The Plague Court Murders hm-1 Read online

  On the night of the 3rd September, the servants complained of somebody in the house, who seemed to brush them in the dark hallways. Moreover, they said the air was hard to breathe, and sickened them; but they saw nothing.

  On the night of the 5th September, one Mary Hill, a maidservant, was sent out after dark into the passage which runneth past the storerooms and counting house to water some stone boxes of geraniums which stand on the window-ledges inside the passage. So goes she out - this part of the house being now deserted - with her candle and watering-pot, though afeard to do so. And when she did not return after many minutes, they grew sore alarmed and began to shriek, whereat I myself went out after her, and found her lying in a swound there, her face a blackish color.

  She did not speak until morning (it being necessary for two women to sit up with her) she finally told us that this was true: viz., that, as she was watering the geraniums a hand appeared between the bars of the window before her. That this hand was of a grayish hue, very wasted, and covered with large bursting sores. That this hand twitched weakly in the flowers, and tried to seize her candle. That there was another hand, holding something like an awl or a knife, with which it picked at the window; but this she was not sure of, because she remembered no more.

  I pray that your Lordship will excuse me of writing fully what occurred the succeeding night, 6th September. I will say that towards one of the clock, in the morning, we were roused by a screaming which came from outside. And when I went out with pistol and lanthorn, and others behind me, we found that the door of the little stone house was barred on the inside. Hawks, who had been sleeping there, presently opened it, but we could not persuade him to talk in a befitting manner. But he told us, most piteously, Not to let it in - not to let it in, for God's sake. And then he said, It was hacking at the bars with its awl, seeking to get in, and he could see its face.

  This was the night (or it was rather towards morning, as G. Beaton told the constables) that Master Charles expired of cutting his throat, in his bed. I will say, with obedient circumspection, and in the hope that your Lordship will understand me, that certain swellings which I observed upon his face and body were altogether disappeared by the time the laying-out women –

  I found my heart beating heavily, and I was warm despite the damp air. These people lived before me: the pale lad sitting at the window, the steward painfully writing his account, the shadows of that cramped and greasy time come back upon a damned house. I began to have a hideous notion of what haunted Dean Halliday now.

  Then I got up, with a muscle of fear jerking in my leg, because I could have sworn somebody had walked down the passage, and past my door. It was only a flash out of the tail of the eye; I went over to reassure myself. Stone window-boxes? They were not here now, although I could remember one, and the passage was empty.

  Returning, and wiping my hands aimlessly on my overcoat, I wondered whether I ought to call Masters and show him. But the spell took me.

  . And now it behooves me, though with a sick and doubtful heart, to throw what light I can upon this Visitation which GOD in his inscrutable ways hath wrought. Some part of it I observed myself, but most I learned in later time from my father; for I was bare ten years old then, which was in the year of the Great Plague, or 1665.

  Doubtless your Lordship has heard men talk of this time, since there are many now alive who did not flee the city, yet survived

  My father, who was a good and pious man, used to gather us his children and in his great voice he would read the text which says, 'Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness: nor for the destruction that wasteth at noon day. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee.' This was in August and September, the worst months because the hottest. Even shut into our room I can remember hearing from the upper windows of neighboring houses the shrieks of the women that broke the great silence that was on the city. Once my sister and I crept out on the roof-tiles, at a giddy height, and saw the hot murky sky, and no smoke going up from the chimneys, and such people as were abroad hurrying in the middle of the streets, and the watchmen with their red wands before houses that were marked in a red cross on the doors below the words, `Lord, have mercy upon us.' I only saw a plague-cart once, which was when I crept to a window at night: it was stopped near by, and the bellman was clanging his bell and bawling towards an upstairs window, and so was the watchman, and the linkman was holding up his light so that I saw the cart full of bodies that were covered with sores. I heard these carts every night.

