St mungos robin, p.13
St Mungo's Robin, page 13
‘Aye.’ Gil held out his glass. ‘Is there any more of that Malvoisie? We wouldny want it to spoil. Tell me, was Naismith a man of habit? Was he at Mass every morning?’
Maister Kennedy paused with the jug in his hand. ‘Most mornings, I’d say, but not every morning.’
‘And in his own stall?’
‘When he was there? Oh, aye. Well, usually. Odd times he was late, he’d slip in at the tail and sit near the choir door.’
‘Oh.’ Gil accepted the returned glass. ‘Next to Anselm?’
‘Oh, you’ve heard about that, have you,’ said Nick, as Maister Veitch had done. ‘No, he wouldny sit next to Anselm. I’m told it can be gey cold in the stall next to Anselm.’
‘Lowrie thought he saw him in that stall this morning, but Millar said it was more likely this other –’ He stopped, shaking his head.
‘Mm,’ said Nick. ‘No this morning.’
‘You’re very sure.’
‘Sure enough.’ He gave Gil a doubtful look. ‘You’re no priested, this may not make sense to you.’
‘Try me.’
‘Aye, well. I don’t see Anselm’s friend myself but – Look, when you say a Mass, it’s no always the same. Sometimes your words come right back at you as if you were standing next a wall, and sometimes they vanish as if you were speaking down a well,’ said Nick hesitantly, ‘but sometimes – sometimes it’s as if something – someone else you canny see joins in wi you, and the whole thing takes a life of its own. You ken?’
‘Like prayer,’ said Gil simply.
Nick nodded in relief. ‘Aye, exactly. Well, in St Serf’s, when it’s one of the good Masses, the better Masses I mean, then when we go to get a sup of porridge wi the old men, Anselm will be yapping on about his friend being there. It aye happens. And once or twice, when Naismith was making a joke of it at Anselm, trying to make out he’d seen the extra brother himself that day, I could tell what Anselm was going to say for it hadny been one of the uplifted Masses.’
‘And?’
‘It wasny one this morn. What was Anselm saying?’
‘Anselm agreed wi you. So far as he was making sense at all,’ Gil qualified.
Nick’s dark-browed face split in a grin, then became serious. ‘So who did Lowrie see? The boy’s sharp-eyed and sensible, I’d believe he saw something, so who was it?’
‘That’s one of the things I need to find out.’ Gil took another sip of wine. ‘You mentioned Humphrey Agnew, Nick. How was Naismith with him?’
‘No bad, for all his faults, and for all the names Humphrey called him. Better than the poor soul’s brother, at all events. I’ve seen Naismith help Sissie to get Humphrey out the way and calmed down when his brother’s got him rampaging.’
‘The brothers Agnew don’t get on?’
Nick shrugged. ‘Tammas never humours Humphrey. He starts reciting the Apocalypse and Tammas says, No need for that now, or Calm down, Humphrey. Humphrey tells you the Deacon’s a shrike and Tammas tells him no to be ridiculous. A quarter-hour of that and Humphrey goes for his throat, tries to throttle him. Nearly got him a couple of times that I’ve seen,’ he asserted, ‘but the Deacon dragged him away and Sissie got Humphrey out the room. The poor man ought to be somewhere he can be locked up, but he’s happy at St Serf’s.’
‘Why a shrike?’ Gil wondered. ‘He says he’s a robin now, because he’s dead. Oh, and Pierre and I are hoodies.’
‘All in black as you are, wi a grey plaid, I can see how he’d think you were a hoodie,’ said Nick, ‘but a robin? Maybe like the one in the bairns’ rhyme? Who killed cock-robin?’
‘I, said the sparrow, wi my bow and arrow,’ recalled Gil. ‘But it was a dagger killed Naismith, no an arrow. I wonder who he’s cast as the sparrow? And do you tell me you have to wait till he’s out of sight after the Mass before you can lave the vessels?’
‘Oh, aye. Or he starts on the Apocalypse again and then gets violent, it seems. I’ve never taken the chance. Let’s talk of something more cheerful. How’s the wedding plans going? Got the bed set up yet?’
‘The painters are still at work.’
