CHAPTER 29
Francis Bacon sat at his desk, writing faster as the evening descended, loath to suffer the break in concentration that rising to light the candles would entail. Pinnock was visiting his family in Hackney and his assistant, Phelippes, had been sent to Dover with a packet of letters, so Francis was obliged to fend for himself.
Someone pounded on his chamber door.
"Intro," he called, without pausing.
"Mr. Bacon?"
"One moment." Francis held up his left index finger, dipped his pen in the inkpot, and dashed off the rest of his sentence. Then he set his quill in its holder and looked up.
Benjamin Whitt stood in the doorway, a troubled expression marring his plain but pleasant features.
"Mr. Whitt? What's amiss?"
"Another body, sir. Another murder."
Francis frowned at him. "Have I been appointed coroner for Gray's Inn?"
"No, sir. Forgive me. But—" Whitt faltered.
Francis relented. He had been appointed, if sub rosa and ad tempus, investigator of suspicious deaths. "Stairs?"
"Stabbed."
"Hm." Francis frowned again. "Like Smythson?"
"No. Less blood. Probably only one or two strikes. It's hard to be certain in the twilight."
"Where?"
"In the fields." Whitt tilted his head toward the west.
"A Gray's man?"
"No, sir. A Fleming."
That was a surprise. Francis blinked, twice. He smiled suddenly. "One so seldom encounters Flemings in the ordinary run of things, yet here they are, thickly populating our recent events." He knew his levity was inappropriate, but he felt a little giddy, as he often did after a period of intense concentration.
"It is odd, sir," Whitt ventured.
Francis composed himself. "Any relation to our limner?"
"Supposedly, he was her husband."
"Supposedly?"
"She said nay, he said yea. Tom quarreled with him on that score scarce half an hour ago, across from the Temple Bar."
"He didn't stab him, I suppose."
"No, sir!" Ben looked chagrined. "We all got a bit involved in the affray. But the Fleming ran away unharmed."
"Hm." Clarady's affaires de coeur were unlikely to be relevant. Francis ran a hand over his head and glanced out the window. It would soon be fully dark. "I suppose you want me to come look at him?"
"Yes, sir. I wouldn't bother you, but for this." Whitt stepped forward to hand him a printed sheet of paper.
Francis unfolded it and leaned back toward the window. A single glance told him everything. "Oh, dear." He caught Ben's eyes. "The pamphlets from Smythson's letter."
"Yes, sir. And today is the seventeenth. The half moon?"
Francis clucked his tongue. "I'd forgotten all about the date." He skimmed the page while Whitt explained how he had obtained the sample. The prose was elegant in places. He smelled the involvement of the English Jesuit College in Rheims. Catholic missionizing aimed at England was the principal export of that community.
He should have known better. Shiveley's death had been too convenient, too timely, too well aligned with what he had wanted to find. He cast his mind back to the scene in Shiveley's chambers. In his eagerness to be done with the matter, he'd overlooked a number of details that ought to have been pursued. He gazed bleakly at his quill and inkpot. He'd have to write to his uncle again to retract his earlier pronouncement of success. His hopes of a swift end to exile were snuffed out. And he still had a murderer and conspirator to catch.
"Well, let's go have a look at him." Francis rose from his desk and glanced down into the yard. Three men were jogging past the hall toward the gap between buildings that gave access to the fields. "You couldn't have chosen a worse time to find another body: right before supper during a mesne vacation. No one has anything better to do than gawk."
Except me. He fetched his rabbit-lined cloak from the inner chamber and followed Whitt outside. One might almost believe that these murders were deliberately intended to prevent him from producing an historic Reading.