Face Down among the Winchester Geese (16 page)

The distance from London to Leigh Abbey was just under fifty miles. Susanna usually allowed two days for the trip, spending one night at a reputable inn in Rochester. On this excursion, however, she meant to make two detours and planned her route accordingly.

"Madam, you turn off too early,” Lionel objected when she led them into Tooley Street after crossing London Bridge and entering Southwark. “The main road to Canterbury is—"

"Hush, fool,” Jennet admonished him. “Lady Appleton knows what she's about.” She accompanied her words with a sharp thump to the young man's ribs. Since she was mounted directly behind him, she could strike him in the side with considerable force. He subsided, muttering to himself, and kicked the gelding they both rode to hurry it along.

Susanna considered explaining herself, but thought it best not to. Fulke was also in their party and he was as much Robert's man as her own. Fulke had accompanied him on missions to Scotland and to Spain and on more recent trips into Hampshire. He'd told Lionel about his adventures. Lionel had repeated the details to Jennet, and Jennet had told her mistress. Susanna was therefore certain Fulke would report everything she said and did to his master. She resented being obliged to take him with her, but she would have been foolish to travel without an armed escort to scare off robbers and vagabonds.

Relieved to be doing something purposeful at last, yet she cautioned herself against trying to achieve too much all at once. This was a delicate investigation, especially the portion she meant to undertake today. She had accomplished nothing pertinent to the murders since her visit to Whitehall with Sir Walter. Asking questions in London had availed her naught while she waited for a message to travel to Jennet's husband, Mark, the steward at Leigh Abbey, and a reply to make its way back. She'd only managed to talk to Robert once. She'd told him about the other murders, letting him think Sir Walter had uncovered them. He hadn't seemed surprised, or outraged. And they'd quarreled when he'd insisted Cordoba could have committed all the crimes. He did not want to listen to any other possibility. It had been enough to make her doubt his compassion, if not his innocence.

Her excuse for a brief return to Leigh Abbey had been simple enough. Mark had written, following her instructions, that he'd encountered a discrepancy in the amount owed to certain merchants in Dover, where the Appletons bought many of their supplies. Since Susanna oversaw the management of the estate, her presence was necessary to determine which figures were correct. An air of urgency was added by Mark's revelation that these merchants demanded immediate payment. After calling down curses on such impertinent swine, Robert had placed matters in his wife's capable hands, his only instruction that she complete the business as swiftly as possible and return posthaste to London.

Unlike Jennet, Susanna was mounted on her own saddle on her own mare. She smiled to herself as she rode, for it felt good to be free of the city, if only for a short time. Even the air smelled fresher. She knew the River Thames lay just off to her left, beyond the rows of houses, and she could still see the topmost levels of the Tower of London beyond, but the landscape was already changing, showing more green and less grime. The little roan perked her ears and kept up a good pace. By the time they reached the banks of the River Neckinger in Bermondsey, Susanna could almost believe she was in some small rural shire town.

Her first destination, the house of Jerome Elliott, Francis Elliott's father, came as a shock. It was a small, poor place, badly kept. Wooden window shutters were closed, or hung broken from their iron casements. At first she thought the dwelling deserted, but when Lionel slammed a rusty knocker against the elmwood door, a servant opened it a crack.

"I have come to speak with Master Jerome Elliott,” Susanna said.

The old servant woman's lips parted in a sly smile, revealing three teeth, all black and rotting. She stepped aside, allowing Susanna and Jennet access to the dwelling.

The interior was a match for the outside, ill maintained and reeking of scents Susanna did not wish to identify. The plastered walls had once been white, the woodwork painted bright colors, but all had deteriorated into a dingy and indeterminate shade. The rushes strewn over plain-colored Flemish tiles needed changing. Furniture was minimal, only a meager scattering of chests and stools, but there was reading material. Pamphlets and broadsides on sensational subjects were stacked on the floor.

She wondered why Francis Elliott had not found better lodgings for his father. Posts at court might not be well paid, but a courtier usually found ways to supplement his income. Perhaps, she decided, neither father nor son was skilled with cards and dice.

