Why did I feel that the answer came a little too pat? I shrugged the question aside.
‘But you do know now?’
‘I have told you. I have had speech with Rob … With Master Sinclair.’ She smiled slightly as she said it.
‘You have seen him since his arrest?’
‘Of course. I have visited him at the castle. Yesterday,’ she added.
‘And that’s when he told you the truth?’ She inclined her head in assent. ‘Were you shocked by his revelations?’
There was a long pause, so long that I began to wonder if she had understood my question. But just as I was about to repeat it in a simpler form, she said, ‘No. I was not even surprised.’
I was startled. ‘You mean you knew about your mistress’s lover?’
‘No. But I knew my cousin.’ She emphasized the last word, making it plain that she deeply resented any assumption of her menial position in the household. I raised my eyebrows and she went on, ‘Aline was not the innocent she pretended to be. Even as a child, she had only to put on that sweet, pretty face of hers and everyone would believe every word she said. She could … I do not know the English phrase.’
‘Get away with murder?’ I suggested drily. ‘But in this instance, it was not she who did the killing.’
‘Not for the want of trying,’ was the fierce response. ‘She had already plotted and planned to kill her husband, and indeed tried to do so. Robert says that it was only by God’s grace that she failed.’
‘Is he telling the truth do you think?’
She rose majestically to her feet, drawing herself to her full height and expanding that magnificent bosom.
‘Will you please to go now?’
I didn’t answer immediately. At full stretch, her head, in its white linen coif and cap, was a mere inch or so lower than the solar’s ceiling beams; and I was suddenly aware that both ends of each beam were decorated with painted carvings — birds, insects, flowers, masks. This in itself was not unusual, and was frequently to be found in houses where money and time were no object. But the particular carving that met my eye, picked out in green and gold, was the head of the Green Man. There were the branches wreathing out of his mouth, up around his head to form his leafy hair and down around his chin to make his beard. It reminded me of the warnings of my mysterious friend, which I had managed to forget for the past few days, and gave me a nasty jolt.
With an effort, I withdrew my gaze and set myself to the task of placating Mistress Beton, whom I had managed to offend. It was obvious that her sympathies lay with Master Sinclair and not her late cousin.
I had risen with her, and now invited her to sit down again.
‘My only object, Mistress, is to uncover the truth, I promise you. But to do that, I must ask questions. I must know why you believe what Master Sinclair tells you. On your own admission, you never saw the contents of the diary and could not have understood them even had you done so. Why should he not be lying to you?’
She allowed herself, somewhat grudgingly, to be mollified and resumed her seat at the other end of the settle, but this time with a stiff back as though ready to jump to her feet again if I re-offended.
‘I do not think Robert is lying because I saw with my own eyes how shocked — how horrified — he was when he read what Aline had written. I shall never forget the look on his face and the way his hands trembled. He was a man who had received a … a death blow. But more than that, as I have already told you, I knew my cousin. I knew her far, far better than other people; better than her brother, better than her parents. They were fools. They accepted Aline as she was on the surface, not as she really was underneath.’
‘You have known her a long time?’
‘All my life. She was much younger than I was, but we played together as children and always I was aware that the girl others saw was not the person who subjected me to petty humiliations; the girl who played unpleasant tricks on others and then made it look as though the fault were mine. I was punished many times for leading her into mischief, when the truth was exactly the opposite, when I had been trying to rescue her from the results of her own folly. Oh no, it did not surprise me at all to learn that she was unfaithful and was scheming to murder her own husband.’
‘But until you learned all this from Master Sinclair yesterday, you had no firm knowledge that your cousin had taken a lover? You have no inkling of who he might have been?’
‘Inkling?’
‘Idea. Suspicion. I find it difficult to believe that something had not come to your attention.’
Mistress Beton gave me a hostile stare.
‘It was not my business to poke and pry,’ she protested. ‘And with such a loving, adoring husband as Robert, I felt sure even Aline must be satisfied. Her smallest wish was like a royal command to him. She was indulged, petted, pampered. Why would she need or want another man?’ She shrugged. ‘It is true that she very often went out alone and stayed out for several hours at a time, but this I could understand. Too much adoration can occasionally become …’
‘Overwhelming?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘That is the word I was looking for. But surely not for long.’
I guessed that Maria Beton had been envious of her cousin. To be — what was it she had said? — indulged petted and pampered was not a condition that had ever come her way. And yet too much affection could be a burden, as I had learned from a case I had investigated in Bristol only last year. But it did not warrant pre-planned, cold-blooded murder. Nothing did. I got back to the matter in hand.
‘Mistress Beton,’ I said earnestly, ‘do you have any idea who could have removed the diary before your cousin’s return home? How many days elapsed between Master Sinclair finding it and Monday?’
Again the housekeeper frowned and queried a word. ‘Elapsed?’
‘Passed.’
‘Ah!’ The frown deepened as she concentrated. ‘Let me see. Aline and John left for Roslin on Thursday. That would be a week ago today.’ I nodded. She went on, ‘I decided to turn out that cupboard the following morning when I noticed, while making the bed, that Aline had left the key on the shelf where she kept her pots of unguents and ointments for her skin. She was very proud of her beautiful white skin.’
Afraid of being sidetracked by further female jealousies, I interrupted quickly, ‘And that was when you found the diary?’
‘Yes, hidden under the skirt of her wedding dress which Aline kept folded on one of the shelves.’
‘What was it like? The diary, I mean.’
‘Oh, two or three leaves of parchment tied together with red ribbon threaded through holes pierced at the edges.’
This description tallied with Master Sinclair’s. I sucked my teeth thoughtfully.
‘So this was Friday?’ She murmured agreement. ‘What happened to it when your employer had read it? Do you know?’
Yet again I had ruffled her feathers.
‘Robert is not my employer. I keep house for him as a favour, as a kinswoman, and because Aline is not — was not — domesticated and regarded cleaning and cooking as beneath her. As for your question, when Robert had finished reading the diary, he replaced it on the shelf, under the wedding dress, where I had found it. Then he closed and locked the cupboard before I had a chance to finish dusting it and told me to leave him alone. He sat down on the edge of the bed looking, as I said just now, as if he had received his death blow.’
‘You naturally asked him what was the matter?’
She inclined her head. ‘Naturally. But he refused to say. I could not force him to confide in me, so I did as he asked and went away.’
‘Consumed with curiosity.’
A faint smile, the first she had given, lifted the corners of her mouth and lightened the heavy features.
‘Of course.’ That was honest at any rate.
‘Did you return to the bedchamber later to see what you could discover?’
The small eyes glinted at me beneath their sandy lashes.