After the Fire (16 page)

‘Enough! I’ll not have their names spoken in this house! Beale, Small and the rest … villains all!’ Griffiths was wheezing, and across the room Betsy saw the manservant look uneasy.

‘Forgive me, sir,’ she said. ‘I merely wondered whether—’

‘Did you, merely?’ the old man echoed. ‘And what, pray, is your interest in the matter? Do you want payment to keep silent, is that it?’

‘I do not, sir,’ Betsy answered. ‘What I want is to solve a spate of murders, which threaten to ruin my company.’

To that the old man made no reply, so while she still had the chance Betsy ploughed on, until she had given Sir Anthony a truncated account of the grisly events of recent weeks, ending with her discovery of the killing of Jean Colporteur. But at mention of the Frenchman’s name, Griffiths started.

‘Good God, could you not have spared me that?’ The old man sagged visibly; and now his manservant took a pace forward.

‘Permit me to dismiss the woman, sir,’ he said coolly. ‘And forgive me for allowing her entry.’

‘No! Wait.’ Sir Anthony raised a pale hand to his forehead, and Betsy was dismayed at his expression of anguish.

‘Leave us,’ he said in a tired voice. And before the manservant could protest, he repeated the order. ‘Leave us! What harm do you think this young woman could do me?’

The servant murmured in compliance and went out. As the door closed, the old man blinked and swivelled his vacant, white-filmed eyes in Betsy’s direction.

‘What do you know of Colporteur?’ he asked.

‘Very little,’ she answered, but the other gave a grunt.

‘So London’s abuzz with it now, eh? After all this time.’ He let out a short laugh. ‘There’s fitting retribution for me, then. All my efforts to paper over it are undone!’

‘You need not spare my feelings,’ he went on. ‘For I know what my rogue of a son did. I’d already cast him from my house, forced him to change his name. Yet I would not see him hang for murder!’

Betsy started. ‘But surely, in the mayhem of the fire, with hurt and destruction everywhere,’ she began, ‘who would even know the names of the culprits?’

‘I would!’ The old man stared fiercely at her with his sightless eyes. ‘And when, after the Fire, my only son confessed to me in a fit of remorse what he had done, here in this room, I had to act.’ He drew a wheezing breath. ‘I gave her – Colporteur’s widow – a sum in compensation.’

So he paid her off
, Betsy thought, but at once the old man spoke up again. ‘I gave her compensation,’ he repeated. ‘And despite her distress Madeleine Colporteur was a shrewd woman, with two children to care for. So in the end she took my blood money, and swore she would not identify her husband’s murderers.’

‘Two children?’ Betsy’s heart jumped.

‘A son and a daughter,’ the old man muttered. ‘The son ran wild later, I heard, and caused her much grief.’

‘And the daughter?’

But Griffiths was not listening. ‘I could not let them starve!’ he went on. ‘Even though they’re Catholics.’ He gave a snort of contempt. ‘They entertained such childish hopes, that our King would see the error of his ways and return to his mother’s religion. One can’t help but feel pity for them.’

Sir Anthony lapsed into silence. Pushing aside a sense of disappointment, Betsy thought to utter some words of thanks. But the old man interrupted her.

‘Save your breath, mistress. Perhaps it’s a kind of justice after all, that those men should perish … even my son.’ His head sagged on to his chest. Betsy waited, then thinking she was dismissed, was about to make her way out. But once more, came the thud of the cane being banged down.

‘Wait, for pity’s sake.’ Griffiths seemed to have difficulty finding the words. ‘Tell me … how was my son regarded, in the … in the theatre?’ he asked haltingly. ‘As Joseph Rigg, I mean.’

In surprise, Betsy answered. ‘With respect, and admiration,’ she said. ‘Like others, I learned a great deal from him. He was always kind to me, and many tears were shed when he died.’

There was a silence, before the old man spoke again. ‘Then for that, I thank you,’ he said.

