[Roger the Chapman 03] - The Hanged Man (11 page)

I thought that her unreasoning love for Robert Herepath had blinded her to a character ruined by an over-indulgent brother, and vitiated even further by a naturally vicious streak. I kept my views to myself, but ventured to ask, 'Why then were you as certain as everyone else that Robert had murdered William Woodward? Especially as no body was found, only William's hat which had been flung into the Frome.'

Cicely Ford shivered, in spite of the heat from the fire, and clasped her arms about her body as though she would never be warm again. 'I don't know! I don't know. Looking back now, it all seems like an evil dream.' She furrowed her brow, as though trying to make sense of the nightmare. 'Perhaps... Perhaps it was because Edward was so sure his brother had done it. Edward is not a man to be easily deceived, yet he told me himself that he was convinced of Robert's guilt as soon as he was in possession of the facts. He blamed himself bitterly for having put temptation in Robert's path, but the absence of William Woodward's body in no way disposed him to believe his brother's protestations of innocence. His conviction somehow influenced me and blinded me to the truth.'

'Robert admitted to stealing the money?' I asked, seeking confirmation of Mistress Walker's story.

'Oh, yes. He was always truthful, about his vices as well as his virtues.' Again, the fingers writhed together in anguish. 'I knew it, and that fact alone should have assured me of his innocence of the greater crime. Yet still I let myself be persuaded of his guilt.'

There was a splutter among the logs, and a small, blue flame spurted up the chimney. 'You were willing to forgive him so much,' I suggested tentatively. 'Could you not forgive him murder as well?'

The cornflower-blue eyes raised to mine were filled with abhorrence. 'The taking of human life for gain? No, that I could never condone.' Her voice fell almost to a whisper. 'That men must be killed, in war, by the law: that I accept; but otherwise, the right is God's and God's alone!'

I might have pressed the matter further, arguing that in this case the law had obviously been mistaken, but at that moment there was a knock on the street door, and a woman appeared on the half-landing of the staircase which ascended from the hall to the upper storeys of the house. 'That will surely be Master Robin,' she said in a tone of deep satisfaction.

She descended the remaining stairs, an upright, sprightly woman of some forty summers, dressed all in black except for a snow-white wimple and cap, just visible beneath her hood. She had shrewd, determined grey eyes which missed nothing, and which belied the softness of expression conveyed by her round cheeks, tip-tilted nose and generous mouth. 'I'll let him in.'

Cicely Ford managed to looked vexed, resigned and indulgent all at once. 'Dame Freda, it won't do him any harm to cool his heels a while until one of the servants is free to answer his knock.'

This, then, was the duenna employed by Edward Herepath as his ward's companion. I could not make up my mind in those first few minutes whether I liked her or not. I decided I should need to know her better before coming to any conclusion. Dame Freda gave me a slanting glance in passing and, ignoring her mistress's remonstrance, went at once to the street door and lifted the latch.

The young man who entered in a flurry of cold wind was typical of the dandies of his generation, and reminded me forcibly of Alderman Weaver's son-in-law as I had seen him three years previously. Once the sable-lined cloak had been discarded with an impressively negligent gesture, Master Robin, whoever he might be, revealed himself in all the glory of a parti-coloured doublet so short as to barely reach below his hips, thus displaying a padded cod-piece of impossible proportions, decorated with gold and silver tassels. His slender waist was circled with a belt of finest scarlet leather, which had a buckle studded with garnets and pieces of jade, and matching scarlet boots whose toes were at least two inches long - not, of course, as long as many shoe pikes, but certainly too long for general walking or riding. Both boots and belt hissed defiantly at the young man's shock of red hair, cut in a fringe across his forehead and curling to his shoulders. The eyes were hazel, set in a cherubic face of the extremely florid hue often found in people of his colouring. His whole bearing, reflected in his confident smile, gave me the impression of a man supremely sure of himself and of his welcome, totally impervious to the chilliness of Cicely Ford's manner towards him.

'Master Avenel,' she said quietly, making the slightest of curtseys and not offering her hand.

