The Counterfeit Madam

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘John,’ said his wife, putting a hand on his arm. ‘If it’s a matter for the law, I’ve no complaint, though I’ll not deny the time could be better chosen. Is it about my godmother, sir? Have you discerned who it was,’ she bit her lip, ‘that killed her?’

  The servants had been sent home, Lowrie and Philip Sempill had made signed depositions and left reluctantly, the boy Berthold, asleep on his feet, had been tucked in a corner of the guardroom despite Alys’s objections. Otter-burn wanted him handy, he said. And four men-at-arms had been despatched to escort Sempill of Muirend and his wife to the Castle, and not to take any refusal.

  Gil, watching from the window space, could not decide how much either of them understood of Sempill’s position. Three candles in the pricket-stand beside Otterburn’s desk did not show their expressions clearly, but Lady Magdalen certainly seemed ignorant of wrongdoing, merely puzzled. He looked down at Alys, and found her watching intently despite her weariness. Socrates was sprawled across her feet, snoring.

  ‘Aye, well,’ said Otterburn. ‘I’m tellt you’d likely prefer to be turned out your bed the night rather than the morn, what wi the morn being the Sabbath.’

  Ah ah! thought Gil. So Otterburn has got there too, has he?

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Sempill said quickly.

  ‘John.’ Lady Magdalen turned to the Provost. ‘Any day’s right for God’s work, and surely finding the truth is aye God’s work? May we no sit down, sir?’

  ‘Aye, get on wi’t,’ said Sempill. ‘I want my bed. I’ve had a long ride the day.’

  ‘So has my wife, John,’ said Gil, ‘and a fight wi a dangerous man forbye, while you stood and watched.’

  ‘You can keep out o this,’ snarled Sempill over his wife’s shocked exclamation. ‘If the pair o ye’d kept yir noses out fro the start it would ha been easier!’

  ‘Very likely,’ said Gil, ‘but would it ha been honest?’

  Otterburn cleared his throat significantly.

  ‘We’ll all be seated, if you please,’ he said firmly, ‘and we’ve a few things to discuss. Maister Cunningham, will you begin?’

  Gil drew his stool forward so he could see all four faces in the candlelight. Sempill was scowling, Lady Magdalen wore her usual calm smile, Otterburn and Alys were both watching him with care. He marshalled the facts in his head and began.

  ‘On Wednesday evening, John, you had a word wi Dame Isabella at her window. You were heard,’ he forestalled interruption, ‘after she’d kept you waiting, and then refused to see you. What was it she ordered you to do?’

  ‘None o your mind,’ retorted Sempill.

  ‘On Wednesday evening?’ queried Lady Magdalen. ‘No, no, you said you never had a word wi her, John.’

  ‘Aye, well,’ he said uncomfortably, ‘she wouldny see me alone, dismissed me like a groom, and after I’d waited as long. Was it those sleekit servants?’ he demanded of Gil. ‘Sneaking about listening in corners?’

  ‘By what I’m tellt,’ said Gil, amused, ‘there was no need for that. The whole of the Drygate might ha heard you. She gave you an order, and you said you’d see her in Hell afore you did that. What did she say then, John? Will we hear it?’

  Sempill opened his mouth to answer, closed it and stared at him, cornered and baffled.

  ‘Did she bid you,’ Gil chose his words with care, ‘have no more to do wi the Ballencleroch toft? The one that holds Clachan of Campsie and the glen?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Sempill in relief. ‘That was it.’

  ‘The one you thought was mine, John?’ said Lady Magdalen. ‘Well, that was right. There was no need for you to be concerned wi that toft, unless she was to give it to me.’

  ‘That’s true,’ agreed Gil. ‘So what were you doing out there?’

  ‘That’s my business,’ said Sempill, with more confidence.

  ‘No, John, let us know,’ prompted Lady Magdalen. ‘Were you dealing wi the factor and so forth? Was that it?’

  ‘There’s no factor,’ said Gil. ‘He’s been collecting the rents, and taking an interest, haven’t you, John.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Well, if that’s all—’

  ‘And he put the miners into the glen.’

  ‘Miners?’ Lady Magdalen looked from Gil to her husband, the dark woollen veil sliding over her shoulders as she turned her head. ‘Surely no, maister, there’s no mining in Strathblane. It’s no coal country.’

  ‘Not coal,’ said Gil, watching Sempill. ‘It’s silver, as my wife worked out, and there were three men working it. A nice wee vein, the boy tells us, and should last another year or so.’

