The Three Kings of Cologne

Nineteen

‘Your visit to my uncle reminded him of obligations to an old friend,’ Juliette said. ‘It made him feel guilty that he had allowed so much time to elapse without seeking word of someone he once knew so well. But as he himself has been sick again these past few days, he requested me to come and obtain news of Lady Claypole for him.’ She smiled that engaging smile of hers. ‘So here I am.’

Lady Claypole had admitted frankly to her possession of the collapsing bed — her husband, the late Sir Peter, had brought it back with him after a tour to the Rhineland and remoter parts of Europe, further east, towards Muscovy — but apart from some pranks played on very close friends soon after his return (which, of course, she hadn’t approved of) the bed had never been used, as far as she knew. What had happened to me, she insisted, was totally unaccountable; a servant must have accidentally touched a hidden switch, or perhaps the mechanism was now so old and rusty that it had set itself off. Whatever the reason, my unfortunate experience had nothing to do with her, nor, intentionally, with any member of her household, I could be certain of that. However, it accounted for my hitherto inexplicable nocturnal flight, and she tendered me her heartfelt apologies.

I have no idea if Richard believed her or not. I know I didn’t. But he had achieved the object of his mission — to let our reluctant hostess know that Authority knew of the bed’s existence — without any need to search the house or unpleasantness of any kind. Indeed, we had both been invited to stay to supper with my lady and to remain for the night.

‘And you can be sure that this time your bed will not try to swallow you,’ Lady Claypole had added with a thin-lipped smile that seemed to me to cost her something of an effort. But maybe I was mistaken. ‘And,’ she added, addressing me in particular, ‘Mistress Gerrish has also agreed to give me her company until tomorrow. She still has a lot to tell me about my old friend, Robert.’

But Lady Claypole’s anxiety to hear news of Master Moresby was not great enough to keep Juliette beside her while she talked to Richard Manifold. And her simpering looks when she spoke to him made me realize, with a sudden stab of jealousy, that he was in fact a handsomer man than I ever gave him credit for. Our hostess plainly found him more attractive than she found me. (But, I consoled myself, he was somewhat nearer to her in age.)

‘I’ll see that the horses have been stabled,’ I offered, and left the house, only to be followed almost immediately by Juliette.

She grinned a little ruefully at the wary expression on my face.

‘It’s all right, Roger,’ she said, linking an arm through one of mine. ‘I promise I won’t seduce you again.’ And it was then she told me how she came to be at Hambrook Manor. ‘My uncle confessed the whole thing to me,’ she finished. ‘The reason you went to see him was not simply to apprise him of the death of a woman he had once loved, but because you suspected that he might have been her killer.’ She added, suddenly sharp and withdrawing her hand from my arm, ‘I’m not so sure I’d have let you make love to me if I’d known you thought my uncle capable of murder.’

‘As a matter of fact,’ I retorted, equally sharp, ‘I could have sworn that it was you who made love to me.’

We had reached the stables by this time and I left her outside while I assured myself that our horses — Richard’s and mine — were being looked after. I need not have worried, of course. Lady Claypole’s servants might be an odd-looking bunch, but they knew their jobs well enough. I rejoined my companion and began walking back towards the house.

‘Do you still suspect Uncle Robert of murder?’ Juliette asked, pointedly ignoring our previous subject of conversation and once again tucking her hand into the crook of my elbow.

‘I don’t suppose we shall ever know the truth about the death of Isabella Linkinhorne,’ I answered snappishly. ‘There are two other suspects besides Master Moresby, and I doubt if after all these years anything can be proved against any of them.’ I didn’t mention that one of those other two men was now sitting with our hostess. I didn’t think it necessary.

There was silence for a moment, then the pressure of my companion’s fingers brought me to a standstill. Her face was troubled.

‘My uncle didn’t, it seems, tell you the whole truth, Roger. He admitted as much to me when we were discussing the matter after you had left.’

‘What is the whole truth, then?’ I asked, resisting a sudden urge to kiss her.

‘That day — the day he waited for this woman here, at Hambrook Manor — he did, apparently, leave the house on one occasion and ride towards Westbury to look for her.’

‘Lady Claypole didn’t mention that when I asked her. She confirmed that Master Moresby remained with her and Sir Peter throughout.’

