A Masterly Murder (43 page)

With a single step, Michael bounded across the room and had the cushion slapped across the physician’s face before he could
utter a sound. Then he wrapped both arms around cushion and head together, holding them in a firm embrace. Startled, Bartholomew
began to struggle, but found he was able to move very little, and the lower half of his body was trapped between the chair
and the table. When the pressure of Michael’s grip increased, Bartholomew felt a surge of panic. He reached backward with
his hands but could not reach the monk’s face; he could only claw ineffectually at the thick arms that held him.

Deprived of air, he felt his senses begin to reel. He struggled more violently, but the monk’s grip was too secure to be shaken
or prised away. He tried to call out, to tell Michael to stop, but he could not draw the air into his lungs and the only sound
he made was a muffled gasp. He attempted to twist to one side, to break the grip, but Michael merely moved with him. When
he leaned down, to jab an elbow or a hand into Michael’s stomach or ribs to startle him into loosening his hold, he found
the chair was in the way.

Just when he thought his lungs were about to explode and felt on the verge of fainting, the pressure was released, and Michael
stood back. Bartholomew staggered out of the chair and backed quickly away from the monk, gasping for breath and leaning on
the wall for support.

‘Simple,’ said Michael, raising his hands, palms up. ‘That was how it was done. And afterwards, Runham was laid on the floor,
exactly how we found him. Are you all right, Matt?’

The physician shook his head, eyeing Michael in disbelief. ‘God’s teeth, Brother! I thought we were on the same side. You
nearly killed me!’

‘I did not,’ said Michael dismissively. ‘I held you only
for a few moments. If I had let you loose too soon, I would not have proved to you that Runham’s broken fingernails need
not necessarily have resulted in his killer being scratched. You clawed at the table, the chair and at me, but I am not marked
in the slightest.’

He raised the loose sleeves of his habit to reveal a pair of flabby white arms, one still bandaged from his encounter with
the bee, but otherwise unscathed.

‘You could just touch my arms and hands, but you could not reach my face,’ Michael amplified. ‘And you were in such an awkward
position that you were unable to put any force into your attempts to harm me. Runham must have been killed in the way I have
just demonstrated, otherwise it would mean him meekly lying on the floor, while allowing his murderer to place the cushion
over his head.’

‘Look under the table,’ said Bartholomew, still breathless. ‘See if you can tell whether Runham kicked it in his death throes.’

Michael knelt. ‘Yes! Here! I should have thought of this sooner. There are a couple of sizeable dents and some scratches.
Come and look.’

Bartholomew shook his head. ‘I am never going to turn my back on you again. From now on, I will stay where I can see you.’

Michael made an impatient sound. ‘I barely touched you. I did not squeeze nearly as hard as I could have done. Do not be so
feeble, Matt!’

‘Let me try it on you,’ said Bartholomew, snatching up the cushion and advancing on the monk. Michael stood quickly and moved
away.

‘Why? So you can smother me to within an inch of my life and claim tit-for-tat? Really, Matt. I had not understood you to
be a vindictive man.’

‘Because I want to test what you just said,’ replied
Bartholomew. ‘You said you did not exert as much pressure as you could have done, and yet you still could have killed me.
What I want to know is how strong do you have to be to smother someone like that?’

‘Are you sure you know what you are doing?’ asked Michael, regarding him doubtfully.

‘I am a physician,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Of course I know what I am doing.’

He placed the cushion over the monk’s face and wrapped his arms around Michael’s head, just as the monk had done. Unlike Michael,
however, he did not deprive his subject of air, and instead experimented with various different grips. He discovered that
by pulling upward, he could make it even more difficult for his victim to struggle. He was just concluding his investigations
by leaning forward, so that Michael was trapped between him and the desk, when the door opened.

‘Matthew!’ came the shocked, hushed tones of Father William. ‘So it was
you
all along!’

With the door firmly closed against curious ears, and William ordered to keep his voice down on pain of death, the three Fellows
stood in the centre of Master Runham’s room and looked around them.

‘I am sorry for accusing you of so vile a crime, Matthew,’ said William, yet again. ‘I really thought you were smothering
Michael. It was clever of you to experiment like that. I wish I had thought to do it myself.’

