The Scottish Play Murder (18 page)

“How do you know he was attacked from behind? I saw the body personally and couldn’t tell where the first blow had fallen.”

Ramsay sat back again and shrugged. “No man of any worth would have let such a weapon past his sword, had the villain approached from the front. Was Larchford’s sword drawn when you saw it?”

Suzanne had to admit it hadn’t been.

“There, you have it. A coward assaulted him from behind. He probably never saw his attacker.”

“An academic point, since he’s no longer able to tell.”

“I have to wonder whether anyone witnessed it. Nobody has come forth, have they?”

Suzanne shook her head. “Nobody would.” Her head tilted and she peered into Ramsay’s eyes. “Though I suppose you would. I imagine you would have gone straight to the constable and told everything you saw. Had you seen.”

“Perhaps. But then, perhaps not.”

“You were at the Goat and Boar that night, weren’t you? I seem to recall you saying you were going there after you left the theatre.”

“I did not.”

She sat back. “Didn’t you? Are you sure? The evening was early when you left.”

“I did go there, but I did not say so. It happens I stopped for a tankard and some supper on my way home. All my former drinking companions being dead, and my current associates being less than eager to drink with me, it was a short visit and I left early to make my way up Bank Side to my rooms.”

Suzanne nodded, wondering whether Ramsay was telling the truth, or if his involvement with Angus, Santiago, and Larchford went deeper than he was saying.

*

“D
ANIEL,
I would ask a favor of you.” Suzanne was escorting him to his coach the following morning just after he’d finished his business with Piers and the theatre’s accounts, and just before rehearsal would begin that day. Lately she’d noticed he handled his affairs regarding the theatre more personally than someone of his stature might, and she’d also noticed he spent a great deal of time chatting with Piers of things other than business. Over the previous months his conversations with his son had been short and not so sweet, but lately the two seemed thick as thieves, their heads together in low voices. She hoped it was a good sign, but feared it was only their dislike of Ramsay that had brought them together.

Daniel replied, “What might I do for you?” The
this time
went unsaid. It was his guarded, neutral tone, the one he used when he knew she was about to ask for something outrageous, such as the five hundred and fifty pounds she’d first requested to buy the theatre.

“Nothing terribly much. I wonder whether you might be able to invite your friend one night to come see
Mac
. . . the Scottish play. Tonight would be good, but tomorrow would be sufficiently soon.”

“Which friend?”

“The one just back from Edinburgh. The fellow you said was all aflutter over the faux Gordon who disappeared with some well-known but not terribly well-guarded jewelry.”

“Ah. Robert. Why ever do you want him to see the play?”

“Not the play. Ramsay. I want him to have a look at Ramsay and tell us definitively whether he’s the thief.”

“What did he do that convinced you?”

“I’m not convinced. That’s why I wish your friend to see his face. If he tells us that Ramsay is the fellow who stole all that jewelry . . .”

“Then what?”

Hm
. What would she do if Robert said he’d seen Ramsay in Edinburgh? Would she then suspect him of also murdering Larchford? Of course not. One had nothing to do with the other. But it certainly would speak to his character if she knew. And it would be nice if Robert said he was not the thief, and that particular shadow would be gone from Ramsay’s reputation. “I simply would like him to come see our Diarmid and settle the issue once and for all.”

Daniel nodded. “Very well, and gladly. But if I’m any judge of character, you’ll do well to have your friend Constable Pepper and some redcoats or palace pikemen handy when Robert identifies him.”

“We’ll see.” Suzanne hoped strongly that Daniel’s friend would not recognize Ramsay.

Daniel didn’t bring Robert that evening, pleading a prior engagement. Suzanne assumed his wife must be complaining about the amount of time he spent at the theatre. She was a sweet woman, and though Anne had never caught on to the former relationship between Suzanne and Daniel, Suzanne thought her intelligent. Anne had never met Piers, and never would if Daniel had his way, for everyone who met Piers guessed the young man’s parentage immediately. So, to keep his home life on an even keel, Daniel stayed away from the theatre that night.

