16 - The Three Kings of Cologne (19 page)

I tried steeling my heart, although it was difficult. But I could not yet afford to let it be softened by this display of emotion, because a display might be all it was. ‘Melchior’ could simply be a very crafty dissembler.

I waited for the sobs to subside a little, then said, ‘You say that Mistress Linkinhorne had promised to marry you. How long were you betrothed?’

Slowly he straightened up in his chair and gradually controlled his bout of weeping. After perhaps a minute or two, he once more had himself well in hand.

‘We were never betrothed in the formal sense,’ he said thickly. ‘That last morning I ever saw her, she finally promised to marry me. She had refused me time and time again, saying she wasn’t sure, she didn’t know, she couldn’t leave her parents, who were both elderly. Whether that was true or not, I had no means of telling. I never met either of them.’

‘It was perfectly true,’ I interrupted. ‘That they were elderly, I mean. Her father, Master Jonathan Linkinhorne, is still alive. He’s eighty-five. He and his wife were both over forty years of age when Isabella was born. But please, go on.’

He shook his head sadly. ‘There’s not much more to tell. She promised to run away with me the following day. She said it had to be a runaway match or her father would try to prevent it. I protested that if matters stood like that, we should go at once and be wed before her parents had time to find out that she’d fled. My mother was still alive in those days and she would have looked after Isabella and kept her safe, and been glad to have done it for my sake. I was always her favourite.’ He was lost for a moment in a haze of reminiscence.

‘But Isabella wouldn’t agree?’ I prompted.

‘No. She said she had to go home to collect her clothes. I said not to be so foolish. I would buy her everything she needed when we got to Gloucester. But I couldn’t persuade her. She apparently had many gowns she was fond of. And then there was her jewellery, some of which I’d given her. I promised her more and better, but to no avail. She was adamant. So we arranged that I would wait for her the following day at a house a little north of our usual trysting place, where I had a very good customer. But she never came. I have to admit my pride was hurt as well as my heart. I had been made to look a fool in front of other people. Or so I thought at the time.’ He drew a deep breath, almost a gasp. ‘Now, of course, I know differently.’

‘You used to meet at Westbury village,’ I said. ‘That much I have discovered. The last day you saw her was, I believe, a very cold day of wind and driving rain.’

Robert Moresby shook his head. ‘No, that was the following day; the day she was to meet and come away with me.’ Some expression on my face must have made him suspicious. ‘I never saw her that day. What makes you think I did?’

I avoided answering the question, merely frowning as though I had not quite understood what he had said.

‘You mean you waited all day at the house of this customer, but she didn’t come?’

‘I’ve just told you, haven’t I? It was a terrible day, lashing wind and driving rain from morning till night. I got to my friend’s house early – for you must understand that he and his wife, as well as being excellent customers, had also become friends over the years. Indeed, it was while spending a day or two with Sir Peter and his lady the previous spring, while I was out riding in the surrounding countryside, that I first met Isabella. So they knew all about her from the start, knew of my desire to marry her, of her reluctance to abandon her elderly parents. When I confided in them the preceding day that Isabella had finally agreed to run away with me, and begged leave to use their house as our rendezvous – confessed that in fact I had already taken the liberty of asking Isabella to meet me there – they were all complaisance. They even suggested that I should remain with them overnight, rather than go home to Gloucester, only to return again the following morning.’

‘That would have seemed the logical thing to do,’ I commented. ‘Why did you refuse?’

‘I wished to prepare my mother for the reception of her future daughter-in-law. Also my brother and his wife, who were still living with us at that time, above the workshop in Goldsmiths’ Row. My niece, whom you’ve met, was then a child, some five years old.’

The house would have been fairly crowded, then, especially when servants and apprentices were included in the count.

‘Mistress Linkinhorne knew of your family circumstances, I suppose?’

Robert Moresby stared at me as though I had asked an indecent question.

‘Of course she knew! I never had secrets from Isabella. But nothing mattered to her except our love,’ he added triumphantly. ‘She once told me she could live in a hovel so long as I was by her side.’

The girl was a liar, so much was obvious. Not only was she deceiving him with two other men, but everything I had so far found out about her convinced me that she was not the sort to be happy in cramped quarters, let alone one of a crowd. Provided that my companion was telling the truth, his first estimation of Isabella, as a flirt and a cock-teaser, was closer to the real woman than the suddenly rose-coloured picture he entertained of her now.

