The Midsummer Crown (22 page)

The apothecary clasped my hand warmly in both of his. ‘You have indeed found one,' he affirmed. ‘Your warm regard for my poor brother would always be a recommendation to me, even if I didn't like you for yourself. But I do. Like you, I mean. Whenever you are forced to come to London, think of my home as your own. If you ever need a bed for the night, there is an attic – extremely small, it's true, but you wouldn't mind that I feel certain – where a makeshift cot can be made up for you. Or if you simply need to come and talk, you are welcome to do that also. If I'm busy with customers, you won't, I'm sure, object to waiting until I've finished.'

I returned my heartfelt thanks for this generous invitation, took a last swig of ale in order to empty my beaker, and went out into the afternoon sunshine.

On leaving the shop, I turned to my right, heading towards Wallbrook, and was just passing the ramshackle tenement on the corner, known as the Old Barge, when I heard the patter of feet behind me, and my name being called. I turned to see Mistress Naomi running after me, her cheeks pink with exertion and strands of hair escaping from beneath her cap. She came to a breathless standstill in front of me.

‘Master says will you please come back,' she gasped. ‘He's remembered something.'

‘Remembered something?' I repeated stupidly.

She nodded vigorously. ‘He says it's important, and . . . and that he's vexed with himself for not thinking of it just now.' She took another deep breath, flaunting two well-rounded breasts and giving me a sly, sidelong glance as she did so. I tried valiantly to keep my eyes fixed on her face, but failed. And it was then that I noticed the little sprig of birch leaves pinned to her gown, just above her heart.

As I began walking back with her, retracing my steps to Julian's shop, I commented on it and asked if it had any particular significance.

She smiled proudly. ‘It means that next Monday, Midsummer Eve, I'm to be crowned Midsummer Queen of the Dowgate Ward. Every ward has its own queen, you know, and this year Dowgate's chosen me. It's a great honour, so the master says.' She grimaced. ‘Well, I knew that without him telling me.' She gave a little giggle. ‘He thinks I'm stupid, you know.'

I considered that she might be right about Julian's assessment of her, and thought to myself that the apothecary was probably mistaken. Mistress Naomi appeared on the surface to be nothing much more than a cuddly, silly young girl, but I got the impression that there was an altogether shrewder, sharper side to her nature than was immediately apparent.

Julian was waiting for us at the shop door, obviously in a state of suppressed excitement. He grasped my arm and fairly pulled me inside, saying, ‘I'm sorry to bring you back, Roger, but it's too important to leave for another time. What an idiot I am! Why on earth didn't I remember it sooner?'

‘What? What is it you've remembered?' I asked urgently as he led me once again towards the parlour.

We were interrupted by a customer who pointedly waited to be served until Naomi and I had closed the door into the shop. My companion giggled.

‘Poor man! He comes in every week for a supply of powdered mandrake root. It's for . . . well . . . you know.' She broke off, blushing a little.

I nodded. Mandrake root was thought to be beneficial in cases of impotence, although in this case, if the gentleman came in every week, it didn't seem to be having the desired effect. While we waited for Julian, and to curb my own impatience, I quizzed her some more about the Midsummer's Eve festival.

She was nothing loath to talk about it. It appeared that each London ward crowned its own Midsummer Queen with a wreath of young birch leaves, and the selected maiden was then carried, shoulder-high, in a chair also decked with branches of birch, around her domain-for-a-night to accept the greetings and adulation of her ‘subjects'. Her path was strewn with the herbs that people had been out in the surrounding fields to gather, usually before dawn: St John's wort, mugwort, plantain, corn marigold, elder, yarrow, vervain and any other herb that was thought to ward off the possible evil of ‘Witches' Night' as Midsummer Eve was also known.

‘And after that,' she went on, her eyes glowing with anticipation, ‘everyone goes to St Paul's churchyard to see the mustering of the great Marching Watch. Do you have a Marching Watch in Bristol, Master Chapman?'

