The Green Man

Thirteen

Before I had time to knock twice, however, the door flew open and the gaoler’s son emerged, helped on his way by a pat on the back from the woman who was holding the inner latch. They both started at the sight of me, the boy glancing up with a shifty, white-eyed look of uneasy surprise, his companion giving me a haughty stare of enquiry.

She said something, plainly a question, at which the lad turned and muttered in the same tongue. Then he slid from under the woman’s hand and raced off in the direction of the castle as fast as his legs would carry him, not even pausing to look back over his shoulder.

‘Mistress Beton?’ I asked.

I wasn’t sure that I would get a comprehensible reply, but after only a second’s hesitation, while she sized me up from head to toe in a somewhat unnerving manner, the housekeeper nodded.

‘You must be the Sassenach young Archie was just telling me about.’ She spoke perfectly clear, if heavily accented English, but in the correct, slightly stilted way of someone speaking a foreign tongue. ‘My lord duke has sent you to try to find Mistress Sinclair’s diary. I am right?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed in some relief.

Whatever Master Sinclair’s purpose had been in sending the gaoler’s son ahead of me — and I recalled how he had appeared to be asking a favour of the gaoler himself — it had certainly saved me a long and involved explanation. Perhaps that had indeed been his object, but somehow I doubted it, and couldn’t help wondering what message the boy had really brought to Mistress Beton.

The housekeeper held the door wide and beckoned me inside with a brief motion of her head.

‘Come with me, if you please.’

There was no deference in her tone, and I guessed that quite apart from what the boy had told her, she had summed up my social standing as no better, if as good, as her own. Women are cleverer than men at that sort of thing. (Adela and Margaret Walker could always distinguish at fifty paces or more if a female was a gentlewoman or not, and whether she merited a curtsey or a mere nod of the head.)

I followed Mistress Beton along a narrow, stone-flagged passageway, where an open door to our right showed the interior of what was a comfortable, well-furnished parlour, to a smaller chamber at the back of the house. This, too, showed signs of luxury with painted beams and ceilings, cushions piled up at one end of a high-backed settle, two colourful tapestries hung on a north-facing wall and windows of oiled parchment, one of which stood wide, revealing a little garden. This latter was a mere patch of ground, maybe three or four yards in both directions, but it was neatly kept and pleasant to look at, with two beds of herbs and an apple tree in one corner, spreading its leafy branches against one of the enclosing walls. This, I decided had to be the solar mentioned by Master Sinclair and made by him for his wife — who had spurned it in favour of the overhanging window in their bedchamber.

‘Please to sit down, Master.’

Mistress Beton indicated one end of the settle — the bare end, naturally — then sat down at the other, nestling into the bank of cushions with something of a sigh. She made no attempt to offer me anything to drink, which, if whisky was all she had in the house (as was probable) was just as well. It was a liquid neither my stomach nor my brain could take. She regarded me expectantly, but made no effort to break the silence, sitting with her hands folded quietly in her lap.

It was my first chance to view her properly, and I saw a tall woman, too tall for her sex, almost the same height as myself. But there was nothing scrawny about her, either, as you sometimes find with people who have outgrown their strength in youth. She was deep-breasted and well-fleshed and would probably, if she ever married, give a man pleasure in bed — provided, that was, that the lights were out. For the most striking thing about her was her plainness of feature.

It would be too unkind to say that Maria Beton was ugly, but, having conceded as much, it would be no more than the truth to state she was one of the least attractive women I had ever seen in my life. She had a broad, square face in which sat an equally broad nose flanked by smallish eyes of an indeterminate hue and fringed with sandy lashes. Eyebrows of the same colour were almost invisible. I was unable to guess how old she was, although I learned later that she was my own age — or the age I should be in two months’ time — thirty.

She flushed under my scrutiny, but still said nothing, simply waiting expectantly. I cleared my throat awkwardly, realizing how rudely I had been staring.

‘Mistress Beton, you were with Master Sinclair, I understand, when the diary first came to light. Indeed, I believe you were the person who found it.’