Juliette shrugged. ‘Perhaps she’s forgotten, or else she didn’t know. It’s so long ago.’ I wondered how many more times I would hear variations of that phrase. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘Uncle Robert confessed to me that he saw Isabella talking to another man near the village. He didn’t know who it was, didn’t recognize him, but I imagine from what he said — my uncle that is — that there was something about the pair that gave him pause. And there was something else, too, that suddenly made him doubt Isabella’s intentions towards himself. A silly thing, so trivial that in the end he dismissed it and rode back here without approaching the couple, convincing himself that Isabella had merely met a friend, an acquaintance, while on her way to him, to whom she had stopped to speak.’

‘Why did Master Moresby not approach Mistress Linkinhorne?’

Juliette smiled faintly. ‘Exactly what I asked Uncle Robert myself.’

‘And? What was his answer?’

‘That she had an uncertain temper and would have accused him of spying on her. My feeling is that he was a little afraid of her. He was most certainly afraid of losing her.’

‘Except that he never had her,’ I replied grimly. ‘No one did.’

My companion sighed. ‘I think he knows that now. I think it’s that knowledge that has made him ill in recent days.’

‘I’m sorry to have been the cause of his sickness. Perhaps, after all, the past is better left alone.’

‘It’s not really your fault.’ She put up a hand and lightly brushed my cheek. ‘Your Mayor, I think you told me, is the searcher after truth.’

I caught the errant hand in mine and held it fast to prevent any further assaults on my strength of purpose.

‘What was this other thing your uncle noticed about Isabella? This something that suddenly made him doubt her intentions towards him? Something so trivial, you said, that he later dismissed it as absurd.’

‘Oh, that.’ Juliette made no attempt to free her hand. ‘Now, what was it? What did Uncle Robert say?’ She considered for a moment, her fingers clinging to mine, prolonging the moment, her thoughts plainly not on what she was saying. Then she seemed to make an effort to pull herself together. ‘Yes, I remember. It seems that while my uncle was watching, the wind — it was, apparently, a very wet and windy day — the wind tore at Isabella’s cloak and he caught a glimpse of the dress she was wearing underneath. He recognized it as an old one, he said, somewhat patched and darned, which she wore simply for riding. It occurred to him that she would have been decked out in her finery if she was going to run away with him. There! He said it was a trivial reason to doubt her, and of course it was. For my own part, I feel sure his suspicions arose more from the way in which she and the man were talking together. He recognized an intimacy that he didn’t wish to believe in.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ I asked abruptly. ‘You didn’t have to, and you must see that your uncle having lied to me makes him more of a suspect than he was.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t really know. But by your own admission there are two other men who have incurred your suspicion. It seems only fair to you and to them that you should know the exact truth.’ She added, suddenly anxious, ‘You don’t really believe Uncle Robert could have murdered this woman, do you?’

I sighed, looking down into the troubled brown eyes. ‘I don’t know what to believe,’ I admitted. Foolishly, and almost without being aware of my action, I stooped and kissed her gently between the eyes. Next moment, she had raised herself on tiptoe, both arms clasped about my neck, and returned my kiss full on the lips.

Badly shaken, I released myself and stepped back a pace. She grimaced and echoed my sigh.

‘Still the married man, Roger?’ she asked.

I nodded. ‘I … I think we’d better go in.’

She made no demur, merely giving me a saucy grin that, nevertheless, struck me as a little lopsided. But she behaved herself impeccably throughout supper and afterwards, when, in order to while away the time until the hour for bed, we played some games of chance and hazard; although with Lady Claypole presiding over the boards and counters, there was small opportunity for even the slightest dalliance on Juliette’s part. Or on mine.

Richard and I took our leave of both ladies before we retired for the night, saying that we should rise betimes and be gone from Hambrook Manor no doubt before they were up and about. Our hostess bore the news well and said that she would give instructions to her Steward to see that we were fed before we left. Juliette blew me a kiss when she thought no one else was looking and, aloud, begged me to visit her if I ever again found myself in Gloucester. I promised to do so, secretly vowing to give the town a wide berth in future. Whether or not my resolution would hold good, only time would tell.