I denied any knowledge of such an event and learned that in London all the main guilds, preceded by the twelve great livery companies, processed down Lud Gate Hill and along Cheapside, accompanied by musicians on trumpet, pipe and drum, everywhere illumined by torches and cressets and fire baskets, and the houses decorated with garlands of flowers and tapestries hung from balconies and windows.

‘Oh, it's lovely,' my informant breathed ecstatically. ‘And all the Midsummer Queens are given pride of place to watch the procession and to walk alongside it in front of the crowds.'

At that moment, the door into the shop opened and Julian rejoined us, raising exasperated eyebrows. ‘I'm sorry, Roger. I couldn't get away sooner. That man regards me as his father confessor and unburdens himself of all his troubles.'

I grinned. ‘And I gather from Mistress Naomi here that he has one in particular. Not,' I added hastily, ‘that it's anything to make fun of. It could afflict us all one day. In any case, don't worry. I've been very well entertained. I've been hearing about Midsummer's Eve and the Marching Watch. It sounds to be an event worth the seeing. Moreover, you'll have the privilege of accompanying a queen this year.'

Somewhat to my surprise, Julian pulled down the corners of his mouth. ‘Naomi will certainly try to persuade me,' he said, ‘but Midsummer Eve festivities are something I normally avoid. I don't like the idea of celebrating what was originally, and in some respects still is, a pagan rite. Centuries ago, it was a time of bloodshed and sacrifice, with great fires lit on hilltops to appease the gods.'

I saw that Mistress Naomi was looking surly. She plainly had no patience with such antiquated notions and was about to fly into one of her tantrums, so I asked quickly (and also because I was impatient to know), ‘What is it you have to tell me, Master Makepeace?'

He motioned me to sit down again at the table, saying, ‘For pity's sake, call me by my given name. We've agreed we're friends.' He pulled up the other stool, suddenly all eagerness, his previous excitement returning in full force. And for once, he didn't bother to send Naomi away. It was almost, for the moment, as if he had forgotten she was there.

‘Listen, Roger!' He clasped his hands together on the tabletop, the knuckles of his thin fingers showing white against the polished wood. ‘You know the Old Barge at the end of the street?' I nodded. ‘You know what it's like. It was once a gentleman's house, but now it's let out by the room to all the scaff and raff of London. The shrieks and screams that issue from that place at night are enough to make your blood run cold.'

‘Yes, yes!' I said, wondering when he would get to the point.

‘Well, one day last winter, I was walking past the place on my way home, when a fellow staggered down the steps and bumped straight into me, nearly knocking me over. He apologized in a very slurred sort of way, so I naturally assumed he was drunk. Then, to my disgust, he took hold of my arm and staggered along beside me. Said he wasn't feeling too well which, in view of my assumption, didn't surprise me in the least. But I supported him as far as the shop, where, of course, I disengaged myself and said that I must go inside. This was where I lived.'

‘And?' I queried impatiently as Julian paused.

‘And then,' he answered slowly, impressively, ‘he gave a strange little sigh and dropped down dead.'

‘Dead?'

‘Yes. But not from any natural cause. He'd been stabbed in the back, just like this Gregory Machin you've been telling me about.'

I stared at him uncomprehendingly for a second or two. ‘You're saying . . .?'

‘I'm saying that this man had been fatally stabbed by another of the Old Barge's inmates – a man was later hanged for his murder – but between the blow that killed him and the moment he dropped dead, he had walked the length of Bucklersbury, unaware that there was anything wrong with him. True, he wasn't quite himself; his speech, as I said, was slurred, he was weak and disorientated, but he didn't realize that he was dying.'

‘Is such a thing possible?' I asked.

Julian nodded eagerly. ‘Apparently it's not as uncommon a phenomenon as you might suppose. I consulted a physician friend of mine who lives in Old Jewry, and he assured me that it can occur from time to time. It had happened to a man he knew of who complained that someone had thumped him. A minute or two later, the man fell dead of a stab wound in the chest. It depends, I should imagine, on the weapon. If the blade is long and thin, there is no immediate bloodletting. What bleeding there is, is internal and takes longer to bring about death.' He leaned forward excitedly, gripping both my wrists. ‘Don't you see what I'm saying? Your man could have been knifed without his realizing it. He may then have been able to walk into his room and bolt the door before he collapsed and died.'

