by Holly West
The Duke of Buckingham stood to my left, talking with a man I didn’t recognize. He acknowledged me with a nearly imperceptible nod. A pox on you, I thought.
A woman huddled in an open archway, fretting and twisting a limp rag in her hands. She was dressed for service in a wheat-colored linen smock, a neat white cap and matching apron, though she made no move to help the struggling barmaid. Her red face was pockmarked and drawn, and she had the worn out look of a woman who’d worked hard all her life.
Her apparent tension made me approach her with caution. “Is this your establishment, madam?” I asked.
“Aye, I’m Mrs. Rawson.” She examined me closely, raising an eyebrow as she took note of my expensive clothes and jewelry. “Who’ll you be?”
“I’m Lady Wilde, a friend of the deceased,” I said. “Might I have a word?”
“As you can see we’re right busy today, m’lady” she said, twisting the rag a little tighter. “There’s work to be done, so if you’ll pardon me.”
I ignored her escape attempt. “How awful it must be to have a dead man in your tavern!”
She gave an enthusiastic nod. “I screamed when they brought him, I did. D’ye know they laid him on the floor right here in the main room? Constable Brown wouldn’t let anyone carry him to the parlor until the surgeons arrived.” She nodded toward what I assumed was the parlor. It was crowded to capacity, with spectators spilling out into the main room.
“Is Constable Brown in charge?” I asked.
“Aye. He’s the one they fetched after they found the body last night.”
“Who found it?”
“Me husband, of course,” she said self-importantly, as if I should have known this already. “Two of our regulars came in and said they’d seen summat suspicious out near Primrose Hill. Mr. Rawson went with ’em to investigate.”
“What was it they saw?”
“Some gentlemen’s items—gloves and a cane, I think, just laying out for anyone to take.” She leaned toward me, hand to one side of her mouth conspiratorially. “You ask me, those two had no business messing with stuff’s didn’t belong to ’em. But it wasn’t hard to convince me husband to go out there once he thought the items could be worth something. He thought he could take ’em and sell ’em on. Made me mad, it did. The place was filled up near as much as it is now and he left me with no one but the barmaid to serve everyone. Well, now he’s got a rotting corpse in the parlor. Serves him right.”
The presence of Sir Edmund’s body at the White House Inn was bringing in a tidy amount of business—I doubted Mr. Rawson minded the imposition as much as his wife did.
“The two gentleman who found the items—you said they were regulars. What are their names?”
“Mr. Bromwell and Mr. Walters.”
“They’re here today?”
“Last I saw ’em they were in the parlor, along with me husband.”
“Had you ever seen Sir Edmund Godfrey before last night?”
“You mean did I ever seen him alive?” she said, shaking her head. “No, can’t say that I did.”
I left Mrs. Rawson to her worrying and found Sam standing by the fireplace with a pot of ale in his hand.
“The inquest is taking place in the parlor, through that doorway,” I said, pointing. “Let’s go.”
* * *
I drew a sharp breath, fighting the urge to avert my eyes. Sir Edmund lay face up on a table, his body stripped of all clothing except for a cloth covering his midsection. It did little to preserve his modesty. His face was a strange bluish-gray color, and black marks and cuts covered his neck and torso. There was an odd crease in his neck where his collar had been, and swollen purplish skin hung above and below in folds.
Three men stood at the head of the table, one of whom bore a strong resemblance to Sir Edmund. His brother, Michael Godfrey, I reckoned. The Duke of Buckingham had positioned himself in a prominent position to the right of the table.
The shortest of the group addressed the crowd. “Dr. Skillard will now examine the body.”
“Thank you, Coroner Cooper,” Dr. Skillard said, approaching the table. He was an average-sized man who wore a black wig too dark for his pallid coloring. He removed a medical lancet from his pocket. He poked and prodded at Sir Edmund, then addressed the jury: “The breast appears to have been beaten with some hard, dull object, or possibly with a person’s fists or feet,” he said, pointing to the spots on Sir Edmund’s chest.
