Rab Sinclair’s description of its contents had been accurate enough. Although there were a number of shelves, all of the upper and lower ones were empty. There remained just three, at eye-level, on which reposed various objects. The first of these was a cedarwood box, containing, as I had been told, a few items of jewellery. On the next shelf down rested, rather endearingly, a collection of childhood toys, including a wooden doll, still dressed in all her finery of a gold brocade gown and white lawn coif, a whipping top and a box of coloured counters, each carved in the likeness of a letter of the alphabet. And, finally, on the third shelf reposed the wedding dress of white Damascus silk.
I lifted it and shook out its folds, hoping against hope that something might fall to the floor; three or four sheets of parchment tied together with red ribbon. But, of course, nothing did. I felt with my hand all round the shelf. I examined all the lower shelves and stood on a stool, fetched by Maria Beton from another chamber, to make certain that the diary had not been replaced by mistake on an upper one. It wasn’t there. My companion flicked me a pitying glance; an I-told-you-so look.
But I hadn’t finished yet. I turned towards the bed.
It was then that I saw the coverlet properly in all its glory of green and gold, a pattern of leaves and branches. And the central medallion from which all this verdure sprang, was the head of the Green Man.
Fourteen
I must have started or taken a step backwards because Mistress Beton asked sharply, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Matter? Why … n-nothing,’ I stammered, feeling extremely foolish. ‘Nothing.’
She followed the direction of my gaze and laughed, but without displaying any sign of real amusement.
‘Oh, that medallion,’ she said. ‘Those eyes staring up at you! They are very lifelike, are they not? The embroidery is remarkable. In fact the whole coverlet is extraordinarily well done.’ She came to stand beside me, stooping to smooth the quilt with one admiring hand.
‘The Green Man,’ I murmured. ‘A strange conceit for a bed-covering.’
‘Not for the St Clairs. Or Sinclairs, as the name goes now-adays.’ She glanced sideways at me. ‘The chapel at Roslin, built by the last Earl of Orkney forty years ago, is almost a shrine to the Green Man, there are so many heads carved into the wood and stonework. You have not been there?’
I shook my head. ‘No. Although my lord of Albany was very anxious to make a detour to visit it as we approached Edinburgh the day before yesterday, but the Duke of Gloucester forbade it.’ I looked round at the housekeeper as I spoke and realized, by the sudden lowering of her sandy lashes and the slight flush that stained her cheeks, that she had been regarding me with an intensity which, had I noticed it earlier, I might have found unnerving. However, I gave no sign of having marked anything untoward and asked, ‘Does the Green Man have any special significance for the Sinclair family? I caught sight of a beam end, downstairs in the solar, which also showed his head.’
‘Special significance?’ she repeated, then paused a fraction of a second too long to make her subsequent denial truly convincing. ‘No. I do not think so. The Green Man is, of course, a symbol of fertility, of renewal, but that is all.’
‘Who embroidered this coverlet?’ I enquired. ‘Mistress Sinclair?’
‘Aline?’ Maria Beton was scornful. ‘She was not a skilful enough needlewoman. No, it was made many years ago by her grandmother’s mother. Or maybe, perhaps, by her mother. I do not know.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘May I ask why the Green Man seems to disturb you so much?’
It was my turn to be on the defensive.
‘Disturb me? No, no! No such thing. As you say, those eyes are very lifelike; the embroidery superb. At a quick glance, it was as if someone were looking up at me. It gave me a bit of shock, that’s all.’ As I spoke, I laid hold of the quilt and began pulling it off the bed.
‘What are you doing?’ Mistress Beton demanded indignantly, clawing at my arm with restraining fingers.
I shook myself free.
‘I’m stripping the bed,’ I answered, ‘just to make certain that the diary has not somehow or other become entangled with, or hidden in, the coverings.’
‘How could that have happened?’ Her tone was furious.
And she was quite right to be angry. I was not even clutching at straws now, but at thin air. I knew very well that I should find nothing, but continued just the same to strip the bed of all its furnishings, even shaking the curtains and climbing on the stool again to inspect the top of the canopy, simply in order to convince myself that I was doing something useful. The truth was that I had no more idea where this diary, so vital to proving Rab Sinclair’s innocence, was concealed than I had when I entered the house half an hour and more ago.
I stared in frustration at the pile of bed linen, pillows and feather mattress heaped on the floor. I bent to heave the latter back into its wooden frame, but Maria Beton snapped, ‘Leave it! I’ll see to it later. When you’ve gone,’ she added pointedly, and led the way downstairs again. She made no effort to return to the solar, but stood in the passageway, one hand on the latch of the street door, a foot tapping impatiently on the flagstones.
However, I made no immediate move to depart.
‘Mistress,’ I said imploringly, ‘can you think of no one else besides your neighbour who entered this house on either Saturday or Sunday last?’ A thought occurred to me. ‘Did neither you nor Master Sinclair go to church on Sunday?’
But I was doomed to disappointment here as well.
‘No.’ She did not elaborate and I had no choice but to accept this brusque and unadorned negative. I sighed.
‘Then I won’t bother you any further, Mistress, except to thank you for your courtesy in receiving me. Meantime, if you do remember anything, or if the diary suddenly comes to light, you may send a message to the castle to any one of the Duke of Albany’s servants.’ I executed a brief bow. ‘I’ll relieve you of my presence and go to call on Mistress Callender.’
The housekeeper frowned and gestured angrily.
‘Do you really need to bother the goodwife? She can tell you nothing. Nothing! She will not like to be questioned.’
I doubted this. My experience as a chapman had taught me that in general goodwives, bored and lonely by the middle of the day, were only too glad to talk to anyone who was not either a debt or a rent collector. Mistress Callender might, of course, prove to be an exception to the rule, but if that were indeed the case, I should have to rely on my well-practised charm. (I could hear Adela’s mocking laughter echoing in my head.) It also struck me that Maria Beton’s agitation on behalf of her neighbour was not consonant with her general air of self-containment and indifference to her fellow creatures. I was more than ever determined to call next door.
Mistress Callender was every bit as pleased to see me, and every bit as voluble as I had expected her to be. A little, bird-like woman of indeterminate age — she could have been anything between forty and sixty — with exceedingly bright blue eyes (an ugly, almost kingfisher blue), I was in possession of her life’s history within quarter of an hour of entering the house.
She was the widow of a carpet-maker who had left her in comfortable, if not affluent, circumstances, sole owner of this comparatively recently built house close to the castle ward, and with sufficient savings to maintain it as a lady would wish. For she desired to assure me that she was indeed a lady, daughter of a gentleman and gentlewoman as I could probably tell by the fact that she spoke English with a fluency taught her at her mother’s knee, and not the broad Scots dialect used by so many of her neighbours.
‘For my mother, sir, was an Englishwoman. Only from just over the Border, it is true, but English nevertheless. And she never did hold with the Scots’ tongue, even though my dear father would speak it occasionally, to her great distress. I must admit that I do use it myself now and then, but only when forced to.’ She smiled, batting surprisingly thick eyelashes at me, suddenly coquettish. ‘You, I think, are not from these parts?’