The Scottish Play Murder (9 page)

She again raised the hem of her cloak so it wouldn’t drag in the blood, and stepped close to the body. She hated to get blood on her shoes, but there was nothing for it if she wanted to see the body close up. Without touching it, for that would invite trouble from Angus’s spirit, she leaned close to peer at his throat exposed by his head thrown back. There appeared to be a purplish bruise near his left jaw, at the top of his throat. A single bruise, exactly the size and shape of a man’s thumb. She leaned to the other side, and found two more bruises just above Angus’s collar. Both very dark. It appeared someone had grabbed him by the throat while he was yet alive. Had the killer held him down to stab him? Or perhaps throttled him to unconsciousness before cutting him open? Throttled him to keep him silent while using the knife? No matter, really, since knowing that wouldn’t tell her who had done the deed. But it excited her curiosity, and somehow it seemed important to know exactly how the murder had happened.

Why it happened might also be helpful. Why Angus? Without a struggle? That didn’t seem very much like him. He was Scottish, after all, and surely would have defended himself if he could have. Suzanne turned to gaze thoughtfully at the door. The killer must have been someone Angus knew. There had been no fight, and no damage to the door. The killer had not broken in. The attack had been swift and quiet, for it had not attracted the attention of other tenants in the building. Not that noise would have been particularly unusual around here, but surely a cry of murder would have been noticed by someone, and would have been of keen interest to someone living nearby.

Now she stepped out of the puddle and returned her attention to the footprints that crossed to the trunk. They were small, and definite. These prints were not made by an assailant wearing common, cheap, flat-soled shoes like the ones on Angus’s own feet, and like the ones most men in the area wore. Each of these prints had a definite heel, and a high one by the shortness of the print. It appeared the print had been made by a woman’s shoe.

Whoever had made those prints had been interested in Angus’s trunk. Or the case on top of it. She opened the leather bag and found only its proper bagpipes inside. These were the large ones, which Angus called
mór
, the pipes of ebony and the bag made from the whole skin of a lamb. They were all the leather bag held. Even feeling around inside it told her nothing more than that Angus kept his instrument as tidy as he did his room.

Then she closed the bag and set it on the floor to see what was inside the trunk. It was unlocked, and indeed the lock seemed broken. She took a careful look at it, and found it well rusted. It plainly had been worthless for a very long time. She worked her fingers under the edge of the lid and lifted, but it wouldn’t come. With her left thumb she pressed the broken latch so it would open, then was able to lift the trunk lid. It came up with a squeal of aged hinges. Inside she found a stack of clothing, Angus’s other pipes—the little ones he called
beg
—and his small, flat drums and drumsticks. Nothing more. The small pipes were of ordinary oak and deer hide, and not worth nearly as much as the larger ones. She felt a little stupid, to have opened the trunk in hopes of learning what the murderer had been after. Plainly whatever it had been was now gone, for the trunk was so easily opened. Also, the killer surely knew exactly where to look for whatever it was, for there was no hesitation in the footprints left behind. Suzanne stared hard at the trunk’s interior, as if gazing at it for long enough would produce an image of what had been there and now was not. But nothing came to mind. The trunk held no secrets, and was nothing more than a repository for Angus’s possessions. Ones he no longer needed. She let down the lid as quietly as she could.

With a heavy sigh of frustration, she straightened and gazed back across the room at the body and the thumbprint on its neck. That thumb had not belonged to a woman. An average woman would not have been able to throttle a healthy man like Angus with one hand and stab him with the other, and never mind the brutally efficient gutting of him. She looked back at the shoe prints, and wondered whether there had been two murderers. Or perhaps someone had come after the murder, stepped into the puddle, then looted the trunk? But would a looter have set those valuable bagpipes back on top of the trunk after looking inside? Would a looter even have left the pipes behind? Also, if these prints belonged to a woman, where were the footprints that surely must have been left by the much stronger murderer? There were no marks on the floor other than this one set of prints. Furthermore, if the prints had been left by a woman, why were there no drag marks from cloak or skirt? With both hands occupied with killing Angus, surely those garments would have fallen in the spilled blood.