He inserted the lancet into one of the cuts and it sank in so deeply, he nearly lost it within the cavity. He dug into the wound with his fingers to retrieve it. My stomach gave another lurch and I gasped—others whimpered and turned their heads.
“Could someone assist me in lifting the body?” Dr. Skillard said. “I need to see the backside.”
Coroner Cooper volunteered. The two men raised one side of the body and Dr. Skillard peered underneath, feeling with one hand while the old coroner struggled with the weight of the corpse alone. “You can lower him now,” he said.
Cooper let Sir Edmund drop back to the table with a dull thud.
Dr. Skillard probed another cut with the lancet. “This wound is only about an inch deep,” he said. He pulled a cloth from his pocket and wiped his hands. “But the other goes all the way through where the sword punctured the body. It appears to have pierced his heart, which would certainly be fatal.”
An attractive young man stepped out of the crowd and interrupted him. “I beg your pardon, sir, but it’s obvious from its color that the blood was not fresh when it flowed,” he said. “A wound going through the heart would’ve bled incredibly, and it’s obvious this bled very little.”
“Who are you, sir?” Coroner Cooper asked.
“I’m Nicholas Cambridge, apprentice to the king’s surgeon.”
Coroner Cooper coughed and suddenly appeared nervous. “Have you been sent by His Majesty?”
Cambridge shook his head. “I came on my own accord, sir.”
“What then are you suggesting, Mr. Cambridge?” Dr. Skillard said.
“A sword through the heart could not have been the cause of death because the wound was obviously inflicted after the victim died.”
Dr. Skillard smirked. “Thank you for your opinion, Mr. Cambridge, but no conclusions will be drawn until the inspection is complete.”
“It’s all well and good to conduct a visual examination,” Cambridge persisted, “but a proper post-mortem of the body is necessary to determine what killed Sir Edmund.”
“I’ll not allow my brother to be sliced up like a piece of mutton,” the man I’d guessed was Michael Godfrey interjected. He was tall and thin, but unlike Sir Edmund, he stood up straight and his shoulders were squared. He appeared to be several years younger than his brother, and while he had the same long-faced features, his were less wilted and had softer edges.
“Remove this man at once,” Buckingham said, referring to Cambridge. “He’s got no jurisdiction here and he’s clearly upsetting the family.”
Coroner Cooper said, “Constable Brown, what say you?”
The third man at the head of the table spoke. “I’m sure you can all understand Sir Edmund’s family doesn’t want his poor body disfigured any more than necessary.”
The family murmured their agreement.
Coroner Cooper, Constable Brown and Dr. Skillard spoke quietly amongst themselves and then Coroner Cooper addressed the jury. “Doctor Skillard will examine the body without cutting,” he said. “He’s certain he will be able to determine the cause of death by external signs.”
Michael Godfrey nodded his approval. Nicholas Cambridge shook his head, frustrated, but he retreated into the crowd without further argument.
I leaned close to Sam and whispered into his ear. “Find out where Cambridge resides.” He snuck off to locate the young surgeon.
Dr. Skillard now concentrated on Sir Edmund’s misshapen neck. He used the lancet to move the distended skin and then lifted up the head carefully. He noted it was possible
to move it easily as though there was nothing to hold it in place. I shuddered along with the rest of the onlookers as he shifted Sir Edmund’s head from side to side, demonstrating the unnatural flexibility of the neck.
“His neck is broken,” he said. “But these marks indicate strangulation.” He turned and addressed Michael Godfrey directly. “I’m afraid I cannot escape the conclusion that your brother was tortured before he expired.”
The words brought on more weeping from the women in Sir Edmund’s family, and I wiped an errant tear from my own eye. Whoever killed Sir Edmund had intended for him to suffer. What could he have done to warrant such treatment?
A man in the audience, perhaps one of the jurors, asked, “In what state was the body found?”
“He was facedown in the ditch,” Constable Brown said, “with a sword driven through his chest with such force that its tip poked seven or eight inches out the back.” He held up a sword; brownish-colored smears covered it from the tip to the middle. Several other items lay next to the corpse: a scabbard, a folded piece of paper, gloves, some coins and the same polished wood cane Sir Edmund had carried when he visited Coal Yard Alley.