This, then, must be the son of the man who had bought the soap-works from Edward Herepath, and who, according to Margaret Walker, was sweet on Cicely Ford and probably hopeful of marrying her. I thought to myself that he hoped in vain.

I decided it was time to take my leave, and did so with as little fuss as possible. Muttering my farewells to Mistress Ford, I slipped back to the kitchen, where the housekeeper was still occupied with her cooking and too busy to give me more than a nod, and let myself out of the back door into the garden.

The stormy morning showed patches of radiance between the clouds, but it was still very cold, and I paused to wrap my frieze cloak about me and consider what I had learned. As far as the facts concerning William Woodward's disappearance went, I knew little more than what I had already gleaned from Margaret Walker. I was, however, now aware that Edward Herepath was in love with Cicely Ford, and perhaps had been for several years, as was young Robin Avenel. I was also aware that Dame Freda greatly favoured Master Robin's suit, which suggested to me that she had been hostile to Robert Herepath; but then who, with Cicely's welfare at heart, would not have been? As for Robin Avenel himself, a man blessed - or cursed - with as much self-esteem as he seemed to possess, must have found it well-nigh impossible to understand Cicely's love for such a reprobate. He might have toyed with the notion that she was bewitched; that Robert Herepath had used a love potion or, worse, employed black magic to entrap her affection...

I caught my breath as I realized the direction in which my thoughts were leading me. I moved slowly along the garden path to the gate in the wall, where I paused yet again, one hand on the latch. I was beginning to see William Woodward's disappearance and Robert Herepath's execution not as two separate events linked only by the latter's cupidity, but as a diabolically cunning scheme to get rid of the younger man. And for what better reason than the love of a girl like Cicely Ford who, in one brief hour of acquaintance, had stamped her image so indelibly upon my own heart that I had desire for no other woman.? Or, if not for her love, for her good, for the happiness which marriage to Robert Herepath would surely have denied her.

Once again, I brought myself up short. The deliberate abduction of William Woodward would have involved at least two other people, for it was impossible that William would have been a party to it himself; and a big, strong man as he was described as being, despite his advanced years, would not easily have been overpowered by a single person. Perhaps, after all, his story of being captured by Irish slavers was true, but instead of being paid to sell him into slavery, his captors had been bribed to murder him once he was set ashore in Ireland. Although he had been left for dead, the attempt on his life had been botched. He had been attacked in his house to leave plenty of blood and his hat thrown into the Frome in order to implicate Robert Herepath...

I lifted the gate-latch and stepped into the alleyway like a man sleepwalking, my thoughts in a turmoil. If any of these ideas had substance, then my clever schemer must have known of the money held in the cottage in Bell Lane, which brought Edward Herepath immediately to mind. Yet he surely could not have been the only person aware of his intention to be absent from Bristol on Lady Day and for the following night. A very little judicious questioning could have elicited the information, perhaps quite unconsciously given, that William Woodward had been instructed to hold the money until his master's return. It would be both foolish and perilous to jump to conclusions concerning the identity of the murderer, just as it would be equally foolhardy to presume my assumptions correct until I had more certain inebriation to go on. In the meantime, after dinner, I would visit the Gaunts' Hospital and seek out Miles Huckbody, that sworn enemy of William Woodward.

I had just reached the end of the alleyway and was about to turn into Bell Lane, when I heard the rattle of a latch and then footsteps pounding the cobbles behind me. A second or two later, a hand roughly seized my shoulder, spinning me round with surprising force. I found myself face to face with Robin Avenel, his cheeks an even brighter shade of crimson after his effort to catch up with me. He had not bothered to put on his cloak, but he hardly seemed to feel the cold, such was his agitation.

'I've just been talking to Master Herepath,' he said, bringing his angry face close to mine, 'and I would advise you, chapman, to keep your nose out of what does not concern you!' His grip on my shoulder tightened. 'Robert Herepath was a wastrel and a scoundrel, and deserved a rope about his neck, even if he didn't murder the old man. I'm warning you! Don't dare to show your face round here a second time, harassing Master Herepath and above all upsetting Mistress Ford by raking over that unhappy business. What's done is done, and what happened was for the best.' He gave me a sudden shove which, because the cobbles were wet and slippery with filth, almost threw me to the ground.

