Authors: Pat McIntosh
‘You make it very clear,’ said Maistre Pierre. Alys reached for the plate of cakes and offered it to Gil.
‘You think it was not the man himself who was heard in his lodging,’ she said. ‘So who was it? And why?’
‘One of those who killed him, one assumes,’ said her father.
‘But who?’ she persisted. ‘Who is most likely?’
‘A good question,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘Gilbert, of those we know, who had the means to kill him?’
‘Virtually all.’
‘We need only one. Take the woman first, the mistress. Could she have killed her lover? She has reason, God knows it.’
‘Naismith broke his news, and there was an argument, but he left the house after it,’ said Gil thoughtfully, ‘we have witnesses to that.’
The mason waved his empty glass in one large hand. ‘Perhaps she went out later and waited for him to leave the Consistory tower.’
‘You saw her, Gil. Could she have done that?’ asked Alys. ‘Waiting alone in the dark for the right person to come along, so that she could stab him?’ She shivered.
‘She’s a timid soul,’ Gil said, and thought of Michael’s leman, waiting in the dark for a different reason. He put his arm round Alys’s waist. She clasped his hand,
fingers moving in a quick, private caress, and shifted it to her shoulder. What did that mean, he wondered, tightening his grasp obediently.
‘Her brother!’ suggested Maistre Pierre. ‘He could have knifed the man, whether in St Mungo’s Yard or in the street.’
‘Or they both did, together – you said there were two opponents.’
‘That’s possible,’ agreed Gil. ‘And then they hid the body as we thought happened, and put him over the wall later. And a man like John Veitch could have carried the
Deacon without trouble, alone or with –’
‘Ah! And while he did that, she went into the bedehouse in her lover’s cloak –’
‘Why?’ said Alys. ‘What is the benefit?’
‘To cover up the time or the place where he was killed. To make it seem he was killed inside the bedehouse instead of outside.’
‘I would certainly prefer it,’ said Maistre Pierre plaintively, leaning forward with the jug of wine to refill Gil’s glass, ‘if it were not Naismith who came home to the
bedehouse last night. Experience tells me he was dead long before the footsteps were heard.’
Alys nodded.
‘It can’t have been Naismith,’ Gil agreed. He pulled a face. ‘There are tales – McIan the harper could tell you some – of people who were seen and heard after
they were dead, but I think Our Lord was the only one who appeared after he was dead and consumed a meal.’
‘And we are not told that He slept in His bed,’ said Alys.
‘If that is what happened – the body over the wall, someone else in the Deacon’s lodging – it didn’t only disguise the time and place of death. It also got the
impostor time with the accounts,’ Gil said thoughtfully, ‘which had certainly been searched, by what Millar says. I wonder what he – or she – was looking for? And of course
once Millar had come in, the outer gate was locked as well as the door between the courtyards, so the impostor was trapped, even if he had originally intended to leave.’
‘Whoever it was took a risk,’ observed Alys. ‘The body might have been found before he could get away.’
‘He would have heard the outcry and had time to hide somewhere about the place. The chapel, for instance. I suspect he did not remove his boots, whoever he was. Anyway, John Veitch claims
he slept in his own bed last night. I’ve still to go down and find this Widow Napier he’s lodging with,’ Gil admitted. ‘And his boots are bigger than the prints we found in
the clump of trees.’
Alys turned her head to look at Gil from within the circle of his arm.
‘And the man of law,’ she said. ‘He thinks it was his brother who killed the man.’
‘He’s worrying about very little, I should say. The brother is certainly mad, and it seems he can be violent,
so vexis him the thoghtful maladie
, but if Millar is to be
believed, the door was locked between the Deacon’s lodging and the bedesmen’s houses. And Mistress Mudie corroborates that,’ Gil added. ‘Mind you, she would certainly lie to
protect Humphrey.’
‘It is possible,’ said Alys, ‘surely even if she was not lying? If it was indeed Deacon Naismith in his lodging when the light was seen, he might have come down into the garden
later, locking the door behind him. You said his keys were with him.’
‘His keys,’ agreed Gil, ‘but no lantern. It was cloudy last night, the moon would give no light –’
‘Perhaps he had one, but whoever killed him took it,’ suggested Alys.
‘That would mean,’ he said glumly, ‘that anyone in the bedehouse could have killed him. Even Mistress Mudie had good reason. Those receipts in Naismith’s purse were hers,
Pierre, family remedies that the Deacon forced her to reveal, and it’s clear enough from what Maister Veitch tells me that any of the brothers might have had a reason, as well.’
