The Bartholomew Fair Murders
Page 23
“Ned Babcock may not have been the businessman Mr. Pullyver would have wanted, but he was a methodical book' keeper. I have inspected his accounts, you see. Here, for example, is the entry of yesterday. Here Ned recorded the gate—three pounds and some odd pence.”
“Why, it was far more if it was a penny,” exclaimed Francis Crisp with surprise.
“And so it was, Francis,” said Matthew, “for I well remember the sum. We men of commerce always have a ready ear for another man’s profits, liking to compare them to our own. It was more indeed. Yet considerably less is recorded.”
“Why? I never knew Ned to tamper with accounts. He was most scrupulous indeed,” said Crisp.
“Perhaps he wanted to defraud me,” said Pullyver defensively.
“I think he owed money elsewhere,” said Matthew.
“To whom?”
“To the sergeant here,” said Matthew.
“I never had any dealings with the man,” Grotwell said.
“You did have dealings,” Matthew said.
“Again I say, prove it, sir, or shut your mouth,” Grotwell said. “What, will you bring the bearward alive again to testify against me?”
“There’s no need, sergeant,” said Matthew. “The facts speak for themselves.”
“What facts?” asked the Justice.
“These. Ned Babcock was paying out the greater part of his share of the profits to someone, that’s evident. If it were a legitb mate debt, he would have made his partner aware of it. He would have recorded it in the ledger. But he left his partner in ignorance and, except for recording the proper sum herein, says nothing here to explain the discrepancy between what was taken in at the gate and what went into his pocket. Now I remind you that Ned Babcock, whatever his other foibles, was scrupulously honest. But this payment to someone has all the marks of extortion.”
“Extortion,” exclaimed Francis Crisp and Juliet in unison. Now everyone, with the exception of Grotwell, urged Matthew to continue.
“What I mean is that someone had threatened Ned Babcock, someone who knew something that would destroy his fortune. It wasn’t you, Mr. Pullyver. You wanted Babcock’s business, that is to say, Samson. But what Ned feared more than anything was that the bear would be destroyed. He told me so. And why shouldn’t he be afraid? Within the year Samson had killed his own son'indaw. I grant it was provoked, and yet on that occa~ sion Samson narrowly escaped condemnation. When a body was found at the muckhill, Ned viewed the remains and knew at once who it was—he recognized the man’s hose, for they had once been his own. It was Simon Plover, his former helper. Now if this truth had been understood from the beginning, almost surely Samson would have been impounded, then destroyed.” “Indeed the bear would have been destroyed,” Justice Baynard declared. “But it was later discovered that the bear was only an ignorant accessory. Even a man may escape hanging for that.” “At which time Ned Babcock breathed more easily,” Matthew continued. “Samson was off the hook for the crime. Before that, however, he was terrified that the dead man’s identity would be discovered and Samson’s guilt be confirmed. As I say, it was a
lucky guess on my part aided by a slip of Ned’s tongue that led me to deduce the truth. Yet someone else knew the truth before me.” “You’re grasping at straws, Stock,” snarled Grotwell, Strugs gling to free himself from the grip of his own men.
“At solid planks, rather,” Matthew said. “You knew who the dead man was, Grotwell, for all your threatening and railing at Ned. You recognized him from the patched hose too. As well you might. You had ample opportunity to know him and his hose. You and Plover were boon companions, I have since dis^ covered. You haunted the Smithfield ale houses together and in your office you had thrown him into the stocks often enough, fixing his ankles into the brace.”
Matthew paused. The room was quiet. The accused man’s eyes were hard stones.
“You went to Babcock privately and told him what you knew. You railed at him in public but in private you promised to keep his secret—for a price. You would take a share of the gate. It can be exactly determined from Babcock’s ledger, by subtracting what I and Francis remember the real sum was from the difference recorded here. You see how eloquently dead men speak. Speaks from his very account book, you base devil!” Grotwell still made no response. He seemed content to wait the charges out.
