The Twelfth Night Murder (20 page)

“I did no such thing.” He attempted to sound indignant, but his voice held that false note of an inexperienced and untalented liar. He was quite transparent, and it took no skill to read him.

“I have it from Mordecai Higgins. He’s the one who told me where I could find you.”

The look of surprise made Thomas’s face go entirely slack. For a moment he couldn’t speak.

She said, “He confided in me because he thinks you can help us find the killer, though you probably don’t know you can.”

Thomas was able to shut his mouth then, and now he appeared curious. “How would I know who killed him?”

“You may know something that, when placed next to the things I already know, might point us in the right direction.”

“Such as?”

“I’m not sure. Tell us what happened when you were asked to take Lord Paul to Kent.” She looked toward the sofa. “May I sit?”

He nodded and gestured to the seat, and she went to rest her feet. Ramsay remained at the door, preventing escape as subtly as possible. As she sat, Thomas made a couple of false starts, then said, “I was asked to drive the boy to stay with some cousins down there.”

“You never arrived.”

The lie Suzanne had seen forming in his eyes disappeared. He realized she knew more about what had happened than he’d thought, and he had no way of knowing what she knew and what she didn’t. He said, “No. But I can tell you there was good reason not to go. Poor Paul was terrified of those people. They hated him.”

“For what reason?”

“He was one of us.”

“So young?”

He raised his chin again, struggling for dignity. “I knew when I was no more than ten.”

“But to be taken away from his family?”

“They didn’t want him. We did.”

Suzanne found herself unable to reply as she began to comprehend the utter betrayal of every adult in that boy’s life. The only people who wanted him did so because they had a use for him, and his parents had laid him off on relatives to have him out of their way. In addition, those relatives hadn’t been enchanted to have him, either. She swallowed hard. For a long moment she couldn’t speak. Finally she was able to croak, “Tell me what happened.”

Slowly he settled into the chair opposite. He leaned toward her in an effort to keep his words private, away from Ramsay. For his part, Ramsay pretended to not hear. “We all knew what he was. His parents denied it, but everyone who lived or worked in that house knew what was happening to him. We all understood that Lord Paul was unlikely to ever take a wife if he could avoid it. To be sure, he might have been forced to marry, but since he was the younger son it wasn’t so very important for him to produce an heir. His parents chose to keep him out of sight of society, and they thought of that as the most gentle way of dealing with their problem.”

Suzanne nodded, for what he said was nothing new. “More than once a family has taken that route with a child that would put them at a social disadvantage.”

“And I suppose that sometimes it’s the best way. Keeping him in London and requiring him to behave in ways unnatural to him would have been torture. But sending him to Kent was not the answer for him.”

“Why not?”

“They hated him there. His mother’s cousins were as embarrassed by him as his parents, and so they hid him from the world. Sending him there was nothing better than if he’d been imprisoned in the Tower. Worse, in truth, for in the Tower of London there would have been fellow prisoners. In addition those cousins mocked and ridiculed him, they kept him locked up in an apartment of rooms . . . they wouldn’t even let him eat with the family. There was no contact with anyone other than the maid who brought his meals.”

“Why didn’t he complain of this to his parents?”

“And what would they have done? Had he returned home, his parents would more than likely have done the same thing. Hidden him away, and hoped that one day he would quit his behavior. That is how that sort think. That our nature is a matter of bad behavior and nothing more. Lord Paul’s family all thought that if they punished him he would eventually stop being that way.” A thought came, and Thomas added sadly, “And now he is no longer being any way at all.”

“So you thought you were rescuing him.”

“That is exactly what I did.”

“How much were you paid by Higgins for delivery of the child?”

Thomas fell silent and only gazed dully at her. She waited for a reply, but received none.

Finally she said, “I would point out that he is dead. Your rescue failed.”

“We took him from a family that hated him.”

“To make him a whore, working for Higgins?”

“To free him so he might make his own way in the world.”

“At twelve years old.”

“Better than to be imprisoned and cut off from the world. At any age. Better than being hated by his own family, who should have been the ones above all others to love him. Better than being made to feel worthless.”

Suzanne remembered how it had felt to be denigrated and ridiculed for being a girl, and how the best she could ever hope for from her father was to be ignored. Again words choked her. Unlike Paul, she had thought Daniel had loved her once; the boy had nobody. The image of Paul Worthington receiving no regard from anyone but those who would use him made her chest hurt so that she could hardly breathe. The image of his bright, cheery smile, and the joy in life he’d shown that night in the Goat and Boar, brought tears to her eyes.

