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thimble, broke in and stole it?’ Charlie surmised, looking at the tiny casement.

‘An apprentice saw from the street, Nancy’s blood spattered on the attic window.’ Fitzgilbert pointed at the diamond-paned glass, which was flecked with dried blood. ‘The boy started raving. We heard him from our bed chamber. A tanner or brick boy by his clothes. Horrid creature he was. Great mop of lice-ridden ginger hair,’ Fitzgilbert mimed. ‘Loud gutter-London accent.’ His face puckered at the memory. ‘He was shouting of my wife’s witchcraft. A mob gathered. They insisted on seeing inside the room. That was how we found Nancy.’

‘And they took your wife?’

‘Dragged her from her bed and took her straight to the Clink prison,’ said Fitzgilbert. The full horror of this seemed to be dawning on him. He buried his ratty features in his hands. ‘She languishes with felons!’ he cried.

Fitzgilbert’s eyes had misted slightly. His trembling hands reached for the snuff box. ‘My poor wife. With age, she is less certain. Confused of things. But she is a gentle Christian soul who would never … Certainly, she couldn’t have done that.’

Fitzgilbert was blinking rapidly, his eyes flicking to the attic window. ‘She couldn’t have done that,’ he repeated in a whisper.

He seemed to be convincing himself. ‘So will you help?’ he asked. ‘I can pay well. But I must ask for discretion and speed. This must be resolved quickly for the sake of my family name.’

He tipped snuff, sniffed, sneezed.

Charlie hesitated.

‘I can only undertake to find the thimble,’ he said, meeting Fitzgilbert’s pale blue eyes. ‘I’m a thief-taker. I have no authority to find a murderer.’

‘Find the thimble and you’ll find the killer,’ said Fitzgilbert firmly.

‘If that’s the outcome, I’ll be sure the criminal is brought to justice,’ said Charlie carefully.

He was thinking of the tiny attic window, high up and hard to enter. From what he’d seen, the girl’s murder was an inside job.

‘But if I find the thimble,’ continued Charlie, ‘and it isn’t in the killer’s possession, you must still pay my dues.’

Fitzgilbert nodded, but he was thinking. Charlie put out his hand quickly, before the other man could piece together the subtext.

If your wife isn’t innocent, I don’t want you to renege on payment.

Fitzgilbert shook Charlie’s hand automatically.

‘I’ll make haste,’ promised Charlie. ‘I know who buys and sells silver in the City. I’ll ask some questions, find some answers.’

Fitzgilbert looked relieved. ‘The sooner the villain is caught the better,’ he said.

Charlie nodded in reply. But he didn’t add what he was really thinking.

There’s a good chance she’s already behind bars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Four

The Bucket of Blood tavern was Charlie’s favourite place in London. The half-timbered interior was warmed by a range fire and a steaming cauldron of meat puddings. Casks of good ale lined the broad central table, and barefoot boys milled among the cheerful drinkers, selling cakes and provisions. You didn't want for anything in the Bucket if you had money or friends. And it was the best place in the City for information.

‘The silver thimble hasn’t been sold,’ said the silversmith, shaking his head and taking a long swig of ale.

‘You’re certain?’ said Charlie, raising his voice over the din. The tavern was hosting a prizefight, and bare-knuckled boxers were slugging it out in the corner.

‘Not to anyone who deals in silver,’ said the silversmith. ‘That thimble hasn’t changed hands in London.’ He shook his grizzled head again. A little bear of a man, he wore a thick cambric doublet and matching blue breeches. Around his neck hung a medley of grimed silver wares: spoons, rings and snuff boxes.

‘The thimble might already have been sold at a market,’ suggested Charlie. ‘Or somewhere outside the City.’

The silversmith shrugged.

‘It’s possible. But the thief would have got a common metal price for it,’ he said. ‘Barely worth the risk of hanging.’

Charlie thought back to the crime. Nothing suggested an opportunist or stupid thief.

‘Melted down?’ he suggested. ‘Fashioned into something else?’

The silversmith shook his head with certainty.

‘Not a drop of silver gets melted without the Guild’s say-so. You’d need a furnace such as we have. I’d know if a thimble had been cast in its great red belly.’

The silversmith, Charlie remembered, was prone to a poetic turn of phrase when drinking. Soon after came the singing. Charlie’s gaze lighted on a boy with a tray of pies.

‘Something to eat?’ he suggested, turning the few pennies in his pocket. It was important to keep the man sober.

‘I’d rather keep room for the beer,’ replied the silversmith genially, taking another deep swig.

There was a shout from the crowd. One of the boxers had landed a particularly impressive blow. Blood splattered the sawdust.

The silversmith winced. ‘Who did you bet on?’ he asked, eyeing the burly fighters.

‘The winner,’ replied Charlie, taking a long sip of beer. ‘Why would a maid own a silver thimble?’ he said, thinking out loud.

‘It was the fashion during Cromwell’s time to have them instead of engagement rings,’ said the silversmith. ‘Some Puritan folk keep the tradition.’ He leaned back to observe the fight. ‘They won’t have jewels or trinkets or useless things.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Charlie, wondering if Fitzgilbert had.

‘The betrothed girl gets a thimble,’ explained the silversmith. ‘She uses it to sew her dowry clothes.’ He grinned, revealing a silver denture plate welded with dead men’s teeth. ‘No one can accuse the bride-to-be of frivolity, for her betrothal gift was put to good use,’ he concluded.

‘So Nancy, the good Christian girl, was secretly betrothed,’ said Charlie thoughtfully.

One of the fighters hit the floor with a crash. Cheers went up. The fallen man staggered up, pulled over a table and righted himself to riotous shouts.

