The Scottish Play Murder (28 page)

Something in the back of Suzanne’s memory locked into place, and she stared hard at the men in women’s dresses as she worked out what it was. Arturo the mummer, Big Willie the fiddle player, and Tucker the lute player. They all had known Angus well. Arturo had been intent enough on finding his killer to have wanted to accuse the first man who came to mind. Big Willie had been hysterical when he’d heard of Angus’s death. But Tucker . . . there had never been a peep from Tucker. By all outward appearances he’d not felt a moment’s grief at the news of that murder. Yet he surely had known Angus as a friend. He’d been the one . . .

Suzanne’s eyes went wide and she stared at the floor as she realized something that should have been obvious to her before. Tucker had been the one to tell Willie that Angus was dead. Willie had come to her in his grief immediately after she’d returned from Angus’s rented room, and had said Tucker told him Angus was dead. How had the news traveled so quickly? She knew she’d come upon the body very shortly after the murderer had left the room; the bloody footprints had still been wet. The neighbors were yet unaware. Then she’d come straight from that place to the theatre, where Willie had said Tucker had just told him Angus was dead. How had Tucker known?

She knew Larchford had killed Angus, because of the bloodied shoes that matched the footprints and because he’d been summoned by Angus that same day. Larchford had more than likely also killed the Spaniard, for those murders were similar and Larchford was highly motivated to rid himself of the blackmailer. But there was a fourth man. The one who had killed Larchford.

How had Tucker known Angus was dead?

She looked up at the gallery to see the three weird sisters had settled down and were leaning over the rail to listen to the prosecution’s accusation of De Vries. Each had a staff about three feet long in his fist, each of gnarled wood. Tucker’s staff had a large, hard knot at the top. Somewhat akin to an Irish shillelagh.

Suzanne’s heart began to skip around in her chest. Just then she was called to testify, and as she stood to comply, her cheeks were as cold and pale as if the assault had just happened. The jury would be terribly impressed by her distress.

*

M
ACBETH
was to be performed that afternoon. As Suzanne arrived at the theatre she knew the play would go on without one of the weird sisters. The three men were in the green room, cutting up as usual and rejoicing over the conviction of the man who had assaulted their friend and employer Suze. Suzanne could hear them from the stage.

She went to her friends Ramsay and Throckmorton and asked a favor of them. Then she entered the green room on her own. The weird sisters were in costume, and only Arturo was still applying paint to his face. Willie was in a corner, noodling on his fiddle, and Tucker was dancing solo in the middle of the floor to the fractured tune. When they saw her, each offered congratulations that her assailant had been sentenced to hang.

Like the others, Tucker was of slight build. Suzanne remembered what Lady Larchford had said about the messenger who had summoned the earl to the rooms of the “bagpipe player.” Could it have been Tucker?

“I say, good fellow. That’s some mighty fine dancing you do.”

He grinned and bowed to her. “Thank you, kind lady. My only wish is to please.” He continued his dance, a jig of some sort.

“Tucker, I wonder if I could ask you some things about the recent murders.”

The dance slowed to a stop, and Tucker eyed her with a reluctance that bespoke as much guilt as if he’d blurted a confession. Willie and Arturo turned to look. Tucker said, “What about, Suze?”

“I wonder where you were the morning Angus was killed.”

Willie rose to his feet and waved his fiddle bow at her. “Now, you can’t be thinking Tucker killed poor Angus! He loved him as much as we did!”

“More,” added Arturo. “Wouldn’t you say, Tucker? You were the best of friends, you and Angus.”

“Aye,” said Tucker. “I loved Angus, I did. Like a brother he was. I would never have harmed a hair on him.” The vehemence in his voice told Suzanne it was true.

She was not surprised to hear this, and it made her suspicion even stronger. She said, “I’m certain you’re telling the truth in that. But would you be as truthful if I asked where you were the following night, when the Earl of Larchford was murdered?”

Tucker went utterly white. He said nothing. The others in the room became as still and pale as he.

Suzanne waited many seconds for a reply, though it was apparent she wasn’t going to get one. Finally she said, “Tucker, may I have a look at your staff? That one you have in your hand.”

The weird sister did not move.

