The Curse of the Figure Flinger

a tale "translated" from Elizabethan English

by

Kathy Lynn Emerson

 

 

            Among the merchants of London in the year 1585—a year heralded by prophesies of doom on a scale not seen since old King Henry died—there lived a wadwife who called herself Mistress Fitt. I doubt it was her real name any more than Dame Starkey, the one I go by, is mine. Reputed to be a rich man’s widow, she used her inheritance to become more wealthy still. Through connivance, she loaned out money at a rate forbidden by law. Some would say she reaped the reward she deserved.

            In other words, one fine spring day she was murdered.

            Now the law of England is a peculiar entity. At times it works, but at others . . . well, then there is a need to find out the truth by other means.

            I am a figure flinger. For most of the sixty years I have been on this earth, I have made my living finding lost objects and charting the future in the stars. In truth, those are no more than clever tricks learned at my father's knee. If I'd been an able prognosticator I would have seen the constable coming in time to avoid both him and his questions.

            Caught in my garret chamber, I assumed I was being sued . . . again. Londoners go to court at the drop of a hat. If flight would not serve, I reasoned, a bribe would have to do to keep me from arrest. I grimaced at the thought, but there seemed no help for it. When Constable Timmons, a bold youth with a shock of yellow hair, asked when I'd last seen Mistress Fitt, I made the mistake of assuming he asked because she'd brought suit against me for fraud.

            "Yester e'en," I replied, honest for a change.

            "When you cursed her soundly and threatened her with bodily harm if she pursued her charges against you?"

            Foolish enough to grin at the memory, I nodded. There had been other shouting matches between us and I anticipated there would be more. Penelope Fitt had always been a most disagreeable person.

            "Dame Starkey," the constable said, "you must come with me."

            "Now, Timmons. I have no time for this. Go back and tell Mistress Fitt I will draw up a new horoscope to replace the one she does not like." I was reaching into my purse for something to encourage his cooperation when he laid hands on me.

            "You are under arrest for murder, Dame Starkey. Mistress Fitt is dead."

* * *

            London’s gaols are none of them pleasant. I'd been in Ludgate before, for debt, but felons are taken to Newgate, the worst of the lot. All that saved me from being thrown in the darkest, deepest hole in the place, a dungeon called "the Limboes" that is lit only by a single candle set on a black stone, is the fact that I am a woman. Female prisoners at Newgate are kept in a single stone tower.

            A generous bribe assured me of a private cell with a bedstead, warm blankets, and a charcoal brazier—it is cold even in spring behind the stone walls of a prison. Once I'd paid for these "luxuries" and for food to be brought on a regular basis, the heavy door slammed shut with a solid thunk and the key rasped in the lock, leaving me alone with my whirling thoughts.

            The prognosis was not good. I did not have unlimited funds. I'd already had to pay an exorbitant admission fee in addition to the rental and expenses for this "special apartment." I'd also given the keeper £5 for "exemption from ironing." Well worth it, I suppose. Otherwise manacles at my wrists, or fetters or shackles on my ankles, or perhaps an iron collar around my neck, would be chained to the ring in the middle of my floor.

            I anticipated daily expenses would continue to mount as long as I was held in Newgate. I'd even be charged a fee for washing water. That commodity flowed freely into the prison through leaden pipes, but the person who brought it to my cell would have to be paid.

            When my money ran out, I'd be sent to the common side. There I'd still have to find a way to buy food. In addition, the prisoners themselves collect garnish to finance the occasional evening of drunken debauchery. Those who refuse to donate to the cause have been known to end up naked and shivering, their very clothes confiscated to make up for their lack of contribution.

            It did not take me long to reach a conclusion—I needs must discover who killed Mistress Fitt. The only other way out of this place required doing the hempen jig at Tyburn.

            After some thought, I sent a carefully worded note, containing just the hint of a threat, to someone who owed me a very great favor.

* * *

            Nicholas Baldwin, prosperous merchant of London, stormed into my cell just as I was about to partake of a simple repast, exorbitantly priced, consisting of rye bread, porridge, and cheese.

