Study of Murder, The (Five Star Mystery Series) (8 page)

“Perhaps.”

Mariota shivered again, despite the sun, which had climbed higher in the sky and now began to find its way into the room through the narrow window, illuminating the corpse and the bloody floor all too well.

“I will talk with Phillip Woode. Perhaps he knows something of Master Clarkson’s habits, or who might wish him ill.” I did not add that I had heard Phillip Woode argue with Master Clarkson twice in as many days. I liked the man and was loath to think him a murderer.

“Perhaps you could speak with Avice, Old Ivo’s daughter,” I asked Mariota. “Ivo said she helps in the kitchens here. Perhaps she remembers when her father left, or she may have heard something in the night.”

“Aye,” said Mariota. “I’ll see to it.” And she left me with the corpse of Master Clarkson.

I’ve seen my share of the dead, but I never really get used to it. The cold vacancy, where just a short time ago there was alert life and warm awareness. Master Clarkson had clearly been caught unawares by his killer.

Just then the door opened again, and Masters Delacey and Berwyk entered. They walked past the corpse and started to pick up the books on the table and floor.

“Where are you taking those?” I inquired.

“They are the property of the college,” Master Delacey said somewhat pompously. “We must ensure they are not stolen or misplaced.”

“Before the body is even laid out?”

“We’ve sent for the good wife who’ll tend to the corpse. She’s coming soon.”

“And I will be wishing to speak with everyone who stays here, in the hall. Can you provide me with their names?”

“There are, or were, Master Clarkson, ourselves, Brother Eusebius, and two senior students, Phillip Woode and Fellow Swithin. But Swithin was called home two weeks ago. His father is ill and not expected to live, and we do not know when he will return. That is all who live in the hall, and we lock the doors at curfew.”

“Old Ivo swears no one entered the grounds last night, so the killer must be here still.”

“In the college!” Master Berwyk remonstrated. “I refuse to believe it.”

“The man is dead,” I pointed out, feeling a tide of annoyance rising in my chest, “and clearly not by natural causes. He did not die of a fit; someone bashed his head in. Someone is guilty of foul murder. When did you last see the master?”

“I saw him at the evening meal,” Master Delacey responded, “then he left. He usually studies in the evening, in his chamber. He does not like to be disturbed.”

“Do either of you have any idea why someone would wish to kill Master Clarkson? Did he have enemies?”

For learned men they were most obtuse. Neither Master Delacey nor Master Berwyk could think of any enemies, or anyone at all who would wish Master Clarkson any ill, while I myself could think of several, including, judging from the speed with which they had appropriated his books, Masters Delacey and Berwyk themselves. But I contented myself with asking for leave to interview the fellows, one by one, in the small room used for disputations. And the masters, having no other recourse and wanting to involve the coroner and civil authorities as little as possible, agreed.

Phillip Woode entered the room and I gestured for him to seat himself on the bench facing me.

“I will be speaking with all the scholars,” I said, somewhat unnecessarily. “It is likely the killer came from the hall. Are you knowing any enemies that Master Clarkson had?”

Phillip gave a little laugh. “Besides myself, you mean? For surely I did not like the man. He was threatening to expel me, and then I would have no choice but to go back to my home and try to teach little brats their letters. But I did not kill the man.”

“You did not speak to him last night, after we returned from the ale-house?”

I thought Phillip hesitated a moment, but he replied firmly, “No. I banged on the gates, when you left me, and it took Ivo an age to open them. He complained about me being late, past curfew, and threatened to tell Master Clarkson. But I beseeched him not to, and finally gave him a silver penny, and Ivo relented. He said he would not tell.”

“And then what did you do?”

“I staggered up to my pallet and fell asleep. And heard nothing until the commotion early this morn.”

“And you know of no other enemies who might have wished to harm him?”

Phillip thought a moment. “Master Berwyk was complaining the other day that Clarkson had borrowed a copy of his
Isagoge
, by Porphyry, and had not returned it. That is a text of logic,” Phillip added, seeing my confusion.

“That book was not in his room this morning.”

“Perhaps Clarkson already had returned it. It was some days ago that I heard Master Berwyk complaining about that.”

