The Prodigal Son

Sixteen

It was by now mid-afternoon and I set off to see Hamo Gough without wasting any more time. George Applegarth seemed unaffected by my decision not to confide in him; in fact, if anything, he appeared relieved by my departure, merely remarking that he would get Reginald Kilsby to help him carry Anthony’s body into the chapel and place it before the altar, as Dame Audrea had requested. I said I hoped to be back by suppertime, and would he inform the rest of the household members that I would want to speak to them that evening.

I took my cudgel and Hercules and set off, past the huddled shapes of the cottages in the nearby hamlet towards the darker, shapeless mass of Croxcombe woods. A sudden, brief shower of rain, over almost before it had begun, left water droplets sparkling everywhere and the sun gilding the edges of the leaves with haloes of soft, wet light. A few cottagers and coppicers gave me good-day as I passed; and a young man in a green velvet hunting coat and white leather boots, a hawk on his gloved wrist and silver bells on its jesses, raised his riding crop in salutation. A couple of good hounds pranced at his heels, to whose proudly waving tails and mincing ways Hercules took immediate exception, but I managed to grab him before his annoyance blossomed into a full-blown confrontation.

I had not expected Hamo Gough to be at home, and had been prepared to wait until his return, but he was there, crouched over his fire in the act of replacing the squares of turf over the smouldering wood. He straightened up at the sound of my approach — Hercules had spied the scut of a rabbit disappearing into the long grass that fringed the edge of the clearing and was barking like a fiend — and gave me a long, hard look.

‘I thought thee’d be round,’ he remarked, unsurprised.

‘As a matter of fact I was on my way home to Bristol when Dame Audrea sent after me. You’ve heard the news of Master Bellknapp’s death, then?’

The charcoal burner grunted, indicating the pit at his feet. ‘This lot’s nearly ready, I reckon. Another day should do it.’ He reverted to the subject of Anthony’s murder. ‘Thee can’t keep a thing like that secret.’

‘Dame Audrea’s hoping to,’ I pointed out. ‘That’s why she’s called me back. I have her blessing to ask questions of whomsoever I please.’

He gave a short bark of laughter. ‘I weren’t meaning the law, Maister. Thee can keep anything from those fools if thee’s a mind to. So, hast come to question me?’

‘If you’re willing.’

‘What dost want to know?’

‘Well, I know, for instance, that you arranged for someone to call at the manor yesterday and tell Thomas Bignell, his wife and son that they couldn’t get home to Wells last night because of a footbridge washed away in the afternoon’s storm, so forcing them to remain at Croxcombe. I was in the woods later in the day and overheard your conversation with your fellow conspirator. What I want to know is the name of the person who put you up to it. Was it Anthony Bellknapp?’ I wondered if he would tell me the truth, which I already knew.

Hamo Gough pondered for a moment or two, sucking his blackened stumps of teeth, then he shrugged.

‘No reason not to tell thee now, I s’pose. Ay, it were him. Appeared just after thee’d left, yesterday morning. Thought I’d heard someone prowling about while we were talking. Said ’e wanted to keep Master Bignell at the manor overnight. Could I do summat to make sure it happened.’

‘Did he say why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why he wanted the butcher to stay at the manor for the night,’ I answered impatiently.

‘No.’

‘Didn’t you ask him?’

‘No. None o’ my business. Besides, if thee doesn’t ask, thee doesn’t get told, and if it’s anything to do with the Bellknapps, it’s best not to know. Leastways, I’ve always found so.’

I sighed. I could tell that there was no more to be got out of Hamo on that score. But I was still curious about his digging activities.

‘The night Jenny Applegarth was murdered,’ I said, ‘did you see anything?’

He was at once on his guard. I could see the wariness in his narrowed eyes and the tensing of his body, like an animal scenting danger.

‘What would I have seen?’ His tone was belligerent.

‘I’m asking you.’

‘Then thee can ask away. I’m saying nowt.’

‘Does that mean you could tell me something, but won’t?’

He shrugged. ‘Think what thee likes. No odds to me.’

He compressed his lips and folded his arms across his chest with a finality that said more than words. But I gave it one more try.

‘You keep looking for something around Hangman’s Oak. Ronan Bignell and his two friends saw you surveying the ground there the night following the murder, and a few days or so afterwards, Ronan met you carrying a spade.’