Recovering my balance, I looked him straight in the eyes, my right hand clenched firmly at my side as I resisted the temptation to teach this conceited puppy a lesson he would not easily forget. Instead, controlling myself, I smiled and answered as courteously as I was able. 'I can give no such undertaking. I have Master Herepath's blessing to try to discover what happened to William Woodward, and the protection of Alderman Weaver. I bid you good-day.'

I swung on my heel and walked away, leaving him staring after me and, I hoped, discomfited, but also uneasily conscious that I could have made an enemy. It was as I was making my way up Broad Street towards the High Cross, that I recollected William Woodward had returned home wearing the clothes of a gentleman in place of his own homespun; a fact which seemed to render void my theory that perhaps, after all, he had been abducted across the water. I comforted myself with the thought that my inquiries had only just begun, and that the fragments of picture at present in my possession might yet come together to make a whole and reveal the solution to the fiddle.

The midday meal was delayed somewhat, Mistress Walker having returned late from the dyer's with her basket of wool and, as a consequence, been late finishing her morning's spinning. When the wheel and spindle finally stopped turning, it was past noon, and as she ladled broth from the pot over the fire into the three wooden bowls on the table, I was aware that Lillis was covertly watching me.

'Did you visit Master Herepath, then?' she asked as her mother took her place alongside us. When I nodded, she continued, 'Did you learn anything new?' I had my mouth full of bread, so was able to gather my thoughts before replying. 'No more than Mistress Walker had already told me.'

Margaret sighed, but without regret. 'I guessed it to be a fool's errand when you said that you were going.'
 

'Not completely.' I cleared my mouth with a draught of rough red wine, which Lillis had brought me from the vintner's. 'I learned your father had an enemy called Miles Huckbody, a pensioner now of the Gaunts' Hospital.'
 

Margaret laughed and shook her head. 'He'll do you no good. He could have had nothing to do with Father's disappearance. Oh, yes, he hated him all fight, and possibly with good reason, but Miles Huckbody is too frail now to do more than eke out his days huddled over the fire in winter, or seated beneath the trees of Gaunts' orchard ha summer.'

'Nevertheless, I shall visit him this afternoon,' I insisted.

Mistress Walker shrugged. 'You must do as you please, but I warn you, you're wasting your time.' Lillis laid down her spoon, put her elbows on the table and propped her chin between her hands. 'And did you meet Mistress Ford?' she asked, with something so like a sneer in her voice that I felt my colour rising. 'Ah, yes! I can see you did, and have already fallen under her spell, like every other man. You are ready to spring to her defence if I so much as utter a word against her.'
 

'She is a lovely young woman,' I answered carefully, anxious to conceal my feelings for Cicely Ford from Lillis's mocking gaze. 'Lovely in every respect, for she obviously has a gentle and loving nature.'

Lillis's face grew ever more cat-like as she slanted another look at me beneath half-lowered eyelids, lips parted to reveal small, even front teeth. 'Not like me, then,' she spat. 'My nature's neither loving nor gentle, but I'd fight tooth and nail for anyone I thought I loved. They'd not hang any man of mine without me moving heaven and hell to prove him innocent. And if I couldn't do that, I'd still try to save him by planning his escape. But these pious, prissy misses cave in at the first sign of trouble.'

'You talk like a child!' I exclaimed hotly, and noted with satisfaction how the blood stung her normally pale cheeks.

'Be quiet, Lillis,' her mother ordered. 'Roger is right. Cicely Ford is a lovely girl. Everyone knows it except you.'

'Including Roger himself, it appears.' Lillis got up and flung away from the table, going to sulk in a comer. Her eyes glowed redly and her mouth was set in a jealous pout.

'Take no notice of her,' Margaret told me. 'She gets these ill-humours now and then, and has done since she was a baby. Finish your soup and then you can be off, if you've still a mind to. As for me, I must get on with my spinning.'