Suzanne reached out for it. “I’ve seen a number of bloodied items lately. A gnarled staff like that with all its little crevices would be very difficult to clean entirely.”

Before she could get a hand on the staff, Tucker took a swing at her with it. She ducked and he missed. He swung to catch nothing but air once again, and then he made a dash for the door. Suzanne tried to grab him, but though she snagged his dress he pulled and twisted free. At the door he yanked on the handle, but it wouldn’t open. He hauled on it again, and it opened suddenly to toss him back across the floor. He landed on his rump and slid several feet. In came Ramsay, followed by Daniel, each with a dagger in hand, and they blocked the exit with the door shut behind them. Tucker, a man far littler than either of them, sat on the floor and trembled.

Suzanne said, “Arturo, do please go tell Horatio that the play today will begin late, and we’ll be missing one of the witches. The two of you will need to cover for the lack.”

“Right.” Arturo left to find Horatio, and Willie took the hint that he should leave also, and excused himself.

Suzanne then addressed the man sitting on the floor. “Now, Tucker. Tell me where you were the night Larchford was killed.”

“I got naught to say.”

“Would you rather the constable ask you this question? You saw De Vries’s broken thumb. Yours could end up as pretty.”

The little man looked from Ramsay to Daniel, then to Suzanne. “I don’t want to hang.”

“You won’t hang for avenging a murder.”

His eyes went wide that she could be so mistaken. “I will if the murderer is an earl. Nobody will want to believe he was aught but an upstanding and righteous member of the nobility, and they’ll send me to the gallows for naught but saying otherwise. Folks have been hung for stealing rubbish nobody wants; you think the crown won’t draw and quarter me for the life of an earl?”

Daniel said, “At this moment, with the facts that Suzanne has amassed against you, you’ve nothing to lose by confessing all. There might be some mitigating aspect of your story that would move the king to pardon you. And I’ll add that Larchford was not well liked by anyone. The king might actually feel you’ve done him a favor.”

A glimmer of hope lit Tucker’s eyes. He asked Suzanne, “Do you think?”

“His lordship knows the king better than I do. I would respect his opinion in that.” She gestured to the chair standing by the paint table Arturo had just vacated. “Sit. Tell us your story.”

Tucker looked from one to the other, then at the chair. Slowly he climbed to his feet, then sat. He eyed them all again. Suzanne repeated in an encouraging voice, “Tell us what happened. We know you were involved in Angus’s business with the pirates. We know you were the messenger sent to summon Larchford to meet with Angus. We can ask Lady Larchford to identify you.”

He sighed, defeated. “He had it coming to him. He killed Angus. I couldn’t let him get away with killing Angus. And you know he would have gone free. He never would have been tried for murdering a musician.”

“Tell us what happened.” Suzanne sat in another chair and folded her hands in her lap, waiting for him to comply.

“He wanted the note. He kept asking about the note.”

“Which note? When did he do that?”

“The note he’d sent Santiago. The one Angus had. He wanted the note back, and Angus wanted some money. We all figured Larchford had killed Santiago, and we also figured he’d not want that note to fall into the wrong hands. Angus sent me to Larchford to tell him Angus wanted to talk to him about it. Very incriminating, that note. So I went to Larchford’s house and told him where to meet Angus.”

“In Angus’s room.”

“Aye. Not public, and not in Larchford’s house where Angus might have found himself carried off to Newgate just for the amusement of it.”

“Neither of you thought, since Larchford had already murdered Santiago, that he might be dangerous?”

Tucker had to think about that for a moment, frowning at the floor. Then he looked up at her. “Well, Suze, we’d always held Larchford as a bit of a danger. Any time you go fooling with the aristocracy, you takes your chances. To me, with that note being so revealing of the nature of Larchford’s business, it seemed we had him over a barrel and he would be too askairt to do us harm.”

It made a weird sort of sense, and Suzanne reminded herself that Angus had never been known as a genius in personal affairs. It would have been like him to have thought himself invulnerable where the Spaniard had not been. “So you delivered Angus’s message to Larchford.”

