A Murderous Affair, page 24
We were on the point of letting the cold win and giving up the search, when a cat suddenly darted out of a gap between two houses of no more than two feet wide. On closer inspection, that gap was revealed as a dark passageway leading through to a yard beyond, signified by a dim rectangle of light at the far end.
We edged quietly through the tight passageway. The alley was dark, damp and smelled of mould. Twice I tripped on debris lying in the path and cursed as Matthew pulled me up by the shoulder.
The passageway broadened out and suddenly in front of us stood a well proportioned but rather plain looking timber-frame house. In the gloom, it was possible to make out a set of square black posts supporting two wide gables on either side of a central door. The tops of the gables were lost in the gloom and it was impossible to make out the chimneys. Each window was made up of small, symmetrical squares of glass, but there were no fancy details. The building was in much better condition than any that surrounded it, but the whole effect was one of unprepossessing modesty, quite unlike the gauche displays of wealth that were common amongst rich merchants in other parts of town. On each side of the yard were the back walls of adjacent houses but no doors or over-looking windows. There was a cobble path leading diagonally up to the front door and the rest of the yard was paved with stone, bare and exposed, just as I felt standing in the entrance to the courtyard.
I studied the house carefully deciding what to do. All of the windows were dark, and there was nothing to suggest that the house was occupied. The facade seemed to return my gaze with a bland expression of anonymity. The house was giving nothing away.
Leaving Matthew at the entrance to the passageway with instructions to alert me if anyone came, I walked over to the front door and thinking about it for a second, decided the best thing was to knock. Although the mysterious woman had expressly forbidden me to approach the man she was looking for, I didn’t intend to hang around in the cold for a long time waiting for him to enter or exit. Hopefully a servant would answer and I could ask if his master was at home before scarpering.
The door was made of plain, solid oak and there was a heavy iron doorknob hanging at its centre in the shape of a lion’s head. I took hold of it and gave three loud, equally spaced raps, stepped back and waited for a response. Each knock echoed round the yard but nothing stirred inside the house. If anything, the stillness inside seemed to solidify. Once the echoes had died out, the yard returned to complete tranquillity again. The mist, which seemed to have followed us down the passageway, spread slowly around me, obscuring Matthew from sight.
I jumped as I felt something brush my legs. Looking down, I noticed the cat had followed me into the yard and was trying to get my attention. It was a grey tabby with a blaze of white on its chest, a white nose and four long white socks. I bent down to stroke it. The cat meowed softly and hopped onto one of the window ledges expectantly. No one came to the door.
I peered through windows but shutters on the inside prevented me from seeing into the first three. At the fourth, however, the shutters were slightly ajar though I could make out nothing in the gloom beyond the gap. I tried the window but it was tightly locked. The cat had leapt from the window ledge and was sidling over towards me. I wondered if it was connected to the house and bent down to stroke it again.
‘Where’s the spare key kitty?’ I asked hopelessly. The cat merely rubbed against my legs and purred in response.
Gradually getting bolder, I tried the door but it was firmly locked. Then, without thinking much, I kicked out a heavy round pebble from the path and with a careful, quick movement smashed through the small square pane of glass closest to the handle of the window with the open shutter. The glass clattered on the floor but nothing stirred in the house.
My course now thoroughly determined, I quickly reached in and undid the catch, letting the window fall open towards me. With one quick movement, I hoisted myself over the ledge and, pushing the shutters back gently, dropped quietly onto the floor. Before I could stop it, the cat followed me in. I decided not to object and pulled the window shut behind us.
Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw I was standing in a small parlour with a stone oven, basin, and numerous household implements such as buckets, brooms and bowls. I took a taper from my pocket and lit it. The oven was about a foot wide and there was a small arched gap beneath for putting the ashes in. The fire looked as though it hadn’t been used in a while.