She blinked them back. “I’m sorry. Let us continue.” Thomas waited patiently for her to ask another question. She said, “How did you engineer the abduction?”

“’Twas no abduction. He came willingly.”

She answered sharply, “The law considers it an abduction.” A look from Ramsay brought her back from her anger, and she continued in a gentler voice, “But to get to the point, how did you go about what you did?”

“I talked to him. I knew he was desperately unhappy. When they sent him to Kent, we talked on the way.”

“You convinced him that he needed to leave his family?”

“I told him he needn’t stay with people who would treat him badly. We talked about the things they did to him whenever he was with his mother’s cousins. He told me how he hated it there, and how he also hated his family in London. He’d never felt welcome anywhere, at any time of his life.”

“Did you tell him if he went with you he would be required to perform certain acts on strange men? And that the money he earned by it would go to another stranger?”

Thomas didn’t answer that very quickly, and Suzanne knew what the truth was before his reply. But he was truthful. “No.”

“Because you know it is not a good life for anyone, and least of all for a child.”

“He was close to becoming a man.”

“He was not one yet. And now he never will be. What you did was—”

“Mistress Suze,” said Ramsay from the door. “It grows late.”

Startled into focusing on her mission, she blinked and stammered for a moment. Right. The investigation. “We need to learn who killed him.”

“Yes, you do,” said Thomas.

She sifted through her thoughts, then asked, “So you were able to turn your carriage around before arriving in Kent, and take Lord Paul to Higgins without him raising a fuss. And Higgins took him in to train him.”

“To show him another way to live.”

Suzanne shrugged that off, not wanting to wander into those weeds anymore. She said, “Why was he in the Goat and Boar that night and not in the Haymarket at Higgins’s house?”

“I couldn’t say. I don’t know. I can only surmise that Higgins thought it would be lucrative for his girl-like boy to service the far more numerous men of the ordinary world. After all, there is only so much money to be made in pederasty. There is a far greater number of randy men wanting girls, involving far less risk.”

“Is that common, to send boys out disguised as girls?”

Thomas shook his head. “Lord Paul was special. He had the grace and culture to fool anyone. Higgins knew he had a treasure in Paul. He thought Paul could make him a great deal of money as a girl.”

So Thomas corroborated that. Suzanne continued into another line of questioning. “Why did you quit your post in the Worthington household?”

He blinked, surprised. “You don’t know?”

“What should I know?”

“I ran away. To be sure, I would have been arrested, had I lingered. And in fact I was fortunate to have not been slapped in chains immediately. As it was, I was locked in my quarters in the stable and only escaped by prying the door lock.” He spoke in an
of course
tone, and seemed to think her stupid, or inattentive, for not knowing this. “I was able to pack my few belongings in a satchel, and made my way to the Haymarket and safety.”

“For what were you detained?”

Again Thomas blinked, and made an odd grimace that was half smile and half frown. He shook his head, bewildered. “Why, for the very crime we’ve been discussing. I was charged with the task of delivering Lord Paul to his cousins in Kent, and instead I took him to Higgins in Haymarket. When the duke found out—”

“He knew? You left the household weeks ago.”

Thomas nodded. “Three weeks ago. I was called into his grace’s bedchamber that evening shortly after New Year’s, and queried about the whereabouts of his son. It seems he’d had a note from the cousins in Kent, which let him know Lord Paul wasn’t with them.”

Suzanne looked over at Ramsay, who seemed as surprised as she. Cawthorne had known his son was not in Kent long before she’d brought him the news two days ago. And he’d pretended ignorance. Neither had he mentioned the situation to his wife. She asked Thomas, “How did you respond?”

“I put him off as best I could. I insisted I’d taken him to Kent, but did not claim to have seen any family member receive him. I told him that Lord Paul had been left in the hands of servants, and that I’d not stayed at the house for more than a minute. I said I’d taken a room for the night, in the nearest town, before setting off on my return trip to London the next morning.”

“Did he believe you?”

“No. He insisted on the truth. In fact, he beat me for it. He was terribly angry.”

“Rightly so.”

“Perhaps. In any case, he cracked me over the head with a walking stick, and continued hitting me until I was on my knees before him, begging him to stop. I believe one of my ribs may have been cracked; it still hurts a mite.” He absently laid a hand over his right rib cage. “Finally I told him I’d taken Paul to a friend.”

“You told him where Paul was?”

“Certainly not. I would never have given away the location of Higgins’s house. I told him to look in Bank Side.”

