The Prodigal Son (33 page)

‘Very well,' he agreed brusquely. ‘Make it short.' But he was nervous.

‘I want to ask you about Jenny Applegarth's murder,' I said, watching with interest the expressions of astonishment and relief that chased one another across his handsome face.

‘Jenny Applegarth? That was six years ago!' Then, making up his mind that I was serious, he laughed and replied, as the chaplain had done, ‘I wasn't here. I was at Kewstoke Hall with the master and Dame Audrea.'

‘Yes, I know,' I answered patiently. ‘But did George Applegarth hold himself responsible, do you remember, for what had happened to his wife?'

‘Of course not! How could he, when it was obvious that that evil little shit, John Jericho, had killed her?'

‘Sir Henry seems to think that Master Steward blamed himself for not waking up when Jenny tried to rouse him. Did you ever hear him say so?'

‘Oh, that nonsense! We all told him not to be so foolish.'

‘Who are “we”?'

The bailiff made an exasperated gesture. ‘I don't know. It's all a long time ago. Ned Micheldever might have been present. What's this about? I thought you were investigating Master Anthony's death.'

I gave him a long, straight look and asked if the receiver was likely to be found in the counting-house at this time in the morning. He hesitated for a moment before giving an affirmative nod which sent me hurrying away to seek out Edward Micheldever.

I discovered Dame Audrea closeted with him, going through long columns of figures of various expenses incurred during the past four weeks; the number of meals supplied to guests and unexpected visitors, and the amount of hay consumed by their horses, flicking the beads on an abacus to and fro as they made their calculations.

‘Well enough,' the dame announced when they had finished. ‘Although I think we need to curb our hospitality a trifle. A little less generous with the animals' feed perhaps. And I'll tell them in the kitchens to serve slightly smaller portions. But that's nothing to do with you, Ned. Your work is meticulous, as always. I'm very pleased with you.' At last she deigned to notice my presence in the counting-house. ‘Did you wish to speak to me, Master Chapman? Have you anything to tell me?'

‘I came to put a question to Master Receiver,' I answered, ‘but now that you're here, Lady, I can ask you as well.'

I put to them, almost word for word, the same query as I had put to the bailiff. Dame Audrea shook her head.

‘I don't recall much that anyone said. The place was in such turmoil and we were all so horrified by what had happened. If anyone blamed herself for anything, I did. I was the person who had been taken in by that rogue's pretty ways and flattering speeches. I was the one who, against all sane advice, had employed him to be my page. He had a golden tongue, that one. He had some Irish in him.' She nodded significantly at me. ‘He still has.'

I took no notice of this. She had heard the faint Irish lilt in my half-brother's speech and memory had now transferred it to John Jericho.

I looked at the receiver.

‘Do you have any recollection,' I asked him, ‘of Master Steward blaming himself for his wife's death?'

‘Why should I tell you?' The pugnacious jaw was thrust forward, the red hair seemed to catch fire in a shaft of sunlight that penetrated the dusty window panes.

‘It's important.' I sounded equally belligerent.

‘That'll do,' Dame Audrea intervened. ‘Tell him what he wants to know, Ned.'

The receiver shrugged, but obeyed.

‘Since you mention it, I do recall something of the sort being said,' he admitted.

‘By Master Applegarth?'

‘Of course! Who else could have said it? Most of us had accompanied Master Cornelius and Dame Audrea to Kewstoke Hall on a visit to Sir Damien and Lady Chauntermerle.'

‘Let me understand this,' I said slowly. ‘You, Master Micheldever, Sir Henry and Master Kilsby, all three tell the same tale. You all heard George Applegarth blame himself for not waking up when his wife tried to rouse him, presumably to inform him that the page, John Jericho, was stealing the silver. Am I right?'

The receiver frowned, puzzled.

‘Yes. Well, I heard him and if the others say so, then they did, too. I must admit I'd forgotten the incident, but now you've jogged my memory, it comes back to me.'

‘And, at the time, not one of you thought it a strange remark for Master Applegarth to make?'

‘No. Should we have done?'

