The Bawdy Basket Read online

  ‘Yes, Frank. One of the men who sent your father to his grave and who now enjoys the proceeds of that crime. He is a liar and a knave. I talked to the man. I do not take him to be brave and steadfast under questioning.’

  ‘I’ll question the rogue with the point of my dagger,’ said Elias.

  ‘It may not come to that, Owen.’

  When they reached the house, Nicholas sent the Welshman around to the rear before he and Quilter went up to the front door. Their knock brought a manservant to the threshold. He refused to admit them until he had gained permission from his master. Quilter was too impatient to wait. Shoving the man aside, he stepped into the hall and yelled at the top of his voice.

  ‘Bevis Millburne! The son of Gerard Quilter would have words with you!’

  The anxious face of Millburne appeared at the door of the parlour, took one look at the two visitors then vanished. They heard a key turning in the lock. When Quilter put his shoulder to the door, he could not budge it.

  ‘Come, Frank,’ said Nicholas. ‘Let’s see what fish Owen has caught.’

  They left by the front door and made their way to the back of the property. Elias was as good as his work. Eyes popping and chest heaving, Millburne was pinned against a wall with a dagger at his throat. When his friends approached, the Welshmen pricked his captive’s skin enough to draw blood. Millburne yelped.

  ‘You chose the right man, Nick,’ said Elias genially. ‘Master Millburne could not be more obliging. When I offered to trim his beard for him, he promised to tell us all that we wished to know.’

  ‘Did you give false evidence against my father?’ demanded Quilter.

  Millburne looked hunted. Elias flicked the knife to open another small cut.

  ‘Give the gentleman his answer, Master Millburne,’ he said.

  ‘We have Sir Eliard’s ledger in our possession,’ said Nicholas. ‘There is a record of payments to you and all the others involved in the conspiracy. Admit your crime now and it might buy you some leniency.’

  ‘Yes,’ added Elias. ‘I’ll only cut off one of your ears.’

  ‘Did you lie at my father’s trial?’ said Quilter, inches from Millburne’s face.

  The captive’s resolution crumbled. Surrounded by three strong men, faced with the information that Sir Eliard’s payment to him could be verified and realising that the forces of law and order would descend on them all with a vengeance, he did what he always did in a crisis and tried to blame others.

  ‘I did perjure myself, sirs,’ he admitted, ‘but only under duress. Sir Eliard forced me to do it even though my senses rebelled against the notion. He and Cyril Paramore are the real culprits. Believe me, sirs, they worked on me until I consented.’

  Nicholas was satisfied. ‘Let’s take him before a magistrate,’ he said.

  ‘Which one?’ asked Quilter with a grim chuckle. ‘Justice Haygarth?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘We need to collect him on the way.’

  Lawrence Firethorn and Barnaby Gill rarely spent much time alone. While they worked together with surpassing brilliance onstage, they were less than friendly towards each other when they left it. The mutual antagonism went deeper than professional envy. Their private lives occupied such different worlds and their attitudes towards their fellow men were at such variance that they could find nothing to share with pleasure. It was all the more surprising, then, that the two of them sat apart from the rest of the company, deep in conversation and, apparently, in close agreement for once. Everyone else contributed to the boisterous atmosphere in the taproom but the two principal actors were solemn. Over a cup apiece of Canary wine, they brooded on their future.

  ‘When will you tell them, Lawrence?’ asked Gill.

  ‘I hope that we may never have to do so.’

  ‘The other sharers deserve to know the truth.’

  ‘They have known the truth about Lord Westfield for long enough,’ said Firethorn. ‘Our patron is a pleasure-seeker, a man so riddled with bad debts that, were he a vessel, he’d have sunk to the bed of the ocean by now.’

  ‘The likelihood is that he will take the rest of us with him.’

  ‘Not if Nick Bracewell’s plan has worked.’

  ‘It is too risky.’

  ‘We did our share, Barnaby. We traduced that despicable moneylender, as we were bid. If the fellow was in the gallery, his ears would have been burnt off with shame. Edmund was a most slimy Sir Eliard.’

  ‘And that’s the other thing, Lawrence.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Nicholas may save us from bankruptcy but even he cannot keep Edmund.’

  ‘No,’ sighed Firethorn. ‘We must resign ourselves to his loss.’

