Veil of Lies (18 page)

“What are you doing there!”

“The passage lets out in the garden. Since my candle went out, I thought it safer to come round.”

She tried to retrieve her tattered dignity by lifting her chin. “What about the Mandyllon?”

“I quite lost track of that,” he mumbled sheepishly and stepped back into the passage. “Candle.” He held out his hand again.

“It’s the only one left.” She slapped it into his palm.

Before the footprints and blood had distracted him, he remembered seeing an alcove near the passage’s doorway cut into the inner wall with a lancet arch and carved pillars on either side. There, on a shelf, sat a carved wooden box as long and as wide as the length of a man’s arm. Chip-carved geometric designs with a center rosette decorated the lid. The box had no dust on it.

Crispin motioned Philippa forward. She hesitated before plunging into the passage. He handed her the candle and lifted the box. He carried it out of the passage and set it on Walcote’s desk. She followed him, her hand at her throat.

Crispin felt a tingle of excitement trill through his gut. It was a bit like finding a fairy’s legendary cache of gold. Perhaps it would all disappear with the daylight.

He ran his hands over the carved designs. “Moorish,” he announced.

His thumbs pressed the front of the lid and raised it.

The gray light from the window flowed over the shadows within the box and revealed a folded yellowed cloth. Crispin dipped his fingers in the box and lifted the material into the light. He laid it on the table and unfolded it. At first, it merely looked like a discolored and very old piece of linen, about the size of a baby’s swaddling. He ran the fabric between his fingers, feeling its smoothness, its tight weave. He lifted it and turned it toward the window, bathing the cloth in the last rays of the dreary day.

Then he saw it.

Faint, as if rubbed and touched by countless fingers for centuries, the dim, brown image of a face.

“Blessed
Jesu
.” The skeptic in Crispin fled to the corner and cowered. The face on the cloth was that of a man with a beard, someone about Crispin’s age or older. An ordinary face, as if the maker smeared his skin with some sort of pigment and carefully transferred his features to the cloth. Except that the eyes were open and the brown stains did not appear to be pigment. The image almost looked…burned on.

Crispin tried to breathe and when he successfully inhaled once, he chided himself.
Don’t be a fool, Crispin. You know such things do not exist.

The cloth felt very light in weight and smelled slightly musty with a wisp of the scent of balsam. His fingers tingled where he touched it, or was it merely his imagination?

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Philippa’s voice constricted to a gasp.

Crispin folded the cloth. “Yes, it looks like it. Would you like to get a better look?”

She shook her head vigorously. “Just take it away.”

Instead of replacing it into the box, Crispin unbuttoned his coat and stuffed it in. He closed the box and carried it back to the alcove. He scanned the hidden passage one last time and stepped back over its threshold. With both hands, he pushed on the door, which obliged by moving back into place and clicking closed. The innocuous seam disappeared into the shadows and out of detection. He pulled the folds of drapery from the floor and replaced them artfully on their pegs.

When he turned, Philippa held out a pouch with the full length of her arm. She shook the little bag, and he heard the jangle of coins. “Take it. You’ve earned it.”

Should he hold out his hand like a beggar? It was especially galling from the likes of Philippa, but just then, his confused emotions could not sort out exactly why this simple transaction disturbed him. He swallowed his pride and snatched the pouch, dispatching it in his purse.

“There is no doubt,” he said, buttoning his coat, “that the murderer left this room through that portal. Possibly he even entered by it.”

“Why didn’t he take the cloth then?”

“Perhaps he was frightened off by a servant and thought to come back later. Or he had no time to search for it.”

“Very well,” she said, her tone clipped. “You have found your killer’s secret and that cloth. And you’ve been paid. Now, please, take it away.”

He bowed. “Yes, Madam.”

Crispin moved toward the threshold. He didn’t yet know what he would do with the cloth, or what he would tell the sheriff. Or who killed Walcote, for that matter. Or what to do about the foreigners.

When Philippa spoke, her words stopped his thoughts altogether. “Is this the last I see of you?”

