‘Euch!’ said Henderson; the gloves flapped as he crossed himself. ‘So he might ha been slain outside the kirk?’
‘He might,’ conceded the mason. He reached up and dislodged one of the fat creamy candles from the pricket-stand by his head and held it closer to the corpse, tilting it so that the wax dripped onto the tiled floor rather than his hand and ignoring the sharp intake of breath from all three vergers. ‘Where should he have been this past few hours?’
‘Right, so he was slain outside St Mungo’s,’ said the Sub-Dean with determination, ‘but we still owe it him to find out who slew him. No to mention who put him down our well. Let me hear as soon as you’ve sorted this, Gil,’ he said, and left, his secretary scurrying after him. Fading daylight flooded in as he hauled the heavy door open, diminished as it swung behind him. The latch clinked down as the secretary reached it with a faint bleat of dismay, and all the candle flames ducked and leapt up again, those in the pricket-stand as well as the banks of lights round the Lady Chapel and the tomb of St Mungo away among the treelike columns. Galston the head verger signalled to his minions, and one of them moved to check the lights, pinching out those which had begun to gutter.
‘Helping Alan Jamieson, by what Galston says,’ offered Maister Sim, going back to Maistre Pierre’s question, ‘if he was still on duty.’ Galston nodded, without comment.
‘Tell me how you came to find him,’ Gil said again. His friend waved a hand at the well in the southeast corner of the wide vaulted space.
‘By chance, Gil. I cam in here from the Chapter House, seeing as,’ his voice trailed off, and he swallowed. ‘Aye. We’d sung Vespers and Compline, and we were tidying up in the Sacristy above there, and one of the other vergers-’
‘Which one?’ Gil prompted, aware of Galston’s disapproving scrutiny.
‘The useless one. What’s his name, Robert? Oh, I dinna ken, Canon,’ he mimicked, waving his hands jerkily. ‘Never gets a thing right. That one. Had left the small candle-box down here in the Chapter House, so he said, so I cam down the wheel stair to seek it seeing it was easier than sending him, and a course it wasny there. So I cam out here to take a look in the several chapels,’ he waved a hand again, more cogently, at the row of small chapels off this cross-aisle at the eastward end of the lower church. ‘Found it laid on Bishop Wishart’s breast and was just coming away when I saw the well-cover standing open, came in to shut it down and, well, found I couldny.’ He grimaced, and kicked the candle-box at his feet. ‘Just as well it was me seeking this rather than Robert.’
‘It is unusual to find a well within a kirk,’ Maistre Pierre observed. ‘I know one such at Chartres, in the crypt, where one must sleep to obtain a cure, and also at St Pierre in Lisieux, but otherwise they are rare. This is not a healing well, I think?’
‘Never heard that of it,’ said Maister Sim doubtfully. ‘It’s John Baptist’s chapel, he doesny usually do healing, does he?’
‘He must ha been seeing to the lights,’ said Gil, looking at the effigy of Bishop Wishart on his tomb-chest between the two middle chapels, ‘Robert I mean, and laid the box down. When was he here, d’you suppose? Galston?’
‘Robert’s duties should ha brought him down here three hours afore Vespers,’ returned Galston promptly. His tone was wooden, but conveyed very clearly all that he would not say. Sim said it for him.
‘Aye, very like. But he’d never ha noticed whether Barnabas was head down in the well or no, Gil, it would tell you nothing even if you got the right time off him.’
‘He must surely have noticed if the killer was here at the same time,’ suggested Maistre Pierre. ‘I think it was not long since, a matter of an hour or two, three at most. Gilbert, I should say this has been a matter of opportunity. Many people come down here to the Lady Chapel-’ he paused, and Galston turned his head, frowning, as an argument floated down the stair from the Upper Kirk where another verger had been placed like Cerberus to prevent access. ‘Also many come past the chantier to come in by that door, we see them go by.’
‘I suppose you saw nobody from there,’ said Gil.
‘This has happened since I and my men all went home, I think. No, this fellow and his killer must have simply chanced to be in here at the one time, and nobody with them, rather than his being enticed here to be killed. Too much danger of someone entering at the wrong moment.’
‘You think it was here in the kirk?’ said Galston, frowning.
‘If he was killed outside,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘there are many places to hide the corpse more easily, without bringing him in here and heaving him into the well. I think he was killed here and hidden in the nearest spot out of immediate sight.’
‘I agree,’ said Gil. He looked down at the corpse, sprawled in the candlelight, the fading daylight from the traceried windows making no impression on the scene now. ‘So you came in here, Habbie, found him in the well. How was he placed? He’d wedged on the bucket, you said.’
‘Aye, head in the bucket, which I think must ha had water in it, and his bum in the air. Feet jammed further down either side the bucket. He was pretty well wedged in the width of the well, he’d ha gone no further down I’d think, whoever put him there must ha kenned he’d be found soon or late.’ Maister Sim, like Gil, considered the corpse, and grimaced. ‘I’m glad it was sooner.’
‘There is no other injury on him.’ Maistre Pierre got to his feet, straightening his back with care. ‘Only the mark of the cord. I would say he was taken by surprise. It will have been quick.’
‘Thank Christ for that,’ muttered Maister Sim, crossing himself. ‘And then,’ he went on, ‘I called for help, and these two lads,’ he jerked his head at the two men still standing by the Chapter House doorway, ‘Matthew and Davie here cam down and lent a hand to get him out o the well. Wasny easy, I can tell you. And then Matthew went for Galston, and found Dean Henderson on his way, and he cam down and offered Conditional Absolution while we waited for you, though I think he was almost that angry he couldny speak. It isny good for St Mungo’s, Gil, another death.’
‘No,’ agreed Gil. He found Lowrie in the shadows. ‘Go and find Alan Jamieson, if you will,’ he requested, ‘let him know what’s happened, ask him when he last saw Barnabas.’ The younger man ducked his head in a bow and left by the same door the Sub-Dean had used, and Gil lifted the pricket-stand with its remaining candle and turned to the chapel of John the Baptist. It was a small rectangular space, bounded on two sides by the south and east walls of the building, on its north side by an arcaded partition wall which separated it from the next chapel. The well, its cover standing open, was a dark shadow on the wall-foot bench in the south-east corner, surrounded by wet patches where the corpse had been dragged out. The bucket, still tethered to its rope, stood forlornly by. Gil took the candle over and peered into the well; past the glow of the light he could see a faint glitter of its reflection, a pale glimpse of his own face cross-lit. The water was not far down.
‘Sheer luck he wedged on the bucket rather than going right in,’ said Maistre Pierre grimly at his elbow. ‘I know this is not a well for drinking, but nevertheless-!’
‘What happened?’ Gil said aloud. ‘Some kind of encounter here in the Lower Kirk, whatever Dean Henderson thinks, and the man strangled with a cord and then thrust into the well for concealment.’
‘He was not a big man,’ said his father-in-law, ‘but nevertheless I should think it needs another grown man to lift him and put him in there. Or perhaps two people.’
‘Two?’ said Gil in dismay. ‘I suppose it might be. Some kind of conspiracy, maybe.’
Chapter Seven
He turned away from the dark cavity and took the candle into the next chapel. Wooden in the carved altarpiece, St Andrew supported his white-painted cross on one shoulder and raised the other hand in blessing; Bishop Wishart, that warlike man of God, lay austerely under the arch of his tomb between this chapel and that of Saints Peter and Paul beyond him. Nothing which might be of any help showed up in the leaping light.