Authors: Pat McIntosh
‘So it seems,’ agreed Gil with caution.
‘Did the poor soul do away wi himself first,’ Sir Thomas crossed himself at the thought, ‘or did someone else do it for him? And if it was murder, was it this fellow Veitch?
He’s got kin in the bedehouse, hasn’t he, he’d have the run of the place likely.’
‘Humphrey doesny recall,’ said Gil regretfully. ‘He says the last he minds is going to his rest after dinner yesterday. There’s some doubt in my mind whether he hanged
himself or someone else did it for him, and if it was someone else, then it’s surely linked to the Deacon’s death some way. As to the servant in Vicars’ Alley, I need to find out
more.’
‘The Deacon!’ said Sir Thomas. ‘I ken you’re looking into it, Maister Cunningham, but are you anywhere near bringing me a whole tale for the quest on Deacon
Naismith?’
‘I might be,’ said Gil circumspectly.
‘Are they all separate? Two deaths in the bedehouse is bad enough, another in Vicars’ Alley as well is too much to swallow, maister. It wasny this man Veitch killed all three,
then?’ suggested Sir Thomas again, without much hope.
‘Likely not all three,’ said Gil. ‘May I speak to him? I’ve a thing or two to ask him.’
‘Aye, you might as well speak to him. He’s not been questioned yet.’ Sir Thomas rose. ‘Is there anything else you need to tell me?’
‘Not at the moment,’ said Gil, considering the point. ‘I’ve the matting that Agnew’s servant lay on when he died. I’ll get a look at that the morn’s
morn afore the two quests.’
‘What good will that do?’ demanded the Provost.
‘It might tell us how he bled, which of the wounds was the most fatal.’
‘I suppose so.’ Sir Thomas contemplated the idea, and gathered his wine-coloured velvet gown about him. ‘Sooner you than me, laddie. Come down now, and I’ll bid Archie
let you in to see the man Veitch. And then, I suppose, I’ll have to get away back to hear these musicians my wife brought in. Howling like cats, they are, and all in French or some such
tongue. What her ladyship’s thinking o I’ve no idea.’
John Veitch’s clothes were already showing the effects of half a day’s imprisonment. The cell he lay in stank of damp and human waste, and the smell and the green mould clung to his
hose and his brown plaid and short furred gown. His spirit did not appear to be daunted.
‘Aye, Gil,’ he said. ‘I looked for you sooner. What’s ado, then, can you tell me that?’
‘No yet,’ said Gil. He looked about him in the light of the candle Veitch had been allowed, and sat down cautiously on the end of the stone bench. ‘Tell me what happened,
John.’
‘Tellt you that already,’ Veitch pointed out, sitting down likewise. ‘I found the door standing unlatched, so I pushed it open and went in, and found the poor fellow lying in
his blood. Then while I was still trying to see if it was worth calling help to him, his maister came in and set up a cry of Murder.’
‘As soon as he stepped in the door?’ Gil asked. Veitch looked sharply at him, suddenly very like his kinsman in the bedehouse.
‘As soon as he stepped in the door,’ he confirmed. ‘I heard the step on the doorsill, and turned my head, and he took one look and began to shout.’
‘When you got to Vicars’ Alley,’ said Gil after a moment, ‘did you speak to anyone?’
‘Oh, aye. I asked the way a couple of times, never having been there. It’s no easy to find, tucked away at the back of St Mungo’s like that. A woman at the Wyndhead, a fellow
by the Consistory wi a mason’s apron. Then when I found it there was a lad cutting kale or something in one of the wee yards, and he pointed me at the door next to his, which was
Agnew’s.’
Gil nodded. ‘I’ve spoken to the boy cutting kale,’ he said. ‘If we can get him to speak up the morn, he’ll confirm that.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Veitch grimaced. ‘A man can meet his end at any time, I ken that, but I’d as soon no meet mine being hung for a killing I didny
do.’
‘And the man Naismith?’
‘I didny do that neither,’ said Veitch firmly. ‘The last I saw him, he went out my sister’s house in a strunt because she didny take it well that he was to wed and put
her out from under that roof. I never set eyes on him again till he was laid out in the washhouse at St Serf’s.’
‘Would you swear to that?’
‘I would.’
Gil felt in his sleeve and produced the stained linen scarf again. ‘Have you seen this before?’
‘Is that –?’ Veitch took it and turned it round, holding the embroidery to the light. He felt the stitched initials between finger and thumb, and nodded. ‘Aye, it’s
mine. Where’s it been? How’d it get blood on it? It was clean the day I lost it.’
‘When was that?’