Richard and I had been allotted a handsome chamber at the front of the house with a wide, comfortable bed for our slumbers. We were both dog-tired and wasted no time in idle chatter, simply stripping off our clothes and tumbling between the sheets with no other conversation than the mutually expressed hope that the other didn’t snore. But we were both asleep within minutes. At least, I know I was.

My rest, however, was disturbed by dreams. Most had no shape or sequence, being merely a muddle of things that had happened to me over the past few weeks. But then, suddenly, the general confusion resolved itself into a scene where I was standing above the great gorge, on the very edge of Saint Vincent’s rocks, teetering on the brink and striving to keep my balance. I could see no one, hear nothing — all around me was an eerie silence, devoid even of birdsong — but uneasily aware that I was not alone. Then, with a clarity that made me start, the hermit’s voice said in my ear, ‘Red stockings! I ask you! With that gown!’

I plunged forward, but not into the treacherous water of the River Avon far below me. As is the fashion with dreams, the scene had changed abruptly to the ruined Linkinhorne house, and I was falling from the smoke-blackened stairs into the riot of vegetation forcing its way up towards the expanse of sky visible through the long-since vanished roof. The iron, copper-banded chest lay on its side on the ground, the contents already spilling out without any help from me or my cudgel. Hercules appeared and I could see that he was barking frantically, except that he was making no sound …

I was sitting up in bed, sweat pouring from my body, every nerve jangling, peering through the darkness of an unfamiliar room. Beside me, Richard Manifold slept peacefully, his steady breathing punctuated every now and then with a sort of gurgling snore. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and still the ragged beating of my heart before lying down again, staring up at the embroidered underside of the bed canopy, with its dimly seen pattern of fabulous beasts prowling through an exotic wilderness of flowers.

Of course! Of course, I thought. I was sure now who had murdered Isabella Linkinhorne. Well, almost. There might still be a doubt.

All the same, ‘Thank You, Lord,’ I whispered into the darkness.

With the early start we had promised ourselves, and with refreshed and reinvigorated steeds, Richard and I reached Bristol in time for dinner the following morning. I left my companion to return our horses to the livery stables and to seek out Mayor Foster to report the success of our mission, and went home to find Adela.

She was, as she always seemed to be, in the kitchen, struggling with a recalcitrant fire that appeared reluctant to burn to heat the pot of stew hanging from the hook of the trivet. (Being Friday, there was more than a whiff of fish in the air.) The hornbooks and styli of the two elder children lay abandoned at one end of the scrubbed wooden table, where my wife had been teaching them their lessons, while Adam had obviously worn himself out because he was curled up on Hercules’s flea-infested straw bed fast asleep. Women, I reflected, not for the first time, were the losers in the game of life; the thankless drudges who smoothed the paths of their men. With a sudden access of guilt, I swung her round and kissed her soundly.

‘Roger! You startled me! I didn’t hear you come in.’ Adela took my face between her hands and studied it closely. ‘Something’s happened. You’re looking cheerful,’ she commented shrewdly.

I squeezed her waist until she could hardly breathe and kissed her again.

‘I believe I know who murdered Isabella Linkinhorne,’ I said.

Her eyes widened. ‘Who?’ she demanded eagerly. Then a worried frown creased her brow. ‘Not … not Richard?’ she stammered.

I slackened my hold. ‘Would that matter to you?’

Her gaze didn’t waver. ‘Of course it would. It would matter to me if it were anyone I knew.’

I renewed my grip on her, smiling apologetically.

‘A foolish question. No, sweetheart, it’s not Richard, but — ’ I pressed a finger to her lips — ‘don’t ask me yet for a name. I have to convince myself first that I’m right. There are questions I must ask — or, rather, ask again in order to confirm the answers. But I promise you that today or tomorrow should see an end to this business.’

She was content with that assurance. Adela was never a woman to demand explanations beyond those I was willing to give.

‘You must be tired,’ was all she said now. ‘Come and sit down and eat your dinner.’

As soon as the meal was over — during which my two elder children had forcibly expressed their disgust that I had returned home without bringing them each a gift — I set out at once for Steep Street, Hercules trotting at my heels. I was again particularly careful to make obeisance before the statue of the Virgin, set in the garden wall of the Carmelite Friary, in case Our Blessed Lady had been the source of the information now in my possession. One can never be too careful in placating the hierarchy of Heaven.

