Frobisher's Savage

by Leonard Tourney

  While Joan had been exploring the cabinet, Matthew had been plumbing the depths of the large chest that stood at the foot of the bed. The chest was unlocked and contained John Crookback’s clothes and nothing more. Matthew removed each shirt, jerkin, and stocking, examining each with the professional eye of one whose livelihood redeemed nakedness from its shame. He crawled beneath the bed and found another, smaller chest. This piece was locked. “We may have something here,” he said.

  Matthew fell to work with his knife, inserting the tip of the blade into the lock and twisting it slowly. Joan watched. It was an old lock, Matthew remarked over his shoulder, nothing that would have deterred a dedicated housebreaker.

  The chest sprung open and Matthew gave a grunt of satisfaction as he looked at the contents, for here were papers and several leather bags. One of the bags contained silver spoons, a round goblet, and a dagger with a jeweled handle in a fine-tooled leather sheath. The other bag’s contents were more curious: Matthew drew out a crude necklace made of the teeth of some beast, “Perhaps a bear,” he supposed aloud. There were several medallions made of yellowed skin, with curious drawings thereon as a child might have made.

  There were also papers in the chest, two documents rolled and ribboned. One of these was a legal document of some kind; the other a letter. Matthew opened the first.

  “Well, now here is John Crookback’s will and testament, if I do not misread it, written in plain English and by himself. As we had heard, it gives the farm to his son, Nicholas. Enjoins him to see that his mother does not want. Small sums, personal items to Crookback’s other children. Money, but not much. Dated just this year, and declares him to be of sound mind and body and the will written in his own hand. Sir Thomas will want to see this.”

  Matthew unfolded the letter carefully; it was addressed to someone named Ralph Hawking. The handwriting was tiny and difficult to read in the dim interior of the chamber.

  “This is a letter from a Master Giovanni Baptiste Agnello, goldsmith of London.” Matthew said. “This Agnello asserts that he has set up a furnace and proved therein a certain black stone given him to be gold worth forty pounds sterling to the ton. I suppose it is an assayer’s report or some such thing. It is written to one Ralph Hawking, of the Cathay Company. The letter is dated January 15th, 1577.”

  “Why then it’s almost twenty years old. I can see why John Crookback should have kept his will in this chest, but why a letter from one man to another? And what is the Cathay Company? And what did John Crookback have to do with it?”

  “If it is—or was—a group of merchant venturers, then Crookback may have been employed by them,” Matthew suggested, reading the letter over to himself again. “Forty pounds of gold to the ton, indeed. Now that is black stone to be devoutly wished for, for such a sum would buy a generous parcel of land.”

  “I have never heard of such a treasure,” Joan said.

  “Nor I. Well, we shall give both deed and Master Agnello’s letter to Sir Thomas to see what he will make of them.”

  As Matthew said this, the gentleman himself came into the room.

  “We have found nothing in kitchen or parlor that points to who might have done this,” Sir Thomas said, clearly disappointed. “We are no wiser than before, although nothing below has been left unexamined. I see you two have not been idle.”

  “We have not, Your Honor, and have found naught but this modest treasure you see before you, John Crookback’s will, and this letter from a London goldsmith to one named Hawking.”

  Sir Thomas took the letter from Matthew’s hand. “The Cathay Company . . . gold. Why should an Essex farmer have this letter? Where was it you found it?”

  “Why in this chest, sir, bound together with the dead man’s will.”

  Sir Thomas took a few minutes to look over the will. “Everything to his son Nicholas, despite his infirmity. Well, there’s no law that says a man can’t leave his property to an idiot, I suppose. Many a father has. So there’s no riddle there.”

  Turning his attention to Master Agnello’s letter again, he made a shrewd face. “This is a certificate of value. Goldsmiths are ever issuing them. Someone brings something to a certain goldsmith to determine its worth. The goldsmith weighs it, subjects it to fire, water, or other substances to test its properties and to determine whether it be a true gem or false. This verifies that a certain black stone contains gold. The letter is old, I see; the men may well be dead by now. And what of this stone?”