            "I see, Griselda," he said, "that you have at last met the fate you so richly deserve."

            I winced at his use of my real name. I hadn't thought of myself as Griselda Ferrers in years. "Good day to you, Nick. So kind of you to visit."

            In the twelve years we'd known each other, Nick had never approved of the way I earn my living, but that he'd turned up at all meant he intended to help me. Otherwise, he'd have ignored my letter and left me to rot.

            In a cause as good as saving my own skin, I was willing to endure a certain amount of preaching. I continued to munch on the bread as he surveyed my cell. All the luxury I'd paid for was revealed by candles a cellarman sold for twice what they cost outside Newgate.

            "I suppose you want money," Nick said when he'd completed his inspection.

            His nose wrinkled in distaste as he spoke. Small wonder! The two large angular stone towers of the old Roman gate at Newgate straddle a broad market street that is dominated, just inside the city walls, by the Shambles. This long row of butchers' stalls extending toward Cheap accounts for Newgate's nickname, "the Stink," and for the pervasive odor that infects the entire prison.

            "I can earn my own coin," I snapped. "There's always some fool ready to pay for a glimpse of his future, even in prison."

            He snorted. "How long will that last? You're trapped here. If someone decides you're a fraud, if your prediction doesn't turn out the way you promised, your victim will know right where to find you."

            "I suppose you think there's poetic justice in that?"

            "Delicious irony at the least," he replied. "I have been told it was because of a horoscope you devised for Mistress Fitt that she intended to take you to court."

            "She claimed the prognostication was all untrue."

            "And that's the reason the authorities think you killed her?"

            I took heart from his choice of words. "There's more," I admitted. "I confronted her. Cursed her, in fact. And naturally insisted, in a loud and carrying voice, that every word in her star chart was gospel."

            "And so you were arrested for her murder when she turned up dead the next morning."

            "It seems I was the last person to see her alive, saving only the one who killed her."

            "Not you?"

            "No. Not I. I do not even know how she died, since I was not present at the inquest."

            "She was drowned," Nick said.

            I could not contain my surprise, and it was that reaction, I do think, that convinced him I was innocent.

            "Someone pushed her face into a basin of water and held it there."

            I shuddered and muttered, "I knew this was not destined to be a good year."

            There had been that partial eclipse on the 19^th—the day before I quarreled with Mistress Fitt. Now that was a warning of disaster I should have heeded, even if I'd chosen to discount the malevolent conjunctions shown by the planets and the disturbing signs revealed by the moon.

            Nick sat down beside me on the low camp bed. "Easter term begins in less than a week. They'll try you at the Sessions House in Old Bailey Street."

            "I know." The quarter sessions were held hard by Newgate, convenient for transporting prisoners.

            "Trial to execution is generally only a matter of days, and it is a rare trial indeed that lasts more than a quarter of an hour."

            "If I could just get out of this place, I am certain I could discover who really did kill Mistress Fitt. It was likely one of her clients, someone who defaulted on a loan, or was about to."

            After a long, contemplative silence, he said, "There is one way you can leave Newgate. The authorities will let you out on furlough, so long as you pay the wages of a guard."

            "More expenses," I grumbled.

            Nick almost smiled. "And not yet the end of them. Even if you manage to prove your innocence, you will have to return to Newgate to await the grace of the Queen. Another two months may pass before a royal pardon arrives. And then, to add insult to injury, you'll be charged a release fee."

            "Only if I'm alive to pay it."

            "At least there's no lawyer involved. None is permitted in a criminal case."

            "Small mercy," I agreed. Even moneylenders and fortune tellers, in my experience, are more honest than the average man of law.

* * * 

            Nick went off to speak to the keeper of Newgate. When he returned a few hours later, he was accompanied by a man of about my own years. This fellow, Bates by name, was short and brick-shaped, but he had the biggest head I'd ever seen on a man. An unkempt gray beard and lank hair cut just below his ears exaggerated its size and only partly concealed the pockmarks that mottled an otherwise plain face. Dark, deep-set eyes regarded me with a blank stare.

            "You're not allowed to leave London," he said.

