An Honourable Murderer

by Philip Gooden

  The fact that the murder had occurred at the Snells’ pointed the finger at someone who worked there. The familiarity with the surroundings, the improvised use of the trapdoor. Unless of course Ratchett’s body had been deliberately left in the Snells’ so as to throw suspicion on them. But that, in turn, argued premeditation, which I had more or less ruled out.

  The only individuals I was acquainted with were the father and son who had charge of the business, and Ned Armitage. Oh, and there was also that lank-haired fellow Tom Turner. There were others employed in the workshop as well, but I did not know their names or their faces.

  I instinctively rejected the idea that Jonathan Snell the younger might be a murderer. He had an open, ingenuous quality. He had plainly wanted to tell me something during the practice in the Somerset House audience chamber and, frustrated in this, left the note in my pocket arranging a meeting in the Three Cranes workshop. It wasn’t likely he would have done that if he was planning to carry out a murder – unless (a little voice whispered) he intended to dispose of me as well. But I could not square the image of the friendly, bespectacled young man with that of a cunning killer. And, if he was not what he seemed but a cunning killer after all, then why hadn’t he waited in the workshop for my arrival?

  Another possibility occurred as I paced around on the cobblestones of the wharf in little circles that echoed the circles of tangled reasoning in my head. This possibility was that the note hadn’t been written by Jonathan Snell at all but by his father, who shared the same initials, or by someone else altogether. In that case, the purpose of the note could only have been to entice me into a trap. But, also in that case, the same objection applied. Why hadn’t the writer of the note waited around to deal with me as he had already dealt with John Ratchett?

  I was not so sure about father Snell as I was about the son. Had the older man been implicated in Sir Philip Blake’s death? There was that conversation I had overheard between him and Lady Blake, there was his insistence that the husband’s death had been an accident. It seemed evident that the two deaths, that of Blake and Ratchett, must be connected. The second victim had tricked me into investigating the death of the first. And there was a queer similarity between the way both men had died, falling fatally through space.

  All this time I had been absorbed in my speculations as I walked restlessly about the wharf. Now some sound or sight brought me back to myself. The watermen’s lights, fewer in number now, were still hovering out on the river. The three cranes were hunched by the waterside near the solid block which was the Vintry house. I thought I detected a flickering motion by the corner of the house. I stood very still and looked to one side of the place for several minutes, since it’s easier at night to pick up movement on the edge of one’s vision than full-face. Eventually a dog crept out of the shadows and disappeared on the other side of the lane. If it was more than a year old, the animal was lucky to have escaped the attentions of the catchers, who had been especially active during the plague and its aftermath. There were far fewer dogs about since the authorities had ordered their strict control. Dog-catchers had been living in clover recently. So had murderers, it seemed.

  The dog’s good fortune in having survived made me consider my own. If John Ratchett’s murderer had unaccountably left the scene that didn’t mean that he might not choose to return. It was a foolish idea to linger scarcely a hundred yards from a murdered man.

  Briskly I walked up Three Cranes Lane. As I passed the gate which led into the Snells’ yard I didn’t even turn my head.

  Where should I lose that handkerchief?

  I must have been more affected by my discovery than I knew because when I returned to my lodgings in Thames Street it was Mrs Buckle’s turn to be concerned.

  “Are you all right, Nicholas? You look as though you’ve seen a . . .”

  “No, I haven’t seen one of those. It’s been a tiring day, though.”

  All I’d seen was a couple of bodies, one real, one fake. For an instant it crossed my mind to confide in Ursula Buckle. Here at least was someone who could have no connection with the goings-on in Somerset House or Three Cranes Lane. But caution prevailed. If I had found a dead man, a murdered man, then it should be reported to the authorities. Why hadn’t I done this? For whatever reason I had not done it, and there was no need to involve anyone else in my actions (or inactions).