There was time for a last question, perhaps, and Betsy seized it. ‘Have you any idea what became of Madame Colporteur and her children?’ she asked. ‘Are they still in London?’

But the other shook his head. ‘I do not know. I’ve had no dealing with the woman since that terrible time.’ Then he turned away, and this time Betsy did not wait. With a brief farewell, she left the room, and was quickly shown out of the house.

That evening over supper, a tired Betsy told Tom Catlin all she had discovered. After listening in silence, the doctor looked up with raised eyebrows.

‘So … you think the family of this Jean Colporteur have been wreaking vengeance on those who killed him?’

‘It seems the likeliest explanation.’

‘Do you know what age the man’s children were when he died?’

‘I suppose I should have asked Sir Anthony …’ Betsy trailed off, thinking of the old man and his sadness.

‘Well, it’s only a few years ago. They may be children yet.’ Catlin was looking for his tobacco. ‘Or they may be young adults. Could you not have found out their names?’

‘I’ve not really been very thorough, have I?’ Betsy said, and managed a smile. ‘I doubt I’d ever make a spy.’

Catlin shrugged, and changed the subject. ‘If you could get me Small’s flask, as I said yesterday, I could look for traces of poison….’

‘Perhaps, but I still can’t form a clear picture,’ Betsy said tiredly. ‘However the poison was administered, it was the same that killed Long Ned, and Cleeve, and Alderman Blake, so whoever killed Rigg and Small had access to it. And who could have given it to him, but the Salamander?’ She frowned. ‘So it has to be another one of the company, after all.’

The doctor spoke up. ‘Tomorrow’s the Lord’s day,’ he said mildly. ‘You should rest. The weather looks fair. Perhaps we can walk in Vauxhall Gardens, and see what entertainment’s on offer.’

But Betsy gave a start. ‘The pinpricks,’ she exclaimed. ‘Three or more of them, in Rigg’s side, why was that? The toxin was so venomous, only one was needed.’

‘Betsy, listen to me,’ Catlin began with a frown – but to his alarm she sprang to her feet.

‘What a buffle-head! How could I not have seen it?’ She stared at him. ‘In Banquo’s murder scene when Rigg died, we first suspected the hirelings; then we suspected Beale with his vicious dagger thrust. What if it was none of them? What if the pin was in the costume?’

There was a moment, then Catlin too got to his feet. ‘I suppose you won’t rest until you’ve found out,’ he muttered.

William Daggett was surprised, and not a little annoyed, at being disturbed after dark. Following the grim events of recent days the stage manager was enjoying a quiet evening at home, when Betsy Brand and Doctor Tom Catlin came knocking at his door. After hearing her request, the man’s moustache began twitching at once.

‘I’ve a key to the side door of the theatre,’ he allowed. ‘But I won’t surrender it, even to one I trust, Mistress Brand.’ Seeing the look on Betsy’s face, he hesitated. ‘Yet I see how determined you are. Is it truly as important as you claim?’

‘I think I may be able to put an end to this whole terrible business,’ Betsy said.

Daggett glanced at Catlin, who said nothing.

‘Then I’d best come with you,’ he said.

It was but a short walk from Daggett’s house near Lincoln’s Inn to Dorset Gardens. The lane was empty and dark, and the three did not waste time in finding a link-boy to light their way. Soon the stage manager was opening the street door of the Duke’s Theatre and letting them into the deserted auditorium.

The place was eerily quiet, their footsteps echoing on the bare boards. There was no light, but having found a lantern and lit it, Daggett led them across the pit and up the forestage steps. Betsy started for the costume store, but the stage manager called her back.

‘Rigg’s clothes are still in the Men’s Shift,’ he said. ‘No one’s touched them since they were taken off his body.’

‘That’s fortunate indeed,’ Tom Catlin murmured. ‘Since they’re the only evidence for what, I have to say, is still an unproven theory.’