‘It’s to be hoped they finish afore the great day,’ said Nick, ‘or we’ll all be covered in paint when we put you to bed. Oh, aye, my new gown came home.’ He got to his feet, setting down his glass, and went to the kist at the foot of his own bed. ‘Wat Paton’s man brought it round this afternoon. Now is that no braw?’ He shook the garment out and held it up, a long gown of dark red velvet with a heavy fur lining. ‘Mind, I still think we should ha been both of us in our Master’s robes, but I’ll do you proud as your groomsman in this, will I no?’
‘We’d be more symmetrical in academic dress,’ Gil agreed, ‘but I’ll tell you, we’ll be warmer in these. Mine’s much the same, but cut in blue brocade. We’ll make a good turnout.’
‘And I’ll get years of wear out of this,’ said Nick, in satisfaction. ‘Provided the moth doesny get into it.’ He stroked the fur again, and folded the rich material with care. ‘I’d ha stood up for you anyway, Gil, you’d no need to bribe me like this. And have you got the rings ready?’
Gil thought briefly of the two circles of gold in their little silk pouch, stowed in his uncle’s strongbox for safety. His was quite plain, set with a single dome-cut garnet; Alys’s was the most delicate work he could commission in Glasgow, ornamented with linked hearts and the single word, SEMPER. Always. He found he was rubbing his ring finger, and stopped.
‘Aye, the rings are ready,’ he said.
By the time Gil left the college, after a quick word with Patrick Coventry the second regent, depute to the gentle Principal Doby it was late. The rain had stayed off, but the cold wind whipping dark clouds across the stars was not an improvement. He paused outside the great wooden yett, hitching his plaid up higher, and considered what to do next. Of the options which presented, going home to the house in Rottenrow was the more sensible and less attractive.
He turned downhill, towards his lodestone.
Chapter Seven
There were still lighted windows in the mason’s sprawling house, and lute music floated faintly on the wind. Gil picked his way across the courtyard, avoiding the bare plant-tubs; as he set foot on the fore-stair the door opened and more light fell across the damp flagstones.
‘Gilbert,’ said Maistre Pierre with pleasure. ‘Alys thought she heard your footstep. Come in, come in, and take some wine. We have been sitting above stairs. Did you learn anything from the Deacon’s mistress? Is that where you have been? Perhaps,’ he said, and grinned, white teeth catching the candlelight as he lit the two of them up the stair, ‘I should object, if you come to your betrothed from calling on another man’s mistress.’
‘I was well protected,’ Gil assured him, following him into the little painted closet. ‘I took Dorothea with me.’ Alys had set her lute in its case, and turned to greet him, her honey-coloured locks gleaming in the candlelight. He gathered her close and kissed her, then released his clasp as he felt her draw back slightly.
‘How is she, poor creature?’ she asked. ‘The man’s mistress, I mean. And your sister? Is she tired from the journey?’ Her hand slid into his like a little bird into its nest. To see her fingers that be so small! In my conceit she passeth all That ever I saw. But she won’t let me kiss her, he thought.
‘My sister is well,’ he answered her, and sat down with her on the cushioned bench. ‘She’s looking forward to meeting you tomorrow. She and I went to see Marion Veitch after you left us, Pierre, before supper.’
‘And?’ Maistre Pierre was pouring wine, not Malvoisie but the red Bordeaux wine he favoured. Gil took the glass in his free hand and described the visit to the house by the Caichpele.
‘That poor woman,’ said Alys again as he finished. ‘She has been very badly treated. I hope Sister Dorothea was able to comfort her.’
‘It’s a sorry tale,’ Gil agreed. ‘But as matters stand, she won’t lose by the man’s death. His existing will was much more generous to her and to the little girl as well, Agnew tells me.’
‘Oh, you have seen the lawyer?’
‘After supper. And also Maister Veitch at the bedehouse.’
‘Who else benefits from the old will?’ asked Alys.
Gil looked down at her where she leaned against his shoulder, and smiled. ‘There are one or two bequests of named property to his kin, by what Agnew says, and something for the bedehouse, something for the child by name, and the residue goes to Marion Veitch. I would say he’s purchased several plots of land since it was drawn up. She’ll be a wealthier woman than he intended.’
‘Oh,’ said Alys thoughtfully. ‘So the man’s death comes very convenient for her.’
‘It does.’
‘And for who else?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘Did he have enemies, have you discovered?’
