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

by Alys Clare

  ‘Reckon so. Pieter Sparre’s dead.’

  Pieter Sparre … I raked through my recent memories and came up with nothing. ‘Who’s he?’

  Jarman grinned. ‘Short, fat warehouseman who struts like a fighting cock, voice like a squeaky hinge?’

  ‘Him! The man who made the comment about not seeing Jeromy any more! He’s dead? How?’

  ‘He went missing and was found a day or two later bumping up against the quay. He’d been a bit of a drinker, and most folks’ view was that he’d taken a tankard too many and fallen on his way home.’

  I knew from the very look of him that there was more. ‘But you don’t agree.’

  ‘Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. I went to see his woman. He lodged with a blowsy old doxy in a tumbledown rooming house down by the port, and she likes a drop of the good stuff as much as he did so perhaps we shouldn’t set too much store by what she had to say.’

  ‘Which was?’

  He eyed me, a calculating expression on his face. ‘She said he was dead scared. In the days just before he disappeared, he’d had a bad fright. I couldn’t get to the bottom of it – as I said, she was pissed and ranting about all manner of things – but it seems he’d seen something, and smelt something – it stank of camphor – and it had put the fear of God in him.’

  ‘What did he see?’

  Jarman met my eyes. ‘According to the woman, he saw a devil lurking in the shadows. A devil with a beak for a face.’

  FIFTEEN

  I only had a rough idea where Judyth lived and consequently it took me some time to find her house. By Blaxton, Jarman Hodge had said, near where the ferry departed to cross the Tavy. I rode up and down the area around the quay, venturing a little way away from the water, and located several small houses that might have been hers. I knocked at one or two doors and received short shrift. Either people genuinely didn’t know of her or else they were reluctant to reveal the whereabouts of a lone woman to a stranger. In retrospect, I reflected ruefully, I should have said I was an anxious husband in dire and urgent need of a midwife for my labouring wife. Finally I came across a neat little cottage set by itself on a low rise above the river bank, and I knew even as I stared at it that I had found her. It was well maintained and very clean: the small diamond-shaped panes of glass in the leaded windows caught the late sun, the solid oak of the door glowed as if someone had polished it, the precise edges of the reed thatch might just that morning have been trimmed with a sharp knife and the vegetable plot looked as if each row of healthy, vibrant plants had been set out with a rule.

  I approached, and as I did so I caught sight of a small yard behind the house in which there was a stable with the upper half of its door open. A bay had stuck its head out and was regarding me with interest.

  I dismounted, tethered Hal’s reins to the post beside the gate and went up the path to the oak door. There was a heavy iron knocker in the form of an angel, its wings spread. I raised it and let it fall with an echoing thump.

  Almost immediately I heard swift footfalls and then the door was flung open. ‘She’s early after all, then, just as I— Oh.’ Her eyes widened, and I thought I caught a swift, faint pink blush on her cheeks. Then she smiled. ‘Not Walter Murdo come to tell me his wife’s waters have broken, then, but our new physician,’ she said softly. ‘Come in, doctor.’

  She turned and walked off down the narrow, dark little passage and I followed, shutting the door behind me. She led the way into a tiny, bright room whose westward-facing window admitted a great burst of golden light from the slowly sinking sun. It illuminated an enchanting space: a settle stood beside the hearth, in which a small fire glowed beneath an iron pot suspended above it; water in the pot steamed gently, and there was a sweet, citrus-tinged smell in the room. A cheerfully coloured rag rug was spread on the flagged floor. Beside it, there was a pale oak table polished to a shine, with two high-backed chairs drawn up to it; on it was a large jug containing a huge bunch of poppies, honeysuckle, foliage and grasses. There was an alcove fitted with shelves on which stood an intriguing selection of objects ranging from leather-bound books and notebooks to roughly made but attractive pots, mugs and bowls. Opposite the settle was a chair which had to be her regular place, for it was made comfortable and cosy with cushions and a soft, thick wool shawl generous enough to serve as a blanket.

  Judyth stood, arms folded, watching me. She looked amused.

