Josephine Tey - The Daughter of Time

‘How did anyone know it was Tyrrel?’

‘He confessed.’

‘ Confessed ?’

‘After he had been found guilty, of course. Before he was hanged.’

‘You mean that this Tyrrel was actually hanged for the murder of the two Princes?’

‘Yes, of course. Shall I take that dreary face away and put up something gayer? There were quite a lot of nice faces in that bundle Miss Hallard brought you yesterday.’

‘I’m not interested in nice faces. I’m interested only in dreary ones; in “murdering brutes” who are “men of great ability”.’

‘Well, there’s no accounting for tastes,’ said The Midget inevitably. ‘And I don’t have to look at it, thank goodness. But in my humble estimation it’s enough to prevent bones knitting, so help me it is.’

‘Well, if my fracture doesn’t mend you can put it down to Richard III’s account. Another little item on that account won’t be noticed, it seems to me.’

He must ask Marta when next she looked in if she too knew about this Tyrrel. Her general knowledge was not very great, but she had been educated very expensively at a highly approved school and perhaps some of it had stuck.

But the first visitor to penetrate from the outside world proved to be Sergeant Williams; large and pink and scrubbed-looking; and for a little Grant forgot about battles long ago and considered wide boys alive today. Williams sat planted on the small hard visitors’ chair, his knees apart and his pale blue eyes blinking like a contented cat’s in the light from the window, and Grant regarded him with affection. It was pleasant to talk shop again; to use that elliptical, allusive speech that one uses only with another of one’s trade. It was pleasant to hear the professional gossip, to talk professional politics; to learn who was on the mat and who was on the skids.

‘The Super sent his regards,’ Williams said as he got up to go, ‘and said if there was anything he could do for you to let him know.’ His eyes, no longer dazzled by the light, went to the photograph propped against the books. He leant his head sideways at it. ‘Who’s the bloke?’

Grant was just about to tell him when it occurred to him that here was a fellow policeman. A man as used, professionally, to faces as he was himself. Someone to whom faces were of daily importance.

‘Portrait of a man by an unknown fifteenth-century painter,’ he said. ‘What do you make of it?’

‘I don’t know the first thing about painting.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I meant what do you make of the subject?’

‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ Williams bent forward and drew his bland brows into a travesty of concentration. ‘How do you mean “make of it”?’

‘Well, where would you place him? In the dock or on the bench?’

Williams considered for a moment, and then said with confidence: ‘Oh, on the bench.’

‘You would?’

‘Certainly. Why? Wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes. But the odd thing is that we’re both wrong. He belongs in the dock.’

‘You surprise me,’ Williams said, peering again. ‘Do you know who he was, then?’

‘Yes. Richard the Third.’

Williams whistled.

‘So that’s who it is, is it! Well, well. The Princes in the Tower, and all that. The original Wicked Uncle. I suppose, once you know, you can see it, but off-hand it wouldn’t occur to you. I mean, that he was a crook. He’s the spit of old Halsbury, come to think of it, and if Halsbury had a fault at all it was that he was too soft with the blighters in the dock. He used to lean over backwards to give them the benefit in his summing-up.’

‘Do you know how the Princes were murdered?’

‘I don’t know a thing about Richard III except that his mother was two years conceiving him.’

‘What! Where did you get that tale?’

‘In my school history, I suppose.’

‘You must have gone to a very remarkable school. Conception was not mentioned in any history book of mine. That is what made Shakespeare and the Bible so refreshing as lessons; the facts of life were always turning up. Did you ever hear of a man called Tyrrel?’

‘Yes; he was a con. man on the P. & O. boats. Drowned in the Egypt .’

‘No; I mean, in history.’

‘I tell you, I never knew any history except 1066 and 1603.’

‘What happened in 1603?’ Grant asked, his mind still on Tyrrel.

‘We had the Scots tied to our tails for good.’

‘Better than having them at our throats every five minutes. Tyrrel is said to be the man who put the boys out of the way.’

‘The nephews? No, it doesn’t ring a bell. Well, I must be getting along. Anything I can do for you?’

‘Did you say you were going to Charing Cross Road?’

‘To the Phoenix, yes.’

‘You could do something for me.’

‘What is that?’

‘Go into one of the bookshops and buy me a History of England. An adult one. And a Life of Richard III, if you can find one.’

‘Sure, I’ll do that.’

As he was going out he encountered The Amazon, and looked startled to find anything as large as himself in nurse’s uniform. He murmured a good-morning in an abashed way, cast a questioning glance at Grant, and faded into the corridor.

The Amazon said that she was supposed to be giving Number Four her blanket bath but that she had to look in to see if he was convinced.

‘Convinced?’

About the nobility of Richard Coeur-de-Lion.

‘I haven’t got round to Richard the First yet. But keep Number Four waiting a few moments longer and tell me what you know about Richard III.’

‘Ah, those poor lambs!’ she said, her great cow’s-eyes soft with pity.

‘Who?’

‘Those two precious little boys. It used to be my nightmare when I was a kiddy. That someone would come and put a pillow over my face when I was asleep.’

‘Is that how it was done: the murder?’

‘Oh, yes. Didn’t you know? Sir James Tyrrel rode back to London when the court was at Warwick, and told Dighton and Forrest to kill them, and then they buried them at the foot of some stairs under a great mound of stones.’

‘But it doesn’t say that in the book you lent me.’

‘Oh, that book is just history-for-exams, if you know what I mean. You don’t get really interesting history in swot books like that.’

‘And where did you get the juicy gossip about Tyrrel, may one ask?’

‘It isn’t gossip,’ she said, hurt. ‘You’ll find it in Sir Thomas More’s history of his time. And you can’t find a more respected or trustworthy person in the whole of history than Sir Thomas More, now can you?’

‘No. It would be bad manners to contradict Sir Thomas.’

‘Well, that’s what Sir Thomas says, and, after all, he was alive then and knew all those people to talk to.’

‘Dighton and Forrest?’

‘No, of course not. But Richard, and the poor Queen, and those.’

‘The Queen? Richard’s Queen?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why “poor”?’

‘He led her an awful life. They say he poisoned her. He wanted to marry his niece.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she was the heir to the throne.’

‘I see. He got rid of the two boys, and then wanted to marry their eldest sister.’

‘Yes. He couldn’t marry either of the boys, you see.’

‘No, I suppose even Richard the Third never thought of that one.’

‘So he wanted to marry Elizabeth so as to feel safer on the throne. Actually, of course, she married his successor. She was Queen Elizabeth’s grandmother. It always used to please me that Elizabeth was a little bit Plantagenet. I never was very fond of the Tudor side. Now I must go, or Matron will be here on her round before I have Number Four tidied up.’