  Gill pulled a face. ‘Then we head for the wilderness.’

  Alexander Marwood emerged from the crowd to push his emaciated face at them. Pallid and wasted, he looked as if he had risen from his deathbed to haunt them. He wagged a skeletal finger with indignation.

  ‘You’ll bring the law down around my ears,’ he complained.

  ‘Then sell finer wine and better ale,’ said Firethorn.

  ‘I speak of your play, sir. It was an outrage.’

  ‘Did you see it?’

  ‘No, Master Firethorn. I never watch your performances. Plays are an abomination. When I lay sick in bed, I was forced to listen to some of them and that was enough of an ordeal. Now you inflict this new threat on me.’

  ‘What threat?’ asked Gill.

  ‘Prosecution.’

  Firethorn snorted. ‘You should have been prosecuted for ugliness years ago.’

  ‘Everyone is talking of the way that you mocked Sir Eliard Slaney today.’

  ‘It was no more than the rogue deserved.’

  ‘That’s as maybe,’ said Marwood, ‘but he is a powerful man. Nobody with any sense dares to cross Sir Eliard or they will suffer for it. When he hears what you’ve done, he’ll bring an action against the company for seditious libel. Since you perform in my yard, papers will be served on me as well.’

  ‘Prison is the best place for you.’

  ‘Do not sneer, Master Firethorn. I’ll demand restitution.’

  ‘Demand all you will,’ said Firethorn. ‘You’ll not get a penny for us.’

  ‘The Queen’s Head must not suffer.’

  ‘It has been suffering since the day you became its landlord.’

  ‘Bah!’

  Marwood turned on his heel and scuttled off, muttering loudly. Firethorn and Hoode were even more subdued now. Threatened by the loss of their playwright and the disappearance of their patron, they had Marwood’s unending laments to cope with as well. They were just about to sink into a deeper misery when Edmund Hoode arrived.

  ‘What?’ he said affably. ‘Sitting apart from your fellows?’

  ‘Barnaby and I had business to discuss,’ said Firethorn.

  ‘Is there room at your table for me?’

  ‘For the few days that you are here,’ said Gill maliciously. ‘Though I am not sure that I wish to drink with a man who has treated us so harshly.’

  ‘Did I treat you harshly on that stage today?’ asked Hoode.

  Gill was honest. ‘No, you did not, Edmund. You were supreme.’

  ‘You are honoured,’ said Firethorn. ‘Barnaby would never confess that of me.’

  ‘I never have good cause to admit your superiority.’

  ‘You have it every time we tread the boards together.’

  ‘Then why I have never noticed it, Lawrence?’

  Hoode laughed. ‘Shame on the pair of you! I am back with you for two seconds and you fall to quarrelling. I swear I’ve never heard you agree about anything.’

  ‘We agree about you betrayal,’ retorted Gill.

  ‘Barnaby is right,’ said Firethorn seriously. ‘We are of the same mind there.’

  ‘And would this unprecedented harmony remain if I came back?’ said Hoode.

  ‘Do not tease us, Edmund. You’ve made your decision clear.’


  ‘It has been changed.’

  Firethorn was startled. ‘By whom?’

  ‘By me, Lawrence.’

  ‘Not by Mistress Radley?’

  ‘No,’ said Hoode. ‘I thought that Avice was responsible until I saw that I had decided for myself. I provoked her. In making those alterations to The Merchant of Calais, I so offended her that she dismissed me from her house. I am rejected.’

  ‘So you come crawling back to us, do you?’ said Gill.

  ‘I never really left you, Barnaby. Do you not see? When the company’s future was in the balance, what did I choose? A life of idle luxury in the country or the exigencies of the playhouse? Without knowing it,’ he explained, ‘I put the company first. In doing what I did this afternoon, I knew that I would estrange a woman whom I loved. It was almost as if I willingly divorced Avice from my heart.’

  ‘Do you really wish to stay with us, Edmund?’ asked a delighted Firethorn.

  ‘If you will have me.’

  ‘Only if you bind yourself to us more firmly this time.’ warned Gill.

  ‘Impose no conditions on him, Barnaby,’ said Firethorn, rising to embrace the playwright. ‘Edmund has come home. This is the best news we’ve had since the landlord was taken sick. Our playwright is not only back, he has been rejected by a woman yet again. In short, he is the Edmund Hoode that we know and love.’