‘I digs for truffles, don’ I?’ Hamo spat angrily. ‘I told thee. Besides, thee doesn’t want t’ believe anything those three thieving monkeys tell thee.’

‘I’ve seen you digging near the oak, myself.’

He fairly bounced up and down with rage.

‘Truffles! Truffles!’ he shouted. ‘I digs for truffles!’ Hercules, who, up to then, had been minding his own business, objected to the charcoal burner’s tone and growled menacingly. Hamo recoiled. ‘Keep him off me, dost hear?’

I admonished the dog, who then started barking at me, just to let me know what sort of a lily-livered milksop he thought I was before suddenly spotting a rat scurrying inside the hut through the open doorway. He shot after his quarry like an arrow speeding from a bow and, a moment later, the air was rent by a medley of shrill canine screams and yaps as he attempted to come to grips with his enemy.

I raised my voice a little in order to make myself heard.

‘The night of Jenny Applegarth’s murder, did you see the page, this John Jericho, reeling around as if he were drunk and being sick?’

‘That were six year gone. Why art askin’ me about Jenny Applegarth’s murder? I thought it were Anthony Bellknapp thou’rt interested in.’

I hesitated. I didn’t really know why myself, except for a growing conviction that the two were somehow connected. Yet I didn’t see how they could be. But a memory niggled at the back of my mind; there was something I knew I ought to remember.

But the crescendo of noise from within the hut had now reached a pitch it was impossible to ignore and, abandoning our game of question and answer, Hamo and I, by mutual consent, rushed inside just in time to witness the kill as Hercules seized the rat and bit it clean through the neck with his sharp little teeth. He then laid his trophy at my feet with a proud wave of his tail.

Normally, I would have commended his efforts, but on this occasion he had completely demolished the charcoal burner’s bed in pursuit of his opponent. The layers of dried bracken and leaves and parched summer grasses that had been carefully built up over the years to make a decent mattress lay scattered over the floor. The smell of mould and decay and long dead seasons, together with the dust of ages, filled the little room. A number of small, bleached-white skeletons indicated that various woodland animals had lived out their lives and met their deaths within the bed, while a nest of baby rats, waiting for the mother who would now never return, was receiving Hercules’s best attentions.

Hamo Gough stared about him in dumb fury at the wreck of his sleeping quarters, several times opening and shutting his mouth like a stranded fish, in speechless indignation. I decided it was politic to leave before he could express his anger with his fists. And although I could easily have beaten him if it came to a fight, my heart would not have been in it. I wished him a brief good-day, whistled to Hercules and prepared to go. As I did so, I tripped over the grey blanket that had been Hamo’s covering, but now lay, a torn and sorry mess, among the debris of the mattress. I stooped to retrieve it — it, at least, was not past salvaging — but realized as I did so that it was not really a blanket, as I had formerly assumed, but a cloak. And its original colour had been pale blue, not grey, although it had weathered to its present shade probably over a period of years exposed to the strong sunlight that poured in through the open door of the hut during the summer months.

But the thing that really arrested my attention was a shield embroidered in faded scarlet silk on what proved, when the garment was held the right way up, to be the left shoulder of the cloak. Inside the outline of the shield was a bell, over-sewn in satin stitch to form, when new, a solid block of colour. It suddenly dawned on me that I had seen this badge many times in the past three days since arriving at Croxcombe Manor: it was the badge of the Bellknapp family and adorned the livery of their servants. I shook out the cloak and held it up with both hands. It had not been made for a tall man, nor one of any great girth. Nor, I suspected, had it been worn for a very long time. Six years, perhaps?

The cloak was rudely snatched from me, and I spun round to find Hamo Gough looking positively murderous.

‘Get out!’ he roared. ‘Thee and that bloody dog o’ thine! Get out! Get out!’

He turned and reached for his spade, which was propped against the wall in one corner of the hut. I yelled at Hercules to follow me and ran.

He came after us, but we were too quick for him, my legs being longer and stronger; while Hercules, giving one last, defiant bark, outstripped me in the desire to save his hide. Finally, when I decided we were no longer being pursued, we eased up, trying, as we passed the cottages and duck pond, to look more like a man and his dog out for a late afternoon stroll.

