[Roger the Chapman 02] - The Plymouth Cloak (18 page)

I slowly descended the stairs and walked down to the river bank to think. I seated myself on a boulder at the Tamar's edge and listened to the water gently lapping over the stones, one of the most restful sounds in the world. There were few flowers about at that time of year, but the smooth broad leaves of marsh marigold showed in dark shiny patches among the grasses, and the thin spidery stems of lady's smock waved at their reflections in the river. I put my elbows on my knees and rested my chin in my cupped hands, trying to sort out my ideas. Supposing I was wrong, and Jeremiah Fletcher - if that were indeed his name - had murdered Philip, by what means was he able to lure him from the house in the middle of the night? Philip was no fool and had been, moreover, aware of his peril at the hands of someone who wished to take his life. No message, however cunningly phrased, would have persuaded him to such an act of folly.

Philip had gone of his own free will to the assignation which had led to his death.

It seemed to me that as far as Jeremiah Fletcher was concerned, I had a number of choices. Firstly, he and the gentleman of Buckfast Abbey were two different people, but that, I felt, was unlikely. The landlord's description of his guest fitted too well with my own recollections. Secondly, he was the same man, but an innocent traveller going about his lawful pursuits. He had finished his business in Tavistock, where he had informed me he was bound, and ridden on towards Launceston. But Tavistock, by my reckoning, lay a good few miles north of Trenowth on the other side of the Tamar. To get here would have sent him back on his tracks and brought him well out of his way. It made no sense and I therefore dismissed the notion. My third choice, having established his intention to kill Philip, was that Jeremiah Fletcher had gone out last night with no other end in view than to reconnoitre the ground, but had fortuitously stumbled upon his quarry waiting for another person. The unexpectedness of the encounter would account for the clumsy killing which had necessitated the employment of both knife and cudgel And my last choice was that Jeremiah Fletcher had been a secret witness to Philip's murder at hands other than his own. He had then left the inn at first light this morning, but stayed in the vicinity to ransack my room.

I rose to my feet and went back to the inn. The landlord was fortunately still alone, sweeping the ale-room floor. He looked none too pleased to see me again.

'What now?' he demanded peevishly.

'Two things, if you will. Did this Jeremiah Fletcher say where he had come from or how long he would be staying?' The landlord shook his head. "Fraid I can't help you there,' he said with satisfaction. But as I turned to go with a civil word of thanks for all his trouble, he relented. 'He did mention he'd spent the previous night as a guest of the Canons at St Germans.'

Another lie, I thought. I was certain by now that Philip and I had been followed to and from Plymouth in spite of all the care we had taken. That shadow I had seen on the clifftop, while waiting on the Cornish side of the ferry, had been no trick of my imagination after all. And only a short time after Philip and I arrived at Trenowth Manor, Jeremiah Fletcher had presented himself at the inn. It made good sense and also convinced me that the two previous attempts on Philip's life had been the work of our assassin. But although the will had been there, I was still not sure that in the end Jeremiah Fletcher had actually done the deed.

The sun was riding towards its zenith by the time I returned to the house for dinner. My stomach had long since told me it was time to eat, and the delicious smells wafting out of the kitchen almost made me drool with hunger. When I entered, Janet Overy and Alwyn the steward were already presiding over a full table, round which were gathered Isobel and Edgar Warden as well as Silas Bywater and the rest of the servants. No one's desire for food seemed to have been affected by the day's tragedy, and if I had hoped to detect any signs of guilt by loss of appetite I was doomed to disappointment.

'You're late, lad,' the housekeeper chided as I took my place next to Silas. 'But I've kept your dinner hot for you over the brazier.' She addressed one of the kitchen-maids at the lower end of the table. 'Get Master Chapman his food and look sharp about it!'

The girl hurried to fetch my dinner of rabbit, roasted over the fire with onions and peppercorns and flavoured with thyme and rosemary. For several minutes I could attend to nothing and nobody until I had assuaged the pangs of hunger. By the time I was once more aware of what was going on around me, I had nearly emptied my plate.

