The Mark of a Murderer (48 page)

Just when he thought he would lose the battle, there was a thump and a grunt, followed by rapidly receding footsteps. Clippesby
stood there with a stone in his hand, while Agatha still lumbered towards them. Bartholomew started to follow his attacker
through the trees, but there was no power in his legs, and he knew there was no point in blundering through the undergrowth
in the dark. The trees blotted out any light from the moon, and the copse was a tangled mat of vegetation that would make
pursuit all but impossible. He dropped to his knees, the craven exhilaration of the chase replaced by a tide of exhaustion
that left him shaking and sluggish.

‘Who was that?’ gasped Agatha, reaching them at last. ‘What happened?’

Clippesby crouched next to Bartholomew and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘Do not worry, he has gone now. I hit him
hard in the chest with a rock, and he realised he would have no luck here tonight.’

‘Who?’ demanded Agatha, her face flushed and sweat coursing down her red-veined cheeks. ‘He tried to kill Matthew with something
shiny. I saw it sparkling in the moonlight. I will have his guts out for this!’ She wielded the sword in a way that indicated
she meant what she said.

‘It was him,’ said Clippesby simply. ‘The wolf.’

‘That was no wolf,’ said Agatha. A nightjar called, low and hoarse, and in the distance Bartholomew could hear Brother Paul
trying to soothe Stourbridge’s inmates, who were alarmed by the commotion Clippesby’s flight had caused. ‘It was a man. I
saw him silhouetted against the moonlit sky. It was a man, with something brassy in his hand.’

‘Metal teeth,’ said Bartholomew. His skin crawled when he recalled them slashing at him, and he was unable to repress a shudder.
‘That is how he kills his victims. I did not think human fangs could cause such damage, but these were made of steel, and
were honed to a vicious sharpness.’

He put his hand against his neck, half expecting to find it gashed, but the liripipe and its voluminous folds had protected
him. He pulled off the garment, and saw it was shredded to ribbons.

‘I cannot mend this,’ said Agatha, taking it from him. ‘It is beyond my skills with a needle. Still, it did not suit you anyway;
it made you look like a jester.’

‘Are you sure he has gone?’ Bartholomew asked, looking around uneasily and wishing he had not dropped his knife in Clippesby’s
room.

Agatha nodded. ‘You were lucky to escape alive – he meant business. I could see it in the way he moved.’

‘Who was he?’ asked Bartholomew, climbing unsteadily to his feet.

‘It was the wolf,’ said Clippesby again. ‘I have already told you.’

‘I was too far away to see his face,’ said Agatha, pursing her lips at Clippesby to warn him to curtail his animal fantasies.
‘But he was as tall as you, Matthew, and he looked strong.’ She wrinkled her nose in disgust, and turned her attention back
to the liripipe. ‘That is disgusting! He smeared dog turds on you. He must have done it to spite me.’

Bartholomew was bewildered. ‘To spite you?’

‘Because I will have to wash the thing,’ explained Agatha impatiently. ‘I am a laundress, am I not? He probably knows this
sort of stain is not easy to remove.’

‘Look on the bright side,’ said Bartholomew, thinking that causing inconvenience in the College laundry was probably the last
thing on the killer’s mind. ‘At least it is not stained with my blood.’

‘Why did he do such a thing?’ asked Clippesby, watching Agatha fling the garment away. ‘What would be the point? To add insult
to injury?’

‘To make a wound fester,’ explained Bartholomew. ‘A cut with excrement driven into it may kill a victim later, if he survives
the immediate injury. He is using it as a form of poison.’

‘That must have been what happened to Rougham,’ said Clippesby. ‘His wound went bad, but I saw for myself that the actual
injury was not a fatal one.’

Bartholomew took a few steps towards the woods, not sure what to do next, but unsettled by the knowledge that the murderer
was not far away. ‘We cannot let this man go, because he will kill again for certain. We must find him!’

Agatha grabbed his arm. ‘We could search all night and
not succeed. Looking now is worse than hopeless, and he will be long gone, anyway. Tell Sheriff Tulyet to come tomorrow with
some of his hunting hounds, and let him track this monster.’

‘Do you think Michael will believe me now?’ asked Clippesby. ‘He
must
see I am innocent, given that you have just had a nasty encounter with the wretch while I was pinned helplessly underneath
you.’

