Murder by Misrule

CHAPTER 6

  "My brain feels like it's been emptied by a giant bilge pump." Tom pressed his hands against his head and groaned.

  Stephen crossed his eyes and staggered toward him. "Do I know you, good fellow? I fear my wits are gone."

  They gaped at each other, goggle-eyed, tongues lolling.

  Ben frowned at them. "I found it extremely stimulating. What a mind! Although I thought I had a better grasp of novel disseisin. I've got to read more, that's all there is to it." He looked about him anxiously, as if searching for a law book in the graveled yard.

  "You did better than me," Trumpet said. "I sounded like a perfect idiot. I'd start off well enough, but then he'd tangle me up in contingencies and I'd hear myself babbling nonsense."

  "He doesn't like your uncle," Tom said. "Did you notice? His nose would twitch every time you mentioned him. That's why he was so hard on you."

  "I'm hungry," Ben announced. "I feel like I've run a mile at full gallop. Shall we try our luck in the buttery?"

  "After," Tom said. "We don't want to examine Mr. Smythson's corpus on a full stomach."

  Ben made a sour face. "True."

  Bacon had subjected them to a grueling impromptu examination. Having exhausted their knowledge of the law, he had abruptly changed tack. "Now I'm going to set you a practicum." Then he'd bounced off to fetch the key to the vestry.

  The lads were to help him discover who killed Mr. Smythson. Their first step was to examine the body, which had been delivered early that morning from Whitehall. Bacon had made it seem like a murder investigation was a normal part of their studies, but Tom could tell by the startled expression on Ben's face that it was quite out of the ordinary.

  Bacon jogged down the steps of the hall bearing a large iron key. "Gentlemen." He walked quickly past them, clearly expecting them to follow.

  Tom couldn't make up his mind about Francis Bacon. He had drilled them mercilessly for the better part of an hour, yet Tom had gotten not a whiff of malice nor a whisper of contempt when they flubbed an answer. He simply wanted to know what they knew and had extracted the information with maximum efficiency.

  Bacon unlocked the door to the vestry. This was little more than a storeroom, barely ten feet wide, containing one old cupboard and a single chest. Nothing more was needed nowadays since they'd done away with the egregious trappings of popery. It smelled of dust and pennyroyal with something less aromatic underneath.

  The center of the room was occupied by the body of Mr. Smythson, laid upon a trestle table and covered with a fresh white sheet. The lads ranged themselves around the table with Bacon standing at the head.

  "He looks bigger than he did standing up." Ben spoke in a loud whisper.

  "I was going to say smaller," Trumpet whispered back. "Or rather, shorter from end to end, but rounder in the middle."

  "That's what I meant."

  "It's an odd effect, isn't it?" Bacon spoke at a normal volume. "Something to do with perspective."

  Trumpet gestured at the sheet covering Smythson's face. "Shall we . . ."

  "Yes," Bacon said. "Please proceed, Mr. Trumpington."

  Trumpet drew in a breath, took hold of a corner of the sheet, and flipped it back, exposing the body to the waist. The lads gasped in unison. Tom had expected more stink. The room was cold, though; cold enough to see his breath. Cold enough to stave off rot.

  The lads fell silent, waiting, while Bacon stood gazing at Smythson's waxy face. His mouth was twisted with disgust, but his hazel eyes were dark with sorrow.

  "He was my tutor too," he said finally. "Did you know that?"

  They shook their heads.

  "Only seven years ago." He smiled sadly. "Seems like a lifetime."

  Another long pause. Then he shook himself slightly and drew a long breath. He looked at the lads again with his customary brightness of eye. "We owe him a debt, all of us here. Let us do our job well and bring his murderer to justice."

  Tom and Ben murmured, "Amen." It seemed appropriate.

  "What do we observe?" Bacon asked.

  Tom, as usual, answered first. "He looks dead."

  Stephen snorted.

  "I believe his status has been fully established," Bacon said, with a quirk of his lips.

  Tom said, "I mean, he doesn't look as if he were sleeping, like people say. He looks cold. Lifeless."

  "He looks murdered," Trumpet said. "He must have been stabbed a dozen times. Look at all the wounds."

  He reached a hand out as if to touch one of the pale red slashes on Smythson's chest.

  "Don't touch him!" Stephen cried.

  "Why not? I didn't kill him." Trumpet screwed his eyes shut and set his hand flat on the body. He peeked with one eye, as if half-afraid the wounds might start to flow with fresh blood in accordance with the ancient superstition. Murder will out, the crones intoned. The corpse will bleed afresh under the hands of the murderer.

  "Well, that's one suspect eliminated," Bacon said dryly. Turning to Ben, he asked, "Mr. Whitt, would you care to present?"

  Ben folded his hands behind his back and began a circuit of the body. Like any good lawyer, he thought best while pacing. "First, we must ascertain how the victim met his end."

  "Um." Tom raised his hand. "I believe he was stabbed repeatedly. This is suggested by the multiple knife wounds visible upon his torso."