“Is this your brother’s blade, Mr. Godfrey?” Constable Brown asked.
“It is,” Michael Godfrey said.
“We transported the body on two staves back to this location,” Constable Brown continued. “Once in the light, I knew beyond a doubt that the missing magistrate had at last been found.”
“What else was found with the body?” asked another juror.
“A search turned up six guineas, four pieces of gold and half a crown in one pocket,” Constable Brown said. “The other held two rings, one guinea, four pounds in silver and two small pieces of gold. He also wore a ring on one of his fingers. ’Twas not for robbery they murdered Sir Edmund.” He picked up the piece of paper.
I recognized what it was even before Constable Brown had a chance to unfold it.
“This was also found in Sir Edmund’s pocket. It appears to be a receipt of some kind.” He smoothed it out and read aloud: “9 October 1678—Met with Sir Edmund Godfrey. Paid 10 pounds for palm reading and medicinal herbs.”
God’s wounds, I thought. It was a page torn from my diary, the one on which I’d recorded Sir Edmund Godfrey’s visit.
Chapter Seventeen
“I assure you my brother did not frequent fortunetellers,” Michael Godfrey said.
“Evidently, Mr. Godfrey, he did,” said Constable Brown. “The question, of course, is who the person was and whether he had anything to do with Sir Edmund’s death.”
Fear rooted me to my spot and I hesitated to breathe lest it bring any attention upon me.
Buckingham raised a hand up. “Gentlemen, let us not be distracted by unimportant details. Sir Edmund’s visit to a soothsayer has no bearing on this matter. We must focus on finding the real culprits.”
With that, the conversation moved on to Sir Edmund’s dealings with the papists. I never expected that Buckingham, of all people, would be the one to rescue me but I silently thanked him for his boorish interference.
When the testimony did not return to the subject of soothsayers, I pushed my way out of the parlor and into main room of the tavern. I’m not generally a woman of weak constitution, but the sight of Sir Edmund’s head lolling about on his broken neck unsettled me greatly and I did not want to remain in the room any longer than I had to.
I squeezed myself onto a bench between two drinkers who were not happy to share their space. I didn’t care. There was but one question on my mind—how the devil did that diary page find its way into Sir Edmund’s pocket?
The note he’d left at Coal Yard Alley said he’d received a troubling correspondence. Had that been what he’d meant? That someone had send him the page from the diary? If so, blackmail was the most likely reason.
My gut told me Sir Edmund hadn’t taken my diary, nor had he hired someone to do so. It wasn’t in his nature to steal, as evidenced by his reluctance to relieve Titus Oates of the copy of the deposition Sir Edmund had signed. No, it was more likely someone else had stolen the diary and had sent the page to Sir Edmund as a means to threaten him.
Who then? Titus Oates? Lord Danby? The Duke of Buckingham? God’s blood, for all I knew the king himself had taken my book.
I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, trying to absorb what I had just witnessed. I’d seen death before—my own father had died unexpectedly when I was thirteen and my husband, Sir Ian—well, better not to think about that right now. But I had never seen a tortured man’s remains. I tried to remember how Sir Edmund had appeared on that first night he visited my room at Coal Yard Alley but I couldn’t. The mottled gray corpse lying prostrate in the White House Inn’s parlor had replaced that image.
I could not escape the realization that I’d convinced Sir Edmund he was in no danger and now he was dead. If my counsel had been more careful, would he still be alive? Would my diary still be safe and sound in its desk drawer at Coal Yard Alley?
Sam joined me a few minutes later and shoved in next to me, further displacing the others at the table. He seemed unaware of my distress.
“I found Cambridge,” he said. “He resides in Holborn.” He raised his hand to get the barmaid’s attention. “I need a drink. Are you thirsty?”
I couldn’t tell Sam about the diary page, not with so many people around. Instead I said, “I want to go out to Primrose Hill. The innkeeper’s wife told me two of the men who found the body are in the parlor. Go and fetch me one, please—or, better yet, her husband, Mr. Rawson, if you can find him.”