‘Clippesby saved your life,’ stated Agatha, lest the physician had not realised. ‘I was too far away to help, and that lunatic
– and I do not mean Clippesby – would have throttled you long before I arrived. This brave friar drove him off, armed only
with a rock.’

‘I understand now how the wolf kills,’ said Clippesby, blushing at the compliment. ‘It is not easy to slash a throat with
something as unwieldy as teeth – metal ones or your own – so he partially strangles his victims, to subdue them first. That
was what he was doing to Rougham when I intervened. Then he rips their necks with his tainted fangs when they are too weak
to fight. Nothing is left to chance; he is a thorough executioner.’

‘Not thorough enough,’ Agatha pointed out. ‘He did not kill Rougham, and now he has failed with Matthew – twice, if you include
the time with the spade in the church.’

‘That was not me, either,’ said Clippesby firmly. ‘However, I have been thinking about it – analysing the details you gave
me, along with information supplied by Agatha and a crow who happened to be watching – and I have reached a logical conclusion,
based on facts.’

‘Go on,’ said Bartholomew, not sure whether he could trust the ‘facts’ supplied by the crow.

‘The wolf has a very specific way of killing. He claimed three victims – that we know about – before the assault on you. Therefore,
we can assume that he is content with his
method, and there is no reason for him to change it. By contrast, the man who attacked you on Wednesday morning gave up very
easily when he thought he would not succeed, and I think the wolf is more determined than that. It was not easy to drive him
off when he hurt Rougham, and it was not easy tonight.
Ergo
, the wolf and the man who attacked you with a spade are not one and the same.’

‘Two killers on the loose?’ asked Bartholomew uneasily.

‘The spade-man did not
kill
you,’ Clippesby pointed out. ‘And, from what you say, he was clumsy and ill-prepared. He did not have a weapon with him,
and was obliged to use a tool he found in the churchyard. He is not a killer, because, as far as we know, he has not yet taken
a life.’

‘Yes and no,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I think he believed I was Spryngheuse. He stayed his hand only when I said something that
indicated he had the wrong man, but I am sure he had intended to kill. But Spryngheuse was dead within two days anyway, terrified
into taking his own life.’

‘You may be right about that,’ acknowledged Clippesby. ‘But I am right about there being two killers: the wolf and your attacker
are not the same man. The wolf would have used his teeth, not a spade.’

‘Metal teeth,’ said Bartholomew, his thoughts whirling away in another direction. ‘Polmorva once owned some of those, but
Duraunt destroyed them years ago. Does this mean he did not, and that he kept them for future use? Or did Polmorva have another
set made, after the originals disappeared?’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Agatha, bemused. ‘Are you saying the Oxford men have steel fangs instead of real ones?’

Bartholomew described Polmorva’s invention. ‘But they
disappeared after I accused him of complicity in the sub-prior’s death. He thought I had stolen them while I assumed he had
hidden them, ready to hire out again when the fuss had died down. Duraunt confessed to melting them down, although he did
not see fit to mention this at the time, and exonerate me from Polmorva’s accusations.’

‘So, who is the wolf, then?’ asked Clippesby. ‘Duraunt or Polmorva?’

‘Duraunt is too frail to fight me,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Polmorva is not, though.’

‘And he hates you,’ agreed Agatha. ‘However, I am told you defeated him with ease when you fought at the cistern, so are you
sure he is strong enough?’

‘He must be, because otherwise it means the wolf is Duraunt. Duraunt does not want me dead.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Clippesby softly. ‘The Merton Hall chickens heard him telling his friends that he offered you a
Fellowship at Oxford, and was deeply hurt when you elected to come here instead. He also thinks you are different from the
young student he knew and loved.’

‘I grew up,’ said Bartholomew tersely. ‘I became more practical and less idealistic, but so do we all.’

‘Not all,’ said Clippesby pointedly. ‘Some of us cling to our naïveté, hoping it will protect us from the horrors of the world.
Sometimes it works, but most of the time we are exposed to it regardless. You should not dismiss Duraunt from your list of
suspects too readily. The stoat who lives at the Cardinal’s Cap tells me he is belligerent once full of ale. Drunks can be
strong.’

‘No,’ insisted Bartholomew doggedly. ‘Not Duraunt.’

‘He lied about the teeth,’ Agatha pointed out. ‘He said they were destroyed, but they were not. They are here, in Cambridge,
being used for a far more sinister purpose
than helping old monks gnaw their meat. The wolf
must
be him.’

