The Burgundian's tale

‘What did this figure look like? Can you remember?’

‘Long cloak, ’ood pulled right up,’ she answered promptly. ‘But then, there’s nothing in that. It were a cold night. I didn’t hang around. Fulk was my last customer. All I wanted was my bed.’

‘How did you learn of his death?’

‘One o’ the other girls told me next morning. She said, “You know that lad what comes here reg’lar an’ always asks fer you? Well, he’s been found battered to death down the lane.” I went out at once, just in time to see Joe Earless and little Sam Red Eye moving the poor lad’s body round the corner, into Fleet Street. “Why you doing that?” I asked ’em. “’E was right on our doorstep,” little Sam said. “We don’t want no Sheriff’s men poking around our house.” And I suppose,’ the girl added fair-mindedly, ‘they don’t. The good Lord alone knows what they got salted away in that shack o’ theirs.’

‘Where do they live, this Joe Earless and little Sam Red Eye?’ I asked.

She pointed at the other side of the road, to a noisome, lean-to hut which seemed to be made chiefly of bits of wood, branches of trees and ancient rags all held together by a thick coating of dried mud, erected against the outside wall of another older but equally dilapidated building. ‘Over there. That’s Joe Earless sitting on the ground outside, counting the day’s takings.’

I thanked my beautiful little whore — who offered herself free of charge, ‘for a nice big man like you’, if ever I wished to avail myself of her services — and picked my way across the filthy lane to where a one-eared man was sitting in the dirt, dropping a succession of coins, one by one, into a canvas bag.

‘Master Earless?’

The smell of him, like ancient, rotting fish, was overpowering even in Faitour Lane, not renowned for its perfumed zephyrs.

‘’Oo wants ter know?’ He raised a belligerent, weather-beaten, pock-marked face, but seemed reassured by my shabby clothes and mud-spattered boots.

I explained my errand as briefly as I could, laying great emphasis on the fact that my enquiries were being made on behalf of the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, who had been deeply attached to the young man in question. Even so, Joe Earless subjected me to a long and piercing scrutiny before grunting, ‘You don’t look like a Sheriff’s man, I must say.’

‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I’ve been told you and your friend had nothing to do with the murder itself.’ Not entirely true, of course, but I permitted myself the odd lie or two (or three or four or more, if necessary) in the cause of searching out justice. ‘You and he merely moved the body round the corner into Fleet Street.’

‘Tha’s right.’ He stood up, stretching and shaking out his flea-ridden rags — several of the little beasts hurled themselves straight at me — and the stench made me take a hasty step backwards. ‘Right ’ere, ’e was. Right on our doorstep.’ (Which was one way, I suppose, of describing the pile of rotting debris in front of the flap of material covering the hovel’s entrance.) ‘I said to Sam, “We’ve gotta move ’im,” I said. “Look at them clothes,” I said. “’E’s someone, ’e is. Sheriff’s men’ll be makin’ enquiries about ’im, swarmin’ all over the place. You mark my words if they’re not. We’d best move ’im,” I said. Sam agreed, so we did. Round the corner into Fleet Street.’

‘’Ere! ’Oo you talking to, you daft bugger?’ demanded a small man of stunted growth, detaching himself from a party of returning faitours and addressing my companion. He regarded me with a pair of hostile eyes, the white of the left one being definitely tinged with red. The smell of him was even more pungent than that of his friend; and at some time or another his nose had been broken and mended at a very odd angle. He was completely bald, except for a few wisps of coarse hair adhering to the crown of his head. But what fascinated me about him most of all was a large agate-and-silver ring on the thumb of his right hand. I was filled with a sudden suspicion that amounted to total certainty.

I turned back to Joe Earless. ‘When you found the body, nothing had been taken from it, had it? You two stripped it of any jewellery and money it possessed.’

‘What you sayin’?’ Joe demanded, his manner undergoing a rapid transformation from friendly to hostile. ‘You accusin’ us of being thieves?’ The righteous indignation he managed to drum up was wonderful to behold and made me want to laugh.