The Masque of a Murderer (17 page)

“How can that be?” Lucy asked. “She does work for you, does she not?”

The constable shook his head. “No, she does not. She would work for a parish. I have not known her long, and I have no record of her address. Likely as not, she reported natural deaths to the Parish of St. Giles before the Fire. Now she has nothing to report since no one is living in the burnt-out areas yet.” He looked at Hank. “What about you, Hank? Do you know anything about her? I know you’ve spoken with her more than I have.”

Hank looked at the ceiling of the old candlemakers’ shop as he tried to recall his conversations with the searcher. “I recall her once saying that she liked to take her evening ale at the Bow and Arrow. Down on Fetter Lane.”

“I know where it is,” Lucy said. Spending her days peddling books on the streets of London had given her extensive knowledge of the locations of most alehouses, churches, and coffeehouses in the area. Fetter Lane was one of the first streets to the west that had not been ravaged by the Fire. “Let us go! Perhaps she will be there.”

Even as she spoke these words, a vision of Master Aubrey’s face arose before her eyes.
What will he say when I am not there when he returns?
she thought, feeling a twinge of apprehension.
Well, I cannot worry about that now.

“I do not think she will speak to me,” Duncan said slowly.

“Let me talk to her, then,” Lucy said.

“Some dangerous sorts there, at the Bow and Arrow,” Hank said to Duncan, with a meaningful nod at Lucy.

Seeing the constable frown, Lucy said hastily, “Perhaps Hank could accompany me. If, as you say, she speaks to him more than she speaks to you—?”

Hank inclined his head respectfully toward the constable. “I could take Miss Campion there, if you like. Ask around. If she’s there, she might give us the information we seek.”

*   *   *

With Duncan’s reluctant approval, a short time later, Hank and Lucy were regarding the Bow and Arrow cautiously. Hank hadn’t been jesting when he said that some dangerous sorts frequented the place. Lucy did not even object when Hank told her to wait across the street, near a little broom-maker’s shop that looked to be closing for the evening. A few minutes later, he came back out, a grim look on his face.

“No luck?” she asked.

“No, she’s there. She wants to speak to you, inside. Wants us to buy her an ale.” Lucy understood the source of his frown. He likely had to save every hard-earned penny from his occupation as bellman.

“I’ve got enough for three pints,” she said, with an inward groan. Like Hank, she hated to give up any coins.

“That will do,” he said. “Come on.”

Once inside the Bow and Arrow, they seated themselves across from Sadie Burroughs at a dirty wooden table that had clearly seen better days. Hank waved for the tavern miss, who banged three pints of strong ale down before each of them. Lucy smelled her ale cautiously. Catching Hank’s warning eye, she took a great swallow to steady her nerves and laid the tankard back down.

Although clearly suspicious of them, the searcher took a swig as well, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Can’t say I expected to see you again,” she said to Lucy in her harsh and raspy voice. “Whatcha want?”

“Did you know Miss Julia Whitby?” Lucy asked, trying to keep her voice from quavering. Even though Hank’s presence beside her was comforting, there was something about the woman’s dark eyes that made her nervous. “The dead woman in the scold’s mask?”

Sadie Burroughs chuckled, exposing great gaps in her yellow teeth where the tooth-puller must have had his way. She took another deep drink of her ale. “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Just because I find them don’t mean I killed them.”

Lucy pulled out the sketch of the dead man and laid it on the table in front of the searcher. “Did you draw this?” she asked. “We think you did.”

Mrs. Burroughs straightened up a bit. “Now, how did you come by that?” she asked. “You’ll have to pay me more than just a pint. After all, I’m a searcher. By law, I am forbidden ‘to engage in any public work or employment,’ nor may I ‘keep any shop or stall.’ Do their dirty work once and it keeps me from honest employment forever after.” Again her laugh was bitter. “Can’t keep an old woman from making a few bits, can you?”

Lucy looked helplessly at Hank, who shrugged. His look said it all. He couldn’t make her talk. With a huge sigh, Lucy pulled up her skirts under the table and felt for the secret pocket she kept buried within her lining. She had a few coins there. Reluctantly she pulled out one of her two crowns and pushed it across the table to the searcher. “Please. Tell us. Who was this man?”

“I found him. Two years ago.” Mrs. Burroughs answered after pocketing the coin. “He was already dead. I sketched him.”

