The Midwife and the Assassin Read online

  Katherine thought for a moment and then stood. “You are right. I cannot let my love for Daniel blind me to the truth, however ugly it may be. I will take you to his office.”

  Martha and I followed Katherine up a flight of stairs to a room overlooking Watling Street. Daniel Chidley’s shelves held all manner of books, and the desk was covered with stacks of carefully organized papers as well as a mix of notebooks and ledgers. Presumably these were where Daniel recorded cloth coming in and coats going out.

  Katherine turned to us. “I snapped at you when you suggested that Daniel might have kept secrets from me. But before we start, you must promise me one thing. If you find that Daniel did indeed fall into sin, you must follow that sin wherever it took him. I do not want your love for me to keep you from the truth, however hurtful it might be.”

  “We promise,” I said. “Now let us begin.”

  The three of us went to work, first leafing through Daniel’s printed books. They were a mix of Leveller books—some long, some short—and religious works. If his reading was any guide, Daniel was violently opposed not just to the King but to the bishops as well. He favored allowing each congregation to choose its own priest, and would have the priests answer to nobody except their followers. Such thinking had become common during the wars, and was nowhere more prevalent than in London. Before the rebellion, Daniel would have found himself in prison for harboring such ideas.

  “He was an independent spirit, to be sure,” I said. “Men should choose their own governors, their own laws, and their own priests?”

  “You disagree?” Katherine asked. “Whom would you have choose your governors and priests?”

  I nearly answered that in both York and Pontrilas I had been as close to a governor as a woman could be, giving my support to candidates for Parliament, and choosing my own parish priest. But of course a poor widow could not say either of these things.

  “I’ve known too many bad men to believe in such ideas,” I said. “That sort of democracy is nothing more than anarchy primped up and calling itself freedom.” I glanced at Martha, hoping to find an ally in that corner. I could tell from her expression that she agreed with Katherine.

  “That is where you’re wrong, Bridget Hodgson,” Katherine said, smiling slightly. “And someday I will convince you of it.” But we both knew that this was not the time or place to debate such weighty issues. We turned back to the seemingly endless pile of papers on Daniel’s desk.

  The letters were no less motley than the books, covering not just business matters, but questions of religion and politics. More intriguingly, we found dozens of short, cryptic notes, many of which seemed to set the time and place for a meeting. Some meetings were to take place at the Nag’s Head—if that’s what NH meant—but others were far less clear: SP, GC, LC, PA.

  “Have you seen these before?” I handed a few of the notes to Katherine.

  “Aye,” she said. “Daniel and his friends used them. I teased him that he was playing at being a spy, and that if he wanted that life he should have joined with Cromwell.”

  I stole a glance at Martha, but she had locked her gaze on Katherine’s face.

  “It’s not much of a cypher,” Martha said.

  Katherine laughed. “And Daniel would not have been much of a spy. NH is the Nag’s Head; SP is St. Paul’s; GC is the Great Conduit. And if he’s meeting JG it has to be Jeremiah Goodkey. He’s one of Daniel’s closest friends. There’s no mystery here.”

  As we continued our work, we found dozens of these notes scattered throughout his books and ledgers in what seemed to be a haphazard fashion. I was looking through one of Daniel’s registers, this one recording coats sent to the navy, when yet another note fluttered to the ground.

  Tuesd iv Nov, xii o’clock, HB, said the note. It was signed TR. I recognized Tom Reynolds’s hand immediately, and HB could only be the Horned Bull. I put the note with the others, my mind racing. I knew I could use the note to our advantage—but how?

  As we went through the rest of Daniel’s books, collecting all the meeting papers, I puzzled at the problem, and soon I had an answer. I merely had to wait for the opportunity to put my scheme into action.

  In the end we read much, but found little of interest: no bribes, no threats, and other than Tom’s note, no evidence of Daniel’s work for Cromwell. His profits from the New Model Army were impressive, but did nothing to help us solve the murder. By the time we finished, all we had to show for our labor were the slips of paper.

