‘Away down to the Clyde,’ he said to Euan, with sudden inspiration, ‘and get a word wi the fisher-folk. See if any of them took a passenger anywhere out of Glasgow in the night.’
‘You think she might ha sailed away out of Glasgow?’ said Euan intelligently. ‘Och, the cunning! Never you worry, maister, if that’s what she did I’ll be tracking her down.’ He touched his blue felted bonnet and loped off towards the Wyndhead. Gil watched him go, suppressing relief. Euan had made himself moderately useful a few weeks since, when Gil had been summoned on the King’s hunting trip to the Western Isles, but now he seemed to have attached himself to the household where he was a great deal less help.
Wondering what to do with the man, Gil followed him more slowly, to turn up along Rottenrow towards Canon Muir’s manse.
He knew all the resident members of Chapter, having encountered them often enough in his uncle’s house. As the Official of Glasgow, the senior judge of the diocese, David Cunningham had a certain level of state to keep up, and entertained his fellow-clerics regularly. While Gil had been his pupil, learning those secrets of the notary’s craft which he was about to transmit to Lowrie, he had assisted at many such occasions, and recalled Canon Muir as elderly, slightly foolish, and a little too fond of his wine.
This was still the case.
‘My cousin Dandy’s boys,’ the Canon agreed, smiling indulgently. ‘Are they no the dearest laddies, Gilbert? And so handsome as they both are.’ He sighed. ‘They used to tell me I was bonnie-looking, but I’m sure I was never the equal o those two. They ought to be wed by now,’ he went on, ‘indeed Will Craigie’s been quite urgent wi me on that head, to promote a marriage wi some kin o his for one or other, but as I said to him, you canny force a young man, it takes time to these things. I think they’re ower fond o their freedom yet.’
Gil, seated on an uncomfortable carved wooden back-stool with the dog at his feet, preserved silence, and after a moment Canon Muir went on,
‘And what was it you wished me to tell you? You think they’re connected wi all this at St Mungo’s Cross? No, no, I hardly think it. Two sic sweet-tempered laddies, they’d never be mixed up in the likes o that.’
‘They’re connected wi it already,’ Gil pointed out, ‘seeing they escorted the missing lady into Glasgow, and they claim kinship wi her aunt.’
‘That’s very true. There’s much in what you’re saying.’ The Canon took refuge in his glass of claret. Emerging after a moment he said triumphantly, ‘But they’re no true kin o Ellen Shaw’s, only by marriage. I think Will Craigie’s closer kin to her. No that she hasny been a good friend to the laddies, looking about her for aught she can do for them, a good friend. Any road, Gilbert, they lay here last night, and I saw them to their bed mysel. Will you have more o this wine? It’s right good, I had it from John Shaw at the College. And a wee cake, maybe?’
‘They’ve a servant wi them, I think,’ Gil said. ‘Your kinsmen, I mean.’ He accepted more of the claret, admiring the colour in the little glass.
‘Aye, that’s so. A good fellow, keeps those bonnie clothes right well, though I think, to tell truth, he might be a wee bit fond o his ale. No that I like to criticise a good worker, but my man William said he’d the deil’s own task to rouse the fellow this morning.’
‘He didny share the brothers’ chamber, then?’
‘Oh, aye, but William went in to waken him, that he might fetch the laddies their hot water to wash in, and a bite o bread and ale to break their fast. We ken well how to keep guests in this house, Gilbert. And they were all asleep, their man on his straw plett and Henry and Austin like mice in a nest in the shut-bed, so William said, so you needny suspicion they were out in the night snatching a lady off the Cross in the kirkyard. Beside,’ concluded Canon Muir triumphantly, ‘where would they put her? There’s no lady hidden about this house, I assure you, son, and nowhere to put one if they tried.’