  Instead I gratefully accepted Mrs Buckle’s offer of wine and gingerbread. The runny-nosed serving girl had long since retired for the night as had Elizabeth. We were alone in the kitchen of the house, a single wax candle on the table between us. It was a warm night and I was sweaty after my rapid walk from the river. Mrs Buckle was in her day things. She wore black of course, still in mourning for her husband. But black became her, as it does many widows. There was no lack of black in London during these years. Dog-catchers and tailors and coffin-makers, those that had survived, were all doing nicely.

  I was conscious of Mrs Buckle’s soft presence across the table.

  “I am afraid that Lizzie and I will have to move after all, Nicholas.”

  “Oh no. Where will you go?”

  I almost said, where shall we go? But she did not answer the question anyway.

  “You know that Hugh’s cousin has been demanding more rent. Now I have discovered that Elizabeth has been borrowing money from Mrs Morris next door in order to pay him. She has been paying him direct. I would have been too proud to borrow from Mrs Morris, Lizzie said . . .”

  “Would you?” I said.

  “I don’t know. Yes, probably I would have been. But I cannot allow my daughter to do what I am unwilling to do. So we must move somewhere smaller, out of town perhaps. Cut our coat according to our cloth.”

  The candle flickered and the light, feeble though it was, seemed to pick out the delicate groove of flesh which ran between Mrs Buckle’s nose and upper lip. The widow sounded calm and resolved. I thought of the few pounds which I had received from the late John Ratchett. Some of those pounds had already been spent on the French girl in the Mitre. Shamefully spent, some people would say (but I only thought of this because I was in the presence of the respectable Mrs Buckle). In atonement Mrs Buckle could have the little that remained of the Ratchett money but, at best, it would only delay the inevitable. It sounded as though her late husband’s cousin was determined to get her out of the Thames Street house. But what was I supposed to do? I could hardly accompany them if they moved out of town, even if they wished me to. I had to stay within walking distance of the Globe playhouse.

  “Do not look so troubled, Nicholas,” she said.

  It is surprising how much expression you can read by the glow of a single candle on a summer’s night.

  “If I do it’s because I am troubled on your behalf, Mrs Buckle.”

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled. For no reason, or as if in mockery of the widow’s warm smile and all the life that was in her, the image of John Ratchett flashed across my mind’s eye. That unfortunate wretch lying on the ground, his outstretched hand still warm and waxy, his head turned away. I felt sweat break out across my forehead and begin to run down into my eyes. I reached into my pocket for something to wipe it away, thinking to find the handkerchief which I’d attempted to return to Lady Blake or Maria More. The handkerchief wasn’t there. I dug deeper into the pocket, felt about in other places. No, it was gone. Well, it hardly mattered. That delicate handkerchief was no one’s property, apparently.

  “You’ve lost something, Nicholas?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “I mean, what is the matter? Something is wrong. You don’t look well.”

  I saw a dead man recently, I wanted to say to her. Just as you are accustomed to glimpse a dead man stalking about this house, so I too have seen one this last hour.

  But I said nothing. Instead, and hardly aware of what I was doing, I got up and moved around the table. I took Mrs Bu
ckle by the shoulder and bent down and kissed her cheek. She stiffened slightly and I was about to shift away, my own cheek hot and red from a combination of the night, the wine and embarrassment, when she turned her face towards mine and we kissed, kissed properly.

  She broke away and again I was prepared to retreat, feeling I had somehow overstepped the mark. But Mrs Buckle was not finished. She half rose from her seat and, awkwardly, we wrapped our arms about each other and kissed once again – this time improperly, you might say. She was warm and soft and her widow’s weeds stuck to my clammy shirt while my hands did their best to slide over her back.

  After a while we stood unmoving, holding on to each other. The candle was swaying in the draught from our bodies. It gave enough light for our purposes.

  “Do you know, Nicholas, it is exactly a year and a day since my husband died?”

  “You have never told me the date before, Mrs Buckle.”

  “I do not want to see him again, not tonight. He appears in my dreams.”

