Death by Disputation (A Francis Bacon Mystery Book 2)

by Anna Castle

  She’d told them all about his commission. Tom had roared at her at first, but Trumpet was impervious to scolding. She possessed the noble temperament in full measure. The shrug, the blink, the dismissive sniff. “It’s done. Why keep making a fuss?”

  He hadn’t forgotten how close Marlowe had come to exposing him during his disputation. He’d threatened the two lunatics with everything he could think of, and they had sworn up and down to behave themselves and keep their lips laced. And in all truth, conversation was easier with that cat out of the bag.

  Marlowe dropped a couple of raisins into his cup and swirled them around. He took a sip and savored it, raising his eyes to heaven at the taste. He tilted his head toward Trumpet, who was seated on his left. Tom and Nashe sat across from them. “I know it’s none of my business, Lady Alice, but I rather think you should marry this Palavicino. Think of the resources you’d have at your disposal!”

  “I agree,” Nashe said. “You’d have a big house in London, you know. You could hire me and Kit as tutors. We’d help you get out and about when you wanted.”

  She waggled her finger at him. “Don’t think that hasn’t occurred to me.” Then she shook her head. “No, I need a title first. And Sir Horatio is too healthy.”

  Tom hadn’t realized her plans were so well-defined. He didn’t know — or want to know — why she preferred an unhealthy husband. He did hope she’d get to have at least a little more fun before the realities of married life caught up with her. The chief job of a noblewoman was breeding; sooner or later, she’d have to settle down and get on with it. He hoped they’d find a way to stay friends.

  She’d gone to her room here at the Cap and Bells to change clothes before dinner and come back dressed like a tradesman’s wife, in a skirt and bodice of much-washed green worsted over a plain holland shirt tied at the neck. She claimed to need practice wearing skirts again, but he sensed the outfit was meant to impress him.

  And so it did. He liked it best of everything he’d ever seen her wear. The unconstructed clothing allowed her to move freely, revealing her natural grace as she hopped up to fling open the door and shout down the stairs at the servants or lunged across the table to snatch the last raspberry tart. And though she was chastely covered from chin to toe, the well-fitted dress admirably displayed the curves of her figure. Her unbound breasts were too small and firm to bobble but were still pleasingly round beneath the thin bodice. Palm-sized. Perfect.

  Tom blinked and forced his thoughts in another direction. This was his old chum Trumpet he was ogling. He pulled a dish of nuts and figs toward him and took his time selecting an almond. They didn’t get such luxuries in the college. They’d be lucky to have a bit of mutton in their pottage tonight.

  “I have one last story,” Tom said, “and then I should be on my way.”

  They’d been swapping stories all through dinner about the things they’d done that spring. Tom marveled at Marlowe’s ability to tell a thrilling tale that left them gasping or laughing without mentioning a single detail that could identify a particular person or place. It was an art, one he wanted to learn. But not today.

  Nashe rose and refilled their cups while Tom told them about getting caught in the Round Church after opening the first letter he’d been trusted to deliver.

  “That was a mistake,” Trumpet said. “You should have waited until the third or fourth time. Lull them into complacency.”

  Marlowe shook his head. “His masters are pressing him for results. You took a calculated risk, Tom. Now you’ll have to find a way to get back into their good graces.”

  So he told them about his confession in Parson Wingfield’s study and about being given a second chance that very morning, which they had interrupted.

  “And here you sit, idling the day away with us?” Marlowe gaped at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  “I can spare an hour, surely,” Tom said, stung. “I’ve had no one to talk to since that night in gaol with you. It’s helpful to be able to discuss things openly. Work things through. Besides, no one saw you snatch me. No one knows I’m here.”

  “But they know you’re not there, in the college, where you’re supposed to be,” Marlowe said. “They’ll be watching you like hawks, counting the minutes until you return.”

  “Hawks with clocks,” Nashe said, then winced apologetically. “Sorry.” Then he grinned, exposing his gag-tooth. “Behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly. Samuel twenty-six, verse twenty-one.”

  “Desist!” Trumpet glared at him.

