A Masterly Murder хмб-6

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ said Michael wearily. ‘I had not thought of that.’

  ‘I will enlist the help of Father William, if I can persuade him to leave his friary,’ said Suttone with a somewhat wicked grin. ‘He will not allow any unseemly debauchery.’

  ‘He still has not returned?’ asked Bartholomew.

  Suttone shook his head. ‘According to Paul, he remains afraid of being accused of Runham’s murder. Still, perhaps the notion of students enjoying some refreshment without the benefit of his censuring eye will entice him out. I will send Deynman with a message urging him to come back.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Michael.

  Suttone looked concerned. ‘But you should rest, Brother, to ensure you do not suffer another bout of your recent illness. Your room is ruined, but you are welcome to use mine.’

  ‘You are most kind,’ said Michael, touched. ‘But the empty servants’ quarters will serve me for tonight.’ He watched Suttone hurry across the yard, calling for Deynman. ‘He is a good man, Matt. I wish there were more like him in Michaelhouse.’

  ‘Perhaps Paul will come back now that Runham is dead,’ suggested Bartholomew. ‘And at least Kenyngham will not leave for a while yet.’

  ‘I do not like that Clippesby,’ said Michael, turning to look at the Dominican, who seemed to be having a discussion with a bucket of mortar. ‘I am not sure he is sane. With scholars, it is sometimes difficult to tell, since academic eccentricity is often very close to plain old lunacy. But I need time to think, away from this place. How do I look? Am I too dusty to be seen in public?’

  ‘It is dark, Brother,’ said Bartholomew. ‘No one will notice.’

  Michael brushed himself down. ‘Lend me one of your cloaks – the good one, not that tatty thing with the moth-holes in it. And let us go forth to see what fare is on offer at the Brazen George tonight.’

  As usual, the Brazen George offered a good many things that a man of Michael’s ample girth would have been wise to avoid. There was chicken baked in goose fat, sweet pastries swimming in a sickly sauce and saffron bread served with plenty of butter. Ignoring Bartholomew’s warning that such rich food would not be good for a man so soon out of his sickbed, Michael ordered it all, and settled down comfortably to enjoy it with his knife and horn spoon held like weapons and his face wearing a beam of pure contentment.

  ‘All we need to make the evening complete are a couple of ladies to keep us company,’ he said, smiling at Bartholomew, who was regarding the repast with the trepidation of a man too used to plain College food. ‘Perhaps we could send for Matilde.’

  ‘We are breaking the University’s rules just by being in a tavern after dark,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘It would probably be prudent not to make matters worse by fraternising with prostitutes.’

  ‘I am the Senior Proctor,’ said Michael, taking a healthy mouthful of chicken. ‘I can fraternise with whomever I like – on University business, of course.’

  They were sitting in a small chamber at the back of the tavern, which the innkeeper reserved for people who did not want to drink – or be seen drinking – with the rabble. It was a pleasant room, with its own fire. Its walls were colourfully and tastefully decorated with paintings, and there were clean, sweet-smelling rushes on the floor. Michael and Bartholomew had used it many times, and the monk did sufficient business in the Brazen George to ensure that it was his any time he requested it.

  ‘Well, Matt, that was an unpleasant accident,’ said Michael, taking another large mouthful of chicken and following it with a huge slurp of wine. He began to choke.

  ‘Eat slowly, Brother,’ said Bartholomew automatically, slapping the fat monk on the back. ‘If it was an accident. I am not so sure about that.’

  ‘What?’ gasped Michael, eyes watering. ‘Of course it was an accident. You heard what Langelee said. We all knew that Runham was forcing the pace of the building work too hard, and that corners were being cut. It all boils down to cheap materials, careless work and bad luck.’

  Bartholomew shook his head. ‘Those two scholars I almost caught sneaking out of Michaelhouse just before the collapse might have been the same two we saw the night Runham was elected. Remember what we considered then? That the Widow’s Wine may have been specially provided, so that those two could enter the College to do something while everyone was too intoxicated to notice?’

  ‘But we did not know what that “something” could be,’ Michael pointed out.

