The Bartholomew Fair Murders

by Leonard Tourney

  Matthew’s summons. But none had refused to come, for Mat' thew had made it known that he bore Cecil’s commission.

  Whereupon Grotwell and his men had gone forth through every lane and back street in the neighborhood, rounding up such persons as Matthew had designated and fetching them to the appointed place, informing each in the process that any denial, excuse, or lingering would be regarded as a transgression with grievous consequences. And in that spirit they had come, bewildered, curious, but under penalty of law, and now sat sub' missively waiting what they were to hear. They voiced no pro' test when Matthew ordered Grotwell to lock the door behind the lot of them and deliver unto him the key.

  Joan found a seat with the others on the hard benches. The persistent rumble of carts and other traffic, the cries of hawkers, and the occasional beat of drums or ringing of bells outside in the street soon faded from her awareness as she focused her attention on Matthew, who had taken his place in the front of the room and now stood, hands on hips in an attitude of au-thority, facing his little audience like a player on the stage about ready to deliver a soliloquy of some pith and moment.

  Matthew began with an announcement, delivered in his typ' ically straightforward manner and without emotion, as though the news touched upon no one present in any meaningful way. He told them Gabriel Stubbs had been found, drowned in a malmsey butt in the very booth in which he had taken refuge the night before.

  For a moment there was a silence like the intake of a breath before a sneeze, then an explosion of voices expressing wonder and approval. Wonder that Stubbs was dead, approval that Matthew, or the Justice, or perhaps even the sergeant had somehow brought it about. Those, like Chapman and Pullyver, who had feared for their lives, now sighed for relief and con' gratulated each other on their escape from danger. Francis Crisp looked pleased that his partner’s death had been avenged, and Ursula was as unable to contain her triumph as the bench she sat on was inadequate as a surface for her immense but'

  tocks. She rose to her feet and shook her fist at the floor, boom' ing, “Good riddance to the miserable cur! May he bum in hell.”

  Esmera sat quiet and expressionless, and Juliet looked grieved as she always did, although it was not clear to Joan, who stud' ied the reactions of the group closely, for whom her grief was intended. Rose, however, seemed truly devastated by the news.

  When the group had regained its composure, Pullyver said, “This is very good news indeed, Mr. Stock, but is it for this we have been summoned?”

  Matthew said, “No, sir, it is not. Stubbs’s death might well have been announced otherwise than I have done it. Fact is, sir, we are here to determine its cause.”

  “The cause!” exclaimed several voices at once, including Chapman’s, who added, “Does it make any difference? It is a godsend to us all, and he who did it may have my thanks and more.” Chapman looked about the room as though the per-petrator of the deed would presently raise his hand to receive the applause of them all, but no one rose to claim responsibility for Stubbs’s death.

  “He did deserve it,” said Juliet in a low, steady voice so full of hatred that it sent chills up and down Joan’s spine. “For what he did to my father, and to the others.”

  “And what he might yet have done, Mr. Stock,” agreed Jus-tice Baynard. “But tell us, pray, if there is some further mystery requiring light here. Within two hours’ time the Queen and her retinue arrive, and Master Clerk and I must be on hand to meet her.”

  Matthew assured them that his remarks would be brief. He began to pace to and fro in the front of the chamber while he talked. “You have been called here because the true image of these murders wants one or two additional strokes before the likeness is perfect. I beg your patience. Within the hour our business will be concluded to everyone’s satisfaction. Except perhaps for one among us. That person will not be satisfied.”

  Matthew stopped in his pacing and studied his audience.

  Joan observed that while no one queried Matthew’s last cryptic remark, almost every face showed that the remark had been heard, and its promise of some startling revelation taken note of. Bewildered and suspicious glances were exchanged. Ursula grumbled beneath her breath, and an air of nervous expectation now replaced celebration as the dominant mood.

