‘You believe these four deaths to be connected,’ Richard began without preamble. ‘May I ask why?’
‘All four victims were linked,’ I answered. ‘Walter Godsmark and the stranger were both linked to Jasper Fairbrother in different ways. And Mistress Ford was linked to the stranger in so far as he was murdered in her cottage after she had taken him in. Moreover, she was killed by the same method as the stranger: she was smothered in her sleep. That, surely, cannot simply be coincidence.’
‘You think her death may have something to do with his?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do. Her cottage has only one room. She was present when he died, but had fallen asleep after a long night during which she and Sister Jerome had nursed him. I think that, unwittingly, she saw something, or heard something, that made the murderer feel threatened.’
‘But you’ve just told me she was asleep,’ Richard objected.
‘But not soundly. I suspect she was in that state of semi-consciousness when reality and dreams merge together as one. Something was worrying her. She told me so. She thought she might have seen something, but couldn’t remember what.’
Richard leaned his elbows on the table and gnawed the thumb knuckle of his left hand.
‘You don’t think it possible,’ he asked, ‘that, at heart, she was a supporter of the Lancastrian cause? That this Tudor agent, whosoever he might have been, was on his way to visit her when he was jumped on by those two idiots employed by your friend, Timothy Plummer?’
I was immediately angry on Cicely’s behalf. ‘The stranger had passed her cottage when he was ambushed,’ I said. ‘I know. I was there, remember! I saw it all.’ But if I were honest, I was unable to recollect whether he had passed the cottage or not. I wasn’t about to admit it, however. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Cicely was undeserving of the sergeant’s slur. ‘If you want my opinion — and I presume you do, or we shouldn’t be here — I think this business of the stranger being a Lancastrian spy has nothing at all to do with the murders.’
‘Why not?’
I wished to goodness Richard wouldn’t keep asking why, because I had no real reason for my assumptions. I just had this feeling that these deaths were the results of a simpler, more straightforward motive than treachery to the crown.
‘I can’t really say as yet. It’s just an intuition, but a strong one.’ Richard snorted his derision. ‘All right,’ I snapped, annoyed, ‘let me hear your ideas, if you have any.’
He stopped chewing his thumb knuckle and tried to look like a man who has come to a momentous conclusion.
‘Well, put it this way, Chapman. Thanks to you’ — I thought his tone slightly acerbic — ‘we’ve established that the stranger couldn’t have stabbed Jasper at the time we think the baker was murdered, because his presence is vouched for in Westbury village by various inhabitants. I’ve verified that for myself. So, Jasper was killed by one of his many enemies in the city.’
‘But no one had ever attacked him before,’ I interrupted. ‘Why should it happen that he’s stabbed to death the very same day that he’s visited by the stranger? It seems like too much of a coincidence to me.’
‘But you’re the one who proved the stranger couldn’t have done it!’ Richard exclaimed in exasperation, slapping his hand down hard on the table.
I hushed him urgently as one or two heads turned in our direction. Fortunately, the noise in the ale room had now reached such a pitch that only a few people nearby could overhear us.
‘I’m saying that I think the stranger’s visit was somehow linked to Jasper’s death, not that the stranger killed him,’ I protested.
My companion spat into the rushes, clearing his throat and showing what he thought of this theory at one and the same time.
He continued without further argument on the subject, ‘Walter Godsmark’s death was definitely an accident. He was drunk, he’d crept out of the city after curfew to meet some girl or other’ — I didn’t bother to enlighten him — ‘and for some reason fell into the river. And because he couldn’t swim, he drowned.’
‘And what about the stranger? This man you and everyone else is convinced was a spy. Who murdered him?’
Richard avoided looking at me. ‘He died of the beating he received from the two King’s men, who were, after all, only doing their duty. Another death by misadventure.’
‘The poor man was suffocated!’ It was my voice now that had risen, and Richard who had to hush me. I moderated my tone. ‘You can’t seriously believe what you’re saying, Richard!’
‘I believe what my lord sheriff will find it most convenient to believe,’ he answered shamelessly. ‘The man was an enemy of the state, so no one will care. Right! That’s death number three accounted for. That just leaves Mistress Ford’s murder to solve, and that’s a much more difficult proposition because, apart from you, nobody seems to have had a motive for wishing her dead. And you’ve got this irrefutable alibi, damn you!’ So much for friendship! A good job I hadn’t taken him too seriously. ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he finished.
‘And won’t do unless you link it to the other three deaths,’ I persisted. ‘It must be seen as the next and, I hope, the last in a sequence. The culprit, or culprits, are growing too bold.’
The Full Moon’s landlord had at last spotted that neither Richard nor I was drinking and, with a cuff around the ear, had pointed his reluctant pot boy in our direction. The lad slouched over to our table and, with a scratch and a sniff, asked nasally, ‘What’s it to be, then, Masters?’
Richard Manifold got to his feet. ‘You’re too late, boy. We’ve waited too long already and we’re in a hurry. Next time I come in here, bestir yourself a bit sooner if you want my custom.’
I followed him out of the door where we encountered yet another group of merrymakers from the fair on their way in. We were jostled and pushed, with the result that we staggered into the street like a couple of drunks, earning ourselves a censorious glance from the Mother Superior of the Magdalen nuns, who, as bad luck would have it, just happened to be passing by on the opposite side of the road.
Richard let rip with a few choice words which it was just as well that the reverend dame couldn’t hear.
‘She’s bound to complain to the sheriff,’ he grumbled. ‘He’s a particular friend of hers, and she’s one of the busiest old bodies in the city.’
‘If his lordship reprimands you, tell him the truth,’ I advised. ‘I’ll always vouch for your sobriety. And my own.’
The sergeant was scornful. ‘That won’t do any good. He won’t believe you. And, anyway, you’re not in his good books at the moment. You’ve deprived him of his chief suspect and a quick solution to Mistress Ford’s murder.’
Suddenly I recalled what John Overbecks had said to me; that Sister Jerome’s description of the man she had seen on the night Cicely was killed tallied with that of either of the two King’s men. As we made our way down the lane and climbed over the stile into the priory grounds, I offered it to Richard as a possible solution.
‘Could one of them have been left behind for some reason?’ I suggested.
Richard shook his head decisively.
‘I saw them and Master Plummer off myself, and Jack Gload rode with them as far as the King’s Wood. His impression was the same as mine. Your friend, the spymaster, was in such a paddy over their stupidity, that he wasn’t in the mood to trust either of them with so much as doing up their own tunic laces. It’s a good theory, but it won’t hold water, I’m afraid.’
I said nothing, but I wasn’t so sure. The King’s Wood lay only a mile or so outside the city; close enough for someone to sneak back if need be. As for Timothy’s anger, it was the nature of his calling to deceive.
Richard and I parted company in Lewin’s Mead, neither of us having gained much from our interchange of ideas except to clarify and harden our own opinions; which, I suppose, is as much as all such discussions generally achieve. Adela was only just setting off for the Tolzey as I entered the cottage, having been delayed by Adam’s being sick all down his clean robe — the natural consequence, in my view, of the disgustingly greedy way in which he had gulped his breakfast milk. I gave him the benefit of my thoughts, at the same time tickling the top of his dark, curly head as he lay in his little cart, sleeping off the result of his debauch. Adela handed me the rope tied around Hercules’s neck.