Authors: Pat McIntosh
She shivered, and cast a grateful glance at Dorothea, though she drew her hand out of her sister’s clasp.
‘It just – it just doesny seem right,’ she said lamely. ‘Leaving him lying like that.’
‘If a miscreant is so lost to all sense of sin as to kill another man deliberately,’ said the elderly priest in his soft voice, ‘we canny expect him to treat the dead wi
respect.’
‘Well said, Herbert,’ said Dorothea.
‘And yet,’ observed Gil, ‘Naismith’s eyes had been shut.’
‘Likely somebody couldny abide him staring,’ said Maggie cheerfully.
Tib bit her lip and looked down at her supper, then said abruptly, ‘Uncle, will you forgive me? I’m no feeling very well.’ Not waiting for his consent, she rose, and pushed her
trencher across the table at Gil. ‘Here, gie that to your lapdog. I’ll see you all later.’
As her feet hurried up the stair toward the solar, Dorothea closed her eyes and crossed herself, her lips moving.
‘You need to find that ladder, Gilbert,’ said David Cunningham, ignoring this episode. ‘And the Deacon’s cloak and hat. That should take you forward.’
‘There’s a many ladders in the Chanonry,’ contributed Tam the stable-hand from further down the table. ‘Near every household must have such a thing.’ He began to
count them off on his fingers, mumbling to himself, and Gil said resignedly,
‘That’s for the morn. I can see my day mapped out already.’
Chapter Six
‘You were lucky to catch me at home,’ said Maister Agnew in legal Latin. ‘Aye, Hob,’ he added as his servant brought in a tray, ‘just leave the
jug there.’
‘Aye, but you’ll no be spilling this one?’ said Hob bluntly. He was a wizened man with a scrubby beard; his livery jerkin and hose, closely examined, were quite new but he wore
them as if they were out at the elbows and knees.
Agnew gave him a black look, and flapped a dismissive hand, saying, ‘You’ll take a glass of Malvoisie, Maister Cunningham? I believe you’re about to be wed, so we’ll
drink to that.’
‘And keep it off the matting,’ said Hob as he reached the doorway. ‘Once in a week’s enough.’
‘Hob! Get away hame!’ said Agnew. His man snorted, and ducked out of the door. ‘You’ll ha to excuse him, Maister Cunningham. He’s been too long wi me. Some wine,
then?’
The wine was golden in the glass but belied its promise. Gil kept his face straight, and said reassuringly in Latin, ‘I won’t keep you, if you’re promised somewhere. But there
are a few things I hope you might shed light on, regarding Deacon Naismith’s death.’
‘You said that before,’ said Agnew. He was remarkably like his brother, but his hair was fashionably longer, his face was fatter, and the lines at mouth and forehead signalled his
presence in the day-to-day world of the Consistory. ‘He was with me about this time last evening, after supper, for an hour or so, but I never saw him again after that.’
‘Was that here?’ asked Gil innocently, looking round the hall where they sat. He had friends among the cathedral songmen, who made up most of the inhabitants of the two rows of
identical houses of Vicars’ Alley, so the size and shape of the room were familiar to him. This one was brightly painted with false panelling in black and red, with vases of stiff improbable
flowers depicted on the red squares. The beams which supported the floorboards overhead were also decorated, with vines wriggling along their length, and the shutters at the window had more
flowers, startlingly unlike the ones which would be visible in the little yard outside in summer. ‘Is it new painted?’
‘Handsome work, isn’t it?’ agreed Agnew in Scots. ‘You’d not believe what George Bowster cost me, first and last, but it was well worth it. It’s Eck Sproat
your gudefather’s got in, I hear? I hope he’s as good,’ he said dubiously, and returned to Latin for the business of the evening. ‘No, I saw Deacon Naismith in my chamber in
the Consistory tower. The clerk that brought him up to me asked how long we would be, since it was time they were away, so I am certain it was late. The Deacon stayed while we dealt with the matter
that brought him.’
‘And what was that?’ Gil asked.
‘He was planning great changes in his life,’ said Agnew easily. ‘Some more of this Malvoisie?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve another call to make. Changes, you said? So naturally he would turn to you, since you conveyed so much of his other property.’
‘Naturally,’ agreed Agnew, smiling slightly.
‘He must have come to you in the first place as the bedehouse’s man of law.’ Agnew nodded. ‘Perhaps you can tell me about the financial arrangements there. Is the Deacon
in complete control, or is there other supervision?’