‘But Naismith did not die where he was found,’ Maistre Pierre reminded him. ‘We thought it was not in the garden.’
‘We don’t know where he died. We don’t know for certain that he was put over the wall,’ Gil admitted. ‘The marks we found are circumstantial, no more. The dog found
nothing to interest him in the little houses, but he’s no lymer, he doesn’t hunt by scent. It would help if we could find the Deacon’s cloak and hat.’
‘Hmm,’ said the mason. ‘We keep coming back to it – both Mistress Mudie and Millar maintain there was someone in Naismith’s lodging by ten o’clock last night.
She heard footsteps, he saw a light.’
‘If she was lying,’ said Gil, ‘he might simply agree with her, for whatever reason – being sure she was right, or some such thing. Or perhaps she had gone up herself and
lit the candle and eaten the dole, so that Millar did see a light.’
‘And rearranged the accounts?’ said Alys. ‘Can she read? Oh, yes,’ she recollected, ‘you said the receipts were hers.’
‘Or did Millar himself go up there?’ suggested Maistre Pierre. ‘Is it the woman who is agreeing because she is sure he is right? I am not convinced she is capable of lying, her
tongue runs too freely.’
‘If Millar had rearranged the accounts,’ said Gil thoughtfully, ‘he had no need to tell us they were in disorder. We would never have known it. I’m inclined to think he
was telling the truth – that he went straight to his own chamber when he came into the bedehouse.’
‘What about the kitchen hands?’ said Alys. ‘Do they live in? Have you spoken to them?’
‘Ah!’ said Gil. ‘Another thing to do tomorrow.’
‘Meantime,’ said Maistre Pierre, nodding agreement, ‘if we accept this evidence, we have someone in the Deacon’s lodging last night. We also have an extra figure at the
morning Mass.’ He cocked an eyebrow at Gil. ‘Was it real, or was it spectral?’
‘Oh, aye, if it was real, easiest by far to assume those are the same person. But if we do, we must assume neither was the Deacon, because he was certainly dead long before Prime, and
possibly dead before Mistress Mudie first heard footsteps overhead.’
‘I should have said ten to fourteen hours before I saw him, though I cannot be certain.’
‘That would be, I suppose between seven and eleven last night,’ Gil reckoned. ‘We know he was alive about half an hour after seven, when he left the house by the Caichpele, and
if it was not Naismith that Sissie heard we can probably assume he was dead by ten. That fits.’
‘How accurate do you think her sense of time is?’ asked Alys.
‘I don’t know about that, but she did say she heard someone moving about over her head after Millar had come in,’ Gil supplied. ‘Millar’s story is clear enough
– and Patey Coventry confirmed it for me just now.’
‘Ah,’ said Maistre Pierre in disappointment. ‘That certainly discounts my next idea.’
‘What, that one of the brothers leapt up that stair and stabbed him before the door was locked, then carried him down into the garden without Sissie noticing? I thought of that too, but
there was no sign of a fight, let alone a death, in Naismith’s lodging. In any case it wouldny account for the extra figure at Mass, and nor would the idea that he was killed in the garden or
in one of the wee houses. We would have to accept that what Lowrie saw was – not real. No, the only way it works is for the man last night to be the same as the man this morning.’
‘Man or woman,’ Alys put in.
‘As we said,’ Gil agreed. ‘Marion Veitch is as tall as Dorothea. Hidden in a great cloak and a hat, she could be taken for a man.’
‘While her brother dealt with the body, as we surmised,’ said Maistre Pierre.
‘Aye, that would work, but who minded the bairn if she was out of the house overnight? I’m not convinced Eppie could lie for her mistress, she talks too much, like Sissie Mudie, and
the man Danny certainly wouldn’t.’
‘I could get a word with the painter’s man,’ suggested Alys. ‘He will have spoken to his cousin this evening. Along with the whole town,’ she added, her quick smile
flickering.
‘I’ve spoken to her already,’ said Gil. ‘I encountered her on her way home, and convoyed her down the road.’
‘Oho!’ said Maistre Pierre, grinning again. ‘Yet another lady! And only – how many days is it to the wedding?’
‘What did she say?’ asked Alys. Gil bent his head to rub his cheek on her hair, and she nestled in against him.
‘She confirmed some of Marion’s story,’ he admitted, ‘if only by hearsay, for she says she was earlier leaving the house last night than tonight. But she said something
odd.’
