He eyed the jug of ale which Adela had just picked up, but she made no offer of refreshment. The strain of the morning was continuing to show in her face, and I could see that she was suddenly feeling too tired even to be excited at the prospect of her own home. The fatigue would pass, and we should rejoice together quietly at Cicely’s generosity and all that it meant for the future. But for now, our grief and shock were too raw and too new for either of us to be hospitable.
The disgruntled lawyer duly departed and I considered the prospect of becoming a householder, but was too exhausted to take it in. Adam woke up and started to grizzle, which woke Hercules, who, with that sixth sense dogs have when their owners are about to make a run for it, brought me the length of rope that I used to walk him, and dropped it at my feet. He looked up into my face, wagging his tail hopefully.
‘Oh, very well,’ I said resignedly, and tied the rope around his neck. ‘You’ll have to stay outside,’ I warned him, ‘while I’m in Mistress Ford’s cottage, so don’t pretend when we get there that you weren’t told.’ The intelligent hound barked and thumped his tail again.
I kissed Adela once more, but soberly this time, and set off for Saint Michael’s Hill.
Cicely was lying on her narrow cot, hands clasped together on her breast, eyes closed, almost as though she were asleep. Indeed, had I not known to the contrary, I should have assumed that she was merely resting, she looked so peaceful. But as I approached the bed, where Sister Jerome was keeping watch, I could make out the extreme pallor of her face and the unnatural stillness of her body. Outside, Hercules whimpered and the hanged man creaked mournfully in his chains.
I stood looking down at her, this gentle, kind young woman, who had known so much tragedy and unhappiness in her life, and was consumed by a fury greater than any I had ever experienced before. I had always hated murder, the casual waste of God’s precious gift, so callously and arrogantly torn from one human being by another. I accepted that I myself would be capable of killing in my own defence, or in defence of those I loved, but not in cold blood for my own selfish ends. I recognized at once the bluish marks around nose and mouth and the mottled skin indicative of smothering. The stranger’s face, too, had looked like this. He also had been smothered with his pillow. I felt the hot tears well up in my eyes and spill out down my cheeks, splashing the backs of my hands. I bent and kissed the cold lips that, a few days ago, had been warm with life, before straightening up and looking across at Sister Jerome on the other side of the bed.
She met my gaze for a brief moment, then glanced away, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. I said nothing, waiting for her to speak first. At last, she said awkwardly, ‘I apologize, Master Chapman, if I got you in trouble. The man looked like you, and after what John had told me. .’
Her voice tailed away, and I finished the sentence for her.
‘You jumped to the immediate and convenient conclusion that I had murdered Mistress Ford for the house she was leaving me. You needn’t be embarrassed to admit it, you know. Everyone else seems to have agreed with you.’
‘You’re angry! I’m sorry. It was such a shock to find Cicely dead. I, too, was angry. I didn’t stop to think.’
I regarded her curiously. ‘You’ve obviously heard that I’ve been able to prove my innocence. Who told you?’
‘My brother-in-law was here half an hour ago. He came to see me as soon as Sergeant Manifold had informed him of the facts. He felt it no less than your due that I should know the truth at once, so that the story would spread no further. Not,’ she added indignantly, ‘that he need have worried on that score. I’m not a gossip.’
‘But you had told the other nuns of your suspicions?’
‘We-ell. . yes,’ she admitted. ‘But they are aware now that you had nothing to do with the crime.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it. This man you saw, you didn’t actually observe him come into the cottage?’
‘No. But when I glanced round a few seconds after noticing him, opposite, he’d vanished. Or it seemed to me he had. Perhaps, after all, he’d just crossed the road and disappeared into the shadows. There were a lot last night because of the moonlight.’ She paused, then said, ‘It was only when I found Cicely’s body this morning that I assumed he must have come in here.’
‘Because you thought I was the man and that I had a motive for murdering Mistress Ford?’
She nodded mutely. I tried to feel angry with her, but failed. Marion Baldock had not known me well. I would reserve my bile for John Overbecks and Richard Manifold. Nevertheless, I had no wish to linger in her presence.
‘Let me know when the funeral is to be,’ I requested, then swung on my heel and abruptly left the cottage.
Sixteen
Once outside, I untied Hercules and fended off his frantic attempts to jump up and lick my face, as though we had been parted for months instead of minutes. But I did not immediately respond to his efforts to lead me off down Saint Michael’s Hill, towards the tantalizing smells of the butchers’ and hot-pie stalls of the fairground. To his great frustration, I stood staring at the opposite side of the road, picturing the shadowy figure Marion Baldock had seen the previous night, and wondering who he could possibly be. A man of my girth and height! I knew no one amongst my acquaintance who would answer such a description. Small wonder that everyone had leaped to the wrong conclusion, especially after it was discovered that I had the perfect motive. I thanked God devoutly for Philip Lamprey and his fondness for ale. Otherwise, I would most surely now be languishing in prison.
Was this mysterious man Cicely Ford’s murderer? If so, had he also killed the stranger? And did he have any connection with the deaths of Jasper Fairbrother and Walter Godsmark? Four murders now; four murders in eight days. It had been a week ago today that Jasper’s body had been discovered, and still no one seemed to have any idea who had done it, or whether or not it was connected to the three subsequent killings. The chain of events appeared to have started with the arrival of the nameless Breton, but was that really so? Had he truly been a spy? Had he been the Tudor agent that Timothy Plummer had been warned to expect? Or had the genuine man slipped quietly through the net while his pursuers were chasing shadows? There were so many questions still unanswered.
It seemed fairly certain that the dead man was a foreigner — with my own eyes, I had seen him disembark from a Breton ship — but I had never disproved my earlier theory that he might be a Welshman. Nor had I confirmed it, either. In short, four murders had stirred the law to very little activity — although that might change now that Cicely Ford was one of the victims — and my much vaunted powers of deduction to even less.
Hercules growled and, seizing the slack of the rope between his teeth, shook it violently to let me know that he was tired of waiting. He had no patience with all this standing about and staring: he wanted action. I bent and patted his head reassuringly, then began to descend the hill. But grief for Cicely suddenly overwhelmed me, and I found that tears were streaming silently down my face, and that I was quite unaware of the path I was taking. Only Hercules and blind instinct were keeping my feet on the right road.