  ‘Silver?’ Lady Magdalen repeated in astonishment.

  ‘Nothing to do wi me,’ said Sempill defiantly.

  I never met so many liars in the one case, Gil thought. All along, folk have not merely concealed things, they’ve lied outright.

  ‘Silver,’ repeated Lady Magdalen. ‘I canny believe it, sir. Has it gone to the Crown, as it ought? You’d see to that, would you no, John?’

  ‘Well, I would have done,’ said Sempill unconvincingly, ‘but I never had the chance.’

  ‘How was that?’ Gil asked. ‘What prevented you?’

  ‘Surely, all you had to do was send to the Treasurer,’ Lady Magdalen said. ‘That’s no hard task, John. I could have writ the letter, if you wanted.’

  ‘The old – the old – Dame Isabella,’ Sempill burst out. ‘She wouldny let me! She insisted – she’s been buying it off me! It was all to come down here, and I never had the least notion what she was doing wi’t.’

  And if you believe that, thought Gil, you’ll believe anything. Aloud he said,

  ‘So the silver was worked up in Strathblane, and run into ingots, or bars, or what you call them, and brought down to Glasgow. Was it Neil Campbell and his brother that fetched it?’

  ‘Aye, damn you!’ said Sempill grudgingly. His wife sat back, looking at him reproachfully. ‘If you’ve nosed out that much, why do you need to ask me?’

  Gil thought about the rest of the detail Berthold had given them. It had been the angry man who had brought his father and uncle to Scotland, and put them in that narrow valley and told them to keep the local folk away. Well, miners were used to that attitude, so they had used the tricks they always had, which had worked. The man who fetched the silver had brought them meal, which they had disliked, and onions and cheese. They had spoken to nobody else. Nothing to unsettle Sempill there.

  ‘What happened to it next?’ he asked instead. ‘Where did the Campbell brothers take it to?’

  ‘Oh, that was all the old dame’s concern,’ said Sempill loftily. ‘None o my mind, so I got paid for it.’

  ‘What, you just let it out o your hands?’ Sempill nodded. ‘Well, well. So on Wednesday evening Dame Isabella ordered you to have no more to do wi the toft that holds the mine.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’ Lady Magdalen asked in puzzlement. Sempill glowered, but Alys looked up and caught Gil’s eye.

  ‘Dame Isabella had just learned that there was a confusion,’ she pointed out. ‘The toft with the mine on it was hers, not Lady Magdalen’s.’ Or possibly Archie Livingstone’s, Gil thought, but did not say. ‘She had been buying silver which was her own.’

  ‘Did she ask for her money back, John?’ Gil asked in some amusement.

  ‘Aye, she did, the auld—’ Sempill bit off the next word as his wife laid a hand on his sleeve. ‘I told her I’d see her in Hell first, and I meant it.’

  ‘Did you now,’ said Otterburn. Sempill looked at him in alarm, and then at Lady Magdalen’s dismayed expression.

  ‘Here – no, no, I didny mean it like that!’

  ‘You’ve just said you did,’ said Gil.

  ‘Aye, but I wouldny – I didny—’

  ‘John.’

  He stopped, looked at the pale hand on his arm, and covered it with his own, met his wife’s gaze. She said earnestly,

  ‘John, tell me you didny kill my godmoth
er.’

  ‘I didny kill her,’ he said obediently. ‘I swear it on—µ’ Her hand twitched, and he bit his lip. ‘I mean, my word on it, Maidie.’

  She put her other hand on top of his.

  ‘That’s enough for me. But we need to find out who did, so he gets time to repent. You’ll tell Maister Gil all he needs to hear, won’t you, John?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said reluctantly.

  Lady Magdalen smiled at him, nodded at Gil, and sat back, one hand still on Sempill’s arm. Gil, wondering whether he would know if Alys managed him in such an obvious way, said,

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Do?’ Sempill stared at him. ‘Nothing. Went home to my bed.’

  ‘About the silver,’ Gil said. ‘The next morning, the Thursday, you were from home when I came looking for you. You came in about Terce, I’d say. Where had you been?’

  ‘Out looking for you,’ said Sempill boldly. ‘I tellt you that, I mind.’

  ‘And I’d said I’d meet you at the house. No, by what I hear you were down at Clerk’s Land, John.’