  However, this was later, as I shall speak of hereinafter, and the Plague (which broke out in the parish of St. Giles) took so long a time to reach us that people said it would not come at all; and it was mayhap to my father's forethought that we owed our lives. For my father took thought to GOD's signs and omens, like others less fortunate. When the great comet appeared, and burned dull and sluggish in the sky, he went to Sir Richard - as he was then, your Lordship's grandfather - and told him what it was. (This was in the month of April).

  Now Sir Richard's own room of business, set apart from his counting-room and warehouses, was the stone house before mentioned. Here he entertained the great people who came to buy of him: which is to, say, inside by the fire in cool weather, and outside under the trees in fine. Sir Richard was a vasty awesome figure in his great periwig and grave fur gown, with the gold chain round his neck; but he did not take amiss what my father said to him.

  My father urged on him the precaution he had heard was taken by a Dutch family in Aldersgate Street: viz., that the house should be well provisioned and shut up of itself, suffering none to go in or out until the scourge abated. Sir Richard heard him out, and pinched his chin and was mighty thoughtful. For he had a dear wife, who was soon to be brought to bed of child; likewise a beloved daughter Margaret, and a son Owen, your Lordship's own father. Whereat he said - Ay, there was reason in the plan, and if the plague showed no abatement in a fortnight, they would do it. For they dared not leave the town, because of his wife.

  Your Lordship well knows that it did not abate; nay, that it breathed fiercer as the warm weather came with the flies (although all birds had gone from the town). It smote northwards to Holbourne, down the Strand and Fleet Street, and was upon us, and everywhere were people fleeing mad from the stricken town with their goods piled into carts and waggons. These stormed at the gates of the Mansion House, beseeching of my Lord Mayor passes and certificates of health, without which no other town would suffer them to enter, or no inn allow them to lie there. To some it came slowly, first the pains and vomit, then the swelling sores, and mayhap lingered a week ere dying in convulsions; to others it came in the vitals, without outward sign, until they fell in the street and died there.

  Whereupon Sir Richard ordered the house to be shut up, dismissing his clerks and keeping only such servants as were of necessity. He desired his son and daughter to leave and join the Court (which had fled to Hampton), but they would not. So none were suffered to go out into the air, save only within the enclosure of our wall; and these with myrrh and zedory in their mouths. I except only my father, who manfully offered to carry abroad such messages as Sir Richard should wish: But indeed he would have thought himself fortunate, had it not been for one thing: that is to say, his half-brother, Louis Playge.

  Now in truth I turn sick when I write of this man, who hath affrighted my dreams. I saw him only twice or thrice. Once was when he came boldly to the house, demanding too see the steward his brother; but the servants knew who he was, and ran from him. He caught my little sister, so that when my father came upon him he was twisting her arm horribly, and laughing, and telling her how they cut up a man at Tyburn yesterday. (For your Lordship must know he was assistant to the Hangman, a thing of horror and shame to my father, and which he strove to conceal from Sir Richard). Nor had he the courage or skill for the Hangman's office, but cou
ld only stand beside and .. .

  Some things I shall not include; it is not well that I should.

  . .. But my father said - That if once he could gain the stomach for all he desired to do, then, Louis Playge must be so evil that he could not die like other men. In appearance he was a short man, with a face something bloated. He wore his own lank hair, and had a greasy flopping hat pinned up at one side; and instead of a sword he wore at his side a curious dagger with a blade like a thick awl, which he was very proud of because -he had made it himself, and which he called Jenny. He used it at Tyburn for . .

  But when the noisome pestilence blew upon us, we did not see him, and I know my father hoped him dead. Then one day (it was August) my father went abroad with a message, and when he returned he sat down by my mother in the kitchen - and put his head in his hands. For he had seen his brother Louis in an alley off Basinghall Street, and his brother was kneeling and stabbing at something with his weapon. Beside him there was a handcart full of small furry bodies, the which were cats. (For your Lordship must know that by an ORDER conceived by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, no hogs, dogs, cats or tame pigeons, being bearers of contagion, were suffered to be kept; but all must be made way with, and killers appointed for that purpose)....