  ‘Your room is a delight,’ I said. ‘You have—’ I almost said, You have made so much of so little, but it would have been an unforgivably patronizing, insulting remark and fortunately I stopped myself just in time. I managed a smile, hoping it would disguise my sudden confusion. ‘You have the admirable knack, you women,’ I said, ‘of turning a house into a home.’

  Her mouth turned down at one corner and she raised an eyebrow. I had the disconcerting feeling that she knew exactly what had been running through my mind. ‘Your house is quite nice too, doctor,’ she said blandly. ‘Quite homely, really, but then you do have a housekeeper and a sister in residence.’

  I laughed, and all at once felt better. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I sense I’ve been discourteous, and that wasn’t my intention.’

  Now she smiled properly, her face springing alive into beauty. ‘I rather think it is I who have been discourteous,’ she murmured. ‘Now, sit down, please, and tell me what I can do for you.’ She waved a hand towards the settle – I’d been right about the chair being her special seat – and I sank on to it. She made herself comfortable in the chair, bright grey-blue eyes on mine.

  I didn’t know how to begin, and her alert, intelligent gaze wasn’t helping.

  ‘When you came to see me,’ I blurted out eventually – the silent scrutiny was making me feel awkward – ‘I told you that the dead man found at Old Ferry Quay was my brother-in-law.’

  ‘You did,’ she agreed solemnly.

  ‘You said you’d seen a strange beak-masked figure near the place,’ I went on.

  ‘Yes.’

  This wasn’t getting us anywhere. I decided I ought to plunge straight in to the very heart of the matter.

  ‘My sister is devastated by Jeromy’s death,’ I began. ‘She— I love Celia very much,’ I heard myself say. ‘You won’t know because you haven’t met her, but she is a delight. She’s headstrong and stubborn, she likes her own way, and she’s capable of making such a nuisance of herself when she doesn’t get it that people – well, her family – tend to give in just for a bit of peace. That doesn’t mean she’s spoilt and pettish,’ I hastened to add, ‘it simply underlines that she’s a strong, brave woman who knows her own mind.’

  Judyth, I noticed, was smiling. She didn’t speak.

  ‘Celia’s staying with me while she adapts to her life without Jeromy,’ I went on, ‘and I’ve therefore had the opportunity to study her closely. I’ve also managed to encourage her to talk, a little, and she’s told me things that have astounded me.’

  Judyth’s face changed. Her smile vanished and she said sharply, ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Chiefly that she’s very afraid,’ I said.

  ‘Afraid?’

  It sounded as if Judyth hadn’t expected that. I thought I’d better explain.

  ‘Since her husband died,’ I continued, ‘certain revelations have occurred, the chief of which is that he was broke.’ It seemed best to be blunt. Judyth nodded briefly as if she concurred. ‘Under normal circumstances Celia would not, I’m sure, have said a word concerning the – er, the financial troubles they had. She was devoted to Jeromy, and too loyal a wife to broadcast his shortcomings.’ And her loyalty had cost her, I reflected, momentarily hearing her words in my mind: bills that couldn’t be paid and dangerous-looking men coming to the door. For a proud woman like my sister, how humiliating it must have been. ‘When the lawyer visited us and we began to suspect the vast extent of Jeromy’s indebtedness,’ I hurried on, ‘Celia was as shocked as I was. However, finding herself with no means whatsoever, she had n
o choice but to reveal the truth, and she told me how matters had really stood between the two of them.’

  I lowered my eyes briefly. Speaking to Judyth while looking at her, I was discovering, was quite exacting.

  ‘You said she was afraid,’ she prompted after a few moments. ‘Is her fear because of her lack of means? Please don’t imagine I am belittling such a state,’ she added swiftly, ‘for I know full well that it is indeed something to strike fear in the bravest heart. But—’

  But she has you, I thought she had been about to say.

  ‘She has a home with me as long as she requires it,’ I said quietly. ‘She is, I think, shamed and embittered at the discovery that she has nothing; that her husband had run through his money and hers, and left a queue of debtors baying for his blood.’ I had no idea if the latter were true, but it seemed likely.