The performance of
Macbeth
went better than the night before, its only flaw the subdued energy of the cast, who seemed to anticipate trouble. At the last bow the cast relaxed in relief that nothing bad had happened this time.

Suzanne went directly to her bedchamber, locked the door, and stepped up into her desk alcove with the packet of letters she had found in Larchford’s house. There were enough pages to keep her occupied for a good many hours, and she’d instructed Sheila that she not be disturbed. Her pulse picked up as she untied the ribbon.

S
traightaway she laid out the code key she’d written when she’d decoded the letter found on Larchford’s body. She untied the ribbon binding the letters and set it aside, then unfolded the first note, which was several pages long. Block after block of gibberish, some Roman letters punctuated by Greek letters and some symbols. Plainly it was the same code as was used in the first letter. She began writing it out according to the key.

But at the first word she could see the key she was using was not correct. The result was just as much gibberish as the original. Suzanne laid her ink-stained hands in her lap and stared, disappointed. She was going to have to do all the laborious guesswork over again to find the key for this note. She looked at the stack of messages and sighed. It would take a very long time if all these messages had a unique key.

But if the letters used different keys, how did Larchford know which to use for decoding? There must be thousands of possible arrangements of the twenty-six letters. And if any of the solutions allowed any of the symbols to be used as letters instead of spaces, the possible solutions increased exponentially.

Suzanne sighed and looked at the stack of letters to be decoded. Then she gazed at her worthless code key and uttered a curse that would have sent Horatio running from the room for fear of being hit by a lightning bolt.

Then she noticed that all the letters in her key were in order, but only offset by a few letters. The letters on the right started at O, ran through Z, then began at A again to finish at N. In the code alphabet, A was the thirteenth letter. The first message, the one from Larchford to Santiago, had the number 13 written at the bottom, as if it were a page number.

Definitely not a page number. The message Suzanne had open before her had a number on only the first page, scribbled in the upper left corner, and it was 20. Breathless with discovery, she wrote that alphabet beside the other two. A became T, B became U, and so on. Then she applied this solution to the message at hand, and words began to appear.

My lord.

Excitement shook Suzanne and made her fingers slippery. It was a letter to Larchford. She guessed from Santiago but she couldn’t be sure until she decoded it. As she worked, it became plain by the clumsy English and word syntax that the writer was at least a foreigner and probably Spanish. And as she worked she learned a great deal about Larchford’s business with Spanish pirates, whichever ones they might be. When she finished decoding the message, she reread it, agog at what she’d found.

My lord.

You will be pleased your ship has made its first conquest, off the coast of Gibraltar, of the English king’s ship Merryman. Her crew did well fought, and the guns you have equipped your ship has destroyed the rigging the other ship until she did adrift in the sea. Only the rigging were destroyed, and we did not sink her. We aboarded her and took every cargo and the very ship. Her crew was set loose in long boats and enough food and water they could make her to Espania. We have sold Merryman and her cargo. I send your share of the resulting gold in London soon.

There followed several pages describing the cargo, including raw sugar, finished goods from Italy, French wine, and a great many assorted textiles. Then there was an accounting of the sale of those goods and the ship itself. The final page was a bit of bragging about the sea battle that had been fought and how skilled the earl’s ship’s crew was in the fight, particularly the writer of the letter. To read it, one would think Santiago was the bravest and most skilled sea captain ever to put to sail. Suzanne suspected his conquest of
Merryman
had been his first and he thought all ships would be as easy to take. It was the sort of overconfidence she might expect in someone who would try to blackmail a man who carried a knife and then not beware of attack. The thing was signed “Santiago” and Suzanne took that to be Diego Santiago. The writer might have been another Santiago, but she doubted it.

Subsequent messages revealed that the captain of the pirate ship had become restless and dissatisfied with the size of his share of the booty in each successful raid. One of the latter letters said in no uncertain terms that there would be trouble if Larchford didn’t let the ship’s crew keep more of the proceeds. Santiago cited the standard of the privateers in the Caribbean, who by this statement were given a much larger share than what Larchford allowed.