  Somehow, as my eyes fell on this sentence, I found myself nodding as though in confirmation, and saying, "Yes!" and being positive that I remembered seeing the Order - which was bordered in black, and posted outside a tavern with people muttering about it.

  And, seeing this, my father would have hastened on, but that Louis called to him, and he was laughing and saying-How now, brother, but are ye afeard of me? And the cat was still writhing, so that he trod on its neck, and came stepping through the filth of the alley, all lean and bespattered, with his hat flopping against the muddy yellow sky behind. When my father asked him if he did not fear, he replied that he had a philtre, gained of a potent necromancer at Southwark, which kept him immune.

  Though indeed there were many with philtres, and plague-waters, and amulets (so that quacks grew rich), yet it did not save them, and they were put into the deadcart with the amulets still round their necks. But it seemeth that his charm was of the Devil, forasmuch as through all those crazed days he had his safety, and grew crazed with what he dared do among the dead and dying. These things I will not repeat, save only to tell your Lordship that he grew to a thing shunned like the plague itself, nor would any tippling-house take him in.

  Him, however, my father forgot, for on the 21st August Master Owen - your Lordship's father fell ill as he was rising from dinner.

  Nor was Sir Richard behindhand with taking action. He desired Master Owen to be conveyed to the stone house, that others might not be infected. Here a bed was caused to be made of Sir Richard's finest tapestries, and he lay moaning among the lacquer cabinets, and the hard gold and silver, and Sir Richard was as one demented. It was agreed (though this against the ORDER) that no report should be made to the council; that Sir Richard and my father should attend him, and a chirurgeon sent for under oath of secrecy.

  Throughout that month, I say, they watched. (It was a few days afterwards, I think, that Sir Richard's wife was delivered of a stillborn son). Dr. Hodges waited daily on Master Owen, as he lay there with his shaven head, and let blood and administered clysters; and held him up in his bed to prevent choking, an hour at a time. And it was in the most terrible time of the Visitation, the week of the 1st September, that Dr. Hodges told us the turn was past, and he would grow well.

  That night Sir Richard, and his lady near death herself, and their daughter, wept for joy. We knelt and gave thanks to GOD.

  On the night of the 6th September my father roused himself at midnight, and went out to take night watch at Master Owen's side. He carried a flaring link in his hand, and when he did start across the yard, then he saw a man on his knees before the house, who was pawing at the door.

  And Sir Richard, who was inside, thought it to be my father, so that he came to open the door. But the man staggered up and turned round, and my father saw that it was Louis Playge. And he saw that Louis Playge was moving his neck curiously He held up the light, and perceived that this was because a great plague-sore had blossomed on his throat; and even as he watched, other sores began to swell on his face. Whereat Louis Playge began to scream and cry.

  'Twas then that Sir Richard opened the door, asking what the matter was. Nor did Louis Playge speak, but only made a dart to go in at the door; but my father thrust the flaming link into his face as I have seen done with wild animals. Whereupon he tumbled down and rolled, crying - For Christ's sake, brother, will ye turn me out to die? Sir Richard stood horror-struck, not being able to shut the door. And cries my father-Get to the pesthouse, or he would set fire to his clothes and burn the plague out of him. But Louis Playge said they would not have him, that they cursed and reviled him, and no man would look on his face, and he must die in a gutter. When my father would not let him, of a sudden he gathers himself together, and drawing his dagger leaps at the door a-slashing; the which Sir Richard closed in bare time.

  Then my father's brother ran about the yard, so that my father was compelled, to bespeak aid; and half-a-dozen fellows with torches pursued him to drive him out, a-jabbing the torches while he ran screaming before them. Presently they heard him no more, and came on him fallen dead under a tree.