  "But," Ben said, "was stabbing in fact the cause of death? He might have been stabbed and then strangled so that his death was actually caused by the strangling."

  "That's true," Trumpet said. He gestured formally, using both open hands, toward the neck. "But there are no marks on his neck. Hence, no strangling."

  "Why are there so many wounds?" Tom asked. "And look, some of them are barely pricks, while others are deep and bruised all around. Like the killer drove in the knife right up to the hilt."

  "Captain Ralegh said the murderer was a cutpurse," Stephen said.

  "No," Trumpet said. "That was Lord Cumberland. Captain Ralegh said, 'Perhaps.'"

  "Sir Walter disputes the official story?" Bacon frowned. "I hadn't heard that."

  The lads shrugged at him. Tom thought one "perhaps" was slender evidence of dispute, but then, he wasn't a lawyer yet. "Why would a cutpurse stab a man so many times? If all I want is your purse, why wouldn't I just cut the strings and run away? Look here." He walked around the table and sidled up behind Stephen. "You be the victim."

  Stephen gazed up at the rough-beamed ceiling, whistling tunelessly, pretending to be an easy mark.

  "Here's my knife," Tom said, drawing his own from its sheath on his belt. "All I have to do is whisk your robes aside and slice." He demonstrated. "Ouch." He'd pricked his finger. He resheathed his knife and sucked on the wound.

  "I believe real cutpurses wear horn covers on their thumbs," Ben said. He had a weakness for lurid ballads and broadsheets — the bloodier, the better — and knew many odd facts about the ways of the underworld.

  "That's a useful item." Bacon smiled at him. Ben blushed — just a flash, but Tom noticed. Oh, ho! Sits the wind in that quarter?

  "Maybe Smythson's thief didn't have one," Stephen said. "Maybe Smythson caught him in the act and grabbed his hand, like this." He grabbed Tom's knife hand.

  "But then how can I stab you?" Tom said.

  "Maybe he grabbed the other hand," Trumpet said. "He was frightened; he might easily have made a mistake."

  Stephen switched to the other hand.

  "Now I want to escape," Tom said, "but you won't let go of me."

  "I'm going to take you to the constable," Stephen said, dropping his voice to Smythson's register.

  "No, no!" Tom cried. He raised his knife hand and pretended to stab at Stephen. Stephen twisted his head from side to side, pretending to be in agony. Then they both stopped and stared at each other.

  "Why don't I let go and run away?" Stephen said.

  "Then I could run away too," Tom said. "Why do I stand and stab you, over and over?"

  They turned to sta
re at Bacon, who smiled grimly. "That does appear to be the central question."

  "He was muddy," Ben said. "Remember? His robes were all twisted, like he'd struggled lying on his back. That's why he couldn't run away. The thief knocked him down."

  "But why didn't I run?" Tom said. "I mean the thief. He had the purse. He could disappear into Westminster before Mr. Smythson got to his feet."

  They all fell silent, thinking.

  "You hate me," Stephen said abruptly.

  "No, I don't." Tom was nonplussed. "I get irritated sometimes and I didn't much like the way your family treated me, but—"

  Stephen's lips disappeared into a thin line. "I meant the thief hated Mr. Smythson."

  "Ay, me." Tom clapped a hand to his cheek and frowned a mock apology.

  "Who could hate him?" Trumpet asked. "He was only a stodgy old lawyer."

  Bacon said, "He wasn't always old. And he was a skilled and learned barrister. Suppose some man who lost a vital case due to Smythson's counsel harbored a deep grudge against him. Finding him alone in that deserted lane, his anger might have broken loose like a sudden storm."

  "What about the purse, then?" Tom asked. "The strings were cut. A purse was stolen."

  "Two purses, according to the coroner's report," Bacon said.

  "I remember," Ben said. "Captain Ralegh found two sets of cut strings."

  "Why would he have two purses?" Trumpet asked. "Most men carry only one, don't they? They tuck their other oddments into their pockets."

  "One for himself and one for a payment, perhaps?" Tom said. "He might have been on his way to his tailor's."

  "On Queen's Day?" Trumpet scoffed.

  "We can imagine many reasons." Bacon's tone was as chilly as the air in the little room.

  Tom felt squelched. He tried another tack. "He would have been bloody, the thief. He must have been well splattered. Wouldn't someone have noticed?"

  Trumpet shook his head. "If his clothes were dark, he could turn his cloak inside out and hold it tight around him until he got home. If no one bumped right up against him . . ."

  "He'd still have a bloody doublet to dispose of," Tom said. "Or have washed. Some laundress somewhere knows who our man is, I'll wager."

  Bacon looked at him sharply, as though Tom had given him an idea. Whatever it was, he kept it to himself.

  "If we had any notion of who the man was, we might be able to find her." Ben shrugged. "But we can hardly question every laundress in Middlesex." He gestured at the sheet. He and Trumpet each took a corner and drew it up over Smythson's face once more. "I fear we'll never know."

  Tom wondered what else was in that coroner's report. He also wondered why Bacon had been so quick to squash his payment idea. He had a niggling sense their tutor was holding something back.