‘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.’
‘How accurate do you think her sense of time is?’ asked Alys.
‘I don’t know about that, but she did say she heard someone moving about over her head after Millar had come in,’ Gil supplied. ‘Millar’s story is clear enough — and Patey Coventry confirmed it for me just now.’
‘Ah,’ said Maistre Pierre in disappointment. ‘That certainly discounts my next idea.’
‘What, that one of the brothers leapt up that stair and stabbed him before the door was locked, then carried him down into the garden without Sissie noticing? I thought of that too, but there was no sign of a fight, let alone a death, in Naismith’s lodging. In any case it wouldny account for the extra figure at Mass, and nor would the idea that he was killed in the garden or in one of the wee houses. We would have to accept that what Lowrie saw was — not real. No, the only way it works is for the man last night to be the same as the man this morning.’