my sister and cut her allowance in half. I blame her for this, to be candid. That chapel should have been converted long ago — as should she.” He smiled, a thin line cutting across his narrow face. “My sister has six children under the age of ten. Perhaps that will keep Mother busy enough to forget her intrigues.”

  When Tom asked if the old baron had kept a rosary under his pillow, the young baron startled. “How odd that you should mention it! It’s the one thing that’s missing from outside the chapel. It was quite valuable, with a large carbuncle in the center of the cross.”

  He showed them the chapel, which had been stripped to the linenfold paneling. “It’s plain enough for my family now,” he said with a wry smile. He told them that on the night of the murder, his mother had been visiting his younger sister. The baron’s personal attendant had been ill and had confined himself to a room on the third floor. Baron Hewick had thus been left alone in his chamber on the first floor.

  The baron walked them to the riverside gate, which looked even older than the one at the Rouncey house. They discussed locks and windows and the possibility of entering from the street. But who would bother, with the river lying so handy at the back?

  They shook hands all around, preparing to leave.

  The new baron said, “Tell Mr. Bacon I’m grateful that someone is doing something. My father was a good man in spite of a few old habits. He didn’t deserve this. But Sheriff Skinner made it clear that the murder of a recusant ranked at the bottom of his list. I grant you, that was on the day sixteen Catholic priests were hung at Tyburn, but even so. A peer of the realm, murdered in his bed!”

  They promised to let him know what they learned, if and when they learned anything of any consequence. Then they walked down the path to the pier.

  Ben looked back across the meadow at the brick wall behind the house. “All three houses stand on the river, as we suspected. What does that tell us about the villains’ capabilities?”

  Tom set his fists on his hips and scowled at a wherry rowing past them with a full load of passengers. “They’re not dependent on the Company of Watermen and Lightermen for transport; otherwise, not much.”

  “It might help us predict the next victim,” Ben said.

  “Yes, but I suspect there’s a better way. That fourth matter on Mr. Bacon’s list — the selection of victims. Did you notice how relieved he looked when you proposed your idea about the murders as distractions? He wanted to shift the talk away from the question of selection.”

  “I noticed nothing of the sort.” Ben pretended to be fascinated by a dragonfly skimming over the reeds at the water’s edge.

  Tom almost laughed. His chum was a terrible liar. “I’ll tell you what we learned today. We learned that the Privy Council is making a handsome profit from these murders. The Rouncey house is a juicy property, directly across the river from the Tower and all the major quays. They’re getting a hefty fine from the Hewicks as well. How much are they taking from the Surdeval estate?”

  “We haven’t met with their agents yet.” Ben frowned. “But I must say I don’t like your implication.”

  “I don’t like it either, but there it is. My father’s right. We’re fresh out of everything, the whole country: food, medicine, shot, powder. The treasury is empty but for a large promissory note. The queen owes the Merchant Guild something like fifty thousand pounds.”

  “Tom!�
� Ben gaped at him. “You can’t think the Privy Council would stoop to murder in order to pay that note!”

  “Not the councilmen themselves. God’s teeth, Ben! Some of them are older than Viscount Surdeval. But a word here and another word there, they could get it done. They’d probably form a secret commission. What’s more, I think Mr. Bacon has had the same idea himself.” Tom watched his friend closely and saw a shadow pass across his face.

  “I don’t believe it,” Ben said after too long a pause. “He would have discussed it with me.”

  “Are you so sure of that? Who else has lists of recusants with chapels and houses on the river, whose wives are suspected of harboring priests? That’s a narrow set of considerations.”

  Ben shook his head. “There must be other sources. A disaffected Catholic, perhaps. And how does your educated upright man fit into this scheme?”

  “I don’t know yet. Maybe he bribed a clerk. Maybe he’s the one they hired.” A disaffected Catholic, eh? Nathaniel Welbeck might qualify under that heading. He had connections among Catholics in France and must know half the clerks in Whitehall and Westminster, having been a barrister for better than a dozen years.

