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

by Alys Clare

  I closed the low door behind me and stood up, looking about me. There was still a little light in the western sky and it flooded in through the windows, adequate for my purposes. I was in a passage that ran right across the back of the warehouse, in which there were several doors. I began methodically to open them.

  The first couple opened readily. A storeroom smelling strongly of hessian; a room in which there was a carpenter’s bench and tools and several packing cases, another in the process of being made. The third door was locked.

  The precious little implement was still in my hand. I set to work.

  It was a large room, with two windows overlooking the quay below. I crossed on soft feet to look out. One watchman stood just below me, the other was leaning against the wall at the corner of the warehouse, over to my right. Both were gazing out indifferently over the water. With a nod of satisfaction, I went back to my perusal of the room. There was a wide oak desk with an ornate chair behind it, its back and arms beautifully carved. Several large, stoutly made chests stood around the walls; one had not been quite closed, its heavy lid propped up by a stack of documents within. The top of the table was strewn with piles of folios, bundled together and tied with tape.

  It looked as if I had located Nicolaus Quinlie’s office.

  Now that I was there, I had no idea how to set about my search. What, indeed, was I hoping to find? The whole escapade seemed impetuous and stupid, and I was tempted to creep away before my presence was discovered.

  Still, I thought, I’m here now. I may as well have a poke around.

  I picked up a pile of the bundles on the table. Holding them so that the dying light fell upon them, I studied them. The documents within were a mass of figures in neat columns, with headings that seemed to pertain to the cargos that Quinlie imported. Seta reale, indigo and emerald. Viridian. Crimson. In another document there was a long list of spices, followed by several columns of incomprehensible figures.

  I worked my way through everything that was on Quinlie’s table. There wasn’t anything there that didn’t belong in the workplace of a prosperous, hard-working merchant. With an exclamation of disgust – at myself, for having embarked on this ridiculous enterprise – I crossed the room to have a look inside the partly open chest.

  I found more of the same: stacks and stacks of neatly tied documents, their dates going back, by the time I was delving around at the bottom of the chest, for a decade and more. As on the table, everything was correct and orderly.

  Tucked away in the base of the chest I found a slim bundle of documents labelled in a different hand from the majority of the rest. The papers – only a handful – were bound between leather covers, and the top one had a decoration – a crest of some sort? – tooled into its surface. Within the indentations of the design I made out vestiges of gold paint. I picked up the file and went over to the window to seek what was left of the twilight.

  The top paper had one word written on it, but the letters were smudged, worn as if with much handling. I held it right up to my eyes. Laz-something, and the word ended in to.

  I couldn’t think of a word, or words, that it could be. Lazy something? Lapis lazuli? The latter made slightly more sense, for the precious blue stone from which ultramarine blue paint and dyes are made was the sort of commodity in which Quinlie dealt. I looked at the remaining pieces of paper.

  They were only four of them, and all were blank. But the leather covers had a spine that was wide enough for a great deal of documents; someone had removed them. Quinlie? I hurried back to the big table, checking again through the tied bundles. There was nothing bearing any similarity to Laz … to. Had he taken the documents home, to work on them in greater privacy?

  I’d had enough. I removed the top page of the Laz … to bundle and slipped it inside my tunic, then put the leather-bound file back where I had found it, replacing everything as neatly as I could and leaving the lid of the chest at the same angle. Then I left.

  I negotiated the ladder-like stairs without trouble and crept back up the passage, peering out to see where the watchmen were before hurrying along to where I’d left Hal. I led him out on to the quay and mounted, and was on my way before anyone had time to call out and demand to know what I thought I was doing.

  Once I was away from the waterfront, where there is rarely a time when everyone is asleep and all is silent, Plymouth had more or less retired for the night. I had eight or nine miles to cover and I was already tired. Once Hal and I were past the lightly populated fringes of the town and the countryside opened up before us, I clicked encouragingly to him and he quickened his pace.