“Everything would have been well for you but Stubbs was found to be the murderer of Plover. Samson was cleared of blame. Then quite reasonably Ned wanted his money back. What did he do, Grotwell, threaten to tell the Justice here or Master Clerk if you did not return the money? That would have been bad for you. Now the tables were turned. You had to return the money or pay the price—or shut Babcock up for good.” “Lies, all lies,” said Grotwell. Suddenly the burly sergeant broke free from his captors and bolted for the door. He shook it violently but it was locked and Matthew had the key. His men, recovered from their surprise, threw themselves at him from behind and wrestled him to the ground. While all in the room watched the struggle, the two officers pummeled the face and
body of their former leader. They stopped only when Matthew ordered them to, when Grotwell was bleeding and subdued.
They yanked the sergeant to his feet and shoved him back against the door so that his head banged violently on it. Grotwell made no resistance now. With bloody mouth and eye and broken nose, he gaped at the chamber. He made wheezing sounds as he breathed and clutched his side. His left leg was damp from the codpiece to the knee; he had urinated during the struggle.
“Now will you tell the truth?” demanded Justice Baynard, approaching the man.
“Yes, speak, speak,” everyone in the room demanded. Grotwell was beaten and he knew it. His bloody lip trembled and when he spoke his speech was slurred like a drunken man’s. “It’s true, what Mr. Stock has said. I knew Simon Plover. We had many a drink together when I wasn’t on duty and a few when I was. And I had clamped his ankles in irons enough times for public drunkenness. He had but one pair of hose and foubsmelling they were, so patched as to be naught but patches. I knew those hose like I knew my own face, worse luck for me and him. When I saw the leg—what remained of him— I knew who it was that had been found in the muckhill. I knew Babcock knew and I understood his silence well enough. A man wants to keep his living, and a bearward without a bear is in a sorry state of affairs. I told him I would keep his little secret if he would help me to a bit extra.”
“A good portion of his takings,” added Francis Crisp, out' raged.
“Yes, a good portion,” answered Grotwell, turning slightly to Crisp. “It was my due. It was either pay me or lose the bear and perhaps face arrest himself. I put it very plain to him. I had the authority. He knew it.”
“Then he did want his money back later?”
“Oh, yes, he was most insistent. Told me he had great debts that must be paid and could not afford to allow me to keep what was mine. I told him to go to hell. He told me that he might go to hell indeed, but he would see I went with him. He gave me
until the next morn to pay. I resolved to give the money back. Then 1 found Stubbs, came upon him quite by accident. Not looking for him at all. I was thirsty, wanted a drink and didn’t feel like paying for it. I remembered the wine seller’s booth and knew there’d be some good stuff there, just waiting to be had. 1 thought that if I was noticed there no one would pay attention, but think I was just making my customary rounds.
“I came upon the booth just as the girl was slipping out. I put two and two together—guessed I’d come upon Stubbs’s hiding place. So in I went and all of a sudden there he was. You should have seen the look on his face. He reached in his shirt, I sup-pose for the blade, but it was gone. What a surprise. I brought my cudgel down smartly and that was all for him. I was about to spread the alarm, summon my men who I knew were in the neighboring lane and shortly to meet me at the Close. Then it occurred to me what fortune had laid in my way.
“I decided to finish him. He was a murde
rer, a rotten mur-derer, and my conscience never bothered me for that. I pried open the top of the malmsey butt and lifted him up, stuck him n head first. He was drowned in a minute, never knowing what had happened to him. So much for his dreams and visions, eh?
“The next morning I went to see Ned Babcock. He was expect' ing me and, yes, he was dressed. I supposed he had fed the bear but I thought nothing about that. Babcock thought I had come with his money. I told him I had and that I was sorry for having taken it and hoped he would say nothing of our previous agreement. He was very well spoken about the whole matter. I reached into my purse and pulled out the coins he had given me—something less than he had given me, to tell the truth of it, for I had already spent some to pay debts of my own. As I was handing it to him I pretended to drop it, and when he reached down—”
At this Juliet, who had been listening all this time, let out an anguished groan and fell into a swoon. Everyone rushed to her, to see if she was dead.
