Josephine Tey - The Daughter of Time

‘With a rusty sword from behind the arras. You must be one of the few women who know their Kipling.’

‘Oh, I’m a very remarkable woman in many ways. So you are no nearer finding out about Richard’s personality than you were?’

‘No. I’m as completely bewildered as Sir Cuthbert Oliphant, bless his heart. The only difference between us is that I know I’m bewildered and he doesn’t seem to be aware of it.

‘Have you seen much of my woolly lamb?’

‘I’ve seen nothing of him since his first visit, and that’s three days ago. I’m beginning to wonder whether he has repented of his promise.’

‘Oh, no. I’m sure not. Faithfulness is his banner and creed.’

‘Like Richard.’

‘Richard?’

‘His motto was: “ Loyaulté me lie ”. Loyalty binds me.’

There was a tentative tap at the door, and in answer to Grant’s invitation, Brent Carradine appeared, hung around with topcoat as usual.

‘Oh! I seem to be butting in. I didn’t know you were here, Miss Hallard. I met the Statue of Liberty in the corridor there, and she seemed to think you were alone, Mr Grant.’

Grant identified the Statue of Liberty without difficulty. Marta said that she was in the act of going, and that in any case Brent was a much more welcome visitor than she was nowadays. She would leave them in peace to pursue their search for the soul of a murderer.

When he had bowed her politely to the door Brent came back and sat himself down in the visitor’s chair with exactly the same air that an Englishman wears when he sits down to his port after the women have left the table. Grant wondered if even the female-ridden American felt a subconscious relief at settling down to a stag party. In answer to Brent’s inquiry as to how he was getting on with Oliphant, he said he found Sir Cuthbert admirably lucid.

‘I’ve discovered who the Cat and the Rat were, incidentally. They were entirely respectable knights of the realm: William Catesby and Richard Ratcliffe. Catesby was Speaker of the House of Commons, and Ratcliffe was one of the Commissioners of Peace with Scotland. Its odd how the very sound of words makes a political jingle vicious. The Hog of course was Richard’s badge. The White Boar. Do you frequent our English pubs?’

‘Sure. They’re one of the things I think you do better than us.’

‘You forgive us our plumbing for the sake of the beer at the Boar.’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as to say I forgive it. I discount it, shall we say.’

‘Magnanimous of you. Well, there’s something else you’ve got to discount. That theory of yours that Richard hated his brother because of the contrast between his beauty and Richard’s hunchbacked state. According to Sir Cuthbert, the hunchback is a myth. So is the withered arm. It appears that he had no visible deformity. At least none that mattered. His left shoulder was lower than his right, that was all. Did you find out who the contemporary historian is?’

‘There isn’t one.’

‘None at all? ’

Not in the sense that you mean it. There were writers who were contemporaries of Richard, but they wrote after his death. For the Tudors. Which puts them out of court. There is a monkish chronicle in Latin somewhere that is contemporary, but I haven’t been able to get hold of it yet. One thing I have discovered though: that account of Richard III is called Sir Thomas More’s not because he wrote it but because the manuscript was found among his papers. It was an unfinished copy of an account that appears elsewhere in finished form.’

‘Well!’ Grant considered this with interest. ‘You mean it was More’s own manuscript copy?’

‘Yes. In his own writing. Made when he was ‘bout thirty-five. In those days, before printing was general, manuscript copies of books were the usual thing.’

‘Yes. So, if the information came from John Morton, as it did, it is just as likely that the thing was written by Morton.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which would certainly account for the – the lack of sensibility. A climber like Morton wouldn’t be at all abashed by back-stairs gossip. Do you know about Morton?’

‘No.’

‘He was a lawyer turned churchman, and the greatest pluralist on record. He chose the Lancastrians side and stayed with it until it was clear that Richard IV was home and dried. Then he made his peace with the York side and Edward made him Bishop of Ely. And vicar of God knows how many parishes besides. But after Richard’s accession he backed first the Woodvilles and then Henry Tudor and ended up with a cardinal’s hat as Henry VII’s Archbishop of—’

‘Wait a minute!’ said the boy, amused. ‘Of course I know Morton. He was Morton of “Morton’s Fork”. “You can’t be spending much so how about something for the King; you’re spending such a lot you must be very rich so how about something for the King?”’

‘Yes. That Morton. Henry’s best thumbscrew. And I’ve just thought of a reason why he might have a personal hatred for Richard long before the murder of the boys.’

‘Yes?’

‘Edward took a large bribe from Louis XI to make a dishonourable peace in France. Richard was very angry about that – it really was a disgraceful affair – and washed his hands of the business. Which included refusing a large cash offer. But Morton was very much in favour both of the deal and the cash. Indeed he took a pension from Louis. A very nice pension it was. Two thousand crowns a year. I don’t suppose Richard’s outspoken comments went down very well, even with good gold for a chaser.’

‘No. I guess not.’

‘And of course there would be no preferment for Morton under the straight-laced Richard as there had been under the easy-going Edward. So he would have taken the Woodville side, even if there had been no murder.’

‘About that murder—’ the boy said; and paused.

‘Yes?’

‘About the murder the murder of those two boys – isn’t it odd that no one talks of it?’

‘How do you mean: no one talks of it?’

‘These last three days I’ve been going through contemporary papers: letters and what not. And no one mentions them at all.’

‘Perhaps they were afraid to. It was a time when it paid to be discreet.’

‘Yes: but I’ll tell you something even odder. You know that Henry brought a Bill of Attainder against Richard, after Bosworth. Before Parliament. I mean. Well, he accuses Richard of cruelty and tyranny but doesn’t even mention the murder.’

‘What!’ said Grant, startled.

‘Yes, you may look startled.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘But Henry got possession of the Tower immediately on his arrival in London after Bosworth. If the boys were missing it is incredible that he should not publish the fact immediately. It was the trump card in his hand.’ He lay in surprised silence for a little, The sparrows on the window-sill quarrelled loudly. ‘I can’t make sense of it.’ he said. ‘What possible explanation can there be for his omission to make capital out of the fact that the boys were missing?’

Brent shifted his long legs to a more comfortable position. ‘There is only one explanation,’ he said. ‘And that is that the boys weren’t missing.’

There was a still longer silence this time, while they stared at each other.

‘Oh, no, it’s nonsense,’ Grant said. ‘There must be some obvious explanation that we are failing to see.’

‘As what, for instance?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t had time to think.’

‘I’ve had nearly three days to think, and I still haven’t thought up a reason that will fit. Nothing will fit the facts except the conclusion that the boys were alive when Henry took over the Tower. It was a completely unscrupulous Act of Attainder; it accused Richard’s followers – the loyal followers of an anointed King fighting against an invader – of treason. Every accusation that Henry could possibly make with any hope of getting away with it was put into that Bill. And the very worst he could accuse Richard of was the usual cruelty and tyranny. The boys aren’t even mentioned.’