The Siren Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's by Fiona Buckley Page B

there are questionable people in my employ, I want them identified and removed but that can be seen to no matter where the inquiry is held. I won’t have my reputation compromised like this. The inquests will not be held here.”
    In the event, the two inquests, which took place together, were held in what was apparently a normal venue for such things in that locality, an upper room at another Bishopsgate inn, the Black Bull.
    We expected the proceedings to be lengthy but they were not. It took only a short time to establish that Gale had died of a stab wound in the back, made by a thin blade—“but such a blade can kill, if thrust into the heart,” said the coroner, who was himself a former soldier. Then the court heard the witnesses who had found Gale’s body and established that he had not been robbed of his valuables. The jury quickly concluded that the attack on him had either sprung from a personal feud of some kind or else was an attempt to get hold of confidential letters that he should have been carrying, but which had been left behind in his clothespress in Norfolk’s house.
    The letters were not produced. Norfolk declared that they were of a highly private nature and had already been sent on their way in the care of one of his own messengers. He added, however, that only one was from himself. Two had been written by Roberto Ridolfi, a banker. All three were addressed to people of eminence and were to do with money. He was not at liberty to say more.
    Further details were not requested. I looked at Hugh and he at me. No one had mentioned ciphers and we were both privately convinced that Norfolk’s letter at least wasn’t concerned with money at all, but with courtship. However, neither of us had actually read any of the letters and we could hardly stand up in the courtroom and declare that we had reason to suspect (though without proof) that our gracious host, the noble Duke of Norfolk, was telling lies.
    The three secretaries all bore the duke’s testimony out and Edmund Dean didn’t mention witchcraft. One of the maidservants, describing how the letters had been found, did start to talk about it but was cut short by the coroner, who as well as being a former soldier, was also a solid and hardheaded man in the middle years and thoroughly experienced in his present post.
    “We’re talking of dagger wounds and letters concerning financial affairs, young woman. This is not the time or place for beldames’ gossip.”
    It was agreed, by coroner and jury alike, that there was nothing to show whether the letters had been left behind deliberately or in error, by a man who had been ill and perhaps was still not himself. The verdict was murder by a person or persons unknown and further inquiries, said the coroner, must be set afoot.
    When the inquest reached Walt, it was quickly decided that he had probably died by the same hand and that he had probably known something dangerous to Gale’s killer. This was borne out by one witness whose brief testimony moved my heart. It was the girl Bessie, who had been betrothed to Walt. She was dressed in black, except for her white cap and small ruff, and she was very young. I remembered hearing that she wasn’t yet sixteen. I could tell that she found the official atmosphere frightening. Nevertheless, she kept her small square chin raised, and though her voice trembled when she spoke, she made herself heard and she didn’t stammer.
    Walt had told her, she said, that he had come into some money. On the day of his death he had come to her father’s tavern early in the morning and talked with her father, who had agreed that if Walt would put some of his legacy into the tavern, he could become a junior partner in the business, and could marry Bessie whenever the two of them chose.
    Her father, following her as a witness, said that Bessie’s account was right, and two of Norfolk’s menservants agreed that Walt had indeed gone out early that day, and that he had been saying