The cat, which had been watching me with interest, now began pawing at my sleeve suggestively. There were a few cupboards and I opened one to find a few scraps of meat and bone. The cat had obviously been here before. I offered it some rather stale looking meat, which it immediately turned its nose up at.
A doorway led into a well-proportioned hall adjacent to the front door. My fears were raised for a moment when I saw that the bolts on the front door were drawn shut and a key was in the lock but an inspection of the back door revealed it to be locked with no sign of a key. I surmised that any inhabitant must have left by that exit. Still, it was very unusual for a house of this size to have no servants at home at all – there was just an eerie silence.
The room opposite the parlour turned out to be a long storage room with boxes and sacks, very similar to the ones I had seen stored in Don Alphonse’s warehouse. I had quick look in one and the contents seemed very similar too. I closed the door gently. Apart from the outside doors, there were no other exits. There was nothing for it but to look upstairs.
The cat skipped ahead of me and I followed it into the main hall of the house, which ran the length of the building. It was a pleasant and prettily laid out room. Equally perfect for entertaining guests or relaxing in private. The wooden panelled walls were adorned with rich tapestries and there were ornamental vases positioned in each corner, with the same blue pattern. At one end of the room was a fireplace and next to it there was a richly carved four-poster bed, with its curtains drawn. Was this where her beau had entertained the beautiful veiled lady?
Throughout the room there were a range of upholstered chairs and down the middle a long oak table that supported on its polished surface many fine ornaments, including books and maps, as well as scientific instruments. The centrepiece of the table was a wooden globe, about a foot in height and mounted on a cast iron stand. Pushing it around gently my eyes were immediately drawn to the coast of West Africa and the places that I had read about in Don Alphonse’s journal.
I suddenly became fully aware of a low hissing noise coming from the end of the room. I walked towards the noise and saw that it was coming from the fireplace. Bending forward I touched a blackened log. It was damp. Too late I realised that a lit fire had moments earlier been doused with water. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the curtains of the bed pulled a part and a huge arm swinging out of the darkness with a long object attached to it. I swivelled as sharply as I could to remove my head from the weapon’s trajectory, at the same time uttering the only word I thought would save me from a braining.
‘Cassangoe!’
The arm seemed to hesitate momentarily before continuing its path, connecting squarely with the part of my back between my shoulder blades, knocking the wind out of my lungs as I fell into the fireplace. Cursing myself for leaving Matthew outside, I braced myself for further blows but nothing came. I swung round to face my assailant, who I had guessed correctly was Don Alphonse’s friend and confidante.
Cassangoe would have been very hard to miss in a crowd even if the colour of his skin hadn’t marked him out as exotic on these shores. He was well over a head taller than most men and clearly didn’t need a weapon, which I now saw was a metal poker from the fireside, to get the better of me, as he could easily have broken my neck with his bare hands. But more than that, it was the strangeness of the man’s head and face that struck me. His head was like some classical statue with broad cheekbones in perfect symmetry and a fine aquiline nose but what stood out most was the livid scarring pattern all across one side of his forehead and across both cheeks. Dressed in richly coloured Italian style clothes, similar to those of Don Alphonse, he cut an impressive figure, a view only heightened by bright gold hooped earrings that dangled from his ear lobes and a head shaven to the skin. He stood in the middle of the room, weapon raised, wide eyes as white as marble, clearly undecided whether or not to finish me off or flee for his life.
I tried to push myself up from my knees but I was still reeling from the blow and knew I was still at his mercy. It was time to talk fast.
‘Cassangoe.’ I croaked, the word barely leaving my lips. I could hardly breathe let alone speak. ‘I’m a friend. I don’t want to hurt you. Or you to hurt me for that matter.’ I made an attempt at a smile as if I was trying to appease a rabid dog. Bad move.
‘How do you know my name, devil?’ His voice had a deep, bassy resonance, which seemed out of place in this refined setting, and a marked accent. He took a step forward, weapon poised. I found myself recoiling into the fireplace, arms instinctively covering my face.