  ‘That is irrelevant,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The point is that they could be the same pair as the ones I encountered tonight. I think it is too much of a coincidence that the scaffolding collapsed the instant they were making their way out of College.’

  ‘Coincidences do occur, you know.’

  ‘But if their intentions were innocent, why did they run when I tried to speak to them?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘If they had nothing to hide, it would not have been necessary to make an escape.’

  ‘It depends on who they were,’ said Michael. ‘I occasionally have meetings with people who would rather their identities were not made known to the world at large. Why do you think I am so efficient at solving crimes?’

  ‘But you are a proctor,’ said Bartholomew. ‘People have good reason to be telling you secrets. None of the other Fellows should need to have furtive guests in their quarters. Perhaps it was Simeon and Osmun from Bene’t that I saw; Langelee said they had been to visit him shortly before the building collapsed.’

  ‘If they were visiting Langelee innocently – and the fact that he mentioned them to you suggests they were – they would have no reason to hide their identities from you as they walked out.’ Michael had almost finished the chicken, and all that remained was a growing heap of gnawed bones. He turned his attention to the bread and pastries.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But I am still certain that it was no accident that the scaffolding fell.’

  ‘If you are right, Matt, that means one of two things. Either someone – the scholars of Bene’t, for example – wants the building work at Michaelhouse to suffer a serious setback for some reason. Or someone intended another person harm.’

  ‘Who would induce that kind of dislike?’ asked Bartholomew.

  Michael chewed his bread thoughtfully. ‘Well, since it was my room that was demolished, I think we must suppose that I was the intended victim.’

  ‘You? But why?’

  ‘I imagine because I have a fabulous reputation for solving murders, and someone is worried that I might uncover who did away with our much-beloved Master Runham.’

  ‘A Michaelhouse scholar?’ asked Bartholomew, after a moment. He closed his eyes. ‘Not again, Brother! It is bad enough that someone murdered Runham, but that the killer is also prepared to strike at you so that his crime goes undetected is much worse – it is premeditated and deliberate.’

  ‘Do not be so ready to jump to conclusions,’ said Michael. ‘Personally, I think you are wrong about the scaffolding. I think it was coincidence that it fell just as you were wrestling a couple of visitors to the ground, and I think it was chance that my room happened to be the one that was worst affected. But I do think that the two hooded men you attacked tonight were probably up to no good, and I suspect it was somehow connected to the other pair you challenged last week.’

  ‘Something to do with Runham?’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Michael.

  Bartholomew sighed. ‘Another coincidence in all this, if I am right about the scaffolding and the whole thing was an attempt on your life, is that it is odd that the last time the mysterious pair were seen emerging from the College was the night you became ill.’

  Michael raised sardonic eyebrows. ‘But you said it was the insect bite that made me unwell. Are you now suggesting someone hired a bee to act as an agent to kill me? How was it paid? In honey?’

  ‘I am merely mentioning that I think it is odd that those two appear both times your life has been in danger recently.’

  Michael sel
ected a pastry and deigned to humour him. ‘So are you certain it was the bee sting that made me ill, and not something else – something slipped into my food or drink, perhaps?’

  ‘No, the infection in your arm caused the problem. It …’

  With sudden clarity, Bartholomew remembered the salve he had used to relieve the intense itching in Michael’s arm – the salve that was missing from his bag by the time he needed it to heal the rat bite in the riverman’s leg a couple of days later. Had someone tampered with it, replacing the healing balm with something sinister? Was that why Michael’s wound had festered? It was too ludicrous to imagine. How could anyone know which salve Bartholomew would use on Michael? But the answer to that was clear: it was a standard cure and instructions for its use were written on the jar.

  Bartholomew told Michael what he had reasoned, but the monk shook his head impatiently. ‘No, Matt. You have let Runham’s accusations about me being poisoned unsettle you. The fact is that you told me not to scratch that sting, and I did not listen. My resulting illness was my own fault – although I will never admit that to anyone else.’