  “This Gabriel Stubbs who is now dead,” Matthew continued in the same steady voice, “was, as you know, infected in the brain by a religious melancholy of such sort that it led at last to murder and treason. His madness was directed toward this fair itself, which he conceived as Babylon, and even to Her Map esty’s own person, for in his lunacy he imagined her the Queen of that wicked city. He murdered a puppet master on the road near Chelmsford within the week, then came here and did like-wise to Simon Plover and the wine seller, Jack Talbot, for rea-sons we may never fathom. Three victims, in sum—victims of Gabriel Stubbs and his madness!”

  “You count wrongly, Mr. Stock. Surely you have forgotten my partner, Ned Babcock!” exclaimed Francis Crisp, rising to his feet.

  “Yes, Mr. Stock, the lunatic must be given credit for four victims, not three,” said the Justice.

  “My arithmetic is quite perfect,” Matthew replied calmly. “I didn’t forget Ned Babcock. The truth is that Gabriel Stubbs did not murder him. He could not have. Stubbs, you see, was by then already dead.”

  “But his knife was found in my father’s back,” protested Juliet, her wonted bitterness replaced by an expression of total confusion.

  “And his face marked with the claw,” added Pullyver. “What can be more certain proof?”

  “The weapon used was not Gabriel’s, although very like his. The murder was done by someone who wanted it to appear as though Stubbs had done it. Someone who thought that in a chain of beastly crimes, a fourth would not be looked into. That someone stands among you at this moment.”

  At this there was a clamor of protest, exclamations of sur^ prise, and professions of innocence all around the room, but no one looked prepared to leave now, and even Esmera’s inscruta-hie composure had been replaced by an expression verging on curiosity. Matthew waited for the uproar to die down before proceeding.

  “I have brought you here to help me determine who that someone may be,” Matthew said.

  “Is it not possible that Stubbs was killed after he had killed the bearward?” the Justice asked.

  “That is not possible,” said Matthew. “Stubbs was alive when Rose Dibble left him in the wine seller’s booth. She declares that to have been about the time the sun set. Eight o’clock in this season. It was some two hours afterward that Sergeant Grotwell and his men surrounded the booth and took it, not finding Stubbs inside. We all supposed that he had escaped. In fact, he had not. He was killed between the hours of eight and ten. First bludgeoned, then drowned. In a malmsey butt, where his body was concealed.”

  “But how can you be sure the body wasn’t put there later than ten?” Pullyver asked.

  “My wife entered the booth shortly after it had been stormed. At that time she noticed a strong odor of malmsey.”

  “I assumed at the time it had been spilled in the scuffle,” Joan said.

  “Why, I noticed the same odor,” declared one of the ser-geant’s men.

  “And I,” said Grotwell, “but thought nothing of it. It was a wine booth. How else should it smell but of wine?”

  “But Rose swears that no wine had been spilled when she was there with Stubbs,” Matthew continued, “and since the odor was strong by ten o’clock, it must have been between those hours that Stubbs was killed. Pushing the body into the butt displaced most of the contents.”

  “I returned to the booth this morning,” Joan added. “The

  odor was still detectable. But much weaker. Stubbs was killed before ten o’clock.”

  “So someone did what needed to be done,” remarked Francis Crisp, curtly. “What does it matter when he was killed? The Crown is saved the expense of a hanging.”

  “It matters, friend Francis,” Matthew replied, �
��because who-ever killed Gabriel killed Ned Babcock too.”

  “Pray tell us who the person is, Mr. Stock,” asked the Clerk of the Fair somewhat impatiently. “It is nigh unto eleven now.” Matthew ignored the Clerk’s remark and went on in his same unhurried pace. “Almost surely one of us who was searching for Stubbs last night found him, killed him, and then kept his death a secret from the rest of us. We should never have known of Stubbs’s death at all had it not been that Master Clerk here ordered the removal of Jack Talbot’s goods and my wife’s suspb cions caused the malmsey butt to be opened.”

  “I gave no such order for removal,” protested the Clerk hotly.

  “I thought not. The laborers said that they had such an order and were paid in advance for their work. When I asked them to describe the man who had paid them, they grew fearful and ponfessed that it was no man at all, but a great tun of female flesh.”

  At this description all eyes were turned to Ursula, who was sweating furiously and cursing beneath her breath. She glared at the Clerk first and then took in the whole room in one sweep' ing gaze of hostility and contempt.