I took a deep breath. ‘You're sure about this?'

‘I saw it happen with my own eyes.'

‘Then . . . then that explains it.' I went on slowly, picking a careful path through my teeming thoughts. ‘Tutor Machin's room wasn't far from the head of the stairs he and young Gideon Fitzalan were last seen climbing. The staircase curves, so the two of them were out of sight of the person following behind them for perhaps a minute or so. Long enough, probably, for someone waiting at the top to stab Gregory in the back as he passed and seize the boy. Whoever it was must have been amazed to see Gregory blunder on into his room instead of immediately falling dead at his feet. And even more amazed if he heard the bolt being shot home. He may even have been terrified that the tutor wasn't dead, only wounded, and would be able to identify him later.'

Julian frowned. ‘You assume the murderer was a man?'

‘Don't you? Knives and daggers are not normally a woman's weapons. Although I have to admit that I have known them to be so, so maybe it's not the most convincing of arguments.' I got to my feet, freeing myself from the apothecary's clutching hands and stretched out one of my own. ‘Julian, I owe you a debt I can never repay. Even if I can't prove that this is exactly what happened, we both know you're right. If you eliminate the forces of evil, this has to be the only explanation.'

‘I hope so,' Julian agreed, warmly returning my clasp. ‘I can't imagine why I didn't think of it at once.' He smiled. ‘I'm delighted to have been of some use. Let me wish you all good fortune in solving this mystery, Roger. If any one can do so, you're the man. Look at how you resolved the one surrounding the Godsloves.'

I made a deprecating gesture (which I don't suppose fooled him for an instant) and politely refused his offer of further refreshment. I wanted to be on my own. In the light of this new knowledge, I needed to reassess everything I knew about this case so far.

THIRTEEN

I walked back to Baynard's Castle like a man in a trance, completely unaware of the jostling crowds around me. I remember bumping into one or two people and being cursed for not looking where I was going, but for the most part, I might have been all alone in that bustling throng.

I had no doubt that Julian Makepeace's solution to the mystery of the locked room was correct, and meant that almost anyone could have been lying in wait at the top of the stairs, knife in hand, for Gregory Machin and his charge But the solving of one riddle led only to the next. Why would anyone want to kill the tutor? Why was it necessary that he should die?

The obvious answer was that the boy had to be snatched and spirited away with the minimum of fuss and outcry. In a place like Baynard's Castle there was always somebody somewhere within earshot, and it would surely have been inevitable that that somebody – or, indeed, several somebodies – would have come running to see what the noise was about. At the same time, it bothered me that there must have been subtler methods of getting possession of young Gideon. A story perhaps that one of his uncles wished to speak to him, or one of his brothers, or Dame Copley . . . On second thoughts, not the nurse: he had but just come from her room if Amphillis Hill was to be believed, and I could see no reason at present to doubt her word.

But if the murderer had been a stranger to Gregory, he might well have demurred or insisted on accompanying his charge. At best, there could have been an argument, at worst, a struggle. No, taken all in all, it had probably been wiser to dispose of the tutor altogether, because when it was discovered that Gideon had disappeared there was no one to bear witness to, or give a description of, the person who had taken him.

Which brought me, of course, to the thorny questions of why the boy had been taken in the first place and where he was being held captive. Or was he, like his unfortunate tutor, also dead? But somehow I doubted he had been killed. Someone had gone to great trouble to snatch him from his guardians, and I could not bring myself to believe that it had simply been to murder him in his turn. It didn't make sense, so my guess was that he was being held a prisoner somewhere. Once again, however, I was faced with the problems of where and why?

I suddenly found myself, without knowing quite how I got there, back at the Thames Street entrance to the castle. The sentries manning the gate passed me through easily enough, having got used to my presence in the past few days and recognizing me from my exceptional height. (I stood six foot in my stockinged feet, nearly as tall as the late King Edward, a fact which – unfortunately on occasions – made me extremely visible among my fellow men whose average height was at least six or seven inches shorter.)