Study of Murder, The (Five Star Mystery Series) (23 page)

Both dogs barked excitedly, then put their noses back to the ground, tugging at their chains and pulling their keeper up the street. We got more stares from passersby, but there were not so many people on this road leading away from the town.

We passed the Austin Friars’ on the right and the hounds continued up the road, passing some orchards, and finally pulled into the meadow and stopped, panting, underneath the very tree where my wife and I had sat just two days earlier, enjoying our afternoon in the green.

“This has naught to do with my wife’s disappearance,” I told Ralf. I explained about our holiday on Sunday.

“My dogs picked up no other scent,” their keeper insisted. “So if she came this way with you two days ago, it don’t seem likely she’s been here since. I’m sorry, sir.”

The lymers milled around the spot under the tree where Mariota had sat cradling my head in her lap. The keeper began to rein in his beasts and lead them away from the woods and back down the street leading to town. Disheartened, we straggled along behind, Donald following more quickly, as his youthful stomach growled with hunger and he was eager to break his fast. Phillip Woode and I lagged; I hoped to find some clue we’d missed, but I saw nothing.

One of the hounds ahead, the big brindled one that I fancied was the most intelligent, began whining and pulling to the right. Curious, the handler gave it some lead. The dog nosed around the side of the road, then stopped as if confused. Phillip and I caught up with the man and the two hounds.

“There be nothing here,” the handler muttered.

“True.” We had checked the buildings behind and found nothing of import. An abandoned house, a derelict kitchen shed and other outbuildings. Nothing else. “She’s not here.”

The keeper led the dogs away and we turned to go.

“Wait, Muirteach.” Phillip surveyed the dirt in the road near where the hound had been sniffing. “Wait,” he repeated, with more urgency. “I’ve found something.”

I walked over to stand next to Phillip. In his hand, still besmirched with mud, lay a gold ring.

“Let me see that.” I grabbed the ring out of Phillip’s hand. The small gold circle had engraved inside it the Gaelic words
“Mo Chridhe.”
I realized it was the same ring I had given Mariota on Colonsay at Yuletide a year ago, when we became hand-fasted, and I fought down the desire to be sick.

“That is Mariota’s ring.”

“You don’t think she lost it on Sunday, as you walked back from your outing?” asked Phillip.

“She did not mention it.” I strained to think. “No, now I am thinking she had it on all the evening. I remember . . .” A sudden image came to me of Mariota sitting at the table next to me that night. The light of the widow’s candles glinted on the ring, which was on Mariota’s hand as she ate. The picture brought a sudden sharp pang, as though a dagger had been twisted oddly in my gut, and the croaked tightness in my throat was such that I could not speak as I looked at the slim circlet of gold in my palm. “I remember her wearing it,” I finished lamely, avoiding Phillip’s gaze.

“So she passed this way. The hounds were right,” Phillip murmured.

“But where is she? And why did the dogs lose the scent?”

“Perhaps she was not here. Perhaps the ring was stolen from her and then dropped.”

That did nothing to answer the question of Mariota’s whereabouts or to improve my state of mind. I secured the ring safely in my scrip and we looked around. To the right was one of the abandoned homes, a somewhat large building with a stone ground story and a timber and plaster story above it. It looked to be a large old-fashioned hall, with a cross-wing on one end. Behind it were some outbuildings, a kitchen shed and some other sheds. The property bordered the Benedictines’ wall on the side closest to the town. On the other side was another abandoned house.

“Who does this property belong to?” I asked.

“I do not know,” Phillip replied. “But the bailiff should know.”

“Let us look around again.” The property, dilapidated and in need of attention, could have done with rethatching and replastering; the roof sagged and in places the plaster had fallen off, revealing aged wattle beneath. A shutter on an upstairs window hung askew and flapped forlornly in the wind. Weeds grew tall in the back yard, and we could see a neighbor’s pig, probably Vintner Gibbes’s, rooting contentedly amongst the growth.

We walked around to the back of the house. There was a rear entrance and I pushed against it, but it proved to be locked. Another shutter hung loosely from one window, and I pried at its mate. It proved easy to loosen. An empty rain barrel stood at one corner of the house.