He turned and saw the sinuous undulation of woman lit by the glittering flattery of candlelight. His senses warmed.

Crispin took strange delight in saying, “There is still a murder to investigate. I believe you will see me again.”

He wasn’t certain if he detected a mote of triumph in her face. She was on the cusp of saying more when there was a scrambling on the stairs. Adam Becton stumbled in, nearly knocking Crispin aside.

He bowed to Philippa. “Mistress,” he panted. “There are—There is—” He stared at Crispin.

She clucked her tongue at Adam and raised her chin. “What is it, Adam? Tell me.”

“Well,” he glanced at Crispin, “they’ve just arrived. They are in the parlor.”

Philippa tightened her shoulders. Crispin imagined all the mourners and how tiresome they could become. “Who?” she asked, exasperated.

“Master Walcote’s
brothers,
” he breathed.

Philippa’s flushed cheeks suddenly drained of color. “
Brothers?
Merciful Jesus!”

15

Philippa’s hand went to her throat. She hurried out the door with Adam at her heels.

Crispin stood alone in the solar with the ripe body of Nicholas Walcote for company. He looked at the corpse but knew he’d get better answers downstairs.

Adam scrambled to precede Philippa to the parlor and he unlocked the door and entered. Crispin made it to the shadow of the doorway in time to observe three people—two men and one woman—stand and turn their heads. Adam bowed and announced, “Madam Philippa Walcote,” and stepped aside.

One of the men marched forward. His frowning dark brows matched dark greasy hair that was cut across his forehead and was covered by a green rondelle hat, which sported a shell pin from Santiago de Compostela. His green houppelande sleeves boasted two more pilgrim badges, but it was the gown’s design Crispin took special note of. The sleeves were cut long as was the fashion, but they didn’t quite touch the floor as he expected from a man in a wealthy cloth merchant family. Nor did the toes of his shoes stretch out in exaggerated points.

“Why were we locked in this room?” the man demanded.

“My apologies,” said Philippa, employing her best cultivated speech, though it riffled along the edge of hysteria. “It was Nicholas’s custom to lock the doors. He insisted on it.”

The man’s face reddened, set to erupt. Crispin decided to intrude and nodded to Adam as he entered.

The servant licked his lips and announced, “Crispin Guest—the…Tracker.”

They all turned toward him. The first man in green approached Crispin and eyed his threadbare clothes. “‘Tracker’? What by God is that?”

“I explore crimes. The murder of your brother, for instance.”

“Are you the sheriff, then?”

“No, but I often work with him.”

“This is all nonsense!” cried the man. “Not so much as a messenger was sent to us about Nicholas! We had to hear about it from common talk. And this wife of his. This is the first we’ve heard of that!”

“Talk travels quicker than any messenger,” said Crispin, but he absorbed the brother’s other words with curiosity.

The man huffed and muttered under his breath, fingering the tiny gold monstrance hanging from a chain around his neck.

“Please, Lionel,” said the woman. She glided toward him and slipped her arm in his. The nap of her scarlet velvet gown did not shine like Crispin remembered from similar fabrics he used to call his own, but it was trimmed richly in fur. But not fox. Squirrel perhaps? “You’re frightening the girl,” she went on. The woman’s face was long and pinched and looked as if she were sniffing something unpleasant. “Let our dear sister-in-law speak. She has such a delightful accent. I myself am curious as to when exactly they were married.”

Philippa paled and pressed her lips together. Without missing a beat, she spoke in the most refined accent she could muster, pronouncing her words with assiduous accuracy. “We have been married for three years. This is the first I heard that Nicholas had brothers.”

“This is really too much!” bellowed Lionel.

The woman’s wan smile reminded Crispin of the serpent of Eden. “Nicholas was always wont to keep to himself, husband. This is just one more example—”

“Keep your opinions to yourself, Maude,” said the other man. Though husky, the breadth of his bright red shoulder cape made his head look small. Nose reminiscent of Lionel’s, his other features, including his coloring, were more like Nicholas’s. His face, not as broad as the other brother, angled down to a cleft chin covered with the shadow of a latent beard.

