Kate Sedley - The Hanged Man

I said hurriedly: 'You may trust me, at all events, to keep your confidence.' I avoided a further glance in Lillis's direction and continued, 'You were talking, Mistress Walker, about Robert Herepath and Cicely Ford.' She nodded, relieved to turn the conversation away from dangerous topics. 'I was, although there is little else to add on that score.' She took a deep breath and settled herself more comfortably on her stool, leaning forward to hold her hands to the slumbering fire. 'Now we come to the heart of the story, to the strange happenings which began on Lady Day of last year and only ended with the death of my father before Christmas. Although to say the tale is ended is wishful thinking on my part, for until the mystery is resolved there will never be an end, not for me and Lillis, nor for Edward Herepath and Cicely Ford. Lillis, there's small ale in the jug on the table. Pour Roger a cup while I get on with the story.' Lillis did as her mother bade her, then returned to her seat on the mattress and once again burrowed inside my blankets, like a small animal going to ground. Her eyes gleamed at me from inside the cave of rough wool she had fashioned around herself. I looked away quickly and concentrated on Mistress Walker.

'It began on the day of Our Lady's Annunciation, last March,' she said. 'The day my father collected all the outstanding rents and debts owed to Edward Herepath for the quarter.'

On that particular Quarter Day, Edward Herepath had arranged to visit Gloucester to look over a horse he intended to buy from the acquaintance of a friend.

Because of the length of joumey involved, he decided to remain in the city for two nights, travelling to Gloucester on the Thursday, inspecting his prospective purchase on the Friday and, taking his leisure, returning to Bristol on Saturday. As a consequence of this, he had asked William Woodward to keep the money safe in his own cottage in Bell Lane, rather than delivering it to Small Street.

'For although he may have trusted his servants,' Margaret Walker said, 'he didn't trust his brother not to get his hands on the money somehow or other. Or part of it, at least. For everyone knew that Robert was heavily in debt to one or two of his cronies at the White Hart in Broad Street, where they played dicing games nearly every evening.'

Margaret, however, had known nothing of this arrangement when, on the Saturday morning, she had set out to visit her father in Bell Lane. She had not seen him on the Friday, but there were often occasions when she had no knowledge of his movements for several days together.

'We had little in common,' she told me in a low voice, 'and were never eager to seek out one another's company after he left the shelter of this roof. But I did my duty as a daughter and visited him regularly to make sure that he was eating properly and had his necessary share of comfort.'

But on the morning of Saturday 27 March, she had been totally unprepared for what she would find.

'I knocked at the street door, but got no reply, so I tried the latch. It was nearing mid-morning by then, and my father, if he were at home, would have been up and about, so I was not uneasy at being able to walk straight in.

There was no sign of Father, however, and the first thing I noticed was that the door of a small wall cupboard, which he normally kept locked and in which he kept his few items of any value, was swinging open: its lock had been forced. But the silver-handled knife which his mother left him, and which had been passed down from generation to generation in his family, and an enameled belt buckle and Cornish loving spoon which were my mother's, were still there. For a moment I assumed he had lost the key to the cupboard and forced the lock himself.' But Margaret soon had cause to change her opinion.

When she began to look around her, she was horrified to notice what looked like dried bloodstains among the rushes on the floor and on her father's bedding. The bed, moreover, had been left unmade, an unusual omission on William Woodward's part, for he was, so Margaret assured me, meticulous in his domestic habits and hated slovenliness in all its forms. A search of the cottage, including a visit to the outside privy, convinced his daughter that something was seriously wrong, and inquiries of his neighbours elicited the information that no one remembered seeing him since late on Thursday afternoon, when he had been noticed by one of them coming out of the butcher's shop near All Hallow's Church, where he had obviously bought some meat to cook for his supper. A whole day and two nights had passed without any knowledge of William's whereabouts.

'To cut a long story short,' Margaret continued, 'I called in the Watch, who informed the sheriff. Two of his officers began at once to investigate the affair, but there was no light shed on the matter until Master Herepath returned from Gloucester that same afternoon.'

Edward had wasted no time, but immediately gone in search of William Woodward and his money. It was then that the meaning of the forced cupboard door had become apparent, and questions were asked as to who, apart from Edward himself, had known that William was holding the rents. In the end, with great reluctance, the elder Herepath admitted that he had inadvertently let the information slip to his brother.

Margaret stirred, moving her face back from tile fire, as though it had suddenly become too warm for her, yet at the same time wrapping her arms about her body as if she were cold.

'The two leather bags which had contained the money, and what was left of the coin itself after he had paid his most pressing debts, were found in Robert Herepath's room in Small Street,' she said quietly. 'Robert freely admitted to taking the money, relying, I suppose, on his brother's goodwill not to bring charges against him, but denied all knowledge of my father. His story was that he had gone to Bell Lane after curfew, intending to knock up my father and spin him a tale of Edward changing his mind at the last minute, and asking him instead to collect and hold the money at Small Street until Edward's return.

However, on Robert's arrival at the cottage, he had been unable to get any reply to his knocking, but had discovered, as I had done, that the door was unbolted; so he had lifted the latch and crept in.'

Robert Herepath, sensing that the cottage was empty, and presuming that William Woodward had slipped out for a while about some business of his own, had hurriedly drawn the dagger from his belt and prised open the door of the wall cupboard, guessing, from prior experience of the Bell Lane house, that it would be the most likely place for the money to be stored. He was not disappointed and, having extracted it, made off round the comer to Small Street as fast as he could, latching the street door behind him. The theft had been carried out in darkness and he had therefore been unable to take note of his surroundings. Of the fact that violence appeared to have been done there, he disclaimed all knowledge. Such had been Robert Herepath's story and he never wavered from it, Margaret said, even at the end.

And that end had come three months later, on a June day of high summer, at the end of a hangman's rope.

'Robert Herepath was hanged for your father's murder?' I asked, sitting bolt upright and frowning. 'But… But surely you have told me more than once that Master Woodward died just before Christmas, here, in this cottage.'

Margaret nodded slowly, her eyes fixed on the heart of the fire. 'That is so. For you see, two months after the hanging, on the Day of the Assumption of Our Lady, Father walked back into Bristol, alive, although far from well.'

Robert had been under suspicion for the murder of William Woodward almost from the moment he admitted to stealing his brother's rents. Dried blood had been discovered on the outside of one of the leather pouches and smeared over the left breast of his jerkin, where, presumably, he had cradled the bags in his left arm. Several days later, William's bloodstained hat had been fished out of the River Frome by two young boys, angling for the family supper. The presumption was that his body had been pitched into the water just beyond St John's Archway, on the townward side of the Frome Gate.