I felt convinced in my own mind — but without a shred of proof — that the cloak had belonged to the missing page, and that there had been some link between him and the charcoal burner. But what that link was, I was no nearer knowing than before.

Supper was an awkward meal. Everyone avoided looking directly at any other person, and suspicion and unspoken accusations hung in the air, poisoning the atmosphere. Only the steward seemed unperturbed as he went about his official duties, attending to the comfort of both the household members and the guests — three pilgrims returning home to Southampton after visiting Glastonbury — who had begged sustenance and shelter for the night. Their presence was at once a blessing and a curse; the former because it ensured that we were all on our best behaviour, the latter because no one could discuss the topic uppermost in everyone’s mind. The visitors had been informed that it was a house of mourning and were consequently very subdued, providing none of the merriment and anecdotes of the wider world that usually enlivened a stranger’s visit. I noted that the Bignells were still with us, and, upon enquiry, Thomas informed me that they had decided to remain another night at Rose’s urgent request.

‘She’s been having fits of the vapours all day,’ he confided in a low voice, ladling another helping of pike in a galentyne sauce on to his plate and shovelling it into his mouth like a man whose appetite remained unaffected by sudden death or family problems. ‘Maybe there was something in what Master Bellknapp wanted to tell me, after all.’

When the meal was finished and the three pilgrims had been shown to the guest chamber, I sought out Dame Audrea and again asked her permission to speak in turn to the other members of the household.

‘I’ve already told you to do whatever you deem fit,’ she said coldly. ‘But don’t forget young Master Attleborough.’

I promised that I would see him first, but warned the dame I thought it unlikely that he was the murderer.

‘I think he would have run away by now. He had his chance when you sent him to fetch me back this morning.’

Nevertheless, I sought him out almost at once, George Applegarth having informed me Humphrey had retired to the chamber we had both shared, until sometime last night, with the murdered man. I found him sitting on the edge of his truckle-bed, his head propped despondently in his hands.

‘What am I going to do now, Chapman?’ he asked, tears welling up in his eyes. ‘Here I am, far from my native county, robbed of my master and not likely to find another half as good anywhere else.’

I sat down facing him, on the big four-poster bed with its hangings depicting the story of Diana and Actaeon.

Not knowing the answer, I ignored this heartfelt plea and asked, ‘When you fetched the all-night from the kitchen yesterday evening, your master was already here, in the bedchamber, when you arrived?’

Humphrey blinked stupidly at me for a moment or two, taken aback by the abrupt change of subject. Then he nodded.

‘I think so … Yes, he was. I remember now. He was undressed, with his bed-robe over his night-rail.’

‘Did he drink any of the wine?’

Again there was a pause while Humphrey thought — a distinctly slow process.

‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘He had a beaker almost straight away. He said he was thirsty. Then he had another one.’

‘And after that? Did he touch the wine again?’

‘I don’t suppose so. He didn’t usually drink as much as that before going to bed. Said too much wine gave him bad dreams. But last night, it was as if …’

‘As if what?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing really. Just a stupid idea that came into my head at the time.’

‘Go on!’

‘Well …’ Humphrey was reluctant to tell me. ‘Is it important?’

‘It might be. Anything might be important if you want to unmask the murderer.’

‘All right. It just occurred to me that he was making up his mind to something he had to do. The wine was giving him courage.’

It was my turn to nod. ‘And what were you doing while he was drinking the wine?’

‘I stripped off, ready for bed.’

‘So while you were undressing, you didn’t have your eyes fixed on Master Bellknapp all the time?’

‘I suppose not. Why?’

‘So you might not have noticed if he’d slipped a sleeping potion into the jug? Poppy and lettuce juice, for instance.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘To make sure we both slept soundly and didn’t wake when he left the bedchamber to meet Master Bignell. Did you have any of the wine?’

Humphrey nodded slowly, a frown creasing his brow.

‘Yes … Yes, I did. One beakerful. I … I thought I felt strangely heavy when I woke up this morning, and although I couldn’t remember them in detail, I knew I’d had peculiar dreams. I felt sick, too, and I’d overslept. It was well past sunrise. But I never thought I might have been drugged. I just thought something I’d eaten at supper had disagreed with me. I’m still not sure I believe it.’