‘Please, listen to me Cassangoe. I can help you … protect you.’ Some chance, I could barely protect myself, ‘I don’t believe you killed Don Alphonse.’
Cassangoe moved closer to me, teeth bared, the mention of his dead friend had clearly touched a nerve.
‘Devil,’ the word was hissed between his teeth. ‘What do you know about the death of my friend?’
‘I’ve been asked by Walsingham to investigate his death. I know you had nothing to do with it and I think I can prove who did. I’ve talked to Hercules Smyth – he’ll vouch for me. Please you have to trust me.’
‘How did you know where to find me? Not even Hercules knows this place.’ The distrust in his face and voice was all too clear.
‘A woman, a lady rather, she gave me this address. She used to meet her lover here – Don Alphonse, I presume – she was worried about him.’ The tension in Cassangoe’s body loosened a fraction. The weapon in his hand lowered.
‘What lady? Describe her?’
‘Voice of a siren, eyes like deep wells, an abundance of chestnut hair. “Beware, danger!” written all over her.’
Cassangoe fixed me with his eyes for a split second before throwing back his head and letting out a huge laugh. ‘I believe you, devil, I believe you. You describe her well! Know who she is?’
I thought I did: ‘Lady Leticia Hardwick? Wife of Sir Christopher?’
‘That’s right, devil. You know.’
‘So Don Alphonse was cuckolding him. That’s a motive for murder right there.’
‘Is that what you think, devil? Is that what you think?’ Disconcertingly, he let out another huge laugh, which reverberated around the room.
‘Stands to reason. Leticia Hardwick asks me to find her lover and gives me the location for their secret meetings. The location just happens to be Don Alphonse’s London house. Don Alphonse wants revenge for his father’s death and takes her as a lover. Perhaps he even wanted Hardwick to know. A dangerous game but one he might consider playing. In any case, Hardwick finds out and takes action, or at least gets one of his henchmen to do it.’
‘I like your reasoning. Ha ha, you know, devil, you know. Only one problem with your deduction, devil. You got the wrong man. The Don wasn’t Leticia’s lover. Her lover still very much alive,’ he held me in that statue like stare, challenging my brain to do the calculation. ‘Her lover is me.’
And with that, he let out another huge guffaw, which I thought was going to shatter the window panes.
Chapter 23
‘Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.’
(Titus Maccius Plautus)
‘Don Alphonse was a great, great man. A legend of a man and a great friend. Come, devil, let us raise a toast to the great Don. You would have loved him. Ha ha! The stories I could tell you. Devil. You are a devil – a clever devil – a bad devil – a bastard devil! Ha ha ha! Come a toast – to great men and bastards, and the bastards of great men!’
We were sitting at the long oak table, crystal glasses in hand, the tapestries on the wall dancing to the shadows of a newly lit fire and making strange patterns with the scarring on the black man’s face. Once I had managed to convince Cassangoe that I posed no threat he proved to be a surprisingly genial host. A bottle of Sicilian wine had been produced from ‘Don Alphonse’s supplies’ and every amenity made for my comfort, including a rub down for my sore back, which I was reliably informed looked ‘as ravished as a priest’s arse’. At least the poker had been put to its proper use and we were sitting in relative warmth.
I had started questioning Cassangoe warily but having got him talking it was hard to get a word in edgeways. The man had been cooped up for too long and once the smooth red wine had loosened the sides of his tongue it wouldn’t stop wagging. He told me how he and Hercules Smyth had been worried that Don Alphonse was missing, and how he had been hiding when the first men came to the warehouse and was still in hiding when I arrived some time later. He had heard of Don Alphonse’s death from behind the skins. ‘I could have ripped those skins apart with the swelling in my bosom.’ After I left, he had agreed with Hercules that he would hide out in the house and Hercules left on purpose in the hope that I would follow him – a plan that had worked as smartly as they hoped. After which, he had stolen away into the heart of the city and the safety of the hidden house. I thought of telling him that the warehouse had been destroyed in the fire but decided against it, fearing that his rage would get the better of him, and instead prompted him to tell me more about the secretive house we were now sitting in and where he had sought refuge.
