"Edward IV. Yes, I know. A six-foot hunk of male beauty. Perhaps Richard suffered from a resentment at the contrast. And that accounts for his willingness to blot out his brother's seed."
This was something that Grant had not thought of.
"You're suggesting that Richard had a suppressed hate for his brother?"
"Why suppressed?"
"Because even his worst detractors admit that he was devoted to Edward. They were together in everything from the time that Richard was twelve or thirteen. The other brother was no good to anyone. George."
"Who was George?"
"The Duke of Clarence."
"Oh. Him! Butt-of-malmsey Clarence"
"That's the one. So there were just the two of them—Edward and Richard, I mean. And there was a ten-year gap in their ages. Just the right difference for hero worship."
"If I were a hunchback," young Carradine said musingly, "I sure would hate a brother who took my credit and my women and my place in the sun."
"It's possible," Grant said after an interval. "It's the best explanation I've come on so far."
"It mightn't have been an overt thing at all, you know. It mightn't have even been a conscious thing. It may just have all boiled up in him when he saw the chance of a crown. He may have said—I mean his blood may have said: 'Here's my chance! All those years of fetching and carrying and standing one pace in the rear, and no thanks for them. Here's where I take my pay. Here's where I settle accounts.' "
Grant noticed that by sheer chance Carradine had used the same imagined description of Richard as Miss Payne-Ellis. Standing one pace in the rear. That is how the novelist had seen him, standing with the fair, solid Margaret and George, on the steps of Baynard's Castle watching their father go away to war. One pace in the rear, "as usual."
"That's very interesting, though, what you say about Richard being apparently a good sort up to the time of the crime," Carradine said, propping one leg of his horn-rims with a long forefinger in his characteristic gesture. "Makes him more of a person. That Shakespeare version of him, you know, that's just a caricature. Not a man at all. I'll be very pleased to do any investigating you want, Mr. Grant. It'll make a nice change from the peasants."
"The Cat and the Rat instead of John Ball and Wat Tyler."
"That's it."
"Well, it's very nice of you. I'd be glad of anything you can rake up. But at the moment all I pine for is a contemporary account of events. They must have been country-rocking events. I want to read a contemporary's account of them. Not what someone heard-tell about events that happened when he was five, and under another régime altogether."
"I'll find out who the contemporary historian is. Fabyan, perhaps. Or is he Henry VII? Anyway, I'll find out. And meanwhile perhaps you'd like a look at Oliphant. He's the modern authority on the period, or so I understand."
Grant said that he would be delighted to take a look at Sir Cuthbert.
"I'll drop him in when I'm passing tomorrow—I suppose it'll be all right if I leave him in the office for you?—and as soon as I find out about the contemporary writers I'll be in with the news. That suit you?"
Grant said that that was perfect.
Young Carradine went suddenly shy, reminding Grant of the woolly lamb which he had quite forgotten in the interest of this new approach to Richard. He said goodnight in a quiet smothered way, and ambled out of the room followed by the sweeping skirts of his topcoat.
Grant thought that, the Carradine fortune apart, Atlanta Shergold looked like being on a good thing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"Well," said Marta, when she came again, "what did you think of my woolly lamb?"
"It was very kind of you to find him for me."
"I didn't have to find him. He's continually underfoot. He practically lives at the theatre. He must have seen To Sea in a Bowl five hundred times; when he isn't in Atlanta's dressing-room he's in front. I wish they'd get married, and then we might see less of him. They're not even living together, you know. It's all pure idyll." She dropped her "actress" voice for a moment and said: "They're rather sweet together. In some ways they are more like twins than lovers. They have that utter trust in each other; that dependence on the other half to make a proper whole. And they never have rows—or even quarrels, that I can see. An idyll, as I said. Was it Brent who brought you this?"
She poked the solid bulk of Oliphant with a doubtful finger.
"Yes, he left it with the porter for me."
"It looks very indigestible."
