"Gone. In all the confusion, the constable lost track of him." The coroner seemed unconcerned by this lapse. "We have Higgins"s testimony, and that is sufficient. I fear there is no help for it, Sir Walter. After the inquest, I will be obliged to order Lady Appleton"s arrest."
Walter swore softly. "Leicester-"
"I can do nothing." By his abrupt tone and stony countenance, he believed Susanna was guilty.
Bowing to the inevitable, Walter swallowed further protests. "Will you permit me a few moments alone with Lady Appleton?"
"A quarter of an hour. No more."
Only after the two men had left the room did Walter cross to Susanna and gather her into his arms. He felt her start of surprise, for he had never embraced her before, but after a moment she accepted the gesture as one of comfort and allowed herself to cling to him for support.
"I did not kill him." Those words, the first she had spoken since Walter"s arrival at Durham House, were m.u.f.fled against the velvet of his doublet.
"Can you imagine I do not know that?" He hugged her more tightly, resting his chin on the top of the ebony-hued silk of her bonnet. Then, reluctantly, he released her. "We do not have much time. Tell me what did happen."
"Robert sent for me. I was to meet him at the Black Jack. I was to wear a plain, black cloak with a hood and keep my face hidden."
With a sweep of one hand, she indicated an enveloping garment thrown over a nearby chair. The movement produced a distinctive clinking noise. She had coins concealed on her person, quite a lot of them by the sound of it.
"He said I must come alone and bring money."
Walter"s anger at Appleton had no outlet, not when the man was already dead. "Bad enough to demand a woman travel unescorted, but to require her to carry a heavy purse, attracting thieves by the very sound..." Words failed him.
Susanna sighed. "My behavior seems pa.s.sing foolish to me now, but at the time I believed I was doing the only thing I could."
Her words reminded him of his priorities. They had little time, and there was much he needed to learn from her. "How did he send word to you? A letter?"
"Yes."
"You"re certain it was his handwriting?"
"I"m certain he used the code the two of us devised years ago when he was attached to the Scots court."
The Knox cipher, no doubt. He supposed Susanna believed its secret to be known only to herself and Robert. "What happened when you talked to him?"
"I did not talk to him. I arrived too late. He had already left. I stayed only long enough to make sure he was gone."
"Then why did Higgins-?"
"Whoever he saw with Robert earlier was also wearing a dark cloak and was careful to keep her face hidden." She paused, frowning. "A woman, that much is certain, since she kissed him. But for that, I"d think it could have been a man. The interior of the Black Jack was dark and murky."
"Why is Higgins so certain you and that woman are one and the same?"
"I fear I encouraged him to think it, hoping to learn something from him." She sent a small, rueful smile his way. "Higgins got a good look at my face before I left."
Walter took her hand, chafing her fingers when he felt how icy they were. "We need to find proof you were not there in the tavern with Robert. How did you get to Westminster? Where are your servants?"
"I left them behind at the Crown Inn."
"The Crowne without Aldgate?" He could not keep the surprise out of his voice. Robert had sometimes used that place for a.s.signations.
Susanna shot him a questioning look. "In Rochester. It is the inn at which I customarily break my journey from Leigh Abbey to London. Do not look so worried, my dear." Her smile was genuine now, and very gentle. "I did not ride the rest of the way on my own. I joined a party of travelers, strangers, leaving their company only when we reached Bankside. I do not know their names or destinations, nor did I tell them mine."
So her servants could not vouch for her whereabouts. Those fellow travelers would be next to impossible to locate. "Your horse?"
She hesitated. "I left her at the Sign of the Smock."
Worse and worse. Walter had been appalled, even knowing her reasons, when he"d discovered, months after the fact, that Susanna had paid several visits to one of Southwark"s most notorious brothels. If it became known she still had acquaintances there, the revelation would only do more harm to her good name.
"I do not want to cause trouble for anyone there," she told him.
"You will not. There is no sense in asking anyone at the Sign of the Smock for help. No one will believe them, not even if they can swear you were still in Southwark at the exact moment Robert met that other cloaked and hooded figure." Another question distracted him from the complications Susanna had created by stopping where she had. "Why did you go to Charing after you left the Black Jack?"
"I hoped to secure a room for the night at the Swan. It was pure chance that put me in the vicinity of the Eleanor Cross when Robert died."
