A Sickness in the Soul Page 16

  ‘I dislike masquerade balls,’ Foxe said. ‘Always have. Tell me how you managed to get into the theatre. The manager assured me the place is locked up firmly whenever it’s not in use.’

  ‘It is, Mr Foxe. The weak point is old Garnet, the keeper of the stage door. The man’s something of a soak, never happier that when he has a flask of gin in his hand. Several times in recent years he’s rolled home after a performance or a rehearsal and lost the key. Then no one could get back in the next day. In the end, the manager threatened to dismiss him, if he did it again. Garnet was in despair until someone came up with an idea. They got a locksmith to cut a duplicate key, attached it to a length of tarred twine and hung the thing where it could be reached from outside. It’s there, but it can’t be seen. All who work in the theatre know where to find it.’

  ‘How did you find your way to the place where the costumes were hung and select the right one? Surely it was pitch-dark inside.’

  ‘That it was, sir. However, there are a few windows in the parts where I needed to go, and no houses overlook that side. It was a small risk, but worth taking. I had an end of a candle in my pocket and my flint to light it. It gave a poor light, but it served.’

  ‘So, I was right. As soon as you’d left Miss Marsh, you returned to the theatre,’ Foxe said.

  ‘Not quite. I went to a tavern first and took a drink to steady my nerves. Then I did as I told you. When I got back to the Assembly House, I was wearing the duplicate costume. I also had the hat which went with it hidden under my cloak. Those keeping the door were distracted by various servants and footmen leaving and coming back. Some went to summon coaches and others returned to tell their masters all was ready outside. I slipped inside, went again to the room where I’d hidden Lord Aylestone’s body and left my own cloak there. Then I donned hat and mask and walked back into the main hall. I chose a place close to the dais where the musicians were seated and made sure I was in plain sight for several moments. To make all look natural, I peered about the ballroom as if I was seeking someone. I needed to make sure enough of those present saw me in my disguise to report that the noble lord was fit and well long after I was supposed to have left.’

  ‘What then?’ Foxe asked.

  ‘To make doubly certain, I went back to the area by the door. There I accosted one of the hall’s servants. As Lord Aylestone, I demanded my cloak and that of a mythical companion — describing to him exactly where I had just left my own cloak after I entered. I’m a good mimic, Mr Foxe. I flatter myself I would have sounded enough like the man himself to fool most people. When he returned, I put Lord Aylestone’s cloak on and hung the other over my arm. Then I told the servant to inform my supposed companion that I had his cloak and would wait for him outside. After that, I walked out and strode away, never pausing until I reached the theatre again and safety.’

  ‘What did you do with Lord Aylestone’s cloak?’

  ‘Once I was clear of the Assembly House, I slipped into the mouth of a dark alleyway, put my own cloak back on and threw the other on the ground. I reasoned it would soon be found by some beggar or sneak-thief. He’d take it up and sell it for whatever he could get. It was a good cloak.’

  ‘Then you let yourself back into the theatre and replaced the Harlequin costume. Only you put it in the wrong place.’

  ‘By that time, sir, I was desperate to be back in my lodgings. I thought I had put it where I had taken it from.’

  For a few moments, both men were silent. The actor was doubtless afraid of what was going happen to him. Foxe was marvelling at the young man’s quickness of mind in finding such a solution to his problem. It was Bewell who eventually broke the silence.

  ‘What will happen now, Mr Foxe? Will I have to face the gallows for what I did?’

  ‘I doubt it, Mr Bewell. There was a strong element of self-defence in your action. Everyone in Norwich is well aware of the late Lord Aylestone’s descent into some kind of religious mania. His family also have a well-deserved reputation for being hot-tempered. I believe one uncle killed a man in a duel not twenty years ago. Another close relative was arraigned for the murder of someone he believed to be his wife’s lover. He only escaped by fleeing abroad before facing trial. When they hear your tale, I doubt any jury in this city — even in the county as a whole — will bring in a “guilty” verdict on a charge of murder. Nor, I suspect, would Viscount Penngrove relish hearing a full account of his son’s madness proclaimed in open court. No, young sir. If your lawyer is competent, the worst that can happen is to face a charge of involuntary manslaughter. You may go to prison for a few years, but it’s quite possible a jury, handled properly, will acquit you of that too.’

