The Bartholomew Fair Murders

by Leonard Tourney

  He considered the alternatives and meditated upon strategies in that methodical way of his. It crossed his mind that he might lie, warn Elizabeth now, and in response to her criticism that she should have been informed before (oh, much before!), say that he had only just heard of Stubbs, his madness, his menace to the Royal Majesty of England. That would free Cecil from blame. Perhaps.

  But Cecil was not disposed to lie. By nature he was a diplomat who handled administrative problems—to put the present emergency in a cold, objective light—with subtlety and imagination rather than falsehood. Besides, the lie would be easily

  detected. The Clerk of the Fair, Justice Baynard, the hulking grim-faced sergeant of the watch—all knew that Cecil knew. Knew that Cecil had known since St. Bartholomew Eve.

  Matthew Stock’s message had come to Cecil by the usual route. Once delivered by the host’s boy, it had passed through a hierarchy of servants like a hot brand, facilitated in its travel by Cecil’s precise and unequivocal instruction to his entire domes-tic establishment that anything addressed to him, marked “confidential” and “urgent,” and by the hand of Matthew Stock of Chelmsford, be brought to him immediately, no matter the hour. And so the message had been handled and received, and it now lay with the other papers, on top of them all, read thrice over and therefore memorized already by Cecil.

  Treason and revenge, Matthew Stock had written, the words standing out boldly. Neither had caused a frisson in this man Cecil—renowned for his dispassion—much less a mundane emotion like fear. Cecil was accustomed to violence of mind, tongue, and hand from his long sojourn in the corridors of power. Matthew Stock’s message had thus only confirmed his intuition. So Royal Elizabeth was the madman’s target after all. The Queen to be done in, stabbed to death, a royal sacrifice in the very place where Stubbs’s Puritan martyrs had been burned for their heresies.

  He might have known! Were they not all half-crazed, these sectarians? With their biblical injunctions, sanctified names, and fantastical interpretations and prophecies? With their sermons of three hours’ length, their visions, their harangues and wrenchings of the sacred texts of Christendom to suit their mean-spirited ambitions for ecclesiastical power? He granted that some were tractable as subjects, harmless cranks content to assemble together to sing and pray. But there was the lunatic fringe too, who hated Elizabeth because she steered a middle course between the Scylla of Rome and the Charybdis of Geneva. Who spewed her from their mouths because she was neither hot nor cold, at least according to their own pernicious estimate. Who hated the Queen finally and most profoundly

  because she was a woman. A woman who did not stint to dress according to the world’s idea of splendor, a woman who radh ated magnificence and encouraged her own cult among court' iers and poets, who called her Cynthia and Diana and Gloriana. Heathen names all—a heathen queen of a heathen court. They hated her because she checked their mighty zeal— detestable word of Puritan cant—and because she was not above sending their saints to prison or exile, should their preaching offend.

  He put out his pipe. His head was beginning to ache, perhaps from the tobacco, perhaps from the complexities of his dL lemma. He read Matthew Stock’s message again, despite the fact he already knew it by heart. He agreed that the slander of the Queen coupled with the threat implied in the Gospel verse was adequate evidence of murderous intent. It was the kind of thing that might be read at Stubbs’s trial. If the lunatic were ever apprehended to have one.

  He cast a cold eye on the clock. It was half past eight. He had been up and dressed since five, had taken nothing for breakfast. He decided he must have something in his stomach. He would not go to Whitehall fasting.

  He could already hear his royal mistress’s bitter complaint: “What, Robin, why had you not earlier warned me? Here I am already dressed, the coach at hand, the Lord Mayor of London and other notable citizens positively salivating at the prospect of my coming, and here you stand and tell me I must not come—not come to the fair—because a murderer is afoot and hankers to put a blade in my heart. Is there none among my court I can trust?”

  The strident yet beloved voice faded in his imagination. He sighed and turned back to the edict of Parliament, the ambas' sador’s letter, the reports of his spies—all crying out for his attention. But it was no use. He stared listlessly out the open window, the window that looked over the Thames flowing in its solemn majesty. The morning sun shone brightly on the

  gray-green waters. It was a fine August the twenty-fourth. St. Bartholomew’s Day.

  He called for his servant and ordered breakfast prepared and finer garments laid out. It would take about an hour to prepare himself. He would go to Whitehall and warn the Queen she must not come, and yet somewhere in the back of his mind he prayed that in the interval the murderer would be apprehended and all would be as before.

  • 21 •

  Joan encountered Rose Dibble by accident. The poor girl was wandering aimlessly through the fair, wearing an expression of hopelessness. When Joan greeted her, Rose flinched at her name. She explained that she had been searching for other em-ployment. She was afraid to go back to Ursula’s booth.

  But Rose had had no luck. The crowd at Bartholomew Fair was larger than ever. Many had come especially to see the Queen and were already jockeying for positions of vantage along the route Her Majesty was to take. Banners and standards had been erected but hung limp in the still air. A scarlet carpet had been laid and everywhere scarlet-coated guards bearing the royal device could be seen, halberds high.