Master Berwyk had certainly not mentioned anything of the sort to me. But somehow I doubted he had gotten his book back, so eager had he been to carry off the books in Clarkson’s chamber.

“Anyone else?”

“Well, when Clarkson was elected master, some months ago, the expectation was that Master Delacey would win the election. But he did not.”

“Did Master Delacey want the position?”

Phillip shrugged. “It is an honor. But there are many duties involved. Perhaps he did not mind so very much. Master Delacey is intent on studying the canon law.” He stood to go. “If you will excuse me, there is a lecture I must attend.”

I let him go and wondered whom to speak with next. There was a knock on the door and a young lass entered, carrying an earthenware pitcher. I guessed her age to be about thirteen, or a bit more, barely out of her childhood. She had a thin face, with long brown hair that fell about it, although she had made efforts to restrain her locks with a tie behind. Her eyes were wide, and she glanced nervously behind her as she shut the door.

“You must be Avice,” I said. “Here, sit down.”

“Aye, sir, my father was saying you wanted to speak with me. And I brought you some ale,” she said, putting the pitcher and a mazer down on the table between us.

I poured some ale and took a long swallow. My throat was dry from talking, and the ale was sweet.

“It be a terrible thing, about Master Clarkson.”

“Did you know him well?”

Avice dropped her eyes and stared at her hands on the table. “Oh no, sir, I barely knew him at all. I stay in the kitchens and rarely even speak to the scholars.”

“But I imagine you notice things. Did Master Clarkson have enemies? Did you hear any arguments between him and the others?”

Avice raised her eyes. “My father was saying the other day he heard Master Clarkson saying something about heresy. That he’d tolerate none of that here.”

“Did your father hear who he was speaking with?” Ivo had not told me of that.

Avice looked confused. “I can’t rightly say. Was it Master Berwyk? Surely heresy is a wicked thing.”

“As is murder.”

Avice suddenly began to cry. “I didn’t kill him, sir. It weren’t me.”

A flood of awkwardness overcame me. So now I had reduced a child to tears. I took a deep breath and tried to gentle my voice. “No one said that you did. Here, stop your tears, sweeting. I didn’t mean to fright you. Stop crying.” My words had no effect, and the girl sobbed more than ever. “Here, have a little ale.”

I didn’t know what I had said to start the lass crying like that, and I desperately wished she would stop. I poured some more ale into the mazer and handed it to her. Avice sniffed a little and wiped her eyes and her nose with the back of her hand, stopping most of her tears. She took a gulp of ale, then another, then looked up at me. She had somewhat protuberant front teeth, although she was pretty enough with light brown hair and blue eyes. But of a sudden I thought of a cornered rabbit.

“Last night, did you hear anything unusual?”

“Oh no, sir.”

“Did your father leave your dwelling at any time? Did anyone seek entrance to the college late, after the gate was locked?”

“Very soon after, there was a hammering, and Da got up to see to it. It was that Master Woode, that’s what he said when he returned. He was not pleased about it, neither.”

That accorded with what I remembered. When I left Phillip at the gate, it had been locked.

“Sir, please can I go?” Avice’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “I’ve duties to attend to in the kitchen.”

I gave her leave to go, and went to find Master Delacey. I climbed the wooden stairs to the third floor and found him in the chamber he shared with Ralph Berwyk. Julian Delacey was seated at his desk when I entered, speaking to Master Berwyk. Neither man looked pleased to see me.

I asked to speak privately with Delacey and he grudgingly agreed to see me in the downstairs room in a few minutes, making it plain he wished me gone. So, obligingly, I left and descended the stairs to the ground floor.

I walked outside, enjoying the fresh September breeze after the close inner air of the murder room. I breathed deeply, feeling my lungs expand and, for a second, aware of the ceaseless beating of my own heart. How could it be, I mused, that the sky was so blue, the day so lovely, and inside the tenement a man lay murdered? And why had he been slain?

I could have wondered how I had wound up in the thick of yet another murder to investigate but that would catch no evildoers. I had agreed to help find who committed this heinous crime. What I had to do was find the murderer. And I thought I would not have to look very far.

