Kate Sedley - The Three Kings of Cologne

I ignored this jibe, addressing myself to Dame Cecily.

‘The only course open to me, as far as I can see, is to make enquiries around the town for anyone who knew Isabella Linkinhorne in his youth. As this is likely to take me some days — and even then, I doubt I’ll have much success — is there a clean, but cheap hostelry you can recommend, Mistress? Somewhere where the food’s good and the fleas don’t bite too much.’

She laughed. ‘There are one or two. But you’ll spend tonight with us. We keep a spare mattress for my father in the little room under the eaves. He won’t mind if you share that with him.’

‘Shan’t mind at all,’ Jack agreed. ‘I snore and fart a bit, Chapman, but then I believe you do, too.’ He grinned more malevolently than ever. ‘At least, you do according to Sergeant Manifold.’

His meaning was clear. Dick Manifold had got the information from Adela and shared the information with his two henchmen. I could feel my temper rising and had to clench my hands in my lap to stop myself from hitting Jack.

Dame Cecily, although ignorant of the cause, was immediately conscious of the rising tension between us, and hurriedly turned the conversation by asking her husband, ‘Is the list of deliveries ready for the boy in the morning? Our apprentice,’ she explained for my benefit, ‘lives nearby and goes home to sleep at nights with his widowed mother. But he’s here at daybreak and needs to know which homes to take bread to before Thomas opens the stall. Some people are too old or crippled to come themselves.’

‘Or too lazy,’ her spouse supplemented. ‘Or think they’re too important to make one of a crowd.’ He snorted indignantly, adding a trifle obscurely, ‘Just because his sister married above her station.’

‘Who’s that, then?’ Jack demanded.

The baby woke up and started to cry again. Cecily lifted the child out of the cradle, loosened her gown and put it to her breast. The noises from upstairs had long since died away.

‘Ralph Mynott,’ she said in answer to her father’s question. ‘Lives opposite the monks’ burial ground, over towards the East Gate.’

‘Who’d his sister marry then, that he thinks himself too good to come to the stall?’ Jack persisted.

‘Oh, some baronet or another,’ his son-in-law snorted. ‘No one of any great note. A Sir Peter Somebody-or-other. No one from around here. I fancy they live somewhere northwards of Bristol.’

I had been listening with only half an ear, brooding on what Jack Gload had hinted at a little while before, knowing full well that it had been nothing more than malice on his part, yet feeling a great surge of anger with Adela for discussing me with Richard Manifold and laying me open to his ridicule. But suddenly, all that was temporarily forgotten. It was as though a bright light had penetrated the dim corners of my mind.

‘This Sir Peter,’ I said, a trifle breathlessly. ‘He wouldn’t happen by any chance to be called Claypole, would he? Sir Peter Claypole?’

‘That’s it,’ Thomas Baker confirmed. ‘That’s the name. Although I fancy someone told me that he’d died some time ago.’

‘Ten years,’ I said. ‘And you say this Ralph Mynott is Lady Claypole’s brother?’

The baker nodded, asking austerely, ‘And how do you come to know her ladyship, Chapman?’ as though a pedlar had no right to be on speaking terms with a member of the nobility, however minor.

But I didn’t answer him. I was too busy sending up a silent prayer of thanks to God. He hadn’t, after all, failed me. I had found ‘Caspar’, I was convinced of it.

Everything suddenly began to fall into place.

This man, this Ralph Mynott, was brother to Lady Claypole and would no doubt have visited both her and Sir Peter at Hambrook Manor on many occasions in the past. Twenty years ago, he might well have encountered their visitor and friend, Robert Moresby of Gloucester, and, through the latter, met Isabella Linkinhorne. He had been struck by her beauty, she liked him and was by no means predisposed to attach herself to just one man. So somehow, unbeknownst to Robert, they had arranged to meet when he was not by, Westbury being just as convenient a place for their rendezvous as it was for him and Isabella. Oh, yes, the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that I had — with a little help from the Almighty, of course — found my ‘Caspar’.

‘Oi! Chapman! Thomas is talking to you.’

Jack Gload’s voice interrupted my musings and made me jump.

‘I beg your pardon, Master Baker,’ I apologized. ‘You were saying?’

He repeated the question I had only half-heard, and out of politeness I was forced to explain my dealings with Lady Claypole the week before. Fortunately, this seemed to satisfy my host, once he had established that I was not a friend of her ladyship but merely the instrument of someone else’s bidding (and that person being His Worship, the Mayor of Bristol). I could tell that he was somewhat confused by my tale, having missed the greater part of it while working in the bakehouse. Nor was he really much interested, and was soon holding forth again on the trials of being a baker with a growing family to feed, until he suddenly decided that the candles had burned low enough in their holders and that it was time for bed.

Jack conducted me outside to a small lean-to privy at the back of the house and then, when we had relieved ourselves, lit the way by the flame of a flickering rushlight up the narrow, twisting staircase to the tiny garret room under the eaves, where a mattress, furnished with blanket and pillows, occupied nearly all of the available floor space. Here, I stripped off my outer clothing only, not caring to sleep naked with Jack Gload, but I need not have worried. Jack himself fell into bed just as he was, not even bothering to remove his boots. I edged away from him as far as possible.

I had expected, after my day’s exertions, to fall asleep almost at once, but excitement at having found ‘Caspar’ would probably have kept me in a state of wakefulness even if Jack had not suddenly felt the need to talk.

‘’E’s not pleased with you, you know, Chapman. Not at all pleased. ’E feels you’re treading on his toes.’

‘Who?’ I demanded peevishly, although I could guess the answer without being told.

‘Sergeant Manifold, o’ course. ’E don’t like you being hand in glove with Mayor Foster. Says it undermines ’is standing in the city. Makes ’im look a fool, like he’s not able to find this Isabella’s murderer on ’is own account. Don’t know why you’ve been dragged into it in the first place.’

‘I should have thought he’d have been glad of a little help,’ I snapped, rolling on to my back and staring up at the low ceiling a foot or so above my head. It seemed to be pressing down upon us like the ceilings of those torture chambers one hears about (and hopes never to encounter). ‘It’s not easy trying to find a killer after a lapse of twenty years.’

‘You don’t seem to be doing so bad,’ Jack Gload pointed out. ‘Not if all you says is true.’ He managed to force a little scepticism into his tone. ‘But you don’t share what you’ve found out with the Sergeant, do you? Tha’s what ’e don’t like.’

‘He’s never jibbed before when I’ve been making enquiries into other matters,’ I objected, frowning into the darkness. ‘Why should he take umbrage this time?’

‘Dunno, but ’e ’as. Daresay it’s to do with Alderman Foster takin’ an interest. Now ’e’s the Mayor — Foster, I mean — Sergeant Manifold feels it more. I tell you what, Chapman, I’d back off if I were you. Tell His Worship you ain’t able to go on working for ’im. The Sergeant could be a powerful enemy if ’e put ’is mind to it.’