A Sickness in the Soul Page 7

  ‘Would anyone amongst them have wanted him dead?’ Foxe said.

  ‘All of them, I think, but only in a jocular way. You know, sir. People would say things like, “I wish someone would drop a brick on the fellow’s head from a tall building and put an end to him for good.” It wasn’t serious. No one would have attacked him or anything like that, let alone stoop to murder. It was play, nothing more. Like the person playing the villain in some drama who kills one of the characters. Make-believe only. I’m afraid you must look elsewhere for your murderer, Mr Foxe.’

  ‘Was Adam Bewell in the theatre at any time on that evening, do you know?’

  ‘He was not. I can be sure of that, since the theatre was closed and secured against unauthorised entry. Several times in the past, thieves have broken in and stolen valuable items of property. We now make it extremely difficult to break in. During periods when there are performances, we also employ a night watchman.’

  ‘Are there performances going on at present?’

  ‘Certainly, sir. I still hope to see you in the audience one evening soon.’

  Foxe could do no more that day. However, he had been told that the inquest on Lord Aylestone was to be held the next morning. The coroner had wanted to hold it earlier but that had failed as so many people had tried to cram into the hall to listen to the pandemonium that ensued. He had to postpone the hearing until he could find a venue capable to taking such large numbers.

  Foxe therefore determined to attend his second inquest in as many days. He joined the crowds who flocked to the Assembly House itself the next morning. Few went to listen to proceedings. What attracted the majority was the chance to gawp at the building where the crime had taken place. As a general rule, ordinary folk were never admitted.

  When he got there, Foxe found entry was being controlled. Most idlers and anyone deemed to be a vagrant were turned away. Even so, there must have been at least two hundred members of the public present to hear the coroner bang his gavel and open the proceedings.

  The first item was to confirm the jury had observed the body, as the law demanded. Next, Viscount Penngrove’s butler gave the necessary evidence of identification. It was clearly unthinkable to ask the man himself to perform such a menial task. After that, a well-known local physician, a man of some eminence, gave evidence concerning the cause of death.

  Had the audience been less set on drama and more attuned to understanding medical evidence, they would have realised — as Foxe did — that the physician’s dry and scholarly account of his findings, heavily larded with Latin, provided enough to allow an accurate reconstruction of the events surrounding Lord Aylestone’s death.

  He began by stating the cause of death. Stripped of the confusing medical terminology it amounted to a stabbing in the chest. He then added that he had been somewhat surprised by the earlier state of the body. What he was referring to was how it had been at the time it was found, or shortly afterwards.

  ‘Please explain why you have made that remark, Doctor,’ the coroner said at once.

  The physician seemed taken aback at this demand. He was not used to having what he had said questioned, nor of needing to explain his meaning to anyone. Still, after a lengthy pause to re-order his thoughts, he explained. When the corpse was found, he had been summoned from a friend’s house, where he had been engaged in playing whist. It was some little distance from the Assembly House and he estimated he had not arrived until almost two hours after the alarm had been raised. By then, the corpse was cold to the touch and rigor mortis was almost established, as he would have expected. However, the corpse had already been quite cool when found and the limbs showing signs of stiffening.

  ‘What do you make of that, sir?’ the coroner said. Foxe wondered why he didn’t ask the physician how he knew the state of the body so long before he had actually arrived.

  The physician blinked in surprise. ‘Isn’t it clear enough?’ he said. ‘A dead body cools gradually. On death, a corpse is at first limp and flaccid. Rigor mortis, the stiffening of joints and muscles, usually sets in between two and six hours after the point of actual death. Its onset too is gradual, until the corpse becomes almost totally stiff. Then it wanes again. I would not have expected the dead man to stiffen at all in the short period between the last time he was seen alive and the time he was found. However, the onset of rigor can be affected by the temperature round about. The place in which the body lay was quite warm, and the body itself was further concealed behind a curtain. It is possible, I suppose, that rigor had come on more quickly than usual.’

  ‘Is there anyone present who can give the court clear evidence of the time when the victim was last seen alive?’ the coroner called out. On being assured that the Master of Ceremonies and several members of the audience were present and could do so, he signalled to the medical examiner to continue.

  ‘I should remind the court, sir,’ the physician said, ‘that I was not present on that evening. My comments as to the state of the body when it was found were made based on the findings of a medical man who was present. He spoke to Viscount Penngrove and the noble lord passed what he had said on to me. I made only a cursory examination when I first arrived. I did not examine the body fully until the next day.’

  ‘Most irregular!’ the coroner spluttered. ‘This is mere hearsay, doctor. I cannot admit it into evidence unless it is vouched for by the physician who you say was there at the time. Is that gentleman in the court?’

  Silence.

  ‘Does anyone know where he may be found?’

  The clerk to the court stepped forward — most reluctantly, Foxe thought. With much hesitation, he explained that, unfortunately, the man was not present at the inquest. Nor could his evidence be sought.

  ‘From what I have been told by those who encountered him that evening, sir, he was visiting from London. He said he intended to depart to return home on the first mail coach the following morning.’