She nodded. ‘If you have seen and talked with Master Sinclair in prison, as Archie informed me that you have, then you will know this for the truth.’

‘But you had no idea what was in it.’

‘Not then. I know now, of course. I have had speech with Robert. He has told me.’

‘Robert?’ Then I realized she meant Rab Sinclair. ‘You call him by his baptismal name, Mistress?’

She seemed somewhat confounded by my surprise.

‘You may not have been told,’ she answered with dignity, ‘that I am … I mean that I was kin to Mistress Sinclair. Aline was my cousin in the third degree. Therefore I am also kin to her husband.’

‘Nevertheless, you are his housekeeper.’

The naturally high colour of her cheeks deepened almost to crimson.

‘You are a Sassenach,’ she said contemptuously. ‘You do not understand these things. But if it upsets your notions of propriety, I will refer to him as Master Sinclair.’

Her fluency in the English tongue was greater than I had at first thought it. But I was becoming sidetracked.

‘After you had discovered the diary and given it to your mas- to Master Sinclair to read, what was his reaction?’

‘He seemed extremely distressed. Disturbed beyond all measure. A man who had received a desperate blow.’

‘You didn’t ask him what was wrong?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘If he had wanted me to know, he would have told me. I do not pry into other people’s affairs. Their business is their own.’

I set my trap. ‘You didn’t, later, read it yourself?’

She turned her limpid gaze on me. ‘I am unable to read, Master. I was never schooled in my letters.’

Why did I feel that the answer came a little too pat? I shrugged the question aside.

‘But you do know now?’

‘I have told you. I have had speech with Rob … With Master Sinclair.’ She smiled slightly as she said it.

‘You have seen him since his arrest?’

‘Of course. I have visited him at the castle. Yesterday,’ she added.

‘And that’s when he told you the truth?’ She inclined her head in assent. ‘Were you shocked by his revelations?’

There was a long pause, so long that I began to wonder if she had understood my question. But just as I was about to repeat it in a simpler form, she said, ‘No. I was not even surprised.’

I was startled. ‘You mean you knew about your mistress’s lover?’

‘No. But I knew my cousin.’ She emphasized the last word, making it plain that she deeply resented any assumption of her menial position in the household. I raised my eyebrows and she went on, ‘Aline was not the innocent she pretended to be. Even as a child, she had only to put on that sweet, pretty face of hers and everyone would believe every word she said. She could … I do not know the English phrase.’

‘Get away with murder?’ I suggested drily. ‘But in this instance, it was not she who did the killing.’

‘Not for the want of trying,’ was the fierce response. ‘She had already plotted and planned to kill her husband, and indeed tried to do so. Robert says that it was only by God’s grace that she failed.’

‘Is he telling the truth do you think?’

She rose majestically to her feet, drawing herself to her full height and expanding that magnificent bosom.

‘Will you please to go now?’

I didn’t answer immediately. At full stretch, her head, in its white linen coif and cap, was a mere inch or so lower than the solar’s ceiling beams; and I was suddenly aware that both ends of each beam were decorated with painted carvings — birds, insects, flowers, masks. This in itself was not unusual, and was frequently to be found in houses where money and time were no object. But the particular carving that met my eye, picked out in green and gold, was the head of the Green Man. There were the branches wreathing out of his mouth, up around his head to form his leafy hair and down around his chin to make his beard. It reminded me of the warnings of my mysterious friend, which I had managed to forget for the past few days, and gave me a nasty jolt.

With an effort, I withdrew my gaze and set myself to the task of placating Mistress Beton, whom I had managed to offend. It was obvious that her sympathies lay with Master Sinclair and not her late cousin.

I had risen with her, and now invited her to sit down again.

‘My only object, Mistress, is to uncover the truth, I promise you. But to do that, I must ask questions. I must know why you believe what Master Sinclair tells you. On your own admission, you never saw the contents of the diary and could not have understood them even had you done so. Why should he not be lying to you?’

She allowed herself, somewhat grudgingly, to be mollified and resumed her seat at the other end of the settle, but this time with a stiff back as though ready to jump to her feet again if I re-offended.