  For a few minutes Matthew watched while the magistrate continued to study the letter. “This black stone reminds me of something I heard once,” Sir Thomas said, “but it is unlikely this has anything to do with these murders. Perhaps it is a letter Crookback found; admiring the penmanship, he kept it. Or perhaps he knew this goldsmith or this Ralph Hawking and kept the letter for friendship’s sake.”

  “It is strange, I think,” said Joan, “that he should keep it bound up with his will, as though it were of an equal if not greater value. ”

  “Well, I shall turn it over to Master Fuller.”

  “Master Fuller?” Matthew asked.

  “The gentleman I spoke of before. He’s a learned man from Cambridge, a clever man and moral philosopher of some distinction. I have asked him to come to conduct the inquiry. What shreds of evidence we gather here and the testimonies of good people who knew the deceased family will all come under his scrutiny.”

  “But the coroner’s jury sits this very day,” Joan said.

  “I have sent my secretary, Peter Simmons, posthaste to London, where Master Fuller now is,” Sir Thomas said. “If it is convenient for him, we should expect to see him in Chelmsford by the end of the week. I have no doubt this case will prick his passion for a knotty enigma and give him matter for his learned lectures at the university.”

  “He won’t be here for the coroner’s jury, then?” Joan asked.

  “Your husband must speak for us there,” Sir Thomas said. “I pray God this charge does not overburden you, Master Stock.”

  “It does not, sir, only intrigues, if the truth be known. But I must add my voice to my wife’s about Master Agnello’s letter. I can’t believe it is a little thing if John Crookback guarded it with such care. The man had no books in the house, hardly any papers. That he could read we know, for he wrote his will in his own hand. So he must have thought Agnello’s letter important for its matter.”

  “Well,” said Sir Thomas, “if the man had gold, I wonder that he made no mention of it in his will. The will says nothing about black stones or gold, only such silver plate as his daughter Agnes reported stolen. I had heard rumors that John Crookback had treasure buried on his property and that was why he held on to it with such tenacity.”

  Joan said she had heard that story, but could not say whether it was truth or fable.

  “My man Harris heard it in a Moulsham tavern about two years past. I didn’t know whether to credit it or no. The story is told of many a farmer who keeps to himself, as Crookback did. Crookback had been a mariner; there was always the chance he had had brought some booty home.” Sir Thomas looked at the articles upon the bed. “Well, here’s a mystery. If the housebreaker made off with the plate in the kitchen, why should he not have come upstairs to have this linen or yonder coin? Surely there’s enough here to be troubled with.”

  Joan pointed out the purse she’d found in Susanna’s cabinet, and Matthew said a little casket in the bottom of the farmer’s clothes chest contained thirty-three pounds and some odd pence in English, French, and Spanish coins.

  Sir Thomas said, “The question remains: why steal the plate but not the purses?”

  “Perhaps he—or they,” Matthew said, remembering Agnes’s assertion that there must have been more than one intruder, “were frightened off before they could mount the stairs. Perhaps they were in the house when Adam Nemo came to the farm.”

  “Well, trust me, when Master Fuller comes he will solve this puzzle handily, or I don’t know my man,” Sir Thomas
said gruffly, putting the will and letter beneath his arm. “Come. Let us go downstairs now and see what if anything my men have found in the pasture and bams.”

  Joan watched while the diggers continued to dig, with much talk among them about treasures real and imagined, but when after several hours nothing was uncovered but some animal bones and an old hiltless Roman sword, Sir Thomas said that the men had dug enough and that he was not about to oversee the digging up of the whole farmstead, no matter what Crookback had buried there. He said he believed what there was to discover in the pasture had been discovered and declared that there was no treasure and that the digging should stop and the ale that had been brought from the town evenly distributed among the workers. This announcement seemed to ease the disappointment of those assembled as they lay down their tools and began to move toward where the horses had been paddocked.