Now she stepped out into the hall again and gazed once more at the overall scene. She noted the set of her own prints she’d left on the floor, and that they were smaller and more delicate than the murderer’s prints. She was not a large woman, so it stood to reason her feet might be smaller than those belonging to someone who had just throttled and gutted a man. But now it seemed to her that the murderer’s prints were very much larger than her own. Large enough to belong to a man, if that man were wearing shoes with high heels. Fashionable shoes. It occurred to her that the murderer might have been someone of wealth and nobility.

Quietly Suzanne shut the door, then drew a deep breath before moving to the door next to Angus’s. There she raised a hand and knocked on it. And waited. There was a scuffing of feet inside, and a voice. It was a man. He sounded either elderly or habitually drunk, for his voice was a gravelly growl. “Who knocks?”

“My name is Suzanne Thornton, good fellow. I live nearby and I’m a friend of your neighbor. There’s been a murder, and I hope to ask some questions of you, if I may.”

“A murder? I didn’t do it.”

“Of course you didn’t do it. If I thought you had, I would have brought soldiers to detain you. However, I have not. I have come alone and only wish to gather information.”

The door opened a crack, and a single eye peeked out. “You’re alone?” A moment, then, “You’re a woman?”

Sharp eye on this one. She nodded. “You’ve nothing to fear from me.”

“Dunno. I’ve seen many a woman whose skill with a knife was passing fair.”

She held wide her cloak to demonstrate her lack of weapon. “See? Unarmed.”

The door opened and the man stood, agape at her outfit. Today beneath her cloak she wore her ordinary shirt, doublet, and breeches, but with fashionable tight leggings and high-heeled shoes appropriate for feminine wear. His head tilted like a bird eyeing a worm. “A woman, you say?”

“I find these more comfortable.”

“As you like it, I suppose.” He was not as old in appearance as he had sounded through the door, but old enough. His graying hair was a rat’s nest and he bore a rash of some sort along the right side of his neck that disappeared under his collarless linen shirt. He wore no doublet, and his long-tailed shirt hung outside his breeches. No tights nor leggings, and no shoes at all. His bare feet were filthy, and she suspected he didn’t own any shoes. But as for his age, he appeared as hale as if he were not much older than she.

“May I come in?”

“I’d sooner you didn’t.”

“Very well.” She gestured to the next door and said, “My friend has been murdered—”

The man leaned out to look, his eyes wide. “Angus? Angus, you say? He’s been murdered?”

“I’m afraid he has.”

The man’s jaw dropped, and his lower lip wobbled a little in shock. “Well, that’s a terrible shame, it is. Poor Angus. I liked him, I did. Him and his pipes. Devilish loud music, but it livened up the place on occasion. ’Sblood, I’ll be missing him!” He kept glancing toward Angus’s room, appearing to want to go look, but without the courage to do so.

“Were you here when it happened? Sometime this morning?”

His attention returned to Suzanne. “I’ve been here all day. Sleeping, mostly.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“I certainly did not. And I hope if I’d a-heered a murder I would have raised an alarm! I was sleeping, but I ain’t a heavy sleeper and I surely would have gone to help Angus had I known he was being killed!”

“Did you know he had a visitor?”

“Angus hardly ever had visitors. These rooms here is for sleeping and sometimes eating, and hardly for having company in. Angus never brought his tarts here, neither, so far as I noticed.”

“Would you have heard if someone had come this morning?”

“As I said, I was sleeping. Were I awake, I surely would have heard. It ain’t like these walls was brick.” He knocked on the wall next to his door to demonstrate how thin they were. “But asleep I can’t say what I would o’ heered.”

That was a disappointment. Had he heard a name or recognized a voice, she might have been able to ascertain what friend or enemy of Angus’s had come to visit. She asked, “Do you know of any visitors he’s had recently?”

The man shrugged. “How recently?”

Suzanne had no idea what she meant by that, not knowing what time frame might pertain. But she said, “Oh, I think perhaps the past month or so.”

“Oh, then. You see, there’s this one fellow I saw once a while back. But it might be too long ago to be the one you’re looking for. Very fancy, I say. A nobleman, even. The wealthiest I’ve ever seen in this building, at least.”

“You didn’t know who he was?”