‘I do not think Robert is lying because I saw with my own eyes how shocked — how horrified — he was when he read what Aline had written. I shall never forget the look on his face and the way his hands trembled. He was a man who had received a … a death blow. But more than that, as I have already told you, I knew my cousin. I knew her far, far better than other people; better than her brother, better than her parents. They were fools. They accepted Aline as she was on the surface, not as she really was underneath.’

‘You have known her a long time?’

‘All my life. She was much younger than I was, but we played together as children and always I was aware that the girl others saw was not the person who subjected me to petty humiliations; the girl who played unpleasant tricks on others and then made it look as though the fault were mine. I was punished many times for leading her into mischief, when the truth was exactly the opposite, when I had been trying to rescue her from the results of her own folly. Oh no, it did not surprise me at all to learn that she was unfaithful and was scheming to murder her own husband.’

‘But until you learned all this from Master Sinclair yesterday, you had no firm knowledge that your cousin had taken a lover? You have no inkling of who he might have been?’

‘Inkling?’

‘Idea. Suspicion. I find it difficult to believe that something had not come to your attention.’

Mistress Beton gave me a hostile stare.

‘It was not my business to poke and pry,’ she protested. ‘And with such a loving, adoring husband as Robert, I felt sure even Aline must be satisfied. Her smallest wish was like a royal command to him. She was indulged, petted, pampered. Why would she need or want another man?’ She shrugged. ‘It is true that she very often went out alone and stayed out for several hours at a time, but this I could understand. Too much adoration can occasionally become …’

‘Overwhelming?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘That is the word I was looking for. But surely not for long.’

I guessed that Maria Beton had been envious of her cousin. To be — what was it she had said? — indulged petted and pampered was not a condition that had ever come her way. And yet too much affection could be a burden, as I had learned from a case I had investigated in Bristol only last year. But it did not warrant pre-planned, cold-blooded murder. Nothing did. I got back to the matter in hand.

‘Mistress Beton,’ I said earnestly, ‘do you have any idea who could have removed the diary before your cousin’s return home? How many days elapsed between Master Sinclair finding it and Monday?’

Again the housekeeper frowned and queried a word. ‘Elapsed?’

‘Passed.’

‘Ah!’ The frown deepened as she concentrated. ‘Let me see. Aline and John left for Roslin on Thursday. That would be a week ago today.’ I nodded. She went on, ‘I decided to turn out that cupboard the following morning when I noticed, while making the bed, that Aline had left the key on the shelf where she kept her pots of unguents and ointments for her skin. She was very proud of her beautiful white skin.’

Afraid of being sidetracked by further female jealousies, I interrupted quickly, ‘And that was when you found the diary?’

‘Yes, hidden under the skirt of her wedding dress which Aline kept folded on one of the shelves.’

‘What was it like? The diary, I mean.’

‘Oh, two or three leaves of parchment tied together with red ribbon threaded through holes pierced at the edges.’

This description tallied with Master Sinclair’s. I sucked my teeth thoughtfully.

‘So this was Friday?’ She murmured agreement. ‘What happened to it when your employer had read it? Do you know?’

Yet again I had ruffled her feathers.

‘Robert is not my employer. I keep house for him as a favour, as a kinswoman, and because Aline is not — was not — domesticated and regarded cleaning and cooking as beneath her. As for your question, when Robert had finished reading the diary, he replaced it on the shelf, under the wedding dress, where I had found it. Then he closed and locked the cupboard before I had a chance to finish dusting it and told me to leave him alone. He sat down on the edge of the bed looking, as I said just now, as if he had received his death blow.’

‘You naturally asked him what was the matter?’

She inclined her head. ‘Naturally. But he refused to say. I could not force him to confide in me, so I did as he asked and went away.’

‘Consumed with curiosity.’

A faint smile, the first she had given, lifted the corners of her mouth and lightened the heavy features.

‘Of course.’ That was honest at any rate.

‘Did you return to the bedchamber later to see what you could discover?’

The small eyes glinted at me beneath their sandy lashes.

