The Tintern Treasure (21 page)

‘Hell's teeth!' I swore before I could stop myself. (John Carpenter was a very pious man. I always suspected him of having Lollard sympathies.) ‘Didn't anyone hear anything? The lawyer himself or one of the servants? Not his mother, of course. Dame Heathersett's too old and deaf.'

The carpenter said excitedly, ‘Oh dear me, yes! It appears the lawyer himself went to investigate and got laid out for his pains. Knocked over the head, he was. His man, Godfrey, found him in his consulting room, trussed up like a Christmas chicken, when he got up this morning. One of the ground-floor shutters had been removed.'

‘Was much stolen?'

The carpenter shook his head. ‘That I can't tell you. The servant who came to fetch me didn't have any details, except that Sergeant Manifold and his assistants were all there and also that the physician had been sent for. The lawyer ain't dead, far from it, but it couldn't have been a pleasant experience for a man of his years.' He added, preparing to move, ‘I'll come to your house when I've finished at his. After dinner, most likely.'

‘I'll come with you,' I said. ‘I'd better report my own affair to the sergeant. There may be some connection.'

My companion nodded. ‘Aye, there might be at that. Some gang working the streets. Or maybe just one man. Thwarted at your house, he probably went off to find another, easier mark to rob.'

I wasn't convinced of this. And yet it seemed the obvious explanation.

The lawyer's premises in Runnymede Court were unusually full of people. As well as the physician, who was busy bathing a nasty gash on the top of Geoffrey Heathersett's head with comfrey juice, Richard Manifold, Peter Littleman and Jack Gload were also taking up a great deal of space, while old Dame Heathersett hovered, twittering, in the background. She was a small, bird-like woman with grey hair and washed-out blue eyes, at least seventy years of age by her reckoning (she always maintained that she had been born two years before the battle of Agincourt), widow of a lawyer's clerk and inordinately proud of her only son, who had risen higher than his father to become a fully fledged attorney.

‘What are you doing here, Roger?' was Richard's bad-tempered greeting as soon as he clapped eyes on me, but he changed his tune when I had told my tale. ‘Bugger!' he exclaimed, scandalizing not just old Clorinda Heathersett, but John Carpenter as well. ‘There must be a gang working these streets. I've just this minute received word that Master Foliot's house was also a target for thieves last night. There was an attempt to break into his house in St Peter's Street.'

‘St Peter's Street?' I grimaced significantly, slightly raising my eyebrows. ‘Are you sure that's what he said? He didn't mention anything about St Mary le Port Street and his shop there?'

‘What? Oh! No.' Richard looked more harassed than ever. ‘Go away now, Roger, will you? I'll call on you and Adela later, but for the present I wish to question Lawyer Heathersett and his mother, and I shan't be able to concentrate with you hovering over me, listening to every word.'

I grinned. He had never before come so close to admitting that my presence rattled him. I suspected that he was under some pressure from the City Fathers to catch this thief – or thieves – as soon as possible. It was one thing for people like myself to be robbed and inconvenienced without too much effort being expended to apprehend the culprits, but quite another for important personages such as rich merchants and men of law to suffer the same fate and the perpetrators go unpunished.

‘I'll leave you then,' I said and turned on my heel. Then I had a thought and turned back. Ignoring Richard and his furious expression, I approached the lawyer who was shifting around on a stool while the doctor tried to bandage his head.

‘You're hurting me. You're a damned, clumsy fool,' he was upbraiding the poor man. ‘Haven't I had enough to put up with this night without a leech with ten thumbs, who doesn't know his business, pulling me about like a sack of turnips?'

‘Then stop wriggling around like an eel on the end of a fishing line,' snapped the target of all this rancour. ‘A child would make less fuss. It was quite a nasty blow, I grant you, but not one that was meant to kill. You'll live for several more years yet.'

Before the lawyer could think of a suitable response, I bent down and grasped his arm. ‘Master Heathersett, it's Roger Chapman. Did you by any chance see the man who struck you?'

