The Opening Night Murder (35 page)

His hands were fists at his sides. “I have no power in this. There’s nothing I can do.”

“You mean there’s nothing you can do that won’t cost you anything. There’s nothing you can do that won’t make you vulnerable to someone who hates you. And you’ll be backed against that wall so long as Anne lives. As long as she and her brother have your tender bits in a vise, your interests will never be other than theirs. You’re spineless! I despise you! I despise everything about you! Get out!” She waved him toward the door. “Leave me; I don’t want to see your face ever again!”

“Suzanne—”

“Get out!”

He stared at her a moment, then slowly drew his gloves from his belt and donned them. Sheila brought his hat and cloak, and he put them on. Then he made his utterly dignified exit without any more comment.

S
uzanne sat up all that night, unable to even consider sleep. Piers was to die at noon the following day. How could she sleep, knowing that if she didn’t do something she would never see him again? The fires dwindled and candles guttered. Cold crept into her bones, the sharper as she began to realize she could see no avenue to take that might save her son. If Piers were to die, she would have no more need to live. Her life would be a failure. As her mind cast about for possible avenues of recourse, and found none, hope dwindled like the fires until she was in danger of descending into eternal darkness. Without Piers, there could be no light. No joy.

She lay on the sofa, her fists tight against her chest, her fingernails dug into her palms, unable to move and barely able to breathe. There had to be something.
Something
. She thought of going to the king, but there was a great deal of truth to what Daniel had said. Charles didn’t want to be bothered with the small concerns of unimportant people, and it would be
only too easy for him to dismiss the pleadings of a convict’s mother as fiction. Daniel was powerless because he believed himself to be, and would not put himself forward and risk the ire of his wife’s family. The only other man in London with any power in the situation was Pepper.

Constable Pepper, that vile, lazy, stupid man. Well, certainly vile and lazy. Had he done his job, for which he was well paid, he would never have needed to arrest Piers. But he was lazy, and that was the long and the short of it. He had his conviction, and now he had no reason to want Piers freed.

No reason.

The flame of hope flickered into existence. Slowly it rose.
A reason to want Piers freed.
Suzanne found a line of thought that did not come to a dead end. What if Pepper did have one? What if he did have a reason to want Piers exonerated? She sat up on the sofa, her thoughts rushing about like a cat after a mouse. What if? What if? What could Pepper want that might make him change his mind about Piers?

Then a real idea came to her. It burst in her brain like the flare of Greek fire, lighting all in a clear, luminous vision. Brilliant, undeniable. Joyous laughter rose in her, for it had been before her all along and she’d not seen it until now.

She rose from the sofa and hurried to her desk, where she opened the ink bottle, dipped a quill, and began to write. In her hurry the ink spattered and ran, and she would have to copy the letter, but just then she couldn’t write fast enough to keep up with her idea and she hurried to put it down on paper.

Once the sun was up, still without sleep, Suzanne dressed in her most conservative outfit, mahogany brown and showing very little bosom. In such a hurry, she didn’t bother with cloak or vizard, and pattens would only slow her down. She took Horatio with her, carrying the crossbow in a sack, and hurried
to the office of the constable. She walked through the streets so quickly, tall Horatio found himself skipping a step every so often to keep up with her. His wig slipped on his bald head, and he had to shove it back into place several times. By the time they reached Pepper’s office he was puffing hard. Suzanne was also breathing hard, but it was impossible to say it was because of the walk and not for the urgency of her mission.

They burst into Pepper’s office at full speed. The clerk looked up and opened his mouth as if he might say something. But they both walked straight past him, so he said nothing and only went wide-eyed at Horatio’s size and stared as he passed.

Inside the inner office, Suzanne and Horatio found Pepper was not in. Suzanne groaned in frustration and returned to the outer office, where the clerk was still gawping at the intrusion. “Where might I find the constable? It’s terribly important. I can’t tell you just how important it is I see him immediately. Where is he?”

The clerk blinked, thinking. “Ah…at home, perhaps. He sometimes is late coming to the office of a morning, mistress.”

She straightened and looked down her nose at the clerk. “How remarkable he should show such temperance with his brandy.”

Horatio swallowed a snort of laughter.

“Where does he live? I must talk to him now.”

“I couldn’t tell you, mistress.”

“Your loyalty is commendable.” She reached through the slit in her skirt for her pocket. “I’m certain I can ease your conscience—”

“I can’t tell you because I don’t know, mistress. The constable is very close with information regarding himself. I know not where he lives, nor where he is now.”

Suzanne retrieved her hand from the pocket. Suddenly the situation appeared impossible again. The sun was peeking over the tops of buildings now, and they were running out of time. In a matter of short hours the hangman will have executed Piers and it would be too late. She said, “We’ll just wait…” She looked about the room and saw two wooden armchairs standing against the wall opposite the clerk’s writing desk. “We’ll wait over here.” Before the clerk could reply, she and Horatio claimed both chairs.

The clerk gawped some more, then apparently decided he didn’t care much what they did, and returned to his work, nose to the paper.

Suzanne and Horatio waited in silence. Each second that passed was an eternity and an agony. Nevertheless they flew as time never had before. The light through the window by the door brightened, and she willed it to stop, but it did not.

Eventually the street door opened and in came Constable Pepper. Suzanne leapt to her feet and blurted his name. Horatio rose beside her. On sight of his visitors, Pepper’s mouth went agape much as the clerk’s had. Then he recovered himself and proceeded toward his office, saying as he went, “What brings you here, Mistress Thornton?” His face was pinched with annoyance. His jacket hung open. His wig had slipped forward. He had to shove it back to get the hair out of his eyes, and without a mirror he shoved it too far. It revealed his high forehead and a few strands of his own gray hair.