She questioned her decision to explore Master Elliott's background by the time the servingwoman showed her into the small dark room where Elliott's white-haired father huddled before a low fire. He gave no sign that he heard them.

"How old is he?” Susanna asked the servant.

"Three score and six,” the woman said.

Sixty-six years. ‘Twas an age attained by many hardy souls, and yet Susanna could count on the fingers of one hand the number of men of her own acquaintance who had survived past sixty. War took them. Or disease.

"Is his mind sharp?” He appeared feeble, his body failing him, but she was in hopes he could still see, hear, and reason.

"Some days,” the servant said, and with that she left Susanna and Jennet alone with the old man.

Susanna approached cautiously, calling his name. When The was almost near enough to touch his arm, Jerome Elliott looked up. Eyes the same color as his son's were bloodshot and narrowed suspiciously when he realized he did not know her.

"Who are you? What do you want?” he demanded in a querulous voice.

Susanna introduced herself and told him she'd come to talk to him about his son.

Elliott hawked and turned his face away from her to spit phlegm into the fire. She waited, trying to decide if this was in response to her announcement or a normal manifestation of one of the many ailments with which he must be afflicted. She knew any number of herbs that could ease coughing. For a chesty cough, fennel root mixed with wine sufficed.

"What has Francis done now?” the old man demanded. His voice was hoarse, but he did not cough again. With one gnarled hand he rubbed his belly beneath the blanket that covered his lap and lower extremities.

No one, Susanna thought, lived past fifty without feeling the effects of gout, rheumatic disorders, gastric upsets, and the stone. Toothaches and tympany seemed likely, too.

"Your son has done nothing that I know of,” she said. Not for a certainty. She made her voice soothing in the hope of placating him, but the old man's expression turned thunderous.

Taking a deep breath, she asked if his son had paid him a visit on the day before St. Mark's Day. She did not explain why she wanted to know, though she supposed she would if pressed. She half expected he'd not answer her at all, and regretted that she had no force of law to oblige him to cooperate in her inquiry.

Master Elliott grew more agitated at her question, spittle frothing at the corners of his mouth. The blanket slipped off his legs. Susanna bent forward to replace it for him, then backed rapidly away when she realized that his limbs were not shriveled and useless as she'd supposed, but simply bare. Jerome Elliott wore naught but a long linen shirt.

"I wish to help a friend,” she said quietly when he'd rearranged the blanket to cover himself. “A woman known to your son. He told her he spent that night here with you, and it is important that I learn if he spoke the truth."

"If some wench doubts his word, ‘tis no concern of mine.” He glowered at her.

"Was your son here the night before St. Mark's Day? How can it hurt to satisfy my curiosity?"

Elliott's laugh sounded rusty from disuse. “Women! Sinful jades, all of you. Always teasing. Cajoling. Wanting foolish questions answered. What will you do for me, eh? Why should I do you any favors?"

"I will give your servant a recipe for an electuary that will much comfort you, a remedy against the putrid, rotten, and corrupt humors that lie about the mouth of the stomach."

The flicker of interest in the old man's eyes betrayed him.

"Better yet, I will make it up myself and send it."

She could obtain all the ingredients in London, even the aloes.

"Expensive, is it?"

"Worth every penny,” she assured him, “and the pennies will be mine."

That promise almost won her a smile. “Aye, Francis was here on the eve of St. Mark's Day,” his father said. “He comes to plague me. He wants me to die so he can inherit."

Inherit what? If Jerome Elliott had a fortune, he did not believe in spending it on himself. “Did he stay the whole night?” she asked.

"Aye."

"Did anyone visit him here?"

"He's never been one to introduce me to his friends. Ashamed of his humble beginnings,” he added in a mutter.

Susanna had intended her question to ascertain if Diane had visited Bermondsey. Apparently, she had not. “How early the next day did he leave?"

"After he broke his fast."

"After daylight?"

"He's not one for rising early."

Bermondsey was not far distant from Southwark, but Diane had been murdered just before dawn. “Did you see him go? Note the time?"