"Unhappy chance. But for your presence, the body might have gone unrecognized."
"Leicester was nearby, in the Royal Mews."
"Yes. Leicester. More bad luck."
"How will you explain, Walter? Questions will be asked about the earlier report of Robert"s death."
He almost laughed. Trust Susanna to worry about other people first. ""Tis obvious he did not die in France as I claimed, but I have already persuaded Leicester that "twas a simple case of mistaken identification."
Another faint smile flickered across her features. "What happens next? Do you know?"
"When I was at Cambridge, I studied civil law, and I have had some few dealings since with crime and criminals. The procedure is straightforward enough. Based on what he thinks he knows, the coroner at his inquest will produce a formal charge and the order to take you into custody."
"Where will I be held?" She could not hide her dismay at the thought of being imprisoned, but Walter was well enough acquainted with Susanna to be certain she"d prefer the truth to pretty lies.
"Newgate."
A sharply indrawn breath was the only indication of her anxiety.
"You have money to pay for comforts. Your stay there should not be too onerous."
"How long must I remain imprisoned?"
"At the least, a day or two. Within three, the law requires that you be brought before a justice and examined."
"And if I am bound over for trial?"
"Longer."
"Then I must send a letter to Leigh Abbey."
Walter watched, full of admiration, as she squared her shoulders and visibly gathered her courage. Then she raided Leicester"s writing table for ink, parchment, and a quill. He could only suppose, from her appearance of calm, that even now she did not fully comprehend her situation.
He, on the other hand, was all too aware of what awaited her. Because Susanna seemed to have means, opportunity, and motive to kill her husband, a bill of indictment was certain to be drawn up against her. A pity the murder had taken place just outside London, he thought. There were no twice-yearly a.s.size courts here, but rather quarter sessions, and the next term was almost upon them.
Unless Walter could find some way to prove her innocent, Susanna Appleton could be tried within a matter of days. If she was found guilty of murdering her husband, she would be sentenced to death and executed.
He would have to take swift, decisive action or risk losing the woman he loved.
Chapter 6.
A practical approach was best, Susanna told herself. It would do no good to weep and wail and lament the hand fate had dealt her. She needed her wits about her if she was to survive this.
Once her letter was written, she entrusted it to Walter Pendennis, then broached again the subject of her coming incarceration. "Have I hope of being let to bail?" she asked. "Will the justices accept sureties from my friends?"
That was the usual way to get out of gaol. The threat of having to forfeit large sums of money if a released prisoner escaped encouraged acquaintances to keep a close eye on him or her to guarantee an appearance in court on the appointed day.
One look at Walter"s morose expression warned Susanna she would not like his answer. "It is customary to deny mainprise when the crime is murder."
"Murder," she repeated, shaking her head in disbelief. She found it hard to credit that she should be accused of such a heinous crime.
Then she remembered something, and for a moment her composure was shaken. It became difficult to breathe, impossible to swallow.
The charge would not be murder. The head of the household was akin to a head of state. A wife accused of killing her husband, or a servant who killed his or her master, was charged with petty treason.
The torment Susanna saw in Walter"s eyes reflected her own increasing sense of horror. She swallowed convulsively.
It should not matter, she told herself. Any felony carried the death penalty, and death was equally final, no matter how it came about. But while mere murderers were hanged, a quick thing if the hangman were skilled, women found guilty of poisoning their husbands were condemned to be burnt at the stake.
"I will find a way to secure your release." Walter once more seized her hands in his.
Susanna longed to believe him. She clung to his promise all the way from Durham House to Newgate, but once she was behind the ma.s.sive grey stone walls of the prison, a sense of hopelessness engulfed her. She kept terror at bay not by any strength of will but because of the sheer number of more immediate concerns.
Irons were prominently displayed in the keeper"s room to which she was taken first-fetters, shackles meant for the ankles, iron collars to go about one"s neck. All were designed to be chained to a ring in the floor or a staple in the wall.
"You must pay an admission fee," the keeper told her, "and another fee for exemption from ironing."
At her hesitation, he fingered a particularly nasty set of leg irons while a crafty expression flashed in his eyes. "Widows" alms," he said, identifying them. Or was the word arms? Either way, Susanna could not miss his meaning. The prospect of being restrained, being helpless, pushed larger fears out of her mind.