I wondered why – again if his version of what had happened was the correct one – Isabella had agreed to run away with ‘Melchior’ when subsequent events suggested that she had had no intention of doing so. Perhaps she had grown tired of his importunings and decided to put an end to them once and for all by teaching him a humiliating lesson. But on the other hand, perhaps she had had every intention of eloping with him to Gloucester, but had met someone else on her way to the rendezvous; someone who had persuaded her to change her mind. (Who? And what argument was used?) Then again, maybe the whole story was a farrago of nonsense, a pack of lies, thought up over the intervening years just in case one day the truth was discovered and Robert actually found himself confronted by an accusation of murder. And if the latter, it was quite possible that he had come to believe what he had made up. I had known this to happen.

‘These friends of yours,’ I said, trying to look like a poor peasant, easily impressed. ‘You mentioned Sir Peter just now.’

Robert Moresby’s chest expanded a little. ‘Sir Peter and Lady Claypole.’ The chest expanded even further. ‘Araminta to her friends.’ He enlarged no further, allowing me to draw my own conclusion; that he was included in this circle of the elite. My heart hardened against him.

‘Sir Peter and his wife live in or near Westbury?’ I asked, but tentatively, as one just enquiring out of curiosity. I had no wish for ‘Melchior’ to divine my real purpose; namely, to call upon the Claypoles in an attempt to discover if his story were true.

Such was his conceit, however, in the importance of this acquaintance, that he saw nothing suspicious in my catechism, merely a yokel’s natural interest in his betters.

‘They had a manor house near Hambrook,’ he informed me. ‘Lady Claypole became interested in my wares after a visit to Gloucester with Sir Peter, when she happened to stumble across my workshop in Goldsmiths’ Row and preferred my work to that of any of my neighbours. Later in the month, she sent a message for me to wait on her at Hambrook Manor and to take a selection of necklaces and rings with me.’

I thought, ‘And you offered them to the lady at special prices, I’ll be bound. Which is the only way you became a frequent and honoured guest.’ But aloud I said, ‘Sir Peter and his lady still live at Hambrook?’

Master Moresby flushed, looking suddenly uncomfortable.

‘I … I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I haven’t seen either of them for many years now.’

It dawned on me that he had probably never been back to visit them since his humiliation at Isabella’s hands. Or his apparent humiliation, depending upon the veracity of the tale he had spun me. ‘I wouldn’t know for certain,’ he added, ‘if they are still alive or not.’

‘They were old?’ I queried.

He stirred abruptly, as though beginning to be conscious that my curiosity might be seen as abnormal. I assumed what I could only hope was a bland, slightly oafish expression. At any rate, it seemed to satisfy my companion, who settled down again in his chair.

‘They were a couple in the middle years of their life,’ he said. ‘Older than I was by many years, but not old enough to be stigmatized as elderly.’ ‘Melchior’ preened himself a little. ‘They had no children, and I rather think they came to regard me in the light of a son.’

I doubted this, having (quite unwarrantably, I had to admit) formed a picture of a self-consequential, but somewhat impoverished, couple making use of people who, in turn, could be of use to them.

‘Mistress Linkinhorne was wearing jewellery that you had given her when she was killed,’ I said. ‘It was still on her body when it was found last week. That was how her corpse was identified so quickly. Her cousin, Sister Walburga of the Magdalen nuns, recognized it. She didn’t know your name or anything about you, saving that you were a goldsmith. I found out that you lived – or had lived – in Gloucester from Isabella’s maid, Jane Honeychurch.’

This information seemed to distress him all over again. He gave a little moan and buried his face in his hands. After a moment or two, tears seeped through his fingers and ran down his cheeks. I waited, torn between genuine sympathy and cynicism, for the spasm to pass. Eventually he sniffed loudly, removed his hands and straightened his back.

‘What was she wearing?’ he asked.

‘A gold and amber necklace, a girdle of gold and silver links with an amethyst clasp and several gold finger rings.’

He nodded mutely, and some seconds ticked away before he mastered his voice sufficiently to say tremulously, ‘Yes, they were all my gifts. And there were others. No doubt she had them with her.’ He rose from his chair and began pacing about the room. ‘It shows she was on her way to meet me, to keep our tryst, when she was waylaid and killed.’ He drove a clenched fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘Or perhaps she never left home. Maybe her parents discovered her intention and locked her up. Starved her to death and then disposed of her body.’

