A Rustle of Silk: A new forensic mystery series set in Stuart England (A Gabriel Taverner Mystery)

by Alys Clare

  ‘He did,’ I agreed, ‘but …’ But what? I knew, somehow, that Jeromy hadn’t been supporting himself and Celia on handouts from his father. ‘I’m fairly sure there was some discord with his family. It’s just a vague feeling,’ I added, ‘and I don’t know why I have that impression.’

  ‘Could you, do you think, ask your sister?’ Jonathan ventured. Then, as something struck him: ‘Were any of Jeromy’s kin at the funeral?’

  I met his eyes. ‘No.’

  He nodded. ‘We appear to have answered the question.’

  ‘How do we find out for sure?’ I demanded as Jonathan topped up my goblet. ‘Can I—’

  ‘I imagine,’ Jonathan interrupted, ‘that the matter will swiftly resolve itself. It is normal for the will to be read quite soon after the funeral, is it not?’

  ‘Of course.’ I should have thought that out for myself.

  ‘In which case, the lawyer who has been entrusted with your late brother-in-law’s estate will undoubtedly present himself at Rosewyke as soon as he finds out that it is the present abode of your sister.’

  I stared at him. I had a very uneasy feeling about what he had just said; it was as if I was already experiencing the anticipated meeting with Jeromy’s lawyer and not enjoying it at all.

  ‘Will you do me a favour?’ I asked.

  ‘If I can, yes.’

  ‘When this lawyer turns up, may I send word so that you can be present for whatever tidings he brings? Or, if that proves impossible, ask you to advise us once we know what those tidings are?’

  ‘It will be my pleasure,’ said Jonathan Carew.

  We did not have long to wait. As if he had been waiting for his cue, Jeromy’s lawyer arrived at Rosewyke the following afternoon. ‘I act for the late Jeromy Palfrey and I seek his widow,’ he said as I entered the parlour, into which Sallie had shown him before puffing upstairs to my study to summon me. I’d been trying to make the most of the post-prandial time when Celia normally rested in her room to return to my neglected studies, but it looked as if I wasn’t going to get very far today.

  ‘May I know your name, sir?’ I asked. The lawyer was short, slightly breathless, bald-headed and clad in fusty black, the fabric smelling as if it was in need of laundering. He had seated himself in the fine oak chair with arms that stood at the end of the large table – my chair, in fact – without being invited, and now he was spreading a wide arc of papers across the table’s shiny surface.

  ‘I am Bartolomeo Wolverton,’ he said. ‘And you, or so I am led to believe, are Gabriel Taverner, Mistress Palfrey’s brother.’

  ‘I am.’

  Wolverton looked up at me. ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘I said I wish to see Mistress Palfrey. They told me at Ferrars that she was here, and I have come all this way – I live the far side of Plymouth – with the express purpose of speaking to her. Will you kindly summon her, Master Taverner?’

  ‘Doctor Taverner,’ Sallie corrected brusquely as she came in bearing a tray of refreshments. She shot the lawyer quite a vicious look. It appeared she hadn’t taken to him.

  Bartolomeo Wolverton pretended he hadn’t heard the correction.

  I took Sallie aside. ‘Would you fetch my sister, please?’ I said quietly. ‘Warn – er, tell her who wishes to see her.’

  Sallie nodded, a knowing expression on her face. ‘That I will, doctor,’ she hissed back. ‘Very wise, if I may say so, not to leave him alone in here.’ She glanced round the room. ‘You don’t know what he might get up to.’ She leaned closer. ‘Never trust a man of the law, that’s what my dear old father used to say.’

  It would have amused me, except that, in the case of this particular man of the law, I couldn’t help thinking Sallie’s dear old father had been quite right.

  The lawyer and I waited. He pretended to sort through his documents, I simply stood watching him. I like to tell myself I made him feel uneasy, but I don’t suppose I did.

  There was a hiss of expensive silk, and Celia entered the parlour. ‘Lawyer Wolverton,’ she said with a polite smile, extending her hand to him. ‘We have not met, I think, but of course I know who you are.’