‘Do they have any particular features, these betrothal thimbles?’ asked Charlie.

The silversmith considered. ‘Nothing I can call to mind,’ he said eventually. ‘Puritans aren’t for fancy decorations. Perhaps a little more working. A turned edge, more patterning. They cannot make them too elaborate, you see. For fear of upsetting God.’

He crossed himself.

‘But then the girl has two gifts instead of one,’ Charlie pointed out. ‘They must have a band for the ceremony.’

‘Women are clever, are they not?’ grinned the silversmith. ‘Especially when it comes to weddings.’ He nudged Charlie. ‘You’d know about that,’ he added.

Charlie, infamous for choosing the wrong women, gave a slight smile.

‘A good thing too,’ opined the silversmith. ‘Cromwell’s republic nearly starved us jewel men. Plain dress and nothing showy.’ He shook his head. ‘You’ll never hear me say a bad word against King Charles,’ he concluded, lifting his tankard. ‘His mistresses have been the making of me.’

‘There can’t be many betrothal thimbles made now,’ said Charlie. ‘Can you find out who made one recently?’

The silversmith looked meaningfully at his empty tankard.

Charlie refilled it and chalked a mark by his symbol on the barrel. He flicked a glance at the two fighters. They were rounding on one another warily, panting with exhaustion. Charlie was relying on the outcome to settle his tab.

‘It’s not a common item nowadays,’ agreed the silversmith, as Charlie handed him the foaming beer. ‘I might be able to find out who commissioned it. But not if it were struck during Cromwell’s rule,’ he added. ‘Too many thimbles. Too long ago.’

‘How long would it take you to find out?’

The silversmith drained half the tankard in one.

‘Give me a day or so,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask about. Only three men who do that kind of work. If I learn something, I’ll find you.’ He tipped the last few drops from the tankard into his mouth, nodded thanks and left the Bucket of Blood.

While Charlie was thinking over his next move, the bare-knuckle match ended and the bloodied victor pocketed his prize money. Charlie raised a hand and beckoned him. The boxer grinned a gap-toothed smile and sauntered over.

‘A good fight, John,’ said Charlie, slapping him on the back. ‘You must have enough to marry that girl of yours by now.’

‘Next week,’ said John, grinning. ‘We’re in your debt. I’d still be hod-carrying for four pence if you hadn’t arranged my first fight. What brings you to the Bucket?’

‘I’m in search of a silver thimble,’ said Charlie. ‘Stolen from a murdered Puritan girl.’

‘A murdered Puritan,’ said John, wrinkling his nose. ‘Them black and white folks?’

‘Cromwell’s religion,’ agreed Charlie. ‘From before our Merry Monarch.’ He eyed John’s bulky physique. ‘Would you like to repay that favour?’ he asked.

‘Any time you ask it of me,’ replied the boxer genially. His face was flush with drink and victory.

‘How about now?’ said Charlie. ‘I need muscle. We’re going to the Clink.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Five

The guard led them down the steps into the Clink. Charlie steadied his breathing. He had a deep dislike of prisons and a healthy distrust of gaolers. Having grown up an orphan in the City, he had always obeyed the cardinal rule of those who danced in the twilight of legality.

Never enter a prison without a friend larger than the gaoler.

While John plodded next to him through the narrow corridors, whistling the cheerful tune of a law-abiding man, Charlie’s litany of goods-off-the-back-of-carts, angry husbands and starving thieves he’d let escape the noose rolled through his mind.

The damp corridors closed tighter around them and the air grew impossibly humid and stinking. They passed a furnace where manacles and a selection of hideous tools were laid ready for use. A low babble of moans washed over them.

‘Mistress Fitzgilbert is one of the lucky ones,’ opined the gaoler as they approached several thick doors. ‘Her husband paid for a private cell.’

‘Has she had any visitors?’ asked Charlie.

‘You’re the first. People fear gaol fever. It’s rife.’

As he spoke, eyes began appearing at the narrow gratings of the cells. Charlie heard a reedy voice beg for bread. The guard thumped a door and the sound ceased.

‘Doesn’t do to keep them well fed,’ said the turnkey philosophically. ‘Gives ’em ideas. This way,’ he added. ‘She’s the door at the end.’

Charlie slipped behind John, and pushed a piece of bread he’d stowed for his dinner through the cell grating. He heard hands fall on it hungrily.

Now the gaoler was unlocking Elizabeth Fitzgilbert’s cell with a large key.

Charlie couldn’t say what he’d been expecting to see. A mad woman cowed with fear perhaps, or staring out at them in confusion. But he wasn’t at all prepared for the calm countenance that greeted them.

Elizabeth Fitzgilbert was in her early forties, sitting tall and erect with straight handsome features and large green eyes. Her brown hair was mostly hidden beneath an old-fashioned cloth cap and she wore a sober black dress with a large white collar. A plain brass cross hung around her neck and a small Bible was her only noticeable possession.

She looked like a woman who had not been told Cromwell had died and a flamboyant king now sat on the throne.

Elizabeth stood to greet them. Charlie watched her buckled black shoes scrape the muddied straw.

‘The Thief-Taker,’ she said, bobbing a half-curtsy. ‘My husband wrote, telling me to expect you.’

‘What did he tell you to expect?’ asked Charlie, thrown by her calm manner.

‘He said you would prove my innocence,’ she said. Her large eyes suggested she wasn’t sure of this herself. ‘He seems to have great faith in you.’

Her eyes landed on John.

‘Perhaps you have means I’m unfamiliar with,’ she added, looking now at Charlie’s scarred face.

‘Incident with a horse,’ said Charlie, touching the kink in his nose and the sliver of scar