Now. Who the boggins was Pargetter?
Chapter Seventeen
In waste places.
Hill would know who Pargetter was — Hill knew everybody — but he wouldn’t tell me. Ne’ertheless, I determined to track him down before putting the great plan into effect. There were elements of the great plan that worried me now and I secretly hoped that Hill might have a better great plan. I sent message for him to meet me at the menagerie.
The menagerie is located close to the Bulwark Gate inside the grounds of the Tower. Hill arrived in the company of a short, squat and very determined beefeater, who was nagging him for money, trying to charge him for escorting him to our meeting place. I cuffed him about the head and bade him leave, ignoring his slurred obscenities. I knew him well — he hung about the Bulwark Gate everyday looking for marks.
‘Why did you invite me here?’ Hill demanded, irritated. He looked tired and uneasy.
I felt safe here, behind the guards that manned the Bulwark. ‘It’s a quiet place.’
I led him up the short winding staircase to the viewing gallery. It was made of wood and curled off to the left alongside the lions’ cages. Light shone from a thin grille set into the wall above, and from the wider grilles of the cages below.
‘The smell is foul, it stinks of cat piss,’ Hill moaned.
‘These are big cats — they piss bucketfuls.’
‘Why did you ask me here, Harry?’ he asked me again, leaning out over the den of a young lioness. A low growling rumbled forth. Turning, he rested his back against the top of the gallery wall. The lioness suddenly sprang up, roaring, the tips of her unsheathed claws scything past one of Hill’s elbows. Hill threw himself forward and fell onto his arse. The lioness stood on her hindquarters for a moment before dropping back to the ground and turning away in a sulk, shoulders stiff and back prickly. It was very funny, I thought, though I didn’t smile.
‘God’s mercy, Lytle!’ Hill gasped, climbing to his feet, ashen-faced and shaking. ‘That was your doing.’ He took off his camelotte coat, shook it hard, then picked at imaginary fragments of lion shit with his thumbnail.
Shouting loudly at the top of his voice the keeper of the menagerie strode in, carrying two buckets full of raw meat dripping blood along the floor. ‘Make way! I expect you would like to see them fed, gentlemen. Six lions, two leopards and an eagle. Also there is a dog that lives with one of the lions, but he is famous and you already know that. Now you may look and listen for five minutes while they roar at the smell of the blood. I will be back!’ He leered and winked at me before disappearing, leaving the meat standing on the gallery. Oftentimes I brought ladies here. The lions began to growl and whine. Though the meat was old, it was covered with fat black flies.
‘You are a fool.’ Hill gave up on his coat and held his fingernails to his nose. He pulled a face and shook his head in disgust. ‘I saw you at the Exchange.’
I said nothing in reply.
He spoke to me as if I were a snotty urchin. ‘It was an idiot thing to do, Harry, stand there watching Hewitt like he was some low criminal. I told you to leave him alone!’
‘Was it he who sent Mottram and Wilson to kill me?’
I watched his face closely. Casting a quick glance over his left shoulder like he did when he lied, he shook his head. ‘I don’t know. God have mercy, Lytle, you are lucky to be alive! Wilson is an evil little man.’
‘You know who sent them.’
Hill snorted. ‘You wander into the Exchange like a Court fool, you rush round London making loose accusation, and you march into Matthew Hewitt’s house and accuse him of murder!’ He leant forward and stabbed a finger at my chest, angry now. ‘Yes, I know you went to see Hewitt, Harry, and I still cannot believe how you could have been such a witless Whoball!’ His face was red, his voice thick and angry.
I didn’t answer. He was posturing. I considered whether or not to ask him about Pargetter. Not yet. ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘who did kill Anne Giles?’
His eyes dropped again, shrouded with sly cunning. ‘Keeling killed Anne Giles, as you have already discovered for yourself. How else would you hear it?’
Lying, stinking rat. ‘I think Hewitt killed Anne Giles, to intimidate John Giles. Then he killed John Giles. He sent Mottram and Wilson to kill me, since I was the only one in London that did not believe Richard Joyce did it.’
Hill shook his head and sighed.
Nodding his head and whistling cheerfully, the menagerie keeper approached. He picked up the first bucket and walked to Old Crowley’s cage, a mangy old lion with broken teeth and blackened gums. The keeper threw a slab of the meat at Crowley’s splayed feet.
‘What is your relationship with Shrewsbury?’ I demanded, once the menagerie keeper was out of earshot. Hill stood stooped; hands plunged in pockets, looking very miserable.
‘I have no relationship with him.’
‘You know things, though.’
‘Aye, I know things. I know lots of things, but I have no privileged relationship with Shrewsbury. He loves me not and never will. I know him well enough to know that behind that wide, friendly smile is the soul of a wolf. I’ve told you that before.’
‘I don’t recall you saying that,’ I answered slowly. ‘I remember you telling me how lucky I was to have a friend like him. What an excellent patron he was.’
He pulled a face. ‘Aye, well he’s close to the King, which means he is a good person to know. There’s many would say you were very lucky to have a patron of such lofty standing.’
‘You said his position at Court was precarious.’
‘I never said his position at Court was precarious, Harry. I am not stupid. I know him only by reputation and have some insight as to the comings and goings at Whitehall. This is how our King would have it. He plants seeds, gets others to cultivate them, then finds insects that like to eat these plants, and others who like to eat insects. Keeps everyone on their toes.’
‘Tell me what you would do if you were I.’
He looked up into my eyes and spoke passionately. ‘Go talk to Shrewsbury. Tell him what you found at Epsom.’
‘And Pargetter?’
‘Forget him, Harry! He has nothing to do with this! How many times must I tell you!’
‘So Pargetter is Hewitt?’
Hill stepped back and regarded me curiously. The veil slid slowly back over his face, eyes wondering what had just happened.
‘I have to leave now, Hill. I’ll find you later.’ I could barely contain my excitement and didn’t want him to see it. Pargetter was Hewitt, which left no doubt that it was him that plotted to kill me. Time for the great plan.
Chapter Eighteen
It seems remarkable that the crocus which they say is made of such feeble and tenuous parts not only stains urine with its colour but also excrement of the belly.
I banged my fist on Hewitt’s heavy front door. The rains had started to fall again, big black drops falling down my neck. I pounded on the thick wood, determined to be heard above the noise of the wind. The same window opened as before. The same old, scabby, grey head stretched out, the same hooded left eye wandered up and down my body. It withdrew. The great bolt slid and the door opened.
‘You should use the bell,’ the head sneered at me, the mouth crooked and turned down at the ends. ‘He said you would come.’ He turned to close the door.
‘Then he is a genius.’ I grabbed him by both ears and wrapped an arm around his head, covering his mouth. He coughed and spluttered, eyes wide open. Dowling and two of his colleagues entered quickly from the street and closed the big door. I held the old servant while Dowling bound his mouth. Shiny eyes stared at me through Dowling’s fingers, black and pupil-less, narrow wells of putrescence.