Sam went back to the parlor and returned with two men, one short and thin with a bulbous red nose and the other tall, with a round belly hanging over the waist of his trousers.
“You’re the men who found Sir Edmund’s body?” I asked.
“Aye, what’s it to you?” the shorter one said.
“That’s no way to speak to a lady, Dickie,” said the taller man, elbowing his friend in the ribs. “I’m Angus Walters and this here is Dickie Bromwell. You’ll have to pardon Dickie’s rudeness. He’s been on edge of late.”
“Discovering a corpse will do that to a man,” Sam said.
“I’ll give you each a shilling if you take me to the spot where you found Sir Edmund,” I said.
Walters smiled at me, revealing a mouthful of unexpectedly healthy-looking teeth. “We’d like to help you, m’lady,” he said. “But it’s so cold out today and Primrose Hill is quite a distance. Another shilling might make it worth it to us, though.”
Bromwell nodded his enthusiastic agreement.
Damn these men and their bargaining. “All right, two then,” I said.
When we were outside, Sam said, “Are you mad? I’m not letting you go off alone with these two.”
I pulled him to the side and whispered, “They found a page from my diary in Sir Edmund’s pocket, Sam. I need you to stay and see if you can find anything else out while I go out to Primrose Hill to see if I can find the rest of it.”
“’Sblood,” Sam said. “Was Mistress Ruby mentioned?”
“Thankfully, no. I’m hoping they have no way of identifying me at this point. Now, I must hurry. Elijah will be with me—he can handle any trouble.”
Unconvinced, Sam walked us to the carriage and consulted privately with Elijah, no doubt giving explicit instructions. He helped me into the carriage and gave Bromwell and Walters a fierce glare as they climbed in behind me.
As the carriage pulled away from the tavern, I saw a woman who looked very much like Jenny, the childless woman who’d visited Mistress Ruby at Coal Yard Alley. She approached the entrance and I twisted in my seat, following her with my eyes. She was out of sight before I could be sure.
During the journey to Primrose Hill, Bromwell and Walters sat across from me, clearly ill at ease. Sam didn’t have anything to worry about from these two, they were meek as church mice.
“Tell me, gentlemen,” I said. �
��How did you come to find Sir Edmund’s body?”
“We were walking to the White House Inn to have a drink,” Walters said. “And when we got near Primrose Hill we saw a scabbard and some gloves. But we left them where they were.”
“We’re honest men, m’lady,” Bromwell said. “Wouldn’t take anything not ours. We figured the gentleman who lost them would be round shortly to get them, so we left them and continued on our way.”
“There was nothing there besides the scabbard and gloves?”
“Nothing else that we could see.”
By this time we’d almost reached St. Pancras Church, and Walters stuck his head out the window, calling to Elijah. “Make haste here. We don’t want to linger in these parts.”
Elijah snapped the whip and I braced myself as the carriage lurched forward.
Walters smiled sheepishly. “There’s a group of thugs in this area,” he explained. “No use looking for trouble.”
“Could they have been responsible for Sir Edmund’s murder?” I asked.
“Far as I know they’re just the robbing sort, not known for killing.”
“You say you left the items where they were,” I said. “How then did you happen upon the body?”
Bromwell looked at Walters as though seeking permission to speak, and Walters nodded his assent. “We got to the White House and told Mr. Rawson about the things we’d found. He offered us a shilling to go back and get ’em. I reckon he thought they might be valuable.”
“But it was raining and we stayed inside drinking for a while,” Walters said. “When we finally went back out Mr. Rawson decided to come with us.”
“How long was this after you had seen the items the first time?”
“I’d say about three or four hours. It was near dark when we left the White House.”
“And the items were still there?”
“Aye. Everything was just as we’d seen ’em before.”
Walters peered out the window and declared we’d reached our destination. I rapped for Elijah to stop the carriage and the three of us got out. I stood still for a moment, surveying the area. Grassy fields spread out as far as I could see, and in the distance, London’s church spires seemed a hundred miles away.
