‘On his way to London – to my house on Tower Hill,’ Lumley replies passively.
‘Did you send him? Or was it his idea?’
John Lumley’s face pales as he realizes what Nicholas is implying. ‘He was due to leave on the morrow–’
‘And I suppose he suggested to you that he should leave early, report Deniker’s death to the coroner on the way?’
‘Dr Shelby, what are you suggesting: that Gabriel is behind this?’
‘Francis Deniker didn’t attempt to kill me. He wasn’t the type. And he didn’t kill himself. We both know that, my lord. I’m guessing Lady Lumley is not a practised murderer. So if it wasn’t you, that only leaves Quigley.’
By the time they reach the library all the strength seems to have flowed out of John Lumley. He’s teetering like a frail old man. His hands shake as he lifts the latch.
Once inside the study, Nicholas sees the fire has been freshly built and candles lit for Lumley to take his habitual evening journey amongst the shelves. ‘Forgive me,’ he says, ‘but I’m not well versed in the way of courtiers, my lord. I assume a man of your high position keeps records.’
‘Records, Dr Shelby? What sort of records did you have in mind? I keep many private papers.’
‘A journal of household business: what your servants do on your behalf, who they meet, where they go upon your commission – that sort of thing. A man of your rank would have to, wouldn’t he, if only to provide an alibi when someone like Robert Cecil has him examined by the Privy Council?’
Lumley crosses to his desk. Beside his quills, inkwell and pounce-pot is a handsome leather-bound book, his business journal. ‘If you’re right, Dr Shelby – which I cannot accept – why did Gabriel not simply kill the child when she came into Nonsuch – remove the only living witness?’
‘He didn’t know who she was. And on Bankside, Elise never actually saw him. She told us so. Until yesterday, all Quigley knew was that she was a vagrant mute found under a hedge – until I persuaded her to tell her story.’ The self-recrimination in Nicholas’s voice is clear to both men.
‘What do you want to know?’ Lumley asks, unlocking his journal and opening the leather cover.
‘Fulke Vaesy’s dissection of Ralph Cullen took place on Lammas Day last year. Where was Quigley then?’
Lumley flicks through the pages until he finds what he’s looking for. ‘He was in London for me. He was meeting Signor Carrapelli, the agent of my Florentine bankers. He returned to Nonsuch on’ – his finger traces the entries – ‘the twenty-ninth of July.’
‘Just before Ralph Cullen was taken from the river.’
‘It could be mere coincidence.’
‘Try last Accession Day.’
Again John Lumley riffles through the journal. ‘There you are, Dr Shelby – he was here, at Nonsuch, visiting my tenant farmers.’
‘Try a few days before. Jacob Monkton had been in deep water awhile.’
Lumley flicks back a page or two. Just for a moment he closes his eyes. ‘He was in London. Returned via Kingston on the sixteenth.’
‘Jacob’s body was taken from the river the next day.’
‘But Gabriel goes often to the city, to my town house on Tower Hill – always on my commission,’ Lumley protests. ‘It means nothing.’
‘What about the end of January this year? That’s when the preacher was found.’
Reluctantly Lumley reads: ‘January twenty-fourth. Rode in from London at four of the clock G.Q. with documents from Sir Joseph Laslet regarding the sale of my holdings in Sussex.’
‘From London.’
‘It’s entirely circumstantial!’
‘The Privy Council has hanged men for less circumstance than this.’
Lumley shakes his head. ‘I cannot countenance what you are implying.’ He’s struggling to keep the growing despair out of his voice, and failing. ‘Gabriel has been with me since he was a lad. I trust him implicitly – with my life, if necessary.’
‘Face it, my lord: he’s been in London around the time each body washed up on Bankside. If we take Elise’s testimony as accurate, there have been at least six victims, including her brother. Then there’s Father Deniker, the seventh – I think it’s fair to count him amongst them. I would have been the eighth.’
‘This cannot be, Dr Shelby–’
‘When Quigley found out I’d seen some of the bodies, he panicked. In his extremity he came up with an insane idea to kill me and make it look as though Francis Deniker was to blame. You would have believed him, too – for all your enquiring mind.’
‘Oh, merciful Jesu–’
‘All this time I’ve been searching for a monster without a soul, an implacable creature I thought I couldn’t even begin to touch,’ Nicholas says, shaking his head in wonder. ‘And he turns out to be just an angry little man with a pockmarked face who panicked the moment he thought he might be exposed. If he’d had a fraction of Francis Deniker’s fortitude and courage, I’d still be looking for him.’
Lumley slowly closes his journal, like a man shutting away a life that’s been lost to him. He goes to the window and stares out at the gathering darkness. Nicholas hears him mutter: ‘Oh, Gabriel… Gabriel… what have you done?’
The first thing that strikes Nicholas about Gabriel Quigley’s chamber is the monkish austerity of it. Nothing on the walls, no personal items on the simple wooden chest beside the bed. It could be a cell. He can smell the man now: the flat odour of severity and denial, of plain wool and unyielding leather.
‘How long has he lived in the household?’ Nicholas asks. ‘It looks as if he’s barely been here.’
‘Since he was a lad, apart from when he went to study medicine,’ Lumley says bleakly.
‘He’s a physician?’
‘When he was seventeen I paid for him to attend Oxford. But he struggled, poor lad. In the end they rejected him. So no, Dr Shelby – Gabriel is not a physician.’
‘But he has access to enough knowledge to think himself one, doesn’t he? Enough to think he can use a scalpel.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And after Oxford?’
‘A couple of years studying law at Lincoln’s Inn. Then he returned to Nonsuch and became my secretary. His failure weighed much on his mind – I know that. All he had ever wanted to do was match the promise of his brother, Mathew.’
Suddenly Nicholas is standing in the graveyard at Cheam church, that Sunday after the sermon. He’s looking down at a eulogy carved into a headstone: Mathew Quigley… Laid in earth 13th May 1572… No gentler man ever spilt his blood for Christ.
Now the dates make sense to him.
‘So Mathew Quigley was Gabriel’s brother?’
‘Yes – the older by a couple of years.’
‘I saw the eulogy on his headstone in Cheam churchyard – but I couldn’t work it out. “Spilt blood” – what does that mean? How did Mathew die?’
Lumley’s eyes moisten. Nicholas thinks he’s going to weep again. But he controls himself. ‘Is it not a form of martyrdom to die so young? To be cut off with so much left to do, to leave behind only memories that bring everlasting pain to those who loved you? You would know about that – from what Sir Fulke Vaesy told me.’
‘What does it mean? I need to know.’
‘Mathew suffered from the Hebrew malady, Dr Shelby. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. When he cut himself, he would bleed so profusely that the flow was almost unstoppable. It left him very weak and sorely troubled. In the end it killed him.’
A wave of ice-cold nausea sluices through Nicholas Shelby’s belly. ‘Dear Jesu!’ he whispers. ‘Gabriel’s killing them because he thinks he’s going to find a cure!’