Hercules and I reached the top of the street to find that the site of the old graveyard had at last been cleared and that only Hob Jarrett was still working there, loading a few remaining stones and trails of bramble into the cart, where it stood, together with the patient donkey, at the edge of the track.

‘Finished at last, then,’ I remarked affably.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Hob demanded, regarding me belligerently from beneath the thick eyebrows that formed an almost straight line across his broken nose.

‘Just an observation. No insult intended.’

He snorted in disbelief. ‘What d’you want?’

‘You were the man who found Isabella Linkinhorne’s body four weeks ago.’

‘Four weeks ago come next Thursday,’ he agreed, his manner thawing a little. ‘Why?’

‘When the body was first exposed, there was a strip of material, some remnant of what she had been wearing, in the grave with her.’

Hob nodded. ‘That’s right. Green stuff, silk or velvet maybe. It crumbled into dust so fast I didn’t properly see. And there was a shoe.’ He shuddered. ‘And some strands of hair sticking to the scalp. Black hair. Gave me a turn, I can tell you.’

‘There was the jewellery, too,’ I reminded him, but he saw fit to take exception to this remark.

‘What are you implying?’ He thrust out his underlip.

‘Nothing, on my life! You’re very touchy today.’

‘Ah, well …’ He shrugged. ‘My goody’s ill, the children need new shoes, and you never know, when one job ends, when the next will come along. Still, I s’pose I can always go back to tenting.’

I thanked him for his help, at which he looked surprised and muttered something that I didn’t quite catch before stooping and heaving another stone into the cart. Meantime, I started back down the hill, detaching Hercules from his interested snuffling around the donkey’s hooves and before that long-suffering animal could retaliate with a hearty kick. The dog looked up at me enquiringly.

‘We’re going for a long walk,’ I told him. ‘We’re going to visit our old friend, the hermit at the great gorge. Try not to upset him this time.’

The morning had turned warm and drowsy, as May days sometimes do, and as we climbed free of the city and the houses that scrambled up the hillside beyond its walls, both Hercules and I slackened our pace somewhat, stopping every now and then to exchange greetings with fellow travellers on the road. There was little news to be gleaned, although a fellow pedlar, who had made his way from London by a circuitous route, said that the Duke of Gloucester had been in the capital recently and that, if rumour were true, there was likely to be war with the Scots before the summer was out. This information chimed with what I had witnessed in Gloucester and what Juliette Gerrish had told me, but I hurriedly put the thought of her out of my mind (or tried to) and proceeded on my way.

As we approached the edge of the gorge and the narrow path leading to the hermitage, I picked up Hercules and settled him firmly beneath my left arm. The chapel of Saint Vincent brooded silently on its cliff top, and the descent to the river below looked even more perilous than it had done last night in my dream.

The hermit was at home, having just returned, if the basket of berries and leaves was anything to judge by, from his daily forage for food. He was as little pleased to see me as on the previous occasion, but seemed resigned, this time, to the presence of the dog.

‘You again,’ he grunted. ‘What do you want?’

‘It’s not our day for being welcome,’ I informed Hercules. ‘Is it that we smell, do you think?’

‘It could be that you’re simply a nuisance,’ the hermit suggested sourly, probably aware that he smelled a good deal worse than we did. Not that he would regard it. Men of God were not supposed to waste their time with washing. ‘So? Why have you come to see me? If it’s about Isabella Linkinhorne again …’

‘It is,’ I said. ‘There’s something I need to ask you. Something I need to get clear.’

‘And what’s that then?’

‘You told me, when I was last here, that you saw Isabella the day she disappeared, riding along the village street. It was a wet and windy day — everyone I’ve spoken to agrees on that — and the wind blew back her cloak and also whipped up her skirt, revealing her legs …’

‘That’s right,’ he interrupted. ‘In red silk stockings and green garters.’ He gave a fastidious shudder which didn’t deceive me for an instant. This man, I was ready to swear, had always had a prurient interest in women, their bodies and what they wore beneath their gowns. After twenty years, that sighting of Isabella was as fresh in his memory as if it had happened yesterday.

Which was fortunate for me.

‘So you told me the other day,’ I said. ‘You also added, “With that gown!” Now why did you say that?’