The final message spoke of an attack on a Scottish ship departed from Glasgow, carrying raw wool and whisky. Most of the victim’s crew was reported killed in the battle. Santiago threatened Larchford with exposure. His pirates were preying on British ships as well as French galleys and Spanish galleons. This amounted to treason, which would put Larchford in the Tower for a very short time before he would be hung, drawn and quartered as a traitor.

Suzanne knew Larchford’s reply to that threat. She had it on her desk. Plainly he hadn’t reacted to it the way Santiago had hoped. She sat back in her chair and thought through the scenario. Santiago had come to London shortly before he was killed. None of the messages were dated, but she could surmise that the one from Larchford to Santiago had been sent shortly before Santiago’s death. Though there were no further messages after this one, Suzanne guessed that when it had arrived Santiago then made his way up the Thames. Possibly even in the very ship he’d captained, if—as indicated by the first message—Larchford owned it and it could reasonably fly the English flag and show papers of English ownership when boarded by authorities. The stolen cargo would have been sold long before, and the hold would contain nothing but an innocuous, legitimate, low-worth cargo for ballast. Perhaps containing nothing at all. If bringing Larchford’s ship up the Thames was too risky, then Santiago would still have been able to reach London somehow, either finding personal transport up the Thames or overland from Portsmouth. In any case, he’d obviously managed to reach London one way or another, for his body had been found here and was now buried in a public grave.

What had he done once he’d arrived?

She knew he’d come with some whisky, which he’d sold to Ramsay then tried to extort more money for it. Perhaps the barrels had been intended for Angus, but they had ended up with the other Scot. It was possible Ramsay had been involved with the pirate ship itself, but none of the letters mentioned him or Angus. She took that as a sign they were both nothing more than buyers of Santiago’s swag and Ramsay may not have even been known by Larchford. Except for the blood on Larchford’s dagger and shoes, Suzanne might not have thought he’d known Angus, either.

Could Santiago have been killed for selling the whisky behind Larchford’s back? Could that have also been why Angus was murdered? Then why was Ramsay still walking around? Had he killed Larchford in self-defense?

Suzanne shook her head. Possible, but not likely. There were far better and easier ways to settle such a dispute, and Larchford was far too dependent on his piracy income to go to that extreme over a few barrels of whisky. No, there must have been a more compelling reason for Larchford to have killed Santiago and Angus. She was certain he had killed them, but still didn’t know why he’d done it.

So when Santiago arrived in London, he’d contacted Larchford. How had he done that? Not by letter; there was no letter in Larchford’s bundle that appeared to have been written after Santiago’s arrival. Had the pirate captain accosted him somewhere? At the docks? At the Goat and Boar? Had the night of the murder of Santiago been Larchford’s first notice that Santiago had come?

That made sense. Santiago arrives in London, frequents the Goat and Boar, as evidenced by Arturo’s statement, until one night Larchford is there. He steps forward to press Larchford on the subject of money. There ensues an argument, Santiago renews his threat of exposure, and Larchford responds by killing his mutinous ship’s captain.

But then, why kill Angus? What did he have to do with Santiago that would cause Larchford to stalk him and kill him days later?

*

S
UZANNE
went to Pepper’s office to tell him what she’d found, and show him the decoded letters. By the time she arrived he was well into his brandy bottle, red-nosed, bleary-eyed, and fumbling of hand. He fingered the translations as he read, making humming noises, taking sips of brandy from his glass, and smacking his lips often. Suzanne sat in one of the chairs nearby and waited for him to finish. He was a slow reader.

Finally he set the last letter aside and said, “Well, this certainly explains much.”

“It rather suggests Larchford murdered Santiago. He also killed Angus, by the footprints in Angus’s room and the blood on Larchford’s shoes. Not to mention the several knife wounds on the victims.”

“Unfortunately, this doesn’t go very far toward revealing who killed Larchford, which is by far the more important question. Nobody cares a whit about the Spaniard or the Scot. I’m hard-pressed by the crown to learn who had the temerity to do away with English nobility.”