  “Sorry again!” He shook himself like wet dog. “I was all set to argue the Bible with you, Tom. It’s hard to stopper it up again.”

  “I can’t tell you how grateful I am to escape that physic,” Tom said. “Trust me, it wouldn’t have worked. We spend half our time in study group flinging scripture at each other. It’s like tennis for divinity students.”

  Trumpet turned to Marlowe. “Why shouldn’t Tom get one small respite? And a decent meal, which he obviously hasn’t had in ages. He’s thin as a rail. What could they do to him? Frown and look disappointed? He isn’t in any real danger — not physical danger, I mean.”

  “I don’t know,” Nashe said. “These godly folk can be quite nasty. My father is the vicar of All Saints in Thetford. A bunch of those nattering busybodies got into the church one evening. They broke a statue of Saint Mary, crushed candles on the ground, and threw whitewash over a beautiful old painting on the wall. When the damage was discovered, a riot broke out in the streets. Four men ended up in gaol, two with broken noses.”

  “Religious zealots believe whatever they do is justified,” Marlowe said. “I wouldn’t underestimate their capacity for retribution, especially if they think they’ve been betrayed.”

  “We know Steadfast Wingfield likes to hit people,” Nashe reminded them.

  Tom rubbed his jaw. “I never forget that for a minute.” He looked at Trumpet. “The men in my study group are strong, healthy, and passionate about their beliefs. I’m not sure what they would do if they discovered I had come to spy on them. They could beat me to a pulp any time they wanted and throw my body into the woods.”

  That earned him a gratifyingly horrified expression. He enjoyed it for a moment — a brief one — then relented. “That said, I’ve never gotten so much as a whiff of anything less than hearty good fellowship from anyone. I don’t walk around fearing that one of them will push me off a bridge or throw me into a cart and carry me off to an isolated chamber to be interrogated against my will.”

  Trumpet rolled her eyes, her pretty mouth shaping a perfect O.

  “Of course not,” Nashe said. “You have friends for that.” The three of them laughed.

  Marlowe didn’t join in. “Let us also remember,” he said, “someone in your circle coolly and deliberately murdered my friend Bartholomew Leeds.”

  “I never forget that either,” Tom said, sobering. “Someone I know — probably someone I see every day — drugged that wine, tied that noose, and strung Leeds from the rafters. Then he listened to the poor man gargle and choke while he calmly went about setting his stage.” He met Marlowe’s dark eyes across the table. “I’m sorry I haven’t come up with any proof for you, Kit.”

  “Didn’t you learn anything while I was gone?”

  “Not much,” Tom said. “But I’ve narrowed the problem down to four essential questions.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Who could have drugged the wine? Who could have entered Leeds’s chambers at the critical time, through the front or the back? What is it about that noose that nags at me? And of course the central question: Why did Leeds have to be murdered? Or to put it differently, who benefitted from his death?”

  Silence reigned for a long moment. Then everyone started talking at once.

  “We need to question Diligence Wingfield and press harder —”

  “That Eggerley woman lives far beyond a headmaster’s salary —”

  “I’d bet real money, if I had any, that Stea
dfast never went to that —”

  Tom put his fingers between his teeth and gave a shrill whistle. “Hoi! Enough!” When he had their attention, he went on. “I don’t have all day. Take turns. Choose your villain and present your case.” He looked at each of his friends in turn. “Who’s first?”

  “Me,” Trumpet said. “I have a candidate I’ll bet none of you has even considered.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Tom said.

  “Mrs. Eggerley.” She folded her arms across her chest and gave them a smug smile.

  “Impossible!” Nashe and Marlowe said together. Marlowe went on, “She isn’t strong enough —”

  Tom stopped him with his hand. “Let her make her case. Fair is fair.”

  Trumpet thanked him with a courtly bow of the head, a gesture he had seen her alter ego, Alan Trumpington, make a hundred times. He was slowly getting used to the fact that Alice was his old friend Alan, but with a more pleasing figure and moustache-free, rosebud lips.