  ‘God’s teeth!’ the coroner exploded. ‘Did anyone think to make a note of this man’s name or ask where he lived?’

  Another silence.

  ‘Is Viscount Penngrove present?’

  A tall man with a long, bony face stood up slowly. ‘I am here,’ he said. ‘I wish to God I were not.’

  Whether this was an understandable comment about needing to attend an inquest on one of his sons, or an expression of disgust at being forced to sit, hugger-mugger, with tradesmen and other common people, was not entirely clear.

  ‘Is it true, your lordship,’ the coroner said, ‘as the medical examiner here has said, that this physician no one can name made a remark about the temperature of your son’s … body … and the extent of … um … stiffening?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Viscount Penngrove drawled.

  ‘Exactly as reported, my lord? Nothing else added and nothing omitted?’

  ‘Can’t recall. Rather upset by it all, as you might imagine.’

  The coroner struggled bravely forward. ‘You did not ask for this physician’s name or his address?’

  ‘I am not in the habit of bothering myself with the personal details of tradespeople,’ came the viscount’s cold reply. ‘I passed what I could remember on to the fellow now on the stand. Up to him after that.’ He then sat down, making it clear he would entertain no further questioning.

  The coroner’s face had now assumed something of the colour of a ripe plum and he was breathing heavily. He would have very much liked to point out to this haughty aristocrat that the law required him to answer whatever questions were put to him. Fortunately for his future career as coroner, he remembered who he was talking to and kept his mouth tightly shut. It was the medical examiner who now bore the impact of his frustration.

  ‘Doctor,’ the coroner snapped. ‘Let me make it perfectly clear that you are here to give evidence in your professional capacity. That means confining yourself to matters you actually saw for yourself. It does not mean confusing your own evidence with items picked up second or thi
rd hand. Is that clear!’

  The physician bowed his head. ‘I am sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘I thought to explain an anomaly of which I believed the court should be aware.’

  ‘A supposed anomaly!’ the coroner snapped. ‘Nothing more.’ He turned to the jury members and fixed them with a malevolent glare.

  ‘Members of the jury,’ he said loudly. ‘The comments made by the medical examiner about the temperature and stiffening of the corpse before he had examined it…’ A pause to recover his failing dignity. ‘… are to be disregarded as mere hearsay, incapable of verification. The clerk will strike them from the record, and you will ignore them.’

  ‘Moving on, Doctor — if you can stick to facts known to yourself this time — what can you tell the court about the nature of the weapon used?’

  ‘When I first examined the corpse, sir, I was shown a weapon which had been found beneath it. It was a short-bladed dagger with an unusually large hilt. Nine times out of ten a man would have survived a wound inflicted by a blade of that type. Since the blade was short, it would have been difficult to drive it in deeply enough to reach a vital organ. This time the victim was unlucky, and the attacker had used exceptional force. I found the blade had been driven into the chest between the ribs and penetrated deeply enough to reach the heart, thus causing immediate death.’

  ‘Have you ever seen a similar dagger before?’

  ‘No, sir. It was altogether strange. It was as if the hilt and guard were of full size and the blade something more like that of a large penknife. I believe the clerk has brought it for the jury to see for themselves.’

  ‘At last, actual evidence,’ the coroner muttered. At a sign from him, the clerk passed the oddly-shaped dagger to the foreman of the jury, who passed it around between the others. After that, the physician was dismissed — though without the usual thanks for his services.

  The next person called to give evidence was a stout wine-merchant. He explained that he had spent most of the evening seated in a place from where he was able to observe the door into the room where the deceased had been found. After the somewhat animated conversation between the noble viscount and his son, he had seen the father return to the main hall. He had not seen Lord Aylestone do the same. The court needed to understand that he had not watched the door continuously. People kept coming up and talking to him. Twice he got up to fetch food and drink. Several times his wife returned from where she had been in conversation with a group of her friends to enquire whether he was bored, just sitting there. Each time, his attention had been distracted for several minutes or more. Lord Aylestone could have left the room where he had been with his father during any of those periods.

  ‘Why were you sitting there for such a long period?’ the coroner asked him.

  ‘Thanks to my gout, sir,’ the wine-merchant responded, ‘even walking or standing is painful. Dancing would be quite beyond me.’

  Asked whether he had seen anyone else enter or leave the room during that time, the merchant explained he had seen several people do so during the course of the evening. Some were obviously servants. He was not sure about the others.

  Finding the man could be no more specific, the coroner called the Master of Ceremonies for that evening.

  ‘Can you throw any light on the previous witness’s evidence that he saw various people enter and leave the room where the corpse was found?’ he asked.

  ‘Indeed, sir. On that occasion, the room was being been used to store visitors’ outer clothing until they might need it again. So many had attended, and the wind was so keen that evening, that our usual facilities for storing coats and cloaks were filled early on. Most patrons were content to allow our servants to take charge of their outer garments. In exchange, they received a ticket by which the correct ones might be claimed later. However — perhaps because they anticipated a crush as all started to leave — some asked if they might deposit their garments themselves. They, or their servants, were then directed to the room in question. Between the servants of the Assembly House, the patrons’ servants and even some patrons themselves, there would have been constant movement in and out through that door. Exactly who went there and when is impossible to answer.’