  “God only knows how many other meetings there must have been,” Martha said. “He can’t have kept all the papers. How many did he burn? And how many did he send?”

  “He sent as many as he received,” Katherine said. “And he received many more than this. Could Daniel’s murderer be somewhere in that pile?”

  Now was the time to put my plan into action.

  “Katherine, you go through them again,” I said. “You knew him best. We will remain quiet, and you can tell us what you see.”

  Katherine nodded and began to leaf through the papers. “All these places are public,” she observed. “But they would be so crowded that anyone could come or go without being noticed.”

  “Daniel could hide in the crowd,” Martha said. “He wanted to meet someplace where he could be seen but neither noticed nor remembered.”

  “Why would Daniel want to meet people in this way?” I asked. “Why not just have them come to the shop?”

  Katherine shrugged helplessly, but I saw a degree of concern creeping into her expression. Perhaps she worried that we might discover some terrible secret after all. She turned back to the papers. When she came to the note that Tom Reynolds had sent, she set it aside without a second glance.

  “Wait,” I said. “HB. Isn’t the Horned Bull an inn nearby?”

  “Aye,” Katherine said. “It is in Pissing Alley hard onto Bow Lane. Do you think Daniel might have met someone there?”

  “It could be,” I said. “Do you recognize the hand? Did Daniel ever say anything about going to the Bull, or meeting a man with the initials TR?”

  “No, never,” Katherine said. “I have no idea what that might have been about.”

  “Well, it gives us a place to start,” I said. “Martha and I will go there and see what we can learn.”

  “Shall I come with you?”

  “You’d best not,” I replied. “If Daniel was killed by someone he knew, the murderer likely knows you as well. If he saw the three of us together he’d be on his guard, and we don’t want to warn him. Martha and I will go there now.”

  “But you’ll come back as soon as you learn something?”

  “Of course we will,” I said. That is a part of the plan, after all.

  Martha and I walked to Bread Street and down Pissing Alley toward the Horned Bull.

  Once we were safely away, I turned to Martha.

  “Katherine’s actions are not those of a woman who is guilty,” I said. “If she were, she’d hardly let us search Daniel’s papers.”

  “Unless she’d already searched them,” Martha pointed out. “And burned those that she did not want us to see. Now, will you tell me why we are going to the Horned Bull?”

  I told Martha of my plan.

  “You’ll lie to Katherine even though you think she’s innocent?” Martha asked.

  “We lie to her every day,” I said. “And if it helps us find Daniel’s killer she could hardly complain.”

  When we reached the Horned Bull, Martha and I sent a chambermaid to summon Will and Tom, and found a table in the inn’s dining room. A few minutes later, Will appeared and walked toward us. When Martha started to laugh I realized that I was looking past Will, gazing instead at the doorway behind him.

  “Who are you looking for?” Martha asked.

  “What do you mean?” I replied. “I’m looking at Will.” I felt my ears pink and hoped she would not notice.

  Martha’s laughter rang through the inn, bringing every other conversation to a
halt. “If you were looking at Will with such longing on your face, I would be quite furious. You have become a better liar in recent years, but I would not count that as your masterpiece.”

  “Will you hush?” My mortification was complete. “If you knew who I was looking for, why did you ask?”

  Will arrived, and his gaze shifted uneasily between the two of us. “What is it? What did I do?”

  “Nothing,” I growled. “Is Colonel Reynolds here?”

  This, of course, set Martha into another fit of laughter.

  “He’s gone to the Tower to see Mr. Marlowe.” By now, Will was confused beyond measure. “Are you laughing at me?”

  “No, no,” Martha managed at last. “It has nothing to do with you. We are just a pair of hens a-gossiping, that is all.”

  “We have news from the Cheap,” I said, hoping to turn the conversation in another direction. “You should sit.”

  Will did, and after a few minutes Martha had regained herself enough to talk without laughing. “What is it?” Will asked.

