‘It’s none of your business,’ Adrian Jollifant screamed. ‘He’s a meddling, stupid old fool who thinks he knows better than anyone else. I hate him! I’ve always hated him! Now get out!’
‘Oh, I’ll get out,’ I said, advancing and towering over him. ‘And the first thing I’m going to do is to inform all your neighbours what’s going on here. I’d be prepared for some very angry visitors if I were you. Not to mention representatives of the law you’re so fond of invoking.’
He blenched. ‘You-you wouldn’t do that,’ he faltered.
‘Just watch me,’ I snarled, and seized hold of the cane. ‘But before I do, I’ve a good mind to give you a thrashing.’ He shrank back. ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I sneered, suddenly sickened by him, ‘I won’t touch you. But I shall carry out my promise to tell your neighbours about your father’s plight unless I get your solemn word that your treatment of him will alter. I’ll tell you something else,’ I added. ‘Again according to Mistress Napier, there’s been talk that you might have murdered your first wife in order to marry your second. And if people realize that you and she have been trying to murder your father, there may be more than just talk. There may be accusations brought.’
The silversmith looked so terrified now that I felt almost certain that the rumours concerning him and the first Mistress Jollifant were true. I pressed home my advantage.
‘And there’s another condition for my silence.’ I seized him by the shoulders, pinning him back against the bedchamber wall. ‘You’ll leave my friends, the Godsloves, alone. You’ll give up this insane pretence that somehow the Arbour belongs to you. Now!’ I let him go and wiped my hands down the side of my breeches. ‘I’ll be back in three days to see that you’ve amended your ways. If not, or if I’m denied entrance, I shall carry out my threat. But before I go, you are going to give me permission to search the whole of this house, attic to cellar, just to make sure that you’re not holding Celia Godslove a prisoner.’
I could tell by the blank expression on his face that he neither remembered Oswald’s accusation of Sunday nor understood what I was talking about. Nevertheless, he made no effort to stop me, even following me downstairs to detail one of the apprentices to show me round the cellar. If looks could have killed I would have been a dead man, and I experienced a few qualms about descending into the depths, but he made no attempt to follow me, a circumstance for which I was truly grateful.
By the time I had finished my search, I was convinced that, whatever else he was or was not guilty of, Adrian Jollifant was not Celia’s abductor. I had looked under every bed, in every cupboard, in every place, however absurd, where there was even the remotest chance that she could be hidden. If nothing else had convinced me, the return to the shop of the second Mistress Jollifant would have made up my mind for me. She might have dimpled cheeks and a sweet little turned-up nose, but she had a gimlet eye and a mouth that shut like a trap when, as now, she was displeased. Her husband would have had no chance to conceal another woman in the house while she was around. I gave her a brief bow and left the silversmith to explain my presence as best he could. Had he been a different sort of man, I would have wished him luck. As it was, I hoped he would get all that was coming to him.
As I left the shop, I said, ‘Remember! Three days.’
Then I was gone, walking eastwards along Cheapside.
So that was that. Adrian Jollifant was no longer a suspect as far as I was concerned. And I felt as reasonably certain as it was possible to be that Roderick Jeavons was not the culprit, either. So who was this implacable enemy of the Godsloves, determined to eliminate them all one by one? And what, if any, significance did the number eight have? God was doing his best to enlighten me, but I was proving to be singularly obtuse, probably because there was another, greater distraction nagging away at the back of my mind. Did I tell Timothy Plummer what I knew? Was the duke’s life truly in danger? Were the Woodvilles really plotting his downfall? Did this strange uneasiness which seemed to have the city in its grip have any foundation in fact?
I didn’t know. And I doubted, at that point, if anyone else did either.
EIGHTEEN
As I walked eastwards along Westcheap towards the Poultry and the Great Conduit, I realized that I had never reclaimed my farthing from the seller of hot beef ribs, and had carelessly left my bowl somewhere outside the silversmith’s shop for any fool to stumble over. I also realized, with a certain amount of unease, that I was growing adept in the dubious art of housebreaking, even though I had committed no other crime. Indeed, one might argue that on both occasions I had been trying to uncover a crime, and in the case of Master Jollifant’s father had actually prevented one. (It was my avowed intention either to return to the shop in a few days’ time or to apprise Ginèvre Napier of my discovery and leave that redoubtable dame to deal with matters in her own fashion. Either way, I felt that the old man would now be safe.)
Having eliminated the silversmith and the doctor from my enquiries very nearly to my satisfaction — I reluctantly acknowledged that there might be some small salient fact that I had overlooked regarding one or both of them — I now had to look elsewhere for my murderer. And at the risk of repeating myself, let me again say that I was conscious of the fact that God was doing his best to point me in the right direction but that my mind was clouded with other concerns. Or, at least, with something that I was desperately trying not to make my concern.
My thoughts were therefore in a turmoil and I walked blindly, bumping into people, almost getting run down by several carts, trampling over a flower-seller’s tray — which he had placed on the ground while he eased his shoulders — and ruining his blooms, knocking into a pieman’s stall and generally getting cursed up hill and down dale for my pains. Finally, I fell over a legless beggar, sitting on his little wheeled trolley near the Great Conduit, as I tried to get myself a drink of water.
‘Stupid oaf!’ he shouted furiously as I assisted him to regain his balance. ‘Why don’t you look where you’re bloody well going?’
‘Sorry! Sorry!’ I apologized. ‘Are you hurt?’
He felt himself cautiously in various insalubrious places before resuming his former pitiable expression. ‘I think I’m a’ right,’ he finally admitted grudgingly. ‘All the same — ’ he rattled his begging bowl suggestively ‘- I might’ve bin laid up fer a week or more, and then what would’ve become o’ my poor fambly? Eight childer me an’ my goody’ve got between us, bless the little perishers.’
Once again, I expressed my regrets, dropped more money into his bowl than I would normally have parted with, drank some water from the conduit, then went slowly on my way, the beggar’s last words ringing in my ears.
‘Eight childer me and my goody’ve got between us. .’
And those other words of William Woodward, Margaret Walker’s father. ‘Eight children! Eight of them!’
My legs dragged themselves to a stop as revelation dawned and I just stood there, buffeted by the passers-by whose imprecations were as nothing to those I was heaping on my own head. Of course, of course! Eight! My heart was hammering in my chest, and I had almost set out along the Poultry and the Stocks Market, heading for Bishop’s Gate Street, when I changed my mind and veered right from the Great Conduit into Bucklersbury. It was as well, before I took action, to make certain that my facts were correct and that there was no room for doubt.