"A bit unappetising, let us say. It is quite easily digested once you have swallowed it. History for the student. Set out in detailed fact."
"Ugh!"
"At least I've discovered where the revered and sainted Sir Thomas More got his account of Richard."
"Yes? Where?"
"From one John Morton."
"Never heard of him."
"Neither did I, but that's our ignorance."
"Who was he?"
"He was Henry VII's Archbishop of Canterbury. And Richard's bitterest enemy."
If Marta had been capable of whistling, she would have whistled in comment.
"So that was the horse's mouth!" she said.
"That was the horse's mouth. And it is on that account of Richard that all the later ones were built. It is on that story that Holinshed fashioned his history, and on that story that Shakespeare fashioned his character."
"So it is the version of someone who hated Richard. I didn't know that. Why did the sainted Sir Thomas report Morton rather than someone else?"
"Whoever he reported, it would be a Tudor version. But he reported Morton, it seems, because he had been in Morton's household as a boy. And of course Morton had been very much 'on in the act,' so it was natural to write down the version of an eyewitness whose account he could have at first hand."
Marta poked her finger at Oliphant again. "Does your dull fat historian acknowledge that it is a biased version?"
"Oliphant? Only by implication. He is, to be honest, in a sad muddle himself about Richard. On the same page he says that he was an admirable administrator and general, with an excellent reputation, staid and good-living, very popular by contrast with the Woodville upstarts (the Queen's relations) and that he was 'perfectly unscrupulous and ready to wade through any depth of bloodshed to the crown which lay within his grasp.' On one page he says grudgingly: 'There are reasons for supposing that he was not destitute of a conscience' and then on a later page reports More's picture of a man so tormented by his own deed that he could not sleep. And so on."
"Does your dull fat Oliphant prefer his roses red, then?"
"Oh, I don't think so. I don't think he is consciously Lancastrian. Though now that I think of it he is very tolerant of Henry VH's usurpation. I can't remember his saying anywhere, brutally, that Henry hadn't a vestige of a shadow of a claim to the throne."
"Who put him there, then? Henry, I mean."
"The Lancastrian remnant and the upstart Woodvilles backed, I suppose, by a country revolted by the boys' murder. Apparently anyone with a spice of Lancastrian blood in their veins would do. Henry himself was canny enough to put 'conquest' first in his claim to the throne, and his Lancaster blood second, 'De jure belli et de jure Lancastriae.' His mother was the heir of an illegitimate son of the third son of Edward III."
"All I know about Henry VII is that he was fantastically rich and fantastically mean. Do you know the lovely Kipling story about his knighting the craftsman not for having done beautiful work but for having saved him the cost of some scroll-work?"
"With a rusty sword from behind the arras. You must be one of the few women who know their Kipling."
"Oh, I'm a very remarkable woman in many ways. So you are no nearer finding out about Richard's personality than you were?"
"No. I'm as completely bewildered as Sir Cuthbert Oliphant, bless his heart. The only difference between us is that I know I'm bewildered and he doesn't seem to be aware of it."
"Ha
ve you seen much of my woolly lamb?"
"I've seen nothing of him since his first visit, and that's three days ago. I'm beginning to wonder whether he has repented of his promise."
"Oh, no. I'm sure not. Faithfulness is his banner and creed."
"Like Richard."
"Richard?"
"His motto was 'Loyaulté me lie. ' Loyalty binds me."
There was a tentative tap at the door, and in answer to Grant's invitation, Brent Carradine appeared, hung around with top coat as usual.
"Oh! I seem to be butting in. I didn't know you were here, Miss Hallard. I met the Statue of Liberty in the corridor there, and she seemed to think you were alone, Mr. Grant."
Grant identified the Statue of Liberty without difficulty. Marta said that she was in the act of going, and that in any case Brent was a much more welcome visitor than she was nowadays. She would leave them in peace to pursue their search for the soul of a murderer.