I recounted the symptoms I myself had suffered, and, after a while, he became convinced they were the same as the ones he had experienced.

‘But I still don’t understand why the master would have gone to all that trouble if all he wanted was to talk to Master Bignell. There was no harm in that. He could have told me. He could have told you. It was none of our business if he wanted to speak to the butcher. We wouldn’t have spied on him.’

‘Maybe he wasn’t convinced of that,’ I suggested. But I didn’t really believe it. There was a mystery here that I had not as yet unravelled. I added, but without much hope of a positive answer, ‘Is there anything you can recollect — anything at all — that your master did or said yesterday that struck you as odd?’

Much to my surprise, after a few seconds’ hesitation, Humphrey once again nodded.

‘Yes. It was sometime after Mass, but before dinner, I think. I can’t remember exactly, but it doesn’t really matter. But it must have been after you came back from your early morning jaunt to Croxcombe woods.’

‘Why?’ I enquired when he paused once more.

‘Because I came across Master Bellknapp round by the stables with your cudgel in his hands. He was sort of weighing it, as though he was testing its strength or seeing how heavy it was.’

‘Did you ask him what he was doing with it?’

‘I didn’t ask him exactly — he never encouraged me to be too forward — but he saw me looking and laughed a bit, like he was embarrassed. “A fine cudgel, this,” he said. And I said, “It’s Master Chapman’s, isn’t it?” and he said, “Yes. He left it in the hall this morning when he came in.”’

I thought back to my return to Croxcombe woods. I had encountered the Bignells and accompanied them into the house before taking Hercules to the kitchens to be petted and made much of by the maids. I had a vague recollection of leaving my cudgel somewhere, and an even vaguer one of taking it with me when I returned to Croxcombe woods later in the afternoon.

‘And did your master tell you what he was up to?’ I asked.

Humphrey shrugged. ‘Not really. He told me to take it and put it back by the door, where he’d found it. The one at the back of the dais that opens into the kitchen passageway. So I did. He went off to look for Master and Mistress Bignell.’

I said nothing, but sat staring thoughtfully out of the open window where the shadows were lengthening and the bright banners of the setting sun gilding the evening sky. Knowing what I did, that my cudgel had been the murder weapon that had struck Anthony Bellknapp the fatal blow before he was tumbled into the moat, I was even more confused than I had been before. Humphrey’s information suggested that Anthony was the potential murderer, not the victim.

I thanked the lad and tried to cheer him up by advising him to apply to Dame Audrea for enough funds to see him safely home.

‘But not until I’ve discovered the identity of her son’s murderer for her. She won’t let you leave until then.’

‘Why not?’ He was instantly alarmed. ‘She doesn’t suspect me, does she? Do you?’

‘Not really,’ I said, patting him soothingly on the shoulder. ‘But the dame would prefer it to be you.’

He was no fool: he could work out why for himself and looked frightened. ‘You will be able to prove it wasn’t me, won’t you?’ I slid off the bed. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to talk to Thomas Bignell again. Meantime, stop worrying. No one can accuse you without proving that you had a reason to do away with your master.’

‘I didn’t!’

I smiled at him in what I hoped was an enigmatic way and left the room.

The Bignells had not yet retired to bed and were sitting with Rose and their son-in-law at the high table in the hall, watching in silence as the last of the day’s rushes were cleared away by the servants and fresh ones laid down for the morning. Also of the party were Reginald Kilsby, the bailiff, whose dismissal seemed to have been rescinded in the wake of Anthony’s death, and Jonathan Slye, the chamberlain. I pulled up a stool and forced myself in between Edward Micheldever and the butcher.

‘What do you want?’ the receiver grunted angrily. ‘What’s brought you back here, to Croxcombe?’

‘Dame Audrea asked me to return,’ I answered calmly. ‘She wants to know which one of you villains killed her son.’

‘I suppose you think that’s funny,’ growled the bailiff, half rising from his seat.

‘No. Although I am known for my sense of humour. The sorry fact is that you and Master Slye and Master Micheldever here all had reason to wish Anthony Bellknapp dead.’

‘That doesn’t mean to say we murdered him,’ the chamberlain protested.

‘Not all of you, no. But one of you might have been goaded too far.’

But now I had gone too far. Edward Micheldever was on his feet, hands balled into fists, inviting me to step outside. He was a solidly built, pugnacious man. I declined his invitation.