  There they buried him, seven full feet beneath the tree, because had they given him to the dead-cart, then they would have acknowledged the plague in their house and been guarded by watchmen; nor did they dare cast him into the street, because of who might see and report. Yet my father heard him say before he died, crying out in the yard, that he would come back, and find a way in, and butcher who should be in, the house as he butchered cats; and, if he were not strong enough, he would take the body of an inmate or him who owned the house....

  Master Owen heard him (or his shape) even that same night, clinging to the door like a great flattened bat, and trying to force the door with his awl.

  Therefore, my lord, since it hath pleased you to ask me for this account of horror and suffering....

  Something drew my eyes off the page, and to this day I do not know what it was. The evil images were so entangled with this room that I felt not here, but in the seventeenth century. Yet I found myself standing up, staring about the place....

  There were footsteps in the yard. There was a creak and scrape outside in the passage.

  And then, harsh and sudden as though at a dying jerk, the bell in the passage began to ring.

  VI DEATH OF A HIGH PRIEST

  THAT introduced it. And, since the ringing of that bell began one of the most astounding and baffling murder cases of modern times, it is as well to be very careful of what I say; not to exaggerate or mislead-at least, any more than we were misled-so that you may have a fair opportunity to put your wits to work on a puzzle apparently impossible of solution.

  First, then, the bell did not clang out strongly. In the stiffness of its rust and disuse, that would have been impossible even with a heavy hand pulling the wire. It creaked, and jarred down with a low reverberation; creaked again more weakly, and the dapper fell in little more than a whisper. But to me it was more horrible than though it had banged a sharp alarm through the house. I got up, with a faint sickishness in the pit of my stomach, and hurried to the door into the passage.

  A light flashed in my face, and the beam of my own lamp crossed that of Masters. He was standing in the door to the yard, looking back over his shoulder at me, and he was pale. He said hoarsely:

  "Follow me out, and close behind. . . . Wait!" The voice grew to a bellow as hurrying steps and the gleam of candles, plunged towards us from the throat of the passage behind. First came stalking Major Featherton, paunchy and rather wild-eyed, with Halliday and Marion Latimer behind him. McDonnell elbowed past them, holding firmly to the arm of the red-headed Joseph.

  "I demand to know-" roared the major.

  "Stand back,"
said Masters. "Stand back, all of you. Stay where you are, and don't move till I give the word. No, I don't know what's happened! Round 'em all up, Bert.... Come along," he said to me.

  We slipped down the three steps into the yard and cast our lights out across it. The rain had stopped some time ago; the yard was a thick sea of mud, undulating in places, but sloping a trifle towards where we stood, so that it was almost drained of puddles.

  "There isn't a footmark," snapped Masters, "going near that stone house on this side. Look at it! Besides, I've been here. Come on, and keep in my tracks...."

  Slogging out across the yard, we examined the unbroken mud in front of us. Masters cried, "You in there! Darworth! Open the door, will you?" and there was no reply. The light flickered much lower against the windows. The last few steps we ran at the door. It was a low door, but immensely heavy: built of thick oak boards bound in rusty iron, with a broken handle. And it was fastened now by a new hasp and padlock.

  "I'd forgotten that damned padlock," Masters breathed, wrenching it. He threw his shoulder on the door, to no effect. `Bert! Ahoy there, Bert! Get the key to this lock from whoever's got it and bring it out! ... Come on, sir. The windows.. There we are, where the bell-wire runs in: ought to be that box, or whatever it was, that young Latimer stood on when he ran the wire in. No? By God, it isn't here! Let's see ..." We had hurried round to the side of the house, keeping close in against the wall, and making sure that there were no footprints ahead of us. There was the window to which the wire ran, a foot square and about twelve feet above the ground. The roof, which was low-pitched and built of heavy rounded tiles, did not overhang the wall.

  "No way to climb," snarled Masters. The man was upset, and breathing hard; also, he was dangerous. "That must have been a devil of a big box young Latimer stood on, to climb up there. Give me a leg up, will you? I'm pretty heavy, but I'll not be long. . .