A Masterly Murder (37 page)

‘I cannot imagine how you will proceed.’

‘It certainly poses a challenge! And I need a challenge like this to put me on the road to recovery.’

‘There is nothing wrong with you, Brother,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘You are quite well enough to outwit the killer of Runham.’

Michael sighed. ‘I know. But I must admit I have enjoyed the last few days. I should be ill more often: people have been kind,
I have been provided with better food than the slop I am normally expected to
live on, and everyone keeps telling me how much I am missed. My week away from the University has proven to everyone what
I have always known: that I am indispensable.’

Bartholomew had reached an interesting part in his treatise on fevers, and was able to distance himself from the clatter of
the workmen outside. He worked until the bell should have sounded for the midday meal, but was told by the cook that the scholars
had not been summoned because Michaelhouse had no food. Langelee had been correct when he had claimed Runham had declined
to pay the College’s bills, and an infuriated grocer had arrived that morning to claim any unused stock he could lay hands
on. There were some flat, hard loaves baked with flour and water, but the absence of fat or salt made them unpalatable on
their own – like chewing on parchment.

As far as Bartholomew could tell, virtually every other scholar was out – either in the church praying for Runham, like Kenyngham,
or celebrating their unexpected release from tyranny, like everyone else. Bartholomew was unable to concentrate on writing
when his stomach was growling for food, and so he decided to walk to the Market Square to buy something from one of the bakers.

He wandered down Shoemaker Row, his mind still on the relationship between the nearby marshes and the sweating sicknesses
that sometimes crippled the town, absently nodding greetings to people he knew. He met Isnard the bargeman, who demanded to
know whether Michaelhouse had plans to reinstate the choir now that Runham was dead. Bartholomew promised to mention it to
Master Kenyngham, and Isnard suggested he made sure he did.

Next, he was hailed by Agatha, who was striding
through the Market Square with a string of dead rabbits swinging from one hand.

‘Would you like one?’ she asked generously, waving the little corpses uncomfortably close to Bartholomew’s face. ‘Cynric gave
them to me. He has been practising his archery in the water meadows near Newnham. I do not see why those Bene’t scoundrels
should benefit from his skills and enjoy rabbit stew tonight while you eat nothing but dry bread.’

‘Why did you leave us?’ Bartholomew asked. ‘Did Runham put pressure on you to go?’

Agatha regarded him as if he were insane. ‘Do you think I would have gone if he had? God’s chosen do not pander to the whims
of men like him.’

‘Oh, yes. I forgot about that,’ said Bartholomew weakly.

‘I went to Bene’t because Master Caumpes offered to pay me a respectable wage. And, of course, because Brother Michael suggested
I could do God’s work better at Bene’t than at Michaelhouse for the moment. He has instructed me to watch those nasty Bene’t
Fellows to see whether I can learn which of them killed Raysoun and Wymundham. Those of us who were spared the Death by God
to make the Earth a better place do not approve of murder.’

‘None of us do.’

‘Wrong,’ declared Agatha. ‘Some people approve of it very much, and are skilled at it. But they will not best the likes of
me and Brother Michael. And when I have brought this killer to justice, I shall return to Michaelhouse. The better pay at
Bene’t is very nice, but I do not like working with that Osmun. I can see I will have to box his ears before too long, to
teach him the lesson he is always trying to inflict on others.’

She stalked away, leaving Bartholomew the reluctant
owner of a dead rabbit. He thought Michael must be growing desperate indeed, to use the unsubtle Agatha to spy on Bene’t.

‘I did not take you for a hunting man, Matthew,’ came Suttone’s amused voice at his side, as he gestured to the rabbit. ‘Or
is that how your patients pay you these days?’

Bartholomew smiled. ‘Agatha gave it to me.’

‘I miss her,’ said Suttone. He saw Bartholomew’s doubtful expression and gave
a grin. ‘I do. Your University is full of intriguers and liars, and her blunt honesty is a refreshing change.’

‘Well, perhaps she will return now that Runham has gone,’ said Bartholomew vaguely.