The lawyer nodded. ‘He was tall,' he said eagerly. ‘Mind you, I didn't see his face. He attacked me from behind. I'd come downstairs to find out what it was had woken me, and as I entered this room, I could see that one shutter was off its hinges. That was when he hit me. But the injury is to the top of my head, which means my assailant was taller than I am. Master Callowhill and I have been complaining for days of our footsteps being dogged by a couple of very tall rogues, but no one would take our complaints seriously.' He ended on a shrill, accusing note as Richard Manifold jostled me angrily out of his way.

‘If you say one more word, Roger,' he snarled, ‘if you put one more question to this witness, as sure as God's in His heaven, I'll have you clapped up in Bristol gaol.'

‘I'm going,' I said hastily, straightening up. There were times when it was safe to oppose Richard and others when it was wise to back down. This was definitely one of the latter.

Matters, moreover, were not improved when the lawyer said fretfully, ‘You'd do well to listen to him, Sergeant. Master Chapman has more sense than you and those two dolts' – jerking his head in the direction of Peter Littleman and Jack Gload – ‘have put together.'

It was definitely time I left. Richard was swelling with indignation, his face crimson with suppressed emotion, while his two henchmen were doing their best to look affronted. So I took my leave and went to the goldsmith's house in St Peter's Street, where I was told that he was in the church next door, attending a special service for the Wardens of St Mary Bellhouse, but anyone could attend who wished to do so.

The nave was packed as always with pilgrims come to pay their respects at the shrine, and I was forced to stand right at the back, peering over people's heads. I could just make out the figure of Gilbert Foliot at one end of the row of six men in their blue silk robes and holding their white staffs of office. The shrine itself was lit by the glow from a dozen or more candles, all of which guttered in a draught, the source of which I was unable to locate. I glanced over my shoulder but the door was fast shut.

A fat woman standing next to me whispered, ‘They always do that. Odd, ain't it? You a stranger here?'

I had to admit that I wasn't. I muttered in extenuation that my wife and I usually worshipped at St Giles's.

When the Mass was finished, I would have moved at once towards the door to lie in wait for my quarry, but the fat woman caught at my arm, wheezing heavily.

‘I'm no good in a crowd these days,' she apologized. ‘It's me chest.' She patted her ample bosom, suddenly becoming loquacious. ‘Got trouble with me breathing. Me daughter's made me a concoction of coltsfoot and honey, but it don't seem to be doing no good. They say breathing up smoke from a fire's another remedy, though I've never tried it meself.'

Once outside in the street, I tried to free my arm from her determined grasp, but she was tenacious and I could see that she was spent. I could hardly leave the poor soul to her own devices.

‘Do you have far to go?' I asked, hoping the answer was ‘no'. The crowd was beginning to disperse and I could see Gilbert Foliot, who had until then been deep in conversation with his fellow wardens, turning towards his door. I edged a few steps in his direction.

‘Me home's in Keynsham,' she panted. ‘But I'm stopping a night or two with me sister in St Mary le Port Street. It ain't far. If you'd just be kind enough – and you looks a kind man – to give me your arm to her door, I'd be that grateful.'

I had no option; her growing physical distress was obvious. But in any case the mention of her home village had made me more willing to assist her. ‘I was in Keynsham the night before last,' I remarked casually. ‘A guest of Sir Lionel Despenser.' She shot me an incredulous, sidelong glance which lingered pointedly over my homespun clothes. ‘I was looking for a man recently in his employ, a Gloucester man, Walter Gurney, Sir Lionel's head groom. But he seems to have disappeared.'

As we started down St Mary le Port Street, my companion paused for a moment to catch her breath, palpably excited. ‘Ay,' she said. ‘Now that were strange. Master Gurney used to drink in the local ale-house now and again. A bit high and mighty my Jacob said – Jacob's my goodman, you understand – but he'd every right to be. It seems he were a wonder with horses. Sir Lionel were overheard to boast he were the best groom he'd ever had. As for Master Gurney himself, he told my Jacob he was settled for life. He'd never leave Sir Lionel. Not ever. And then a day or so later, he's gone. No one knows where.'

