Kate Sedley - The Three Kings of Cologne

He furrowed his brow. ‘Does it matter?’ But without waiting for my reply or trying to work it out for himself, he continued, ‘I think it must have been springtime, but early. There weren’t many flowers about as I recall. A few primroses, sweet violets, wood anemones perhaps, so it must have been March, but to the best of my recollection the weather was stormy and cold. However, I’m unable to tell you more than that.’

I pressed him harder. ‘But there must have been an occasion after which you never saw her again. Do you have no memory of when that was?’

Ralph Mynott said slowly, ‘Yes. Of course, you’re right. I remember riding that way throughout one spring and summer in the hope — in the expectation at first — of seeing Isabella, but she had simply vanished. I asked a number of people in and around Westbury if she had been seen, but the answer was always the same: no one recalled seeing her and her horse for … well, weeks to begin with, then months. Eventually I gave up looking for her.’

‘What did you think could have happened to her?’

A rush of blood suffused his sallow face. ‘My sister finally admitted to me, months afterwards, that Isabella had been planning to elope with Robert Moresby. It was a blow to my pride that she could prefer that fellow to me, so I stopped thinking about her after that.’

‘But Lady Claypole must also have told you that on the day appointed, Isabella failed to arrive at Hambrook Manor to keep her rendezvous with Master Moresby.’

My companion chewed his thumbnail, then nodded agreement.

‘True,’ he said. ‘But I could see no reason why Isabella should not have changed her mind yet again later on, and ridden to Gloucester to join him and become his wife. Indeed, the longer I thought about it, the more convinced I became that this is what had happened. There were, after all, a number of reasons why she might not have been able to reach Hambrook on the day arranged. That some violent fate might have overtaken her never so much as crossed my mind.’

I waited a moment or two before speaking again to allow him time to master what appeared to be a very natural grief. But when he seemed to have his emotions under control, I said, ‘On the morning Mistress Linkinhorne should have joined Robert Moresby at your sister’s house, she was seen talking to a man near Westbury village. His face was hidden by his hood, which was drawn well forward, concealing his features, it being an extremely wet and windy day. That — forgive me — that wasn’t yourself by any chance?’

A suspicion as to where my questioning was leading suddenly seemed to strike him and once again he coloured up, but this time with anger.

‘As I don’t know which day it was, I cannot say for certain that I was not the man. But if, Master Chapman, you are implying that I might have murdered Isabella, I must ask you to leave my house immediately.’

Ralph Mynott had risen to his feet and was now glaring down at me, his pale eyes flashing with anger. He had a temper all right; and for a man with normally so meek and mild an appearance, he could look surprisingly dangerous when roused. It did nothing to reassure me that he was telling the truth and that I could rely on his word. Moreover, I was forcibly reminded of his sister’s tipping bed at Hambrook Manor. The Mynotts were a family to be wary of, I decided. On the other hand, it didn’t mean that Ralph had murdered Isabella.

For a start, even had he done so, I had not a scrap of proof to link him with the crime, and there was always the difficulty of how he could have put the body in the grave in the nuns’ graveyard. How would he have known about it? How would he have managed to transport the body there? This didn’t mean that I was entirely convinced of his innocence, but the more I considered the facts, the more I realized that at the back of my mind, for some time past, I had been nurturing the growing conviction that, where knowledge and opportunity had been concerned, ‘Balthazar’, the man who was said to have lived in Bristol, was most likely to be the killer.

I uncoiled my length from the chair and towered over my host. Two could play at being threatening. Ralph took a step backwards, his angry expression changing to one of uneasiness. Beneath his mild exterior, he was a bully, and in my experience, bullies are easily intimidated.

‘Master Mynott,’ I said quietly, ‘are you prepared to swear to me, by Christ and all His Saints, that you did not murder Isabella Linkinhorne?’

He blinked. I supposed it was a nervous habit. But there was no other hesitation, not so much as by a second.

‘I swear,’ he said, adding, ‘I loved her. I couldn’t have harmed her.’

And on reflection, if what he had told me was the truth, Ralph Mynott had not known of Isabella’s perfidy until many months after she was dead. If it was the truth …

I sighed to myself. It seemed to me that there probably never would be a satisfactory answer to the question of who had killed Isabella Linkinhorne. It was too long ago. But for my own pride’s sake, I had to keep trying.

I took my leave of Master Mynott and wondered if he would tell his wife about my enquiries. I rather fancied that he wouldn’t. She didn’t look the sort who would take kindly to the tale of a long lost love. But what next? I asked myself as I shouldered my satchel and made my way across the town to the West Gate. And to that question there was only one answer. I had to find ‘Balthazar’. But how to locate him? Except that he had reddish hair and probably still lived in Bristol, I knew as little about him as I had known about Ralph Mynott.

But then, suddenly, with a flash of inspiration, I wondered if that were really true.

‘So here you are, Chapman,’ said a most unwelcome and slightly breathless voice behind me. ‘Off home, are you? I suppose you thought you’d given me the slip.’ The tone was reproachful.

I turned my head. Jack Gload was only a pace or two behind me.

‘I had no intention of giving you the slip,’ I retorted. ‘Why would I want to do that? I was under the impression that you were spending some days with your daughter. I left you sleeping like a baby and it would have been a shame to wake you.’

‘Well, I ain’t,’ he said. ‘Spending a few days with Cecily, that is. Children and animals, I can’t abide ’em. Besides, can’t be spared for long,’ he added importantly. ‘Too many villains in Bristol for the Sergeant to do without me, and I’m ’is right-hand man. Pete — Pete Littleman — ’e’s all right. A plodder, but ’e don’t have my brains. Leastways that’s what Sergeant Manifold says.’

I had no doubt that Dick Manifold said precisely the same thing to his other henchman. He had enough guile to keep them both happy and subordinate to his authority by playing them off against one another. But my heart sank at the prospect of Jack Gload’s company for my return journey to Bristol and, moreover, I was suspicious of his motive for accompanying me. Fortunately, he had no subtlety and asked almost at once, ‘You been to see this Ralph Mynott, then?’ He didn’t wait for my assent, but continued, ‘What did ’e have t’ say for ’imself?’

As we had reached the West Gate, I was able to postpone my answer until we had negotiated our way through against the incoming tide of traffic, exchanging some good-humoured badinage with the gatekeeper and a few bad-tempered words with a carter, who seemed to think that his load of iron ore for the city foundry entitled him to hog the entire width of the road and drive pedestrians to the wall. And by the time we were out in the open countryside, I hoped that my companion might have forgotten his question.