‘Lowrie?’ he prompted. ‘What did you get from Habbie’s man?’
‘Not a lot,’ Lowrie admitted. ‘He claims Maister Sim came home without that gown after a right good evening four days since, and the cards the same. He’d never seen the purse afore either. Oh, no, maister, that’s never ours,’ he quoted. ‘Mind you, he noticed there was a lot of dust and dirt caught up in the folds of the gown, as if it had been lying about that undercroft for a day or two, maybe on the ground. He’d a bit to say about that.’
‘Did he mind where Habbie had been the night he lost it?’
‘No, though he thought it might ha been here. When I said, No, he had on the red one last time he was here, he began reckoning up all the other places it might ha been, but he could give me no sensible answer.’
‘I wonder who had it,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘It could have been Habbie himself, I suppose, but why hide the thing and then leave it out to incriminate himself?’
‘Oh, and the figs and apricots came out of the Vicars’ store, as we thought.’
‘So he was thieving from there as well.’
‘Would he have the key for the Vicars’ store?’ Alys asked.
‘A good question,’ Gil admitted. ‘Either he or his accomplice must have had.’
‘It seems to me,’ observed Catherine in her elegant French, ‘that there were many things happening on the night in question.’
‘As ever, madame,’ said Gil, ‘you are perfectly right. We should fit it all together,’ he added in Scots, ‘starting from the time Annie was bound to the Cross.’
Alys pulled up the skirt of her gown, to reach the purse hanging between it and her striped linen kirtle. She extracted her tablets in their little embroidered bag, found a clear leaf, and drew the stylus from its socket in the hinge.
‘What time was that?’ she asked.
‘About the time we came home,’ said Lowrie. He cocked his head as Socrates scrambled to his feet, tail wagging. ‘Is that someone coming to the door?’
‘It is I,’ said Maistre Pierre outside the window.
Drawn in, welcomed, handed a beaker of ale, he applied himself with enthusiasm to the task they had begun.
‘It was eight of the clock, not later, I should say, that she was bound there,’ he pronounced. Gil nodded. ‘And her man said he looked at her every hour or so, yes?’
‘If we can believe it,’ said Gil.
‘What happened next?’ said Alys. ‘The girl Peg?’
‘The prentices,’ said Lowrie. ‘Say about nine o’the clock.’
‘The brothers Muir,’ said Gil. They looked at each other. ‘I think the prentices began their battle next, indeed, though I’d ha said later than nine, more like ten, after the daylight had gone, and the Muirs walked through it, and then Peg.’
‘In which direction did they go?’ asked Catherine.
‘The Muirs came out of Rottenrow,’ said Gil, ‘and claim they went down the High Street. Peg came down the Stablegreen from the port.’
‘Luke saw the Muirs go up the Stablegreen,’ Lowrie observed.
‘And yet they did not see her,’ said Alys.
‘Did anyone see her at all?’ asked Maistre Pierre.
‘There’s a man who heard a lassie arguing with someone,’ said Lowrie. ‘I have to go back in the morning and get a word.’
The mason nodded.
‘But what time was all that?’ Alys asked. ‘It was about ten of the clock when Peg left the Trindle, I think you said.’
‘The battle went on for some time,’ said Gil. ‘More than an hour, by the sound of it, though it was over by midnight.’
‘Didn’t Euan,’ said Lowrie suddenly, and they all looked at him. He went red. ‘Didn’t Euan say the fisherman mentioned goods that went down on a handcart that night?’
‘You’re right,’ said Gil. ‘What’s more, I’ll wager I ken what way they went down to the shore. I saw the tracks of a handcart, out on the Pallioun Croft. And,’ he suddenly recalled, ‘Austin Muir heard or saw a handcart as they went back up Rottenrow. That’s why the vergers’ handcart was put away dirty!’
‘So that went through the Upper Town as well,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Mon Dieu! I have known it quieter at the Fair.’
‘I wonder who pushed it,’ said Alys. ‘The man who died, or his accomplice?’
‘And some time in all this,’ said her father, ‘the woman Peg was killed, and tied to the Cross instead of Annie Gibb.’
‘Did you say,’ said Alys, ‘that Annie’s man spoke to her after the prentices were finished and gone home? Was that after midnight?’
‘I think so,’ said Gil. ‘I need to check that wi him.’ He made a face. ‘And Canon Muir saw his nephews to bed before midnight, so if this is right it was none of their doing that Annie was freed from the Cross.’
‘A pity,’ said Alys seriously. She made another note on the tablets. ‘The handcart. It must have come back as well. I wonder if the Muirs saw it.’
‘I wonder if Berthold saw it,’ said Gil. He considered the cart and its movements for a little, while Lowrie and Maistre Pierre debated how easy it would be to push the thing down to the shore in the dark. It must indeed have been returned that night, and stowed in the undercroft. Maister Sim’s gown and cards and the incriminating purse must have been put there later, but how much later? Before Barnabas was killed? After it? And why?
‘And by whom?’ said Alys, when he voiced the question.
‘I suppose by the person who killed the verger the next day,’ said Catherine in French.
‘We’ve no proof,’ said Gil, considering this, ‘but it’s possible.’
‘And the other property left where it would cast suspicion on your friend,’ the old woman continued. She gathered her skirts together and rose stiffly; the rest of them rose with her, Socrates looking hopefully at Gil. ‘It is very possible, maistre, that if you find out who had your friend’s gown you will find the killer of the Cathedral servant.’ She bent her head in acknowledgement of his answer, raised her hand in her customary blessing, and headed for the door. Alys followed, to make certain she had all she needed for the night, and the men looked at one another.
‘Could she be right?’ asked Lowrie, when Gil had translated her comment.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Maistre Pierre gloomily. ‘The problem is finding it out. I suppose you ask all of the songmen when they last saw the yellow gown, and decide on which is lying.’
‘Something like that, I suspect.’ Gil sat down again, lifting Alys’s tablets, and studied the list in her neat writing. Socrates lay down on his feet with a resigned sigh. ‘I must talk to Stockfish Tam. Lowrie, could you go out to the kitchen and ask Euan when Tam will be back in Glasgow?’
‘So what do we have this far?’ asked Maistre Pierre as the young man left.
‘At midnight? We have the prentice battle lost and won and the combatants gone home, we have Annie still known to be at the Cross, the Muir brothers and all the people in the hostel blamelessly in their beds, and Peg,’ he scanned the list, ‘no, we have no trace of Peg save this elusive man who is said to have heard an argument.’
‘And we do not know what time that was,’ said Alys, coming back into the room. She sat down on the padded settle beside Gil, and tucked her hand through his arm. ‘Then there is the handcart and whoever was pushing it.’
‘Vraiment,’ agreed her father. ‘And after midnight?’
‘Some time after midnight,’ said Gil, ‘Annie was freed from the Cross and Peg’s body was tied there in her place. Annie and whoever was with her vanished into the night, leaving Sawney to assume that it was his mistress he saw the next time he looked. The handcart was returned, and put in its proper place in the undercroft-’
‘That suggests to me,’ said Alys, ‘that it was the verger who put it away, not his accomplice. And perhaps,’ she looked round at Gil, ‘it was he who placed Maister Sim’s gown on the cart.’
‘Why did he leave the coin there, if so?’ Maistre Pierre objected.
‘It was in effect hidden, inside the gown,’ she said slowly. ‘Barnabas knew it was there, but nobody else did. It was not seen until someone looked closely at the garment.’