On their way to Daggett’s the doctor had begun to have his doubts, but Betsy would not hear them. Now, she turned quickly and headed for the steps. The two men followed.

The men’s tiring-room was as she had seen it the day before, during that tense meeting with the Bettertons. Well, Mistress Mary would have to wait. As Daggett entered with the lantern, she began poking about the cluttered room, rifling through soiled shirts, hose and assorted bits of costume. After a while she looked round impatiently.

Below a shelf of wooden heads for men to put their periwigs on was a row of pegs hung with clothes. And here at last Betsy found what she sought: a padded doublet of russet-coloured taffeta, its sleeves slashed in the Elizabethan fashion to show the cream silk lining beneath. It was the costume that Joseph Rigg had worn in
Macbeth
, in his last role: that of the murdered Banquo.

‘Be careful!’ Betsy would have seized the doublet, had not Catlin grabbed her arm. ‘Think what you do!’ he cried. ‘If it’s doctored as you claim, you could die of a pinprick yourself!’

‘Die of a pinprick?’ Daggett looked blank. Raising the lantern, he gazed from Catlin to Betsy. ‘I think it’s time you two told me what you’re about!’

But Betsy’s excitement was such that the man could only listen. ‘Do you know much about the previous century, Mr Daggett?’ she asked. ‘The time of Queen Elizabeth? Have you not heard how her life was often in danger, and how would-be assassins devised more and more cunning means by which to murder her? One scheme was to send her the gift of a gown treated with a deadly substance, so that when she put it on her skin rubbed against the poison.’

She pointed to the doublet. ‘I believe this coat was the means by which Rigg was killed.’

Daggett swallowed, than a sceptical look came over his face. ‘It can’t be, else surely he would have died soon after he put it on … here, or down in the scene-room! Why did he not die until he was on the stage?’

But at that Catlin spoke. ‘When I looked at the man’s body I found three pinpricks in his side, just below his ribs,’ he said. ‘Perhaps, if the murderer was skilled in costume-making—’

‘Precisely!’ Betsy nodded. ‘Now with your leave, I’ll take the doublet by the collar and lay it on that table. Then we can examine it.’

But Catlin stayed her arm. ‘Please, let me do it.’

And watched by Betsy and the flummoxed stage manager, the doctor picked up the object of their curiosity carefully by its neck. Holding it at arm’s length, he carried it to the small table at which the actors often sat to take an after-performance drink, and laid it down. Then, with Daggett holding the lantern, the examination began.

Tentatively, Catlin unfolded the coat and ran his eyes across it, feeling the padding and running his thumb along the seams. But not until he had turned it inside out and commenced searching the lining did his efforts bear fruit. And then with a cry of triumph that startled both men, Betsy pointed.

‘There! Hold the light closer!’

Daggett and Catlin craned forward, staring at the padding. At first they saw nothing. But following Betsy’s gaze, Catlin peered at the garment’s bottom edge, which had been stitched into a neat hem … and froze. In the lantern’s gleam, several tiny spots of brown stain were visible, close together. Moreover, there was a small slit, no bigger than a buttonhole, but clearly cut by design. Gently Catlin lifted the edge of the doublet and poked his finger inside. Then he turned to Betsy, with his puzzling-out look firmly in place.

‘So, Mistress Rummager – you were right!’

Moustache bristling, Daggett spoke in an agitated voice. ‘Right about what?’ he cried. ‘In God’s name, will one of you enlighten me?’

‘A little spike was sewn into the coat,’ Betsy told him. ‘A sharpened hairpin, a needle, it matters not, and as I expected, it’s been removed. What matters is the poison with which it was coated … and which left these stains.’

Daggett looked astonished. But with a glance at Catlin, Betsy lifted the edge of the doublet.

‘Skilled with costume, you said. So skilled, she knew where to place the pin, so it did not prick the wearer too soon. In fact, it didn’t prick him until he exerted himself and fell, during his death scene, when the murderers were upon him.’ She met Daggett’s gaze. ‘And we all saw what happened after that.’