  He half-rose, took her hand in his own white, soft fingers and gave it a perfunctory peck, then sat down again. He was a fat man, and I noticed that his plump thighs were being squeezed tightly by the arms of the chair. It gave me a certain satisfaction. Since he clearly wasn’t going to bother, I made quite a ceremony of drawing back another chair for Celia, settling her into it and making sure she was comfortable.

  ‘Now, I am sure you can guess why I am here,’ Wolverton said, arranging his documents in a pile and tapping their sides neatly to straighten them.

  ‘Jeromy’s will, I imagine,’ Celia said, smoothing the fine silk of her midnight-blue gown.

  There was a short silence. Wolverton was staring at her with a strange expression. ‘The will, yes, indeed,’ he murmured.

  I had the first, sharp intimation that all was not well.

  My sister evidently had no such premonition. ‘I am sure my husband left his affairs in good order,’ she said. There was a faint note of haughty pride in her voice. I wanted to shout out a warning.

  The lawyer dropped his eyes. ‘I am rather afraid, Mistress Palfrey, that is not quite the case.’

  I was standing behind her and I saw her shoulders stiffen. There was a short pause, and she said, in precisely the same tone, ‘Explain, please.’

  Wolverton shifted in his chair, and the wood creaked a protest. ‘He – Master Palfrey – ah, how to explain?’

  ‘Simply and swiftly,’ my sister snapped.

  Wolverton was not a man to ignore a challenge, or an implied insult. Raising his head again, his small, dark eyes aimed at Celia like cannon, he said, ‘The will makes provision for you, dear lady; very careful and precise provision, indeed, and so in that sense you are correct in assuming that your husband’s intention was to leave all in good order.’ Oh, I didn’t like that heavy emphasis on intention … ‘Sadly’ – the lawyer’s face took on an expression of wildly exaggerated regret worthy of a Shakespeare comedy – ‘very sadly, your husband’s desire to leave you adequately – more than adequately – provided for is to no avail, for there is no money.’

  At first Celia said nothing. I drew closer, so that I was standing right behind her. I sensed that it was taking all her courage not to scream out a protest, and so restrained the impulse to reach out and touch her. It would serve only to undermine her: this was her battle, and right now there was nothing I could do.

  ‘No money?’ she repeated in a whisper.

  Oh, dear Lord, I thought. So the rumour is true.

  ‘No, dear lady.’ Wolverton’s narrow mouth stretched in an unctuous smile.

  ‘But—’ Her voice cracked and she tried again. ‘But I have the house?’

  ‘Again, sadly, no.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Your late husband did not own Ferrars,’ the lawyer said, each word dropping like a stone. ‘Moreover, since he has unfortunately fallen rather a long way behind in paying his rent, I am afraid to tell you that eviction is being requested.’ He hesitated, head on one side. ‘I might say rather it is being demanded’ – he gave a satisfied little smile at having selected a better word – ‘for the owner of the property is eager not to incur further arrears.’

  ‘I will pay him what we owe!’ Celia said hotly, and I heard the pride behind the words.

  Wolverton regarded her sorrowfully. ‘With what, dear lady?’

  She looked round wildly, seeking inspiration from the room. ‘There must be some money – Jeromy worked hard and long, he was a valued employee and he was certainly paid accordingly, and—’

  The lawyer leaned forward and patted her hand, clenched into a furious fist on the table. ‘Not only had he spent everything,’ he said solemnly, ‘but – oh, dear me, how I hate to tell you this! So tragic! He was in debt. Rather seriously, I’m afraid.’

  She
snatched her hand away. ‘I don’t believe it!’

  Wolverton riffled through his carefully arranged documents. ‘I have proof,’ he said. There was a sudden chill in the room, as if he was reacting to Celia’s doubting his word. He held up a piece of paper. ‘He had been borrowing increasingly large sums of money for the past eighteen months,’ he said gravely. ‘I have the details here.’ He made as if to hold out the paper, but Celia shook her head.

  ‘I don’t want to see it,’ she said.

  Wolverton replaced the document in the pile.

  There was silence in the parlour.

  Eventually I said, ‘My sister has money of her own.’ Our father had told me that he was providing Celia with a modest income; his mistrust of Jeromy Palfrey had not been assuaged, apparently. Now I saw how right he had been. ‘What of that?’

