The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries) (17 page)

The barge turned, and Henderson reached with the boathook, which caught in the thing’s clothing. Brockley had found another boathook and was leaning beside Rob. He recommended me brusquely to go back into the cabin but I stayed where I was, doing no more than move out of the way as the rowmaster came to their assistance. The barge did not ride high in the water and the rowmaster had long arms. He bent double, leaning over the gunwale, and the boathooks held the body firm while he got a grip on it and heaved. The dreadful object was hauled, flopping and sodden, over the side and on to the deck.

It lay on its back, staring sightlessly up at the vapours and the faint sun. I wanted to gag as I looked at it, but I wouldn’t let myself. There was a dent in one side of its head but the face was still recognisable.

“But that’s . . . that’s . . .” Rob seemed lost for words.

I had glimpsed the face while the body was still in the water, which was why I had not gone into the cabin, but had waited, however sickened, for a closer
look. I had recognised its teeth, those excellent teeth, perfect except that two of the front ones were slightly crossed. They were now bared and feral between drawn-back lips, but I had last seen them exposed in a charming smile. Their owner had had thick, fair hair and I could see that when it was dry, this poor thing’s hair would be the same.

“It’s the young man who was in Sir William Cecil’s employ,” I said. “Isn’t it? The one who vanished?”

“Yes,” said Rob Henderson grimly. “It’s Paul Fenn.”

O
n the following day, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth took it into her head to enswathe herself in furs, travel by barge from Richmond to Hampton, and pay a visit, accompanied by her good friend the Secretary of State Sir William Cecil, to her loyal subjects, Rob and Mattie Henderson of Thamesbank.

The visit had been arranged in advance, of course, albeit very hastily. After an hour or so of carefully organised informality, the Queen and Sir William, together with Rob Henderson, repaired to Rob’s study for a comfortable chat. I was invited too.

“My dear Ursula,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “How delightful that one of our ladies is actually staying here just now. You shall attend on us!”

The study, unlike Leonard Mason’s den, was friendly and full of colour, with crimson velvet curtains to keep out draughts, and brilliant rugs on the floor.

It was a tall room, graciously proportioned, which was to be expected, for Thamesbank was a gracious house altogether. It was not very old, and had been
built in the modern style, with brick lower walls, and upper walls of white plaster and black timbering. The garden was a delight, with grassy spaces and cherry trees, a pleached lime walk, formal flowerbeds and topiary, all in a casual jumble like a tossed salad. The topiary yews, clipped into sprightly bird shapes, were dotted about, well apart. The result was ornamental without being oppressive; it was not sombre, unlike the yew garden at Lockhill, with its dark, unrelieved foliage and deep shade.

On the river side of the house was a broad sweep of grass, regularly cut (what with that and the patches of grass in the garden, the Henderson gardeners had to be as handy with the scythe as Old Father Time). The lawn extended to the river and had a path across it, leading to the jetty. From the study window we could see that the Henderson children, with Meg and the nurses, were playing on the grass, enjoying a gleam of winter sunshine. We could hear their laughter.

There was no laughter inside the study, however, where a council of war was in progress.

“I have to say, boldly,” declared Rob, “that in my opinion, Mistress Blanchard should not go back to Lockhill. It’s too dangerous. She is obviously under suspicion, and Paul Fenn was murdered!”

“It could have been an accident,” I said.

“Jackdaw’s death could have been an accident,” Cecil said, “but that both of them were—no, hardly.”

“There,” Elizabeth said, “I must agree. At least we would be foolish to assume otherwise.” She had been established in a dignified armchair, with a fur
rug over her lap. Her golden-brown eyes were grave.

Elizabeth and I had a curious bond. I served her as a lady in waiting, and once, long ago, my mother had similarly served Elizabeth’s—until the day came when my poor mother was sent home in disgrace, pregnant by a court gallant whom she would not name, to take shelter with her parents and produce me, the embarrassing family byblow. When her parents died, my mother stayed on with her brother Herbert Faldene and his wife Tabitha, and I was brought up with my cousins, educated—I had to admit that—but portionless, and taught to believe that my future would be as unmarried household dogsbody.

