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

question of those who may have heard something about the man. For instance, I have it on good authority he was involved in an altercation at the Goat and Boar the night before. Were you to ask questions in that place, you might find someone who knows something about why the Spaniard was killed. That might lead you to the killer.” She leaned forward and said in an intense, low voice, “You might even find an eyewitness who could testify at trial.” She nodded to affirm her words, and straightened again.
    Pepper sat back in his chair, looking terribly amused. “My dear Mistress Thornton, surely you can’t believe that. You know very well that, were I to walk into the Goat and Boar, the place would fall dead silent in an instant. And it would stay that way until the moment I walked out, no matter whom I might address in the meantime. Only then would it burst forth in a low roar of chatter, not about the dead Spaniard, but about me. Not a soul would speak to me, nor would they to anyone they thought might speak to me. I could ask questions until I was blue in the face, and the answer would ever be silence. Further, Mistress Thornton, the same would be true of any other man who took this office, for the people of Southwark fear authority. When the light of truth and justice shines on them, they scurry like rats into their garbage-filled holes.”
    Anger rose and turned Suzanne’s cheeks hot crimson. “I’m sure that if you asked the right questions, couched in the right terms—”
    “I would hear nothing but silence. If a pin dropped it would sound as a clang. If I sat, all nearby would move away. Run away if they could. Most would leave the public house entirely. And I would be left with nothing. Looking for witnesses would be a complete waste of my time. Unless you think I should resort to arrest and torture of innocent witnesses for the sake of gleaning information . . .” His eyebrows raised as he let that hang in the air for a moment. Then he reached back to a bookshelf behind him where sat the opened bottle of brandy, and he poured some into the glass on his desk. He drank it at one gulp, then sat back again to regard her with his fingers laced across his stomach.
    “Perhaps if you sent an agent of some kind? Someone who could ask the necessary questions?”
    “Are you volunteering, then?”
    Suzanne had been thinking about the young clerk in the outer office, but realized that if the boy set foot in the Goat and Boar he would be at the mercy of a roomful of expert liars and might come away missing his purse, and never mind gaining any truth. She said, “Have you nobody you could send?”
    “I don’t care to associate with the rabble found in such places, and know nobody who might have even a sliver of a chance at success. Except, of course, yourself, who are one of them as I could never be.”
    Nearly all of Southwark was populated with that sort of rabble. Even Suzanne was astonished that the man entrusted with enforcing the law had no way of talking to the people who might tell him what was going on. Other constables, in areas where lived honest and responsible citizens who were pleased to volunteer themselves as witnesses and apprehenders of criminals, could get by as passive receivers of facts, but here in Southwark the populace was not nearly so honor bound. But she replied, “Count your blessings your office isn’t in Whitefriars.”
    “Nonsense. Were I in Whitefriars there would be no expectations of me, and even you wouldn’t be here to harass me to do the impossible.”
    Suzanne had to allow as that was true, since that district was nearly a law unto itself, with no influence at all from law-abiding folk.
    Pepper shifted in his seat, and looked up at her with a considering gaze. She returned it, wondering what he was thinking. In the silence, she could almost hear machinery clanking inside his head. Huge gears that moved slowly, but once they got going they moved steadily. Finally he leaned