  The lawyer spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Your sister was a married woman, Doctor Taverner. Her property became her husband’s on her marriage, as did the dowry paid by her father.’

  ‘And it’s all gone?’

  ‘It’s all gone,’ he confirmed.

  He reached for his mug and drained it. Then he put his stack of papers back into his leather bag and, prising himself out of my chair, got to his feet.

  The interview, it seemed, was over.

  Celia wouldn’t talk to me. I tried – there was something very important I had to discuss with her – but she refused utterly to say a word. Her pride in tatters, mortified at this terrible window into her late, beloved husband’s true nature, she hid herself away in her room and refused to admit me.

  So that night I went to Ferrars on my own.

  I took the large cart that Samuel and Tock use for the biggest, bulkiest tasks, hitching it up to the patient old mare who always pulls it. I went by the back tracks and nobody saw me. At Ferrars, I asked the senior steward and the housekeeper to help me. I didn’t explain, and they didn’t ask; that in itself told me that they probably knew a great deal more about what had been going on than my poor sister had done.

  It took a long time. I had to be careful not to be too obvious, and quite a lot of calculation and thinking had to be done. I also had to think about storage: I had a place in mind, but its capacity wasn’t infinite.

  When finally I set off back to Rosewyke, the first light was starting to show in the eastern sky and the cart was so heavily laden that I took pity on the mare and walked.

  NINE

  So Jeromy had been deep in debt, I thought as I trudged along. He owed rent, he’d have probably run out of credit with everyone he dealt with and his way of living was far from a modest one, even for a man of inexhaustible means. In desperate need of money, did the much-vaunted and extremely valuable cargo of Venetian silk present too irresistible a temptation? Did he decide to cheat Nicolaus Quinlie and help himself to it? He knew the trade; surely he’d have been able to find a buyer. He could have reduced the price a little, in exchange for an agreement not to ask too many questions. It was possible, surely; even likely.

  So what had happened? Had he been discovered? Had someone guessed what he’d been plotting and made sure an assailant – more than one, perhaps – lay in wait for him? I pictured him, taken unawares as he crept into the dark, silent warehouse. Caught, bound and silenced by Quinlie’s toughs, bustled away to that lonely spot on the river where his body had been found, dumped there on Old Ferry Quay and utterly at the mercy of one of those heavies; possibly even Quinlie himself. Had Quinlie stood over him, told him coldly and dispassionately that nobody cheated a man like him, and then killed him? No more powerful message could have been sent to Quinlie’s other employees …

  I’d be very surprised if we ever see Jeromy Palfrey again after this business.

  The words rang in my head again. They’d known, those warehousemen at Dartmouth. Someone had found out what Jeromy had planned to do – I found it hard to think he’d managed any great degree of subtlety – and tipped off Nicolaus Quinlie. He had taken the necessary steps to protect his property and punish the would-be thief.

  Punish him terminally.

  And afterwards, how easy it would have been for Nicolaus Quinlie to play the part of the angry and frustrated merchant whose feckless employee had failed to turn up as he’d been ordered, so that someone else had to be despatched to do the job instead.

  Later, as I lay in bed sleepless, watching the morning light steadily wax, I worked out that there were two people I needed to speak to that day.

  My first mission was to seek out Jonathan Carew, and I told him that the anticipated lawyer’s visit had now happened and briefly explained Celia’s situation. Jonathan verified that she could expect nothing, including any property or wealth she had brought into the marriage, as the law made anything she owned her husband’s property. And he had spent it all.

  ‘And this applies even if he’s dead?’ I knew it was so but I had to verify it.

  ‘His will would have allowed her to inherit, had she been named as his heir, but from what you tell me there is nothing to inherit.’

  ‘Only debts.’ A dreadful thought struck me. ‘Will she have to pay back his debts?’

  ‘With what?’ He smiled wryly. ‘That, my friend, is the sole advantage of having nothing: nobody can take from you what you haven’t got.’ He paused. ‘The bailiffs will be searching, however,’ he added softly. ‘Any – er – any small personal items of little value that your sister may wish to retain might perhaps be fetched, sooner rather than later.’