  He reached out and selected one of the sweet pastries, swallowing half of it in a single bite. Bartholomew was still uncertain. ‘Then what happened to the salve afterwards? Who took it?’

  ‘No one took it, Matt. You probably lost it – or Gray or Bulbeck borrowed it and forgot to replace it.’ He shoved the second half of the cake in his mouth. ‘This is good. You should try some.’

  Absently, Bartholomew took a pastry and ate it, while he tried to think of a reason why two men might enter the College – at least twice now – and decline to allow their identities to be made known. Nothing came to mind, and he turned his thoughts to his conversation with Adela. He outlined what she had told him, adding that Matilde remained insistent there was some link between the gossiping Patrick and the equally loose-tongued Wymundham, while Michael ate the last of the food.

  ‘That is very interesting, Matt. It was good of Adela to put self-preservation second to seeing justice done. Her information helps me a good deal.’

  ‘It does?’ asked Bartholomew, sipping the mulled ale that he had allowed to grow cold.

  ‘It tells me that the Bene’t scholars know more than they have revealed about Wymundham’s death – it seems reasonable to assume that the leg was his – and it might even tell me who killed Brother Patrick. I feared that case might prove impossible to solve, but now I have a clue.’

  ‘You think Heltisle and his colleagues killed Wymundham in Holy Trinity Church? And that Brother Patrick saw the murder, and that he was stabbed to ensure his silence?’ asked Bartholomew, thinking Michael’s deductions from Adela’s revelations sounded just as far-fetched as his own musings about Michaelhouse’s two intruders.

  ‘That is about the size of it. It fits what we already know. Shortly after Raysoun’s death, you saw Wymundham slip into Holy Trinity Church. You said he was moving furtively, as though he did not want to be seen. I suspect one of his colleagues had lured him to that meeting, perhaps claiming to be me wanting to know what Raysoun had whispered with his dying breath.’

  ‘And then, when he arrived, he found a deputation from Bene’t awaiting him, and they smothered him in the church?’ asked Bartholomew uncertainly. ‘I do not know, Brother. It was a weekday, and Holy Trinity stands on the Market Square. It is scarcely a secluded spot for a murder.’

  ‘But Wymundham would not have gone to a secluded spot,’ argued Michael. ‘The man was not a fool, and he was already burdened with anxiety about the secrets he wanted to tell you, but did not. Holy Trinity would have been perfect – public enough to make him feel safe, but far enough from Bene’t so that he would not associate a summons there with his murdered colleague.’

  ‘But it was a poor choice as far as the killer was concerned,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘Both Brother Patrick and Adela probably saw what happened.’

  ‘The door should have been barred,’ agreed Michael. ‘But I doubt there was time to arrange a murder too carefully. Raysoun was already dead, possibly stabbed then pushed, and Wymundham was on the verge of exposing his College’s misdemeanours. You cannot expect any plan developed in so short a time to be perfect.’

  ‘But then what happened?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Wymundham was killed in the church, and then what? How did his body end up in Horwoode’s garden?’

  ‘Holy Trinity is not far from the King’s Ditch,’ said Michael. ‘In fact, all that separates the two is a patch of scrub that would be easy to traverse with a small, light body like Wymundham’s. I imagine it was then loaded on to a boat and dumped off at a conveniently isolated place.’

  ‘Do you think the choice of Horwoode’s garden was random, then?’ asked Bartholomew.

  Michael shrugged. ‘I have no idea. It is a desolate spot – despite the fact that Horwoode said he likes to stroll there – and so would suit our killer’s purpose very well. No murderer wants to travel far with the body of his victim in a boat.’

  ‘But why kill Patrick and not Adela?’ asked Bartholomew, still not understanding all the twists and turns. ‘It seems to me that they saw the same thing.’

  ‘Perhaps Patrick caught him actually suffocating Wymundham – heard gasps and saw someone holding a pillow,’ Michael said. ‘Adela saw nothing but a leg, and the scholars probably thought that she did not even see that. Besides, it would have been easy to murder Patrick. Friars are always killing each other, especially the Franciscans and Dominicans, and the unwitnessed death of yet another in the grounds of his own hostel would not raise – has not raised – too many eyebrows.’