When he had bowed her politely to the door Brent came back and sat himself down in the visitor's chair with exactly the same air that an Englishman wears when he sits down to his port after the women have left the table. Grant wondered if even the female-ridden American felt a subconscious relief at settling down to a stag party. In answer to Brent's inquiry as to how he was getting on with Oliphant, he said he found Sir Cuthbert admirably lucid.
"I've discovered who the Cat and the Rat were, incidentally. They were entirely respectable knights of the realm: William Catesby and Richard Ratcliffe. Catesby was Speaker of the House of Commons, and Ratcliffe was one of the Commissioners of Peace with Scotland. It's odd how the very sound of words makes a political jungle vicious. The Hog of course was Richard's badge. The White Boar. Do you frequent our English pubs?"
"Sure. They're one of the things I think you do better than us."
"You forgive us our plumbing for the sake of the beer at the Boar."
"I wouldn't go as far as to say I forgive it. I discount it, shall we say?"
"Magnanimous of you. Well, there's something else you've got to discount. That theory of yours that Richard hated his brother because of the contrast between his beauty and Richard's hunchbacked state. According to Sir Cuthbert, the hunchback is a myth. So is the withered arm. It appears that he had no visible deformity. At least none that mattered. His left shoulder was lower than his right, that was all. Did you find out who the contemporary historian is?"
"There isn't one."
"None at all!"
"Not in the sense that you mean it. There were writers who were contemporaries of Richard, but they wrote after his death. For the Tudors. Which puts them out of court. There is a monkish chronicle in Latin somewhere that is contemporary, but I haven't been able to get hold of it yet. One thing I have discovered though: that account of Richard III is called Sir Thomas More's not because he wrote it but because the manuscript was found among his papers. It was an unfinished copy of an account that appears elsewhere in finished form."
"Well!" Grant considered this with interest. "You mean it was More's own manuscript copy?"
"Yes. In his own writing. Made when he was about thirty-five. In those days, before printing was general, manuscript copies of books were the usual thing."
"Yes. So, if the information came from John Morton, as it did, it is just as likely that the thing was written by Morton."
"Yes."
"Which would certainly account for the—the lack of sensibility. A climber like Morton wouldn't be at all abashed by back-stairs gossip. Do you know about Morton?"
"No."
"He was a lawyer turned churchman, and the greatest pluralist on record. He chose the Lancastrian side and stayed with it until it was clear that Edward IV was home and dried. Then he made his peace with the York side and Edward made him Bishop of Ely. And vicar of God knows how many parishes besides. But after Richard's accession he backed first the Woodvilles and then Henry Tudor and ended up with a cardinal's hat as Henry VII's Archbishop of—"
"Wait a minute!" said the boy, amused. "Of course I know Morton. He was Morton of 'Morton's Fork.” You can't be spending much so how about something for the King; you're spending such a lot you must be very rich so how about something for the King.' "
"Yes. That's Morton. Henry's best thumb-screw. And I've just thought of a reason why he might have a personal hatred for Richard long before the murder of the boys."
"Yes?"
"Edward took a large bribe from Louis XI to make a dishonourable peace in France. Richard was very angry about that—it really was a disgraceful affair—and washed his hands of the business. Which included refusing a large cash offer. But Morton was very much in favour both of the deal and the cash. Indeed he took a pension from Louis. A very nice pension it was. Two thousand crowns a year. I don't suppose Richard's outspoken comments went down very well, even with good gold for a chaser."
"No. I guess not."
"And of course there would be no preferment for Morton under the straight-laced Richard as there had been under the easy-going Edward. So he would have taken the Woodville side, even if there had been no murder."
"About that murder—" the boy said; and paused.
"Yes?"
"About that murder—the murder of those two boys—isn't it odd that no one talks of it?"
"How do you mean; no one talks of it?"
"These last three days I've been going through contemporary papers; letters and what not. And no one mentions them at all."
"Perhaps they were afraid to. It was a time when it paid to be discreet."
