The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries (23 page)

“Please, father,” begged the weeping Eleanor. “Stop this. Let our mother rest in peace.”

Chaloner waited to see if Pargiter would agree. He was nearing the casket, and knew he would have to be careful not to step through it. The man who usually dug graves for St Martin’s
Ludgate – currently insensible after the copious quantities of ale with which Chaloner had plied him the previous night in the hope of learning a few useful tips – had confided that
there was an art to dealing with rotting coffins, but had then declined to elaborate. Chaloner would have to rely on his own ingenuity to perform the grisly task, and only hoped he would convince
Pargiter that he knew what he was doing. The goldsmith had brought two burly henchmen with him, and Chaloner suspected they might turn nasty if he failed to impress.

He exchanged a hopeful glance with the parish priest, Robert Bretton, a short fellow with a mane of long, shiny black curls. Bretton was chaplain to King Charles, as well as Rector of St
Martin’s, and it was because of him that this particular assignment had been foisted on Chaloner. When he had learned what Pargiter intended to do, Bretton had approached the King in a fury
of righteous indignation – the poor woman had been in the ground for more than three years, and it was shameful to disturb her rest. With a shudder of distaste, the King had passed the matter
to his Lord Chancellor to sort out.

But the Lord Chancellor said there was nothing he could do to stop the exhumation, because Pargiter had the necessary writs. What he
had
been able to do, however, was lend Bretton one of
his men, assuring the agitated chaplain that Thomas Chaloner would not only ensure the exhumation was carried out decently, but could be trusted not to gossip. When Bretton had demurred, the Lord
Chancellor had pointed out that he would have an ally at the graveside should he need one, and the family would be suitably grateful to him for “hiring” a man who knew how to be
discreet. And, the Lord Chancellor had added slyly, he wanted his spy present anyway, because he was curious to know what Pargiter thought he might find among his wife’s rotting bones.

Bretton peered at the goldsmith in the gloom, to see whether he was having second thoughts. He sighed unhappily when he saw he was not, and nodded down at Chaloner, telling him to continue. The
spy began to dig again, pretending not to listen to the furious altercation that was taking place above his head. The family had kept their voices low at first, unwilling to let a stranger hear
what they were saying – even one vouched for by Rector Bretton. But as time had crept by and Chaloner’s spade came ever closer to the coffin, they had grown less cautious, and the foul
weather and their increasing agitation encouraged them to forget themselves. In addition, Chaloner had excellent hearing – a valuable asset for a spy – and a decade of eavesdropping in
foreign courts meant he was rather good at hearing discussions not intended for his ears.

“This is very wrong,” said Pargiter’s cousin and business-partner, an overweight man named Thomas Warren, who was the last of the graveside party. His plump face was pale and
unhappy, and the hair in his handsome wig had been reduced to a mess of rat-tails in the rain. “Had I known you’d cached our gold in Margaret’s grave, I’d
never
have
asked for it back. I don’t want her defiled.”

“You’re deep in debt,” said Pargiter with a sneer. “You lost a fortune in Barbados sugar, and your creditors snap at your heels. Would you rather go to prison? Besides,
Margaret won’t be defiled. Once the coffin is reached, I shall jump down and remove the gold myself. I was her husband, so she won’t object to me touching her.”

Francis snorted his disdain. “She would. She hated you – and with good cause.” He added something else in a low, venomous hiss that Chaloner could not quite catch. The spy
supposed someone – probably his sister – had warned him to keep his voice down.

“Why are
you
so eager to retrieve the hoard, Father?” asked Eleanor softly, so Chaloner had to strain to hear her. “
You
don’t need your share of this gold:
you’re already rich – certainly wealthy enough to lend Warren what he needs.”

“Yes,” said Warren, sounding relieved. “That’s the best solution. Fill in the hole and I’ll have papers—”

“I’ve lent him too much already,” interrupted Pargiter roughly. “No, don’t you flap your hand at me to be quiet, Warren! I shall talk as loudly as I please. And, to
answer my daughter’s question, our cache has been playing on my mind of late. Gold can’t earn interest if it’s buried, and I want it where it can do me some good.”

“Tainted money,” said Rector Bretton in disgust. Chaloner had noticed his increasing distress as the exhumation had proceeded, and now he sounded close to tears. “It
won’t bring you happiness, and I strongly advise you to leave it where it is.”