'Where have you been all morning?' Silas Bywater hissed in my ear. 'You know they won't let us leave here until the Sheriffs officer has been? Not without setting the hue and cry after us, at any rate.'

I swallowed the last spoonful of rabbit and looked round at him curiously. 'Why? Do you want to?'

'Of course I do,' he snapped. 'And so would you if you'd any sense. No one wants to be mixed up with the law.

Besides, there may be work waiting for me. If there's to be an invasion of St Michael's Mount, ship's masters will be needed.'

'You should have thought of that before you came after us,' I replied unfeelingly and turned away from him to smile at the kitchen-maid who had collected my empty dish.

A plate of pastry coffins, filled with apple and cinnamon, had been placed on the table, and the smaller of the housekeeper's young helpers had reappeared from the buttery staggering under the weight of two large pitchers of ale. For a short time silence reigned once more, as we again applied ourselves to the serious business of eating and drinking, but then the steward tapped the table-top for our attention.

'Now we are all gathered together,' he said, 'I wish to say a few words about the terrible events of this morning. First and foremost, Master Underdown, a friend of Sir Peveril and a guest beneath his roof, has been foully done to death.

Secondly, someone has ransacked his room, although I gather -‘ and here he glanced at me - 'that nothing was stolen.' There was a general murmuring at this, as though most of those present had, until this moment, been ignorant of the fact. 'Therefore,' the steward went on, 'I trust that every one of us will tell the Sergeant, when he arrives from Launceston, whatever he or she knows.'

'Well, I know nothing and neither does Isobel, so there's nothing to tell.' Edgar Warden's tone was aggressive and he glared round the table as though daring us to contradict him.

'We were together all night, as husband and wife should be, and we never left the compound. How could we, when the gates were locked?'

The laundress frowned, 'How did Master Underdown get out?'

'He climbed down the vine outside our bedchamber window,' I answered. 'But surely there are other ways of getting in and out of the house at night, if only you know them?'

But all those who lived in the house and were not village people, strenuously denied this. I was a little disconcerted until it dawned on me that, in spite of Alwyn's exhortation they would stand together, preferring to believe, indeed persuading themselves, that the crime was the work of an outsider.

'Whatever your master was doing skulking about the woods at dead of night,' Edgar continued truculently, 'it had nothing to do with anyone here.'

'Nor with anyone down in the village,' the baker added.

I glanced at Janet Overy for support, but she merely smiled and said: 'Leave it to the Sheriff's officer, lad, that's my advice. He'll know the proper questions to ask.' But later, when the others had returned to work or quit the kitchen, and the pots and dishes had been washed and left to dry on the wide stone ledge beneath one of the open windows, she linked her arm through mine and said: 'Come to my room and tell me what happened this morning.'

I followed her out of the kitchen to the servants' quarters.

The weather had changed yet again, the clouds blowing away inland and a little thin sunshine giving a faint warmth to the sheltered courtyard. Silas was sitting on a bench, his back resting against the wall, talking desultorily to the groom, who was eating a hunk of bread and a slab of goat's milk cheese. I wondered aloud why he had not joined the rest of us for dinner. Janet Overy laughed and said it was because Isobel Warden had objected to his presence at meals, saying that he smelled too much of horses.

'And a woman only has to look as she does and you fools of men will leap to do her bidding,' Janet added scornfully.

We went under an archway into a flagged passage and then into a room on the left, with a small horn-paned window, now open to let in light and air from the courtyard.

A narrow bed took up most of one wall and a clothes-chest another, with a brazier for winter warmth in a comer and a chair with carved arms drawn close to it. A bag containing flint and tinder hung from a nail near the window embrasure, on which stood a wooden candlestick and candle. There was also a low stool for resting the feet on, but which I now drew close to the armchair and, folding my long legs as best I might, lowered myself on to it, not without a certain amount of discomfort.

'You shouldn't have grown so tall,' Janet laughed, seating herself and looking down at me. 'So! What did you discover at the inn?'