"Yes; but I'll tell you something even odder. You know that Henry brought a Bill of Attainder against Richard, after Bosworth. Before Parliament, I mean. Well, he accuses Richard of cruelty and tyranny but doesn't even mention the murder."
"What!" said Grant, startled.
"Yes, you may well look startled."
"Are you sure!"
"Quite sure."
"But Henry got possession of the Tower immediately on his arrival in London after Bosworth. If the boys were missing it is incredible that he should not publish the fact immediately. It was the trump card in his hand. " He lay in surprised silence for a little. The sparrows on the window-sill quarrelled loudly. "I can't make sense of it," he said. "What possible explanation can there be for his omission to make capital out of the fact that the boys were missing?"
Brent shifted his long legs to a more comfortable position. "There is only one explanation," he said. "And that is that the boys weren't missing."
There was a still longer silence this time, while they stared at each other.
"Oh, no, it's nonsense," Grant said. "There must be some obvious explanation that we are failing to see."
"As what, for instance?"
"1 don't know. I haven't had time to think."
"I've had nearly three days to think, and I still haven't thought up a reason that will fit. Nothing will fit the facts except the conclusion that the boys were alive when Henry took over the Tower. It was a completely unscrupulous Act of Attainder; it accused Richard's followers—the loyal followers of an anointed King fighting against an invader—of treason. Every accusation that Henry could possibly make with any hope of getting away with it was put into the Bill. And the very worst he could accuse Richard of was the usual cruelty and tyranny. The boys aren't even mentioned."
"It's fantastic."
"It's unbelievable. But it is fact."
"What it means is that there was no contemporary accusation at all. "
"That's about it."
"But—but wait a minute. Tyrrel was hanged for the murder. He actually confessed to it before he died. Wait a minute." He reached for Oliphant and sped through the pages looking for the place. "There's a full account of it here somewhere. There was no mystery about it. Even the Statue of Liberty knew about it."
"Who?"
"The nurse you met in the corridor. It was Tyrrel who committed the murder and he was found guilty and confessed before his death." r />
"Was that when Henry took over in London, then?"
"Wait a moment, Here it is." He skimmed down the paragraph. "No, it was in 1502." He realised all of a sudden what he had just said, and repeated in a new, bewildered tone: "In—1502."
"But—but—but that was—"
"Yes. Nearly twenty years afterwards."
Brent fumbled for his cigarette case, took it out, and then put it hastily away again.
"Smoke if you like," Grant said. "It's a good stiff drink I need. I don't think my brain can be working very well. I feel the way I used to feel as a child when I was blindfolded and whirled round before beginning a blindman's-buff game."
"Yes," said Carradine. He took out a cigarette and lighted it. "Completely in the dark, and more than a little dizzy."
He sat staring at the sparrows.
"Forty million school books can't be wrong," Grant said after a little.
"Can't they?"
"Well, can they!"
"I used to think so, but I'm not so sure nowadays."
"Aren't you being a little sudden in your scepticism?"
"Oh, it wasn't this that shook me."
"What then?"
"A little affair called the Boston Massacre. Ever heard of it?"
"Of course."
"Well, I discovered quite by accident, when I was looking up something at college, that the Boston Massacre consisted of a mob throwing stones at a sentry. The total casualties were four. I was brought up on the Boston Massacre, Mr. Grant. My twenty-eight inch chest used to swell at the very memory of it. My good red spinach-laden blood used to seethe at the thought of helpless civilians mowed down by the fire of British troops. You can't imagine what a shock it was to find that all it added up to in actual fact was a brawl that wouldn't get more than local reporting in a clash between police and strikers in any American lock-out."
As Grant made no reply to this, he squinted his eyes against the light to see how Grant was taking it. But Grant was staring at the ceiling as if he were watching patterns forming there.
"That's partly why I like to research so much," Carradine volunteered; and settled back to staring at the sparrows.