Kate Sedley - The Saint John's fern

‘Probably not.’ She was still a trifle antagonistic, so I gave her my most ingratiating smile and she visibly thawed. ‘I don’t really know. Perhaps if he had found it bolted, he would have thought better of his intentions and gone away again, and this terrible murder would never have happened. But trying the latch and finding it open, he just went in and ran upstairs to his uncle’s bedchamber, where … where…’ Her voice began to quaver, then faltered and died.

‘Where he killed him,’ I finished gently. She nodded mutely, her eyes full of tears, and I went on, ‘Do you think Master Capstick was awake when his nephew entered his room?’

‘If he was, he didn’t cry out. Of course, he may not have had time before Beric was on him.’

‘What weapon did his great-nephew use?’

My companion shivered. ‘A weighted cudgel. The head had been split open and molten lead poured in before the crack was resealed with wax and resin.’

I nodded. I had often seen this done to make a truly lethal weapon.

She continued, ‘Beric had made no attempt to conceal it, or carry it away with him, but left it on the bed beside Master Capstick’s body. One of the Sheriff’s men took it.’

‘Joanna Cobbold said that when you met Master Gifford at the bottom of the stairs, you noticed that his tunic was stained with blood.’

‘Not at the time,’ Mistress Trenowth amended, confirming Joanna’s actual words. ‘Well, that is to say I suppose I must have noticed it, mustn’t I, or I shouldn’t have remembered it later on? But at that particular moment, I didn’t realize just what it was. I was so surprised to see Beric, that I couldn’t really take in anything else.’

‘But afterwards, after you’d found the body, it dawned on you that Beric must have been covered in blood?’

She blinked at me, suspicious, without quite knowing why, of my form of words. ‘The front of Beric’s tunic was badly stained,’ she answered. ‘When I thought about it, I knew what it must have been.’

At that moment, the parlour door opened and a woman who might have been Mistress Trenowth’s twin came in.

‘Ah, good!’ exclaimed the Widow Cooper, for it could not possibly have been anybody else. ‘A pedlar! Just the man I’m wanting. I need some laces, if you have any, to replace those in the back of this gown.’

* * *

There was small chance of questioning Mistress Trenowth further after the arrival of the Widow Cooper, who was a voluble woman with a constant flow of small talk that required little more than the occasional nod or murmur of assent. In her favour, it must be said that she not only bought my entire stock of laces, but also invited me to share their dinner; an offer that I accepted readily enough, for I was by then extremely hungry. But although on two or three occasions during the meal I made an attempt to reintroduce the topic of Master Capstick’s murder, I was unsuccessful, the widow seeming to have far more interest in the gossip she had heard along the quayside that morning, and which she wished, in her turn, to impart to her sister.

When we had finished eating, however, Mistress Trenowth accompanied me to the street door and asked in a low voice if I thought there was any chance of catching Beric Gifford and bringing him to justice.

‘I shall do my best,’ I said, ‘but I can’t promise to succeed in finding him where so many others have failed. You’re sure that he won’t have gone far while this Katherine Glover is still living at Valletort Manor? He might, after all, be planning to send for her once he has settled in some other part of the country, where he’s unknown.’

She shook her head decidedly. ‘What would they live on? They have to rely on Berenice for money, and she won’t leave her home, especially not now she’s betrothed to Bartholomew Champernowne.’

We both heard Mistress Cooper’s voice upraised, calling to her sister, and Mathilda Trenowth turned to go. I shot out a hand to detain her, at the same time fishing in my pocket with the other. ‘I have something to confess,’ I said, and told her about my trespass of the previous night. ‘I found this,’ I went on, ‘buried under the rushes in Master Capstick’s bedchamber.’ And I held out the brooch with its entwined initials, B and G, and its pendant, teardrop pearl.

Mistress Trenowth stared at it for a moment or two in silence. Then, ‘Yes, that’s Beric’s,’ she confirmed at last, speaking with difficulty as though the sight of the jewel had brought back too many memories that she would prefer to forget. ‘He … he used to wear it in his hat.’ She seemed upset and drew back against the wall as if for support, her plump fingers knotted together.

Mistress Cooper appeared from the parlour, anxious to join in the conversation and curious to discover what we were talking about.

‘I was telling the chapman,’ Mistress Trenowth said quickly, motioning me almost furtively to put the brooch back in my pocket, ‘that if he should find himself Modbury way, he must visit our sister. She’ll give him a warm welcome and a bed for the night if he needs one.’ She turned to smile tremulously at me. ‘Just ask for Anne Fettiplace. Anyone will direct you to her cottage, won’t they, Ursula?’

‘She’s well known in Modbury, certainly,’ Mistress Cooper cheerfully agreed. ‘Where are you off to now, chapman? I should try Notte Street if I were you. Plenty of money to be made there.’ I thanked her for the advice and was about to take my leave when she added, ‘Wait! I’ll come with you and show you the way.’

‘But you’ve not long come home,’ said Mistress Trenowth, plaintively.

‘Well, and now I want to go out again,’ laughed her sister. ‘We can’t let the chapman get lost, now can we?’ She winked at me. ‘You can wash the dirty dishes if you want something to do while I’m gone.’

The widow, ignoring her sister’s indignant protests, took her cloak from a peg near the door, flung it around her shoulder and preceded me into the street. When we were out of earshot, she asked accusingly, ‘Have you been talking to Mathilda about Master Capstick’s murder?’

I admitted that I had. ‘But it was with her permission,’ I urged. ‘Mistress Cobbold of Bilbury Street gave me the history of the case, but there were certain details I wished to know that I felt only Mistress Trenowth could supply. It didn’t seem,’ I went on in extenuation of my actions, ‘that speaking of the murder at all distressed your sister. Naturally, I shouldn’t have continued if it had.’

‘Yet it does upset her,’ Mistress Cooper insisted. ‘She still gets nightmares and wakes up crying. I tell you this because, having overheard part of your conversation when I came in earlier, I guessed what you had been talking about. And you strike me as the sort of persistent youth who might well return to plague my sister again.’

‘I don’t think Mistress Trenowth would mind if I did,’ I retorted, my temper beginning to rise. ‘It appeared to me that she wanted to discuss what had happened.’

‘So she may, but it doesn’t do her any good,’ the widow replied, with the know-it-all air of someone supremely confident of her own perspicacity and judgement. ‘The sooner she forgets all about the Giffords, brother and sister, and everything that happened in Bilbury Street, the better it will be.’

I didn’t protest that I thought it highly unlikely Mistress Trenowth ever would forget, because I didn’t have time.

Mistress Cooper continued, almost without drawing breath, ‘Not, mind you, that Capstick, the old skinflint, deserves to be remembered by her. Over fifteen years Mathilda looked after that man — and no wife could have looked after a husband better — and then to be left nothing at all in his will! It’s disgraceful, and so I told her, although she pretends she doesn’t care. But, of course, she does. She’s bound to! She has every right to feel resentful, that’s what I say!’