‘What was that?’ Alys prompted him after a moment.
‘She seemed quite certain the house was being watched this evening.’
‘Watched? You mean someone standing out in the cold,’ Alys began, and faltered as she saw the parallel.
‘Waiting alone in the dark for the right person to come along,’ agreed Gil.
‘Did she see the watcher?’ demanded Maistre Pierre.
‘A big man with a black beard. But you’re here, so she must have been imagining it,’ said Gil, at which his friend grinned absently and stroked the beard, considering.
‘There are not so many black beards in Glasgow,’ he commented. ‘Most Scotsmen go shaven like you.’
‘Save the Earl of Douglas, and he is fair,’ amended Alys absently. ‘I wonder if she really saw anyone. You know what servant lassies are like, if anything goes wrong in the
household.’
‘They see bogles behind every bush,’ agreed Gil. ‘This one seems less silly than most.’ He paused, as something else came back to him. ‘Now, I wonder what that
was?’ Alys looked up at him questioningly. ‘She repeated Eppie’s account of the quarrel last night, with a little more. It seems John Veitch claimed Naismith owed his sister for
her maidenhead, and Naismith made some sort of reply which Bel refused to tell me. Claimed she had forgotten.’
‘Something to her mistress’s discredit? Does she like her place there?’ asked Alys shrewdly.
‘I’d say so. I wonder if it concerned Frankie’s parentage.’
‘I’ll talk to the painter’s man,’ she said decisively.
‘The jug is empty,’ said Maistre Pierre, peering into it. ‘I think we must send you home, Gilbert. There is much to do in the morning.’
Eating her porridge in the candlelight before dawn, Tib seemed much more inclined to be friendly. She had greeted Gil civilly with an account of how Maggie’s share of the
kitchen work for the feasting had progressed. Unused to lively conversation at this hour, he responded with encouraging monosyllables while he ate.
‘Are you still chasing after the man at the bedehouse?’ she asked at length.
‘I’ll chase after him till I find who killed him,’ said Gil, and put his empty bowl down for the dog.
‘So you’ll be there again all day? What must you do there?’
‘This morning, for certain,’ he agreed with caution. What had changed her tune, he wondered.
As if she had heard his thought, she said lightly, ‘I’d like to know about it. It’s what you do for your office, after all, and there’s no other office like it that I
ever heard of.’
‘I’ll ask questions,’ he supplied, ‘as I did most of yesterday. I’ll get another look at the dead man, since he’s likely softened and been stripped by now,
and set someone to hunt for ladders in the Chanonry, fruitless though that’s like to be. As Tam said, near every house must have one at least. And I’ll go over the accounts.’
‘Oh, accounts.’ She pulled a face. ‘Why?’
‘I think the reason he was killed may be hid in there.’
‘Oh,’ she said again, and then, ‘How? Accounts are just accounts, surely?’
‘They tell where the money is,’ said Gil, ‘and where it came from.’
‘I suppose so,’ she said, scraping her own bowl. ‘Who have you to ask questions of?’
‘The kitchen hands, for a start.’
‘Can I come too? I could do that for you.’
He looked at her, startled. ‘Can Maggie not do with your help here?’
She opened her mouth on a sharp answer and visibly thought better of it.
‘I’d like to help you,’ she offered winningly. ‘You’ll want to get this out the way before your wedding.’
His objection crystallized, and he realized it was unworthy. It should be Alys who helped him, as she had done before, not this vixen of a sister.
‘What do you want to ask the kitchen folk? Who is there? Any good-looking laddies?’ she asked, with irony.
‘Just the one, and he reminds me of wee William here.’ She pulled a face. ‘Tib, if you’re serious, it would be a help. Just be sure Maggie doesn’t need
you.’
‘I can make shift without her,’ said Maggie, stumping into the hall as he spoke. ‘Are ye done with they bowls yet? Aye, I see you,’ she added to Socrates, who had come to
wag his tail at her.
‘Maggie, have you a moment?’ said Gil quickly, as something leapt into his mind. ‘You ken all there is about the doings of the Chanonry, you’re the likeliest to tell me.
Does Maister Thomas Agnew have a mistress anywhere?’
‘Agnew?’ She paused, a wooden porringer in each hand, to consider this. ‘No that I’ve heard. His man would be more like to tell you, that’s Hob Watson that dwells
on the Drygate.’ She frowned, and set one dish inside the other to carry them out. ‘I’ll ask the men. Tam might ken something.’