‘For what purpose? As Robert and I have both told you, I cannot read.’

I grinned a little sheepishly in acknowledgement of the second trap I had set for her.

‘Mistress,’ I resumed, ‘you say that this all took place on the Friday.’

‘Friday morning,’ she agreed.

‘Very well then.’ I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. ‘Between that time and Monday, when Mistress Sinclair returned home, who called at the house? More importantly, who went upstairs? In short, who could have removed the diary from the cupboard in the bedchamber? Who would have known it was there?’

If I had hoped to fluster her, I was disappointed. And if she was concealing any guilty knowledge she hid it admirably.

‘Unfortunately, I can remember no one.’ She added with a touch of irritation, ‘I have already been questioned on this matter and have given the same answer.’

‘But the diary is missing. Somebody must have taken it,’ I argued.

She shrugged. ‘This is true. But I cannot tell you or anyone else what I do not know. As far as I am concerned, no one called at the house on either Saturday or Sunday. I was busy and Robert told me to deny him to any callers.’

‘He was still in a state of shock?’

‘He certainly did not wish to burden himself with visitors.’

I digested this, then said, ‘Let me understand this clearly, Mistress. You are saying that no one at all, neither male nor female, knocked on your door throughout the whole of Saturday and Sunday?’

Maria Beton inclined her head for a second time. In spite of her plebeian looks, she had a regal air about her.

‘That is what I am saying, yes. Mistress Callender came in on Friday afternoon with a recipe for quince jelly she had promised to give me, but after her, no one.’

‘Mistress Callender?’ I queried sharply. ‘The goodwife from next door?’ Foolishly, I had overlooked the rest of Friday. ‘Did you at any time during her visit leave her alone?’

My companion regarded me in astonishment.

‘My good man,’ she expostulated, ‘you surely cannot suspect our neighbour! That is foolishness! How could she possibly know of Aline’s diary when no one else was aware of it?’

She was right. I was clutching at straws. Nevertheless, I persisted. ‘I repeat, did you leave her alone?’

Maria Beton made a despairing gesture, as one humouring an idiot. ‘I left her in the kitchen for perhaps five minutes while I picked some herbs for her from the garden. She wanted to try my recipe for braised venison, but had no fennel. We have plenty. But please! Do not go bothering Mistress Callender. You must see that she can know nothing.’

She seemed so disturbed by the fact that I might upset her neighbour that I let it go. All the same, I secretly determined to call on the goodwife when I left Master Sinclair’s. But before doing that, I had a request to make.

‘May I be permitted to see upstairs?’ I asked. ‘The bedchamber where the diary was found.’ I saw a refusal hovering on her lips and added swiftly, ‘Who knows but that another pair of eyes might discover something? I know you will tell me that you have searched the chamber thoroughly, but it may be that you have overlooked some clue.’

‘How is that possible?’ Her tone was contemptuous. ‘Robert put the diary back in the cupboard. Indeed, I saw him do it myself, and also lock the door afterwards.’ Then, suddenly, she altered her tone. ‘But yes, why not? As you have said, two pairs of eyes may be better than one.’

She rose and signed to me to follow her. We left the solar and returned to the passage before mounting a narrow, twisting stair to an equally narrow landing with three doors leading from it. I could see why most people had preferred to have an outer staircase; the space was very cramped. Mistress Beton opened the door immediately ahead of us and ushered me into the front bedchamber with its bow window overhanging the street.

It was larger than I had expected, containing a canopied bed with hangings portraying the story of David and Bathsheba and covered with a gold and green quilt, a large clothes chest ranged along one wall, a rosewood bedside table with an inlaid marble top, a shelf supporting, as Maria Beton had said, various small pots, and, next to it, the cupboard, a lofty piece of furniture almost touching the ceiling. The housekeeper walked forward, took a key from the shelf and unlocked the door to it, flinging it wide.

‘There you are! You may search it for yourself.’

