Altogether we spent the rest of the week on it. The Wednesday, the Thursday, and the Friday. Easily thirty hours. We got nowhere. We made no progress. But nothing happened. None of Rose’s other cases unravelled, and London’s crime did not spike. There were no consequences. None at all.
So as the weeks passed both Rose and I forgot all about the matter. And Rose never thought about it again, as far as I know. I did, of course. Because three months later it became clear that it was I who had been decoyed. My interest had been piqued, and I had spent thirty hours doing fun Anglophile things. They knew that would happen, naturally. They had planned well. They knew I would be called out to the dead American, and they knew how to stage the kinds of things that would set me off like the Energizer Bunny. Three days. Thirty hours. Out of the building, unable to offer help with the rubber-stamping, not there to notice them paying for their kids’ college educations by rubber-stamping visas that should have been rejected instantly. Which is how four particular individuals made it to the States, and which is why three hundred people died in Denver, and which is why the others were executed, and which is why I sit alone in Leavenworth in Kansas, where by chance one of the few books the prison allows is The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
THIS THING OF DARKNESS by Peter Tremayne
“This thing of darkness.
I acknowledge mine.”
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, V, i
MASTER HARDY DREW, Constable of the Bankside Watch, stood regarding the blackened and still smoking ruins of the once imposing edifice of the house on the corner of Stony Street near the parish church of St Saviour’s. There was little left of it as it had been a wood-built house, and wood and dry plaster were a combustible mix.
“It was a fine old house,” Master Drew’s companion said reflectively. “It once belonged to the old Papist Bishop Gardiner.”
“The one who took pleasure in burning those he deemed heretics in Queen Mary’s time?” asked Master Drew with a slight shudder. He had not been born when Mary had been on the throne but he knew it to be a strange, unsettled period when, during those five short years, she had earned the epithet of “Bloody Mary”.
Master Pettigrew, the fire warden, nodded.
“Aye, Master Drew. The same who condemned some good men to the flames because they would not accept Roman ways.”
“Well, it is not infrequent that buildings catch alight and burn. You and your sturdy lads have put out the flames and no other properties seem threatened. Why, therefore, do you bring me here?”
Master Pettigrew inclined his head towards the smouldering ruins.
“There is a body here. I think you should see it.”
The constable frowned.
“A poor soul caught in the fire? Surely that is a task for the coroner?”
“That’s as may be, good master. Come and examine it for yourself. It is not badly burned,” he added, seeing the distaste on Master Drew’s features. “I believe it was not fire that killed him.”
He led the way through the charred wood and the odd standing wall towards what must have been the back of the house and into an area that had been partially built of bricks and thus not much harmed in the conflagration.
Master Drew saw the problem straightway. The body of a man was hanging from a thick beam by means of iron manacles that secured his wrists and linked them via a chain over the beam. He breathed out sharply.
“This is a thing of darkness. A deed of evil,” he muttered.
The constable tried not to look at the legs of the corpse for they had received the force of the fire. The upper body was blackened but not burned for, by that curious vagary to which fire is often prey, the flames had not engulfed the entire body. The flames seemed to have died down after they had reached the corpse.
The body was that of a man of thirty or perhaps a little more. Through the soot and grime it was impossible to detect much about the features.
Master Drew saw that the mouth was tied as in the manner of a gag. The eyes were bulging still and blood-rimmed, marking the struggle to obtain air that must have been filled with smoke and fumes from the fire.
“You will observe, Master Drew, that the upper garments of this man speak of some wealth and status, and the manner of his death was clearly planned.”
The constable sniffed in irritation.
“I am experienced in the matter of observation,” he rebuked sharply.
Indeed, he had already observed that, in spite of the blackened and scorched garments, they were clearly those affected by a person of wealth. His sharp eyes had detected something under the shirt and he drew the long dagger he wore at his belt and used it to push aside the doublet and undershirt. Beneath was a gold chain on which was hung a medallion of sorts.
Master Pettigrew let out a breath. He was probably thinking of the wealth that he had missed, for being warden of the fire watch around Bankside did not provide him with means to live as he would want…or not without a little help from items collected in the debris of fires such as this.
Using the tip of his dagger, Master Drew was able to lift the chain over the head of the corpse and then examine it. Master Pettigrew peered over his shoulder.
“A dead sheep moulded in gold,” he breathed.
Master Drew shook his head.
“Not a dead sheep but the fleece of a sheep. I have seen the like once before. It was just after the defeat of the Spanish invasion force. They brought some prisoners to the Tower and I was one of the appointed guards. One of the prisoners was wearing such a symbol. When a sergeant wanted to divest him of it, our captain rebuked him, saying it was the symbol of a noble order and that the prisoner should be treated, therefore, with all courtesy and respect.”
The warden looked worried.
“A nobleman murdered here on the Bankside? We will not hear the last of it, good constable. A noble would have influence.”
Master Drew nodded thoughtfully.
“A nobleman, aye. But of what country and what allegiance? This order was set up to defend the Papist faith.”
Master Pettigrew looked at him in horror.
“The Papist Faith, you say?”
“This is a Spanish order for I see the insignia of Philip of Spain on the reverse.”
“Spanish?’ gasped Master Pettigrew. “There are several noble Spaniards in London at this time.”
Master Drew’s features hardened.
“And many who would as lief cut a Spaniard’s throat in revenge for the cruelties of previous years. Were there no witnesses to this incendiary act?”
To his surprise, Master Pettigrew nodded an affirmative.
“Tom Shadwell, a passing fruit merchant, saw the flames and called the alarm,” returned Master Pettigrew. “That was at dawn this morning. My men managed to isolate the building and extinguish the flames within the hour. Then we entered and that was when I found the body and sent for you.”
“Well, one thing is for certain, this poor soul did not hang himself nor set fire to this place. To whom does this building now belong?”
“I think it must still belong to the Bishop of Winchester for he has many estates around here. Such was the office of Bishop Gardiner but he has been dead these fifty years, during which it has remained empty.”
“That’s true,” Master Drew reflected. “I have never seen it occupied since I came here as Assistant Constable. No one has ever claimed it nor sought to occupy it.”
“Aye, and for the reason that local folk claim it to be haunted by the spirits of the unfortunates that Bishop Gardiner tortured and condemned to the flames as heretics.”
Master Drew pocketed the chain thoughtfully and glanced once more at the body.