The Merchant of Death

by Paul Doherty

  ‘I can guarantee that,’ Standon said. ‘When I broke the door down, the key was still in the lock, the bolts were pulled across and there wasn’t any sign of violence in the room.’ He stared at Vavasour for confirmation.

  Sir Gervase spoke up, thoroughly enjoying Kathryn’s bemusement. ‘No one went into that room last night. I was in my chamber till well after midnight. I heard no sound outside nor did Erpingham’s door creak.’ The old man twirled his moustache. ‘In fact, I heard no sound at all. Silent as the grave.’ He chuckled sourly. ‘There again, I now understand why.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’ Colum asked.

  ‘As God made little apples,’ the old knight trumpeted.

  ‘I can vouch for the same,’ Standon said. ‘Admittedly, I was at the foot of the stairs but I heard no commotion or fracas.’

  ‘This is impossible.’ Colum got to his feet, his face grey with exhaustion. ‘How could a man in a locked, barred room be poisoned, have his gold taken, yet there’s no sign of forced entry or how the murderer left?’

  Kathryn stared round the close-set faces of the guests. She studied their faces for any glimmer of guilt; they gazed back expectantly as if this was some sort of game or troubadour’s puzzle.

  ‘Mistress Swinbrooke,’ Luberon said, eager to help. ‘Could the poison have been administered some other way? A tainted napkin or poison on the sheets?’

  Kathryn shook her head. ‘No, I examined the chamber carefully.’

  She turned and stared into the flames of the fire, keeping her back to the rest of the tavern’s guests to hide the hopelessness in her face. She glanced across at Colum who seemed equally dispirited and her heart lurched with compassion. It would be tempting, she reflected, to leave this, claim it was a mystery and go back to Ottemelle Lane. However, after Christmas, the King’s pursuivants would arrive or, even worse, the royal Justices. They would ask what Colum had done and why the King’s taxes had been so easily stolen?

  ‘Is it possible,’ Luberon wondered, ‘that the poison was in some food or wine left in Sir Reginald’s chamber?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Vavasour said. ‘First, when we entered there this morning, we found no trace of food or drink, apart from the goblet and that was untainted.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Father Ealdred asked. ‘How do we know Sir Reginald didn’t eat something before he came to dinner?’

  ‘How long did the supper take?’ Kathryn asked.

  ‘About an hour and a half,’ Father Ealdred replied.

  ‘Belladonna acts quickly,’ Kathryn declared. ‘Really no more than twenty minutes.’

  ‘And I was with Sir Reginald.’ Vavasour sprang to his feet as if suddenly remembering something, one bony finger pointed to the rafters. ‘I was with Sir Reginald in his chamber before dinner. We checked on the taxes and the saddlebags were full. I did not see Sir Reginald eat or drink anything.’

  ‘And everyone attended the banquet?’ Colum asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Sir Gervase replied. ‘No one left except the landlord and his wife, who rose now and again to supervise the scullions and servants in the kitchen.’

  Kathryn glanced across at the landlord. ‘Master Smithler, we have taken up your time and that of your guests for far too long. However, Master Murtagh and I need to question each person separately. Is it possible’ – she pointed to the window seat where the guests had first sat – ‘for us to sit over there?’

  Smithler shrugged. ‘If it’s necessary and the King’s business, then it has to be done.’

  Kathryn smiled around at the rest of the group. ‘I am sorry to trespass even further on your time but the weather is inclement and no one is travelling far.’

  ‘Nor will anyone else,’ Colum said firmly. ‘As of this day, no one in this tavern has permission to leave Canterbury under pain of arrest.’ He raised one hand to quell the hubbub. ‘You are now the King’s guests whether you like it or not. The usual claims can be presented to the Exchequer: money honestly spent will be honestly refunded.’ He stared out through the window. ‘Which is no great loss, as my good physician has declared; the weather is inclement and the roads are frozen.’ He tapped the hilt of his sword warningly. ‘On no account must anyone leave.’

  Colum looked so threatening, his voice dark and sombre, no one dared to protest. Blanche Smithler filled their cups with hippocras. Kathryn and Colum went across and sat in the window seat, grateful to be away from the roaring heat of the fire.