            "Why would anyone want to?" I replied. I'd been born within the sound of Bow-bell and had never felt any desire to travel farther beyond the city walls than Westminster or Southwark.

            Bates slanted his eyes toward Nick. "Had a prisoner once who went all the way to Lancashire on her furlough," he said. "Turned out she was innocent, though."

            "As I am," I assured him.

            "So say they all."

* * *

            The stench of the Shambles and a profusion of sights and sounds engulfed us the moment we left Newgate.

            "Ass's milk! Two shillings a pint!" a boy cried, offering up his product for inspection.

            A porter with a trunk on his back pushed past without apology, nearly shoving me into the path of a lady carried in a chair. For a moment, she looked alarmed, but she was quickly transported out of harm's way by her two sturdy chairmen. There were horses in the street as well, and a few coaches. These awkward vehicles had proliferated in the past few years to the point of causing traffic jams on the narrower thoroughfares.

            I reveled in every bit of the confusion, delighted to be free again.

            "It is clear you do not intend to return to your lodgings just yet," Nick remarked when we'd passed several streets leading toward the Thames without turning south. "What is your plan?"

            "Penelope Fitt did business through an agent," I told him. "One Hornsby. He styles himself a scrivener." He'd arranged loans for her, drawn up the bonds, and shared in the profits.

            As we walked, I thought over what I knew of Mistress Fitt's sharp practices. By law, interest on loans is limited to 10% per annum. A typical bond for £100 might say that the borrower would pay the lender's agent £105 in six months time. Mistress Fitt got around the law by falsifying the amount of the loan. Her bond would say the borrower owed £200, and therefore twice as much in interest. It was naught but a convenient fiction . . . as long as the borrower repaid the £100, with interest, within six months. If he defaulted on the loan, the bond became enforceable . . . for the higher amount. Mistress Fitt had never hesitated to proceed against such deadbeats at the common law, or to settle out of court when she got a good offer. She'd made an excellent living from penalties alone.

            Such a one as she made enemies.

            One of them must have killed her.

            We walked as far as the city cross while I was ruminating. It is a small, highly decorated stone tower set upon stone steps. A few years back, religious vandals destroyed the lower figures, sculptured scenes from the life of Christ. They even removed the Christ child from His mother's arms.

            "The bonding of borrowers to lenders is a flourishing business in London," I said, "and the center of the industry is that church." I gestured toward an impressive edifice on the south side of Cheap, bracketed by Hosier Lane and Cordwainer Street. Just beyond stood the Conduit, surrounded by groceries and apothecary shops. I fancied I could smell the spices even this far away.

            Nick stood aside to let pass two water carriers burdened by wooden containers that looked like more like butter churns than barrels. Then he bade me farewell and God speed. As he walked away, bound for his lodgings and warehouse in Billingsgate, I almost called him back. The Court of Common Pleas would have records if Mistress Fitt had begun litigation against someone who'd defaulted on a loan. They'd need bribing to release information on civil suits arising from non-payment of debts.

            With a sigh, I let him go. Nick had already done more than I'd expected on my behalf. The last thing I wanted was to feel indebted to him.

            So, I was on my own . . . except for Bates. I gave my warder a baleful look. I did not need to consult the stars to predict he would be more hindrance to me than help.

* * *

            The vaults beneath St. Mary Le Bow have long been the principal meeting place for brokers, moneylenders' agents, and clerks who specialize in drawing up bonds. It was no great feat to locate my quarry there. Hornsby wanted borrowers to find him and made himself easy to spot by wearing a brightly colored doublet and a bonnet with a large, drooping feather. He'd just finished signing papers with a nervous little man in country clothes when I accosted him.

            "There you are, Hornsby," I declared in a loud, carrying voice. "Just as I foresaw!"

            He turned, a cheerful smile on his cherubic face. It faltered only slightly when he recognized me. The bushy brows over his bright blue eyes lifted in an unspoken question. Since he had been Mistress Fitt's tenant as well as her agent, he'd undoubtedly heard I had been arrested for her murder.

            "I have read the stars," I informed him, "and they told me to come to you for answers."

