Authors: Pat McIntosh
‘No,’ translated Maister Pringle.
‘Could he have been lying there already when you went to say Prime?’ Gil asked. This time he faced Maister Lennox and spoke slowly.
‘What d’ye say, time? Oh, Prime?’ barked the old man, and shook his head. ‘I wasny that end of the close afore Prime. Duncan, was he there afore Prime? Did ye see
him?’
‘It wis pick-mark, Barty. A’d no ha saa a cast-up whaul.’ Sir Duncan mimed groping his way down the path in darkness. Gil nodded his understanding of this, smiling at him, and
got a huge smile back, visible even under the sloping pent of the grey moustache.
‘No way to tell, afore bird-peep,’ agreed Maister Pringle.
‘None of you heard anything in the night?’ Gil asked, facing Maister Lennox again. The old man shook his head with a sharp yip of laughter.
‘No me, laddie!’ he said.
‘Nobody else?’ Gil looked round the circle.
‘A haard naither eechie nor ochie,’ said Sir Duncan regretfully. ‘Gin A had, A’d a gien him a han at the fellin, faae’er he wis.’
‘Aye, well,’ said Maister Pringle. ‘I did wonder if I heard voices. Murmuring like a doocot it was. But it wasny Naismith I heard, for all I’m near the gate. Next the
Douglas lodging, ye ken,’ he explained to Gil.
‘Likely it was youngsters on the Stablegreen, Cubby,’ said Maister Lennox.
‘In this weather?’ retorted Maister Pringle.
‘If they canny get the privacy at home, a tree’ll do them,’ said Maister Lennox with relish, apparently following this thread quite clearly. ‘It wasny raining
yestreen.’
‘I heard,’ said Anselm, clasping his hands on his stick. ‘I heard him in the night, for he woke me to tell me the man was dead.’
‘When was that?’ Gil asked.
‘Late, late. I was sleeping, and he woke me, so I rose and looked out, but it was a’ dark, save for a star low in the west.’
On a cloudy night? thought Gil. Michael or his lassie? Michael did mention a lantern.
‘And when did you last see Deacon Naismith?’ he asked.
They looked at one another, and Cubby Pringle said in his trembling voice, ‘Yestreen at Vespers, son. We’ve talked about that. He had a word for the whole house, and a strange word
it was, and then we went to say Vespers and after it he gaed out.’
‘When he went out, was he wearing his bedehouse cloak and hat, or another?’
‘Aye,’s muckle bleck hap an’s wellat bunnet wi the fedder intil’t,’ supplied Sir Duncan. His gestures depicted a cloak with a badge like his own and a plumed
bonnet. Gil nodded his understanding.
‘You didny see him return?’ he asked.
‘Na, na, we’d all gone to our rest,’ said Barty
‘And what was the word he had for all of you?’ he asked.
There was a pause, in which the old men looked at one another again.
‘Changes,’ said Cubby Pringle, as Humphrey had done. ‘The meat of the matter,’ he switched to a fluent old-fashioned Latin, ‘was that we were to move out of our
hall, our sub-Deacon and our housekeeper were to be put out as well before the Nativity and make use of two of the empty houses, though none of these are in good repair, and Cecilia our housekeeper
was to be our nurse only and accept a lesser reward for it.’
‘This was the first time you heard this?’ Gil asked.
‘It was. Cecilia asked who would be housekeeper and the Deacon replied, he was to be married and his wife would take all that into her hands.’
‘Married?’ repeated Gil. ‘Did he say who he was to marry?’
‘The Deacon did not tell us,’ said Anselm in Latin.
‘She’ll be a disappointed woman the day,’ commented Cubby in Scots, and Sir Duncan grinned uncharitably under his huge moustache.
‘She’ll be easit, mair belike,’ he said. Anselm gave him a prim smile.
‘And was that all he said?’
‘Was it no enough?’ demanded Barty Lennox in his barking voice. ‘Aye, Cubby’s gied you the sum o’t.’
‘And now he’s dead,’ said Anselm. He looked beyond Gil as the hall door opened. ‘Is that Andro? Is it time to say Nones?’
It was still raining. Gil made his way down the garden with the dog at his heels, and paused to study the yett. Drops of rusty water hung along the horizontals of the
interlaced wrought-iron bands, and shook loose and fell to the threshold stone when he put the key in the lock. It turned readily, and the yett swung open silently on well-greased hinges. Michael
again? he wondered. Socrates, recovering his spirits, leapt past him to attend to his own needs.