“Who was he?”

The searcher shrugged. “Don’t know who he was. I never know their names. I don’t care to, either. I just make my report to the parish priest. Or sometimes the constable, when I find them that get themselves killed.”

“Well, where did you find him?” Lucy asked, growing more impatient.

Mrs. Burroughs sneezed, wiping the snot onto her arm. “I find a lot of dead bodies. I can’t remember them all.” She smirked, though, clearly hiding something.

“Hank?” Lucy looked at the bellman, mutely imploring him for help.

Understanding, the bellman reached over and gripped the searcher’s frail arm. “Now we’ve paid you for some information. Tell us where you found the body.”

“Fine. All in due time. No need to be brutal. Just having a bit of fun with you, is all.” Shaking off the bellman’s grip, she took another deep swallow. “I found him in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. At the theater there.”

“At the theater?” Lucy exchanged a puzzled glance with Hank. “How odd,” she said.

The searcher shrugged. “Is it? I don’t know. I find stiffs in all manner of places that others might find peculiar. One time I found a body coming straight out of a tree trunk.”

Lucy shook her head, trying to remove that image from her mind. “Tell us why you gave that sketch to Julia Whitby. ‘
This is the dandy I was telling you about
.’ Why were you telling her about this dead man?”

When Mrs. Burroughs didn’t answer, the bellman grasped her forearm again, his beefy fingers easily encircling it. The searcher’s face tightened slightly in pain, though she didn’t cry out.

“Your Miss Julia Whitby sought me out. Me. A searcher. Said she’d heard about a murder in a theater, wondered if I knew anything about it.” The woman’s lips twitched. Lucy looked at her closely. Was the woman lying?

“Do you know why she asked you about it?” Lucy pressed.

Once again, the searcher extracted herself from Hank’s firm grip on her arm. She scowled at Hank again before quaffing her ale deeply. “I do not know. Don’t care either.”

“We know that someone told her that one of her brother’s acquaintances was an impostor,” Lucy added desperately. This conversation was taking them nowhere.

“Is that so?” Mrs. Burroughs said, downing the rest of her pint. She wiped the foam off her mouth. “I would not know.” For the first time, the searcher dropped her mocking tone. “It certainly seems, however, that her questions may have brought about her own demise, would you not agree?” She stood up.

Desperately, Lucy pulled out another coin. Seeing this, Hank’s eyes widened, and he shook his head at her. “Is there anything else you can tell us about Julia Whitby? Did she ask you about anything else? Anyone else? Please!” Another question occurred to her. “How did you know about her body? Miss Whitby had only just been killed. Her body didn’t smell yet. Did someone tell you about the murder?”

The searcher laughed down at her, a dry, mirthless chuckle. “You are persistent, aren’t you?” She took the coin and sat back down on the bench. “No one had told me about her body. I found her on my own.”

“But how?”

Mrs. Burroughs shrugged. “The same way I usually hear about bodies. I heard tell that a woman had gone missing, so I thought I would just take a peek around, to see what I could see. That is how I came to find her, all alone, with that thing over her face. Lucky the rats hadn’t started on her. At least, not to any great extent.”

She laughed when Lucy shuddered. “Perhaps you would like to see how I found her,” she said. Opening her leather bag, the woman pulled out a sheet of paper and laid it atop the old wooden table. It was another sketch. “I will sell it to you for a small sum.”

Lucy and Hank leaned in to look at it more closely, recoiling when they looked at it. The sketch depicted a finely dressed woman lying on a wooden floor, limbs askew, a knife in her chest and the leather and iron of a scold’s mask obscuring the details of her face.

“Is this Julia Whitby?” Lucy exclaimed. “Why did you draw this?”

The woman shrugged. “I sketched it when I found her. I did not know who she was, naturally, since she was wearing the scold’s mask and all. I always draw the interesting deaths. Pen and ink. Sometimes chalk. My little merriment.” She barked her cheerless laugh again. “If I’d had a bit of red chalk, I’d have sketched the blood in proper.”

Lucy was unable to keep her eyes off the image. She could see now some faint horizontal lines, suggesting that the sketch had apparently been drawn on the reverse side of a broadside or printed petition. “Why would I want such a thing?” Lucy asked. “I’m not one for the macabre.”