            His normally ruddy complexion paled a bit at that but he recovered himself with alacrity. "What can I do to serve you, Dame Starkey?"

             "You can help me find the real culprit before they hang me for something I did not do. I need names—all those who defaulted on loans from Mistress Fitt and were about to be sued, and all those from whom she cozened larger penalties than she ought to have been due."

            "You think one of them killed her?"

            "Have you any better suggestion?" I gave him the look I'd practiced on countless clients, the one that convinced them I could unleash the dark forces of the occult should I choose to do so.

            Hornsby lost no time taking me aside, into a secluded area in the crypt of St. Mary Le Bow where we were not likely to be overheard. His account of Mistress Fitt's recent business dealings yielded two names worth investigating.

            Weems the weaver had defaulted on a loan of five pounds. I knew him. He had a quick temper and a chronic shortage of funds.

            Then there was Mistress Gamage of Soper Lane, who apparently had a problem with gambling. She had failed to repay the somewhat greater sum of seventy-five pounds. If Mistress Fitt had sued, Master Gamage would have learned what his wife had been up to. He had, Hornsby told me, a reputation as a pinch penny.

            "No one else?"

            "No one. And chances are Mistress Gamage would have repaid before the case came to court. She always has before. I fear, dear madam, that you were the only one who threatened Mistress Fitt. I heard you myself, cursing her. Some might say the curse of a figure flinger alone is enough to kill."

            "Faugh! I am no witch, Hornsby. And you know full well I left her hale and hearty."

             Bates cleared his throat. I had almost forgot he was there, but when he spoke, I found myself regarding him with new interest.

            "It was you that found her was it not?" he asked Hornsby. "Being her tenant. And you that told the coroner about the curse?"

            One look at Hornsby's face was answer enough. "Villain!" I cried, rounding on him. "How dare you accuse me of such a heinous crime?"

            "I made no accusation," he babbled. "I meant you no harm! I did but tell them what I knew."

            I conquered a compelling urge to strike him and settled for the most formidable glower I could produce. When he once again seemed suitably cowed, I peppered him with more questions. By the time I was done, he'd not only provided me with every detail he could remember of his discovery of Mistress Fitt's body, but had also agreed to let me search her house. She had left everything she owned to endow the grammar school associated with St. Mary Le Bow, but Hornsby was executor of her will.

            "Well," I said to Bates as we set off for  St. Helen's, Bishopgate, where Mistress Fitt had lived for many years, "that went well."

            "I wonder why he was so cooperative?"

            "He's afraid of me.  Some people do fear fortune tellers. At times, 'tis passing convenient."

            That reminded me that I'd intended to give Bates the slip once I got out of Newgate. So far, he'd stuck to me like a burr.

            "My father was an astrologer," I said. Not a very good one, but I saw no reason to add that, or to tell him that my mother, a gentlewoman, had abandoned us when I was a baby. "I learned my craft at his knee. This is a bad year for any man who has journeys to make by land or water. Violence frowns upon travelers." That came straight from Master Porter's almanac.

            "Good reason to stay in London," Bates said.

            "Even a short journey of a few streets can be dangerous," I intoned. "Where do you lodge, Bates?"

            "I rent a room from Mistress Clover in Cow Lane."

            I permitted myself a small smile. Cow Lane was located in Faringdon Without, a ward on the west side of Smithfield. It was hard by Newgate but a goodly walk from my abode.

            "I'll not be returning there until you are back in prison," Bates added.

            "Do you mean to tell me I must house and feed you as well as pay your wages?"

            Bates gave a negligent shrug. "That is what Nicholas Baldwin agreed to on your behalf."

            "Pestilence and pestilent fevers will sweep cities and scour towns," I sputtered, too indignant to make sense.

            "Perhaps they will," Bates said with equanimity, "but that does not change my duty."

            I narrowed my eyes at him. "I do not suppose you suffer from the French Pox?"

            Bates grinned, showing a great many big yellow teeth. "I am prodigious healthy and always have been. And particular what females I sport with."