"He left here well after I was up and about."

The testiness was back in Master Elliott's voice, but Susanna could not tell if he meant to be evasive or had simply grown impatient Susanna had intruded into his life and ‘twas clear he resented her presence nearly as much as he disliked his own son's visits. His tolerance for a stranger asking personal questions had reached its limit.

"Women,” he grumbled. “More trouble than they're worth.” He bellowed for his servant.

The old woman appeared at once, almost as if she'd been listening at the door.

"Get out,” Elliott ordered. “And when you see my son's whore, tell her she chose a weak and foolish man for a lover."

Outside, Susanna drew in a deep breath of untainted air. Jennet, more offended by the way her mistress had been treated than Susanna was, muttered imprecations against nasty old men in general and Jerome Elliott in particular.

"Some men,” Susanna observed, “regard all women as whores. I do much pity our erstwhile host. He drives away all those who might be kind to him as he grows older and more infirm."

"I wonder why there is so much bad blood between him and his son?” Jennet mused.

"And is it all on one side? The elderly, or so I have been told, are prone to peculiar notions about their kin."

Susanna studied the nearby buildings and after a moment selected the establishment of a haberdasher who displayed his goods on wooden pentices, hinged shop fronts let down to form tables on either side of the door. The shopkeeper's wife, who stood guard over the stock offered for sale, had a clear view of the house Susanna had just left. She looked old enough to have been in Bermondsey for some years.

"Good morrow, goodwife.” Susanna pretended an interest in the items for sale, which included a wide variety of smallwares, from sewing silks, buttons, and pens to lanterns and mousetraps. Her true intent was never in doubt to either of them. She wanted information.

In short order she learned that Jerome Elliott had always been surly, always unpleasant to women. His only son visited him often, but never stayed long. On occasion they quarreled loudly enough for the entire village to hear. Jerome thought his son a wastrel. Francis called his father a pennypinching old fart.

"A pity they have such a poor relationship,” Susanna said, selecting a packet of pins to purchase. “Have they ever gotten along?"

"He's a hard man, Jerome Elliott is. Drove his wife to kill herself, so they say."

"Francis Elliott's mother committed suicide?"

"So they say. No one saw the body."

Susanna could not decide if the goodwife meant folk suspected Master Elliott of murdering his wife or only of burying her in secret. Since no suicide could lie in a churchyard, such bodies were traditionally buried at the nearest crossroads, at midnight, with a stake driven through the heart lest the departed soul return to haunt the living.

"How old was the son she left behind?"

"Half-grown.” The shopkeeper leaned toward Susanna and lowered her voice. “My mother always said that marriage was doomed right from the start. Jerome Elliott was set in his ways when he married her. Helen, she was called. Just a young slip of a thing, she was, a distant kinswoman of his from the north. He wanted a son. She gave him one, but she was never the same after."

She made change and handed over Susanna's purchase.

"Did your mother tell you anything more about the family?” Susanna returned the coins she'd just been given. She had a feeling this woman might recall a good bit on her own. She appeared to be about the same age as Francis Elliott. She might even have known him when they were both children.

"Young Francis left Bermondsey soon after his mother disappeared."

No doubt that was when he'd joined the Dudley household and first met Robert. “And his mother—do you recall her appearance? Was her hair fair or dark? Was she short or tall?"

"A small woman,” the haberdasher's wife said, “but she was a gentlewoman, mistress. She covered her hair with a headdress whenever she went out. I doubt any but her husband and her son ever saw what color it was."

The road cut southeast, away from the serpentine curve of the Thames, and ran in a nearly straight line from Bermondsey to Deptford. It was wide enough that Lady Appleton's roan and the bay Jennet shared with Lionel could proceed side by side. Fulke rode a little ahead, scouting for danger.

Jennet heard Lady Appleton sigh and saw her cast a considering eye over Fulke.

"Your master is a suspect in the murders of several young women,” she said abruptly, addressing both Fulke and Lionel. “In order to prove him innocent, I must discover who did kill them."