  ‘But the murder of a merchant’s daughter would attract a lot more attention.’

  ‘Quite. And anyway, Adela kept silent about what she had seen, so they probably assumed – wrongly as it happened – that she had witnessed nothing incriminating.’

  ‘And it probably was Wymundham’s body she glimpsed,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I never saw his legs, but he was a slim man with fair hair. The leg Adela says she spotted was thin and covered in goldish hairs.’

  Michael raised his eyebrows. ‘That is uncommonly observant of her.’

  ‘She seems to like looking at legs,’ said Bartholomew. ‘A conversation with her seldom passes without a comment on some man’s limbs.’

  ‘Our path is clear,’ said Michael, wiping his greasy fingers on the hem of Bartholomew’s cloak. ‘Tomorrow I will visit our friends in Bene’t and see whether I can frighten them into telling me more about Wymundham’s death. And perhaps I will also ask them if they have been creeping around Michaelhouse recently wearing hooded cloaks, just to please you. But there is something I want to do first.’

  ‘What?’ asked Bartholomew, picking up the shabbier of his two cloaks, and swinging it round his shoulders. Something dropped from it to the floor.

  ‘An apple pie!’ exclaimed Michael, pouncing on it.

  ‘I bought it for you yesterday,’ said Bartholomew, taking the broken pastry from him. ‘But you will not be wanting it now that you have eaten. It will be stale, anyway.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Michael, taking it back and secreting it in his scrip for later. ‘It was a very kind thought, and I would never offend you by declining such a gift. There will be too many people around tonight, after the collapse of that scaffolding, but tomorrow, after everyone has gone to bed, I would like you to come with me to Master Runham’s room.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew nervously.

  ‘Because that is where he died, and that is where we will find any clues to help us discover who killed him. If the murderer left a single thread of evidence, you and I must find it.’

  The window shutters were closed in Runham’s room, and nothing had been damaged when the scaffolding had fallen the previous evening. The sill lay under a thick layer of dust, and there was a fine smattering of powder all across the room where it had billowed through the gaps in the wood, but apart from that, the room was exactly as it had been when
Runham’s body had been discovered.

  Runham himself lay in a fine coffin in St Michael’s Church, where students had been bribed, threatened and cajoled into taking turns to keep a vigil. He was due to be buried in three days, and his will had stipulated that the occasion should be a suitably grand one. When Kenyngham had read Runham’s demands for his own requiem at dinner that evening, even he had been unable to silence the amused catcalls and derisive hoots of the students as the full glory of the ceremonies that were to take place were unveiled.

  Michael had chuckled unpleasantly, remarking several times that Runham would go to the next world as he had lived in this one – full of sham grandeur and without a soul who genuinely liked him. Bartholomew was astonished that the dead Master had the money to pay for such an event, and could only suppose that handsome funerals and tombs were something for which his family had a penchant. He was relieved that he had not been given the responsibility for arranging matters, as he had with Wilson, but was dismayed to learn that Runham had selected himself a spot in the chancel of St Michael’s Church where his own monstrous mausoleum would outshine even that of his cousin.

  Teaching had finished early because of the workmen’s noise, and Bartholomew had spent the rest of the day with various patients. He was even able to find a few moments to stop off at Stanmore’s business premises in Milne Street and eat one of his sister’s excellent cakes. Edith assured him that the hunt for a suitable wife was proceeding apace, and that he should keep the following Sunday free for socialising. She brushed aside his anxious objections, and merely informed him that it would be safer to leave Michaelhouse as soon as he could, given the number of murders that occurred in University circles.

  On his way home he had met Matilde, who told him that the case against Robin of Grantchester had been dismissed, because it could not be proven that the surgeon had deliberately tried to kill the man whose leg he had amputated. Bartholomew was relieved, not liking the notion that every unsuccessful outcome should end in the courts. He walked back to Michaelhouse feeling more cheerful, particularly since he had noticed that Matilde wore a green ribbon in her hair.