‘We need to go through everything in this room to see whether we can find any clue that will help us discover the identity
of Runham’s killer,’ said Michael, trying to bring the friar’s mind back to the task in hand. ‘All of us are potential suspects,
so our very lives may depend on being thorough – even though we are all innocent.’

‘Why are you so sure of my innocence?’ asked William
curiously. ‘I am innocent, of course, but in this den of suspicion and intrigue, I am surprised you believe me. I was so
afraid I would be blamed for Runham’s murder that I have been loath to abandon the safety of the friary walls.’

‘So, why choose now to leave?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘It is dark. And I came to look for clues that might help me prove it was
not I who did the world this great favour. But I do not have to convince you, it seems.’

‘Any man is capable of murder, and so my belief in your innocence does not stem from trust in your innate morality,’ said
Michael pompously. ‘But although you are certainly strong enough to have overpowered Runham, you are not the kind of man to
use smothering as a means to an end. Fists, certainly; a blunt instrument, yes; a dagger, very possibly. But I cannot see
you slowly and deliberately squeezing the life out of anyone.’

‘Then you know me less well than you think,’ said William bluntly. ‘I think I would have gained a great deal of pleasure from
squeezing the life out of Runham.’

‘You should learn to take a compliment, Father,’ said Michael dryly. ‘But, very well, if you must know the truth, several
of your brethren told me that the snores emanating from your cell kept them awake half the night. They are prepared to swear
that you are accounted for from sunset, when you attended compline, until the morning, when the news came that Runham was
no more.’

‘You asked my fellow friars about me?’ asked William indignantly.

‘Yes,’ said Michael. ‘But it worked to your advantage. You are virtually the only one of us with a sound alibi, and who definitely
did not commit this crime.’

William puffed himself up. ‘My money is on the culprit being that Dominican – Clippesby. I have never liked him. He is treacherous
and duplicitous.’

‘Let us not jump to conclusions before we have the evidence,’ said Michael. ‘But we should start if we do not want to be here
all night. You take the table and the aumbry, William; Matt can search under the benches, rugs and chairs; and I will see
what we have left in the chests.’

‘Our poor hutches,’ said William, shaking his head as he began to rifle through the contents of Runham’s wall cupboard. ‘How
will the College survive with no loan chests?’

They were silent, each concentrating on his work. Bartholomew found a list of payments and dates hidden in the lining of a
rug, and passed it to Michael, understanding nothing of the figures that were scrawled there, but suspecting they were significant.
William discovered an hour candle that had fallen underneath the desk.

‘Can I have this?’ he asked, secreting it in his grimy habit. ‘Runham will not be needing it again.’

‘Wait,’ said Bartholomew, reaching for it. ‘Why did we not think of this before? Now we know when Runham was murdered – exactly!’

‘The hour candle fell over during the struggle!’ exclaimed Michael. ‘So, when was he killed?’

‘About eight o’clock,’ said Bartholomew, studying the stump. ‘That would be four hours or so after sunset, and about two hours
after dinner.’

‘Well, that excludes Kenyngham, then,’ said Michael. ‘And Suttone. Both of them were at compline at that time, and I know
they lingered at the church afterwards. And it vindicates me, too, because the Chancellor was visiting me on University business
from sunset until almost ten.’

‘I have no idea where I was,’ said Bartholomew gloomily. ‘Somewhere on the Trumpington road, alone and in the dark.’

‘I can vouch for Paul being with me at compline
between seven and nine, but we still have Clippesby unaccounted for,’ said William with relish.

‘And Langelee,’ added Michael. ‘All the workmen had gone by then – they do not work as late as eight, so that eliminates opportunistic
robbery as a motive. And there are the servants – Cynric, Agatha, Walter and so on.’

‘Not Cynric,’ said Bartholomew immediately. ‘Rachel Atkin will not let him out after dark. He would not have been at liberty
at eight o’clock.’

‘I will talk to your students – Gray and Deynman – who fell foul of Runham the afternoon he died, and see if they can tell
me where they were at eight o’clock,’ said William importantly. ‘I have considerable experience of investigating murders,
and now I have been absolved of suspicion, I will devote myself to the task in hand.’