  ‘Rejected I may be,’ said Hoode, ‘but not abashed. That is the wonder of it. Lesser women have thrown me aside and left me in the pit of despondency. But this repulse brings nothing but relief. Avice sought a perfection that I could never attain and who would share his days with a wife who will always be disappointed in him? This is my true home,’ he went on, gazing around the taproom. ‘I am never happier than when I am with my fellows. In the name of Lord Westfield, I vow to march on.’

  Gill was pessimistic. ‘If, that is, we are allowed to march anywhere.’

  ‘True,’ said Firethorn. ‘Our future is still in doubt.’

  ‘Is there no hope of redemption?’ asked Hoode.

  ‘Yes, Edmund. His name is Nick Bracewell.’

  The capitulation of Bevis Millburne made things much easier for them. When they dragged him in front of Justice Haygarth, the magistrate could only splutter impotently. He was questioned relentlessly by Nicholas Bracewell, threatened by a bellicose Owen Elias and forced to defend his actions in front of the man whose father he had conspired to send to his death. With a gibbering Millburne before him, Haygarth soon gave up all pretence of being able to defend his actions. He admitted that he had suborned Justice Froggatt with money given to him by Sir Eliard Slaney and furnished them with fresh details of the moneylender’s villainy. Nicholas and his friends took the two men before a trustworthy magistrate and both culprits made full statements about their part in the conspiracy. Grateful to the self-appointed constables, the magistrate was especially pleased to be able to dispatch Adam Haygarth into custody, telling him that those who manipulated the law for their own selfish ends deserved to suffer its worst torments.

  ‘Where now, Nick?’ asked Elias, keen for more action.

  ‘I think we shall pay a visit to Master Paramore,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Will he confess as easily as the others?’

  ‘No, Owen. He’s made a sterner stuff. He’ll deny everything.’

  ‘Good,’ said Elias. ‘I’ll have the pleasure of jogging his memory.’

  ‘So will I,’ added Quilter.

  They hurried through the streets towards Paramore’s house, suffused with joy at the notion of being able to expose such a gross miscarriage of justice. It looked as if the stigma would be at last lifted from the name of Quilter. Enthusiasm lent wings to their heels. However, they met with resistance this time. Millburne and Haygarth had been caught off guard and compelled to admit everything. That was not the case with Cyril Paramore. Having witnessed the grisly scene at the house in Bishopsgate, he knew the danger he was in and was taking steps to avoid it. When the three friends arrived at the house, Paramore was mounting his horse to flee the city.

  ‘There he is!’ shouted Quilter, breaking into a run. ‘Stop him!’

  ‘Leave him to me,’ said Elias, drawing his sword.

  But neither of them was able to stop the horseman. As they ran towards him, Paramore kicked his mount into a canter. Quilter was pushed back and Elias was buffeted to the ground by the animal’s flank. Nicholas stood his ground in the middle of the street. Whisking off his hat, he waved it violently to and fro in front of the horse’s face. It gave a loud neigh, skidded to a halt then rose up crazily on its back legs. Nicholas dodged its flailing hooves to pull Paramore from the saddle. Quilter and Elias rushed up to grab the man between them and drag him roughly to his feet. Holding the bridle, Nicholas calmed the horse with soothing words.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded Paramore. ‘Unhand me, sirs.’

  ‘Not until we’ve talked to you,’ said Elias. He indicated his companion. ‘This is Frank Quilter. I believe that you knew his father.’

  ‘I knew him well enough to send him to the gallows. He was a murderer.’

  ‘My father was an innocent man,’ asserted Quilter.

  ‘Completely innocent,’ said Nicholas, still holding the horse. ‘We already have the testimony of Bevis Millburne and Justice Haygarth. Both named you as their accomplice, Master Paramore.’

  ‘Then they are liars.’

  ‘Liars and rogues,’ said Quilter. ‘Just like you.’

  Paramore was defiant. ‘You have no proof.’

  ‘We have Sir Eliard’s ledger in our possession,’ said Nicholas, ‘and that proves everything. Your name appears in it alongside those of the others who took part in the conspiracy. Justice Froggatt received the largest bribe, I see.’