I didn't answer. I was looking at Dame Audrea, whose hand had stolen up to her mouth, her eyes, above it, narrowed in pain and shock.

‘Oh, sweet Mother of God!' she murmured.

T
he receiver was still looking confused when a shaken Dame Audrea rose from her stool and bade me accompany her to her private solar. The boy who worked alongside Edward Micheldever in the counting-house was sent for the steward.

‘Tell Master Applegarth to come to my chamber,' she instructed. ‘Tell him it's urgent. Whatever he's doing, he must come at once.'

The upstairs room was just beginning to be warmed by the morning sun, but there was still a slight chill in the air and I couldn't help wishing that my hostess had decided to postpone this interview for at least another hour until after dinner had been served. Although I had eaten my usual hearty breakfast, my belly was already starting to grumble that it was in need of more sustenance.

The solar was a pleasant room with a deep window embrasure, two handsomely carved armchairs, a footstool covered in the same tapestry as adorned a luxurious day-bed and a number of velvet-covered cushions, which were scattered around with a liberal hand.

‘Sit down,' Dame Audrea ordered brusquely, and waved a hand at the window-seat. She herself took one of the armchairs, drawing the footstool towards her and arranging her feet on it in a precise fashion, side by side. The scarlet leather of her expensive, half-revealed shoes looked like smears of blood against the dark green of the tapestry. She glanced at me again. ‘Say nothing until I give you a sign.'

‘Very well,' I nodded.

After that, we sat in silence. We did not, however, have long to wait before we heard footsteps in the passageway outside. There was a light, respectful tap on the door and, in answer to Dame Audrea's, ‘Come in!' George Applegarth entered, his wand of office in his hand, looking mildly curious, but no more, at this unexpected summons. Then he noticed me, and I saw the first faint flicker of apprehension in those remarkable slate-grey eyes.

‘You sent for me, Madam?' His voice was perfectly steady.

Dame Audrea kept him standing.

‘Master Steward,' she said, her tone formal and without any of the warmth she normally employed when speaking to him, ‘as you know, Master Chapman here has been authorized by me to make enquiries concerning the circumstances of Anthony's death. He has spoken to a number of people including, this morning, Sir Henry, Master Kilsby and Ned Micheldever. All three men have told him the same, rather curious tale concerning yourself.'

I watched the steward's apprehension deepen, then the eyes go blank, their colour intensifying and making him appear almost blind.

‘About me, Dame Audrea? And what would that be?'

She fixed him with her own gimlet stare.

‘I want you to think back, George' – the sudden, more intimate use of his given name took him off guard and he blinked several times in rapid succession – ‘to the morning, six years ago, when Master Cornelius and I and the rest of the household returned from Kewstoke Hall to find Jenny murdered and the silver stolen. You told me and everyone else that you had been unaware of the events of the night until you got up in the morning to find Jenny dead, lying in her own blood, and the cupboards containing the family valuables ransacked. Was that true?'

There was no sign of confusion in his face; no indication that he found this reversion to an old murder at odds with my investigation into Anthony's death. He had missed an opportunity to be wily and did not realize it.

‘Perfectly true.' His voice was even more expressionless than hitherto.

‘You are saying,' Dame Audrea emphasized, ‘that you knew nothing at all of what had happened until you discovered Jenny's body?'

The steward gave a little bow of assent. ‘I had, most reprehensibly, drunk far more than I should have the previous evening. I was in a drunken stupor.'

‘Which is no doubt why your wife was unable to rouse you when she came to you for help, to tell you that John Jericho was stealing the plate and my jewels.'

There was a sudden stillness about him, a wariness that meant he had scented a trap but could not yet see it.

‘I don't know that Jenny tried to rouse me. I couldn't have.'

I was unable to hold my tongue any longer.

‘Yet you informed Sir Henry, Master Kilsby and Master Micheldever that that had indeed been the case. They all three tell the same story.'

For the first time, the steward was shaken. ‘If – If what you say is true, then all I must have meant was that that was what I presumed must have happened. It seems likely that she would have tried to wake me.'