  There was quite a long silence. Then Judyth said softly, ‘Why is she afraid?’

  We had come to the crux of it. Now I had to share a confidence; now I had to tell this keen-eyed, intelligent and perceptive woman who I barely knew a secret whose potential for damage was so great I didn’t even dare think about it.

  Did I trust her?

  Apparently I did.

  ‘Celia fears the malice of Jeromy’s friends,’ I heard myself say. ‘They cast her in the role of villain. They accused her of being the indulged child of a doting father, and a spoiled, petted woman who demanded very much more from her loving husband than he could reasonably provide. Celia may love rich and costly things,’ I admitted frankly, ‘but in my experience of Jeromy, his addiction to them was the greater. And our father was certainly not doting and he didn’t spoil any of us.’

  My voice had risen. Again Judyth smiled, but it was an understanding smile.

  ‘She has got it into her head that these friends of Jeromy may accuse her of involvement in his death,’ I said. ‘They didn’t like her, they knew that she and Jeromy argued about money, and she has allowed those facts to persuade her that these men will begin to spread malicious rumours. She had decided she’d be better off without him, they’ll say. She – she made up her mind to act, and she set about ridding herself of him.’

  I’d said it. I didn’t know if the confession made me feel better or worse. The silence continued and eventually I made myself look at her.

  ‘And just how, I wonder,’ she said quietly, ‘would anyone imagine a gently raised woman such as Celia, from a loving and nurturing family who had never forced her to fend for herself and who had never had reason to discover the darker paths of this world, would go about hiring someone to kill her husband?’

  It was a cool and logical observation, and I wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me to ask the same thing. ‘So – you don’t think these friends would be believed?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said robustly. ‘Anyway, have any such rumours been started? Has anyone come near to making such allegations?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  She shrugged a shoulder, as if to say, Well, then.

  My unease hadn’t really gone away. ‘It all seemed so straightforward when we believed Jeromy had killed himself!’ I burst out. ‘But when that theory was disproved’ – by me, I could have added – ‘happily, another took its place, and it was tentatively concluded that Jeromy’s employer had had him killed because – well, because of various offences that we needn’t go into.’ Her eyebrow went up again but she didn’t speak. ‘But then Nicolaus Quinlie – the employer – was himself found murdered, so that put paid to that theory. I just wish—’ I stopped, suddenly unable to go on.

  ‘You wish the real culprit could be located, tried, found guilty and condemned to death,’ she finished for me, ‘because only then would your dear sister feel safe.’

  I stared into her eyes. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It is understandable,’ she murmured.

  ‘If my sister is accused and convicted of murdering her husband, she’ll die, by one of the most horrific methods man has ever devised,’ I said quietly. ‘I will do anything and everything in my power to prevent that happening.’

  There was a long, long pause. Judyth stared intently at me, and I managed to meet her brilliant eyes and not look away. Finally, she appeared to come to a decision. ‘In that case,’ she said in a low voice, ‘I believe I may be able to help.’

  The tension that had been knotting my muscles, making my shoulders ache and creating a band of pain around my head, eased. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered.

  She got up and with quiet, efficient movements, set about making a hot drink. She handed it to me, waiting while I blew on it and sipped it. Then I felt a cool hand on my head, exactly at the point from which, since the accident with the packing crate, the pain always begins. Her fingertips slid under my hair, gently making small circles, steadily moving outwards until she was manipulating the scalp right over the side of my head.

  The relief was wonderful.

  ‘That’s better,’ I said gratefully after a while.

  ‘You had a blow to the head.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘Yes.’

  She nodded but made no comment. It was as if she was storing the information away for future use. ‘Finish your drink,’ she said. ‘That too will help.’

  I did as she commanded, putting the empty mug down on the hearth. Then she said, ‘Now, this matter of finding the true killer. You have come to ask, I imagine, if I have recalled any more about the dark stranger I saw on the path above the river.’

  ‘I have,’ I agreed. ‘I mentioned it to Theophilus Davey – the coroner?’