  ‘If you ken that, why’d you ask me? You hear a curst sight too much,’ Sempill added. ‘I was looking for you there, thought you might be spying round the place.’

  ‘You were speaking to Campbell and Saunders,’ Gil corrected him. ‘Letting them know there would be no more silver, no more of the old dame’s scheme. What was the scheme, John?’

  ‘Scheme?’ Lady Magdalen asked. ‘What was happening to the silver? Do you know, John?’

  He threw her a hunted look.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I – I wasny in it, once she’d paid me for the silver. I’ve no idea what she was at.’

  ‘You knew enough to tell the Clerk’s Land folk,’ said Gil.

  ‘Aye, well, I kent that was where Neil took the stuff. Seemed only civil to let them hear it was all at an end.’

  Gil, setting aside the combination of John Sempill and the word ‘civil’ for later contemplation, looked at Otter-burn and said,

  ‘Then we come to the Clerk’s Land folk.’

  ‘Aye.’ Otterburn grunted. ‘All in it thegither, save for the lorimer. And maybe Danny Sproat’s donkey,’ he considered. ‘Two hammermen and an image-maker, and their friend Miller the knife man from the Gallowgate.’

  Sempill sat motionless.

  ‘After you left the toft,’ Gil resumed, ‘Campbell sent one of the Saunders children down to summon Miller up there, and passed the word to him. The pair of them decided to go and have it out wi Dame Isabella, and went off down the Drygate. Dame Isabella looked out from her window and saw them approaching, and she ordered her woman to give her the purse of blue velvet and leave her.’ Lady Magdalen’s pale eyes were fixed on his face, her lips parted. She must have been fond of the old woman, he thought, or is she feart I’ll prove John killed her after all? ‘The woman got no sight of the two men, she only saw a stranger leaving by the gate a few minutes later. Nobody else was seen about the place. But when they next went in to Dame Isabella she was dead.’

  Lady Magdalen bent her head, and her lips moved silently. After a moment she said,

  ‘So is it one of these men, Campbell or Miller, that killed her? Where is the blue purse, sir? Is it found?’

  Straight to the point, he thought.

  ‘We found it in Miller’s possession,’ said Alys. ‘It seems likely she gave him it. One of them must have kept her talking while the other went round into the house and into her chamber.’ She leaned forward to touch Lady Magdalen’s free hand. The dog raised his head, then went back to sleep. ‘I’m sorry. It’s a great loss to you, I understand that.’

  ‘My thanks,’ said the other woman with a tremulous smile. ‘But has neither o them confessed?’

  Sempill glared at Alys, patted his wife’s shoulder awkwardly, and said,

  ‘Aye, you need to put them to the question, they’ll confess soon enough if you go about it right.’

  ‘They will the morn,’ said Otterburn confidently. ‘Either or both. Now, can one o you set light on a subject that’s troubling me? Why in the name o Christ and all His saints would a woman in her position be sending false coin out to the Isles?’

  ‘What?’ Sempill jerked upright. ‘To the Isles? Why in the Deil’s name?’

  ‘John.’

  ‘Aye, but what’s the point o that? You tellt me she was daft for John o the Isles,’ he recalled, scowling at her, ‘more sense surely to send it to him and let him pay for his escape if he wants to. No that he’s worth it,’ he added, ‘a burnt stock that one if ever I seen one.’

  Of course, thought Gil, John of the Isles is pensioned at Paisley Abbey, not so far from Muirend.

  ‘It’s changing the balance of the region,’ he said. ‘It’s altering matters like who has more men, more ships, more importance. There’s been enough arguing since Earl John was dispossessed, if it comes to war out there, no knowing who’ll come out victorious.’

  ‘She knew him,’ said Lady Magdalen suddenly, in a faint voice. ‘Forgive me, maisters, this has been a great shock to me.’

  ‘You should lie down,’ said Sempill. ‘You should be home in your bed, no sitting here till all hours answering daft questions. We’ll be away, Otterburn—’

  ‘No yet,’ said Otterburn, quite mildly, but Sempill sat down again. ‘She knew him, you say, madam?’

  ‘She once tellt me.’ She put a hand to her brow. ‘I canny mind right. She must ha known Thomas Livingstone, that’s her last husband, sir, when they were all young, for she spoke o his sister, that was wedded to John of the Isles. They’d been good friends, I think.’

  ‘Dame Isabella and the Livingstone lady were friends?’ Gil interpreted, untangling this. She nodded.