“What did you tell him Paul was doing there?”

Thomas shrugged. “I said I’d left him with a friend, and Southwark was the first place I could think of where I had no friends. It seemed the sort of place a man of the peerage would never venture.”

Suzanne thought of Daniel and all the others of the nobility who frequented the Goat and Boar, and wondered where Thomas had gotten his impression of Bank Side. She said, “So you didn’t know you were sending Cawthorne to the very place he could find his son?”

“I’d never known Higgins to go there; I had no idea he was selling Lord Paul as a girl.”

This news rattled around in Suzanne’s head like a die in a cup, and it bounced off all the other things she knew about what had happened to Paul Worthington. If the duke knew Paul was not in Kent, and instead thought he was in Southwark, then surely he would go looking for the boy there. But then why not alert the constable and enlist his help in the matter? Of course, she answered her own question by reminding herself that Cawthorne would not have wanted any sort of public scandal regarding his son. It wasn’t until she’d gone to him with news of his son’s death that he’d finally contacted Pepper in the matter, and that was for the express purpose of putting a stop to an investigation that would become known to the public.

She then realized that she’d never told the duke where the murder had occurred, but Cawthorne nevertheless knew what constable in all of London had sent her. “Did you tell him your fictional friend in Southwark was a harlot’s attendant?”

“He may have inferred it.”

So Cawthorne more than likely went to Southwark in search of his son, knowing he was likely to find him in the company of an unseemly crowd. Bank Side was not a terribly long street. It was only a matter of time before he would encounter Paul in that blue dress. The scenario that came to mind at that point made Suzanne’s jaw drop, and she gasped. She remembered the tall, broad-shouldered man Warren had seen in the Goat and Boar. The one wearing clothing that didn’t appear to belong to him. The one who had spoken harshly to Paul, then pulled him from the public room by his arm. Rage filled her as realization grew. She said to Ramsay, breathless, “I think I know who killed Lord Paul.”

“W
e must speak to the duke,” Suzanne told Ramsay as they settled into their hired carriage and left Thomas’s tenement. Outrage pounded in her ears, and she could barely breathe. Her voice was choked and low, and the words were difficult to get out.

Ramsay made an effort at soothing her, but with a sense that she might lose control of herself, his apprehension put an edge on his voice. “We should leave him alone, and let this sleeping dog lie.”

“He’s killed his son.”

“He’s a duke. There’s nothing you can do. You’ve already been warned off this case. The constable certainly won’t pursue it, and ’tis unlikely the magistrate will want to stick out his neck for this. There’s no hope of succeeding at anything other than putting a rope around your own neck.”

“He murdered his
son
!”

“He murdered his
sodomite
son.”

“Surely, Diarmid, you cannot think that justifies—”

“No, I do not. But that is how the crown will see it. And nearly everyone else in London as well.”

“The magistrate won’t ignore the law. He cannot. He must prosecute.”

“With what? What hard proof do you have that Cawthorne killed Lord Paul? And who would think a member of the nobility would do such a messy, ugly thing to his own son? Even though the boy was not entirely a boy, what the duke did was not within the realm of normal anger. Nobody will believe it.”

“So you do believe he did it?”

“Aye. I do.”

“Then tell me your reasoning. Tell me your proof. Help me in my thinking.”

Ramsay considered for a moment, then said, “When you told him his son was dead, he lied when he said he thought Paul was in Kent. He knew Paul was with a harlot’s attendant, he believed Paul was in Bank Side, and there was a man fitting Cawthorne’s description seen with Paul in the Goat and Boar on the night of the murder.”

“So there’s my proof. He lied about what he knew and he was the last one seen with Lord Paul before he died.”

“I’m no magistrate, but will that be conclusive enough to overcome the duke’s privilege?”

“Nobody is privileged to kill outside of war or execution of legal sentence.”

“You know that may be truth in theory, but in practice it’s entirely false. Men of his rank often get away with murder.”

“It was his son, who was also a member of the nobility.”

“I suppose that would make a difference. But the risk to yourself is high. Is the pursuit of a man so much more powerful than yourself worth what it will do to you if you attack his grace and fail?”

“I’ve no fine reputation to protect.”

“You have much to lose other than your reputation, make no mistake. Your theatre. Your son. Your . . . life. The duke could make a great deal of trouble for you. He’s of higher rank than Throckmorton, who is your protector in all things relating to the crown. Were Cawthorne to decide to ruin you, he could. And by his reputation I believe he would not hesitate.”