  ‘Colum, you look exhausted,’ Kathryn murmured.

  ‘I feel I could sleep for a month and a day,’ the Irishman sighed. He sipped from the steaming cup. ‘And this is the devil’s own puzzle.’

  Kathryn stared across where the guests were now clustered together, talking softly amongst themselves.

  ‘One of them is a murderer,’ she whispered. ‘One, two or possibly all of them.’ She closed her eyes and recalled the grey, red-blotched corpse lying stark beneath the sheets in that dreadful chamber. ‘If I wasn’t so tired . . .’ she began.

  ‘You’d what?’ Colum teased.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Kathryn breathed a sigh. ‘I feel uneasy, Irishman.’ She smoothed the front of her dress. ‘It’s hard to grasp. It’s like that game when you try to pluck something slippery from a tub of water. Your eyes are blindfolded and you splash around but never grasp it.’

  Kathryn stared through the mullioned window at the carpet of snow which stretched through the tavern gate and across the trackway to the open fields.

  ‘There’s some bond,’ Kathryn continued, keeping her face away from the taproom. ‘Some sort of conspiracy among the guests. Don’t you find it strange, Colum, how they all seem to know Erpingham? Yet not one of them, even though he has been foully murdered, has a good word to say for him.’

  Colum touched her knee gently. ‘Kathryn, don’t you think we should bring Luberon into this? He’s looking as if he has lost a pound and found a shilling.’

  Kathryn turned and smilingly beckoned the little clerk over. Luberon was sitting in a chair away from the guests, staring reproachfully across at them, and the way he waddled over to them so quickly and so cheerfully reminded Kathryn of a puppy she’d once owned. He pulled a stool over and sat next to Kathryn, perched above him on the window seat.

  ‘What do you think, most subtle of clerks?’ Kathryn teased.

  ‘You were summoned to the tavern this morning,’ Colum said. ‘You saw the chamber?’

  ‘Aye,’ Luberon replied. ‘Standon was on guard outside. Mistress Swinbrooke, I assure you of this. I examined that room very carefully: nothing had been tampered with when I returned with you.’

  ‘I accept that,’ Kathryn replied. ‘I also know the claret left in Erpingham’s cup had been there for some time: dust from the room had mingled with it.’

  ‘What about the ghost?’ Colum asked.

  ‘A phantasm,’ Kathryn replied. ‘Sir Reginald was no angel and, even though he had a stone for a heart, ghosts lurk in everybody’s soul. Perhaps it was a feeling of guilt or some nightmare from his past. Master Luberon’ – she glanced at the clerk – ‘all the guests seem to know, as well as hate, Erpingham.’

  ‘Well, he was a tax collector,’ Luberon observed. ‘Show me a popular tax collector, Mistress Swinbrooke, and I’ll replace the stolen money myself. Don’t forget, they are all Kentish-born, as was Erpingham. He’d be well known to them.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ Colum said. ‘Let us begin.’

  ‘Wait!’ Kathryn warned. ‘Are we sure about that chamber? Simon here has just said that all our guests are Kentish-born and they regularly come here.’ She started as a rat suddenly appeared from under the boards beneath the window seat and scurried across the rushes, before disappearing into the gloomy corner next to the hearth.

  ‘I intend to leave no stone unturned,’ Colum said. ‘I’ll scour that chamber from ceiling to floor. If there’s a secret passageway I’ll discover it.’

  ‘The ghost?’ Luberon intervened. ‘Could it hav
e been man-made? Perhaps an attempt to frighten Erpingham to death?’

  ‘For the moment,’ Kathryn answered, ‘let’s deal with the living.’ She raised her voice. ‘Sir Gervase, if you would be so kind as to join us.’

  The old knight, his ridiculous sword in its battered scabbard held before him, marched purposefully across, snapping his fingers at Smithler to fetch a chair. The landlord brought one over, slammed it down and stamped off. The old knight lowered himself gently into it, still grasping his sword by the cross hilt as if it were some staff of office.

