The mounds of yesterday’s refuse were already being scavenged by the neighbourhood’s dogs, who scattered what they could not eat far and wide across the open ground. As I staggered back to the cottage with our largest pitcher full to overflowing, I noticed with mounting irritation that a piece of cloth had wrapped itself around the toe of one boot and would not be shaken off. When I had emptied the pitcher’s contents into our water barrel, and before I paid a second visit to the conduit, I stooped and removed the offending rubbish.
At first glance it seemed to be nothing more than a long strip of grimy rag, and I was about to throw it away, when a glimmer of gold caught my eye. Closer inspection revealed the rag to be a scarf of fine silk gauze, woven with an intricate pattern of gold and silver thread, not the sort of pretty trifle any of the women living in Lewin’s Meadow would be likely to wear.
Adela, bustling about getting breakfast, requested me, with unnecessary asperity I thought, to finish filling the water barrel before supplies in the conduit ran low. This was apt to happen during the summer months, when the springs on the heights above Bristol — whose streams filled the Carmelite Friars’ great water cistern, from where the water was piped across the Frome Bridge to the conduit — began to dry up.
‘What is that disgusting thing you’re so interested in?’ she demanded irritably.
I held it up. ‘A silk gauze scarf, laced with gold and silver thread. I found it wound around my boot. It must have been dropped by someone. But who, in this neighbourhood, would own such a thing?’
Adela came closer and inspected it.
‘Oh, I know who that belongs to,’ she said. ‘I recognize it. Jane Overbecks was wearing it when she called here yesterday morning. She must have lost it when you chased her away.’
I hotly refuted the accusation. ‘I did not chase her away!’ But I could well believe that the scarf belonged to Mistress Overbecks. It was just such a piece of frippery as an elderly man of fifty or so, with more money than sense, would lavish on an adored young wife.
‘Give it to me,’ Adela said. ‘I’ll wash it and return it to her next time I pass the bakery. Roger, will you hurry up, please! Margaret is coming to dinner and to spend the rest of the day with us. Don’t forget you’ll have to share a mattress with Nicholas tonight. Elizabeth must come in with Margaret and myself.’ I must have looked bewildered, for she added impatiently, ‘You surely haven’t forgotten that we’re guests of Cicely Ford at Vespers this evening! Today is the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalen. Roger! You’re not listening to me. Will you please pay attention.’
She was wrong. I was listening, but with only half an ear. I was staring fixedly at one end of the scarf, where a dry, brownish stain disfigured one corner. I rubbed it tentatively and some tiny, brownish-red flakes crumbled into the palm of my hand. It was dried blood, I was in no doubt about that. But whose? And how did it come to be on Jane Overbecks’s scarf?
‘Roger! The water!’ my wife exclaimed forcefully. She glanced through the open doorway. ‘There are dozens of people streaming through the Frome Gate with jugs and pitchers. I want that water barrel filled before breakfast.’ She did not actually add, ‘Or there won’t be any breakfast,’ but the threat was implicit in her tone of voice.
But once I had filled the barrel, after four or five more trips, I was at liberty to return to my inspection of the scarf. It was definitely blood. I mentioned the fact to Adela.
‘What has that to say to anything?’ she asked, stirring oatmeal into the pot of boiling water over the fire. She paused, wiping the sweat from her forehead. ‘You’re not suggesting it has something to do with Jasper Fairbrother’s murder, surely? Oh really, Roger! Now, that’s what can only be described as clutching at straws. I never heard anything more absurd in my life!’
‘She’s an odd woman,’ I murmured defensively. ‘John Overbecks himself says so.’
Adela snorted. ‘Two questions, then: would she have had the strength to stab Jasper and what would be her motive?’
I had no answer for either query, so I held my peace. I could have said that women, even the frailest of them, can find amazing reserves of strength when they have to. But as to motive, there the water was darker and muddier. No one except Jane and her elder sister knew the real reason for the Baldock sisters’ flight from Exmoor. Had Jasper, who had spent his life prying into people’s secrets so that he could turn the information to his advantage, discovered something that even John Overbecks did not know?
Seven
While I was finishing my breakfast — bread and ale, boiled oatmeal and herring — I said to Adela, ‘I’ll return the scarf to Mistress Overbecks myself, after I’ve restocked my pack.’
‘I shan’t have time to wash it,’ she demurred, but without exhibiting much enthusiasm for the job.
‘She can do it herself, if she wants to. The chances are that she’ll throw it away and John will buy her another one.’
‘Oh, come!’ Adela objected, laughing. ‘Master Overbecks may be warm in the pocket, but he’s not a spendthrift.’ She swallowed a mouthful of oatmeal. ‘Roger, you don’t seriously suppose that Jane Overbecks had anything to do with Jasper’s murder, do you? That blood could have come from a cut finger. It might be animal’s blood from when she was preparing meat.’
‘If she prepares meat, that is. I’d wager that her husband does most of the cooking. He’s bound to be better at it than she is. He looked after himself for long enough, all the years he was a bachelor.’ I finished my fish and took a last swig of ale. ‘But no, on reflection, sweetheart, I think you’re right. I’m just clutching at straws in order to prove Richard wrong about the Breton. It isn’t that I can’t imagine Jane Overbecks killing anyone, but not like that; not with a neat, quick knife thrust up between the ribs to the heart. No, if Jane took a knife to someone, the attack would be frenzied, not one wound, but dozens. The room would have been like the Worship Street Shambles. Besides, if Jasper had found out something about her past life, before she and her sister came to Bristol, and was blackmailing her, John would have been bound to know about it.’
Adela nodded in agreement. ‘Jane has no money of her own. Jasper wouldn’t have bothered with her: he would have gone straight to Master Overbecks with his knowledge.’
There was a speculative pause while we looked at one another across the width of the table. For once, the children were quiet. Adam had been fed, while Nicholas and Elizabeth were busy downing the first meal of the day to keep up their strength, and were temporarily deaf to the conversation of their elders.
‘You don’t think. .?’ Adela began, then stopped, uncomfortable with what she had been about to suggest.
‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ I answered slowly. ‘But John seemed genuinely shocked by the sight of Jasper’s body.’
Adela put her spoon down with a clatter.
‘What are we thinking of?’ she demanded disgustedly. ‘A simple bloodstain on a scarf, and we’re both letting our imaginations gallop away with us without rhyme or reason. We ought to be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves! It’s all your fault, Roger! You started me thinking like this. You don’t have a single shred of evidence to connect either of the Overbecks to the murder, now do you? The Breton’s our man, as Richard says. Let the officers of the law deal with it, and mind your own business for once.’
‘Very well! But I still don’t think the Breton’s guilty,’ I added defiantly.
Adela then made the mistake of throwing a piece of leftover bread at me. Nicholas and Elizabeth, enchanted by this new game, joined in with enthusiasm, gathering up all the dried crusts and pelting me as hard as they were able. Adela, feeling responsible, was unable to call them to order, and could only watch, her face a picture of comical dismay. I suffered the stinging barrage for a while, then let out a roar of protest that there was no mistaking. The bombardment ceased abruptly as I stood up, brushing the crumbs from my clothes and hair.