I did not immediately accept her invitation, instead strolling over to the window and peering into the street below. I recognized the way our cavalcade had ridden earlier that same morning, but which was now alive with the usual business of the day; stalls set up at each side of the road, the goodwives out marketing, baskets hooked over their arms, refuse being loaded on to carts but being replaced as fast as the inhabitants could drop even more filth in the gutters and, above all, important-looking messengers forcing a path through the crowds as they rode to and from the castle, laying about the local population with their batons. The shutters were standing open, so I was not only able to smell the pungent odours rising from the cobbles — the night’s bodily voidings thrown from windows, rotting meat and vegetation — but also to hear the insults and imprecations that followed these self-important gentlemen as they went about their masters’ business. (I couldn’t understand exactly what was said, but the tone of voice and accompanying gestures needed no interpretation.)

I noticed that there was a narrow seat running round all three sides of the window, upholstered in dark green velvet. It was here, then, that Aline Sinclair had sat in preference to the downstairs solar, presumably watching for her lover. But when he had finally appeared, this man whose name began with J, walking either up or down the street, glancing towards the window where sat his murderously inclined young sweetheart, what happened next? As neither Rab nor Mistress Beton had previously known of his existence, he could not have been admitted to the house unless Aline was alone. I turned to my companion who still stood beside the open cupboard door.

‘Was your mist … I mean your cousin often by herself in the house?’ I asked.

‘Of course there were occasions, yes.’

‘Frequently?’

She shrugged. ‘Often enough, I suppose. Robert had his own interests to attend to. I had food to buy. Robert likes his food,’ she added with another slight smile. ‘He is a fussy eater.’

I thought briefly of the conditions in the cells of Edinburgh Castle and grimaced.

‘Where did you do your shopping? At these stalls?’ And I gestured down towards the street.

She came across to my side then and peered out of the window, a little moue of distaste distorting her features.

‘Sometimes, but not always. There are better stalls to be found in the Grassmarket.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘A street or so away. Why are you asking me all these questions? Why do you wish to know these things?’

‘I am trying to discover what opportunities Mistress Sinclair had to entertain a lover. Did you never feel sometimes, when you came home, that someone else had been in the house during your absence? That maybe, on occasions, that there was someone else present? Someone who perhaps was smuggled out later when you were busy in the kitchen or the garden?’

‘No, never,’ she answered, but then hesitated. ‘At least, I have never thought about it until now. But … Yes, since you have put it into my mind, perhaps there were times when …’

‘When?’

‘When, as you say, a feeling that maybe something was not quite … quite right suggested itself to me. A creak of the stair … the closing of a door … Aline acting a little strangely.’ She broke off, hand to her mouth, lost momentarily in contemplation of the past. But then, suddenly, she lifted her head and met my eyes squarely. ‘But nothing to rouse my suspicions. Not at the time.’

I nodded, satisfied. I had established that there had been opportunities for Aline to entertain a lover. I moved back to the cupboard, Mistress Beton following me.

Rab Sinclair’s description of its contents had been accurate enough. Although there were a number of shelves, all of the upper and lower ones were empty. There remained just three, at eye-level, on which reposed various objects. The first of these was a cedarwood box, containing, as I had been told, a few items of jewellery. On the next shelf down rested, rather endearingly, a collection of childhood toys, including a wooden doll, still dressed in all her finery of a gold brocade gown and white lawn coif, a whipping top and a box of coloured counters, each carved in the likeness of a letter of the alphabet. And, finally, on the third shelf reposed the wedding dress of white Damascus silk.

I lifted it and shook out its folds, hoping against hope that something might fall to the floor; three or four sheets of parchment tied together with red ribbon. But, of course, nothing did. I felt with my hand all round the shelf. I examined all the lower shelves and stood on a stool, fetched by Maria Beton from another chamber, to make certain that the diary had not been replaced by mistake on an upper one. It wasn’t there. My companion flicked me a pitying glance; an I-told-you-so look.

But I hadn’t finished yet. I turned towards the bed.

It was then that I saw the coverlet properly in all its glory of green and gold, a pattern of leaves and branches. And the central medallion from which all this verdure sprang, was the head of the Green Man.