The searcher snickered. “We both know that’s not true. Your sort always has questions. I could see it in your eyes when you were with the constable.”

Seeing Lucy flinch, the searcher ran a gnarled finger along the sketch. “I’m an old woman. I must pay for food and lodging, now musn’t I?”

Lucy turned the macabre sketch over, paying attention to the petition that had been printed on the other side. She read the title out loud.
“The Quakers’ Final Warning to the King and Mayor of London and the Sinners of the City.”

Another fairly common piece, describing the ills and troubles that would befall those unrighteous Londoners who persisted in their sinful ways. Unlike most Quaker pieces, this was a one-sheet broadside, perhaps intended to be nailed to a wall in a tavern or even to the door of a church. Underneath, there was another title, in smaller font.
Behold your final judgment, all ye sinners. If ye have not sinned, get thee to a safe place, for the Lord’s righteous anger will be upon you.
Ahivah’s warning again.

Lucy looked closer, trying to see if anything had been written on the piece. She did not see any words, but when holding the petition up to the light, she could see that someone had faintly underlined
get thee to a safe place.

She looked up at the searcher. “Where did you get this broadside? Did you have it with you?” She gulped. “Or did you find it with Julia Whitby’s body?”

Unexpectedly, the woman seemed genuinely amused, as if delighted by a smart child. “I found that paper with the body. Found it in her pocket, under her skirts. Didn’t think anyone would miss it. No coins, though, more’s the shame.”

Sadie Burroughs stood up. “That is all I have to say. Do not bother looking for me again. I will not be coming back here.”

Angry now, Lucy stood up as well and stalked toward the door. She’d lost two months’ earnings and had little enough to show for it.

To her surprise, as she passed Mrs. Burroughs, the searcher grabbed her arm and pulled her close. “You know nothing about the people you’re dealing with,” she hissed. “I suggest you keep your distance. Let the devils lie where they are buried. Do not seek to resurrect the dead.”

Before Lucy could say anything more, the searcher released her arm and limped out of the tavern, in her hobbled painful way.

11

“Miss Campion?” a young boy called, poking his face into the printer’s shop. Two days had passed since Jacob Whitby’s funeral and Lucy’s conversation with the searcher. Lucy and Lach were both engaged in small tasks set them by Master Aubrey. Seeing Lucy’s startled nod, the boy moved to where she was standing by the printing press. “I have a message for you. Already paid.” He handed her a note that had been sealed with red wax and left the shop. From the elegant script bearing her name, she knew the note was from Adam.

Before Lucy could read the message, however, Lach snatched it from her hand, breaking open the seal. He skimmed the contents, despite her indignant protests. “Quack, quack, quack! More stuff about the Quakers.” He tossed her the note.

Lucy threw a wooden block at him, which narrowly missed his head. She picked up the note, reading it to herself.

Sarah has just informed us,
Adam wrote,
that she can no longer stifle her conscience. As we feared she might do, she has left my father’s home and has taken up residence with Esther Whitby. We are hopeful that she will return soon. If she does not, perhaps you might be so good to stop by the Whitbys’ tomorrow after church, and do what you can to prevail upon her to forgo this independent spirit. We should like to mend this divide before it is too late. Yours, etc., Adam Hargrave.

“I do not know that I can help them,” she said softly. Though her words were not intended for Lach, he heard them anyway.

“Why bother? Quackers quack the loudest when people try to silence them. Why not let her leave? Be done with her?” Lach said, beginning to quack like a duck again.

“Lach! Stop that nonsense!” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “If you could only see how Sarah’s decisions have pained the magistrate and Adam, you would not mock them. If you cared about anyone other than yourself, you would understand how they worry when she is away, walking unprotected in the world.” She stared down at the note. “I will do what I can to help them.” She looked back at Lach. She knew her voice was rising. “And I will not let you mock them or me for doing so!”

The apprentice just shook his head at her. “Adam Hargrave is besotted with you, Lucy. Why, I have no idea. But I know he will not be besotted forever, if you stay the harping shrew you are now.”

She was about to retort when the constable opened the door to the shop and stepped inside. His eyes flitted from one to the other, and Lucy wondered if he had heard any of her conversation with Lach. Their odd encounter from the other day still entered her thoughts, and she did not know what—if anything—it could mean.