The gate led directly out on to the Stablegreen, an open expanse of ground dotted with clumps of bushes and hazel trees. Gil knew it reasonably well, since he often exercised the dog here,
reaching it by way of the muddy vennel which led from Rottenrow nearly opposite his uncle’s house. He stood still, considering what it would be like for Michael’s sweetheart to stand
here in the dark, alone, waiting for her lover to open the gate.
Socrates, having run
ventre à terre
in large circles for several minutes, returned to find his master inspecting the ground beside the wall. He joined in with enthusiasm, but
nothing seemed to catch his attention at first. The earth here was firm, and had not taken clear prints, and the grasses were well trampled where many casual passers-by had come to stare over the
wall. Pushing the dog aside, Gil worked his way along the boundary, and was finally rewarded by the discovery of two small square marks, sharp-edged, the length of a fingernail deep, with muddy
water gathering in them. One was a handspan from the foot of the wall, the other perhaps three-fourths of an ell further out. He searched to either side along the wall, but found no more such
imprints.
Standing up, he looked carefully at the wall which surrounded the bedehouse garden. The angular stones which made up its coping were at shoulder height, convenient to his eye. The rain was
getting heavier, and was now running off the brim of his hat if he tipped his head forward, but the signs he was searching for showed up the more clearly.
He turned and scanned the surrounding area. The trampled grass close by offered little information, but further away there were signs which interested him. Socrates, looking where Gil looked,
put his nose down and set off on a trail just as Maistre Pierre stepped through the gate, clutching his heavy cloak round him.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘what has the dog found?’
‘I suppose the scent of whoever it was brought Naismith here,’ said Gil. His friend raised his eyebrows. ‘Come and look at this.’
The mason came obediently to stretch his neck and study the wet stonework. ‘What am I looking at?’
‘There.’ Gil pointed cautiously. ‘What do you see?’
‘Scratches,’ said Maistre Pierre after a moment. ‘Two or three small scratches and a chip off the stone.’ He cast Gil an interrogative look.
‘I think,’ said Gil, ‘he was put over the wall.’
‘Not through the gate?’
‘Michael tells me the gate was locked. I wondered if that would make a difference, so I looked, and found this.’
‘Go on.’
‘I think these scratches were made by that great bunch of keys he bore, scraping on the stone as he went over.’
‘Ah! And that was when his ear was torn,’ said Maistre Pierre, nodding. ‘It would work, though it does not explain the other marks on his face. But I would not care to lift
such a burden so high myself. One person or more? Do we look for a strong man from a fair?’
‘Perhaps,’ Gil hedged. ‘There are no footprints to show someone was carrying something heavy, but there are these.’ Maistre Pierre looked where he indicated, tested the
depth of the two small square impressions and frowned.
‘A ladder?’ he said. ‘He climbed a ladder, with the corpse? In the dark?’
‘Maybe,’ said Gil. ‘I can only find one set of marks. If it was a folding ladder, the other feet have left no trace.’ He looked round. ‘But if it was a ladder, we
needn’t look for a big man. No more than the middling size. Where is that dog?’
He whistled, and was answered by a peremptory bark from the nearest clump of hazel scrub.
‘He has found something,’ Maistre Pierre suggested.
‘Surely not a squirrel, at this time of year,’ said Gil. ‘He was following a trail. I had better take a look. Do you see, someone has walked from here to those
hazels.’
‘Half the Upper Town has walked here since dawn,’ complained Maistre Pierre.
Moving carefully to one side of the line of bruised grasses, they made their way towards the trees.
‘Will you see Alys again today?’ asked Maistre Pierre casually.
‘If I can,’ said Gil. His friend turned to look at him in the drizzle.
‘She will be herself again once the festivities are over,’ he said reassuringly. ‘She has done this once before, though not so bad, a few years since when we had a feast for my
fortieth name-day. At the feast itself she was the model of a good daughter, in her pearls and her best gown. All will be well.’
‘Yes,’ said Gil. ‘It’s not the feast that troubles me.’
‘That will be well too,’ said Maistre Pierre largely, and gave him a significant grin. ‘She is sufficiently like her mother, God rest her soul, that she will make you a good
wife in all ways. Do not worry, son-in-law.’
‘Everyone keeps telling me that.’
‘They are right.’ The mason clapped him on the shoulder, and Gil grunted in response as they approached the thicket where Socrates’ tail was visible waving under the branches.