  Matthew had gone off with Grotwell and the others to search anew for Stubbs. Joan had elected to look around for herself. For to her, the search seemed increasingly futile. Stubbs was obviously possessed of animal cunning. If he did not wish to be found, he would not be. It was as simple as that. But the poniard left behind, identifying itself so boldly as to just who had wielded it—that puzzled her. Why had Stubbs not taken it with him? Had he been surprised in the act and fled in con-fusion? That didn’t seem likely either.

  It had occurred to her that she might return to the wine seller’s booth, where by light of day some evidence, overlooked by the sergeant and his men in the confusion of darkness, might be found. She asked Rose to keep her company, but the girl seemed reluctant.

  “Oh, I dare not,” she said.

  “Come, it’s broad daylight. We’ll not be alone. See what a

  multitude swirls about us. You don’t expect Gabriel will be hiding there, do you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Come, Rose. Your company will be most welcome. Besides, you have nothing else to do.”

  “But I must dress—dress for the Queen,” Rose said. The words spurted forth, as though she had only now remembered the honor conferred upon her of being one of the Smithfield virgins. “The Clerk of the Fair said I must be at the Close and all prepared by twelve o’clock.”

  “And so you shall,” Joan said. “Besides, that is more than three hours off. Jack Talbot’s booth is on your way. You’ll lose no time by accompanying me. You can well spare the hour.”

  By day, Jack Talbot’s booth seemed more desolate and forsaken than ever in its premature dismantlement since the neighboring booths—both of herb and spice merchants—were doing a steady business. Passersby looked curiously at the wine seller’s booth and then went on. Perhaps some had heard about the murder, and if so would shun the place as unlucky or, worse, haunted. But most had not heard, were strangers to the place like Joan, and the abandoned booth with its ruined front-sides aroused only a mild curiosity as to the whereabouts of its owner and the cause of its ruin.

  Joan stepped confidently over the rubble. “Come, don’t be afraid. Nothing will hurt you here, not now, at least,” Joan said, leading Rose by the hand.

  They went inside. Everything was as Joan remembered from the night before. The great mess Grotwell and his cohorts had made in trampling about searching for the fugitive was still there, untouched. Joan stepped over the casks and boxes,
inhaling the lingering scent of malmsey, more faint now than the night before, when the same scent had the strength of a wine-bibber’s breath with two gallon or more of the stuff in his belly. Rose stood quietly while Joan looked around. She set some of

  the casks upright to have a better view, kicked at the matted straw that covered the floor. Then she saw the poniard. She reached down to pick it up. Rose gasped behind her. “Why, it’s Gabriel’s knife.”

  Joan looked at the weapon in her hand, unsheathed it. Its slender blade looked deadly. It was not identical to the one found in Ned Babcock’s back, but it was somewhat similar. The haft bore no marks indicating who its owner might be, and Joan wondered if Rose could be mistaken.

  But Rose insisted she was not. “It’s his, it’s his,” she cried tearfully. “He’s left it behind. But it proves I never lied to the sergeant. He was here. I spoke with him an hour or more. He showed me the knife in your hand, Mrs. Stock. I was so fearful of it he laid it aside. The blade he drew from his shirt was that one. I swear before God, it’s true.”

  Joan searched the girl’s face and found nothing but the hon^ est truth in her expression. So this was Stubbs’s weapon. Had the young Puritan two such blades? Or was the treacherous in-strument found in Ned Babcock’s back someone else’s? Some-one who wanted to make it appear Stubbs was the killer?

  Joan was considering this intriguing idea when her eye fell on a patch of straw that seemed not only trampled but moist. Still clutching the hasp of the poniard, she knelt down to examine the straw. She had earlier supposed a great quantity of wine must have been spilled during the invasion of the booth and now realized that there were no broken casks in sight. Two large butts in the back parts were upright and apparently unop' ened. Now this moist straw, confirming that a spillage had oc-curred the night before, hence the overpowering odor of malmsey. She traced the dimension of the spillage until she came to the upright butts. She knocked on the first of the two and heard the dull thud indicating its fullness. But the second gave a different report: the knock was hollow.

  At that moment Joan’s investigation was interrupted by the sound of creaking cart wheels outside the booth and the shouts of men’s voices calling out to pedestrians to make way for the

  cart and its load. She heard the rough tread of workmen’s boots and a moment after two shabbily dressed men entered and, without asking who Joan and Rose might be, announced that they had come to remove the wine seller’s stock, for the man himself was dead by report and the goods were to be put into storage until it could be determined if there were any heirs or outstanding claims. One of the men, a red-faced, muscular type with shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, asked Joan’s permis-sion to proceed with the work. He said he had come on the orders of the Clerk of the Fair.

  “Mr. Rathbone?”

  “The very same, ma’am,” said the shirt-sleeved man. He nodded to his companion, who was shorter, had thick, curly hair, and wore a dirty jerkin.

  “Do as you will,” Joan said.

  The women stepped aside as the men proceeded with their task, hefting the casks on their shoulders as though they weighed nothing at all and marching forth into the lane to load the same onto the cart, which Joan could see was already piled high with gear of every sort. While the men worked, they com-mented on the wine seller’s inventory, which they obviously envied. They seemed, however, to be honest men, not prone to make a simple job into an occasion for larceny. They saved the malmsey butts for last. Joan asked them what they intended to do with them. The butts were large and would hardly fit upon the cart unless everything were taken off and restowed.