‘The Deacon is in control,’ said Agnew, pursing his lips and nodding. ‘I dare say the founder’s family have the final direction of their own donations, but the other
properties are at the Deacon’s disposal entirely, those that are outright gifts.’
Improvident, if true, thought Gil.
‘So he made the most of the opportunity,’ he said aloud.
‘Naturally The very most, indeed.’ Gil raised his eyebrows and Agnew confided, ‘I have sometimes wondered if he was altering the terms of some of the dispositions.’
‘Dear me,’ said Gil. ‘Without your concurrence, I assume.’
‘Oh, I assure you! I would certainly have advised against it if he had consulted me.’
‘How long have you acted for the house?’
‘Ten or twelve years, I suppose.’
‘And how long had Maister Naismith been in place? How did he come by the post?’
‘Four years at Candlemas next,’ said Agnew promptly. ‘As to how he came by it, I can claim no knowledge, but I recall him saying that he had been master of a smaller house at
Irvine before he came to Glasgow. He has – had friends in Lanarkshire, perhaps they knew the founder’s family.’
‘I can check that,’ said Gil, ‘if it becomes relevant. And you said he was planning changes. Are you able to say what they were?’
‘Well, it can do no harm to tell you, I suppose, since it cannot come to pass now. He was hoping to be married, and had great intentions for the bedehouse, and for his property round the
burgh of Glasgow and elsewhere.’ Agnew felt in his sleeve, then looked about him. ‘No, of course, they’re in the tower. I have the notes for the new will I was to draw up for him
in my other tablets.’
‘Had you drawn up the previous will? Did the principal legatee remain the same?’ Gil asked neutrally.
Agnew took another sip of his execrable wine, and considered his answer.
‘No,’ he said at length. ‘The principal legatee was not the same. It was originally – I expect you can guess who it was, I hear you’ve already questioned her. The
new will would have left most of his property, including the house by the Caichpele, to his wife. Contingent on the marriage taking place, of course.’
‘Of course.’ There was a pause. ‘And who was that?’ Gil prompted.
Another sip of the Malvoisie.
‘It was to have been a kinswoman of mine. Widowed, you understand, with a nice little settlement in coin and land. The marriage was in my hands.’
‘Very provident,’ said Gil, wondering how the widow felt. ‘So the Deacon was planning to be married, and wished to rearrange the disposition of his properties,’ he
summarized. ‘I’m sure you’d have wanted to drink a toast to that. Did you discuss anything else? Did it affect the almshouse, or any other individual? Was he making provision for
Mistress Veitch?’
‘Very little, in my view,’ said Agnew, assuming an air of disapproval. ‘And that conditional on the child she’s carrying being a son. No, there was nothing to be writ
down that affected the almshouse.’
‘I see.’ Gil set his glass on the fine rush matting. ‘So this took you an hour or so.’
‘We had to disentangle his ideas somewhat. You know what it can be like.’
Gil nodded. ‘And then?’
‘He left, without saying where he was going. And then I left.’
‘Not together?’
‘No, he was ahead of me, by – oh, not by as much as a quarter-hour. I had papers to straighten, notes to make for this morning. I never saw him alive again.’ Agnew bent his
head and crossed himself.
‘Did it seem as if he was going home, or to meet someone else?’
Agnew looked up in surprise. ‘I never thought of that.’ He considered briefly, gazing at the wriggling vines along the roof-beams. ‘No, I would not say he was going home,
though who he was going to meet I could not speculate.’
‘Did he seem in any way worried? As if there was anything wrong?’
‘No, no,’ Agnew assured him. ‘He was considerably annoyed, for I think –’ He broke off, but then shook his head. ‘It can do him no harm now to divulge these
matters, and may do some good. I got the impression that the former principal legatee, or perhaps her family, had raised objections to his change of plans which the Deacon felt were not justified.
He said that it was his business, and none of theirs.’
Gil nodded, appreciating this version of what Eppie had called a roaring tulzie.
‘Did he feel he had got the better of them in argument?’ he asked. ‘Did he anticipate any kind of retaliation?’
‘Some legal action, you mean?’ said the other man of law. Gil held his peace. ‘None was mentioned, nor any threat of violence. Yes, the Deacon seemed to feel he had got the
best of the discussion. Do you imply that this had some bearing on his death?’
‘I imply nothing,’ Gil said mendaciously. ‘I must ask about everything, because somewhere in his last hours lies the answer.’
‘Ah. Yes, of course.’ Agnew crossed himself again, and took another sip of wine. Gil cleared his throat, and changed the subject slightly.