  Ben crossed his arms and turned his face to the river. “I refuse to countenance such nonsense.”

  “Refuse all you like.” Tom would go his own way. As soon as he got a chance, he’d send a note to Trumpet to see if she knew where to find her uncle. Lady Surdeval might be housebound, but Alice-turned-Allen could come and go at will. They’d catch the villain and clear their own names before Ben and Mr. Bacon managed to agree on a story.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Francis Bacon pushed open the door of his second favorite shop. No, his third. The first was a bookshop on Paternoster Row. The bookseller there was a crucial ally in Francis’s quest for the truth. Also, of course, books were essential for the health of the mind. His second favorite was the draper’s shop on the first floor of the Royal Exchange. He loved to fondle the silks and satins, even when he couldn’t afford them, and the rainbow of colors made him feel deliciously light-headed. A courtier must stay abreast of changing fashions, even when restricted to the sad garb of a barrister.

  Henrik Verboom’s apothecary shop in Bucklersbury, under the sign of the blooming mugwort, had the advantages of both the others. The contents of the shop were nearly as intriguing as books but provided dual sensory stimulation by engaging the nose as well as the eye. Herbs and medicaments were essential for the health of the body — the foundation for everything else in life. There were nights when Francis would not be able to sleep a wink without a dose of Verboom’s theriac, and without sleep, the mind ceased to function.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Bacon. I’ll be with you in a trice.” The apothecary stood behind his counter weighing out herbs for a woman in a plain blue costume. Two gentlemen waited behind her. One peered at a pamphlet, his nose almost grazing the page. The other stared absently out the small portion of window left unobstructed by the cluttered display of jars and bottles. Two assistants worked at a table in the rear of the deep, narrow shop, grinding and mixing simples.

  “I’m in no hurry.” Francis strolled up the aisle, studying the tidy rows of labeled jars arrayed on shelves spanning the long wall opposite the counter. Verboom kept the most potent drugs out of reach, either behind him or locked up in the back room, but even the accessible shelves contained an education in herbal lore. Francis appreciated the organization scheme employed — alphabetical by name rather than by use or season of bloom or some more idiosyncratic criterion.

  Francis occupied himself by testing his memory against the display, walking back to the door to begin at Alder, for inflammations and ulcers of the inward kind. Angelica. Francis had that one in his garden at Twickenham. Chewing the root afforded some protection from corrupt and pestilential airs. Bay, leaves from trees that grew in Spain. It made a good physic for rheums of the chest and also a restorative after a course of opiate medicine. He wondered if the price had gone up in the past year.

  Reaching the middle of the shop, he looked up to the topmost shelf and startled. A huge black bird with a fierce beak and a hungry glare loomed over him. He glanced upward again and chuckled; it was only Aegypius, Verboom’s stuffed vulture, moved from his usual position over the door. He took a moment to locate Naja, the stuffed coiled cobra who usually occupied the top of the shelves behind the counter. Still there. He breathed a sigh of relief. That one still scared him after all the years he’d been coming to this shop. He noticed a new addition to the zoological display — a badger, posed in an upright sitting posture. The magical triumvirate was now complete.

  “Mr. Bacon?”

  Francis whirled around. “Yes?” He had the feeling Verboom had spoken his name several times to get his attention, a sort of echo in his mind’s ear. The other customers had vanished. “Ah, yes. My apologies.” He approached the counter.

  “Are you wanting another packet of your theriac, Mr. Bacon?” Verboom peered at him through the half-moon spectacles perched on his nose. Shorter than Francis, his counter cut him off above the waist. “You’re a week ahead of schedule, but we can mix up more in a twink.”

  “No, thank you, I have enough for the week.” The medicine was a mixture of mugwort, opium, ginger, and other ingredients. Francis took a dose every evening, stirred into a cup of wine, as a general strengthener, and sometimes another one to help him sleep. “I’m only seeking a consultation today, although you may find my questions a bit odd.”