  We were nearly home. I could see Rosewyke up ahead, and I was just remarking to Hal that he’d soon be settling down in his stall when it happened. He’d been moving at a leisurely, comfortable canter and suddenly, as if his legs had been cut from beneath him, he fell. I was thrown clear, and instantly I tried to stand to check whether my horse was hurt. It seemed not, for already he was scrambling to his feet. I stumbled over to him to take hold of his reins, soothe and reassure him, when I sensed a swift movement behind me, accompanied by a sort of whistling sound. Before I could spin round to look, something struck me very hard on the back of the head.

  PART TWO

  ELEVEN

  I don’t think I lay insensate for long. When I opened my eyes, groaning with pain, it seemed that the moon had only advanced a few degrees in her course. Very carefully I sat up. Apart from dealing with the agony inside my head, I was very worried that the blow might have set off the terrible dizziness again. I felt around my skull with my fingertips, trying to locate where I’d been hit – the pain seemed to be everywhere at once – and it was with some relief that I came across a large swelling on the back of my head. The blow, thank the good, merciful Lord, hadn’t hit the vulnerable spot behind my ear.

  I got onto my knees, then up onto my feet. I felt shaky, but not dizzy. I walked very slowly across to Hal, who was grazing unconcernedly beside the track, and, leaning against him, encouraged him to lead me away towards the house.

  Who had attacked me? Had someone followed me from Nicolaus Quinlie’s warehouse? It seemed unlikely, for I had been very careful, watching out all along the route, and I was almost certain nobody had seen me.

  I tripped and almost fell.

  Something had caught me across the legs, just above the knee.

  A rope had been tied, its ends secured to trees either side of the track up to my house.

  Into my mind came images of the various items left on my doorstep. Perhaps this latest attack was nothing to do with my having explored Nicolaus Quinlie’s office, but down to somebody closer to home who, disheartened at my showing no sign of packing up and moving away in response to their threats so far, had decided to harm me personally?

  It was an uncomfortable thought.

  Samuel heard me come into the yard and came out to take Hal, for which I was very grateful. The bump on my head was throbbing in time to my heartbeat and I knew I would have found it very hard to give my horse the attention he deserved. I wished Samuel a curt goodnight – I didn’t mention the rope; I’d untied it and left it coiled up in the undergrowth – and went into the house.

  Lying in bed a short time later, flooded with relief at no longer being on my feet, I decided that in the morning I would allow nothing to stop me making the long-postponed excursion to locate and speak to Josiah Thorn.

  I had tried to seek him out before but failed. This time, riding out the next morning, I was utterly determined. The inhabitants of Buckland again met my enquiries with blank faces, so I tried another approach. ‘I need his help,’ I said to a woman busy on her vegetable plot. ‘I’ve suffered a blow to the head and I’m told he’s an excellent doctor.’

  She studied me. ‘He’s getting on a bit and he doesn’t want any new patients,’ she said, her doubtful expression suggesting she was torn between defending the man’s privacy and the urge to help someone in need.

  I kept silent.
Sometimes words don’t really help.

  ‘Oh, I suppose he wouldn’t want to think he’d failed an injured man,’ she muttered. ‘Up that track, left by the big oak tree and it’s the house at the end of the lane.’

  Josiah Thorn had impressed me even before I met him. A man who had won the loyalty of the men and women he had treated, to the extent that they pretended not to know his whereabouts when asked by nosy strangers, had to be worth seeking out.

  His house was modest, well maintained and isolated. It was up on a slight rise, and beyond it the ground fell away towards the river. Nearer at hand, a little stream bubbled merrily in a narrow, shallow valley. I rode into a cobbled yard, dismounted and tethered Hal, then crossed to the low door in the rear wall of the house and knocked.

  I thought I heard a noise: a rustle, as if someone had moved quickly. I spun round. There was nobody there. Nevertheless, I felt my skin crawl, and I would have sworn someone was watching me.

  But just then I heard footfalls from within the house and the door creaked grudgingly open, revealing a tall but stooped figure with long dark auburn hair widely streaked with grey beneath a close-fitting cap, dressed in a robe of black wool with embroidered lapels. He had the pale skin that often goes with auburn hair, and it was blotched with what were either age spots or freckles. Keen eyes stared out from bushy eyebrows, and a surprisingly strong voice – for the man was old – said, ‘Yes? What do you want?’