  “Sir Thomas told me of what he hoped to find in the pasture,” Matthew said while he and Joan were riding back to Chelmsford about an hour later. “One of his servants had heard rumors of treasure buried on the farm. Of course, we had all heard that old tale.”

  “No uncommon story,” Joan said. “What farm or freehold but has not the same legend? Wishful thinking on the part of envious neighbors, I trow. We are a nation of treasuremongers who dream of finding what honest work should produce. ”

  Joan said that for her part the treasure she sought was truth—the truth about why the housebreaker had fled without his reward, why the murderer’s violence had cut so broad a swath, cutting down two innocent children along with the parents, and what the black stone and gold and Agnello and Hawking had to do with a sailor turned farmer.

  Matthew could provide no answers to these questions. Apparently he was as mystified as she. The journey to town passed with little talk between them, and Joan was left to her own speculations, which were not a few.

  Agnello’s letter made no more sense to her than the curious housebreaker who stole plate but not purses, who killed dogs as well as innocent children as if he were more concerned with revenge than simple larceny. Now here was a clue in her own mind: The brutality of the deaths argued that they were done with deliberation and contempt for the victims. Why stuff the bodies down the well? Why not just leave them where they were slain, in the house or in the yard? What did the murderer care? Unless, of course, he intended that they not be found. But they would be found, sooner or later. The bloody walls of the parlor would tell the tale. And why had not Nicholas been killed with the rest of his family?

  The town now came into view and Sir Thomas, who rode well ahead of his servants, spurred his horse forward with the admonition that they hurry. Joan remembered that the coroner’s jury would assemble at one o’clock and that the inquest would commence an hour after. She would not want to miss that event. Matthew’s position as acting constable would guarantee her a goodly view of the proceedings.

  Matthew kicked the mare’s side so as not to fall behind, and Joan grasped her husband’s waist all the harder.

  Shortly after breakfast that morning Agnes Profytt went to visit her sister, Mildred. This worthy woman and her husband lived in a modest house at the end of the High Street, just where the fields and orchards began. When Agnes arrived, she was pleased to learn Mildred’s husband was out-of-doors. ‘ He’ll not work today more than any other man in the town,” Mildred said, with a heavy sigh of resignation. “He’s at the Sessions House, hoping to see something.”

  Agnes asked how her sister was and appraised Mildred’s rotund belly with a little envy, for although her new husband was turning out to be a disappointment to her, she did want a child, if only that she might not lack aught that her sister took delight in. She listened to Mildred’s complaints for a few minutes, nodding from time to time in a reassuring way but already thinking ahead to how she would broach the subject that was the real purpose of her visit.

  “Well, now, sister,” Agnes said, finding a break in her sister’s chatter at last. She glanced around the single chamber of the cottage, noting the humbleness of the furnishings. “Seeing that you will soon present me with niece or nephew and enlarge your own family too, have you thought about this child’s lamentable future?”

  Mildred’s lantern jaw dropped at this remark, and she asked at once to what lamentable future her sister referred.

  Agnes made a sympathetic face. “Dear Mildred, let me speak plain, as I am wont. Is it not well known that your husband is a poor provider? His prospects are hardly better than his present condition. Why, the town has sufficient tailors to serve this half of England.”

  As Mildred began to protest this statement, Agnes raised an admonitory hand. Mildred permitted her to continue. “Look at this place. A pig might call it home. Is it fit for a daughter of John Crookback? Were we not used to better conditions in our girlhood? Had we not reason to expect better things? I say we are both abused by these men we are yoked to and must look out for ourselves if we are not to slide into a condition below our desert.”

  Mildred looked at her sister without speaking, as though she were still trying to decide whether Agnes had come to insult her, to offer consolation, or to propose some ready road to the wealth denied them.

  “Our father’s death has enriched our brother,” Agnes said. “It is not right, sister. It is not just.”

  Mildred moved in her chair with obvious discomfort. Agnes thought she saw the baby kick and smiled despite herself. If her words stirred the unborn child to action, was not this an undeniable affirmation of the truth she told?