"How much?" Her hand fisted around the pouch concealed in the placket of her skirt, in part to rea.s.sure herself it was there, but also in a vain attempt to still her trembling fingers.
Walter had a.s.sured her no one would take her money from her by force, but she had never felt more vulnerable. The keeper was a big man, his muscles heavily corded, his biceps bulging. And he had dozens of men at his command. If he chose to behave dishonorably . . .
He looked her up and down, a.s.sessing her worth. "Five pounds," he announced.
By feel, she extracted five gold sovereigns and handed them over.
A gap-toothed smile was her reward. Still grinning, the keeper locked the coins away in a strongbox, then indicated she should follow him. He led her smartly along a corridor, up one set of stairs and down another. Within moments she was completely lost. She knew Newgate stretched as far along Old Bailey Street as the gardens beside the new Sessions House, and that the north end formed an arch over the street, but she had the uneasy sense that, instead of traveling laterally, they had descended deep into the bowels of the earth.
They stopped before a thick wooden door. "Within lies the Limboes," the keeper informed her, indicating that she should peer through a barred opening. "The common dungeon."
Inside, she saw a large dark room lit by a single candle. She drew back with more speed than grace when the smell of human waste and unwashed bodies a.s.saulted her.
"Horrible," she whispered.
"That is where most accused felons spend their days and nights until they come to trial."
Susanna swallowed hard and silently blessed Walter for the last few words of advice he had managed to give her before she was taken away from Durham House. She need not suffer any indignities, he"d a.s.sured her. Newgate had separate accommodations for women and, on something called "the master"s side," offered private rooms for those who could afford them.
"Female felons are not kept in there," she said in a firm voice.
The keeper seemed amused by her show of spirit. "Aye. We have other dungeons for women."
"On the common side," Susanna said, hoping she sounded more haughty than frightened. With one hand, she jiggled her purse, allowing the keeper to hear the siren song of coins rubbing together.
Grinning, he rattled off his schedule of fees. The rental of a special apartment was only one of the charges she was expected to pay. She"d have to spend extra for a bed, mattress, sheets, and blankets. Further disburs.e.m.e.nts would provide her with firewood, water, food, and ale. In return for an uncomfortably large portion of the money she had brought to London for Robert, Susanna was installed in a furnished turret room in the area the keeper called "the castle."
"A cellarman," he told her, "one of the prisoners, will visit you within the hour. He has candles and other luxuries for sale."
"Paper, quills, and ink?" she asked.
The keeper seemed surprised that she would want such things, but nodded. Then he left her alone in her new quarters.
The next hour was one of the longest Susanna had ever spent. It was impossible not to dwell on the bleakness of her prospects, impossible not to be afraid.
But when the cellarman had come and gone, she told herself sternly that she now had everything she could wish for except her freedom. In gaol or out, she must do more than sit idly by and let her fate be decided by others.
"No more doubts," she vowed. "No more wasting time in fear for the future." Resolute, she lit several candles, dipped her quill into the inkpot, and began to make lists.
Chapter 7.
The noise of the revelers in the inn below made Jennet"s head ache. How could they celebrate Twelfth Night when Lady Appleton languished in some dank prison cell? When Sir Robert lay dead? When Jennet"s entire world had been shattered?
Mark placed his hand over hers, silently offering his love, his understanding. Husband and wife, they lay atop a sinfully comfortable mattress in one of the best of the thirty beds available at the Saracen"s Head on the north side of Snow Hill without Newgate. But Jennet could not rest easy. The accommodations had been bespoke for their mistress"s comfort. She and Mark usurped Lady Appleton"s place to remain here without her. G.o.d only knew what conditions prevailed inside those grim prison walls so close at hand.
Sir Walter had sent them to this inn. To wait.
"You need to sleep," Mark murmured. "To rest. Tomorrow we will be able to think more clearly."
But Jennet"s trouble was that she already saw matters far too well. They were in terrible trouble. All of them. If Lady Appleton were found guilty, everything she owned would be confiscated by the Crown. And everything Jennet and Mark had worked for over the years would be gone. Even if new owners decided to keep the household at Leigh Abbey intact, life there without Lady Appleton did not bear thinking about.