Thomas Bignell saw me out of the corner of one eye and hushed his son-in-law imperatively.
‘You don’t mean that, Edward.’
The receiver had noted my approach at almost the same moment, but refused to be silenced.
‘I mean it all right,’ he answered truculently. ‘The man’s a menace.’
I joined the group, trying to look as though I had not the slightest idea of what they had been talking about, but it was no use, not with Rose there. She immediately clutched my arm and begged, ‘Roger, you won’t repeat what Ned’s been saying, will you? Promise me.’
‘In the name of God, Rose,’ her husband hissed under his breath, ‘leave it!’
I judged it best to be frank. ‘I won’t pretend not to know who you were discussing, but Anthony Bellknapp will not be told of it by me. In any case, I’m returning to Bristol tomorrow morning, as you heard.’ Edward Micheldever looked as if he didn’t believe my protestation of silence, but that was up to him. I was sincere. I turned to the butcher. ‘Master Bignell, I understand that the night Jenny Applegarth was murdered, you saw a stranger, a horseman, riding near the manor. Is there anything you can recall about him that might give even the slightest clue to his identity?’
‘Dear God, it was six years and more ago,’ Thomas Bignell spluttered. ‘And what’s it to you, anyway? Why bring that up?’
To my relief, for I was sick of repeating the story, Ronan gave his father a brief history of my interest in the affair; but, unfortunately, this was the first Master Bignell and his wife had been told about the arrest of my half-brother, and the next ten minutes or so were spent in unprofitable exclamations, demands for further details, reproaches to their son-in-law for not informing them of the part that he had played in the drama and speculation as to whether John Wedmore was indeed the missing page. By the time the butcher was ready to give me his attention and answer my question, we had been joined by Anthony Bellknapp, seeking his errant guests.
‘What’s this little conclave about?’ he demanded, not unpleasantly, but with an underlying aggression.
Rose sent me such a pleading glance that she might as well have told Anthony straight out that he had been the subject under discussion, and that nothing good was being said of him. I saw his eyes flicker in the receiver’s direction, but Edward Micheldever was muttering something in a low voice to Ronan Bignell and failed to notice either Rose’s look at me or Anthony’s reaction.
I said quickly, ‘We were talking about Jenny Applegarth. Master Bignell, here, saw someone in the vicinity of Croxcombe Manor on the night of her murder and I wondered if he could tell me anything he noticed about the man. But he says it’s all too long ago.’
Anthony smiled. ‘Ah, yes, of course. You’re trying to prove that this John Jericho and the man in gaol in Bristol are two different people. Master Receiver, you, I believe, were with my mother when she had the man apprehended. What do you think? Is he this missing page?’
I challenged Edward Micheldever with an enquiring stare, and he shifted uncomfortably. But he had already made up his mind where his interests lay and nodded vigorously.
‘There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s John Jericho.’
‘Master Steward doesn’t agree with you,’ I snapped.
The receiver shrugged. ‘It’s two against one,’ he pointed out.
‘A fair enough argument, you must admit, Chapman.’ Anthony clapped me on the back. ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t offer an opinion even if I saw this man who claims to be your half-brother. I never set eyes on the murderous page. But if they are one and the same,’ he added viciously, ‘I’d not lift a finger to save the man who killed my darling Jenny. She’s the only woman who was ever a mother to me. But why are we all standing out of doors? Master Bignell, you and your wife and son will dine with us, I hope, before setting out again for Wells. I’ve done penitence to the cook. Grovelled, in fact, and she’s agreed to stay. Meantime, let’s go inside. It’s getting hot again. We’ll have some wine to refresh ourselves. Mistress Bignell, allow me to offer you my arm.’
Edward and Rose followed them into the cool of the house, with the butcher and myself bringing up the rear. My mind was in turmoil. If the receiver was determined to back Dame Audrea in her accusation against John Wedmore, it was very unlikely that George Applegarth’s disagreement would carry much weight. Two to one, as Anthony had said, would probably be sufficient to condemn him in the minds of a jury. Perhaps I should have to go to Ireland after all. If it did come to a trial, there would have to be some witnesses in his defence, however partial they might be. And what I had discovered was useless. I had failed completely to prove that my half-brother was not John Jericho …
I became aware that the butcher was speaking.
‘I’m sorry, Master Bignell,’ I apologized. ‘I didn’t quite hear what you said.’
‘It was nothing of much consequence,’ he answered. ‘It’s just that now you’ve mentioned it — about the night of the murder, I mean — you’ve got me thinking. Haven’t given it so much as a passing thought for years. By the way, who told you I’d seen someone near here that night? Oh, well, never mind. But the fact is …’ He paused, screwing up his face in a great effort of concentration. ‘The fact is, I get the oddest feeling that there was something vaguely familiar about that horseman.’
Twelve
Unfortuantely, although I pressed Master Bignell to say more, and although Anthony, overhearing our conversation, turned his head to add his entreaties to mine, the butcher was unable to say anything further, or to elucidate what exactly it was that he remembered. He could only repeat that, now he had been forced to recollect the incident, he could recall the faint sense of recognition he had experienced, but which, at the time, he had dismissed as nonsensical.
‘And still do,’ he concluded robustly. ‘He was just a horseman riding by, on his way home after curfew. I’m a fool to have you believe otherwise.’
I was unable to get anything else from him; and as it became obvious that he wished me to drop the subject, I did so. I couldn’t help wondering, though, why he had so suddenly shied away from the subject, but suspected that he might not want to upset his host with further talk of Jenny Applegarth’s murder. Anthony’s stricken look suggested that talking about it still had the power to distress him.
Once indoors, Edward Micheldever excused himself as having work to finish, and went off to the counting-house, not altogether happily, but plainly confident that Anthony would not dare to pay court to his wife with her parents and brother present. And to some extent, he was right; although Anthony’s proposal that we should while away the hours until dinnertime by playing board games, meant that he could seat himself next to Rose, gradually edging his stool nearer to hers as each game progressed.
A servant was despatched to search for the various diversions Anthony remembered from his childhood and eventually returned weighed down with boards and dice and counters which, as bidden, he piled up on the dais table of the great hall, the remainder of the trestles having been cleared to one side while the floor was swept and fresh rushes laid. Master and Mistress Bignell declined taking part, content, they said, to watch the rest of us amusing ourselves, as befitted young people. So Ronan and I sat opposite Anthony and Rose and played ‘tables’, a game involving as much luck as skill, the throw of the dice largely determining how quickly one couple could clear their opponents’ counters from the board. Anthony and Rose won after a certain amount of cheating on the part of our host, a fact that enabled him to squeeze his partner’s shoulders and give her a triumphal, but brotherly, peck on the cheek. (I saw Rose glance nervously at her parents, but they seemed to see nothing amiss with this gesture of disinterested affection.)