  ‘I have no money for lawyers, Mr Foxe.’

  ‘Never fear. I’ll find one for you and pay his fee, Mr Bewell. I’ll also speak up for you to the judge. I believe your tale and would not see your life totally ruined. You may yet take many leading roles on stage after today. However, right now you must go with the constable, who’s waiting for my call in the kitchen or somewhere else amongst my servants. Be of good cheer, Mr Bewell. I’m on your side, whatever happens.’

  Once he had seen Mr Bewell safely taken into the custody of the constable, Foxe left the house himself to take news of the arrest to Alderman Halloran. He should have been feeling pleased to have reached a successful conclusion to the case. In reality, he felt only sick at heart. Thanks to him, young Bewell would face a long ordeal, starting with weeks in prison, and culminating in a trial at the next assize. By Foxe’s reckoning, he scarcely deserved any of it. Most of what he’d done could be put down to mischance. He was clearly a personable enough fellow, caught up in events he had neither provoked nor could avoid. Certainly not a murderer. Lord Aylestone, on the other hand, was a religious bigot from a family afflicted with a long-standing strain of madness. That madness, in the end, had taken control of him. It had driven him to the point of where he saw himself as God’s instrument in cleansing the city of the servants of the Evil One. Men had been put in Bedlam for less. If any man deserved incarceration, even death, it was Lord Aylestone, not the young actor.

  Unfortunately, the trials of that day for Mr Ashmole Foxe were not yet at an end. As he turned into Colegate, he almost collided with Lady Valmar, who was standing on the pavement about to ascend into her carriage. The door of one of the grand houses was still open behind her. It looked as if she had been inside taking tea with a friend.

  It was too good an opportunity to miss. Foxe knew he would never be admitted to her house to talk with her. Now he darted forward and called out that he must speak with her on a matter of the gravest importance.

  ‘Must speak with me, Mr Foxe? Must? Your impudence astounds me, sir. Stand aside and let me pass into my carriage!’

  ‘Not until you have heard what I have to say, your ladyship. I now have proof that the pendant I showed you belonged to your own son. His was the corpse which was found in the city, the pendant about its neck. You knew that from the moment you saw the pendant.’

  ‘My son, as you term him, has long been dead to me, sir,’ Lady Valmar replied. ‘Nor was he ever a vagrant, to be found in some filth-ridden alley in our city. If he still lives, which I doubt, he must be far away from here.’

  ‘You are wrong on all counts, Lady Valmar. Your eldest son never left Norwich. Exactly how he found enough money to survive, I do not yet know, but survive he did until very recently. For a time, he definitely lived a poor but honest life amongst artisans. In the end, however, he was reduced to living on the streets and begging to survive. Even so, he never sold the gold about his throat, though it would have brought him enough to live on for a year or more. Finally, he was murdered. By whom, I now believe I know. Exactly why it was done, I do not yet know for certain — though I have a shrewd idea.’

  ‘Does your rudeness and impudence know no bounds, Mr Foxe?’ the lady said. ‘My husband and I have told you what happened to our son. There is an end of it! Now be on your way, before I have
my coachman throw you in the gutter where you belong!’

  ‘The guilt for the man’s death lies somewhere in your own household, Lady Valmar. Think on that!’

  Provoked into a fury, the woman pulled back her arm and struck Foxe full in the face, causing him to stagger back with the weight of the blow.

  ‘Stand aside, I told you! How dare you insult my family in such a way! I will have you whipped for it!’

  As she darted forward to step into the waiting carriage, Foxe fired the last of his ammunition.

  ‘There is a child, Lady Valmar,’ he cried. ‘Your grandson! A child who is now without a father.’

  For a moment, she was checked. Then she stepped into the carriage and signalled angrily for the coachman to drive on. Just the same, Foxe felt sure she was crying.