“You did a dreadful thing, burying gold with our mother,” said Eleanor in a broken, grief-filled voice that made Chaloner wince at his role in the distasteful business. The
gravedigger’s disguise had been Bretton’s idea, and Chaloner heartily wished the rector had thought of something else.

Francis murmured something Chaloner did not hear, and Pargiter responded with a sharp bark of laughter that had Francis spluttering in impotent rage. The spy glanced up and saw Eleanor rest a
calming hand on her furious brother’s arm.

“Francis is right, cousin,” said Warren in a low voice. “I cannot imagine what you were thinking when you performed an act of such heartless desecration.”

“I was desperate,” replied Pargiter with an unrepentant shrug. “You and I supported Cromwell, but when the monarchy was restored, Royalists surged into London and started
confiscating Roundhead goods. Margaret’s death from fever provided me with a perfect opportunity to hide our gold where no one would ever think to look.”

“That’s certainly true,” said Bretton unhappily. “But only a monster would have devised such a plan – and only a devil would consider retrieving the
hoard.”

“Our mother was right to despise you,” said Francis. Chaloner saw Eleanor was hard-pressed to restrain him as he glowered at their father. “And so are we.”

Pargiter did not care what his son, daughter, rector and cousin thought, and when Warren took a threatening step towards him the two henchmen blocked his path. But the goldsmith did not so much
as glance at his kinsman: his attention was focussed on the grave. Chaloner’s spade had made a hollow sound, as metal had connected with wood.

“At last,” said Pargiter. “Now, climb out and let me take over.”

“You don’t want me to open the coffin first?” asked Chaloner.

Pargiter shook his head. “I told you: I don’t want anyone to see her. I’m not the heartless fiend everyone imagines and, by retrieving the money myself, I shall spare her the
indignity of being gawked at. Then we can cover her up again, and be done with this business. Take my hand.”

Scaling the rain-slicked sides was not easy, and Chaloner was muddy from digging. He was not halfway out before his fingers shot out of Pargiter’s grasp, and he fell backwards, landing
feet-first on the ancient casket. There was a crackle of shattering wood, and the top third of the lid disintegrated. Eleanor cried out in horror, and Bretton began to pray in an unsteady
voice.

“Clumsy oaf!” yelled Pargiter, while Chaloner danced around in a desperate attempt to regain his balance without doing any more damage. “You’ve exposed her for all to
see!”

Warren looked as though he might cry. “This has gone far enough, cousin. I don’t want the gold any more – I’ll find another way to pay my debts.”

“I’m not leaving without my money,” declared Pargiter, climbing inside the hole himself. He soon discovered it was not easy, and slithered down in a way that broke more of the
coffin. One of his men handed him a lamp. “Everyone stay back. I’ll finish quicker without an audience.”

Sobbing, Eleanor appealed to Chaloner. “Please stop him. You must see this isn’t right.”

“If you have any compassion, you’ll do as my sister asks,” added Francis in a heart-broken voice. “I’ll pay you – twice what my father offered.”

“And I’ll pray for you for as long as I live,” said Bretton. He sounded distraught. “Poor Margaret doesn’t deserve this.”

Supposing a real gravedigger would at least consider their offers, Chaloner moved forward. He stopped when he saw the body for the first time. Margaret Pargiter had been buried in a lacy shroud
and a veil that covered her hair. Her face was much as he would have expected after three years, but it was the glitter of gold that caught his attention. Coins covered her chest and shoulders
– too many to count. Pargiter was busily collecting them. The goldsmith glanced up and saw his order had been ignored: everyone, even his two henchmen, was gazing open-mouthed at the
spectacle.

“The bag must have broken,” he said in an oddly furtive way that made Chaloner sure he was lying. “I put it under her head.”

But Chaloner had spotted something beside the hoard, and he edged around Pargiter to be sure of it. “Gold isn’t the only thing to have shared her tomb – there’s another
body beneath her.”

Pandemonium erupted after Chaloner’s announcement. Warren accused him of being a liar, although his furious diatribe faltered when Chaloner pointed out the grinning skull
under Margaret’s shoulder. Francis and Eleanor clamoured for the strange body to be removed and their mother reburied alone. Pargiter wanted his gold out and the two bodies left as they were.
But Bretton had the authority of the Church behind him, and once he declared his bishop would want both bodies excavated while an investigation took place, the argument was over.

