Paul Doherty - The Gallows Murders

Spurge was dressed like a dandy, a Court fop, with his tightly waisted jerkin puffed out at the shoulders and clasped round his waist by a narrow jewelled belt. He sported a codpiece a stallion would have been proud of, and tight hose which gave his legs a womanly look. Both Vetch and Spurge murmured their greetings as Kemble chattered on, drowning everyone else.

'I didn't know you were coming. I didn't know you were coming,' he protested. His hands beat the air like a trapped bird. 'Dr Agrippa, Master Benjamin -' Kemble dismissed me with one flick of his eyes – 'if ‘I’d known you were coming, I would have prepared something to eat and drink.'

At last Benjamin was able to placate him, saying we had already eaten and drunk our fill. Only then did Kemble usher us to chairs on either side of the table. He sat down wearily himself, mopping his face with a dirty napkin. He glanced sideways at his companions.

'Master Spurge is our surveyor,' he explained, leaning forward. 'He and Vetch are the principal officers of the garrison.'

Benjamin, sitting next to me, pressed the toe of his boot gently on my foot: I was beginning to snigger at this fussy little man's antics.

What Sir Edward means,' Francis Vetch spoke up, fighting hard to stifle his own smile at the constable's antics, 'is that Reginald and I, together with himself, are probably the only men in the Tower who could forge a letter claiming to be Edward V and dispatch it to the King.' 'Why on earth do you say that?' Benjamin asked.

Vetch laced his fingers together. 'Master Daunbey,' he replied slowly, 'I have heard of your reputation: you are no fool. I'd be grateful if you would reciprocate the courtesy. Everyone in this room knows a letter was drawn up, sealed, and dispatched from the Tower to the King. Moreover, the first letter was delivered here.' He scratched the tip of his pointed nose. 'Sir Edward Kemble opened the letter in my presence. I had to use smelling salts to bring him out of his faint. I then sent for Reginald and organised the letter's dispatch to Windsor.' He cocked his head to one side. ‘You are here, Master Daunbey, about the letter?' Benjamin smiled.

'Good,' Spurge declared in a high-pitched, squeaky voice. There can be no more pretence, can there?'

'Excuse me!' That's me, old Shallot. I was always tactful! The ever-faithful servant. Benjamin allowed me to question others as vigorously as himself, but Kemble didn't know this. He darted a look at me and sniffed as if I was something which had crawled out of his nose. He whispered into Spurge's ear, in that loud, insulting way, asking who I was.

Benjamin tapped the table with the rings on his fingers. 'Master Shallot is my trusted servant in these matters,' he said quietly. He is well known to the King and My Lord Cardinal.'

(My master, God bless him, never lied. What he didn't say was what I was known for!)

Kemble's manner changed in a twinkling of an eye. 'Continue with your question, Master Shallot.' He leaned against the back of his chair and stared up at the ceiling as if he secretly wished he or I were elsewhere.

'This letter,' I said. 'It claims to have been drawn up, signed and sealed at the Tower, but how do we know it was?'

Vetch leaned forward. 'Master Shallot, there's no debate about that. My lord constable found it on his desk on the morning of the twenty-ninth of July. You have heard of the sweating sickness in London?' 'I suffered from it and recovered.'

Then you are truly blessed,' Vetch answered kindly. "However, from the middle of July until two days ago, the twentieth of August, the Tower was sealed. All gates were closed and padlocked: the drawbridge raised and portcullis lowered. No man nor animal was allowed in. None of the garrison was allowed out: it was our only way of keeping the sickness out. Sir Edward commanded the Tower as if it was a castle under siege.' He shrugged. 'As it was, by Death itself.'

Kemble pointed to a desk in the far corner. 'I had been to Mass at St John's Chapel,' he explained. 'My chamber was always left open. When I returned, the letter was lying on that table.'

'If it was addressed to the King, why did you open it?' I asked. 'If you look at the reverse,' Kemble retorted, 'you'll notice one phrase: ude pars du Roi", "from the hands of the King". I thought it was a letter from Our Sovereign Lord, so I opened it. At first I thought it was some madcap nonsense, a jest, but when I finished reading it and examined the seals…' He shrugged. ‘You can imagine my terror. Thank God Vetch and Spurge were here to help!'

'It's the only time we opened a Tower gate,' Vetch explained. We sent out our fastest rider to Windsor. On his return, he had to wait in St Catherine's Hospital until the Tower was re-opened.'

'So you see, Master Shallot,' Kemble spoke up, 'no one could have brought the letter into the Tower. Moreover, it stands to reason that only a man of some learning and education could buy the parchment and write in such a courtly hand.'

'And there's no one else who could be the writer?' I asked.

Vetch intervened. 'Well, as I said, there's Sir Edward, myself and Reginald. However, we also have a garrison of professional soldiers. We do not inquire too closely into their backgrounds: former priests, monks, clerks. Anyway -' he shrugged – 'all were locked in the Tower with us. It's quite possible one of them could have written the letter. Sir Edward's chamber is always open.' He grinned. 'What's the use of guarding galleries and passageways when you are protected by a moat, two curtain walls and a dozen towers, all protected by archers and men-at-arms?' 'Who else is here?' Benjamin asked.

'Well, the mint is empty. The clerks and treasurers follow the King to Windsor,' Kemble explained. We had a clerk of the stores, Philip Allardyce. He was our only victim of the sweating sickness. He came back one night after roistering in a tavern in Petty Wales. He fell ill and died: his body was collected by the death-cart for the lime pits.' He shook his head. 'But that was at the beginning of July.'

'Once Allardyce died,' Kemble explained, ‘I sent a letter to the King saying that I would seal the garrison in. He agreed, so the Tower was locked.'

'Oh,' Spurge tapped the table excitedly, 'and there's the Guild of Hangmen.'

'Ah yes.' Kemble wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He smacked his lips and gestured at Vetch to serve some wine. 'Ah yes, the Guild of Hangmen.' They stay in the Tower?' Benjamin inquired.

They are also the torturers,' Kemble explained. "They are paid from the garrison accounts. There's John Mallow, he's their principal, and his five apprentices: Snakeroot, Horehound, Toadflax, Wormwood and, until recently, Hellbane.' He shrugged. They were all bachelors or widowers. They would have to stay.'

'But Andrew Undershaft?' I asked. 'He was found burnt to death in a cage in Smithfield Market.'

'He was different,' Vetch replied. 'Undershaft was a married man. He had his own house in the street of the Crutched Friars on the corner of Poor Jewry. We did not know about his death until the Tower was opened.' 'Hellbane?' Benjamin asked. 'How was he killed?'

'Once the Tower was opened,' Kemble explained, 'everyone was free to come and go as they wished, provided they were not drawn for duty for the day.'

'Let us see.' Agrippa, who had been sitting slouched in his chair, his black-brimmed hat over his eyes, abruptly sat up. He took his hat off, placing it on the stool beside him. 'Let us put things in order, Sir Edward. When did Allardyce the clerk in the store die?'

‘Well’ Kemble replied. 'He fell ill on the eighth but died on the tenth when his body was removed. Late in the afternoon, two of the guards took it down to the death-cart waiting near the Lion Gate.'

Agrippa nodded. 'And on the thirteenth of July you sealed the Tower?' That is correct.' 'A month passed and nothing untoward happened?'