Gil grimaced. ‘According to Maister Veitch anyone in the bedehouse, not only the six brothers but Millar and Mistress Mudie as well, had cause to dislike him. Marion’s brother John was very angry with him last night. I don’t yet know who his friends were, other than Agnew and one of the Walkinshaws, and I must find out. I should have asked Agnew just now.’
Maistre Pierre grunted, and sipped his wine, pausing to savour it respectfully.
‘What else do we know about the Deacon?’ he said. ‘Consider how did he die. That is the first thing’
‘Did you say he was killed somewhere else?’ said Alys.
Gil nodded. ‘He was stabbed, by two opponents, one of them left-handed. After he was dead his eyes were closed, and he lay for a while in one position, perhaps as long as three hours, and then he was moved to the bedehouse garden, where he fell into another position.’
‘Do not forget the marks on his face,’ prompted Maistre Pierre, ‘and the straw in his garments.’
‘Straw?’
‘Flakes of straw,’ agreed Gil. ‘Those may have come from Agnew’s chamber in the Consistory tower. Someone has been sweeping the chambers, I think, and his stair is covered in fragments.’
‘So that confirms Agnew’s story.’ Maistre Pierre took one of the little cakes from the half-empty plate on the tray, and bit it thoughtfully.
‘So far,’ agreed Alys. ‘What else, Gil?’
‘His keys were on his belt,’ continued Gil, ‘and gate and door were locked as usual. It seems most likely that he was moved somehow to the Stablegreen and put over the wall into the garden, rather than being taken in by the door.’
‘And then he was heard walking about,’ said Alys.
‘Someone was heard. There was a light and movement in his lodging about ten o’clock, witnessed by Mistress Mudie and by Millar separately.’
‘You make it very clear,’ said Maistre Pierre. Alys reached for the plate of cakes and offered it to Gil.
‘You think it was not the man himself who was heard in his lodging,’ she said. ‘So who was it? And why?’
‘One of those who killed him, one assumes,’ said her father.
‘But who?’ she persisted. ‘Who is most likely?’
‘A good question,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘Gilbert, of those we know, who had the means to kill him?’
‘Virtually all.’
‘We need only one. Take the woman first, the mistress. Could she have killed her lover? She has reason, God knows it.’
‘Naismith broke his news, and there was an argument, but he left the house after it,’ said Gil thoughtfully, ‘we have witnesses to that.’
The mason waved his empty glass in one large hand. ‘Perhaps she went out later and waited for him to leave the Consistory tower.’
‘You saw her, Gil. Could she have done that?’ asked Alys. ‘Waiting alone in the dark for the right person to come along, so that she could stab him?’ She shivered.
‘She’s a timid soul,’ Gil said, and thought of Michael’s leman, waiting in the dark for a different reason. He put his arm round Alys’s waist. She clasped his hand, fingers moving in a quick, private caress, and shifted it to her shoulder. What did that mean, he wondered, tightening his grasp obediently.
‘Her brother!’ suggested Maistre Pierre. ‘He could have knifed the man, whether in St Mungo’s Yard or in the street.’
‘Or they both did, together – you said there were two opponents.’
‘That’s possible,’ agreed Gil. ‘And then they hid the body as we thought happened, and put him over the wall later. And a man like John Veitch could have carried the Deacon without trouble, alone or with –’
‘Ah! And while he did that, she went into the bedehouse in her lover’s cloak –’
‘Why?’ said Alys. ‘What is the benefit?’
‘To cover up the time or the place where he was killed. To make it seem he was killed inside the bedehouse instead of outside.’
‘I would certainly prefer it,’ said Maistre Pierre plaintively, leaning forward with the jug of wine to refill Gil’s glass, ‘if it were not Naismith who came home to the bedehouse last night. Experience tells me he was dead long before the footsteps were heard.’
Alys nodded.
‘It can’t have been Naismith,’ Gil agreed. He pulled a face. ‘There are tales – McIan the harper could tell you some – of people who were seen and heard after they were dead, but I think Our Lord was the only one who appeared after he was dead and consumed a meal.’
‘And we are not told that He slept in His bed,’ said Alys.