  “First,” Trumpet said, “she lives in the lodge, a building connected to the college. She wouldn’t have to come through the gate or climb in the rear window. And yes, I know,” she held up her finger to forestall any objection. “She’s barred from entering hall, yard, or chapel. But she does it all the time. That woman goes where she pleases, when she pleases.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Tom said. “And now I remember, I saw her on my way across the yard that morning, standing on the threshold of the door to the hall. She said she was watching for her husband, but she can see better from the parlor window upstairs.”

  “Exactly,” Trumpet said. “She might have just come out of your rooms. She was most certainly not watching for her husband. She couldn’t care less about his comings and goings.” She held up two fingers. “Second question: the drugged wine. I haven’t figured that part out yet, but if it was a regular thing, same time every morning . . .” She looked at Marlowe for help.

  “It was,” he said. “Barty liked to treat himself — and me — while working on the Seneca translation, every Monday when everyone else was out.”

  “She was there too!” Tom cried, snapping his fingers. “In the screens passage outside the buttery. Leeds’s wine jug stood on the counter for who knows how long while senior Fellows came and went, checking their accounts. Margaret came down to ask the butler about wine for the master’s lodge. Dr. Eggerley was there too, wanting safflower and blanchet. Remember, Kit?”

  “I do,” Marlowe said, “and I had a thought about that. A man might want to improve his complexion if he was having his portrait painted. I did it myself, just a touch.”

  Nashe startled, jerking a splash of wine from his cup. “I saw him!” He tilted his head, staring open-mouthed at the beams on the low ceiling while he thought. “Yes,” he said after a while. “I saw him that week, every day. That very morning too.” He finally noticed their impatient faces and explained himself. “I loathe William Perkins, the pompous old clatterfart. I avoid his sermons like the plague. I walk past a limner’s workshop every day on my way down to the market. I remember seeing Old Eggy through the window and scoffing to myself about his bottomless vanity.”

  Marlowe looked at him the way you look at a favorite dog that keeps digging up your favorite rose bush. “Why didn’t you tell us this before, Nashey?”

  “Nobody asked me,” Nashe said with an oversized shrug. “And I didn’t know about the safflower.”

  “It’s still good,” Tom said. “Very good. Nashe, could you stop by that limner as soon as you can? Find out when exactly Old Eggy was there and for how long? Then we can rule the Eggerleys out.”

  “No, we can’t,” Trumpet said. “There are two of them, remember? I can rebut your objections concerning insufficient strength. Mrs. Eggerley is not a small woman. She might well be able to hoist a man into the air with the rope tied around the rafter to help support the weight. Catalina and I tried it one night. She could lift me. I couldn’t get her all the way off her feet. But that Eggerley cow is bigger than either of us.”

  Tom winced at the word cow but said nothing.

  She flicked him a knowing glance and continued her argument. “She might have been able to do it alone, but I think she had help. She has two servants completely under her thumb — the laundry women, Rose and Hyacinth. Mother and daughter, I think. One of them has a clubfoot, and the other is dreadfully pockmarked.”

  “I’ve seen them,” Marlowe said. “They scuttle about like mice with their heads down. They came with the wife, I think, when Dr. Eggerley married.”

  “Further proof!” Trumpet crowed. “Who else would hire them with such defects? Nobody. They’re stuck with the Egg. They’re strong from their work and they use lines to hang towels and things to dry. One or both of them could have helped your Margaret do the deed. I further postulate that the unusual noose you saw is some sort of laundry woman’s knot.” She nodded once. Done.

  “Good,” Tom said, “but what about the bursar’s desk? Why would Margaret need to steal the key? Dr. Eggerley has always had his own.”

  “The key!” Marlowe cried. He reached into the collar of his doublet and pulled up a leather thong with a small brass key suspended from it. “I took it.”

  “What!” Tom was outraged by this second revelation from these unhelpful helpers. “Why didn’t you give it to me before you left?”

  “Until Lady Alice told us about your commission, I didn’t know what had brought you into Barty’s life so soon before his death. I took the key because —” Marlowe shrugged and made a sour face. “For no reason, really. Because it was his. I slipped it off when you weren’t looking. Later, it was fun to see the fuss being made. And then I forgot about it.”