The man shook his head. “No. But he certainly was a fancy one. All jewels and gold and such. He fair glittered when he passed the window over there and got all caught up in sunshine.” He pointed with his chin to the stairwell window at the back.

“Did you have a close look at him?”

“Not really, no. I minds my own business, I does. Mostly. He followed me up the stairs one day, then passed me once I’d reached my door and he went to Angus’s. ’Twas a mite creepy to be followed up three flights of stairs. That sort should keep to their own, I think, and not bother us commons.”

“Did Angus say the man’s name when he saw his visitor?”

“Poor Angus wasn’t home that day.” He looked over at the next door again and added, “Unlucky for him he was home today, eh?”

Suzanne nodded agreement. Also unlucky for her Angus’s neighbor never heard the name of the fancy-dressed visitor. “Thank you, good man, for answering my questions.”

“Right.” He looked over at Angus’s door as Suzanne moved off to the next door in the other direction, where she knocked and received an immediate answer from a woman standing just inside.

“Good morning to you, good woman,” said Suzanne. The neighbor she’d just spoken to stepped from his room and approached Angus’s door with some hesitation.

The woman said to Suzanne, “I heard you talking to Norman, there. You say Angus is dead?”

“I’m afraid he is.”

Tears leapt to the woman’s eyes. “Oh, poor Angus! Poor, poor Angus!” With that she burst from her doorway, shoved Suzanne out of her way, and scuffled down the hall toward Angus’s closed door. Norman was already there, cracking the door for a small peek, as if he were afraid he might catch Angus at an awkward moment. Then he swung the door wide so they both could see the body.

The woman cried out, “Oh, Angus! They’ve killed Angus!”

More doors opened down the hallway. “What did you say? Angus?”

“Oh! He’s been murdered!”

Tenants began to creep from their rooms. “Angus?”

“Oh! Angus is dead!”

A crowd gathered at Angus’s door, those at the back shoving in and those at the front shoving back, trying not to get too close to the body. Angus’s neighbors cried out their distress. Suzanne watched them gather. More of the curious came up the stairs from the lower floors, asking about the outcry. Suzanne, with a calmness she did not feel, slipped away down the stairs and walked from her friend’s violated body to return to the Globe. There she would summon Piers, who would notify Constable Pepper of the body, and Daniel, who might know what fashionable fellow might have something so terrible against Angus as to want him dead.

*

“’T
IS
that Ramsay fellow, I tell you.” Daniel stood by the door, still with his hat in hand as Sheila stood by to relieve him of it along with his gloves and sword.

“Daniel, be so kind as to show me the bottoms of your shoes, would you?” Suzanne sat on the sofa in her sitting room.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Humor me, if you please. Show me your soles.” She gestured to him that he should be quick about it.

Puzzled, Daniel lifted his shoes one by one and showed her his soles, then put them down.

“Thank you.”

Still puzzled, Daniel said, “You’re welcome, I suppose.”

Suzanne sat back on her pillows with her hands folded in her lap and said, “Don’t leap upon an assumption that Ramsay is guilty simply because the two of you are not bosom friends.”

“Of course not. Neither does my not liking him make him innocent.”

“Granted. In any case, do give over your hat and gloves to Sheila, and have a seat.”

Daniel absently complied, and sat on the sofa next to her. She turned toward him some, the better to keep him from laying his arm along the back of the sofa behind her neck. It was a favorite tactic of his to touch when touching was not welcome, for she was still not steeled against his too-casual advances, and so she liked to make them difficult for him. He said, leaning toward her in his insistence, “You must see the truth, that Ramsay has killed two men, one of them your friend.”

“Ramsay has killed nobody. The man who murdered Angus was a nobleman, and I’m willing to bet it was the same man who did in the Spanish pirate.”

“How do you think it wasn’t Ramsay?”

“Besides having spoken to a witness who saw a nobleman visit Angus recently, there were bloody footprints on his floor. They were footprints of fashionable shoes. I’m certain Ramsay wears Scottish brogues. Flat soles that are a single piece of leather. They’ve no heel at all.”

Daniel turned up the sole of one of his shoes to look at the bottom. “You think I killed Angus?”