“Only if I fail to convince the crown of his guilt.”

“There is a high risk of failure for that. He is a peer and his testimony will be received as gospel. That’s not true about anyone else involved.”

She fell silent, thinking hard. She certainly would not like to lose her theatre. Nor her freedom. And in the final analysis, Lord Paul was not her personal responsibility. It was not her job to investigate crime. The authorities, whose job it was to catch criminals, had told her to quit her questioning, and she’d already carried this thing much further than was safe for her. If Cawthorne heard of her talking to anyone about Lord Paul, he would certainly retaliate, and never mind what would happen if she accused him publicly. If she failed to make her case, there would be terrible repercussions.

But when she remembered the mutilated body of Lord Paul, her rage boiled over again and she shook her head. “I can’t give up. I must pursue this.”

“Why?”

She gave an angry snort. “When I try to imagine myself not doing anything, not telling what I know and just sitting on my hands, knowing that Jacob Worthington murdered and mutilated his own son, I know I simply couldn’t live with myself forever after. Knowing that man was at large, living his sanctimonious life in comfort, having never paid for his crime . . .” The words failed her and her throat closed with her grief and anger.

“Perhaps God will take payment in good time?”

She shook her head, swallowed hard, and said through gritted teeth, “Not good enough.” Then she pounded on the carriage wall by the driver. “Driver, take us to Westminster. Orchard Street, if you please.”

*   *   *

S
UZANNE’S
anger made it possible for her to screw up her courage enough to tap with the knocker on the door of the duke’s house so late in the evening. Candlelight in the upstairs windows, where the shutters were still open, told her the family was still awake. When nobody answered her knock she picked up the brass tapper and knocked hard again. Still she waited.

Ramsay, behind her, said, “Perhaps we need to desist for the evening. You could send Pepper in the morning, and you’ll have done your duty.”

She wished he would be silent, for his words only stirred her feelings and made her angrier at the duke. “Nonsense. We both know Pepper is spineless and lazy, and would never face Cawthorne if he could avoid it. Going to Pepper is no better than simply giving up.” She pounded on the door with her fist. “Besides, our best chance of convincing his magistrate of Worthington’s guilt is to coerce a confession from him. Catch him by surprise, and he may give us the very thing we need to hang him.”

“You seriously believe he will confess to you?”

“’Tis our only hope, my dear Ramsay.”

Finally, the duke’s manservant came to the door, and opened it but a crack.

Suzanne drew herself up erect, chin up, as dignified and authoritative as she could manage. “Good man. I wish to speak to his grace, immediately. ’Tis a matter of great importance.”

“I’m afraid his grace has retired. Certainly he is not receiving visitors at this hour.”

“This can’t wait. I must talk to him.”

“You may send a message in the morning.” With that, the manservant closed the door.

Immediately Suzanne pounded with the knocker, and the door opened once more. Before he could tell her again that the duke was unavailable, she said quickly, “Tell the duke that I know who murdered his son. Also tell him that I have a witness who saw him at the Goat and Boar that night.” Then she spun on her heel and marched away to the carriage, followed by a surprised Ramsay.

They rode in silence for a time, then he said, “Do you think that was wise?”

She stared out the window at the blackness of the world, and was too angry to reply.

*   *   *

I
T
didn’t take long for her to hear from Constable Pepper. The very next morning she received him at breakfast as before. He was quite agitated, and addressed her in a loud, angry tone that carried an undercurrent of fear. Twice his voice cracked with desperation.

“You cannot continue to harass the duke this way!” His face reddened, and even seemed to swell.

She set aside her fork and knife, and drew herself up to address him with all her dignity. “My dear constable, you should know I think the duke is our culprit. I believe he has murdered his son. Letting him get away with it would be a crime in itself as well as a sin.”

“You have no proof.”

“There is a witness who can identify the duke, who saw him remove Lord Paul from the Goat and Boar late that evening.”

“What witness?”

“Warren. He plays the flute for our performances.”

“A musician?” His amazement at her stupidity seemed to choke him. “He’ll be no help. Cawthorne will of course deny, and ’twill be his word against a musician’s. You’ll have made an accusation for no reason. Naught will come of it, and I’ll be ruined.”

“Nonsense. You’ll be a hero. You’ll be lauded for your principles, and rewarded by the king for plucking one of the worst Puritan thorns from his side.”

“The crown will never bring charges, for the backlash from Parliament that would surely result.”