  Tom held out his hand. “Let’s have it. I’ll open that cursed desk tonight.”

  “Ah. Er.” Trumpet grinned at him, the apologetic grin that meant she’d just spilt wine into his new hat or left his cloak at the fencing master’s all the way back in the City. “I’m afraid the contents of the bursar’s desk are no longer available for your perusal.”

  “They’re not?” Tom asked.

  “Catalina can pick locks. We snuck into your chambers last week dressed as bed-makers and emptied the desk. I sent the contents to Mr. Bacon. He should have gotten the package Saturday, I think. Haven’t you heard from him?”

  “No,” Tom said, “not about that. Not yet.” He glared at Trumpet across the table, scratching the stubble on his cheek. The gypsy extended her skills considerably; for better or worse, he couldn’t yet say. “Can your maid teach me to pick locks?”

  Trumpet shrugged. “Why not?”

  “What else did you do in my rooms?” Tom asked.

  “Not much. I knew Mr. Bacon wanted those documents, so that’s mainly what we went for.” She smiled a virtuous smile, batting her thick black lashes at him.

  Tom knew she was lying through her pearly teeth. She’d undoubtedly rifled through everything he owned: clothes, books, bedding, the secret drawer at the bottom of his writing desk. The worst of it was he hadn’t noticed a thing out of place. He popped another almond into his mouth and chewed it with deliberate care, showing her his teeth.

  She stuck her tongue out at him, the unrepentant little minx.

  “Children,” Marlowe said, “if you don’t mind, we are trying to identify a killer. A more important question begs an answer. Why would either of the Eggerleys need to murder my Barty?”

  “Ha!” Trumpet pounded her fist on the table. “That’s the best part. That woman lives far, far, far above her means. You can’t have failed to notice the lavish display she makes in that garish gallery or the silks and tassels and expensive perfumes she splashes around in her bedchamber.”

  She glared meaningfully at Tom. He knew what she wanted, but he refused to apologize for his affair of convenience with Margaret. She had asked, he had willingly complied, and no part of their activities had anything to do with anything — or anyone — else. He said simply, “I noticed.”
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  “Where does the money come from?” Trumpet demanded. “It can’t all be credit. Not that much, not for a headmaster’s wife.”

  Marlowe nodded in agreement. “Everyone suspects Dr. Eggerley of embezzling from the endowments to pay for his domestic improvements.”

  “There’s always grumbling of that kind in a college,” Nashe said. “Even heads without wives are suspected. Proof is another matter.”

  “One person would know for certain,” Trumpet said. “The bursar. Whether or not Leeds was a partner in their schemes, he must have known they were clipping the college coins, so to speak.”

  “And pressuring tenants for stiffer rates,” Tom added. He told them about the day he’d seen Simon Thorpe arguing with the yeoman.

  “They actually appointed Simon to be the new bursar?” Marlowe sounded baffled, caught completely by surprise. Tom savored the moment.

  “Maybe Thorpe killed Leeds,” Nashe said, earning a rude bleat from his friend. “Hear me out,” he went on. “You think he’s a buffoon, and he is. He indisputably is. But he’s also been hopelessly in love with you for many long and bitter years. We keep forgetting about you being there in that bed, also drugged. That scene could have been staged to implicate you if the suicide story failed.”

  “That’s true,” Tom said. “I did suspect you until my master told me you were a known quantity, as he put it.”

  “Never that.” Marlowe had recovered his normal sardonic composure. “I suppose if the killer caught Barty out of bed, he — or she — might not have known I was there, dozing behind the curtains.” He gazed at a dish of fresh strawberries for a moment, then chose one and ate it slowly, licking the juice from his fingertips. “It is also true our Simon has been kissing Old Eggy’s arse with relish twice a day for months. He might well have known he would be appointed interim bursar, at least.”

  “No, no, no,” Tom said. “Forget about Thorpe. Much as I would love to convict him of something, I saw him entering Great St. Andrew’s myself. And three men complained about his snuffling and sneezing during the sermon. We can rule him right out.”