  It was a moment for truth. ‘I’m called Gabriel Taverner,’ I replied, ‘I live at Rosewyke, on the river near Tavy St Luke, and I practise as a physician.’

  Josiah Thorn nodded, a smile playing around his mouth. ‘You do, do you?’

  ‘I’ve spent many years at sea and a few at college in London,’ I went on. ‘I owe you an apology, sir, for I should have sought you out sooner to advise you of my presence.’

  ‘And that, you believe, would have been sufficient to stop me becoming tetchy because you had taken my patients?’

  ‘I’m not sure I have,’ I countered. ‘I’ve—’

  The old man’s smile had spread. ‘You’d better come in,’ he said, opening the door more widely. As he stood back, allowing me to walk into his house, he said, ‘I was joking, by the way. As far as I’m concerned, you can take every last one of them and I’d thank you for it.’ He took my elbow, encouraging me along a low, dark passage and into a sunny room with worn but comfortable furnishings. ‘Sit, sit,’ he urged, pushing me towards a settle beside the hearth, ‘and I’ll fetch us a glass of something reviving.’

  Over the course of the next hour or so, I learned quite a lot about Josiah Thorn. He gave the impression of a man who spent a lot of his time on his own; from choice, it appeared, but, as with most people in that position, it seemed that when he had the chance to talk, he didn’t readily stop.

  He told me he was trying to retire, ‘only my …’ There he paused. ‘Only others are finding it hard to accept that I really want to.’ He failed to explain that enigmatic remark. He was becoming infirm, he said, and it was time to put his own needs first. ‘I’m a bit of a cripple,’ he said ruefully, grasping his left knee and giving it quite a violent shake, as if its fallibility offended him. ‘I’ve had enough of being summoned at all hours of the day and night and in all weathers to see to people who’ve been daft enough to cut themselves, knock themselves out, break limbs, catch nasty diseases, have babies and die. I’m—’

  I interrupted him; no mean feat, for he had been talking without pause ever since he’d handed me my glass of canary wine and sat down opposite me. ‘I know you still deliver babies, sir, for I have made the acquaintance of a midwife whom you recently summoned to assist you.’

  His expression softened. ‘The lovely Judyth,’ he said. ‘Yes, indeed. Mind you’ – he leaned forward confidingly – ‘I’m not above sending for Judyth even when I don’t really need her help, just for the pleasure of her company. She’s a fine midwife, mark you,’ he added reprovingly, as if I’d suggested otherwise. ‘Knows her craft remarkably well, and has a very special touch that you rarely see … yes, yes, Queen Mab trained that one all right.’

  Queen Mab …?

  ‘The fairies’ midwife,’ Josiah Thorn explained. He must have seen I hadn’t understood. ‘You need to know things like that, doctor, if you intend to practise your skills hereabouts.’

  ‘Quite so,’ I murmured.

  There was a brief pause. Then he said, ‘Why did you leave the sea?’ I told him about my head injury and the development of the seasickness that followed it.

  He nodded. ‘And this blow to the head was where?’ I pointed.

  He leapt up, swooping down on me and feeling around behind my ear. ‘You damaged your organ of balance, like as not,’ he murmured, giving the vulnerable spot a bit of a poke that set off the faintest echo of a spinning head. ‘Ears aren’t just for hearing, you know!’

  Abandoning me as quickly as he’d shot across to examine me, he dived for a stack of parchments, pamphlets and bound volumes on a table under the window, rummaged around for a short time and then picked up a slim volume, waving it at me. ‘Read this!’ he commanded. ‘It’s a new theory by some Frenchman – or maybe he’s a Spaniard – on the anatomy of the inner ear. It may help, you never know.’ He threw the book to me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I will make sure to return it to you.’

  ‘No need, no need!’ he sang. ‘I’ve already read it and, as I keep telling you, I’m going to retire. Ah, yes,’ he went on, resuming his seat and throwing an arm along the back of the settle, ‘I’m looking forward immeasurably to retirement, even if it does mean no more long nights shoulder to shoulder with the beautiful Judyth.’ He shot me a swift and mischievous glance. ‘Know what I’m going to do with myself?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I’m going to spend my days hobbling down to the river and dozing away the hours with a fishing rod in my hand, watching the birdlife.’ He gave a happy smile and slurped up the last of his wine. ‘That’s the life for me.’