I shook my head, ignoring Dame Audrea's look of silent reproach.

‘That isn't the way your fellow officers tell the tale. According to Sir Henry and the other two they argued with you, exhorting you not to be so foolish, not to blame yourself. They understood you to mean that you knew Mistress Applegarth had sought your aid, but couldn't wake you. But as you've pointed out, there's no way you could be certain of that fact unless you know far more about the robbery than you are prepared – or ever have been prepared – to admit.'

‘My friends mistook what I was trying to say,' he repeated doggedly. ‘And anyway,' he continued, rallying, as though conscious that there was something he should have said earlier, ‘what has all this to do with Master Anthony's death? My Jenny's been in her grave these six years past. It has nothing to do with present events.'

‘It has everything to do with them,' I answered levelly, ‘as no one knows better than yourself.'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘You may recall, Master Applegarth, that I was in your room four days ago when you had your first encounter with Anthony Bellknapp after his return home. You and he talked about the circumstances of Mistress Applegarth's murder, but to the best of my recollection no mention was made of the reason you hadn't accompanied Dame Audrea and her husband to Kewstoke Hall. Later on, however, he referred to that broken arm of yours. Now I admit that may not be as significant as it sounds: someone might well have informed him of the fact. Or perhaps not. Maybe he had no need to ask. Perhaps he already knew.'

Dame Audrea twisted round in her chair. ‘What is that supposed to mean?'

‘It means, lady,' I answered steadily, ‘that I don't believe your page, John Jericho, was the murderer of Jenny Applegarth. I think he was an innocent bystander who was also a victim of this crime.'

‘What nonsense! If not John, who was the murderer, then?'

I took a deep breath. ‘Your elder son, Master Anthony.'

There was a long silence broken only by Dame Audrea's gasp for breath. She looked ashen. I turned to the steward.

‘Master Applegarth? Isn't that why you killed him? Because he murdered your wife.'

All his careful control suddenly left him. He buried his face in his hands.

‘George?' Dame Audrea's voice rapped out, cracked and harsh. ‘Tell Master Chapman his accusation isn't true. It can't be! Anthony wouldn't do such a thing!'

‘Why should you be so astonished, Madam,' I demanded, ‘when you yourself have been at great pains to tell me that there was a streak of evil in your elder son, on account of which you and your husband could never like him?'

She pressed a hand to her mouth for a second or two before replying in a shaken tone, ‘But to rob his own parents and to murder his old nurse, of whom he was so fond, when she tried to prevent him, that's infamous. No! No! I can't accept it! George! For my sake – for all our sakes – refute this terrible allegation.'

The steward slowly lowered his hands, revealing a face ravaged by grief, but with his emotions now under control. He looked pityingly at the dame.

‘I wish I could, Mistress,' he said. ‘But things are even blacker than you imagine. Blacker for me, that is. My Jenny didn't disturb Master Anthony as he robbed you.' He took a deep breath. ‘She was his accomplice.'

Dame Audrea sprang to her feet, knocking over the footstool. ‘You're lying! I refuse to believe it!'

The steward stooped and righted the stool before gently and respectfully pushing his mistress back into her chair.

‘It's true, nonetheless. She told me so, herself.'

‘She told you so! How could she, when she was dead?'

George Applegarth shook his head. ‘She was still alive when I found her in the morning. Oh, she was dying. Nothing I tried to do could have saved her; she had lost too much blood. I was going to rouse the household – the maids and Mistress Wychbold – but she begged me not to. She had got what she deserved, she said, and even then – fool that I was not to have tumbled to it – she was giving that murdering rogue as much time as she could to get away.' He spat among the rushes. ‘My Jenny always had a soft spot for Master Anthony.'

‘But what about the page?' I asked angrily. ‘What was his role in all this? Why did he run away?'

The steward sighed and lowered himself into the other armchair without waiting for, or being given, permission. He looked suddenly twice his years.

‘It's better if I tell you the story as Jenny told it to me as she lay in my arms. Remember, this is a dying woman's testimony, Mistress. In such circumstances, on the brink of meeting her Maker, she wouldn't lie.'