‘If that is what happened – the body over the wall, someone else in the Deacon’s lodging – it didn’t only disguise the time and place of death. It also got the impostor time with the accounts,’ Gil said thoughtfully, ‘which had certainly been searched, by what Millar says. I wonder what he – or she – was looking for? And of course once Millar had come in, the outer gate was locked as well as the door between the courtyards, so the impostor was trapped, even if he had originally intended to leave.’
‘Whoever it was took a risk,’ observed Alys. ‘The body might have been found before he could get away.’
‘He would have heard the outcry and had time to hide somewhere about the place. The chapel, for instance. I suspect he did not remove his boots, whoever he was. Anyway, John Veitch claims he slept in his own bed last night. I’ve still to go down and find this Widow Napier he’s lodging with,’ Gil admitted. ‘And his boots are bigger than the prints we found in the clump of trees.’
Alys turned her head to look at Gil from within the circle of his arm.
‘And the man of law,’ she said. ‘He thinks it was his brother who killed the man.’
‘He’s worrying about very little, I should say. The brother is certainly mad, and it seems he can be violent, so vexis him the thoghtful maladie, but if Millar is to be believed, the door was locked between the Deacon’s lodging and the bedesmen’s houses. And Mistress Mudie corroborates that,’ Gil added. ‘Mind you, she would certainly lie to protect Humphrey.’
‘It is possible,’ said Alys, ‘surely even if she was not lying? If it was indeed Deacon Naismith in his lodging when the light was seen, he might have come down into the garden later, locking the door behind him. You said his keys were with him.’
‘His keys,’ agreed Gil, ‘but no lantern. It was cloudy last night, the moon would give no light –’
‘Perhaps he had one, but whoever killed him took it,’ suggested Alys.
‘That would mean,’ he said glumly, ‘that anyone in the bedehouse could have killed him. Even Mistress Mudie had good reason. Those receipts in Naismith’s purse were hers, Pierre, family remedies that the Deacon forced her to reveal, and it’s clear enough from what Maister Veitch tells me that any of the brothers might have had a reason, as well.’
‘But Naismith did not die where he was found,’ Maistre Pierre reminded him. ‘We thought it was not in the garden.’
‘We don’t know where he died. We don’t know for certain that he was put over the wall,’ Gil admitted. ‘The marks we found are circumstantial, no more. The dog found nothing to interest him in the little houses, but he’s no lymer, he doesn’t hunt by scent. It would help if we could find the Deacon’s cloak and hat.’
‘Hmm,’ said the mason. ‘We keep coming back to it – both Mistress Mudie and Millar maintain there was someone in Naismith’s lodging by ten o’clock last night. She heard footsteps, he saw a light.’
‘If she was lying,’ said Gil, ‘he might simply agree with her, for whatever reason – being sure she was right, or some such thing. Or perhaps she had gone up herself and lit the candle and eaten the dole, so that Millar did see a light.’
‘And rearranged the accounts?’ said Alys. ‘Can she read? Oh, yes,’ she recollected, ‘you said the receipts were hers.’
‘Or did Millar himself go up there?’ suggested Maistre Pierre. ‘Is it the woman who is agreeing because she is sure he is right? I am not convinced she is capable of lying, her tongue runs too freely.’
‘If Millar had rearranged the accounts,’ said Gil thoughtfully, ‘he had no need to tell us they were in disorder. We would never have known it. I’m inclined to think he was telling the truth – that he went straight to his own chamber when he came into the bedehouse.’
‘What about the kitchen hands?’ said Alys. ‘Do they live in? Have you spoken to them?’
‘Ah!’ said Gil. ‘Another thing to do tomorrow.’
‘Meantime,’ said Maistre Pierre, nodding agreement, ‘if we accept this evidence, we have someone in the Deacon’s lodging last night. We also have an extra figure at the morning Mass.’ He cocked an eyebrow at Gil. ‘Was it real, or was it spectral?’
‘Oh, aye, if it was real, easiest by far to assume those are the same person. But if we do, we must assume neither was the Deacon, because he was certainly dead long before Prime, and possibly dead before Mistress Mudie first heard footsteps overhead.’
‘I should have said ten to fourteen hours before I saw him, though I cannot be certain.’
‘That would be, I suppose between seven and eleven last night,’ Gil reckoned. ‘We know he was alive about half an hour after seven, when he left the house by the Caichpele, and if it was not Naismith that Sissie heard we can probably assume he was dead by ten. That fits.’