  ‘So …’ This was tricky, but, given the true purpose of my visit, I had to ask. ‘So you really don’t resent my presence in the area? You wouldn’t try to—’ I hesitated – ‘to do anything to try to persuade me I ought not to settle here?’

  Suddenly Josiah Thorn looked wary. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, dropping his voice to a whisper.

  I took a breath and told him. About the dog faeces, the dead mice, the square of linen soaked in blood, the rotting calf’s foot alive with maggots, the rat and the headless blindworm. To my surprise, he began to smile and a soft chuckle broke out of him.

  That made me angry.

  So, hardening my voice, I said, ‘Those are the milder of the offerings. There has also been a pleasant little bundle comprising the cut-out reproductive organs of a pregnant sow and only last night someone stretched a rope across my route home to trip me up, felling both my horse and me, and, not content with that, they struck me on the back of the head as I tried to get up.’ I glared at him. ‘You might care to know that my housekeeper was the one who discovered the sow’s organs, and she was greatly distressed, and that, although my horse suffered no ill effects for being tripped, I now have a second injury to my head which is right now causing me a great deal of pain.’ And, I almost added, seeing you sitting here laughing is tempting me to hit you, too.

  But I didn’t. He was older than me and, by his own admission, he was crippled and infirm.

  And moreover, even as I’d been ranting at him his amusement had changed to distress.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he whispered. ‘Not that – not anything like that.’

  ‘You have knowledge of this?’ I demanded, leaning towards him. ‘You suspect someone of involvement, perhaps?’

  He pulled away from me, leaning right back in his seat. ‘No,’ he repeated, his eyes wide in his suddenly pale face.

  ‘You must tell me!’ I urged. ‘Do you not think I have a right to know of any suspicions of yours that
might help me track down who is responsible?’

  But now he was on his feet, grabbing hold of my arm, pulling me to my feet and dragging me back along the passage. He was strong, for an old man, and his grip was hard and tight. He opened the door and all but pushed me out.

  I spun round. ‘You can’t—’ I began.

  But he had already slammed the door. I heard the sound of bolts being shot home. It seemed he’d left me with no alternative but to give up.

  For now.

  My mood had worsened by the time I got home. Everywhere I turned, people were there to stand in my way, thwart me, prevent me finding out what I had to know. Angry, my head aching, I flung Hal’s reins in Tock’s direction as the poor lad came stumbling out to greet me, whatever pleasantry he was going to stammer out stalling on his clumsy tongue.

  I stomped through the house and up the stairs to my study, and dragged out from its hiding place in my bookshelf the single sheet of paper I’d extracted from the otherwise empty file in Quinlie’s office. Laz … to. Lazuli to someone? It was the best I could do. And just who, I wondered, had stolen the rest of the documents? And why? Lapis lazuli was expensive, certainly, so was this about theft, on a dangerously large scale?

  I sat there for some time. Slowly I became aware that Sallie was calling me. I’d missed the midday meal, so doubtless she was asking me if I wanted food. ‘I’m not hungry,’ I yelled from where I sat, not bothering to get up and hear what she was saying.

  Presently she came puffing into the room. ‘Mistress Celia’s here,’ she announced, managing to sound accusatory even through the panting. ‘Some people,’ she added pointedly, ‘think it courteous to go down and greet their visitors, especially when it’s their own sister.’

  Sometimes, I reflected, having Sallie as my housekeeper was like being back in the nursery, with a very strict and demanding nurse.

  I crossed the hall and hugged Celia, then took hold of her hands and held her at arm’s length so that I could look at her. ‘You’re looking better for some parental nurturing,’ I said, and she smiled. ‘Are you coming back here now?’ Still holding one of her hands, I led her into the parlour. Sallie, watching, gave a nod of approval and muttered something about fetching a good, warming drink and a bite to eat.