The man was beside himself. ‘
She
, you said,’ he drew a long breath. ‘You mean…?’

‘I do,’ Betsy answered. ‘Our little mouse of a tiring-maid … Louise.’

The man’s face was haggard in the lantern’s gleam. With a sigh, Betsy straightened up and gazed down at what was no longer an actor’s stage costume, but a murder weapon.

‘I’m fortunate in having an educated man for my landlord, Mr Daggett,’ she said. ‘For it was he who remembered what the word
colporteur
means. The one who provided her with the method by which she could take her revenge has a taste for nicknames. He merely translated the Dutch word
Aanaarden
for the English
hill
. Hence Louise took her cue from him, and did the same.
Colporteur
’s an old French word …’ she looked at Catlin.

‘It means a peddler,’ he said. ‘Or, if you like, a hawker.’

‘Louise Hawker?’ Daggett gazed at them both in dismay. ‘Under our noses the whole time?’ He swore an oath, then turned to Betsy. ‘But in God’s name,’ he cried, ‘why did she do it?!’

Whereupon Betsy told him of the death of Jean Colporteur, and of the daughter who had sought to avenge him.

Sunday morning dawned damp and misty. The din of London’s bells was muffled, especially in the suburbs west of the city. But the small group of men, and one woman, who made their way across Holborn Bridge had not come from church. They had assembled an hour earlier at the house of Doctor Tom Catlin in Fire’s Reach Court, then set out on foot for the north-western corner of the Walls. Leading them was a heavy man in a brown coat: Gould, the constable of Farringdon Ward Without. It had been Thomas Betterton’s wish that he be the one to arrest Louise Hawker, rather than the disgraced Quinn. Having been told late the night before of what Betsy and Catlin had discovered, a subdued Betterton had sent word to Gould among others, including Lord Caradoc. His Lordship, chastened by the news, chose to distance himself from the Duke’s Company – at least, until the tiring-maid was taken into custody. Betterton, by contrast, had wanted to be a party to the arrest, until his wife persuaded him otherwise. So it was that, along with three under-constables chosen by Gould, the only member of the Duke’s who, to the constable’s irritation, refused to stay at home, was Mistress Betsy Brand. Once Doctor Tom Catlin agreed to be responsible for her, however, the man relented. Now Betsy and Catlin brought up the rear of the determined little party who, under the curious gazes of passers-by, skirted the fire-damaged walls of London as far as Aldersgate. Crossing the north boundary of the Fire’s Reach, they marched up the street and halted at a corner.

When the matter had been turned about, late the previous night, it emerged that no one knew the precise address of Louise the tiring-maid; though it was believed she lived with her ageing mother. Beyond that, Betterton and Daggett had only an approximate knowledge of her whereabouts. However, the constable knew of a Frenchwoman named Madeleine Colporteur, a widow, who lived in a tumbledown house on the corner of Jewin Street, where they now stood. As the party gathered about the doorway Gould spoke briefly with his men, then banged hard upon the door.

There was no answer, whereupon the man knocked again. Finally the door squealed open on rusty hinges, to reveal the face of a woman in a frayed cap, who stepped back in alarm. To Gould’s terse question, she responded in a voice of outrage.

‘What d’you mean? Do I look like I’m French?’ she demanded. ‘If you seek the Cold Porters, they’re up there!’ She pointed a finger in the air, then shoved the door wide and walked off. Without further ado, Gould and his men pushed their way inside. Their footfalls thudded on the stairs, filling the house. Betsy and Catlin followed.

And almost at once there were voices from above … and a cry that was almost a scream. Betsy and Catlin exchanged looks, and quickened their pace. In a moment they had gained the upper floor, to emerge in an overfurnished parlour filled with bright colours. But Betsy had barely time to glance at the hangings, which were clearly fashioned from materials taken from the Duke’s costume-store. For there were more raised voices, and here were Gould’s men in a half-circle about a small, wizened figure in black, her white hair tucked under a lace cap. At her side, the two women clinging to each other in fright, was the tiring-maid, whom she had known as Louise Hawker.