  Alderman Halloran was delighted by Foxe’s news about finding the culprit in the death of Lord Aylestone. He made him spell everything out in detail. Then he declared the mayor would forever be in Foxe’s debt for what he had achieved.

  ‘That Viscount Penngrove has come near to hounding our poor mayor into an early grave, Foxe,’ he said, after all had been explained. ‘I will pass on to him your thoughts about the fellow Bewell. For my own part, I feel sure you’re correct in assuming no charge of murder will be brought against him. Even to sustain a charge of manslaughter seems unlikely. However, that will be up to the judge who tries the case, not me. But what has happened to you, my friend? Is that the beginning of a black eye I see? Has some rogue attacked you on your way here?’

  ‘No rogue, Alderman, but Lady Valmar. I met her scarce a dozen yards from your door. When I tried to tell her what I had discovered about that vagrant I told you of — the one wearing the gold pendant — she grew so angry she struck me full in the face.’

  ‘What in heaven’s name could that have to do with her ladyship, Foxe? You must have provoked her sorely indeed, if she went so far as to strike you. I know you can be an impudent fellow at times, but surely even you would not forget yourself so far as to speak roughly to her or try to seize her arm.’

  ‘Nothing like that, Halloran, I assure you,’ Foxe replied. ‘I merely told her that I knew the dead man to be her eldest son; the one her husband had driven from the house and supposedly cut off from his inheritance.’

  After that, of course, Foxe had to begin at the beginning and tell the alderman all he knew — together with a good deal of what he only suspected as yet. At the end, Halloran stared at him in horror.

  ‘Would his own kith and kin do as much as you suppose, Foxe? How did they find him?’

  ‘I think her ladyship could answer that question, Halloran, though I doubt she will. That poor woman bears a heavy load on her conscience. I saw her crying even as she was driven away. My final revelation that she had a grandson she knew nothing about must have struck her like a bolt of lightning from God himself.’

  ‘By Heaven, Foxe, this is a bad business,’ the alderman exclaimed. ‘It will never come to court though. Surely you see that. Even you could not bring forward enough evidence. Even if you had it, Sir Samuel Valmar would use all his influence to see it was rendered useless. As it stands, it’s you who should fear legal proceedings being taken against you. The moment Lady Valmar tells her husband what you have said and done, he’ll be mad for revenge.’

  ‘They will not proceed against me, Halloran, of that I am sure. They will reason that I can do nothing and would prefer silence to having the family’s shame discussed throughout the city. To this day, Sir Samuel refuses to admit what actually happened between him and his son. If he’s forced to speak on the matter, he comes up with the tale that his son departed overseas and died there. No whiff of scandal must sully the Valmar name. Sir Samuel is a deal too proud for that.’

  ‘Then the truth will remain hidden — unlike the damage to your face.’

  ‘Maybe, Halloran. Maybe. My enquiries are not yet complete. Who knows what may come to the surface in due time? By the way, I think I may have discovered who has been embezzling money from the city treasury and why.’

  ‘What? Who is it? The mayor will see him hanged for it!’

  ‘As to that, the mayor is too late. The man I have in mind fell into the hands of an unscrupulous money-lender. When he could no longer meet his obligations from his own resources, he turned to theft. That also became impossible for him, once the mayor’s suspicions had been aroused.’

  Foxe had heard all this from the street children just before he set out, but he didn’t mention that. They’d told him the man’s death had been caused by a visit from George Stubbings.

  ‘I suppose he’s now fled from the city,’ Halloran said.

  ‘In a manner of speaking. Do you know if any of the treasury clerks have been reported too unwell to work recently?’

  ‘His Worship did mention that one of them had fallen gravely ill from the smallpox, I believe. Has the fellow died?’

  ‘Yes, but not from sickness. Rather from an excess of zeal on the part of a ruffian sent by the money-lender to encourage further payment. That was your man, Halloran. He’s already suffered in full the penalty for stealing prescribed by the law. The money, however, is gone for good.’

