Read Online The Scottish Play Murder by Anne Rutherford - Free Book Online Page A

responsibility, for that. To be sure, laziness, slovenliness, and irresponsibility didn’t set him so very much apart from other men—or even other constables. But he was far and away the laziest man Suzanne knew. That morning when she talked her way in past his clerk, she found him exactly where she expected he would be, lounging behind the desk in his office with a bottle of brandy uncorked on a shelf behind him and the room whiffy with alcohol. A small glass with a remnant of brandy in the bottom sat off to his right on the desk. Two armchairs stood to the side, both empty because his drinking companions had not arrived. It was yet early, so he was fairly sober and alert, relatively speaking for him. His eye was steady on her, and they were both quite red around their watery blue irises.
    “Good morning, Constable,” she said as she removed her fine leather gloves to fold them into her left hand. Today she wore a dress, the better to avoid setting the constable against her too much for indeterminate gender. He was the sort who liked things ordinary and obvious, so that he didn’t need to think too hard about them. Surely he would much more appreciate a low feminine neckline and a narrow waist, even if his chances of touching either were absolutely nil.
    He leaned back in his chair and narrowed his eyes at her as if unable to see her quite clearly. That was probably the case, and she could see that he was also having trouble remembering her, though he’d last seen her but a month before. But then recognition lit his eyes. “Ah. Mistress Thornton. What brings you here?” A glance past her at the doorway told her he was expecting someone else any minute, probably his friends. She knew he was in the habit of drinking with them of a morning, and a perverse urge to delay him in that came and went. As much fun as it might be to watch him panic, she had better things to do with her time than to engage Pepper in unnecessary small talk while his friends waited for him to become available.
    “I feel you should be alerted to a murder that has taken place.” Her tone was somewhat casual, as if she’d just dropped by for a chat and this had occurred to her but a moment ago.
    “Another relative in need of rescue?”
    A tart reply rose to her lips, but she held the inside of her lower lip between her teeth and did not say it. Piers had nearly been hung last summer, and to argue the question of Pepper’s reluctant role in his rescue would accomplish nothing. “I’m only here as a responsible citizen in hopes of justice for the poor sailor who was killed.”
    He heaved his unwieldy bulk forward and leaned his elbows on his desk, then rested his chin on his clasped hands. His moist, red lips pursed and thrust out when he spoke—and sometimes when he didn’t—and his jaw didn’t move, for he seemed unwilling to make the effort to hold up his head enough to clear his hands. “Yes, I’m aware of the incident. A Spanish sailor who came too close to an English knife outside the Goat and Boar. I’m surprised there was even any talk about that death.”
    “Why shouldn’t there be?”
    “’Twas only a Spaniard. And a pirate, I believe. Hardly worth the effort of investigating.”
    “’Tis your job.”
    “My job is what I deem it should be. Were I to hunt down every criminal in Southwark, the streets would be emptied and silent. And who, then, would go to see your plays?”
    “Not everyone in Southwark is a murderer, Constable Pepper. However, we are each and every one of us a potential murder victim. Particularly if this sort of crime is allowed to go uninvestigated and unpunished.”
    “I daresay there are some of us who do not pick fights in dark alleys in the middle of the night, and who are quite safe from wandering murderers.”
    “You’re saying it is the Spaniard’s own fault he is dead?”
    “Certainly he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
    “You can’t know that. You haven’t asked even one