‘Mistress Brand!’ The girl started at the sight of Betsy, and seemed to fix upon her as a sign of hope. ‘What in God’s name is happening? My poor mother’s terrified!’

But before Betsy could answer, Gould spoke up sternly. ‘I’m ordered to arrest you, mistress,’ he said. ‘For the murder of Joseph Rigg and Joshua Small!’

A look of disbelief spread over Louise’s face. ‘This is madness,’ she faltered. ‘I wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ she looked anxiously at Betsy. ‘Please … tell them!’

Betsy’s mouth was dry. Face to face with the person she had been hunting for days, if not weeks, she now found herself torn. She remembered Louise on her first day at the Duke’s Theatre: nervous as a kitten, but so anxious to please. In fact, she was such an innocent, yet so skilled and nimble-fingered, that even the most lecherous of the actors had for the most part refrained from pawing her. But now, in view of what she had learned, Betsy began to see Louise in a different light. Beside her, Tom Catlin was watching the girl carefully, as if waiting for some sign of guilt, yet there was none.

‘
Je vous en prie, messieurs … expliquez-vous, car je suis foue de terreur!
’ Madame Colporteur cried out in a voice that shook, and a stream of incomprehensible French tumbled from her mouth. But when Louise held her tightly and put a hand on her lips, the woman fell silent.

‘My mother speaks little English,’ she said, and faced the constable. ‘Sir, I beg you to leave! I’ll come with you to answer these charges. But they’re false! I know nothing of … of what you speak.’

She looked desperately from Gould to Betsy. There was a silence, and the constables seemed to hesitate; it was indeed difficult to imagine this girl a murderer. But after some shuffling and staring down at boots, Gould gave a snort that made them all look up, and gestured to Betsy.

‘Will you tell her what you found at the theatre, mistress?’ he asked drily.

Betsy glanced at Catlin, who still remained silent. Louise and her mother watched her, the two of them visibly trembling.

‘We examined Rigg’s costume, Louise,’ she said quietly. ‘So I know how you killed him.’

Slowly, Louise shook her head.

‘I too was threatened with that poison,’ Betsy went on. ‘Just a tiny amount is needed, is it not? Enough to cover a pin, or a needle,’ and at last, she saw a look in the girl’s eyes that was not fear. Emboldened, she raised her voice.

‘How old were you when Rigg and his drunken friends seized your father and hanged him?’ she asked.

The silence that fell was deadly. All eyes were upon Louise. But still the girl made no reply.

‘I’d say you were but a child of twelve years,’ Betsy persisted. ‘Old enough to understand all that happened, yet too young to prevent it. A terrible thing was done to you and your mother … to your brother too.’

‘My brother?’ Louise spoke so softly, it was difficult to hear her. She had gone very still; now she removed her arms from about her mother, and straightened herself.

‘I spoke with Sir Anthony Griffiths,’ Betsy said. ‘The father of the man we knew as Joseph Rigg. He told me about you and your family.’

Louise was no longer shaking. She merely held Betsy’s gaze, as if daring her to continue.

‘I know the whole tale,’ Betsy went on. ‘Save for one thing: how you learned Julius Hill’s true identity, and how—’

But at that moment Madame Colporteur, who had been watching Betsy intently, gave a cry and wrung her hands in dismay.

‘In the name of God … please, speak not of this!’

The men’s heads snapped towards Louise’s mother. Though her French accent was heavy, the words were clear enough.

Gould was quick to recover. ‘So you do speak English!’ he said harshly. ‘I wondered about that, after all the years you’ve lived here.’

‘Monsieur, I beg,’ the old woman looked as if she would fall to her knees. ‘My daughter is all I have – do not take her.’