I recounted faithfully all that had happened. Although she was much too young and was still a handsome woman, talking to her was a little like talking to my mother; I felt the same sense of comfort in her presence as I had experienced in the long-gone days when my mother was alive and I sat at her knee confiding my day's adventures. And when I had finished, I waited with the same desire for approbation.

There was silence for a moment or two, then she said with a deep sigh of what sounded like relief: 'I think there can be no doubt that you have uncovered the murderer. If you tell all to the Sheriff's officer when he arrives this evening as you have told it to me, with the same frankness and giving him the same benefit of your reasoning, I am sure he will be satisfied and set about finding this Jeremiah Fletcher.' I was somewhat disappointed that she had not followed my arguments through to the end. 'But I am not certain that he is the murderer. I am certain that the intent was there, and that he had already made two attempts on Master Underdown's life, but as I explained, I cannot wholly reconcile myself to the belief that, in the end, his was the hand that wielded the knife and bludgeon.'

She laughed softly at that and shook her head. 'And I think you want to make a mystery where none exists. You are young. You crave excitement. Take the word of someone older and wiser than yourself, you have the answer to what has happened.'

'But Philip would never have gone to meet Master Fletcher, even if Master Fletcher had managed to get a message to him without my knowledge.'

'Oh no! I think your guess that he had a secret tryst with Isobel Warden is the right one. That could easily have been made yesterday morning while you were out and he was supposed to be sleeping.'

I sat up straighter on the stool and linked my hands around my knees. The afternoon was growing yet fairer and sunlight spread across the broad stone sill. 'But how would she have got out to meet him? At dinner, you all said that no one could leave the compound after the gates were locked at night.'

'Dear lad, use your common sense. There are other windows on this lower storey. Locking the gates may keep intruders out, but it cannot stop anyone unbarring the shutters from within.'

'No, I suppose not,' I answered slowly. 'I should have thought of that. But why then do you suppose Master Underdown took the risk of climbing down the vine?' She shrugged. 'Because he thought it preferable perhaps to roaming a strange house in the dark. Because he was afraid of rousing you when he rose and dressed and left the room, but by putting you to sleep outside the door he was able to leave without any such fear by the window. Because it made him feel young and gallant and adventurous. Who can tell? It might have been any or all of those reasons.'

I slewed round on the stool to face her directly. 'Do you think, then, that Mistress Warden may have witnessed the murder?'

Janet had plainly not thought of this before, but now gave it her fullest consideration. 'It is possible,' she admitted at last, 'but if you have any kindness towards her, forbear to question her. If she indeed kept the tryst and was witness to the killing, it will have been punishment enough. Do nothing, I beg of you, nothing at all to arouse her husband's suspicions. Edgar is a very jealous man who still cannot quite believe his luck in catching such a prize. And he has reason, for the girl, I think, has begun to regret her marriage and to wish that she had waited a little longer before making her choice. She has a roving eye, that's for sure, and is likely to have been flattered rather than offended by Master Underdown's advances. If he had asked her to meet him last night, it's doubtful if she would have said him nay.'

CHAPTER 15

There was another, more protracted silence between us while I pondered her words. Then I said: 'If what you think is true, is it not possible that her husband woke and discovered her absence? If he had gone in search of her and found the open window, would he not have followed and maybe come across Isobel and Philip? In that case, could he not be the murderer?' Janet Overy rose abruptly to her feet, striking her hands together in exasperation. 'Why do you insist on making everything more complex than it need be? You are convinced, and have convinced me, that there was a man in the village last night who has twice made an attempt on Master Underdown's life. Why look further? Or if you must, why not glance in Silas Bywater's direction, since on his own admission he was in the neighbourhood at the time of the killing, and a sworn enemy of Underdown.' She paced angrily around the little room, beating her clenched fists against her snowy apron, so that the bunch of keys at her waist jumped and rattled. 'Not that I believe him any more guilty of the crime than Edgar. You have told me that the Duke of Gloucester hired you for the very purpose of guarding his agent from attack. His Grace was expecting just such an occurrence, and he was right to do so. You and Master Underdown were followed from Exeter - to Buckfast, to Plymouth and now here. So why, therefore, do you insist on looking for guilt elsewhere?'