In the far back of the yard was a small cottage. I guessed that was the place where Avice lived with her father. As I watched, I saw Avice walk back toward the hut, crying bitterly. It seemed she had taken the death of Clarkson much to heart, and I wondered at that.

Certainly Anthony and Crispin seemed less disturbed, as I saw several of the younger students kicking a ball around in the back, seemingly happy to be free of lectures for the day. Although perhaps they should not have been there, they seemed loath to leave the college grounds and get back to their own lodgings. One gave the ball a hard kick and it landed in front of me, nearly hitting me. I wished I could have played, but the limp I have makes it hard, so I threw the ball back at them and went back inside to speak with Master Delacey.

Julian Delacey was a short man, stocky, with reddish hair and a belligerent manner. He seemed personally affronted that someone had been murdered at his college, thus disrupting his scheduled lectures and disputations. Phillip Woode had said Delacey was studying canon law, hoping for a position with the church at some point, although he had yet to take holy orders. From the little I knew of lawyers, I thought perhaps he would make a good one, for he seemed argumentative enough.

“Now,” he said, sitting down across from me, “what was it you needed to speak with me about? There is much to be done here today, and I can spare little time.”

“Your chamber is near to Master Clarkson’s, is it not?”

“Yes.” Delacey nodded. “And what if it is?”

“Did you hear anything untoward last night? Any sounds of a struggle?”

“I heard nothing. I would have told you before this if I had.” Delacey’s jaw thrust forward in an unlikeable fashion as he spoke and once again I felt my hands tighten as I listened to him speak.

“What were you doing last night?” I asked.

“Studying. I have obtained a text of Johannes Andrea and I was deeply absorbed in it. I heard nothing.”

“No one entered the master’s room?”

Delacey shook his head no. “Not that I heard. But I was deep in study.”

“And what of Berwyk? Where was he? Do you know?”

“He often goes out. He has a woman in the town. But he was back before Ivo locked the gate, and asleep soon thereafter. I heard him snoring as I read.”

“You heard nothing else?”

“Just that Phillip Woode, coming in late, from some ale-house or another.” I decided not to mention I had been at the same ale-house, and let that go while Delacey continued. “The man’s a drunk. And suspected of far worse. There was that matter of the missing tavern maid. He should have been expelled before this. Has she been found?”

I replied I thought not, and asked him quickly, before he could continue, “When did you last see Master Clarkson?”

“Before the evening service, in the chapel here. He said at supper that he would not attend, that he was much involved in a matter of deep study.”

“And when you returned, his door was closed?”

Delacey nodded. “Yes, although after I heard Phillip Woode return, I thought I heard footsteps down the hall, to Clarkson’s room. But, as I said before, I was not really attending.” He rose. “You have nothing more for me, then? I must go. There is a lecture I must attend, death or no death, in the town. Learning does not wait on idlers.
Tempus fugit
.” With that he stalked out of the room.

Master Berwyk was tall, with brown eyes and hair and a nose that looked as though it had been broken in a fight at some point. Although strong, he seemed a thoughtful type, and it did not surprise me to learn that his subject was the three philosophies.

He folded his tall frame up on a bench, sitting a little hunched over at a table, by virtue of his height, and looked directly at me with troubled deep brown eyes. “So you have dealt with murder before this.”

“Aye,” I told him. “Donald’s father is a great lord in Scotland, and sent me here with his son, as the boy was in some difficulty in the north. But I have helped his father find the guilty parties in some killings, in his lands.”

“I wondered, somewhat, at your being involved,” mused Berwyk.

“Grymbaud said Houkyn and the chancellor do not get on well. This seemed best to all concerned.”

Berwyk nodded with a faint smile and I continued. “When did you last see Master Clarkson?”

“Yesterday, before the evening service in the chapel. After Woode’s pathetic disputation in the afternoon. I cannot understand it,” he went on, “the man is not stupid, not by any means. But he does not dispute well.”

“I understand Master Clarkson had a book of yours that you wanted back.”

“Yes, my Porphyry. A very valuable text. It was not in his room, when Delacey and I removed the books. Have you found it?”