The invitation to talk about the house prompted a narrative digression on the secret trysts it was often used for and in particular the arrangement he had with Leticia Hardwick. It seemed that they had a coded message system for arranging their meetings and that Don Alphonse, who had access to the Hardwick household through business dealings, had been the go-between – a role I assumed he must have relished performing with the thought that his father’s murderer was being cuckolded by the huge, affable moor.
I had told Cassangoe early on about my discovery of Don Alphonse's diaries and of reading about their great adventure across the African continent, which revelation set Cassangoe off on a whole other tangent of reminiscing. Listening to Cassangoe speak, I found it hard to reconcile the innocent young African missionary or mbùríchi that Don Alphonse had described in his diaries with the urbane, garrulous sophisticate that now sat before me offering cynicism and wit on everything from the Queen's wardrobe to the perils of non-licensed bear-baiting (apparently Russian bears were to be avoided at all costs). Cassangoe may have suffered many hardships in Africa as a young man but it seemed that nothing could have changed the man as much as his exposure to London society. He seemed to worship and despise it in equal measures and was full of stories about how he and Don Alphonse had manipulated the system to their advantage. Cassangoe’s narrative ranged from love of his friend, to tears and anger at his death, to his own personal deprivations in such quick succession that it was hard to keep up. Every story he told was punctuated with love, sadness, laughter and despair.
‘I’ve been here for three whole days, devil. Three whole days without vixen or victuals. You understand devil? I know you do ha ha ha! I’m thirsty devil. Thirsty.’ Followed by a huge glug on his glass. ‘No one else know where I am devil?’ The cat, whose name was Andromeda, was now sitting on Cassangoe’s lap enjoying being stroked by his enormous hand.
‘No.’ I reassured him. ‘Only Hercules Smyth and he doesn’t know where the house is.’
‘I know they going to rope me up for the Don’s death, if they catch me, devil, they’ll rope me up good and true. Though I as innocent as the Virgin Queen herself, the Lord bless her cruel soul. Those bastards make me the goat that scapes. Bastards, I spit on them.’ Followed by the action into the fireplace, just missing my cloak, ‘No offence devil, ha ha ha! There’s bastards and bastards! Ha ha ha! But I tell you if I get that particular bastard’s neck between my hands, that bastard who killed the Don, I tell you, I’ll squeeze and squeeze till that blackguard’s neck be wrung like a spring chicken. You mark my speech.’ I felt my own neck constrict at the thought.
He paused again to take a huge draught on his glass and I managed to fire a question in.
‘What was Don Alphonse’s plan for destroying Hardwick?’ Cassangoe gave me a suspicious look as though this sudden change of track was both surprising and unwelcome. ‘I know from the ship’s log or diaries that Hardwick murdered his father and Hercules told me that Don Alphonse was planning some sort of revenge. What was it? Was it to do with their business dealings?’
‘I want that diary back, you hear me. You bring it back to me. That’s the Don’s property and mine now. It’s the only memories I got.’
‘Of course, I will bring it to you next time I visit.’
‘See you do.’ Cassangoe looked satisfied. ‘I’ll tell you about the Don. Always he talked of revenge. Always the same, over and over again. It eat him up inside, so it did, that he grew so lean on it. I told him many times to forget it. Move on I said, life too short I said, we having too much fun, but every time he brought me back to Africa and the time we were captives together – that’s when he swore on his life and soul that he would avenge his father and nothing I could say would shake him.’ As he spoke these heartfelt words, I ran my mind over the ship’s log and Don Alphonse’s own expression on the subject. The two accounts tallied.
‘What was the plan with Hardwick?’
‘I don’t know exactly. He was very secretive about it. Told me he didn’t want me to be involved. All I know is that it was something to do with smuggling.’