  The taller of the men looked puzzled; he had clearly not considered the difficulty Joan now called to his attention. The two men briefly discussed what was to be done. “Ay, they’re both as heavy as rock,” said the shorter man, looking at the butts and shaking his head. “We shall have to come back for t’other ones,” said the taller man, with a sweaty smile of satisfaction that a difficult problem had been solved after all.

  Joan regarded the wine butts. Heavy, were they? The both of them? And yet one, she now suddenly remembered, had sounded hollow.

  “I would like to see inside that one butt,” she said to the taller of the men, who seemed to he chief.

  “Why, mistress, will you have a drink? That’s a mighty thirst, I warrant,” said the short man.

  The tall man laughed at the thought. He wiped his mouth and said he was thirsty too. But Joan quelled his merriment with a stem regard.

  “I only wish to look inside,” she said icily. “Not a drop shall be wasted or drunk, I swear it. I think some of the wine spilled in the booth yesternight, for see how the straw all about is still moist and sticky too. What, will you store spoiled wine, if that’s the case, or go to the trouble of hauling an empty or halT filled wine butt to some warehouse?”

  The tall man stroked his grizzled chin thoughtfully. He cast an appreciative eye on the slender form of Rose Dibble. The girl was as still as a mouse. “Well,” he drawled, “I suppose it will do no good to store ruined malmsey or half-filled butts. I’d be glad too to avoid another trip to Smithfield in this crowd.” He looked at the coins Joan had drawn from her purse and that she now held out as an added inducement. “If, on t’other hand, the malmsey is good, sweet, and ample, it could hardly hurt to sample a drop.”

  “Not a bad suggestion,” Joan said, smiling.

  The man took the coins and stuffed them in his pocket. “Come, Tom. We’ll take the good woman’s money for our la~ bors, which is in addition to that we contracted for with the Clerk. Since the laborer is worth the hire, our labor is saved. If the malmsey’s good, we’ll all be the sounder men for it, for I am near dying of thirst in this weather.”

  The man called Tom went to fetch a mallet and pry bar from a toolbox in the cart and soon returned, grinning mis-chievously. He fit the bar in place and struck all around with the mallet until the lid was loose, then he lifted it off. He, Joan, and the tall man all peered inside at the same time.

  “Jesus Christ our Lord!” exclaimed the tall man, blinking with amazement.

  Aware that behind her Rose was moving forward to join them in inspecting the butt’s contents, Joan turned quickly and blocked the girl’s vision. She took Rose’s shoulders and in a firm, commanding voice, told her to go fetch her husband. “He’s somewhere in the fair. With the sergeant and his men. Do try to find him. Bring him here at once.”

  Confused by Joan’s sudden and unaccountable severity of manner and frustrated in her effort to see inside the butt, Rose said that she would go and find Joan’s husband. “But what if he will not come, Mrs. Stock? Or cannot come this instant?” “Tell him he must:,” Joan said. “Tell him I am sick unto death or besieged by thieves. Make up an emergency if you have to. Tell him anything, but bring him here straightway.”

  Joan watched the girl go off and then turned to the men, who were still staring into the butt.

  “Shall we pull the fellow out?” asked Tom, his face as white as a sheet.

  “No hurry,” said his taller companion before Joan could answer the question herself. “He’s as dead as a drowned cat.” Joan did not approach the horrid wine butt for another peek at its appalling contents. Her one glimpse would become a permanent fixture in her imagination, she was sure. Her suspicions had been confirmed. She now understood why the malmsey had been spilled and when. She also knew that Gabriel Stubbs could not have killed Ned Babcock.

  • 22 •

  Later that morning about a dozen persons had gathered in the great chamber of the Hand and Shears in response to Mat' thew’s summons. This was the room, low-ceilinged and conve-niently furnished with benches and stools, that was used during the days of the fair for the famous Court of Pie-Powders at which Justice Baynard normally presided. But the Justice, who was one of the dozen in the chamber, was not holding court at the moment. The business at hand was not false weights, bad bread, or some other minor infraction, but murder—murder not wrough
t in passion or desperation or madness but in the cold detachment of reason.

  Matthew had chosen the chamber because of its privacy, its relative quiet from the hubbub of the fair, and its stout oak door, which could be secured from inside as well as out by lock and key.

  Present also in the room were the other principals in the Stubbs’s matter—Francis Crisp, Ralph Chapman, John Pullyver, and Juliet Beauchamp. With them were Rose, Ursula, the pig-woman, and Esmera, the fortune-teller, who had cast off her usual exotic apparel in favor of a simple plain gown that made her appear, except for her wine-dark coloring and height, no more sinister than any other London woman of her age on holiday in Smithfield. Still others present included the Clerk of the Fair and Grotwell and two of his men. The sergeant was sitting in the front of the room next to Francis Crisp. His men were standing by the door keeping a watchful eye on the assembly.

  All of these, most certainly the women among them, had expressed some bewilderment at the occasion and urgency of