‘Are you really certain that Runham was murdered?’ asked Suttone, suddenly earnest. ‘So many people wanted him dead that it
seems inevitable that one of them should have succeeded in killing him. But that logic worries me. Are you certain you are
not jumping to conclusions? Perhaps he died naturally. He almost gave himself a seizure the other day when he became so enraged
with William. Maybe he did the same again.’

Bartholomew shook his head. ‘There is no doubt.’

Suttone sighed. ‘What a pity. But we must set about rectifying some of the wrongs he perpetrated over the last week – it may
help his soul escape from Purgatory that much sooner. We should set about reinstating the choir as soon as possible. Brother
Michael tells me that the bread and ale are important to those folk.’

‘We must see whether we can pay for it first. And we must ensure we have enough for the workmen.’

‘There were some coins and a few scraps of jewellery left in the chest. Use that.’

‘We cannot give away our resources while we have debts,’ said Bartholomew reasonably. While he sympathised with Suttone’s
point of view, he did not think
the builders would be happy to see Michaelhouse feeding the poor while refusing to pay their wages. They would have the townsfolk
up in arms in an instant, and Michaelhouse would be attacked. And that would do no one any good.

‘I suppose you are right,’ said Suttone reluctantly. ‘What a vile mess that man has left us to sort out!’

After Suttone had returned to Michaelhouse, Bartholomew wandered around the Market Square, thinking about the disbanded choir
and the death of Runham. As he was buying a pie from a baker with some of the blackest and most rotten teeth Bartholomew had
ever seen – which the physician hoped had not resulted from consuming his own wares – he spotted Caumpes. The Fellow of Bene’t
College was striding briskly towards the goldsmith’s premises, which stood in an alleyway behind St Mary’s Church. Bartholomew
watched him stop outside the home of Harold of Haslingfield, glance around in a way that made it perfectly clear he did not
want anyone to see him, and slip inside. Bartholomew sat on the low wall that marked the boundary of St Mary’s churchyard
and ate his pie, his attention half on Michaelhouse’s financial travails and half on Caumpes’s suspicious behaviour.

He was just brushing the crumbs from his hands when Caumpes emerged from the goldsmith’s shop, first poking his head around
the door to peer up and down the alleyway to see whether anyone was watching. Bartholomew pretended to be looking up at the
church tower, and Caumpes, apparently satisfied that he was unobserved, walked quickly across the Market Square in the direction
of Bene’t College.

Harold of Haslingfield was one of Bartholomew’s patients, treated regularly for a wheeziness in the lungs
susanna gregorythat the physician thought might be caused by years of inhaling the fine dust that tended to accompany working
with hot metals. Bartholomew had recently acquired some myrrh from a pedlar, and had developed a balsam with Jonas the Poisoner
that they hoped would ease shortness of breath in people with Harold’s complaint. He decided to visit Harold, to tell him
about the new medicine and to see whether he could ascertain what Caumpes had been doing so furtively.

He pushed open the sturdy wooden door and stepped into the dim, acrid-smelling shop. Harold was stoking up a small furnace
that produced waves of heat so intense that Bartholomew’s eyes watered, and was busy setting up the equipment he used for
melting gold. Lying on the bench next to him were two bracelets of a heavy Celtic design.

‘Those are pretty,’ said Bartholomew, wondering whether Caumpes’s visit and the bracelets were connected. He recalled Stanmore
mentioning that Caumpes dabbled in the black market, and that he often sold things to the town’s merchants. ‘May I see them?’

Carelessly, Harold picked up one of the pieces and tossed it to him. ‘Actually, they are rather ugly. There is not much call
for Celtic work these days, and I will never be able to sell them as they are. I am about to melt them down and use the metal
to make something more appealing.’

Other merchants might have seen Bartholomew as a potential customer, but Harold had known him for a long time and was aware
that the physician did not have the resources to buy gold bracelets.

‘Did Thomas Caumpes sell them to you?’ asked Bartholomew, deciding to take a blunt approach.

Harold regarded him warily. ‘Yes, why? I hope you are not going to tell me they are stolen. I bought them from
Master Caumpes in good faith, and he has never sold me anything illegal before.’

‘He sells items like this to you regularly?’

‘Yes,’ said Harold. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘No reason,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I just saw him coming out of your shop a few moments ago, and I wondered what scholar could
afford to buy jewellery from the best goldsmith in the town.’