I had put an end to that notion by falling in love with Gerald Blanchard, who was due to marry my cousin Mary, and causing him to fall in love with me. We had fled together and taken refuge with some friends of Gerald’s, in the town of Guildford, and there we had been married.

Our families were furious, but we were happy, and I knew that my mother, had she been still alive, would have been glad for me. She had always done her best for me, and I knew, from one or two things let fall by the Cecils, and from Elizabeth’s liking for me, that she must have served Queen Anne well and with kindness.

There was a tradition of royal service in the Faldene family, so deep rooted that it amounted to an instinct. I had it, too. I was like the rope in a tug of war, with Elizabeth on one end and Matthew on the other.

Cecil was speaking. “I am quite sure that Fenn was killed, and that he was somehow involved in the mystery we are trying to solve. I would guess that when my enquiries began, he fled to his principals for advice and they decided for some reason that he was a liability. Perhaps he was threatening to throw himself on my mercy! At any rate, they disposed of him.”

“Have we no idea where he went?” I asked. “It wasn’t to Lockhill.”

“No, and he didn’t go to his old home in Sussex, where his brother has now inherited the property,” said Cecil, “or to High Wycombe, where Dr. Wilkins usually lives. Rob has told you that he was seen with Dr. Wilkins? We sent men to both places very quickly: one was a travelling dentist who lost his way and called at the Sussex house for shelter, and the other was the father of a prospective pupil for Wilkins’ school, wanting to inspect it. They both returned saying they were as sure as they could be that Fenn wasn’t in either place. On the other hand, we did find a ferryman who took a young man answering to Fenn’s description upstream on the morning he disappeared. He put him ashore, to my surprise, at a boathouse which happens to be mine—at least, I rent it and keep a barge and a dinghy in it which I’d laid up for the winter. Fenn knew of the boathouse.”

“Indeed?” I said.

“I went there myself,” Cecil said. “The boathouse had been tampered with, although whether by Fenn, planning an escape if he needed one, or by somebody else, for some purpose unknown, I can’t say. It was
very puzzling. The lock had been cut out of the landward door and a piece of wood nailed over the gap, and two new bolts had been fitted on the outside. None of my boatmasters could explain it, and they certainly hadn’t ordered it. The dinghy had gone, and Fenn could well have taken it.”

“How extraordinary!” I said. Meg’s voice, calling to the others, came through the window, and I looked round Rob’s study, thinking how safe and friendly it was, and how thankful I was to be there.

“It seems to me,” Cecil said, “that we have enough information now to justify a swoop in Lockhill. Leonard Mason can be brought in and questioned, and if there is any written evidence in the house, we’ll find it.”

Oh no, I said to myself. No, I don’t want this. No, please no. I heard myself say, painfully, because I didn’t want to say it, and one half of Ursula was silently screaming at the other half to stop it at once, “But
have
we got enough? After all, what does it amount to?”

They all looked at me.

“We can’t prove a link with Lockhill,” I said. I much regretted it. I was sure in my own mind that my unpleasant experience in that boathouse was linked with this business, but the hard evidence was still lacking. I remained determined not to speak of that boathouse, since it would be very difficult to do so without admitting that I had hoped to meet Matthew. Even if I didn’t say I meant to run off with him, the inference would be made. “What if you pounce,” I said, “and find no evidence after all?”

“Once we have Leonard Mason in our hands,” said Cecil, chillingly, “he will tell us all we need to know.”

“But will he?” I asked. “He lied about those tapestries, but that isn’t against the law. What if he just explains the lies away? It looks as though he has more money than he’s admitting, but he could say he wanted to conceal it from creditors, or even, for some reason, from his wife! Perhaps he won it while gambling and she would object! Or she wants him to spend it on one thing and he wants to spend it on another. There could be any amount of explanations. The tapestries prove nothing.”

“Ursula,” said Cecil, “you have an ingenious mind. Do you yourself believe that there is a conspiracy at Lockhill?”

“There’s
something,
” I said. “I do think that. But this web of treason obviously extends beyond Lockhill. Fenn wasn’t murdered there! Nor was Dawson. Don’t we want to bring them all in? Arrest Leonard Mason before we know who the others are, and they’ll be warned. If their names are written down in any compromising documents, then we might have time to seize them, but if we have to wait until we can wring them out of Mason . . .”