‘Same day I last saw Naismith.’ Gil raised his eyebrows at this, and Veitch frowned. ‘It’s a long tale.’
‘I’ve time to listen.’
It seemed to be only half the tale nevertheless. The previous Saturday Veitch had ridden in from Dumbarton where the
Rose of Irvine
was lying, and taken lodgings with the widow in St
Catherine’s Wynd. On Sunday he had traced his sister to the house by the Caichpele, and appeared on her doorstep with gifts to receive a warm welcome from Marion and later a chillier one from
the Deacon when he arrived to eat his supper and deliver his unwelcome news.
‘I judged she deserved better of him,’ said Veitch, indignation still warming his tone, ‘and tried to tell him so, but he wouldny listen to me, called me an ignorant mariner
and accused me of wanting to live off my sister.’ He laughed shortly. ‘If he’d kent what the
Rose’s
last cargo was worth he’d ha sung another tune. So then he
said he wouldny stay there to argue wi me, and he’d no look to find me there when he returned, and he went down the stair and collected up his cloak and hat and left. And I wondered if
he’d lifted my neckie and all,’ he admitted, ‘for I couldny find it when I left the house myself, but searching for the thing by lantern-licht was a fruitless task. So where did
you find it?’
‘On the Stablegreen,’ said Gil.
‘The
Stablegreen
? St Nicholas’ bones, man, how’d it get there?’
‘I’m still trying to find out.’ Gil reached out to take the object back. ‘What did you do after Naismith left the house?’
‘Now I tellt you that already as well. Comforted Marion so far as I might, sang the wee one a song when she was in her cradle, the bonnie wee lass she is,’ an involuntary smile
spread across Veitch’s face, ‘and gaed down the hill to my lodging.’
‘And that would be what time?’
Veitch shook his head. ‘Two-three hour afore midnight, maybe. Time passes different on dry land, somehow.’
‘Did you meet anyone on the way?’
‘Oh, aye. No that it was busy, that time o night, but there was the usual traffic atween taverns, and the odd serving man or maid heading for home, and a pack o merchants’ sons
whooping by the Tolbooth, out for trouble. Oh, aye, and one bonnie lass walking up the High Street. I thought of her when I saw the young callants, but she’d been up by the Bell o’ the
Brae when I saw her, and she’d a man wi her, carrying her box on his shoulders, so I reckoned she’d be safe enough.’
Gil noted this, and set it aside to consider later. ‘And then what did you do?’
‘Went back to the Widow Napier’s house and gaed to my bed.’
Gil tipped his chin back and gave Veitch a challenging stare in the candlelight.
‘Did you so?’ he said.
‘Aye.’
‘That’s not what the Widow Napier said.’
‘Is it not?’
There was a pause, in which the man on guard outside could be heard whistling dolefully. Then Gil said, ‘It’s not what I think either. I think you went to Dumbarton.’ He patted
the sleeve where he had stowed the embroidered linen. ‘I showed this to Marion and she denied knowing what it was, let alone whose, but when your friend Rankin Elder came into the house he
knew it at once for yours, and said you’d missed it already the night you fetched him from Dumbarton.’ Veitch was silent under his gaze. ‘Did you borrow one of the boats down by
Glasgow Brig?’
After a moment the other man grinned, and nodded.
‘If you’ve worked out that much,’ he admitted, ‘there’s no point denying it. Aye, I borrowed one of the fisher-folk’s boaties. Neat wee thing she was, got me
down to Dumbarton afore midnight wi a sail someone had left in St Nicholas’ chapel at the vennel-foot, and the tide was just on the turn by that so we took a couple pair of oars out the
Rose’s
tender and came back up with the flow.’
‘And stowed the oars under the Widow Napier’s bed,’ Gil hazarded, suddenly recalling the bundle of timbers. Veitch nodded. ‘And the reason it was so needful to bring
Elder upriver afore the dawn?’
‘You mean you’ve no worked that out yet?’ said Veitch mockingly
‘To protect your sister, of course,’ returned Gil, ‘but what had you done to make it so urgent?’
Veitch grimaced. ‘Nothing I’d done, Gil, I gie you my word on it. It was the state Marion was in at the thought o being homeless – threatening to do away wi herself at one
point, crying out that she’d sooner be dead than back keeping house for our brother, which I can well understand, and then I put two and two thegither and realized Frankie was never
Naismith’s get. She’s got Marion’s een, but wi that hair and the age she is, she has to be Rankin’s bairn. Now Rankin’s a sight closer to me than my brother William,
we’ve shared a cabin on and off for four year, and he’s never mentioned a bairn. So I gaed down the water to have it out wi him, and as soon’s he heard –’
‘Ah!’ said Gil. ‘Nothing would do but he come up the river to speak to Marion?’