“We can climb in through here,” I announced to Phillip. He nodded. We rolled the barrel over and stood it up on end below the window. I climbed up and wriggled my way through the opening. Phillip Woode followed me.

I looked around. We were in the hall, an old-style hall with a large fireplace at one end and columns spaced here and there, supporting the vaulted ceiling beams. A trestle table and some benches stood in the center of the room. Old rushes still lay on the floor and a little light came through the opened window. A thick layer of dust covered everything, along with some pigeon droppings. It appeared some birds had gotten in and roosted there.

“Phew,” Phillip exclaimed, brushing dust from his cotehardie. He sneezed. “The place looks deserted.”

“Yes,” I agreed. A door from the hall led to the smaller rooms in the cross-wing. I walked over and pushed the door open as my eyes adjusted to the dim light. There was a solar, with faded wall paintings, and another room behind. Two chairs and a wooden trunk still sat in the solar but the other room held no furniture. In the farther room was a wooden staircase, somewhat fallen down, that led to the upper chambers. Carefully I climbed up, avoiding the missing boards.

Upstairs were three smaller rooms. One had a sagging bedstead and another a fine big bed with moth-eaten curtains. The third room had a small table and chair situated before the window. It must have been in this room that the merchant, or whoever had lived here, had conducted his business.

Phillip shrugged. “Well, there’s nothing to be seen here after all,” he said sadly.

I nodded. Indeed, there seemed nothing here.

“Mariota!” I called out on impulse, but of course there was no answer. We turned to go and made our way carefully down the treacherous stairway and back into the hall. We moved the bench over and climbed back out the way we had entered.

We poked around the outbuildings for a second time, but again our search yielded nothing. Thoroughly discouraged, we made our way back toward town. The sun was already sinking in the west and the air growing chill. Donald had returned to the widow’s house for supper but I found I had no appetite.

“Phillip,” I said, “let us go into town, to The Green Man. I’m thirsty.”

I had not drunk as much, these past months, married to Mariota and savoring our new happiness. But that evening, my despair was such that I could not stand it and could not stand my own awareness of the lack of her in my life. I did not know what to do with the fear that had taken root and now grew inside my heart, the fear that I might never see Mariota or hold her again in my arms. I thought to drown my discomfort with some strong drink. Although
uisghebeatha
, which I would greatly have preferred, was not to be found here in England, I hoped perhaps some brandy wine might serve my purpose.

Phillip also, I think, felt morose. He agreed readily enough, and we entered the town walls through Smithgate and made our way down Catte Street and west on High Street to The Green Man. There was a pleasant fire on the wide hearth and as we pushed open the door, the air inside felt warm after the chill outside.

Abraham Jakeson presided over the tavern that evening. He nodded brusquely and his wife looked questioningly at us as we took seats on a vacant bench near the side wall. It seemed she and her husband had heard of the search that day.

“Nothing. We found nothing,” Phillip informed her as she brought us a jug of claret and two leathern cups. The woman’s face fell and she turned away. I downed my first mug of drink with great speed, barely tasting the wine. The second drink also.

The smoky atmosphere and wine had taken the sharpest edge of my pain away. I set the drink down after draining the third glass when the door opened again, and Delacey and his young protégée entered the room. They did not see us but took seats closer to the fire.

I did not think Julian Delacey had anything to do with Mariota’s disappearance, but he could well have killed Master Clarkson. He had, after all, been alone in his room, with no one to vouch for him, as Berwyk had spent that fateful night with Torvilda. As the drink took hold of me I grew certain, with that false confidence that often comes with spirits, that Ivo had not done that thing. I pulled my mantle over my head a bit and sank back against the wall, into the shadows. I nudged Phillip and whispered to him. “Phillip, let us watch them both and see what transpires.”

Woode pulled his hood up and also slumped against the wall. But we hardly needed to bother. Delacey and DeVyse seemed oblivious to the others in the room, laughing together at some private jest. They shared one drink, and then another; then I saw Richard throw some coins on the table and they rose to leave.

I poked Phillip. “Let us follow them.”