“His magistrate would be quite happy to charge the duke, if he thinks the king will benefit from it.”

“You cannot convince him of that, I vow.”

“Charles can. And Daniel has the king’s ear, at least somewhat.”

Something flickered in Pepper’s eyes as he considered that, but then he shook the thought from his head. “It would never come about so easily, you can be sure of it. Nothing in life is ever that simple. If you don’t desist immediately, you will destroy me!”

She gazed at him for a moment, imagining life without Pepper. The idea appealed to her.

Pepper appeared to grasp the meaning of her silence, and took another tack. “Where, exactly, is your witness?”

“This time of day, he’s more than likely asleep.”

“You’ll tell him to stop disseminating lies about the duke.”

“He isn’t screaming these things from the rafters. And in any case, I cannot tell him to stop, for they are not lies.”

“They are lies! The duke did not kill his son!” Pepper’s face purpled more, and he fairly jumped up and down in his frustration.

It was time to put a stop to this. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll never mind the duke and put all of this out of my mind. I’ll say no more about it to anyone.”

Pepper sighed, and relaxed. His fists unclenched, his face began to return to its normal pasty complexion and he took some deep breaths. “Very well. Thank you.”

“Good day, then, Constable.”

“Good day, Mistress Thornton.” And so he left. Suzanne returned to her breakfast, calmly turning over in her mind how she would go about snaring the duke for his magistrate. She decided to visit the Haymarket once more.

Unwilling to wait for Ramsay to present himself so he could accompany her, she hired a carriage on her own and ordered the driver to Westminster. She only needed to talk for a moment with Higgins, about what he would say if asked to testify regarding the night Lord Paul died. She was settling into her seat, drawing her coat around her and straightening her clothing, deep in thought about what she would tell him, when just as the driver slapped his reins against his horses’ backs, a pounding came on the carriage door. It flew open unbidden, and Ramsay climbed in before the horses could make any speed. He pulled the door closed behind him, latched it, and settled into the seat opposite her.

“And where do you think you’re going?” His tone was gentle but firm.

Her tone in reply was as insouciant as she could manage at the moment. “Oh, Ramsay. I didn’t want to disturb you. You’ve spent so much time watching over me lately, I didn’t think it would be necessary to bring you along on this trip. I’m only off to the Haymarket again.”

“Suze, I live to accompany you. I wish to see you safe. But most of all, I wish to see you.”

That made her smile. Sometimes she forgot Ramsay was pressing a suit for her hand, and that morning she had been preoccupied with her business with the constable. They rode in silence across the river and to Westminster.

But when they arrived at Higgins’s house, there was no answer to her knock. She and Ramsay waited in the street, where vendors cried their wares and throngs of people passed by. There was no answer. She knocked again, the same special knock that had opened this door twice before. No answer. She stepped into the street to look up at the window above the door, and saw the shutter make a slight, furtive movement in closing. Then nothing. Nothing moved, nothing sounded.

Ramsay said, as if making a passing comment of no importance, “It could be we’ve worn out our welcome.”

“I suppose it would be asking too much to expect him to tell the crown what he told me.”

“You mean, admit in open court he’d abducted a duke’s son then turned the boy out as a sodomite and a prostitute?”

Suzanne’s heart fell as she realized how stupid she’d been to think she could count on Higgins for that. “We must talk to Thomas, then, and hope he will be more reliable.”

“My hopes are not high.”

“Perhaps I can convince him.”

“Only you might succeed at that.”

But Thomas proved no more reliable than Higgins had, and Suzanne never had a chance to convince him of anything. A knock at his door was met with silence. No sound or movement from within. “He’s not in,” she said.

“I suspect he’s not coming back.”

She looked at Ramsay to see if he might be joking, and found he wasn’t. “Absconded?”

“Again. I think ’tis likely you’ve frightened him off.”

“That can’t be. He’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Other than hanging.”

Anger rose again, and she drew some deep breaths. It was her strong feelings in this matter that hurt her judgment. She needed to stop letting emotion cloud her mind and begin thinking more clearly. “See if he’s here.”

Ramsay hesitated, but then complied. He took the door handle, turned it as silently as its cheap mechanism would allow, and gently shoved the door ajar. There was no fire on the hearth inside; nothing lit at all. He opened the door wider, and found the coachman quite gone. By the light from the single window Suzanne could see the few books in the bookcase had been taken, and the single trunk as well. She didn’t need to look in the bedchamber and kitchen to know they would be just as empty. Ramsay said, “Your proof against Cawthorne grows thin.”