  ‘Exactly when was the noble lord last seen alive?’ the coroner asked. “How long was it before his body was discovered?’

  ‘Lord Aylestone was last seen alive at about ten minutes before midnight, sir. Many of those present, including myself, observed him standing at the side of the stage and peering into the room. Although he was still masked, the costume he had been wearing was quite distinctive. He had been wearing it when he first arrived, and he was still clothed in it when his body was found. No one else on that evening had worn a remotely similar costume. The body was discovered just after twelve-thirty in the morning.’

  The Master of Ceremonies was the final witness. When he had left the witness’s chair, the coroner quickly summed up. He ran through the likely timings once again. Assuming the murder had taken place soon after he had last been seen, that left a gap of barely half-an-hour before the discovery of Lord Aylestone’s body. He had been killed by a single thrust from a dagger. They had all been able to see that weapon for themselves. The exact state of the body when it was found could not be fully established, due to the inability of the court to hear evidence from the one person who might have been able to provide unambiguous testimony.

  All most unsatisfactory, the coroner grumbled, but there was nothing he could do. However, it could make no difference to the verdict. The man had either killed himself or been murdered. Since no evidence had been brought forward to suggest the former, he urged the jury to deliver a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown.

  They swiftly complied.

  6

  Foxe returned home after the inquest in a thoughtful state. Nothing he had heard had changed his initial opinion about this murder. He was confident he knew more or less how it had happened. Yet certain points had somewhat shaken his confidence in the details of the hypothesis he had formed. If they were correct, the identity of the killer was again in doubt. Too many people had gone in and out of the room where the body had been found to fix suspicion on any of them. The reappearance of Lord Aylestone towards the end of the evening also troubled him. The facts could not be easily challenged. Too many witnesses had seen him. There was also the matter of his distinctive costume, the fact he arrived wearing it and that it was still on his body when he had been found.

  Everything pointed to the murder taking place in that short period between his reappearance in the hall and the discovery of his corpse. A period of less than an hour. More than enough time for him to have met his death, followed by the killer hiding his body where it might well have remained safe for many hours. Only the amorous intentions of two of the guests had resulted in its discovery.

  The difficulty lay in the medical evidence. Unless the observations of the unknown doctor from London were discounted, this version of events could not be reconciled with the state of the corpse when it was found.

  Foxe swore under his breath. Now this business too was turning into a complex mystery. He had been certain he had deduced all the answers more or less exactly. Now he was not so sure. He’d told Brock the death of Lord Aylestone would be easy to unravel, given a little more time. It looked as if he might have to eat his words.

  What to do next? He could try to get further evidence from others who had been present at the masquerade ball. He could question those who ran the stagecoaches to try to find the name of the London doctor. Both sensible next steps. The trouble was, neither appealed to him in the least. Despite Halloran and the mayor, Foxe was determined not to set aside his investigation of Dr Danson’s death. He would continue with it secretly, if he must. Surely he could devote one evening to satisfying his curiosity about Danson and his new wife? No one would ever know.

  Having made up his mind and thrust all scruples aside, he ate a hasty dinner, then sought out the bordello where Mrs Danson
said she had worked. In the days when Gracie Catt was madam of the most exclusive bagnio in Norwich, he’d gone nowhere else. Not that he’d ever made much use of the girls she employed. She and her sister were more than enough for him to cope with. Generally, he’d visited in the guise of a dancing master, giving the girls lessons in deportment. The bordello he was visiting now had not been amongst the most elite establishments at the time. Since Gracie had left the city, however, it had risen in status and now stood near the pinnacle of fashionable houses. Foxe owned the building in which it was situated, as the madam knew. She would be sure to answer his questions openly.

  The place he sought was not far from his own house, but Foxe still hired a torch-bearer to go ahead with a flaming torch to light his way. The streets of Norwich could be dangerous for anyone on their own, though Foxe had no need on this occasion to venture into the most perilous areas. After less than five minutes, they stopped outside a handsome brick building. It might have been the residence of a wealthy merchant. Foxe knew it had been built scarcely twenty years before for precisely that purpose. However, the merchant in question had suffered heavy losses as a result of a shipwreck and been forced to leave for a more modest dwelling. At around the same time, the fashion had shifted. Rich merchants, like Alderman Halloran, now lived to the north of the city. The house where Foxe stood had now mostly passed into the hands of professional men. Others, like this one, had come to serve for other purposes where a discreet façade and a respectable address were an advantage.

  ‘I don’t believe you’ve ever visited us before, Mr Foxe,’ the madam said, ushering him into her inner sanctum and offering him a glass of what proved to be excellent brandy. ‘We usually deal only with your attorney. I know we are not behind with the rent, so your visit this evening intrigues me. I hope you do not bring us bad news.’