‘Sit down,’ I said, trying to sound authoritative, ‘and don’t be a fool. I’m not accusing anyone. If you can tell me where you were last night, and prove it, I shall be satisfied. So will Dame Audrea.’

‘I was in bed with Rose,’ Edward answered promptly, ‘and she’ll tell you so. Rose!’

Rose smiled tremulously. ‘It’s true,’ she concurred.

Well, she would, wouldn’t she? It didn’t really prove her husband’s innocence, except that what little I knew of Rose had convinced me that she was not a good liar. And there was no faltering glance, no hesitation in the voice. ‘It’s true,’ she emphasized, holding my gaze steadily.

I nodded my acceptance and turned my attention to the chamberlain. ‘Master Slye?’

The thick neck turned red and he shifted his burly body in his chair so that he could fix me with his ice-cold stare more easily.

‘I, too, was in bed, although I haven’t a wife to prove it. But if you ask the little kitchen maid with the wart on her chin I’m sure she’ll back up my story.’ He grinned in a lascivious way that, for some reason, made me feel hot and uncomfortable, and I saw the bailiff glance sideways at him with a contemptuous curl of his lip.

‘I shall ask the young woman,’ I said, ‘but I feel sure that if she knows what’s good for her, she will agree with what you’ve just told me.’

‘It’s true!’ Jonathan Slye expostulated angrily, going an even darker shade of red.

I suspected that it was, but made no answer, turning my attention to Reginald Kilsby.

‘I see you’re still here, Master Bailiff. Are you able to account for your whereabouts last night?’

‘Of course I’m still here,’ he blustered. ‘There was never any doubt that I would be.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Dame Audrea had no intention of permitting Anthony to dismiss me. She would have intervened.’

‘Somebody most certainly intervened,’ I said drily. ‘So, what about last night? Were you also in bed?’

‘Naturally. Where else should I have been?’ He added nastily, ‘And where were you, Master Chapman? And can you prove it? Why should we be subjected to your interrogation and not you to ours?’

He had me there, but when forced on to the defensive, the best thing to do is attack.

‘I am acting on the authority of Dame Audrea,’ I said with as much pomposity as I could manage. ‘She wants to discover her son’s killer, and she knows that I had no reason to wish him harm.’

I could see a retort hovering on the tip of the bailiff’s tongue, but he wisely left it to the receiver to voice it.

‘And what about Dame Audrea herself?’ Edward Micheldever demanded. ‘And Master Simon?’

‘Your mistress protests her innocence, like the rest of you. I haven’t yet spoken to Simon.’ I addressed the butcher. ‘Master Bignell, it’s still warm out of doors and not yet completely dark. I wonder if you’d take a walk with me. I could do with some fresh air.’

Mistress Bignell laid a hand on her husband’s arm, looking uneasy. ‘Don’t go, my dear, if you don’t want to.’

The butcher smiled and patted her hand. ‘Why ever not? I’m quite safe with Master Chapman.’ He got to his feet.

So did Ronan. ‘I’ll come, too,’ he said. His tone was aggressive.

‘You’re more than welcome,’ I told him. ‘You can all come if you like. It’s a balmy evening.’

I guessed that a general invitation was a certain way of discouraging the rest of the company, and I wasn’t disappointed. Only the butcher and his son followed me out of the hall.

We strolled across the dew-damp grass to the edge of the moat, sulky and sluggish now in the waning light. Behind us, the windows of the house suddenly blossomed with candle flames as the servants went from room to room lighting the wicks. From the stables sounded the shifting of hooves and the neigh of a horse as the animals settled themselves for the approaching night. There was a burst of laughter, quickly suppressed, from the kitchen quarters. Somewhere a dog barked, swiftly answered by another and then another. A man’s voice shouted and there was the thud of something being thrown; then all was silence.

‘Well, Master Chapman,’ the butcher said at last, ‘what do you want to ask me that you don’t want the others to hear? Because I don’t flatter myself for a minute that you’ve invited me out here for the pleasure of my company.’

I laughed. ‘You underestimate yourself, sir. But no, you’re right. There is something I wish to ask you. When you kept your rendezvous with Anthony Bellknapp in the hall last night, did you notice if he had a cudgel with him?’