• 220 •
• 24 •
Joan felt a peremptory hand on her right shoulder and knew who it was that touched her as surely as though eyes in the back of her head had confirmed it. Her embarrassment was renewed. Her husband had gone on ahead with Justice Baynard. The two of them walked arm in arm, Baynard putting praise in her husband’s ear like a pious worshiper dribbling pennies into the poor box—praise for his cleverness, his resoluteness, the sharpness of his eye and memory.
It was disgusting! Joan was angry at Baynard (pompous ass!), angry with Matthew, angry with herself for being angry with the both of them. What did it matter if Matthew got the credit for unraveling the skein of the Bartholomew Fair murders. Were she and he not one flesh, husband and wife, an indissoluble bond? Was his praise not therefore somehow hers?
Moments before she had decided in her heart that it was not, and she felt at the moment all the umbrage of injured merit, umbrage that now expressed itself as anger with her husband and with the entire race of men, meaning not the species of humankind but the gender of males, great and small. But Esmera, Esmera walking behind her, creeping up behind her, touching her, and in doing so begging that she stay her course! All that was still another offense. She turned on the woman in a fury.
“Now what?” She almost spat the words, blocking the doorway with her arms akimbo, and fixing a gaze of withering contempt on the cunning-woman. “More prophecies to make me look the fool?”
Esmera, seemingly unmoved by this expression of hostility, stared back mildly; slowly a smile crossed her face and seemed
to transform her into another person. But it was still Esmera, to Joan at least. Joan knew that as soon as the woman spoke again.
“I pray you be at peace with me, Mrs. Stock. Surely I meant no harm to you. One such as I, forced to live by her wits and talents, must sometimes—”
“Must sometimes take money and make an honest woman a gull,” Joan interrupted with all the bitterness she felt.
She hoped the cold, despising glance would reveal to Esmera just how displeased she had been to learn the full scope of the fortune-teller’s complicity with Pullyver. Joan was in no forgiving mood. Had the horrid woman not caused her face to bum in the chamber, when Matthew had unraveled the truth of all her dire warnings, revealing them to be nothing but the basest effort at manipulation? Joan’s blood boiled as she remembered her meetings with Esmera. Suddenly it all came back and the memory was agonizing to her spirit. She had never known such humiliation.
But the smile did not fade from Esmera’s face. Undoubtedly she had been confronted before by outraged clients and knew how to pacify them. Joan was resolved not to be pacified.
“You are a liar and a cheat,” Joan said.
“Never a liar, Mrs. Stock,” answered Esmera, mildly.
“I say a liar and stand by the word,” Joan challenged.
“I told no lies,” Esmera repeated.
“None without a good profit.” Joan snorted with contempt and turned to follow her husband. But Esmera raised a hand to Joan’s arm. “Wait,” she pleaded. “Hear me out, for mercy’s sake. You misunderstood.”
“God’s bodkins, I think I understood very well, thank you.”
“Oh, no, mistress. Never. If you think I lied for a paltry—”
“And what exactly was the sum?” Joan asked, fixing the woman with her steady gaze of contempt.
“Pullyver is an ass, an ignorant man,” Esmera said, no longer smiling. She shook her head as though the greengrocer’s stu-
pidity was somehow her responsibility. “He does not under-stand, neither did the others. But surely you can.”
“Understand what, for heaven’s sake?” Joan demanded, impatient to be on her way, lamenting in her soul the waste of her time, the tarnishing of her reputation.
“Pullyver did not send me to you, save after you had first come to me,” Esmera said. “His money didn’t give substance to my warning, only turned it to my advantage to reiterate it. Consider, Mrs. Stock. The destinies are a thing apart from our little pettinesses, the base motives that rattle in our brains and that we take to be the cause of action. It is the stars, rather, and the writings of fate imprinted in our palms. That is destiny. Your destiny does not depend on Pullyver any more than my warning wanted truth because he paid me to issue it. And remember, Mrs. Stock, my warning was truth. Within these few minutes it was confirmed. What did I say? A murderer with a long, pointed blade? Danger to you and yours? Danger you would have escaped completely had you gone home to Chelmsford. See how time has vindicated me!”
