P. Chisholm - A Murder of Crows

“So you used me and my father…”

“No sir,” said Enys, looking straight at him. “It’s clear that Heneage was warned to be away from here by someone, probably the clerk of the court. But we had to make the attempt to begin the case.”

Carey nodded. “And? Is Cecil involved in this? Raleigh?”

Enys shook his head. “Not to my knowledge, sir, only I had to try. My brother has been missing for over two weeks. We should leave immediately so we can…”

Carey took his hand away from his sword. “Oh not so fast,” he drawled. “I think we should check more carefully for Mr. Vice. Now we’re here.”

Starting at the top of the house, moving from one room to the other while the Cornishmen stood around the steward and the couple of valets busied themselves with the horses in the stables, Carey searched the place methodically. In one room that had a writing desk and a number of books in it, he found a pile of papers newly ciphered which he swept into a convenient post bag. In a chest he found another stack of rolled parchment, one of which he opened. He whistled.

“Mother would be interested by these,” he said. “It seems our Mr. Vice has been busy buying lands in Cornwall-look.”

Dodd looked, squinted, and sighed because the damned thing was not only in a cramped secretary hand but was clearly in some form of foreign.

“You can see it’s a deed-see the word ‘Dedo’ which means I give, and that says ‘Comitatis Cornwallensis’-which means Cornwall. We’ll just borrow this one, I think.” Carey dropped it in the bag.

There was a book on the desk, much thumbed, which Carey looked at and which turned out to be Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

Dodd had been attending to the cupboard with the carved doors. Eventually the lock broke and he opened it. There was a nice haul of silver.

“Jesu, Sergeant, put that back,” Carey said behind him, “we’re not here for the man’s insight.”

Dodd was puzzled. “Are we no’? I thocht that was what we were about. Can I no’ nip out that fine gelding in the stables then, the one wi’ the white sock?”

Carey grinned. “We’re not raiding the man, we’re searching his house for evidence of wrongdoing and I’m certainly not losing my reputation for the sake of a second-rate collection of silver plate and one nag with the spavins. The man has no taste at all.” Dodd scowled. Who cared what the silver plate looked like since it was going to be melted down? And the gelding certainly did not have the spavins and was in fact a very nice piece of horseflesh, as Dodd knew, and probably Carey did as well.

At the foot of the stairs Enys was anxiously waiting for them. “I had no intention of taking Mr. Vice Chamberlain’s papers…” he began.

“Of course not,” said Carey breezily. “We came to arrest Heneage but in the course of our search for him we came upon some papers which might possibly relate to treason and which my Lord Chamberlain, as his superior, would naturally wish to know about. We’ll give them back as soon as we can find Heneage himself.”

He led the way out of the door and along the path to the boat-landing. To the steward he gave a shilling to pay for the damage to the cupboard and to convey his compliments to Mr. Vice Chamberlain-he was sure they would meet soon.

***

It seemed a very long row back to Somerset House steps, even though Dodd wasn’t rowing and the current was helping the men sweating at the oars in the warm afternoon sun. Enys remained silent, staring into space, and Dodd had nothing much to say either. Carey watched Enys for a while before remarking, seemingly at venture, “Have you truly seen nothing of your brother for more than two weeks?”

Enys turned his gargoyle’s face to Carey’s. “Nothing. And he would be back by now. He…he was concerned in something dangerous connected with Heneage, something to do with land, but that’s all I know.”

Carey handed over the deed he had taken. “Is it real?”

Enys squinted his eyes, read the deed, and nodded. “Yes, quite in order, a few hides of farmland near Helston. In Cornwall they call them ‘wheals.’”

“Are these anything to do with the cases you withdrew from?”

Enys shook his head. “Not this piece of land, no. Were there other deeds there?”

“Plenty of them.”

Enys smiled bitterly. “It’s a popular game. Arrest a man for non-payment of recusancy fines, offer to release him in exchange for some land sold at a very low price, and then release or don’t release him, depending how much land you think his family have left. There is nothing, alas, illegal about it.”

“But you find it dishonourable?”

Enys shrugged.

“Are you a Papist?” Carey demanded, voice harsh with suspicion.

“No sir,” Enys said with a sigh, “but my family were church-Papists and I find it hard to cheat their friends and neighbours.”

“Are they still Papists?”

“No sir, all of them are buried in good Protestant graves. My brother is my only living relative apart from my sister.”

“Was?”

Enys lifted his hands, palms up. “What else can I think?”

Dodd nudged Carey’s foot with his boot. “D’ye think…?”

Carey sighed. “We can but try.”

***

The men were very happy to stop off at Westminster steps and have ale and bread and cheese bought for them for their labours. Carey, Dodd, and Enys hurried to the crypt of the little chapel by the court.

The undertakers had been and the smell was less appalling since the entrails had been taken out and the cavity packed with salt and saltpetre. Now the corpse was wrapped in a cerecloth. Carey lit the candles with a spill from the watchlight.

Enys swallowed hard, took a deep breath. He had his hands clasped together at his waist as he went forward and Dodd peeled the waxed cloth from the dead man’s face. He looked intently for a few moments and then let his breath puff out in a sigh of relief.

“This is not my brother, sir,” said Enys. “Poor soul.” His gaze travelled down the body and he made a jerky movement with his right hand, then looked down.

Dodd grunted and put the waxed cloth back as carefully as he could. There was a sound behind him and he saw a small, fragile, very pregnant girl coming down the steps being carefully helped by a large man wearing a buff coat. With them was one of Hunsdon’s liverymen.

“Yerss,” said the large man to the liveryman, “it’s Briscoe, Timothy Briscoe. And this is my wife, Ellie.”

Carey stepped back from the corpse and so did Dodd. Enys was already in the shadows.

“Only she ‘eard about a corpse being found wiv a bit of ‘is finger missing,” Briscoe continued, “and she was scared it was ‘er big bruvver who she ‘asn’t seen for years and so I brung ‘er so she wouldn’t worry ‘erself and upset the baby.”

Dodd thought that if anything was likely to bring the baby on, it was the sight and smell of a corpse that had been in water for a while. The girl was shaking like a leaf and gripping tight to Briscoe’s arm. He looked a dangerous bruiser but his square face was full of concern and the girl crept close to the corpse and peered at the man’s left hand. There was a gasp and a gulp.

“Ellie, my love,” Briscoe rumbled. “You mustn’t…

“I’ve got to know,” trembled Ellie. Carey stepped forward and lifted the cerecloth from the man’s face. He was watching the girl carefully. She stood on tiptoe and stared, gulped again and again, and the tears started flowing down her face.

She turned her face to her husband’s shoulder quite quietly. “I’m not sure,” she whispered, “‘is face is different, but it might be Harry. It could be.”

Carey was good with distressed women, Dodd thought. He beckoned Briscoe and his wife up the steps and into the sunlight, gestured for them to sit down on a bench. He sat next to her and offered Mrs. Briscoe a sip from his silver flask of aqua vitae which she took gratefully.