“Aye. And when he heard what I had to say, he went into an infernal rage. He dismissed me like I was a dog, and I was glad to leave him to his bad temper. As I left I could hear him cursing Angus. That was when I began to apprehend Angus might be in danger. I lurked outside Larchford’s house, and he came out and trundled away in his carriage. I followed him. I thought I could warn Angus to beware.” Tucker’s face clouded up with tears and he fought them back. “Oh, how I wish I could have gotten there before Larchford! But he rode in a coach and I was forced to run the entire way. Even with knowing some shortcuts a man could take on foot, I had no hope of arriving before the horses.

“By the time I came to Angus’s street, Larchford was already leaving the tenement house and climbing into his carriage. He removed his gloves as he went, as if he were done with them and didn’t need them anymore, though the day was cool enough for them. The driver cracked his whip over the horses, and then they was gone. I just stood there in the street, wondering whether Angus had got his money for that note and thinking maybe he didn’t. So I went in and up the stairs. When I got there I saw Angus was dead.”

“You didn’t go into the room; there was only one set of footprints until I arrived and made some more.”

“Aye. I could see all I needed to see from the doorway. I wouldn’t go in for no amount of love nor money.”

“So you don’t know what happened to the note Larchford was so intent on reclaiming?”

Tucker shrugged. “I supposed it was in the trunk; wasn’t any other place it could have been, the room being so small. It had to be in the trunk or in Angus’s pocket.”

She remembered the bloody footprints that led up to and away from the trunk, and then knew how the note had ended up in Larchford’s coat pocket the next day. “I suppose Larchford got what he came for. So, what did you do then?”

“I ran back downstairs to the street. There I saw you approach up the street, and I knew you’d be sympathetic to me. I thought I would wave you down and tell you what had happened, but I wanted to catch up with Larchford’s carriage. So instead I hurried away in the direction it had gone.”

“But he had too much head start.”

“Aye, he did. So I figured I’d find him some other time, one of my own choosing, you understand. I went back to the theatre to plan my revenge.”

“And what revenge did you plan?”

“Simple enough. I sent a message to his house, saying I was Angus. Said I’d survived and that I wanted him to come to the Goat and Boar with some money.”

“Did you use the code?”

Tucker frowned. “What code?”

She shrugged. “Never mind.” Since Tucker had not written the message in code, Larchford would have known it had not come from Angus. That meant he’d gone to the Goat and Boar intending to kill Tucker. He might not have even known who had sent the message and was ready to kill anyone who approached him. Also, since the message was not in code, Larchford would have destroyed it immediately and therefore it would not have been on his person when the body was found, nor in the house when it was searched. “So you went to the Goat and Boar the night Angus was murdered.”

“Aye. I was in costume, for the three of us was acting up, drinking to the memory of our good friend. It was a sorrowful evening, it was. We all was weeping over our cups, telling stories of Angus and what a boon fellow he was. I was wanting to tell the others what I had a mind to do. I wanted us all to leap upon Larchford when he arrived and kill him with our bare hands. But even as drunk as I was, I still knew the others would have no part of it. They would surely have talked me out of it, and then we would even now have that murdering earl out and free as a bird and a-getting away with killing Angus. I couldn’t have that. He would have to pay for what he done.”

“Of course.”

“And then there he come. In at the door, all proud and laden with all sorts of gold and jewels, and looking down his nose at the rest of us for it.”

“He’d been there before. You’d seen him there before, with the Spaniard.”

“Aye. And he always sat holding to his nose a handkerchief doused in wintergreen. He couldn’t stand the smell of us ordinary folk, and so acted as if we fouled the air with poison like to kill him. And only if it were so. And so when he arrived that night, he saw the three of us sitting there, and out come that handkerchief. He looked at us as if we was three pigs in dresses, then looked about for Angus. He didn’t know it was me sitting at that table with the other two women, and I let him stand in ignorance.

“Finally he got an ale from Young Dent and went to sit at the little table by himself. Waiting, I suppose, for Angus to arrive. I watched him for near an hour, I think. I kept quiet, lest he recognize my voice and know it was me who sent the message. Then it came late. Most everyone else had gone. Larchford had drained several cups of ale, and it was just him and the three of us. Again I wished I could have talked Arturo and Willie into helping me kill him. We might have taken him right there. But I waited.”