Master Babcary shivered and then nodded, his pomposity draining away as he contemplated the terrible climax of that December evening.
‘I can’t honestly say that I saw Meg during the time before Mistress Perle and I, together with Master and Mistress Napier, came up here to the parlour. But that doesn’t mean,’ he added musingly, ‘that she couldn’t have slipped upstairs and down again without anyone noticing, for we stood a few minutes in the shop exchanging greetings while they all took off their cloaks, and the two women removed their pattens.’ He looked a little ashamed of this sudden about face, but I could well understand that he would rather the blame for the murder was laid at Meg Spendlove’s door than at his daughter’s.
‘What happened next?’ I asked. ‘Who was here and who was absent when you and your guests entered this room?’
Miles screwed up his face in an effort of concentration. ‘Gideon was here and Toby — Tobias Maybury, my apprentice — and. .’ he paused, willing himself to remember. ‘And Nell and Christopher. Isolda made her entrance a few moments later. As I’ve told you, she had been the last one to go to her room to change.’
‘So what happened next?’ I prompted, as Miles seemed disinclined to proceed with his story.
He shivered and held his hands again to the flames. ‘Next, I gave Mistress Perle her birthday gift. A jewelled girdle,’ he went on unnecessarily, as though anxious to postpone reaching the awful moment of the murder as long as possible, ‘of pale blue leather, studded alternately with Persian sapphires and Egyptian turquoises. She was delighted with it’ — as well she might be, I thought — ‘and I could see that Mistress Napier was very envious of her friend.’ (A fact, I decided, that must have given the gift added value in the eyes of Barbara Perle.)
‘And then,’ I said, ‘presumably you all drank Mistress Perle’s health?’ My companion nodded mutely. ‘And that was when your son-in-law died?’
‘Yes.’ Miles’s voice was so low that I had to strain my ears to catch the word.
‘Can you remember exactly what happened?’
‘I shall never forget it as long as I live.’ He raised his eyes from contemplation of the fire, where a woodlouse was just escaping as fast as its legs could carry it from the terror of the flames, and looked directly into mine. ‘I went to my accustomed place at the head of the board and raised my goblet. “To Mistress Perle,” I said. “May she have long life and happiness.”’
‘I’m sorry, but I must interrupt you yet again,’ I apologised. ‘Do you always sit in the same order around the table?’
‘We are creatures of habit,’ he said, ‘as, in my experience, are most families. Every household has its own little rituals, its simple jokes and allusions that mean nothing to outsiders.’ Master Babcary was more astute than he looked. ‘When we are on our own, I always sit at the head of the board, with Isolda at the foot. My nephew sits to my right, beside Tobias, and opposite him, to my left, his sister. When. . when Gideon was alive, he sat on the same side of the board as Nell, between her and his wife. But that evening, with company present, Isolda had arranged the table so that she was on my right hand, and, alongside her, Gideon and then Nell. Mistress Perle was seated to my left, Gregory and Ginèvre Napier, in that order, to her left. Christopher was at the foot of the table. Toby, as on all occasions when we entertained, would take his meal with Meg, downstairs in the kitchen.’
‘So it was Isolda who directed you where to sit?’ I asked, and Miles Babcary reluctantly agreed. ‘You said she also set the table, so would she have made sure that each of the family goblets was correctly placed?’
Once again, a muttered and reluctant assent was wrung from my host, and I felt that it was hardly surprising Mistress Bonifant had been suspected of her husband’s murder. Indeed, the surprise was that, even with the power of the King being brought to bear on her behalf, she had never been charged with the crime. On the other hand, there was one vital question that I had not yet posed, and the answer to it might make a world of difference. I was not, however, ready to ask it for the moment.
‘You all went to the table and took your places, after which you raised your goblets, already filled with wine by your daughter, and proposed the birthday toast to Mistress Perle. What then, sir?’
‘What then? Why, we drank, of course.’
‘Did Master Bonifant collapse at once?’
‘Not immediately. We all sat down — we had been standing to drink Barbara’s health, you understand — except Isolda, who left the room to go down to the kitchen. The rest of us began to talk: Master Napier and I about the new tariffs that the Poitevins have imposed on the exports of silver from Melle; and the women about such items of gossip as were current last December, whatever they may have been. Gideon was exchanging a few remarks with Christopher, which surprised me because they had been somewhat at loggerheads for the past few months, when suddenly he struggled to his feet, trying desperately to get his breath. Neither could he swallow; his throat and lips were stiff as boards and his face was turning blue. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a terrible croaking sound. I’ll never forget it. It will haunt me until the day I die.’ And Miles Babcary covered his eyes with his hands.
‘What did you do?’
‘What could any of us do? Mistress Perle was almost fainting in horror, and I had to give her the better part of my attention. It was Mistress Napier, I think, who told her husband to go for the apothecary who lives in Gudrun Lane. She has a cool head on her shoulders, I’ll grant you that. Before he could leave the room, however, Isolda and Meg came in carrying the trays of food. It took them a moment or two to understand what was happening but, as soon as they did, Meg screamed and dropped her tray with an almighty crash, exactly as one would expect her to behave.’
‘And Isolda,’ I asked, ‘what did she do?’
There was a silence of several seconds, then Miles said slowly, ‘She just stood there, as though turned to stone, while Gideon raised his hand and pointed a finger at her, his eyes filled with horror and absolute terror. Then he pitched headlong across the table. By the time the apothecary was fetched, he was dead.’
Seven
A log crackled, the flames leapt up the chimney and shadows were sent scurrying and curtseying across the tapestried walls. After a moment’s silence, I cleared my throat and asked the question that had been gnawing away at the back of my mind for the past half an hour or more.
‘Master Babcary, was there — is there — any good reason why your daughter should be suspected of murdering her husband? So far, you have painted the picture of a couple happily, or at least contentedly, married, even if that marriage was not a love match.’
‘Who says it was not a love match?’ My companion’s bottom lip jutted dangerously.
‘Are you claiming that it was?’ I demanded, meeting his attack with counter-attack, a strategy that I have frequently used to good effect.
The lip was withdrawn, indicating defeat. ‘Perhaps not,’ he conceded. ‘But they both liked each other well enough. It’s true that Gideon drove a hard bargain; an equal partnership in the shop, although he knew nothing of goldsmithing, and senior status to Christopher, who had been learning the trade for a full year before Gideon’s arrival in the house.’ Resentment coloured Miles’s tone and, as if suddenly aware of it, he made an effort to laugh off his son-in-law’s presumption. ‘Of course, there was nothing in that, when all’s said and done! He was Isolda’s husband, and would one day inherit the shop and everything in it in her name. It was only natural that he would have to learn what was what, and that he should expect to be more important to me than my nephew.’