“Of course.” It was how the world worked. Some people were more important than others, and those who weren’t had to look after each other. She’d found Angus’s killer, and now wanted to know why Larchford had done it. She would also find the man who had bludgeoned the earl, because murder was murder and killing even a man who had killed two others in cold blood was wrong. But for the moment she had to pretend to agree that Larchford was more important than Angus. She said to Pepper, “It would be helpful to find out why Larchford killed Angus.”

Pepper shook his head, and had to straighten his wig after. “We need to find out why Larchford himself was murdered. Then, of course, we’ll find his killer.”

“If we knew why Angus was killed, we might have a better theory as to why Larchford was also done in, and who did it.”

Pepper thought about that, then said, “We need to have another chat with Lady Larchford.”

“What for?”

“To learn what we might about this ship of his. Tomorrow I’ll go with a contingent of soldiers once more, and sit down with—”

“Let me go. By myself.”

He gave her a sideways look of strained patience. “Let us remember how well you did the last time you spoke to the Lady Larchford by yourself.”

“I think she’s changed her attitude since then, Constable. You have demonstrated your power to get what you want in this case. She must realize now that resistance will only result in worse treatment. I think she’ll be far more cooperative than she was when I first spoke to her.” Suzanne skated around her real point, but never came out and said that Lady Larchford now saw Suzanne as an ally against him.

Pepper never caught on. He said, “You think so? Are you certain you can get the information you want without armed men present?”

“Absolutely, Constable. There’s no need to bother the king’s men again for this. The palace must weary of loaning you men for every little thing.”

Pepper took another sip of brandy, then nodded. “Very well. Do come see me if she ejects you from her house again.”

Suzanne nodded, but knew she would rather burn at the stake than ask Pepper for soldiers to harass Larchford’s widow.

It happened that when Suzanne arrived at the enormous house of Larchford, the lady was in and receiving visitors. At least, she was receiving Suzanne, and that seemed promising. If Suzanne was careful in her questioning, she might get the information she was after without upsetting the widow. She’d seen how quickly Lady Larchford would shut down a conversation if she became upset.

The footman escorted her into a small sitting room this time, rather more intimate than the one she’d first seen in this house. These chairs had arms and upholstery, and were situated near the hearth. There were fewer candles about the room, and though a bit of sunshine came through the tall windows, the corners were in shadow, making everything seem softer and a little more comfortable.

The countess entered without the wide, theatrical sweep of presence she’d employed before. Suzanne turned and curtsied, as graceful and respectful as any noblewoman would have her. The countess gestured to a chair for Suzanne to sit, and then took the one opposite. She said, “I suppose you’ve come to tell me what was in those letters.” More direct than customary for a woman of her culture. Suzanne had the feeling she was seeing the real Lady Larchford today, and not the public persona of before.

“In a way, my lady, I have. Though I can’t reveal at this time exactly what was in them, I can ease your mind that they are not letters from a mistress.” She left it at that, for Suzanne was certain she didn’t wish to let the woman know her husband was a murderer. Not only would that not accomplish anything, it might cause her to stop talking to Suzanne altogether. At their last meeting it was apparent the countess didn’t even know there had been other deaths in this business and it would probably be best to keep it that way.

“Treason, then?” Terror sharpened her voice.

Suzanne was at a loss for a reply, for surely at least one of the attacks Larchford’s ship had made would be called treason. Santiago and Larchford didn’t seem fussy about what they deemed prey, and the ship had attacked English, French, Spanish, and Dutch with equal enthusiasm. Her first foray had been against the king’s ship
Merryman
. Such a revelation, if made public, would be the end of the family’s reputation and the scandal would follow the current earl throughout his life. A charge of treason might result in the loss of his title and property as well. Suzanne said, “We don’t have all the necessary information to determine what happened, my lady. That’s why I’m here today, to learn what I can about it, and possibly head off any ugliness. Your son wouldn’t deserve to bear any stain that was not his doing.”