  ‘Sir Gervase,’ Kathryn began, kicking Colum gently on his ankle to keep him awake. ‘Why are you here at the Wicker Man? You hold lands . . .?’

  ‘Near Islip,’ Sir Gervase bellowed. ‘A moated manor house with barns, granges, plough and pasture lands.’

  ‘So, why come to Canterbury?’ Kathryn asked.

  ‘To pray before the Blessed Martyr’s bones!’ Sir Gervase trumpeted. He leaned forward, lowering his voice. ‘I am one of them, you know.’

  ‘One of what?’ Colum asked.

  ‘One of the murderers,’ Sir Gervase whispered conspiratorially.

  ‘You mean Erpingham?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, man!’ Sir Gervase tapped his sword on the floor. ‘I am a descendant of one of those knights who murdered Becket. My mother was a de Broc, you know, Becket’s most ardent enemy. So, every year, around Christmas, the time of Blessed Thomas’s death, I make my own small pilgrimage. I stay at the Wicker Man; Smithler doesn’t like me and I don’t like him but it’s a good tavern. The beds are clean, the fleas are banished and the rats know their place. Not like in France. Lord, Mistress, I could tell you tales –’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Kathryn tactfully interrupted. ‘And you knew Sir Reginald?’

  The old knight’s genial face became hard, lips curling in a snarl. ‘Knew him? Yes, I knew him!’ he hissed. ‘And I’m glad, do you know that, Mistress? I am glad the wicked bastard is dead!’

  Chapter 4

  Surprised at the venom in the old man’s voice, Colum asked, ‘Are you saying that you wanted Erpingham dead?’

  ‘Don’t put words in my mouth, Irishman,’ Sir Gervase snarled, banging his sword on the floor. ‘All I am saying is that I am glad he received his just deserts, both in this life and the next.’

  ‘Why?’ Colum asked.

  ‘He was as hard as flint, cold as ice. He neither feared God nor man. Above all, he was a thief.’

  ‘What proof do you have of this?’ Kathryn asked.

  Sir Gervase’s eyes slid away. ‘Gossip, whispering in the corners.’

  Kathryn touched the old man gently on his hand.

  ‘You are wise,’ she flattered him. ‘And shrewd, Sir Gervase. There’s more, isn’t there?’

  Mollified and flattered by Kathryn’s concern, the old man smiled.

  ‘He was a lecher. God help the poor widow who couldn’t pay some impost or tariff. Erpingham would ask her to pay it in kind. He seemed to enjoy baiting and blackmailing some pretty, defenceless woman.’

  ‘And then he’d pay the levy for her?’ Kathryn asked.

  ‘Show me a poor tax collector,’ Sir Gervase replied.

  ‘Why didn’t you confront him with this?’ she asked.

  ‘Erpingham was a lawyer, he trained at the Inns of Court. You’ve heard the story, Mistress Swinbrooke?’

  Kathryn shook her head.

  ‘Once the devil saw a lawyer kill a viper outside a stable; the devil grinned because it reminded him of Cain killing Abel.’

  ‘You don’t like lawyers?’ Colum asked.

  ‘Aye, I don’t like lawyers but I hated Erpingham. If I’d had the proof I’d have complained direct to the King’s chamber at Westminster.’

  ‘Yes, yet you comforted him when he suffered the nightmare?’

  ‘Oh, I gave him a cup of claret,’ Percy replied. He leaned closer, his face now ugly with hate. ‘But I did enjoy seeing him suffer.’

  ‘And his death?’ Colum persisted.

  Sir Gervase held his sword up by the cross hilt.

  ‘I swear by all that is holy, I wished him dead but his blood is not on my hands!’

  Kathryn heard a movement across the taproom: she glimpsed Vavasour slipping up the stairs and realised abruptly what was missing.

  ‘Master Vavasour,’ she called. ‘Please don’t go upstairs!’

  The little clerk shuffled back down, his face crestfallen, shoulders sagging. Colum caught the warning in Kathryn’s voice. He stood up and walked over to the group of travellers.

  ‘You are to stay down here!’ he ordered. He looked over his shoulder. ‘Master Luberon, of your kindness, please guard the chamber.’