“Good day to you, too, constable. I have something for you.”

He stopped and considered her presence for a moment, glanced at Horatio and the sack he held, then sighed and said, “Let us do this inside.” He went into his office and the two followed. Pepper plopped himself heavily into his chair without offering seats to Suzanne and Horatio. Suzanne preferred
to stand during this in any case, and pulled from the pocket beneath her skirts the papers she’d spent the night writing.

“Constable Pepper,” she began, “I’ve come to share a letter with you. One I intend to have delivered to the king, via a friend of mine, Daniel Stockton, Earl of Throckmorton.” She hadn’t spoken to Daniel of this, but was certain he would do this much for her. Besides, just then it only mattered what Pepper thought Daniel would do.

“I see,” said the constable, not the least moved. “I daresay you’ll have no luck with a complaint to the king. I’ve done my job correctly where your son is concerned, and the case is, quite literally, closed. He will hang shortly.” He leaned back in his chair with his fingers laced over his belly, his habitual posture. A glance at the window to his left told her he was checking the time to see whether it was noon yet.

A chill skittered down her spine at his words, and she pressed on, more urgent than ever. “Hear this, Pepper.” She opened the pages she’d folded into a letter packet. On the outside of the packet she’d printed “Charles, King of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales” in large, plain letters, the better for Pepper to read them and know she was serious.

She began to read, in a clear, strong voice. “Your majesty, my dearest Charles.” Her gaze flicked to Pepper’s face to read it, for she hoped he would take note of the too-familiar salutation.

Pepper was yet unmoved. Suzanne wondered what it would take to budge him, and hoped the approach she’d chosen would do the trick.

She continued, “I hope this finds you well, and that the Lord has graced you with fine health since our last meeting. I hope your children are well, and your business with Parliament goes your way.”

A puzzled frown came over Pepper’s face. That last had been a mite silly, but that was what she was after, to disarm Pepper. And if necessary the king himself, should he ever actually read this letter.

Suzanne continued, “You may be aware of a certain case of murder here in Southwark. A man, one William Wainwright, was shot with a crossbow in the Globe Theatre, and fell to the stage during a performance. It was a terrible thing, and a shock to all who witnessed it. None of us quite knew what to do, but there was one man who stepped to the fore and calmly brought the situation under control. I wish to tell you of the heroic and industrious constable who solved the crime, one Samuel Pepper. Without him, the mystery of the death of Wainwright might never have been found out.”

Pepper’s puzzlement deepened, but he was too fascinated to stop her. He sat up in his chair, possibly for the first time in his tenure as constable, crossed his arms over his chest, and listened closely, his head tilted slightly, like a dog hearing a strange sound.

“Oh, your majesty, it was a thing to behold! Constable Pepper was on the case immediately, and his diligence in pursuing the truth was unmatched. He doggedly tracked down and interviewed witnesses. He examined the scene and the surrounding areas. Through his brilliant reconstruction of the incident, he was able to piece together what had happened as if he’d witnessed it himself.”

Now Pepper tried to say something, but Suzanne quickly spoke over him, louder now.

“
When he found the weapon
that killed Wainwright and determined what had happened, your majesty, everyone in our little theatre troupe was quite surprised, and impressed with his powers of deduction.” She nodded to Horatio, and he
reached into the sack to pull out the crossbow and set it on Pepper’s desk. “We all had assumed Wainwright had been shot while standing in the gallery, but we were all most egregiously wrong. It was Constable Pepper who thought to search the roof over the stage. His was the brilliant mind that sought the facts and deduced the truth.”

Here Pepper sat back in his chair, with raised eyebrows, a look of consideration on his face. Plainly he liked the direction this narrative had taken.

Suzanne continued quickly, “Constable Pepper was the one who found the broken rain gutter where Wainwright had been standing on the roof. It was
Constable Pepper
who found the murder weapon, where it had lodged behind a downspout after Wainwright dropped it in his fall. It was
Constable Pepper
who located a witness who had seen Wainwright in the ’tiring room from whence the lethal crossbow had been stolen. It was
Constable Pepper
who found the broken rain gutter and drops of blood on the roof over our stage. Brilliantly, Constable Pepper deduced that Wainwright had stolen the crossbow, taken it to the roof, and then fallen when the gutter gave way. The death had not been a murder at all, but rather a nasty accident. An accident that befell a would-be assassin, for Constable Pepper concluded that the reason for Wainwright’s climb to the roof with a crossbow was to shoot someone in the audience. His vantage point suggests he meant to loose his bolt at someone sitting in the third floor gallery just over the entrance doors. Thank God for the accident, or someone far more important than William Wainwright might have been shot.”

Pepper was smiling now, and when she looked up to see his reaction, he gestured that she should finish.

“So, your majesty, I expect you would wish to show favor to Constable Pepper for his fine job in solving this mystery. It
is through his untiring efforts that my son, the innocent man who was convicted of Wainwright’s killing in error, was set free, mere”—here her glance flickered toward Pepper in askance—“mere hours before he was to be executed.” She glanced over at him again, but he showed no reaction, so she continued. “Constable Pepper is a fine and true enforcer of the law, a seeker of justice, and a credit to the crown in all he does. He goes in God’s grace, a treasure to us all. Most sincerely, Suzanne Thornton.”

Suzanne folded the letter into its packet once more and looked at Pepper.

“I see,” he said. “It was an accident, as I said in the beginning.”

“It was.” Embarrassment made her look down, for it was true he’d been the one to say that at the first. To be sure, it was almost the only true thing about his involvement as stated in the letter. And she didn’t care to mention that he’d thought it for all the wrong reasons.