“I beg your pardon,
dear
Clarence,” said his sister-in-law. She swept her skirt aside to walk deliberately in front of him.

The beefy Clarence lifted his nose at Maude and turned to pour himself wine from a flagon on a nearby sideboard.

Lionel bobbed his head in emphasis. “It is like Nicholas to do exactly what he liked.”

“Was it like him to get murdered?” said Crispin. Curious to see their reaction, Crispin wasn’t disappointed.

“Now see here!” Lionel advanced on Crispin. “Sheriff or not, you’ve no right—”

“He
isn’t
the sheriff,” reminded his brother Clarence into his wine bowl.

Crispin gazed down his nose at Lionel, deflecting the man’s scathing look. “I am curious. Nicholas Walcote was an enigma in London. Did he always live in this house?”

Lionel calmed and he glanced at Clarence, but it seemed Clarence was used to deferring to Lionel. “We all lived here. We were raised in this house.”

“It was the family business, then?”

“Yes. And when Father died we thought to continue on here, all of us. It was not to be.”

“Why?”

“Nicholas was impossible to work with! He insisted on his own way, his rules, his decisions.”

“So you left.”

“Yes. Clarence left first.”

Crispin turned to the other brother. Clarence seemed surprised to be addressed and raised his brows. “Yes, I went to Whittlesey and started my own business there.”

“I joined him soon after,” said Lionel.

Clarence drank the contents of the bowl and poured more. “Yes, lucky me.”

“So the two of you entered into business together.”

Clarence laughed but there was no mirth in the sound. “As if I would be caught dead—”

The others held their collective breaths. In the silence, everyone remembered the body in the solar. Clarence shrugged and took a drink. “Dear Lionel tried to take it over and I was forced to retreat to St. Neot to start on my own. Again.”

“You’d have run it into the ground,” said Lionel.

“Be still, old man, or you may find yourself on a bier.”

Lionel growled, fisted his hand, and rushed his brother, but Crispin got between them and held up his hands. “Masters! This is a house in mourning!”

Clarence shook out his shoulders. Without any show of embarrassment, he scanned the room and retreated to the sideboard to pour more wine.

Red-faced, Lionel calmed and turned his back on his brother.

“Why don’t we all sit down,” Crispin suggested, and brought a chair for the tight-lipped Philippa, then pulled another forward for Clarence. Lionel and Maude had their chairs and they looked at each other. As if on cue, they both sat at the same time. Crispin stood above them. “Differences there may have been,” he went on, “but this is the end of a life. Perhaps it is time to set old hurts aside.”

“In this family,” said Maude, “old hurts are never set aside. They are simply stored for future use.”

“This is absurd,” muttered Clarence, knocking back another drink of wine. “I want to know who killed Nick…and I want to congratulate the killer.”

Philippa stared at him aghast.

“No one knows who killed him,” said Crispin. “Not yet.”

Clarence and Lionel brooded from their separate places in the room: Clarence by the sideboard and Lionel sitting by his wife and glowering at Philippa.

Crispin turned to Lionel. “It has been a long time, I take it, since you set foot in this house.”

“Little has changed.”

“Quite true,” said Maude, running her finger along the imaginary dust on her chair’s arm. “And yet
we
have been doing all the talking. Nicholas has a wife. Apparently.” They all looked at Philippa. “We had quite given up hope of his ever acquiring one.”

“Is that a jab at me?” said Clarence over his shoulder.

“No, dear Clarence,” she said. “I suppose there is hope someday of your finding a wife. The world is full of God’s great miracles, after all.”

“Tell that harridan of yours to mind her own damn business,” he said into his bowl.

Lionel’s face flushed, but before he could bellow again, Maude interrupted. “Pay him no heed.” She waved a hand devoid of ornament. “We must find out about our dear sister.” Maude turned to her. “Phyllida—”

“Philippa.”