Phillip looked surprised but acquiesced. Julian Delacey was his superior, after all, yet the drink was in Phillip and perhaps he did not mind too much. We quickly paid our fee and left The Green Man. The cold air outside went a fair way to sharpening my wits and helped shake the wine fumes from my mind. The streets were dark and we had no lantern, but up ahead it was not too hard to make out the figures of Delacey and his student, heading up High Street toward Northgate Street. They went up that street and through the city gate, as did we, passing through the greater darkness, at this hour, of the long tunnel that snaked under the Boccardo and out into the suburbs.

“I am surprised that young DeVyse did not go the other direction, to his lodgings on Catte Street,” I whispered to Phillip at a distance from the pair. The two neared the gates of Balliol and entered the court. I saw Delacey push the door open and the two men entered the hall.

“I shall follow them in,” Phillip declared in low tones.

“I’ll go with you.” I had an uncomfortable suspicion and wanted to know if there was basis for my thought. We waited a few moments, and then we walked up to the hall and entered. The downstairs rooms were silent and deserted. We walked up the wooden stairs leading to the next floor. Delacey must have lit a candle in the room he had shared with Berwyk; I could see light streaming out from below the door, and I heard murmured voices from within the chamber.

Phillip rapped on the door.

“Who is it?” came Delacey’s voice.

“Phillip Woode.”

“I’ve retired. Leave me in peace.”

“But I must see you—”

The door opened a crack.

“What is all this about?” Delacey’s face grew choleric when he saw the both of us standing on the stairway. I stepped forward boldly and pushed the door open more and saw young DeVyse, clad only in his shirt while Delacey had on only his braies.

Phillip and I turned to face each other a moment, as the full import of the situation struck us. Julian Delacey looked at us, ashen, for an instant and then his face flushed a choleric ruddy hue. “This is not what it seems—”

“What is it, then?” I asked. “It seems clear enough to me. The lad is your paramour.”

“No, no,” Julian protested, “the lad’s cotehardie was wet with the rain. We but seek to dry it off.”

That clearly was a feeble attempt to explain the situation and I told him so.

“So,” I continued, “perhaps this explanation will be more sensible. You killed Clarkson when he learned of your sodomy. Perhaps he threatened you with disclosure or expulsion. You would not want that on your record, not a doctor of canon law.”

“Indeed, that is not the case,” Delacey protested, his face once again red with rage. “Clarkson never knew of it. No one knew of it.”

“What of Berwyk, your roommate? You are saying he never knew of it either? That strains belief.”

Delacey shook his head. “The man was too often with that slut Torvilda. He knew not what I did, and he cared less. Ralph was not a man to judge others.”

“So you lied about his whereabouts the night Clarkson was slain. You claimed he was here, when he was really on Pennyfarthing Street with Mistress Bonefey.”

Delacey nodded. “Aye. Dickon was here with me, and I thought it best to hide that. And Ralph did not want his liaison with Torvilda common knowledge. But I swear I did not slay Clarkson. You must believe me.”

This plea seemed odd, coming from the blustering advocate. I let that pass.

“So you heard nothing that night? Your room is close to Clarkson’s chamber.”

“Neither of us heard anything. Did we, Dickon?”

DeVyse, who had been silent while Delacey spoke, struggling to unobtrusively put his cotehardie back on, nodded his head. “I heard nothing that night. But we were here the whole time.”

“And when did you leave? You were certainly not here that morning.”

“Before Matins. I slipped out and went to my ordinary lecture. Julian let me out.”

“And you saw nothing untoward?”

Both men swore they had not.

“What will you do?” Delacey demanded, with some return to his usual pugnacious nature.

“Nothing, for the now.”

“So you do believe me?”

“My job is not to punish sodomists. But this gives you a powerful reason to have slain Master Clarkson, and Berwyk as well, if he guessed what you were about.”

“He was with me the whole night,” Richard DeVyse interjected with some shyness. The boy’s cheeks flushed crimson. “We were here the whole night,” he repeated. “We did not leave the chamber.”

“But you would lie to protect him, would you not?”

The lad blushed again, like a maid. “You’ll not tell my parents?”

“I have no idea who your parents are! And have no interest in telling them anything at all. But I might well speak to Grymbaud, and let him make sense of it all.”