  “Then you must stay awake.”

  “He means no harm, you know. He was a good man although he was a stern one.”

  “I know.”

  All this time we spoke in whispers.

  I raised a hand and, with my forefinger traced out the groove above her lip, feeling I was taking a fearful liberty. The groove was slightly damp. Then I let my hand slip down to her breast. She sighed and fell against me, somehow into me.

  “We must find somewhere for you to stay awake,” I said.

  “There is my chamber.”

  “Then we should go there.”

  We separated. I picked up the candle from the table but she gripped my wrist with one hand. She had a surprisingly firm grip. She leaned across me and snuffed the candle-flame with the fingers of the other hand. The air was full of the smell of the smoking wick.

  “Darkness is best,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  I replaced the candle on the table.

  Still holding me by the wrist, she led the way towards the stairs. We were quiet as guilty children. We climbed the stairs, crossed the creaking space in front of her chamber, eased open the door, shut it fast behind us, crossed the boards to her marital bed and fell upon it as thankfully as sailors making a landfall.

  I left Mrs Buckle’s bed almost as soon as it began to grow light. She was at least half asleep, but I think she was conscious of my departure and made no move to stop me. I gathered up my tumbled clothing and inched open the door. I climbed the steeper stairs to my own bedroom and dropped on to the narrow bed. I must have fallen asleep – properly asleep for the first time that night – for the next thing I knew the sun was well up in the sky and the sound of cartwheels and plodding hooves was rising from Thames Street, together with the cries and whistles of day.

  I lay there for a while, reflecting on the events of the prevous evening and night. While I did so I began to regret that I had not stayed snug next to Mrs Buckle in her bed, or that she was not squeezed up beside me in the rather more cramped conditions of my own bed. Yes, I could do with her now. But something prevented me from getting up and going in search of the widow. For one thing, I knew that she normally rose early. For another, the other two occupants of the house – Elizabeth and the clumsy, runny-nosed serving girl (whose name, incongruously, was Grace) – were also likely to be up and about. I did not imagine that Mrs Buckle would want either of them to know what business the landlady and her tenant were engaged in. I wasn’t sure I wanted them to know, either. Darkness is best, she’d said, blowing out the candle before we crept upstairs like mice, like bad children. Maybe she was shielding her own blushes and mine, but she was also safeguarding us from discovery. I wondered what I was going to say to her this fine morning. I wondered what she was going to say to me. Oddly, these speculations were a cause of faint apprehension.

  Odd too that I still thought of her as ‘Mrs Buckle’, even more after the event than before. To address her as ‘Ursula’ seemed an almost greater intimacy than any she had so far granted, although she had unthinkingly called me ‘Nicholas’ and from time to time during the course of last night ‘Oh Nicholas’.

  My mind drifted along on these generally pleasant currents until it was suddenly snagged by the image of John Ratchett, the spy, the intelligencer. The body on its back, that warm hand as if there was still life in it. From there I moved on to the image of Sir Philip Blake and the surprise on his face just before he fell out of his flying chair. For sure, these two deaths were connected. One was murder intended to look like an accident, while the other was murder plain and simple.

  I may have fallen asleep again for by the time I came to from a confused mixture of dreamlike sights and sounds – which included three wharf cranes crouching by the water, a wandering dog and a body curled up in a red chest – the sun had risen a couple more notches in the sky.

  Now I did get up from my comfortable little bed. I put on my clothes. As I was doing so, I remembered the handkerchief which I had been searching for so as to wipe my sweaty forehead the previous evening. The one with the delicate cutwork and the embroidered dots which Lady Blake had mistaken for drops of blood. Well, since it had belonged neither to her nor to Mistress More, what did it matter if it was lost?

  But it did matter. And the realization that it did hit hard. For I must have mislaid the handkerchief at some point between leaving Somerset House and returning to Mrs Buckle’s. The most probable spot was in the Three Cranes workshop where I had stumbled over corpses both real and sham. Even then the dropping of the handkerchief wouldn’t have mattered much, since it had originally been given to me by Ned Armitage in that very workshop – or rather, I had taken it from him under the pretence of knowing who it belonged to.