‘Because she was wearing a purple gown, that’s why. Red stockings and green garters with purple! An unhappy choice of colours, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

I grimaced. ‘I don’t think it would have occurred to me. However, the lady in question probably would have agreed with you. Her former maid remembers that Isabella had snagged her stockings on a chair in the parlour and was very annoyed that the only other pair she had ready to put on were red ones. Perhaps she, like you, Master Hermit, had a nice eye for colour.’ If he sensed the sarcasm in my tone, he didn’t respond. I continued, soothing Hercules, who was beginning to get restless. ‘I also seem to recollect your saying that you saw Isabella around mid-afternoon. Are you certain that she was just setting out? At that time of day — and on such a day — could she not have been returning home?’

The hermit, who had automatically opened his mouth to refute whatever I had to say, shut it again, a suddenly arrested expression on his thin, ascetic-looking face.

‘Returning home,’ he repeated. ‘Well, now you come to mention it … Ye-es, I suppose she could have been.’

‘Which way along the village street was she riding?’ I asked, leaning forward in my urgency and squashing Hercules against my side. He let out an indignant bark. I hushed him impatiently.

The hermit furrowed his brow.

‘In the direction of the open downs or towards her father’s house?’ My heart was thumping, willing him to give me the answer I wanted.

Time seemed to stretch endlessly — a long, shining thread that might snap at any moment, once more leaving me floundering — before my companion reluctantly acknowledged, ‘Now I come to picture it again in my mind … Yes, I believe you might be right. Yes … Yes …’ There was another protracted pause, but, finally, the hermit gave a decisive nod of his head. ‘She was riding home.’

‘You’re sure of that? You’re certain?’

‘Positive.’ He regarded me with sudden respect. ‘Funny, but I’ve never given it a thought before. Not once in all these years. It just stuck in my mind that she was going for one of her madcap gallops across the downs. I should have realized, of course, that at that time of year the days were short and when I saw her it was already growing dusk. And then, as now, the downlands were a haunt for robbers and poachers and all manner of other rogues after dark.’

I let out my pent-up breath in a gasping sigh and thanked him far more profusely than the circumstances warranted. He eyed me suspiciously, trying to work out what he had said that had pleased me so much, and whether or not he had unintentionally incriminated himself.

I gave him what I trusted was a beaming, reassuring smile, once more expressed my thanks and, to his and Hercules’s relief, took my leave.

Hercules was delighted to find himself once more back in the ruined house, a happy hunting ground which he set out to re-explore, bounding up and down the shattered staircase, leaping from one dangerous tread to the other just to show me that he could. But when he realized that I was looking for something among the clumps of purple loosestrife and general vegetation, he abandoned his own games to help me search.

I had a rough recollection of where I had found the chest two weeks ago, and made my way towards an eyeless window set high in the ground floor wall. And there it was, just underneath, the lock that I had broken with my cudgel hanging drunkenly from the iron-bound lid. The dog capered around me, barking excitedly.

‘Hush!’ I ordered him.

The lid creaked in protest as I lifted it for the second time and peered inside.

The contents were exactly the same: two undershifts, a pair of brown leather shoes and a gown of moth-eaten purple wool. It must, in days long gone, have contained much more in the way of a young girl’s finery, but over the years since Isabella’s death, it had gradually been reduced to these few articles, the other things either given away or taken by housemaids who knew where the key to the chest was kept, and who considered it a crying shame to let rot garments that they could put to better use …

A sudden, unnerving thought struck me. I had made an unwarranted assumption that the chest and its contents had once belonged to Isabella. But suppose it had been the property of her mother, Amorette Linkinhorne. What then?

With hands that shook slightly, I pulled out the fur-trimmed gown and held it up to the light. It was cut on very slender lines, a young woman’s garment, not that of an elderly matron, and it was woollen — a gown for cold weather. Moreover, it was purple and the skirt had been darned as well as patched. It had to be the same dress that both the hermit and Robert Moresby had seen Isabella wearing that day; the day of her disappearance.

The sun, on its passage across the sky, suddenly shone full through the empty window, showing up a dark stain near the neck of the dress. I drew a sharp, hissing breath that caused Hercules to stop barking and look at me enquiringly, head cocked to one side. I examined the stain more closely.

It was difficult to be sure after twenty years, but there was a rusty tinge to it even now.

I felt certain it had been made by blood.