            Master Lloyd's almanac, which supported all the claims in Porter's, additionally warned that this would be a bad year for those with venereal diseases. No help there, it seemed. Also in danger were effeminate men. Certes, Bates did not fit into that category! Now that I looked more closely at him, I saw that, for his age, he was a fine figure of a man.       

            "I give up," I muttered as we reached Mistress Fitt's house. "For my sins, it seems I am to be cursed with your company." Touching my throat and imagining a noose cutting into it, I could only hope it was not to be for the rest of my life.

* * *

            The key Hornsby had given me fit smoothly into the lock and we entered the quiet screens passage. The servants had been let go since Mistress Fitt's death and only her cat remained to greet us. A large, surly, gray and white striped beast, he made a brief appearance, then vanished.

            I gave the rooms on the lower floor only a cursory examination. Over the years the furnishings had changed, becoming more costly and more comfortable, but otherwise little had altered since the first time I'd visited these premises to pledge my best cloak in return for a loan.

            I'd heard of Mistress Fitt by word of mouth and approached her privately. No agent had been involved. That is done sometimes among women, but is not always wise. Such private loans lack the protection of law.

            The line between pawnbroker and moneylender is exceeding thin. Mrs. Fitt acted as both, as it suited her. Knowing that, although I meant to pursue the two names Hornsby had given me, I also wanted another look at something I'd noticed on my last visit, just before that fatal final quarrel.

            A  woman's gown of cloth of silver had been laid out in Mrs. Fitt's private chamber. When I'd remarked upon the workmanship and cost of the garment, she'd boasted that someone had just borrowed £600 from her, pledging not only the gown but a number of pieces of good jewelry. She'd shown me pearl and gold garnishings—earrings good for 500 marks for themselves alone.

            The gown had not been moved. Nor had anyone bothered to clean up the mess where Mistress Fitt had died. That stopped me for a moment. I could envision all too clearly her final struggles as someone held her face in that basin of water. She'd been a small woman, half my size. It would not have taken great strength to kill her, only cold-blooded determination.

            The basin, Hornsby had said, had fallen next to her. Her face and hair had been soaked.

            Squaring my shoulders, I set about searching the chamber for records of transactions. Penelope Fitt had been the sort to keep written accounts. She'd hide them, I thought, but in an easily accessible spot.

            First I looked under the featherbed. Then I tried to find an uneven floorboard. Finally I surveyed the wainscotted walls hung with tapestry. I located the hidden panel behind the first hanging I lifted. It opened at a touch and proved to be stuffed full of record books. I removed only the one on top, the most recent.

            Bates came to look over my shoulder when I opened it. "That does not look like regular writing," he observed.

            I glanced at him, guessing from his expression that he could not read. It would not have done him any good if he had he possessed that skill. The records were in code.

            Fortunately, I am familiar with all the tricks of secret writing. My father employed many codes and ciphers. Indeed, half the art of casting a horoscope is in using archaic symbols. I handed the volume to Bates.

            "Make yourself useful. If you must follow me everywhere, carry this."

            "Carry it where?"

            "I am going home," I told him. "We'll decipher it there."

            I expected some protest at this blatant theft, since he was an officer of the law, but Bates simply tucked the volume under his arm and opened the door for me.

            I hesitated, looking back. Had anything else changed since my last visit to this room? Slowly I circled the chamber, eyeing the bed, the dress, and the plain wooden box containing the rest of the pledge. I opened the latter and examined the contents—two great gold pieces and some gold buttons . . . but no earrings.

* * *

            I live in a garret and have done for more than a dozen years. The premises, located in Bread Street just beyond the turn into Five Foot Lane, are broken into three tenements. Two are divided vertically so that both the compass maker and the pulley maker have a shop on the first floor with a parlor and kitchen behind and two chambers on the first floor. My garret, reached by a stair alongside a compass-maker's shop, is the third lodging. It is a good location, save for its proximity to the fish wharf.