  The problem was that at least three people had been shown the handkerchief yesterday during the rehearsal for the Masque of Peace. They were Lady Blake, Maria More and Jonathan Snell the younger. They knew it was in my possession. It was unlikely that the first two would go on a visit to the Three Cranes yard but it was Snell’s place of work. Most likely the son was already there on this fine August morning. If he came across the spotted handkerchief then he would know that I too had visited the yard last night. And if – no, not if, but when – that was combined with the discovery of a dead body, suspicion would inevitably point its scabby finger in my direction. True, Snell himself had called me to a secret meeting last night but then he had failed to turn up. He must have assumed that I too would not appear or would not even read the note, perhaps. Nobody ought to know of my presence in the yard. Until that nobody picked up a carelessly dropped handkerchief.

  Scarcely bothering to finish dressing, I shot off down the stairs and out of the house. On the way, I encountered my lover of last night.

  “Why, Nicholas –” she began.

  “Oh, there is no time, Mrs Buckle. Later.”

  Was I deceived but did I, even in my rush, detect a slight expression of relief on Mrs Buckle’s features?

  Once more I walked towards Three Cranes Lane. Thames Street was crowded and I had to thread my way between carts and horses and traders and shoppers, meandering in the sun. By the time I was nearing the corner of the lane I had calmed down slightly. Wasn’t it just as likely that the handkerchief had been lost somewhere else? And, even if I had dropped it in the yard or in the workshop, then that did not necessarily connect me to the death of John Ratchett. His body must have been discovered by now. It would be safer to let others handle this dangerous moment.

  Turn back, Revill. Don’t poke your hand into a hornets’ nest. If you aren’t already under suspicion, then appearing at the very instant when a body is being picked up from the ground will certainly bring you to notice. I didn’t even have an excuse for being at the yard.

  Turn back. Return to Thames Street and see what mood Mrs Buckle is in. Perhaps we could . . .

  Too late. For the younger Snell, coming from the opposite direction, rounded the corner of Three Cranes Lane a
t the same moment that I did. We almost collided. I’m not sure he would have recognized me if we hadn’t encountered each other so close. His spectacles glittered in the morning light.

  “Why, Nick, what are you doing down here?”

  What was I doing? Looking for the spotted handkerchief? No, I couldn’t mention that without the whole business coming out. The missing ring? No, that was a stale story. These ideas flashed through my head inside a second. I was groping about for a pretext – out for a morning stroll? going to hail a ferry from the wharf steps? – when I observed a change come over Snell’s face. He looked confused. Abruptly, he clapped a hand to his mouth.

  “My God, you have come to meet me.”

  Now it was my turn to be confused.

  “Meet you, Jonathan?”

  “I left a note stuffed in your doublet pocket telling you to meet me at Three Cranes . . .”

  “You did?”

  Ignorance seemed the best policy.

  “. . . at nine in the morning.”

  At that instant, on cue, a nearby bell rang out the time. It was indeed nine o’clock. The chimes were muffled by the sounds of day but it was the same bell from the same church which I’d heard just twelve hours ago, shortly before I discovered the body of John Ratchett lying on the workshop floor. A look of alarm appeared on Jonathan’s face.

  “My God, you did not come at nine last night, did you?”

  “No,” I said. “Why? Should I have done?”

  “No, you shouldn’t. Shouldn’t have come at any time. I am sorry for misleading you, Nick.”

  “What did you want to say?” I asked Jonathan Snell, thinking that if he was prepared to adopt this apologetic tone as well as owning up to the note then he could not have had a hand in the murder of Ratchett.

  “Nothing, it was all a mistake. I never had anything to say. I shouldn’t have left the note. And since, from your reaction just now, you never found the note, it doesn’t matter. You never found the note?”