  “Katherine Chidley has asked us to help solve her husband’s murder,” I said.

  Will raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Really! That is—convenient, I suppose. She will answer your questions without wondering why you are asking them.”

  “Aye,” I said. “But it also means that she will be watching us more closely than we imagined.”

  “And we shall have to tell her what we find,” Martha said. “At least some of it.”

  Will nodded. “I’ll tell Colonel Reynolds about this. What do you intend to do now?”

  I explained my scheme a second time, and Will nodded. “That could work. It will certainly throw her off balance. Is there anything you need from me or Colonel Reynolds?”

  At this Martha began to laugh once again. Will shook his head in exasperation and stood. “I’ll leave you be, then. Send word if you learn anything of import.”

  “Back to the Cheap?” Martha asked after Will had left.

  “Aye,” I said. “We need to tell Katherine what we ‘discovered’ here at the Bull.”

  * * *

  As we walked toward the Cheap, I reflected on the lies I’d already told Katherine, and the ones I was about to tell. I told myself that I deceived her out of necessity rather than malice, and that we both were working to discover Daniel’s killer. While the facts were the facts, I could not convince myself I was entirely in the right. But what choice did I have?

  When we arrived at Katherine’s home, her maidservant told us she’d gone to the Nag’s Head. We made our way to the tavern, where we found her deep in conversation with Jeremiah Goodkey. She seemed intent on convincing him every woman should be allowed to vote and—if she were godly enough—to serve as an alderman or even Lord Mayor. Goodkey was having none of it and argued back with admirable passion. When Goodkey noticed us, he recognized that we were waiting for Katherine and withdrew to his customary place behind the bar.

  “Back so soon?” Katherine asked. “Did you find out who Daniel met with?”

  “Aye,” I said in a hushed tone. “But it is not news we should spread too widely.”

  Katherine leaned toward me so I could whisper in her ear.

  “We think TR is a man named Thomas Reynolds,” I said. “I gave a penny to a chambermaid and she told me that he is the only TR at the Bull.”

  “Do you know him?” Martha asked Katherine.

  Katherine shook her head. “What does he look like?”

  “We never saw him,” I replied. “But the chambermaid said he’d gone to Southwark. In his absence we…” I paused, pretending to consider my choice of words.

  “We looked about his room.” Martha played her part perfectly.

  Katherine’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. “You burgled his room?” she whispered. “Are you mad?”

  “It wasn’t a proper burglary,” Martha said. “We didn’t take anything. We just looked through his papers.”

  “I’m not sure a Justice would appreciate the distinction,” Katherine pointed out. “But what’s done is done. What did you find?”

  “You will not like the news,” I said. “But you must believe us, for it is the truth.”

  Katherine’s eyes hardened and she nodded. “Tell me.”

  “We found letters that were written in a kind of cipher,” I said. “Some were sent to him, and some he was writing for a man named Marlowe at the Tower of London.”

  We sat in silence so Katherine could absorb this news. I wanted her to see the truth on her own rather than having me lay it before her.

  “You think that Thomas Reynolds is in Cromwell’s employment,” she said.

  “Who else sends ciphered letters to the Tower?” I asked.

  “And if Reynolds is in Cromwell’s employ, Daniel must have been as well,” Katherine continued. “Why else would they have met so secretly?”

  I held my breath as Katherine considered what I’d said. I could see her trying to find some other explanation for the letter and meetings, an explanation that would not make her husband a traitor to the Leveller cause.

  “Perhaps Cromwell made Daniel his creature,” she admitted at last. “Old ’Nol is a powerful and ruthless man.”

  I exhaled at last, relieved that she’d accepted the possibility of Daniel’s betrayal. With that goal accomplished I could move ahead with our plan. “If someone thought Daniel was in Cromwell’s service, he might have killed him for it,” I said. “One of the Levellers, perhaps?”

  My eyes drifted to Jeremiah Goodkey. His forearms bulged as he rubbed a cloth across the bar. He could have overcome Daniel with no trouble at all.