            My front room is designed to give my clients what they expect. Black cloth covers the windows in the dormers so that there is no light in the room but what comes from a single candle and the coals glowing in the brazier. The furnishings consist of a large, black, curved-top storage chest and a long table covered with charts and the instruments for making them. Scattered about are rolls of parchment tied with velvet ribbon, an irregularly shaped black stone I use as a paperweight, a crystal ball, and several packs of colorfully painted cards.

            The long academic robe that belonged to my father hangs on a peg in the corner. When I wear it with the hood pulled up to hide my face, it gives me an added aura of mystery, but for the most part I dress like any other female of the merchant class, in fabrics and fashions as rich and new as I can afford.

            Bates's expression of distaste at the sight of my outer chamber changed to approval as soon as he entered the second room. There, where I live, light and color abound. I possess a fine, high, comfortable bed and even have a mirror.

            I glanced into it as I passed and frowned. I do not see myself as that stout woman of indeterminate age. In my mind I am still a slender, healthy eighteen, ready to take on the world. I needed that self-confidence just then. Bates's very presence was a constant reminder of the dire fate that awaited me if I did not succeed in my quest to find Penelope Fitt's killer.

            "I will go to a cookshop and buy two set meals," Bates offered, "if you will promise not to disappear while I'm gone."

            I blinked at him in surprise. "You'd trust my word?"

            He thought about it for a moment. "I trust your desire to clear your name. For that you must stay in London."

            "Be off with you then. I'll study Mistress Fitt's record book while you're gone."

            I tried every cipher I knew, but none revealed any comprehensible text. I began to have the very bad feeling that this was the sort of code that depended upon a key.

            "Why did the moneylender go to so much trouble?" Bates asked when he returned with ale, two meat pies, and a wedge of cheese.

            It was a good question. A pity I had no answer.

            We went to bed unsatisfied, I in my fine high bed and Bates on the floor of the outer room. I did not sleep well. Thoughts of what would happen to me if I did not find the real murderer kept me from my rest. When I did doze, I dreamed I was being prodded up the steps of a ladder, a noose around my neck. Once I reached the top, I was expected to jump off, hanging myself. If I did not, I'd be "turned off" by the executioner. What a choice!

            In my nightmare, I was having none of it. I reversed direction, backing down the ladder until I stood on firm ground again and turned to face the hangman. I stared hard at him, trying to see who was behind the mask, but only the eyes showed. There was something familiar about them, but what?

            I awoke disoriented and wondering if I had gone about everything backwards. I reached for the record book, said a brief prayer, and tried out the new theory I'd just formulated.

            Read from right to left, every word Mistress Fitt had written backwards made sense. Simple, yes, but until I thought of it, a ruse that had successfully hidden the identity of the woman who'd pawned her gown and earrings.

* * *

            Lady Dorothy lived in a grand London house when she was not at Queen Elizabeth's court. This mansion was only a short distance from Mistress Fitt's abode. As soon as it was late enough to pay a call, Bates and I made our way there and requested an audience. I was not surprised when we were at once ushered into a private parlor. I knew Lady Dorothy. Her last consultation with me, more than a year earlier, had been to inquire whether or not her husband would survive a sea journey. She'd seemed not at all loath to embrace widowhood, but my prognostication had been for a safe voyage and his eventual return, which had proved to be the case.

            Gossip is a wonderful source of information. I've used it for years in formulating my predictions. I knew that Lady Dorothy was married to a very wealthy man who kept her on a short leash. Whether he knew she was addicted to wagering was anyone's guess. It was a common enough problem, witness the merchant's wife Hornsby had said Mistress Fitt was about to sue.

            "I did not send for you," Lady Dorothy greeted me. "What do you want?"

            "To ask you about your arrangement with Mistress Fitt."

            The noblewoman's face went whiter than the powder she'd used.

            "The pearl and gold garnishings are missing. Is that why you killed her? To get them back?" With Bates beside me, I felt safe making the bold accusation. It was my theory that the earrings had not been Lady Dorothy's to dispose of. Desperate to retrieve them, she'd paid a late night visit to the moneylender's house. When Mistress Fitt would not part with them, she'd taken them by force, and murdered the wadwife to cover up her crime.