“Of course. Such a delightful name. Tell us of your family? Are they mercers?”

Philippa glanced at Crispin with such raw desperation that his mind frantically worked on a distraction. Before he could conjure anything, Philippa blurted out what surely should have been suppressed.

“No, we were never merchants. My family were servants. I was my master’s—I was Nicholas’s chambermaid.”

Maude screeched like a cat hurled from a rooftop and slumped in her chair. Lionel bellowed something unintelligible, and Clarence burst out laughing. “By my Lady!” he crowed. “That’s the best Nick’s done yet! Damn me! I wish I could shake his hand!”

“Be still, you idiot!” cried Lionel. “Someone get my wife some wine! You!” he pointed to Adam, face as white as the walls.

The steward ran to comply and Crispin watched the room dissolve into chaos. Why did Philippa do it? Surely she must have known what turmoil such an announcement would cause. He stared at her, tried to discern her expression, but all he could reckon was confusion and fear.

Adam returned and handed Lionel a cup of wine, which he gave to his wife. She held the back of her hand to her forehead and took several sips between moans.

“So,” said Lionel over his shoulder. “You’re only just a chambermaid.”

Philippa’s hands closed into tight fists. They trembled at her sides. “I am Nicholas’s wife. I have been for three years!” She dropped all pretense of a cultivated accent, releasing the thickness of her speech. “It ain’t my fault I was a servant or that he didn’t tell me nought about you! He didn’t tell me a lot of things.”

“Masters,” placated Crispin, “is this truly necessary? The man has been murdered. The culprit must be found. This is more important than rank.”

Crispin surprised himself when the words came out of his mouth. He always believed rank was paramount. All his past experience and his long years of resentment told him so. But with a dead man rotting upstairs, the murderer free and seeking the object hidden on Crispin’s person, it was obvious, even to him, that the greater danger lay in the unknown.

Maude propped herself up and glared at Crispin, her pinched face contracting even more. “Nothing is more important than rank,” she hissed. “There is the family name to consider. And children. Good God!” Her hands flew to her breast. “Are there any children?”

“Sadly, no,” said Philippa, regaining something of her old self. She raised her chin. “I think this is quite enough for one day. The funeral is tomorrow. Nicholas will be buried, then you can all return to your precious estates and trouble us no more. I, for one, can’t wait!”

“Is she tossing us out?” asked Clarence, face suddenly serious.

Crispin repressed a smile. “It would seem so.”

Lionel postured to his full height. “Not before I see my brother and bid him—”

Clarence chuckled into his cup. “Good riddance? Must make sure he’s dead, after all.”

Lionel sneered at his brother. “Be still, or you’ll find a knife in
your
back.”

Crispin maneuvered next to Lionel. “How did you know Nicholas was stabbed in the back?”

Lionel stared at Crispin with eyes bulging. Clarence gestured with his cup and splashed some of the wine on the floor between Crispin and Lionel. “Everyone knows that,” said Clarence. “We all heard about it.”

Lionel turned his attention toward Philippa. Her bravado faded under the onslaught of his dark expression. “Where is he?” Lionel asked.

“In the solar,” she sputtered with a look of horror. “But—”

“Let’s go and make an end to this, then.” He stalked from the room, his shadow stretching ominously behind him. Clarence put down his bowl and sneered over his shoulder at Crispin. Maude lifted herself from her seat, and seeing no one left but Crispin and Adam to view her performance, abruptly shook herself free of it and stomped after her husband.

Philippa ran after them up the stairs.

Crispin shook his head in disgust and took the stairs two at a time, passing over the solar’s threshold just as Philippa took her place behind her kinsmen.

Lionel held his nose and stood at Nicholas’s covered head. Clarence merely grimaced at the smell but Maude looked no different. “This is our farewell, Nicholas,” Lionel pronounced. “Whether you are in Heaven or Hell, well, that is between you and your Maker, for I shall not pray for you.” He grabbed the sheet and threw it back.