‘And it was definitely you he was after,’ added Clippesby. ‘He does not perceive me as a threat – he could have come to the
hospital any time and dispatched me at his leisure. It was you he wanted, just as he wanted Rougham, not me, the first time
I encountered him.’

‘But why?’ asked Bartholomew in despair. ‘I do not understand!’

‘He thinks you are close to revealing his identity and is determined to stop you,’ said Clippesby. ‘Whatever direction your
investigation is taking is obviously the right one.’

‘No,’ said Bartholomew wearily. ‘There must be some other explanation.’

‘So you said, but speculating will get us nowhere,’ said Agatha, looking up at the sky. ‘Dawn is not far off, and we should
be about our business before anyone finds out what we have been doing: Clippesby escaping, me visiting lunatics, and Matthew
stalking College laundresses.’

‘I still cannot let you go,’ said Bartholomew to Clippesby, dragging his thoughts away from Duraunt. ‘Especially not now.
You have saved my life, and I want to do the same for you.’

‘But we have established that the wolf does not have designs on me.’ Clippesby smiled wryly. ‘He probably believes I am too
addled, which goes to show a little eccentricity has its advantages.’

‘You are more than a little eccentric,’ said Agatha bluntly. ‘You are stark raving mad.’

‘I am not worried about the wolf …about the killer harming you,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I am concerned about the Oxford merchants
and others who may seize you as a scapegoat. You cannot stay at Stourbridge, though; you are not safe here, either. Not now.’

‘Well, if he cannot stay here, and you will not let him
escape, then where is left?’ demanded Agatha. ‘He is not a bird, whatever he might think himself, and he cannot fly away.’

‘I know somewhere,’ said Bartholomew. ‘No one will think to look there, and he will be safe until this is over.’

‘Good,’ said Agatha. ‘Then lead us to it.’

It was well past dawn by the time Bartholomew had secured Clippesby in his new hiding place, and he was late for the Monday
morning mass. He noticed that the town was waiting in eager anticipation for the Archbishop, and even the beggars had made
an attempt to spruce themselves up. He hurried to St Michael’s Church and walked briskly to his place in the chancel. Michael
was officiating, but took his mind off his sacred duties long enough to indicate he wanted to speak to the physician. Then
he delighted the students and bemused the Fellows by speeding through the rest of the ceremony at a rate that was far from
devout.

‘I wish all our priests would do it like that,’ remarked Langelee, as he led the procession out of the church and back to
Michaelhouse. ‘It would save us a good deal of wasted time.’

‘Praying is not wasted time,’ said William, shocked, despite the fact that his masses were usually even faster. He jerked
his head at the listening students. ‘And watch what you say when there are impressionable minds listening.’

‘Our impressionable minds might be disturbed by witnessing the Master’s hankering for Agatha,’ said Deynman sanctimoniously.
‘The news of
that
is all over the University.’

‘The Master does not hanker after her any longer,’ said William, who had heard the rumours that Langelee had shifted his affections
to Alyce Weasenham. ‘That honour
now falls to Suttone.’ He guffawed loudly, to indicate he was making a joke.

‘Suttone,’ mused Deynman, and Bartholomew saw he had just witnessed the birth of another falsehood that would soon be circulating
around the town and paraded as truth.

Michael snatched Bartholomew’s arm and pulled him out of the procession. ‘Where have you been? You were needed last night,
and there was no trace of you. Have you been with a patient?’

‘Yes,’ replied Bartholomew truthfully. ‘Why? What has happened?’

‘Matilde’s house was invaded – by the killer, we think.’

Bartholomew gazed at him in horror, a stab of panic making his breath catch painfully in his throat. ‘She is not …? Is
she …?’

‘She is unharmed,’ replied Michael. ‘Frightened and angry, but unharmed.’

Bartholomew closed his eyes in relief. ‘I
am
going to marry her, Michael,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘I am going to ask her as soon as Rougham has gone and we can be alone.’

Michael smiled. ‘Good. It is time you acted on this, and I am sure Matilde will think so, too.’

‘Do you think she will have me?’

‘Probably,’ replied Michael carelessly. ‘It will mean the end of your Fellowship, but I intend to order Tynkell to keep you
as our Corpse Examiner. I doubt Rougham will be clamouring for your dismissal, given what you have done for him of late.’
He smiled affectionately. ‘I hope you will be very happy together – and that you will spare the occasional cup of wine for
an old friend.’