  “I grant it is not right that our half brother should be enriched at our expense,” Mildred said, resting her chin on her hand. “But what is to be done? Father’s will is clear. He made no bones about it: Nicholas, for all his infirmities of mind, inherits Crookback Farm. Crookback’s daughters are left with his good wishes and plate, which has been stolen. That’s the whole of it. The laws of England will not help us.”

  “The laws of England may go hang, for all I care,” said Agnes, with a venemous scowl that startled her sister. Agnes lowered her voice. “I know what’s fair, and Nicholas’s having what should be ours is not. Especially when it is so likely that he killed our father, and his mother and brother and sister too.”

  “Oh I hesitate to think it is so,” said Mildred.

  “You joined me in accusing him yesterday,” Agnes said.

  “But after prayer and sleep thought the better of it,” Mildred said, resting her hand on her belly and assuming a beatific expression of contented motherhood.

  “Think, sister. All evidence is for it,” Agnes said. “The murderer slayed all, save for Nicholas. Why? Because he knew Nicholas could not speak? Yet who knows not that he can point and nod and yea, grunt if he must. Our half brother is not that devoid of sense that if he saw the murderer he would not signal it. Yet he keeps mum, answers no questions but with a shrug. Looks glassy-eyed, like the idiot he is. Now by God’s blessed son, he has the farm for himself, to rule as he sees fit, or to sell it to Sir Thomas or Master Burton, who have long coveted the land. We are left with a few baubles.”

  “You care more for our inheritance than for Father,” Mildred said, looking over her sister’s shoulder as though the parent alluded to was standing there regarding them.

  “Not so, sister!” Agnes said. “You misconstrue my meaning. But how must our parent feel in heaven where he surely is to know that his beloved daughters who survive must now be deprived by the one who brought him to his untimely end?”

  Agnes leaned back and fell silent to let her sister consider this new line of reasoning. She was pleased to see that the seed she was planting seemed already to have sprouted. “What will you say today at the inquiry?” Mildred asked.

  “I shall tell the truth,” Agnes said firmly. “No more nor less. I shall point out the plain facts—as I have done already to Matthew Stock and Sir Thomas. Let the coroner’s jury hear my reasoning. I shall also describe certain troubles between our half brother and sister and Ni
cholas.”

  “What troubles? I knew of no troubles,” Mildred said, shifting uneasily in the seat again.

  “I speak of more than squabbles,” Agnes said darkly.

  “You mean Magdalen’s taunting him, which she did, in truth, and Benjamin’s sometimes joining in? But certainly that was mere child’s play. I remember no—”

  “Sister, such taunting is the beginning of more serious mischief,” Agnes said, leaning forward to press her point. “Think of it, and comprehend of what you speak. These evidences are not without their meaning. Would you have Nicholas inherit? Say yea or no.”

  “Not if I could prevent it,” Mildred said.

  “Then listen to my own words and support me as a sister should. In heaven our father will be pleased, justice done, and our estates enlarged. It’s as simple as that.”

  Agnes ignored the doubtful look on her sister’s face. She had always despised her older sister for her timidity, and she prayed to God Mildred would not ruin things now.

  William Dees came home after his night’s watch in no mood for company. Fear and grief had swallowed him up and spewed him out. He wanted neither to talk nor think. He found his wife in a sour mood too, complaining again about her ailments, which were, according to her, more than any man could count. A pale woman in her forties and thin as a rail, she asked him if he wanted aught to eat and he said no. She asked him if he would tell her what passed on his watch, how the poor dead Crookbacks appeared, and who was suspected of the crimes. He said he would not tell. He wanted only to sleep, he said.

  “You might as well do so,” his wife said, “for I have heard you may not work today. It’s a holiday, by order of the magistrate.”

  The petulance in his wife’s voice irritated Dees. He walked around her without another word and went into the little bedchamber they shared, and sitting down heavily on the bed, he began to remove his boots. In the parlor his children were engaged in a loud dispute, their shrill voices causing his head to ache.