‘That’s it,’ agreed Veitch. ‘As soon as he could get into the house to see her in private, he did, and if we all come out of this wi our heads on, he’ll wed her
within the week. They’ll no want a big occasion,’ he said ironically, ‘no like some.’
Ignoring this, Gil considered the big sailor carefully.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Anything else you want to tell me now?’
‘No that I can think of,’ said Veitch after a moment. He got to his feet as Gil did, and hesitated again. ‘Gil, what’s my chances?’
‘Better than they were afore I came in here,’ suggested Gil. ‘Beyond that, John, I’m no sure. I’ll do what I can. It depends on the assize.’
‘Should it not go to Edinburgh?’
‘You were found wi the corp. Sir Thomas would ha been within his rights to hang you this day.’
Veitch swallowed.
‘Pray for me, Gil,’ he said. ‘And Gil – will you tell my uncle, if nobody’s let him ken afore this?’
Canon Cunningham was seated in his hall, spectacles on his nose, working on a drift of papers by the light of a great branch of candles. Socrates was sprawled at his feet. They
both looked up when Gil came in, and the dog leapt up to greet him. The Official marked his place with one long forefinger, and said, ‘Aye, Gilbert. And where are you at now wi all this? Is
that right what Maggie tells me about the bedehouse?’
‘It depends what she told you, sir,’ said Gil, replacing his hat and acknowledging his dog’s welcome. He sat down, craning his neck to see the superscription on the documents,
and Socrates leaned against his knee. ‘Is this the Murray perjury case you were talking about?’
‘It is. Maggie said one of the brethren was raised up in his shroud and going about doing miracles. Seems hard to credit in Glasgow.’
‘I wouldny put it that strong, sir. It’s the one who was mad. We certainly thought he was dead yesterday – Pierre said he could hear no heartbeat – and today he woke and
is as clear-headed as any in the burgh.’
‘Well, well.’ His uncle removed his spectacles and polished the lenses on his sleeve. ‘Both risen and cured? How did he die?’
‘By hanging.’ Gil grimaced. ‘It was me that cut him down.’
‘Ah.’ Canon Cunningham closed his eyes and tipped his head back. ‘There was a man in Edinburgh, in ’79 I believe it was, hanged for stabbing his son’s schoolmaster
afore witnesses, but breathed again afore he could be buried. And another at Perth, in James First’s time.’ He opened his eyes and looked at Gil.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Gil agreed.
‘I’m glad to hear it. Now what of the other matter? You said little enough at supper but I think there’s been another death?’
‘Aye, and John Veitch taken for it.’
Gil recounted the events in Vicars’ Alley. His uncle listened attentively but, somewhat to his disappointment, when he had finished only said, ‘Clear enough. You’ll present
this at the quest, o course.’
‘Aye, and so much depends on the assize,’ said Gil.
‘Tommy Stewart’s no fool,’ said Canon Cunningham. ‘Now away up and deal wi your youngest sister.’
‘Deal wi her?’ repeated Gil. ‘Surely it’s for my mother to chastise her? I’d not wish to usurp that.’
Their eyes met. The Official’s long mouth quirked, but he nodded solemnly.
‘That’s a true word, but you’re the head of the family, Gilbert.’
‘Not you, sir?’
‘No me. She’s expressed a bonnie contrition, though I doubt whether her confessor would be convinced by it, and she’s had my forgiveness, but that’s all I’ll take
to do wi the matter, Gilbert. Dorothea tells me you demanded money off James Douglas.’
‘It was the first thing I could think of,’ Gil confessed.
His uncle nodded. ‘A good notion, for all that. Dorothea says it made him think.’
‘It stopped him roaring.’
‘I’m glad I wasny present,’ said David Cunningham, then, while Gil was still taking in this admission, ‘Away and speak to your sister. She asked me to say she wished a
word wi you.’
‘And I’ve a thing or two to ask her,’ Gil admitted, getting to his feet. Socrates, sprawled by the brazier again, raised his head to watch him, but went back to sleep when he
showed no sign of leaving the house.
Tib was seated by a small brazier in the bedchamber where their mother would sleep when she arrived, reading in a prayer book by the light of two candles. When Gil came into
the room she put the book aside gratefully.
‘I’m trying to be good,’ she said, ‘but it’s no easy. My uncle was saying I should seek confession, but how can you be contrite about something you don’t
regret, Gil?’