I shook my head. ‘You forget I told you that she had been struck a fateful blow to the back of her head. And it had to be that day she was murdered. There was an open grave in the graveyard. Later, it was found filled in.’ And I explained about Sister Apollonia’s so-called miracle.

‘Melchior’ groaned yet again and stopped striding around in order to throw open a casement, breathing deeply as one in urgent need of air. Beyond the window, I could see a hawthorn bush just coming into flower, and a clutch of mulberry-coloured clouds above the rooftops opposite.

‘I was told,’ I said, ‘that there was a tree near Westbury village with your and Isabella’s initials carved into the trunk. Did you do it together?’

He shook his head, but without turning round.

‘No.’ He gave another sob, quickly suppressed. ‘Isabella did it as a surprise for me. She had a little pearl-handled knife that her father had given her for eating and she must have used that. We couldn’t always arrange the exact hour of our meetings. Sometimes I had to wait for her and sometimes she had to wait for me. So once, when I was later than expected, she used the time to carve our initials into a tree trunk, enclosed in a heart. I thought then that it was proof of her love for me. But then, of course, in later years, I considered it just another act of perfidy. Sweet Jesus, forgive me!’

‘Sweet Jesus forgive you for what, Uncle?’ Juliette had entered the parlour without either of us noticing. She stared with a puzzled frown from one to the other.

‘Unhappily, I’ve brought Master Moresby some very sad news about the death of an old friend of his,’ I said, smiling reassuringly at her.

‘More than a friend,’ the goldsmith explained huskily, closing the casement and turning to face his niece. ‘A lady I once asked to marry me, and who I subsequently believed had betrayed me, was in fact most foully murdered on the day we were to have run away together. Her body has only recently been discovered, twenty years on.’

‘My dear uncle!’ Juliette went towards him with outstretched hands.

Robert Moresby grasped them as though clinging to a lifeline, his eyes refilling with tears. Yet again, it struck me that he was either innocent or else a very fine actor.

Juliette reached up and kissed his cheek and, remembering how she had kissed me during the night, I felt a small thrill of desire, followed by immediate arousal. Hercules suddenly woke up and started barking loudly.

‘Come and have your dinner,’ Juliette said, tucking a consoling hand into the crook of Robert’s elbow. ‘You know good food always makes you feel better.’ She was an eminently practical woman, in spite of her hot-blooded nature. (Although why the two shouldn’t go hand in hand, I couldn’t really tell you.) ‘Master Chapman, will you honour us by joining us? After discharging such a harrowing mission, you too must be in need of sustenance.’ Her eyes mocked me. ‘Let me assure you that I am considered a very good cook. Is that not so, Uncle?’

‘It is I who shall be honoured,’ I answered formally. ‘There is, however, the dog.’

‘He shall be looked after. Indeed,’ she added, as Hercules pushed past her and turned, without hesitation, in the direction of the kitchen, ‘he seems to know his way about already.’ Her lips twitched, but she forbore to tease me further. She squeezed her uncle’s arm. ‘Come and eat, dearest, and while we do so, if you feel like it, you can tell me all about it.’

I
took my leave of Master Moresby and his niece after dinner – a splendid meal of roast pork and apple fritters – in spite of Juliette’s attempts to persuade me to stay.

‘As you say you don’t wish to travel on a Sunday, Master Chapman, why return to the New Inn and pay to be far less comfortable than you would be here? We have a chamber, right at the top of the house, under the eaves, to be sure, but clean and warm and private. At the inn you may well have to share, and I’m certain that the food will not rival mine.’

She looked intently at me as she spoke, conveying the message that there would be other comforts on offer as well as those she had mentioned. But that was the trouble. I knew that if I did as she wanted, I would be unable to resist the temptation of her company in bed, even though her uncle would be in the house. Had the quondam goldsmith added his entreaties to hers, I believe that in spite of my overwhelming sense of guilt and betrayal, I would have given in. But Robert Moresby remained silent; nor could I rid myself of the notion that he would be glad to see me go, although, if I were right, I was uncertain of his reason. Did he simply wish to mourn alone, to come to terms with the fact that for so many years he had vilified a woman he now – however mistakenly – thought to have been his one true love? Or was he afraid of revealing too much if he had to put up with my company for the rest of the day?