The Gallows Murders

his new-found wealth by lying in a drunken stupor. There would be no slatterns or servants. A man like Quicksilver does not like anyone around him who might see through his trickery and either blackmail him or proclaim him to be the charlatan he was. I went further along the passageway, past a small parlour. Staring through a crack in the door I could see no sign of life. I entered the kitchen: at first I smiled, I thought I had caught my victim napping. Quicksilver sat on a chair with his back to me, head on his arm, resting on the kitchen table. I thought he had been drinking, and that the sticky red substance dripping on to the floor came from a spilled goblet of wine. Then my elation gave way to anger. Quicksilver was dead. Someone had come up behind him and slashed his throat from ear to ear. Behind me, Benjamin and Pelleter entered the house. They came crashing into the kitchen even as I pulled Quicksilver's head back by his greasy white hair. His eyes, sunk in their sockets, stared sightlessly up at me; those lips, so skilled in knavery, were now silenced for good. I took one look at the blood splashed on the front of his velvet jerkin and let the head go. 'Dead as a doornail,' I pronounced. 'Perhaps he tricked people once too often,' Pelleter declared.
    Benjamin crouched down beside the corpse, studying it carefully.
    ‘I don't think so.' He glanced up at me. 'Roger, we made a mistake in mentioning Dr Quicksilver in Kemble's chamber at the Tower.'
    Of course I objected loudly, pointing out that I was not the only one after the old charlatan's blood. Yet in my heart I knew I had made a dreadful error. Of course, the assassin in Kemble's chamber would not want me to interrogate Quicksilver, and so had taken matters into his own hands. We went out and spoke to Pelleter's bailiffs who had been guarding both the back and front of the house.
    'Oh yes,' their leader declared, 'Quicksilver had only one visitor: that was the tall, masked lady. Looked like a widow, she did. She must have been there for about an hour, and then left.'
    Benjamin thanked the man, then quietly persuaded Miranda, standing in the passageway, that this was not the best place for her, and perhaps she had best return home. She did so and, as I turned away, she stood on tiptoe to kiss Benjamin tenderly on each cheek. She whispered something to him, and then allowed one of her father's men to escort her back to Catte Street. I stood, seething with fury and jealousy. However, though I am a rogue, I have no malice, and I quickly joined my master, Pelleter and the other officials in a thorough search of Quicksilver's house. Now you know what happens on such occasions: it's every man for himself. Pelleter was honest, but the rest… Well, you can't blame the lads. The city corporation paid them little and so, if it moved, they took it: candlesticks, pill-holders, whatever. I even saw one stuff a bolster-cover up his jerkin. Benjamin turned a blind eye to this, declaring that if Quicksilver conned the poor people, then everything in this house belonged to them. However, he gave strict instructions that any manuscripts or documents were to be brought to the kitchen. We went back there. Benjamin lay the blood-soaked corpse out on the floor and slit the thick, ornate cuff hiding Quicksilver's right wrist. The scar beneath was a broad, dark purple weal. 'It looks like a sword cut,' Benjamin declared.
    I glanced at old Quicksilver's face. 'He was an ugly bugger in life,' I observed, 'and now he's dead.' I covered his face with a rag and glanced at my master. 'Do you really think he's Greene?' I asked. 'The man whom Sir Thomas More mentions as being responsible for the Princes' murder?'
    ‘I think so,' Benjamin replied. 'And that scar proves it. Greene must have been a mere stripling, though ancient in knavery, some forty years ago. He must have had a hand in the death of the Princes.'
    Benjamin got to his feet and walked away from the corpse, beckoning me to follow. He closed the door and we sat on the stools. Above us we could hear Pelleter's bailiffs crashing about.
    'After 1485’ Benjamin began, "when the Tudors came to the throne, Greene went into hiding.'
    ‘Yes, yes, that's true’ I replied. 'Quicksilver once told me he had spent many years on the Welsh March’
    'Aye’ Benjamin replied. Then he returned to London as Dr Quicksilver. A born charlatan, he took up quackery. His only problem was that scar on his wrist.'
    ‘Do you think he could