Gil had to admit to the truth of this. The manse was commodious, but the upper floor contained only one large hall and two small chambers. One of these was clearly Canon Muir’s bedchamber, since his prayer-desk with two books propped on it and the corner of his box bed were visible round the open door. The other was the guest chamber in which the brothers were lodged, to judge by the way the Canon had gestured towards it. Here in the hall was one of those great beds which in Gil’s experience were rarely used and never comfortable, its hangings of green dornick elaborate and rather dusty, and also the set of carved back-stools and the benches and trestles for the long table where the household ate. The plate-cupboard at the far end of the hall bore a decent array of silver, including a large and very ugly salt, and a tall press in the corner suggested stored linen for the table. On the ground floor, the servant who admitted him had said, there was one huge storeroom and the kitchen from which the rather stale little cakes had emerged. Canon Muir’s benefice was a rewarding one, Gil concluded.
‘So Henry and Austin were here, were they,’ he said, ‘from when they arrived in Glasgow to the time they came out this morning, to ask after Annie Gibb’s health? The lady that was tied to the Cross,’ he elucidated, seeing the old man’s blank expression.
‘Oh! Oh, I see what you’re asking me. Aye, a course they were, for they’d all the news o Ayrshire to let me hear, and word o our kin, and so forth, so they sat and talked wi me after dinner a long time afore they went out to see their friends. But the lady wasny there to ask after, was she? She’d been snatched away. Is that no a strange thing? Who’d want to carry off a mad lady? Is she very wealthy?’
‘I’d say so.’
‘Likely that’s it, then. Someone will wed her out of hand and shut her away while he gets the benefit of her lands. Well, so long’s he takes good enough care o her, I suppose it’s an act o Christian charity to keep the poor soul safe. But is her kin no all out hunting for her? Surely,’ said Canon Muir, putting his finger accurately on what troubled Gil, ‘surely they’d want to keep hold o her lands for theirsels, they must want to fetch her back.’
‘You’d think so,’ Gil agreed. ‘What friends are those that the two of them went out to meet? Henry and Austin, I mean.’
Canon Muir paused for a moment’s thought, then shook his head. ‘They never said. Likely some of the young fellows about the town.’
‘And did you hear them come in?’
‘Oh, aye, I was still about the place. I saw them to their bed myself, I told you, Gilbert. I never sleep much nowadays,’ the old man confided improbably, ‘it’s hardly worth my while lying down afore midnight, so a course I was still up when they came in.’
Dissatisfied, Gil refused another glass of claret and took his leave, following Rottenrow out along its length, past the port at the end of the street where the guard dozed in his shelter, and onto the land called the Pallioun Croft. The roadway ran along the brow of a steep slope here, and quickly deteriorated into a muddy track, which shortly angled down towards the river and joined the Thenewgate to head for Partick and then out towards Dumbarton. It was not much frequented; he paused on the crest of the slope to survey the scene, but saw nobody about, and there were few footprints and only the marks of one light cart in the mud. Birds sang in the bushes, some of the burgh cattle grazed on the grassy slopes. Otterburn’s clerk had described the ropewalk as being almost at Partick. It was a pleasant day for a walk, he decided, and set off.
Socrates launched himself from his side with delight, running in great loops through the grass and bushes, appearing over the roadside dyke from time to time to grin at his master, then vanishing again. Gil found himself grinning in return at his dog’s pleasure, but the grin did not stay in place. The problems which confronted him were bewildering indeed. He knew better than to expect to identify Peg Simpson’s killer this soon, but Annie Gibb’s disappearance perplexed him. She could hardly be hiding out here, he thought. My bed schal be under the grenwod tre, a tufft of brakes under my hed. Hardly likely for a gently bred, reclusive girl. Canon Muir, like Lowrie, had hit on the likeliest explanation for it: someone had carried her off hoping to lay hands on her wealth. But in that case, who? Why had he, or they, not contacted the girl’s kin already to ask for her title deeds? Why had Sir Edward, or even Lockhart, no idea who might be responsible? No, that’s unfair, he thought, when I spoke to Lockhart we still reckoned it was Annie who was dead. I need to speak to him again. But if she went willingly, why did she do it this way? Why not simply agree to someone’s proposal of marriage, get absolution from the ridiculous vow, and wash? Perhaps her pride would suffer too much if she did that. And why did she not tell her friends, the servants who knew her since she was a child? I need to talk this through with Alys, he thought, as he forded one of the many small burns which ran down through the grazing-lands to the Clyde. Socrates splashed through the stony shallows behind him and paused to shake himself, the drops flying from his rough coat glittering in the sunlight.