Knowing the frail coffin would disintegrate if he tried to lift it, Chaloner raised the two bodies separately, using planks of wood, although his task would have been easier if Pargiter had not
been in the grave with him, grabbing coins. When he had finished, and the corpses lay in the grass next to the tomb, Chaloner reached for his spade.

“Don’t bother to fill it in,” ordered Pargiter. “Margaret will be back in it soon. Here’s a shilling for your trouble – you’re dismissed.”

But Chaloner had no idea how much gold Pargiter had retrieved, and the Lord Chancellor would be annoyed if he was not told a precise sum. He thrashed around for an excuse that would allow him to
lurk long enough to see the money counted. “For another shilling, I’ll find out who was the second corpse,” he offered rashly.

Pargiter gazed contemptuously at him. “And how would a gravedigger know how to do that?”

“Fossor used to work for Archbishop Juxon,” announced Bretton, before Chaloner could fabricate a story of his own. “And he solved all manner of crimes on His Grace’s
behalf. Don’t let his shabby appearance deceive you. Fossor possesses a very sharp mind.”

Warren peered at the spy in the darkness. “You’ve fallen low, then, if you were in the employ of an archbishop, but now you dig graves for a living.”

“He does more than that,” said Bretton, before Chaloner could prevent him from inventing anything else. “He hires himself out to many of my clerical colleagues, because we all
know him as a man of intelligence and discretion. Why do you think I dispensed with my usual gravedigger and hired him instead? Whatever happened here
must
be investigated and the results
reported to the proper authorities – and I would rather Fossor did it than some half-drunk parish constable.”

Chaloner wished he would shut up, not liking the increasingly elaborate web of lies or the fictitious name. But Bretton gave him an encouraging nod, and Chaloner supposed he was hoping to curry
favour with the Lord Chancellor by supporting his spy’s proposal. However, all Chaloner wanted was an excuse to see the money counted, after which he would dispense with his disguise and
disappear from the Pargiter family’s lives for ever. He had no intention of mounting an investigation – Bretton would have to resort to his “half-drunk parish constable” for
that.

“I will discover the truth,” he said, hoping he did not sound as unenthusiastic as he felt. “I shall uncover the corpse’s identity, and you can make an official report to
your bishop.”

“Well,
I
don’t want to know who it is,” said Pargiter firmly. “It is common knowledge that Margaret made a cuckold of me, and one of her lovers must have contrived
to be buried with her. And this
is
a man – he’s quite tall and look, the fellow was buried wearing spurs.”

“Our mother had no lovers!” declared Francis hotly, shooting Chaloner an uncomfortable glance. “How dare you defame her good name in front of strangers!”

Eleanor tried to pull him away, to talk to him privately, but he resisted. “You know she did, Francis. It was her way of defying the husband she didn’t love. And I cannot find it in
my heart to condemn her for it. And nor should anyone – including strangers who did not know her and so have no right to judge.” She gazed coolly at Chaloner, who pretended to be
absorbed with the skeletons.

“Nor me,” said Warren. His chubby face was wan in the faint gleam of approaching dawn. “Do you mind if we just count this gold and go home? I feel sick.”

“We can’t,” said Bretton angrily. “Something evil happened in poor Margaret’s grave, and my bishop will want to know what. We are duty-bound to discover both this
man’s identity
and
how he came to die.”

Eleanor sighed. “Rector Bretton is right. Once he reports the matter to his bishop, it will have to be investigated. He will think we have something to hide if we object.”

“How do we know you can be trusted?” demanded Warren of Chaloner. “We have never met you before today.”

“
I
trust him,” said Bretton, before Chaloner could point out that anyone could be trusted if enough gold changed hands. “And you have known
me
for a long time.
That should be enough for you.”

Eleanor nodded slowly, staring hard at the spy. “Very well. If there must be an enquiry, then I suppose I would rather this Fossor did it than that horrible Constable Unwin.”

“So would I,” said Francis, glaring at his father. “Unwin hates us because
someone
made a fool of him over a consignment of clipped coins, and we don’t want
him
poking into our affairs. He’ll invent something to harm us, and who can blame him?” He turned to Chaloner. “If Bretton says you’re all right, then I suppose
you’ll do. I’ll pay you your shilling, if you find out the corpse’s name.”