Harold smiled. ‘You would be surprised, Doctor. Not all your colleagues are as penniless as you. But Caumpes brings me items
to sell or to melt down occasionally, and has done for years. I admit I was wary at first – we gold merchants are often offered
pilfered goods, and I would lose my licence if my Guild thought I was doing anything illicit. I took what he had offered me
to Sheriff Tulyet and to other members of the Guild, but nothing was identifiable as stolen.’

‘Does that mean they are not?’

Harold smiled again at Bartholomew’s forthright question. ‘No, but I told Caumpes exactly what I was going to do, and he was
quite happy for me to check them before making my purchase. Had they been dishonestly obtained, he would have demanded them
back and approached another merchant.’

‘How much gold has he offered you?’

‘I do not think I should tell you Caumpes’s secrets, Doctor,’ said Harold. ‘But I have been doing business with him for years
– since he decided to abandon his own career as a merchant and become a scholar instead. You know that the University does
not pay well, and its scholars need something more than their stipends to keep body and soul together. Caumpes comes to me
when and if he has items he thinks I might want. He trades spices to Master Mortimer the baker, too.’

‘Spices?’

Harold shrugged. ‘Pepper, cinnamon, saffron and so on. But over the last few days, it has been gold and pieces of jewellery
that he has had to sell.’

Bartholomew was puzzled. How did Caumpes have access to such items? Had they belonged to Wymundham or Raysoun, and Bene’t
was selling them and keeping the profits, rather than passing the dead scholars’ possessions to their next of kin? Unlike
Harold, Bartholomew was certain Caumpes’s business could not be entirely honest, because of the furtive way he had approached
and left the shop. Bartholomew decided he would pass the information to Michael, and then they could discuss how it fitted
in with the Bene’t scholars’ deaths – if indeed it did.

He told Harold about the new medicine for his lungs, left him to his gold fumes, and started to walk back to Michaelhouse
to resume work on his treatise on fevers. On the way, he met Matilde, who smiled shyly at him.

‘Did you read my message?’ he asked anxiously. ‘For some reason known only to herself, Adela Tangmer has announced that we
are to marry, even though she did not see fit to ask me first.’

‘And I take it you would not have accepted her offer, if she had?’ asked Matilde.

Bartholomew laughed. ‘I do not think so! And I suspect she would not take me anyway. I do not know enough about horses to
interest her.’

‘Well, I am glad. I confess I was shocked when I heard the news.’ She hesitated. ‘I do not suppose you still have my green
ribbon, do you? It was extremely rude of me to hurl it at you after you had given it to me. I am sorry, and I would like it
back.’

‘I gave it to Robert de Blaston for Yolande,’ said Bartholomew apologetically. ‘He said it would cheer her.’

‘It would,’ agreed Matilde, although disappointment was clear in her face. ‘Never mind. How are your various investigations
proceeding: Brother Patrick of Ovyng Hostel, Wymundham and Raysoun of Bene’t College, and now Runham of Michaelhouse?’

‘Put like that, they form quite a list,’ he said. ‘And they are Brother Michael’s cases, not mine.’

‘But you always help him in such matters. He would not be nearly so successful without your help, despite the high opinion
he holds of his own abilities.’

‘You have heard about Runham’s death, then?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘How did he die? There are rumours that he died by his own hand, that he was so delighted with his ever-growing
coffers that he had a fatal seizure, and that one of the scholars did away with him. Which is true?’

‘We do not know,’ he said, looking down at his feet so that she would not see he was lying.

‘Murdered, then,’ she said immediately.

‘We think so,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘But please do not feed that into your information network just yet – at least not
until we can narrow our list of suspects from virtually every man, woman and child in Cambridge.’

‘Runham was just as unpopular as his nasty cousin, Master Wilson,’ observed Matilde. ‘Did you know that during the Death,
Wilson used to sneak out of Michaelhouse every night to visit his mistress, the Prioress of St Radegund’s Convent?’

‘I did know,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It was how he came to catch the plague in the first place. During the day he stayed in his
room and refused to see anyone, but at night he must have believed the sickness lost some of its potency, because he visited
the Prioress regularly.’