  ‘I know Master Davey.’

  ‘He listened, but remarked that it was scant information.’

  ‘As indeed it was,’ she said.

  ‘Now, however,’ I went on, ‘another man has died, over in Dartmouth, and his – er, the woman he lived with says he was very scared, ranting about how he’d seen a frightful figure with a beak for a face that had a particular smell about it, and I remembered that you too mentioned an odd smell, although you couldn’t be precise about what it was, and I wondered if—’

  ‘It was camphor,’ she interrupted. ‘Not long after I’d spoken to you, I had occasion to use some of the resin for a child with heavy catarrh, and the smell reminded me of the figure I’d seen.’

  ‘The sighting was that night?’ In my eagerness to hear her confirm it I was leaning forward, almost falling off the settle. ‘You saw this mysterious foreigner on the night Jeromy was killed? It’s vital!’ I cried. ‘Don’t you see? If we can place him where two men died, then surely it must be all but certain that he’s the killer we need to find!’

  Still she didn’t speak. I had the sudden conviction that, just as earlier I had tried to decide whether or not to trust her, now she was doing the selfsame thing about me.

  I wanted to demand an answer. I wanted to shake her, make her say what I so desperately wanted to hear. I made myself sit back on the settle.

  She noticed. I had the impression there wasn’t much she didn’t notice.

  ‘I think,’ she murmured eventually, ‘that there are a few more things you need to know about Jeromy Palfrey.’ She paused, as if asking herself one final time if she was right to go ahead, then she said, ‘He wasn’t just a spendthrift and a wastrel; he was violent.’

  I didn’t at first understand.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I demanded. ‘He never struck me as a man who was likely to resort to a weapon or the use of his fists, being far too obsessed with his appearance and not soiling or damaging his fine clothes, and anyway he was slender and didn’t look particularly strong, so—’

  Judyth was staring fixedly at me, almost as if she was willing me to see the answer for myself.

  I felt the anger start, deep down in my guts. I pinned it down. ‘You mean he was violent towards my sister.’ Instantly another question burst out of me; ‘Do you know Celia?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ The answer, it appeared, was in answer to both my comment and my ques
tion. ‘His assaults ranged from taking her when she didn’t want him – sadly, no crime since a wife is her husband’s property, and, from what so many of my women confide, all too common – to punching her where the bruises wouldn’t show. He also imprisoned her, restricting her life ruthlessly so that he was in total control.’

  ‘When—’ My voice broke on the word and I started again. Oh, dear God, I didn’t seem to be able to take in what I was hearing. ‘When did this start? They seemed to be so very much in love, and from all I hear, she idolized him and he felt much the same.’

  ‘From what you hear,’ she echoed. ‘Were you not here to witness for yourself?’

  ‘To begin with, no. I was in London, undertaking my studies in medicine. And once I was home again, I just – well, I just assumed Celia was truly as happy as she seemed to be.’ Had I been so blind? How had I managed to miss so comprehensively all that was really happening? ‘My father never liked Jeromy,’ I added savagely. ‘Dear God, how right he was.’

  ‘As to when it began, I can’t answer that,’ Judyth said. ‘Celia was extremely reluctant to confide in me, and it wasn’t up to me to put pressure on her and persuade her. She had one bully in her life and she didn’t need another one.’

  ‘How did she come to tell you even as much as she did?’ I asked.

  Judyth smiled briefly. ‘How do you think, doctor?’

  Then, of course, it was obvious, as indeed it had been all along, only I hadn’t stopped to work it out.

  ‘I don’t know what had gone on in previous years,’ she said, ‘and whether it had happened before and come to naught, although I imagine it could well have done. If she miscarried in the past, then either she dealt with it herself or she sought the counsel of another midwife. The former, I would say if I had to guess, for undoubtedly she felt deeply ashamed of what her life had become, and her pride made it very, very hard to share her misery with outsiders.’

  She paused, staring into the hearth, her expression full of sorrow and compassion, a frown on her smooth forehead. I sensed she was deep in the paths of her memories, and it was not a happy place to be.