I mulled this over, while we continued at our snail's pace down the street. It seemed highly unlikely to me that after such a positive statement as the groom was said to have made, he would have been frightened away by the news that I was about to visit him. He had no reason to think me an emissary of Jane Spicer. And even if he had, he had only to stand his ground and refuse to return to Gloucester, to declare that he was finished with his former life, and what could I have done? Nothing! So why his precipitate flight? It made no sense. And things which made no sense bothered me.

My companion had stopped at a house halfway down the street. ‘This is my sister's,' she grunted. ‘Thank you, kindly young man. I won't trouble you further.' She was in the act of raising a hand to the knocker when she paused and turned back.

‘I'll tell you something else Master Gurney told my Jacob, which my goodman thought odd. He said he hadn't come all the way from Gloucester to offer his services to Sir Lionel just because he'd heard that he was looking for a new head groom. He said he'd come because their two families were . . . now how did he put it? Because their two families were linked together – yes, that was it! – were linked together by the past. Now, what do you think he could have meant by that?'

I said I had no idea, but my pulse was racing. I was remembering Henry Callowhill's words; that he thought there was some connection between the names of Despenser and Gurney.

I was just turning away when I thought to ask my new-found acquaintance's name.

‘Elizabeth Shoesmith,' she told me. ‘My goodman's the village cobbler.' She gave another wheeze. ‘If you're in Keynsham again, come and see me. Anyone'll tell you where our cottage is.'

I thanked her, waited to see her safely inside her sister's house and then walked thoughtfully back the way I had come.

I was fortunate this time in being admitted at once into the goldsmith's presence and although his greeting was not effusive, he nevertheless treated me with civility.

‘Master Chapman!' I had ceased for the moment, I noticed, to be Roger. ‘This is a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you?'

‘You've heard about Lawyer Heathersett's house being broken into last night and himself attacked I suppose?'

‘I have indeed. A lamentable business, and I should have visited him 'ere this had it not been for the Wardens' Service at St Peter's.' He indicated his cloak and hat thrown down on a nearby chair. ‘I was just about to set out when you were announced, and I . . .'

‘I understand from Sergeant Manifold that your house, too, was targeted last night,' I interrupted ruthlessly.

His eyebrows shot up in annoyance, but he answered smoothly enough. ‘I should have expected better of Dick Manifold than to spread my business around this town, but since you ask, yes, there was an attempt to force an entrance through one of the windows last night. One of the shutters in the buttery was found to be half off its hinges this morning, but the thief had obviously been disturbed and made off in a hurry. I've very recently had a new consignment of specially fine wine delivered by Master Callowhill. News gets around. No doubt the thief was after a few bottles to sell.'

I shook my head. ‘Forgive me for doubting you, Master Foliot, but you and Lawyer Heathersett were not the only people to suffer the attentions of would-be intruders last night. Someone tried to break into my house, as well.'

The goldsmith exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Sweet Virgin! You, too? This must be some new gang infesting the Bristol streets. I must have a word with the sheriff immediately. The members of the Watch must be increased. Was anything stolen?'

‘No, only a shutter removed from the kitchen window. Luckily, my wife, who, like most women, sleeps with one ear open for the children, heard the noise and roused me. Between us, my dog and I would have caught the man had my younger son not decided to take a hand. I regret to say that he stumbled over a bowl of water on the floor and so alerted our would-be thief, who promptly ran away.'

Gilbert Foliot frowned slightly. ‘You have a dog?'

I laughed. ‘If you can dignify him with that name. As a matter of fact, he was with me when Master Callowhill and I called here last night, but I left him outside for fear of his dirtying your floors. He was one of the curs that run wild upon the downs above Bristol. Some few years back he attached himself to me, refused to be shaken off and through sheer persistence became one of the family. A scrap of a thing, but with a fierce bark and very sharp teeth. We call him Hercules.'

‘Because he isn't? Yes, I see.' There was a fleeting smile, then the frown returned deeper than before. My companion reached for his cloak. ‘Now, if you'll excuse me, Roger' – it seemed we were on Christian name terms again – ‘I must go at once to see the sheriff. This is a veritable rash of attempted robberies and must be attended to.'