  Paramore studied him with a mixture of disgust and apprehension. Remembering the corpse he had seen at Sir Eliard’s house, he began to understand what might have happened. His lip curled in a sneer.

  ‘You must be Nicholas Bracewell,’ he decided.

  ‘The very same, sir.’

  ‘Martin should have killed you in Turnmill Street.’

  ‘He tried once too often to stab me with his dagger,’ said Nicholas. ‘I was obliged to take it off him.’

  ‘You murdered him! I saw the body for myself.’

  ‘I killed in self-defence. He was armed and I was not.’

  ‘You’re a thief,’ said Paramore, struggling vainly to shake off the two men. ‘You broke into Sir Eliard’s house and stole his property.’

  ‘Lady Slaney invited me in,’ explained Nicholas. ‘I merely took advantage of my presence in the house to borrow the ledger and settle an old score with a hired assassin.’

  Elias was impatient. ‘Shall I knock the truth out of him, Nick?’

  ‘I admit nothing,’ said Paramore boldly.

  ‘Then you need some encouragement, my friend.’

  ‘Leave him, Owen,’ ordered Nicholas. ‘We’ll return his horse to the stable then take him before the magistrate. He can join his friends in prison.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elias, pinching the man’s sleeve. ‘He wears fine clothes now but they’ll be soiled after a night or two in a filthy cell. Take a last look at the daylight, Master Paramore. You’ll not be seeing it again for a long time.’

  ‘We’ve caught the underlings, Nick,’ said Quilter. ‘What about the man who paid them all? When do we collect him?’

  ‘As soon as we’ve bestowed this fellow where he belongs,’ said Nicholas. ‘Do not worry, Frank. Sir Eliard will not get away.’

  Cyril Paramore’s harsh laughter echoed down the street.

  The quick brain that had helped Sir Eliard Slaney to amass his wealth did not let him down. When his wife told him of her visitors that afternoon, he guessed immediately that Anne Hendrik had brought Nicholas Bracewell into the house. It was the only way to explain the death of Martin and the theft of the incriminating ledger. Sir Eliard’s reaction was swift. Within ten minutes,
he and his wife were climbing into their coach with a number of hastily assembled belongings around them. Lady Slaney complained bitterly that she had had to leave most of her precious hats behind. Clutching his strongbox, her husband ordered her to be quiet.

  ‘You have done enough damage already, Rebecca,’ he said ruefully.

  His wife was bewildered. ‘What is going on?’ she asked.

  ‘We are quitting the house for good.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I’ll explain in due course.’

  ‘Where are we going, Eliard?’

  ‘Far away,’ he said. ‘To the one place they would not think of finding us.’

  Henry Cleaton had underestimated the power of his own profession to move speedily. No sooner had the Lord Chief Justice heard the lawyer’s tale and seen the evidence in the ledger than he dispatched mounted officers to arrest Sir Eliard Slaney. They arrived too late. Perplexed servants told them how their master had fled the house with everything that he could grab. The officers were still pressing for details as Nicholas Bracewell and the others arrived. When they heard what had happened, the newcomers understood the meaning of Cyril Paramore’s laughter. He knew of Sir Eliard’s flight.

  ‘I blame myself,’ said Nicholas bitterly. ‘We gave him too much time.’

  Quilter sighed. ‘That’s what I feared, Nick.’

  ‘I thought we needed to round up the others first. Their confessions rip away any hope Sir Eliard has of defence. When we caught them, we tightened the noose around his neck. That was my reasoning.’

  ‘No matter. We simply run him to ground.’

  Elias turned to one of the officers. ‘Where has he gone?’

  ‘To Oxford, it seems,’ replied the man. ‘The servants told us he has a house there. Sir Eliard and his wife travel by coach. That means they’ll leave by Ludgate. We’ll go after them and try to catch them up.’

  ‘Wait!’ advised Nicholas. ‘First, search the house.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Quilter. ‘That way you may be sure the bird has flown. You do not wish to gallop off on the road to Oxford if Sir Eliard and his wife are hiding here.’

  ‘That is not the only reason to go inside, Frank.’ Nicholas spoke to the officer. ‘Look in the counting house, my friend. You’ll find a body there. I can shed light on how the man came to die.’