“They won’t be warned if we move quickly and quietly,” said Rob.

“And if we arrest the entire household at Lockhill and the village too?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“She means,” said Elizabeth, following my mind with uncanny accuracy, “that this unseen organisation no doubt has its own methods of communication.
The various parties must be able to get in touch with each other. It is reasonable to suppose that someone has been given the task of passing on the news, if there is any kind of swoop on Lockhill. It could be anyone: a butler, a groom, a village youth. And, yes, the conspirators would be warned and could slip through our fingers.”

“Ma’am,” said Cecil reprovingly, “one of the purposes of this meeting is to decide on a course of action which will not further endanger Mistress Blanchard.” Which, being translated, meant: Elizabeth, Your Majesty, beloved and wayward lady of England, whose side are you on?

“I went to Lockhill to look for written evidence,” I said, “and I haven’t yet managed to read Mr. Mason’s papers, but what if there is nothing there to read? It may be more a matter of watching to see who comes to the house; finding out whom Leonard Mason meets. He could have gone to a conspirators’ meeting under my nose, come to think of it! He and his wife went off to Maidenhead one day in the coach, to visit friends. I don’t know who they were. Perhaps the ladies were left talking of children and recipes while the gentlemen talked to Mary Stuart in another room. On other occasions, though, the conspirators may come to Lockhill. I believe it’s too soon for a swoop. We should have someone there, watching.”

“Perhaps we should,” said Rob, “but not you, Ursula. Not now. Not now that Fenn has been killed.”

“Quite. This is no task for a woman,” Cecil agreed.

“My father,” Elizabeth observed, using the informal first person which meant that she was speaking as
Elizabeth Tudor rather than the Queen, “believed that ruling a country was no task for a woman. He suffered greatly, for lack of a son. Others suffered too.” Elizabeth never spoke publicly of the mother whom my mother had served: Anne Boleyn, who had been executed by King Henry. I had once heard Elizabeth mention her mother in private, but only once. She did, however, make very occasional oblique references. This was one of them.

Cecil uttered an exasperated snort, and I said, “Sir William, let me make sure of one thing. In your house, was there anything at all in writing that Fenn could have seen, which definitely revealed that I was going to Lockhill as an agent?”

“Certainly not!” said Cecil. “That was never put in writing. I would not do such a thing.”

“Nor I,” said Elizabeth.

“I did discuss you with my wife on occasion,” said Cecil. “I doubt if anything we said would have meant much to someone who knew nothing of the subject in hand, but to someone who had been planted there . . . I do remember that Fenn came into the room once when I was saying to my wife that although I hoped Ursula would learn something at Lockhill, I was not sanguine. That, added to the curious fact that Ursula Blanchard, described in my wife’s letters to the Masons as the merest acquaintance, is known to my household as a regular visitor, could have been enough to alert him.”

“More than enough,” said Rob. “The guilty flee even where no man pursueth,” he added sententiously. “This would seem like very obvious pursuit!”

“But as long as I am not caught prying, they can’t be sure,” I said. “I behaved very quietly while I was there. By now they may have decided that I am harmless after all.”

“Are you saying, Ursula, that you
want
to go back there?” Cecil demanded.

“No,” I said. “I’m saying that I ought to, and that perhaps the danger’s not so great after all: my coming to harm at Lockhill itself would attract just the kind of attention they don’t want. As long as I’m careful, I think I shall be safe enough.”

“What I can’t understand,” said Rob, “is why Mason ever let you into Lockhill at all, if Fenn thought that there was something suspicious about you. Surely Fenn—or Wilkins—could have got word there in time for the invitation to be stopped!”

“I’ve wondered the same,” I said, “but I think the reason is Ann Mason. She really does need help. Before I came away, she told me how thankful she had been to have me there. If she is quite innocent, and I believe she is, then Mason could have found it hard to refuse her. He wouldn’t be able to explain to her, you see.”

Cecil looked at Elizabeth as if imploring her to say something. She responded, but not with the words that Cecil and Rob obviously wished to hear. “It’s for Ursula to say. There is no compulsion, Ursula. You have already done well. You will have your reward.”