  “You think Daniel was killed by a Leveller?” Katherine asked. “By one of his own friends?”

  “If the killer thought Daniel had betrayed the cause,” Martha said, “he might not have let mere friendship stay his hand.”

  “And once Daniel entered the world of spies, he might have made other enemies as well,” I said. “After all, it is not only the Levellers who oppose Cromwell.”

  “You mean it could be one of the King’s men,” Katherine said.

  “Aye,” I said. “Cromwell has many enemies who would be happy to see him dead. Thus so did Daniel.”

  “Could the murderer be this Thomas Reynolds or Mr. Marlowe?” Katherine asked. “Perhaps they demanded Daniel’s service, and Daniel refused.”

  My heart leaped in my chest at this suggestion. I tried to push it away, but could not. While I did not believe that Tom was behind the murder, what about Mr. Marlowe? Could he be so cunning as to kill Daniel Chidley and then ask us to solve the crime? The possibilities for deception in this matter echoed endlessly.

  “I don’t know,” I said at last. “It is possible.”

  “I should like to talk to Abraham Walker,” Katherine said. “And I want to tell him everything we have learned.”

  “The man we met at your home?” Martha asked. “I thought he was a cloth merchant.”

  “Aye, he is that,” Katherine said, “but he is more as well. He kept himself a neutralist in the wars, and thus made himself into a man that all parties trust. He may know better who Daniel’s enemies were.”

  “Do you trust him?” I asked.

  “With my life,” Katherine replied. “He has been a true friend for many years. He will not hesitate to help us.”

  I nodded my assent and Katherine went in search of Walker.

  As soon as we were alone, Martha asked the question that was already on my lips. “Could it have been Marlowe?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “Anything and everything seems possible now.”

  “But would he kill Daniel and then send us to find the killer simply to muddy the waters?”

  I could only shake my head in confusion.

  We sat in silence, puzzling over Marlowe’s knot. And then it came free.

  “If Mr. Marlowe did kill Daniel, he might be trying to fell two birds with one shot,” I said. “He murdered Daniel for rea
sons of his own, and then sent the two of us after Goodkey and Owen. He’ll hang whichever one we settle on as the killer, not caring who it is. Daniel is dead, and so is one of Cromwell’s enemies.”

  Martha nodded. “He’d see one enemy murdered, and another executed for the crime. A good day’s work even for so devious a man as Marlowe.”

  “Or Mr. Marlowe could be telling the truth. Perhaps Jeremiah Goodkey or Charles Owen did kill Daniel.” I shook my head in wonder and confusion. “For a man who sewed coats, Daniel Chidley had his share of enemies.”

  “And if we are not careful,” Martha warned, “his enemies could become ours.”

  “Then the sooner we finish this business, the safer we will be,” I said. “Let us hope that Abraham Walker knows something of consequence.”

  Chapter 14

  We had hoped to speak to Mr. Walker the next day, but before we had the chance, all of London was thrown into a frenzy when the trial of King Charles ended and he was sentenced to death. When word reached the Cheap, the entire neighborhood poured into the street, weeping and shouting over what had happened. Martha and I wandered alone along Cheapside Street, watching and listening to the crowd.

  When we reached St. Mary-le-Bow church, a chapman—the same one I’d heard singing of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot—was singing of more recent events.

  Now thanks to the powers below

  We Englishmen do reap what we sow;

  The Bishop’s Miter has been cast down,

  And along with it has gone the Crown,

  With no such thing as bishop or king,

  Good order has fled the land,

  So come clowns, come boys, come hobbledehoys,

  Come females of each degree,

  Stretch out your throats, ladies bring in your votes,

  You’ll make good the anarchy!

  “Katherine would have him by the ears, if she heard him,” Martha whispered. Indeed, some women in the crowd began to murmur against the chapman. Unfortunately, he did not realize that he had one foot on a rolling stone and would soon be tumbling downhill.