  15

  When he returned to his shop after his meeting with Halloran, Foxe’s mood was still one of deep unhappiness. It was not his treatment by Lady Valmar which upset him. If anything, her fury at hearing the proof of her son’s fate only confirmed what was in his mind. He’d felt sure she and her husband had been telling lies from the moment he first showed them the gold pendant. Even if there had been a rift in the family, any normal parents would have reclaimed the pendant immediately. Particularly if they believed it had been stolen. Yet, both had dismissed it with barely a glance and made no protest when Foxe tucked it back into his pocket. It was almost as if they felt such guilt at what had taken place, they could not bear any reminder of their lost son, even after his death.

  The trouble was, if they maintained this attitude and the fiction about their son dying abroad, Foxe could see no means of challenging it. Sir Samuel Valmar was a highly influential man, well respected in the city, if not liked by many. Foxe could not launch a prosecution against such a person without bringing forward compelling evidence. Nor could he proceed against the surviving son, Frederick Valmar. His instincts told him that one of those two had paid the assassin to dispose of a threat to the succession to lands and title. Sadly, it had so far failed to tell him which one it was. It might have even been both of them.

  Rather than return to his library immediately, where he would only sit and fret further, Foxe went through into his shop. It was not far off the time Mrs Crombie would close for the day. With any luck, there might be no customers present so that he could pour out his woes to her at least.

  Mrs Crombie took one glance at Foxe’s face and hustled him through into the storeroom, where they might talk in peace. She told Miss Benfield, her cousin and assistant, to shut up shop, then leave for the day. Miss Gravener, the young woman who ran the circulating library, had gone already, since the library closed an hour before the shop itself. Charlie was sent post haste to Mistress Tabby to seek a salve for his master’s face and eye.

  ‘That eye’s turning a deep shade of purple,’ Mrs Crombie said when the two of them were alone. ‘The man who did it must possess a strong right arm. Have you at least had someone bathe it for you?’

  ‘No man did this,’ Foxe said. ‘It was a woman in a fury with me.’

  ‘Not Lady Cockerham, surely? She came into the shop earlier today and mentioned that you hadn’t been to visit her for some time. She didn’t seem angry then, only somewhat sad.’

  ‘Not Lady Cockerham. Lady Valmar.’

  ‘Lady Valmar? What on earth did you do to make her strike you? Surely you haven’t been trying to force your attentions on her. She may still be a most elegant woman, but she must be at least twenty years or more your senior.’

  ‘I told her the truth, that was all.’
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  ‘Where did this happen?’

  ‘In the street. Colegate, to be precise.’

  Naturally, nothing would suffice after that but to tell Mrs Crombie all.

  ‘Begin at the beginning and tell me all,’ she said firmly. ‘While you talk, I will see if I can tend to your bruised eye.’

  Neither of them had time to get very far with their respective tasks. Charlie hurried in a moment later with a small pot of salve. He told them he’d met Bart in the street coming the other way.

  ‘He’d got this balm in his hand,’ the boy said. ‘I asked him how he knew to bring it, but he simply said he’d been told to do so. You know Bart. It’s nearly impossible to get more than a few words from him.’

  ‘I wish I knew how she did that,’ Foxe said. ‘There are times when I think she knows what’s going to happen to me before it does. What is in this ointment anyway? On the label, she’s simply written “Arnica and Solomon’s Seal” and the instruction to apply it liberally, but to make sure none of it goes in the eye itself. Do you know what those herbs are used for, Mrs Crombie?’

  ‘If you wait a moment, I’ll go back into the shop and find a herbal,’ she replied. ‘Then we’ll both know.’

  She was gone some time. When she returned, she was carrying several volumes.

  ‘I found Solomon’s Seal easily enough, Mr Foxe. This book has the shortest and simplest description. It says, “It is found wild in woods in some of the northern counties, but is not common. The root is commended very much by divers respectable authors as an outward application for bruises.” Arnica was much harder to discover anything about. The best I could do quickly was a note in this other book saying it is a popular remedy in Germany, also for bruises. It seems to be a yellow flower which grows high in the mountains there and also in the Alpine regions of France and Switzerland.’