“Gone home and been out of Pullyver’s way, you mean,” Joan said, turning now, but Esmera stayed with her, clutching her arm. Esmera followed Joan out into the street, like old friends meeting at the fair. They merged with the throng moving toward the Close. The sun shone brightly. Everywhere there was noise and color, the day of the saint’s feast.
“I must join my husband,” Joan said, trying to catch a glimpse of him somewhere up ahead. She did. He was still walking with Baynard. She hurried to catch up, but Esmera dogged her step like an importunate beggar.
“Wasn’t it so? Wasn’t it so? Everything that I said.”
Joan stepped out of the way of the heaviest traffic surging around her.
“Was it not so?” Esmera repeated, looking at Joan out of dark, appealing eyes.
“It was so. It was as you said,” Joan conceded, quite despite
herself. She would have gladly rid herself of this woman, this woman for whom she had nothing but resentment, and whose companionship now embarrassed her. But the truth was the truth. It not from the stars, then from the plain facts, the natu-ral sequence of causes. “There was danger,” Joan conceded. “You were right on that score. Now leave me be, I beg you. I must join my husband.”
The ingratiating smile returned, slowly, like a sunrise. “Mark me well, Mrs. Stock,” Esmera said, her voice falling into a secretive whisper Joan was at pains to hear for the racket in the street. “I told no lies. Not then, not now. Look you, I will tell you another fortune—see if it does not come to pass. I don’t even need to feel your palm to tell it. Honor awaits you, great employment, gifts of love and substance. Mark my words. May my tongue he cleft like a snake’s, may my soul never rest in its grave, if what I say to you does not come to pass. Mark my words. ”
Joan glared at Esmera suspiciously, but the nape of her neck tingled with a strange excitement at the prophecy. In her heart, belief strove with doubt, desire with memory of her humiliation. Shortly, belief and desire conquered. Without fully wanting to, despising herself a little for uttering it, she asked, “When shall these things be? And what honors and employment do you foresee?”
Esmera smiled a new smile, one that could only be interpreted as satisfaction. But Joan’s curiosity was strong. Esmera’s smile contrasted oddly with the woman’s eyes, which seemed to regard something not there, like the wandering pupils of the blind. “All will come in good time,” was all Esmera said. That and good-bye.
Pressing business. Suddenly Joan remembered the time. Surely the hour was late, surely the great bell of Paul’s had already struck its single golden note announcing the Queen’s approach and the glorious ceremony Joan was determined not to miss for the world.
But as she hurried to her own destination the woman’s words rang in her ears—rang louder than the cannon blasts, the great single note, and the blazonry of trumpets. Honor, reward, great employment. What did it all mean?
Or had she been gulled a second time by the devious woman?
Joan caught up with her husband, but only because he had walked slowly; the crowd made any movement difficult. He was still talking to Baynard, but the subject was no longer the murders.
A platform had been constructed for the dignitaries of the fair, the Clerk and the Stewards, notables of the City, and a retinue of other persons who had managed a position of honor. The platform was crowded, but Joan and Matthew had been assured of a place giving good view of the red carpet stretched out before. Down this carpet the Queen was to come to be greeted by the dignitaries, who would descend from the platform to kneel at her feet. All had been carefully planned. The Queen’s way was already indicated by the presence of the royal guard, splendid in their scarlet livery, halberds skyward. On each side, the crowd pressed in for a view, a touch.
Joan had never seen the Queen, although often her image, and she was seized with a powerful excitement that put the gruesome details of the Bartholomew Fair murders quite from her mind. Then in the distance she heard a new blast of trumpets and the furious roll of a drumbeat. All heads in the crowd turned, and those packed on the platform struggled for a view. The crowd began to cheer wildly, even before anything could be seen. “God save Queen Bess! Long life to Her Majesty!”