  I met his eyes. ‘I understand.’ And I’ve already taken care of it.

  When I got home, it was to find my father in the morning parlour. He was sitting on the settle, Celia beside him. They were holding hands.

  He looked up at me. ‘Good day, son,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’m trying to persuade your sister to come and stay with her mother and me for a while. We’ve barely seen her, except at the funeral. Your mother dearly wants to cherish her a little.’ He turned to Celia, bestowing upon her a look of such love and tenderness that I wondered if it was he, quite as much as my mother, who wanted to do the cherishing.

  ‘I’ve agreed to go, Gabe,’ Celia said. She met my eyes, and hers held what I read as a desperate plea: Don’t tell him about the debts.

  As if I would. She’d tell our parents in her own good time – she’d have no choice – but it wasn’t my secret to tell. Minutely I shook my head. I guessed why she’d accepted the invitation to Fernycombe: there, she could still be what until yesterday she had been, the grieving but wealthy widow. Perhaps she needed a little while longer to pretend to herself that that was what she still was.

  ‘Of course you should go,’ I said, smiling at her. Then – the words sprang into my head and I realized they were absolutely true – ‘I’ll miss you.’

  Her eyes filled with tears, and she hastily brushed them away.

  When she and my father had gone, I set out to see Theo Davey.

  Seated in his office, the door firmly shut on his staff, I expounded my theory. ‘Jeromy was desperately in need of money, you see,’ I concluded, ‘so isn’t it likely, or at least possible, that he tried to cheat Quinlie and steal the Venetian silk?’

  ‘And Quinlie, if he found out, is not the sort of man to permit his employee to help himself,’ Theo said.

  ‘Far from it,’ I agreed. ‘What do you know of Nicolaus Quinlie?’

  ‘Not very much, for he is a man who values his privacy and, since he gives every appearance of being a law-abiding, honest and decent citizen, the law has no excuse to go poking its nose into his business.’ He got up as he spoke, going over to the door. He put his head outside, muttered something to someone in the office beyond, and returned to his desk. Noticing me watching, he said, ‘I believe I know someone who can help us.’

  Quite soon the door opened again and a nondescript man dressed in worn but clean garments of unobtrusive cut and shade came in. ‘Ah, there you are,’ Theo said. ‘Gabriel, this is Jarman Hodge. He is one o
f my best agents, two of his most valuable qualities being an endless curiosity for finding things out and the rare ability to keep what he discovers to himself. Jarman, what do you know about Nicolaus Quinlie?’

  If Hodge was surprised at the question, he didn’t allow it to show. With only a brief pause while he gathered his thoughts, he said, ‘He was born into the nobility; an ancient Gloucestershire family, I believe. His father and grandfather were at court, although briefly, and acquired a small degree of status and importance and a great deal of money which was used to promote the family into a place of some importance as merchants. Nicolaus was disinherited by his father – it’s said it was at his grandfather’s insistence, he being the power in the family at the time – because of his misspent youth. Nicolaus was arrogant and cruel, and the story is that he raped a neighbouring lord’s young daughter. He refused to come to heel, they say, insisting she was lying, and in the end the family were left with no choice.’ He paused. ‘There were other complaints, too. He was ever ruthless in acquiring what he desired, viewing it as his right by virtue of his family’s position and wealth and not caring overmuch how he went about it. His family, it’s said, don’t know the half of what he’s been up to in the long years since they kicked him out.’ He frowned. ‘There are dark tales told about Nicolaus Quinlie, but he’s too clever to allow any of them to become more than tales. There was the woman he was meant to marry, for instance. She was high-born and her father was related to one of the late Queen’s favourites, or so I believe. She died, and Quinlie browbeat her family into allowing him to pay for a very elaborate tomb.’

  ‘Surely that would suggest he has a heart?’ I protested.

  Hodge looked at me, eyes cool, face expressionless. ‘Perhaps. Except nobody quite knows how she died.’

  The implication being, I had to conclude, that somehow Nicolaus Quinlie had been responsible …

  ‘Oh, and he breeds mastiffs to supply the bear-baiting pits of London,’ Hodge concluded. ‘He keeps a pack for personal defence, including one big brute of a dog that rarely leaves his side.’