            Lady Dorothy's eyes had widened at my accusation. Speechless at first, she now began to sputter in indignation. "Nonsense. Arrant nonsense! If I'd done a thing so mad, do you not think I'd have taken back the rest of my possessions as well?"

            She had a point. I sighed and conceded it. "Ah, well. 'Twas worth a try."

            "How do you know my earrings are missing?" Lady Dorothy demanded.

            "I searched Mistress Fitt's rooms, and I saw her record book."

            "She kept records?" Lady Dorothy looked as if she'd just bitten into a sour grape.

            "Aye. I'll destroy them if you like."

            While we negotiated my fee for this service, a part of my mind continued to work on the matter of the missing earrings. Had Mistress Fitt surprised a thief in the middle of a robbery? That might explain why she'd been killed, but not the manner of her death. A common thief would have struck her and fled, or mayhap stabbed her. Or snapped her neck. But drowning? I could not picture it.

* * *

            Bates and I went next to visit the two people Hornsby had named. Either they were both accomplished liars or neither knew anything about Mistress Fitt's murder. Weems the weaver claimed he'd had the money to repay his loan and his wife swore he'd never left her side the night of the murder. Mistress Gamage said she'd already confessed to her husband and been forgiven. He'd promised to make good her debt. When confronted, he confirmed her story.

            "St. Winifred's wimple," I muttered as we left Soper Lane. "At this rate I'll be dead in a fortnight."

            "Talk to Hornsby again," Bates suggested.

            "Why are you so helpful?" For some reason, his sympathy irritated me.

            "I like you, Dame Starkey." He blushed as he said it.

            At a loss how to react to that, I kept walking, and my steps took me once again toward Mistress Fitt's house. "Hornsby was cooperative yesterday," I murmured.

            Of a sudden, I wondered why.

            "He found the body," Bates remarked in an undertone.

            My steps faltered. Had Hornsby been in the house when she was murdered?

            Had he murdered her?

            "If he killed her, why help me?"

            "Why not?" Bates countered as we resumed walking. "You have only a few days of freedom. Then you'll no longer be a threat to anyone. Why not send you off in the wrong direction? He gave you the names of clients who'd defaulted on their loans and were about to be sued. Clients who had nothing to do with Mistress Fitt's death."

            I had difficulty imagining Hornsby turning on his long-time employer. He'd profited mightily from his association with her.

            "How did he know she died by drowning?" Bates asked.

            "Wet face and hair. So he said. But all that means is that he found her soon after she died." A spark of hope ignited as I turned to Bates. "When did Hornsby call in the watch? Is there any way you can find out? If her face and hair were still wet and it was morning, then I could not have killed her. Our quarrel was the previous evening."

            "The local constable will not be hard to locate. I will find him and ask."  Bates glanced at the nearest building. "You stay here and search Hornsby's chamber."

            We had reached Mistress Fitt's house, and in my pocket I still had the key Hornsby had given me.

* * *

            The scrivener had a goodly chamber, large and airy and as well furnished as Mistress Fitt's. That the door had been locked had deterred me not at all. Another of the skills my father taught me was how to pick locks.

            I found the missing earrings within a quarter hour of starting my search. Hornsby was proved a thief. But was he also a murderer? Did he take the jewelry and kill to cover up his crime? Or did he kill first, then steal from the dead woman? Or, to be fair, did he simply palm the most valuable object in the room after he found his employer dead?

            Pondering the possibilities, I continued my search, turning up a veritable treasure trove of documents in a padlocked chest. I carried a handful to the window seat and made myself comfortable. It did not take long to realize two things. The first was that Mistress Fitt was not the only wadwife Hornsby had dealings with. The second was that he seemed to have kept bonds for a great many loans that had already come due. And been paid? The possibility intrigued me, for I well remembered something Mistress Fitt had recently complained of.

            For all her conniving ways, Penelope Fitt had some scruples. She did not rob her clients. She did but cheat them a little.

            What she'd told me was that one of her competitors had been accused of keeping bonds. When a borrower and his seconds sign such a document, the lender keeps possession of it, but only until the borrower pays his debt. This unscrupulous lender claimed to have lost a bond. A year later, when no one could quite recall the details of the loan, the bond turned up and the lender claimed the debt had never been repaid. The ensuing lawsuit demanded not only the original sum but also the penalty specified in the bond.