  Colum walked back towards the window seat.

  ‘Are you finished with me?’ the old knight asked; he smiled apologetically at Kathryn. ‘Mistress Swinbrooke, excuse my bad manners, my lack of charity and heartlessness, but I couldn’t abide the sight of that tax collector!’

  ‘Did you have dealings with him?’ Kathryn asked.

  Sir Gervase’s head went back. ‘Good Lord, woman, no! My bailiffs and stewards dealt with the likes of Erpingham though they informed me about the gossip from the villages.’

  ‘And the night Erpingham died?’

  ‘Mistress, I have told you all that I know. No one went near Erpingham’s chamber.’

  Kathryn thanked him and beckoned Vavasour and Standon across as the old knight, apparently relieved, slipped away to join the rest.

  The clerk sat down on the stool Luberon had vacated, Standon next to him.

  ‘Where were you going, Master Vavasour?’ Kathryn asked sweetly.

  The little man tried to clean a food stain from his threadbare hose.

  ‘Mistress Swinbrooke asked you a question,’ Colum insisted.

  ‘I asked,’ Kathryn continued, watching Vavasour squirm in embarrassment, ‘because there is something missing, isn’t there?’ She leaned closer. Vavasour glanced up, licking his thin lips as he tried to control his panic. At first he had been terrified of the dark-visaged Irishman with his hooded eyes, swarthy face and tousled hair. Vavasour had moved amongst soldiers too often not to recognise a professional killer, but this woman physician frightened him even more. She, with her clear grey eyes, smooth skin and sweet face, was as sharp as a razor.

  ‘I know why you were going up there,’ Kathryn said. ‘And I shall tell you, Master Vavasour. Here is Sir Reginald Erpingham, a knight of the shire, a lawyer, a tax collector, a man of wealth and substance. However, apart from his clothes and the saddlebags which contained the King’s silver, where are the rest of his possessions? Surely he would travel in more comfort and luxury? Where is the pomander he’d hold against his nose when he had to talk to some sweat-soaked steward or mud-covered bailiff? Where’s his change of clothes, boots, personal monies and documents? All we’ve seen are the clothes Erpingham wore the evening he died!’ She squeezed Colum’s wrist. ‘Master Murtagh, if you would be so kind, go up to the chamber and bring down the dead man’s clothes, particularly his belt and wallet.’

  Colum obeyed. Kathryn stared out of the window, humming a tune. For the first time since she had come to this dreadful inn, she felt a small glow of pleasure: the same elation as when she treated a patient and discovered the cause of some mysterious ailment. Colum came thundering back down the stairs; across one shoulder were the saddlebags, Erpingham’s clothes slung over the other.

  ‘Master Luberon sends you his compliments.’ He grinned at Kathryn. ‘And asks you not to be too long. I have asked him to search for any hidden door or secret passageway.’

  Colum put the clothes down in front of Kathryn. She picked up the fine linen shirt, the pure leather jerkin with its wool lining, a pair of quilted riding gloves and thick woollen hose. Thrust down one long riding boot, Kathryn found Sir Reginald’s belt, wallet and, in the other boot, a long Welsh stabbing knife in a decorated scabbard. Kathryn scrutinised the lining of the belt, undid the buckle str
ap on the wallet and drew out a number of coins and three large keys tied together with twine. She held these up.

  ‘Well, well,’ she murmured. ‘Are you going to tell me, Master Vavasour, why these are so important that you were stealing back to your dead master’s chamber to collect them?’

  Vavasour was now quivering with fright; even his wispy hair seemed to be standing up in terror. He opened and closed his mouth, swallowed and blinked so furiously that, had it been any other occasion, Kathryn would have burst out laughing.

  ‘I know nothing of this,’ Standon growled, shuffling his boots.

  ‘No, but Master Vavasour does,’ Kathryn declared. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, man, don’t be so frightened! You were going to steal these keys. Why? Or shall I tell you? Sir Reginald, I suspect, rented a house here in Canterbury. When he visited the city he would sometimes stay there, wouldn’t he? Keeping a change of clothing, valuable items and God knows what else? Am I right, Master clerk?’