  Verboom cocked his square head and folded his plump hands on the counter. “Ask away, Mr. Bacon. I always find your questions intriguing.”

  “I have been charged with investigating the unusual death of Lord Surdeval. Perhaps you’ve heard something about it?”

  “This and that. You know how rumors get about. They say the new wife’s lover did it.”

  “No,” Francis said. “Neither the wife nor the young man to whom the gossips refer had anything to do with His Lordship’s death. The lad is my own student, as it happens. I have interviewed them both myself and am convinced of their innocence.”

  “That’s good to hear.” Verboom sounded doubtful. “Then how did His Lordship die?”

  “He was poisoned, or so I believe from what Her Ladyship and my student reported. They discovered the poor man at the very moment of his death.”

  “How can that be?”

  “That is the foremost question.” Francis glanced at the door and then toward the apprentices at the back of the shop. “May I trust in your absolute discretion?”

  “Of course.” Verboom leaned his elbows on the counter, ready to receive a confidence.

  Francis described the circumstances in which Lord Surdeval had been found, including the twisted nether stocks, the smooth sheet, and the jug of wine on the bedside table. He mentioned the cuts on the chest, but not the shape of the cross thus formed.

  “The poor man.” Verboom’s round face wrinkled in disgust. “Then did he bleed to death? You’d think the broadsides would have picked that one up. They do love a bloody murder.”

  “No, the cuts were shallow. There was very little blood, barely enough to spot his nightshirt. I suspect the knife blade delivered some sort of poison.”

  “Ahhh. Then this is your question: What poisons can be applied through the skin?”

  “That’s the first question,” Francis said. “The second is: What poisons cause paralysis? He was found in that condition. His heart still beat, if faintly, but his chest did not rise with breath, nor could he move any limb or feature.”

  Verboom frowned. “I know of only a few poisons that act through the skin. Some of what I’ve heard may be pure fantasy. But first I must ask about the more obvious possibility.” He wagged his finger. “Many times have we discussed the error of concocting elaborate explanations, Mr. Bacon, when the simple answer lies beneath our nose. Are you certain His Lordship did not take too much of his sleeping draught?”

  “The remains of t
he jug were tested on a dog and did the animal no harm. The level of the draught in its bottle was the same as when Her Ladyship last saw it. It was she who added the valerian compound to his cup before he went to sleep.”

  “Good, good. I must ask, you know. Old people often awaken during the night and take another dose of their medicine, forgetting they already had some. I warn my patients of this danger every day.”

  “Commendable.” Francis met the apothecary’s eyes. “I fear we may be forced to consider the fantastical explanations.”

  “If we must.” Verboom scratched his balding pate under the rim of his round woolen cap. “Then let me ask another question: Are you sure the condition was paralysis, not stupor?”

  “That’s a good question,” Francis said. “As I understand the terms, the condition of stupor is like sleep, in which case we would expect the chest to rise and fall with breathing, even if the extremities were insensate and immobile.”

  “That is correct, Mr. Bacon. Very good.”

  “My informants were very clear on this point: the chest did not move, even while the heartbeat could still be heard, very faintly, with the ear pressed against the body.”

  “Ah, then,” Verboom said. “It is paralysis. Well. There is monkshood, or wolfsbane, which you know. But we would expect a great deal of vomiting. Was there any sign of that?”

  Francis shook his head. “None whatsoever.”

  “Hmm. Well, monkshood can be absorbed through the skin, so I suppose it could be applied by a knife. It is sometimes used to make a poison for arrows. You apply an oil or tincture to the blade. Not too drippy nor too thick, or it would leave a stain around the wound.”

  “There was such a stain,” Francis said. “A thin stripe of some tarry ointment at the edges of the wound. The center was bright red, very vivid, like fresh blood. Both witnesses remarked upon the color.”

  “That is striking, I agree. Also with monkshood, the extremities should be cold to the touch. Was this so?”

  “No,” Francis said. “Her Ladyship touched His Lordship’s feet and his hands, I believe. She would have mentioned it if they had been an unusual temperature.”