‘After the Deacon left, you also went out, you said.’ Agnew nodded. ‘Where did you go yourself?’ The other man began to assemble an offended look. ‘I must ask
everyone who saw him,’ Gil pointed out.
‘Oh.’ The expression changed, and Gil realized he knew what was coming next. ‘Well. To tell truth, Maister Cunningham, I was with – I was with a lady.’
‘A lady? Would she be willing to confirm that, if it came to it?’ The expression changed again. No, she would not, Gil deduced. ‘Not publicly, of course,’ he added.
‘We can be discreet about it.’
‘Aye. Very possibly,’ said Agnew, licking his lips. Who on earth was he seeing, Gil wondered.
‘Does that mean,’ he pursued as tactfully as he could, ‘that you wereny home all last night?’ And was the whole of Glasgow lying with a lover, he thought sourly, or just
everyone connected with this death except me?
‘It does,’ agreed Agnew, and licked his lips again, rather anxiously.
‘It must be a worry for you,’ Gil said, to get away from the subject, ‘all this happening at the almshouse. Is your brother secure there?’
‘Not as secure as I would like,’ said Agnew, interpreting the word differently from Gil’s intention. ‘I hope it may not prove to be his doing that the Deacon is dead,
though whether the poor fellow is responsible for his actions is arguable at the least. His mind is
a fugitive and a wanderer upon the earth
, a sad case.’
‘It seems unlikely that it was your brother who killed him,’ said Gil. ‘The signs tell me a different story.’
‘It’s kind of you to reassure me,’ said Agnew, and drained his glass. ‘Now, can I tell you anything else?’
All six of the bedesmen were seated in the pool of candlelight round the fire in the hall, discussing the morning with Maister Millar. Gil stood at the open door for a few
minutes, studying them.
Despite the livery they were far from identical. (But why should they be identical? he thought.) Of the two who used sticks Anselm was frail and scrawny, with his spectacles still sliding off
his nose; Duncan was big and bald and wore that flourishing moustache. There was the stooped Cubby with the trembling-ill, his hand shaking badly as he listened to Millar explaining why they needed
to find the Deacon’s cloak, and Barty with his head cocked anxiously to catch the words. There was Humphrey, with his blank smile. The sixth was another lean white-haired fellow, taller than
the others, who was sitting slightly aloof from the circle and looking on with sour amusement. As Gil watched, this man glanced round, met his eye, and rose and moved stiffly to meet him.
‘
Salve, magister
,’ Gil said, pulling off his hat and bending one knee like a schoolboy.
‘
Salve, puer
,’ returned Maister Veitch.
‘I’m sorry to see you here in this place, maister.’
‘No need, Gibbie, no need. I’ve been well cared for till now, and the danger we were in’s been averted.’
‘What danger, maister?’ said Gil. ‘What can you tell me?’ He looked about him. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk, sir, and I’ll see if Mistress Mudie can give
us –’
‘Sissie has her hands full,’ interrupted Maister Veitch, lifting one of the row of lanterns from the shelf by the door, ‘and I’d as soon no drink anything the now, for
reasons you’ll well understand when you come to be my age, Gibbie. No,’ he went on, opening the lantern, and set light to the candle within from the one set ready on the shelf,
‘come to my lodging out this rain, and you’ll listen to me. You’ll be looking for Naismith’s enemies, I assume? There may be more than you bargained for. Millar’s a
good man, but he’s too much faith in other folk’s goodness.’
‘Is that right, sir?’ said Gil. He followed his old teacher out into the dripping garden. ‘So who would you suggest might have killed him?’
‘Anyone inside these gates, for a start,’ said the old man bluntly, opening his door.
The little house was a commodious place for one person, smaller than the Douglas lodging but significantly bigger than Millar’s chamber above the hall. The outer room contained a chair, a
settle and two stools round an empty hearth, and a small desk for a scholar stood against the opposite wall, with five books on the shelf above it, and an inkstand and a stack of paper lying ready.
The door to the inner chamber stood ajar in the fourth wall.
‘I’ve begun work on that study I always wanted to make,’ said Maister Veitch, and cracked his cloak like a blanket to shake the rain off it, so that the candle flames danced
wildly. Hanging the heavy swathes of cloth on a peg behind the door he bared his head, revealing a thick white thatch receding at the temples, and flourished his velvet bonnet at the settle before
hanging it on another peg. ‘Hae a seat, Gibbie.’