  “Speak, woman. Did you murder Gabriel Stubbs?” the Justice demanded, rising to his feet and walking toward Ursula, his finger pointing at her accusingly.

  “I heard her swear to rip out Stubbs’s heart on the account of Jack Talbot, who was her friend,” said Grotwell.

  “Ay, I swore,” Ursula said without regret. “I would swear a second time and a third, though I die for swearing it. But I did not kill the imp of Satan. Drowned in malmsey? Why, that’s

  too good for the scum. I would have left his body in the filth of the lane, yea, and bragged about it too. Everyone at Smithfield would have known how Ursula takes her vengeance.”

  “If you did not murder Stubbs, then why order the men to remove the wine butt in which the body was concealed?” asked the Justice.

  Ursula paused before answering, as though deciding whether the question—or indeed any question put to her by the present company—was worth an answer. But slowly it seemed to dawn on her that she was in serious trouble and that no one present either regretted the fact she was charged or was likely to support her innocence. She sighed heavily and said, “The truth was I wanted Jack’s goods, the wine. He owed me money, and I had a reasonable claim upon his property. True it is that I paid the louts to carry away Jack’s gear. I knew of no bodies in the malmsey butt. What a shame it is for a rat to spoil good wine. I say still whoever did it did God a service, ay, and his country too, and needs a reward, not punishment. Would that I could lay claim to such a reward, my masters.”

  “The hussy is undoubtedly lying,” declared Pullyver. “She killed Stubbs as she threatened and wished to dispose of the evidence.”

  Others in the room, including the sergeant and his men, echoed the charge, and Grotwell was in the process of ordering the officers to lay hands upon Ursula when Matthew told him to wait. An arrest for murder was premature, he said. “The matter stands that the wine seller’s goods were not yours to remove,” he said to Ursula. “You used the Clerk’s name falsely to cover common theft, and you shall be punished for that. Take her away, sergeant.”

  Grotwell shrugged and made a face suggesting he was as con~ fused as any other person in the room. One of the officers con^ ducted Ursula out, having first secured the key from Matthew. For once, Ursula did not protest. Relieved to have avoided the more serious charge, she seemed content with the lesser one.

  “Is this wisely done, Mr. Stock?” Justice Baynard now asked,

  his voice heavy with concern. “Given the evidence against the woman, she seems most likely to have taken her vengeance on Stubbs, then stuffed him in the malmsey butt until she could have both butt and boy carried off privately.”

  Matthew said, “She’s no paragon of virtue, that’s God’s truth. Yet no murderer either. I’ve made some inquiries which I think Master Clerk will confirm. The sum is that our good Ursula of the pig booth has played such tricks before. Her reputation is fouler than a French jakes. Yet, I repeat, she’s no murderer. If she had killed Stubbs, it would have been as she said—out in the open and to the benefit of her reputation as the reigning termagant of Smithfield. No, I have learned that Jack Talbot did owe her a good deal of money. You see, Ursula is wealthier than she appears. Her business is not confined to bad ale and roast pig.”

  “She’s a notorious pimp,” added the Clerk with a derisive laugh. “She sells as much punk as pig. She also does a ready business as a moneylender—and at usurious rates! It is likely the wine seller’s stock in trade was security for some debt of his. Him dead, she moved quickly to secure what was hers.”

  “If not Ursula, then who?” Juliet inquired. “Who kilUd my father?”

  “A question I shall presently answer,” said Matthew, resuming his pacing. “If as it now appears Stubbs was found and killed before ten o’clock, then it must have been done by one of those searching for him. Only they knew he was a fugitive. Only they knew the method of his madness and were thus able to counterfeit it later. What must have happened was this: someone took him by surprise in is hiding place, struck him upon the head, then drowned him, leaving the body concealed until it could be safely removed.”

  The sergeant interrupted to say he was very sorry he had overlooked the malmsey butt. “God’s truth it is, masters. I thought it contained nothing worse than fifty gallons of wine.” Pullyver said he thought it was a wonder that such a dangerous fugitive had been taken so easily.