  ‘And ever since, she’d had a great regard for him, by the way she spoke. So maybe, maybe,’ she bit her lip, ‘it doesny maybe make sense, but I wonder.’

  ‘You wonder if she wished to destabilize the Isles,’ Alys supplied. ‘Perhaps even hoping that John might get back to his possessions.’

  ‘Aye,’ she said gratefully. ‘It sounds right daft, when you put it like that, but she was, she was, she was aye one wi her own—’

  ‘She was a steering auld ettercap,’ said Sempill forcefully, ‘and I’ll no forgive her for putting you through all this.’

  Gil met Alys’s glance, but kept his face straight.

  ‘Well,’ said Otterburn. ‘I can see we’ve a lot to think on, all o us present. I think I’ll ask you to take Lady Magdalen home to her bed, Sempill, but first,’ he went on, ignoring Sempill’s expostulations, ‘I’ll have you swear, and I’ll have your word, madam, no to depart fro Glasgow till I give you leave.’

  ‘I’ll come and go as I please!’ exploded Sempill, ‘and no Archbishop’s placeman’s going to—’

  ‘John.’ Lady Magdalen turned her weary face to Otter-burn. ‘Sir, you may have my word on that, and gladly, but why?’

  Could she possibly be as obtuse as she appeared, Gil wondered. Otterburn appeared to think the same, for he looked hard at her, and then said,

  ‘I need your man where I can put my hand on him. There’s been silver mining without informing the Crown, there’s been shipping the metal about the realm, there’s been supplying counterfeit coiners, there’s been offering comfort to the King’s enemies—’

  ‘I never!’ burst out Sempill. ‘I never did any o that, all I did was let the old dame have the stuff, it’s none o my blame what she did wi it!’

  ‘John.’

  ‘You might,’ continued Otterburn, ‘get off wi a great fine, but that’s no for me to decide. So I need you where the justiciars can see you, man. Will you swear, or will you spend the night below here along wi the man Miller?’

  ‘Your word, John,’ Lady Magdalen prompted gently. He threw her a sulky look and mumbled something. Otter-burn, clearly deciding to make do with what he could get, nodded and rose to his feet.

  ‘I’ll get a couple o the men to see you home,’ he said
. ‘And my thanks, madam.’

  ‘I’m feared I canny return the compliment, Provost,’ she said. ‘You’ve left me wi a deal to think about, and the most o it unwelcome. But I’m grateful that you’ve uncovered the reasons for my godmother’s death, you can believe that.’ She held out her hand to Sempill, and he leapt up hastily to assist her to her feet. ‘Bid you good night, Alys, maisters.’

  At the foot of the stair, watching the other couple disappear under the gatehouse arch with two sleepy men-at-arms behind them, Gil remarked,

  ‘D’you think they’ll sleep, either of them?’

  ‘He’s got a curtain lecture like none other waiting for him, I’d say,’ said Otterburn. ‘What a woman. But you’re right, maister, she’ll no want to come before the justiciars, they’ll discern more than she’d wish for.’

  ‘She makes no attempt to conceal it,’ said Alys, leaning against Gil. He looked down at her, full of pride and a sudden compunction. Socrates yawned hugely beside her.

  ‘I ought to take you home,’ he said. ‘I should never have let you stay the now.’

  ‘I wanted to stay,’ she pointed out.

  ‘No, no, it was a good help having her here,’ said Otterburn, ‘but you should get her home to her bed now. I dare say the two of you have as much to talk o as that pair that’s just left. I’ll get a couple more men out to get you down the High Street.’

  ‘We’ll manage fine,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve the woman that took the man Miller to protect me, after all.’

  Out in the silent street, making their way round to the High Cross, Alys said,

  ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘Do?’ he said, startled. ‘I’ve a disposition to scribe for Monday, likely I can get time at that tomorrow.’

  ‘No, now.’

  ‘Get you to bed, madam wife. You can tell me in the morning how you guessed it was a silver mine in Strathblane.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  He finally recognized the drift of her questions. ‘Why, what do you want to do?’

  ‘I thought,’ she said diffidently, ‘that Madam Xanthe might wish to know what happened today.’

  ‘Madam Xanthe?’ He stopped, and swung her round, holding the lantern higher to see her face. The dog came back from his scrutiny of the Girth Cross, looking up at them curiously. ‘Are you sending me out to the whorehouse, after a day like this?’