The dog threw them a brief look over his shoulder, but turned back to the object which had interested him among the hazel-roots, pawing at the ground round it. The coarse grey hair stood up in a
ridge along his narrow back and his soft ears were pricked intently.
‘Blood,’ said Gil. ‘He has found blood, or else a hedgehog. Good dog, leave!’
‘But no,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘it is something light-coloured. A piece of linen, I think.’
Socrates, recognizing that his master had taken charge of his find, sat back with his tongue hanging out, well pleased with himself. Gil bent over the object.
‘Yes, linen,’ he said. ‘Very wet, but not particularly muddy. It has not been here long.’ He straightened up to look round, and broke off a convenient twig to prod the
cloth with. ‘And yes, I think these are bloodstains. Good dog!’
‘Is it a garment, or part of a garment? A napkin?’
‘It’s hemmed all round.’ Gil turned another fold of the cloth. ‘Neat stitches, too. It’s not napery, it’s a different weave, more like a towel, and far longer
than it is wide. I think it’s a neck-piece. A scarf.’
‘Someone will miss it, in this weather,’ said Maistre Pierre, tugging gloomily at his own where it was wrapped about inside the collar of his cloak to prevent the rain running down
his neck. ‘Whatever is such a thing doing here?’
‘A good question. Don’t move,’ Gil requested. He lifted the wet cloth carefully on his twig and handed it to the other man, then cast about round the spot where the object had
lain. ‘The ground is much damper here than it is by the wall, and the dog was following a trail when he came here. Yes, indeed, there are footprints. A heel here, and there’s a
toe.’ He bent again, pushing the wet stems of the dead grasses aside. ‘Ah!’
‘A complete print?’ said his companion hopefully. ‘Both of them?’
‘Indeed, several, but I think only one person. Come and look.’
The marks were clearly visible, several footprints superimposed as if a man had stood under the trees and shuffled nervously about while waiting for something. One print was distinct on top of
the others, the clear outline of a well-shod foot.
‘Smaller than mine,’ said Gil, comparing his own foot with the print. ‘A good sole, not much worn. Boot or shoe, I wonder? The sole is quite rigid, I suspect a boot.’
‘Not helpful,’ said Maistre Pierre.
‘No.’ Gil looked about him, and back at the gate of the bedehouse. ‘This doesn’t read.’
‘Not read? You mean you cannot make out the prints? They seem clear to me.’
‘Oh, those are easy enough. But what was he doing? He came from the gate, and stood here for a bit –’
‘Dropped this.’
‘– aye, possibly, and then I suppose went back to the gate. Why? These are recent prints, probably made last night. What was so important here that he would tramp about rough ground
by lantern-light? Or even,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘in the dark.’
‘Had he left something here?’
‘No sign of that. And he wasn’t carrying anything heavy. I wish the prints by the gate were clearer. Unless . . .’
‘Unless?’
‘I know someone stood by the gate for a time. And kept hearing things, so I’m told.’
‘Aha! Our man came here to wait for him to leave, you mean?’
‘She didn’t leave, but went in through the gate, in fact,’ Gil replied, sending Maistre Pierre’s eyebrows up into the shadow of his hat. ‘It seems Michael holds the
keys to the gate and the Douglas lodging, and has taken advantage of it. I hope he can keep it quiet from his father.’
‘Indeed,’ said Maistre Pierre disapprovingly. ‘And from her kin, whoever she is.’
‘Or perhaps,’ pursued Gil, ‘our man found Michael’s lass or someone else coming along the vennel behind him, and took refuge here until matters were quiet. But where was
the corpse meantime?’
‘Well, you may ask him when you find him. Now, this cloth. We take it somewhere to dry out? And dry out a little ourselves?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ Gil looked about him. ‘Some of this makes sense, but not all. I need to think it through, and I need to know what you found in the accounts. Shall we put the
keys back in the Douglas lodging and go round to Rottenrow?’
‘We should speak to Millar first.’
The gate locked behind them, Gil followed the dog along the little gravel path to the door of the Douglas lodging. Looking along the row of neat houses in the rain, he saw that this end one was
larger, with carving above the inscribed lintel, an upper floor, and a more elaborate outline to the windows. Socrates pawed at the door, and hurried in ahead of the two men when Gil opened it,
sniffing round the floor with the air of one resuming an interrupted task.
‘Not a bad lodging,’ said Maistre Pierre, looking round with a professional eye. ‘A snug building, indeed, if it is fifty years old. A good plan,’ he added thoughtfully,
‘to endow an almshouse and reserve a place for oneself.’