‘And I will have discreet words with Langelee and Clippesby, to see what they can tell me about eight o’clock on that fateful
day,’ said Michael.

‘I will help,’ offered William eagerly. ‘I would love to interrogate that Clippesby.’

‘I said discreet,’ said Michael. ‘If the killer is a scholar, then he is not going to be stupid – unless it is Langelee –
and I do not want to frighten him into caution. I want him to be relaxed and to make a fatal slip.’

They were silent again, completing their methodical search of Runham’s room. The only sounds were occasional footsteps in
the courtyard, and the increasingly frequent exclamations of understanding and indignation as Michael came to grips with the
documents in Runham’s chests.

‘This is really outrageous,’ he said, waving the piece of parchment Bartholomew had discovered under the rug. ‘I am horrified!’

‘What is it?’ asked William, crawling on his hands and knees to inspect the area behind the table.

‘It is a list showing how Runham raised the money for his new building work,’ said Michael. ‘He estimated that he would need
ninety pounds for raising a new court and for refacing the north wing, using the cheapest materials available. He raised thirty
pounds in donations, including five marks from your brother-in-law, Matt. That was generous.’

‘I know,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But he regrets parting with it.’

‘He is a true merchant,’ said Michael. ‘But despite his best efforts, Runham was still sixty pounds short. He arranged to
borrow thirty pounds from the guilds of Corpus Christi and St Mary – to be repaid with interest within the year. God’s blood!
Thirty pounds plus interest! That is going to be a millstone around our necks.’

‘If he had thirty from donations and thirty from loans, where did he find the remaining twenty?’ asked William, proving that
he had not paid attention during his arithmetic lessons.

‘It seems he raided the College hutches,’ said Michael. ‘It is all written down here. He took all the available money – which
amounted to a total of ten pounds and two shillings – and he sold unredeemed pledges worth another three pounds and eight
shillings. Foolish man – he sold that Aristotle of Deynman’s for two shillings, and it was worth at least twice that.’

‘So that explains why he went about dismissing his Fellows,’ said William. ‘He did not want us to notice that he was raiding
the hutches.’

‘You are right,’ said Michael. ‘He had rid himself of you, Paul, Kenyngham and Langelee, and was working on Matt. And he was
also interfering with the cooks, so that I would leave, too. Thus he would have disposed of anyone who knew how much was in
the hutches.
With us gone, the hutch money was his to use as he pleased.’

‘And he sent down Gray and Deynman,’ added Bartholomew. ‘They regularly used the hutches when they were short of money – far
more frequently than any of the other students – and so would know what was in them.’

‘Of course,’ said Michael. ‘I begin to understand. Runham was not indulging himself in a series of personal vendettas, but
had a carefully formulated plan to make Michaelhouse’s money disappear with no questions asked.’

‘But even with the loans, the funds from the merchants and the contents of the hutches, Runham was still short of sixteen
pounds and ten shillings to make up his ninety,’ said Bartholomew.

‘I know,’ said Michael, frustrated. ‘He has been selling something, but this list does not specify what. He sold five items
for which he received about ten pounds in total. I imagine the rest came from the fact that he did not pay the grocer and
that he saved money on the choir’s bread and ale allowance.’

‘And by dismissing the servants,’ said Bartholomew. ‘So, how much of this ninety pounds do we have left? How much of it was
stolen?’

‘We still have about half of it,’ said Michael promptly. ‘I counted it all with Kenyngham when we found Runham dead. Because
of the piecemeal way in which Runham raised his funds, it came in all sorts of ways – gold and silver coins, jewels valued
at specific amounts, promissory notes. A lot of it would have been too heavy to carry unnoticed from the College, while the
promissory notes would obviously be worthless to a thief. Oswald Stanmore is not going to pay a thief five marks for presenting
this piece of paper to him.’

‘But someone has the other half of our ninety pounds even as we speak,’ said William angrily. ‘We must search the College
immediately, and see who has his room stuffed with stolen money.’

‘Already done,’ said Michael. ‘Kenyngham and Suttone undertook that unpleasant task, and found nothing. I told them to pretend
to be looking for a missing book. If the builders discover that we do not have the cash to pay them, they might riot.’