            Had Hornsby been a party to a similar scheme? If he had and Mistress Fitt had discovered it, she'd have been furious. She'd have threatened him with the loss of his position as her agent and possibly with jail.

            I realized I needed to get these papers to the authorities without further delay. Unfortunately, I also realized that I was no longer alone in the house. I heard a door slam and the sound of footfalls on the stairs, and then, before I could hide what I was reading, Hornsby himself appeared in the doorway.

            "What are you doing here?" Fury made his eyes glitter with a dangerous light. He rushed across the chamber and snatched the papers out of my grasp.

            The door, which had not latched behind him, swung partway open again. I caught sight of a flutter of movement on the far side. The possibility that it might be Bates, returning, brought me to my feet to face my foe. Voice steady, outward demeanor unruffled, I looked him right in the eyes and lied through my teeth.

            "Lady Dorothy wants her earrings back." I held the glittering baubles out, jiggling them to catch the light. "I agreed to search for them. No doubt you did but store them here for safekeeping. Did you find them when you discovered her body?"

            His anger faded, replaced by a calculating look.

            The door creaked open the rest of the way, making us both jump, but it was only Mrs. Fitt's striped cat. It stalked into the room, sneered at me, twitched its tail, and went out again.

            My heart was already in my throat and now it threatened to lodge there permanently. It had been the cat I'd seen. No one was one lurking nearby, listening to what we said, poised to rush in if Hornsby tried to kill me.

            "Earrings," he repeated, taking them from my nerveless fingers. Then he glanced at the papers again.

            I felt sick inside. When he looked up, his eyes were as cold and deadly as a viper's.

            "You are a clever woman," Hornsby said. "Penelope Fitt always said so. Praised your good brain and excellent memory. You notice details, she said. I should have remembered that. But I did not know you could read."

            "Only English," I blurted.

            Some of the text of the bonds was in Latin. Would he believe I hadn't understood what the documents said?

            Father used to say that being able to "read" people was even more important than deciphering the written word. It helped give them what they wanted to hear when they had their fortunes told. I had no trouble telling what Hornsby wanted. I was a threat to him. He wanted me dead.

            I swallowed convulsively.

            To my surprise, Hornsby stepped aside, clearing the way to the door. "Get out. You can prove nothing. By the time you come back with a constable, these papers will be naught but ashes. As for the earrings, they'll be back in Mistress Fitt's chamber. Your meddling will cost me profits I'd counted on, but I'll have the satisfaction of watching you hang for it."

            His words sparked a deep resentment in me, and a sense that if I was to die anyway, there was little harm in provoking him further. "Did you kill her to keep her silent about those bonds?" I crossed my arms over my chest, prepared to wait as long as need be for an answer.

            He hesitated, but the temptation to boast proved too great to resist."She begrudged my earning an extra bit of profit on loans she'd made."

            "You quarreled?"

            "We did. She dismissed me and threatened me with the law. Then she turned her back on me, as if I was not even there, and began to wash her face."

            I shivered, imagining what had happened next. "Villain!"

            He laughed. "For killing her or for casting the blame on you? You made it easy, having quarreled with her the way you did. How could I not tell the authorities that you cursed her and swore revenge?"

            "My curse on you will be far worse."

            "I am not afraid of you, old woman. Neither your curses nor any accusations you may make against me will trouble me in the least. No one will believe your word against mine. I am a respected scrivener. You are naught but a wretched figure flinger."

            I opened my mouth to condemn him to Hades, but I never got the chance. A familiar voice spoke from the doorway.

            "They will believe me," Bates said, "especially with the good constable here to back me up." Behind him stood a man I did not know. He was armed with a cudgel and looked as if he hoped Hornsby would attempt to escape so that he could use it.

            "I thought it was just the cat," I gasped.

            Bates grinned at me. "The cat," he informed me, as Hornsby was taken into custody and led away, "was but a portent of good fortune to come."