  “No great wonder,” Matthew replied. He nodded in Rose’s direction. She seemed still too shocked by the fact and manner of Stubbs’s death to follow what had since transpired in the room and sat as if in a trance, her hands limp in her lap and her eyes downcast.

  “Rose had left to determine the state of things and he ex' pected her return at any time,” Matthew said. “Hearing some' thing astir in the outer booth, he must have supposed it was she returning. He had put his weapon aside earlier. Perhaps he had forgotten he was unarmed. Comes the intruder into the booth and whack! Stubbs is knocked senseless before he is aware. Within minutes he is dead. Drowned. All this could have hap' pened without anyone observing or hearing it, so great was the clamor in the street. Who pays attention to a single cry—if there was time for that? Or the whack of a club or staff? The interior was a private place, although but inches from a bois' terous multitude. Afterward the murderer, for such he was, thought quickly. Planned a new murder.”

  For a moment there was silence in the room, and in that s^nce Joan studied the intent expressions of those around her. It Wca as if only now the full significance of her husband’s words impressed itself upon them. Someone among them was a mur' derer.

  The noise from the street entered her consciousness but van' ished again when Pullyver broke the silence.

  “Well, Mr. Stock, it wasn’t I who did it.”

  “Nor I,” declared Francis Crisp, a hard edge to his voice. “Although it’s God’s truth that I would have done it if I could.” “Nor I,” said Chapman, his face pale and glistening.

  The sergeant and his men also declared they knew nothing of whackings or wine butts. The search of the wine seller’s booth, the sergeant protested, had been done in pitch darkness. He had never thought to look in the wine butt for he expected to find the mad Puritan alive, not drowned, and a full wine butt is a bad place for a live man to hide, he said.

  Matthew went on, “Had it not been for Ned Babcock’s

  murder we might never have known who killed the boy. Or why, ” Matthew explained when the various protestations of in-nocence ceased. “In broad daylight I’ve searched the booth thoroughly. Stubbs’s slayer left no tracks there, save Stubbs’s true knife, which my wife discovered partially concealed in the straw.”

  Matthew paused to show his audience the poniard with the bone shaft. He held it high, then placed it before him on the table and continued. “Only Gabriel Stubbs can tell us who his attacker was, and he is silent now. Yet t
here is one clue. His killer must have been someone acquainted with the method of his own murders. How else know to deface the body, as was done, or drag it inside the cage for the bear to feed upon. Those of us who knew these things kept them between ourselves. The killer of Stubbs therefore must have been one of us. It stands to reason. But it was also someone who wanted Ned Babcock dead.”

  At this, Esmera, who until now had remained a silent ob-server of the proceedings, begged to be excused. “I never knew this bearward of whom you speak, or the other victims. I know nothing of these murders.”

  “Not know?” Matthew exclaimed sarcastically. “I’m very much surprised at your ignorance. Ignorance in one who makes her living by knowing all and seeing it too? Why, what pains you took to warn my wife of the danger she and I stood in— from beasts and knife-wielding murderers. Not know indeed! Sergeant, look to this woman well, for I have not finished with her yet.”

  Joan blushed at this reference to her own involvement with Esmera but noticed that Pullyver now appeared less composed than before. Juliet too looked nervous.

  Matthew went on. “Ned’s death has resulted in the dissolu-tion of his partnership with Francis Crisp, the end of what might have been a profitable enterprise. I ask myself, which among you would have desired such an outcome and who there-fore would have motive to kill him?”

  There were some protests from Pullyver and Chapman, but Matthew dismissed them with a wave of his hand and went on. “I am sorry to say that almost too many of you had such a motive, although in most it was not sufficiently strong—or the result of death brought too much trouble to yourself. Juliet Beauchamp, I begin with you.”

  “What?” she declared, turning pale and clinging to Pullyver for support. “How can you say I ever wanted my father dead!” “Easily,” Matthew answered, undismayed by the young woman’s withering scorn. “You blamed your father for your hus-band’s death. You hated the business he was in, and wished to see it dissolved and your father punished for his lack of remorse.”