Kate Sedley - The Midsummer Rose

My companion still made no comment, but I could see his left cheek had developed a twitch. His hands were clenched.

‘And I’ll tell you why I’m sure of your guilt,’ I went on, continuing to hold his eyes with mine; a rabbit staring into the eyes of a stoat. ‘When I told you yesterday morning, in the Green Lattis, of my belief that Robin Avenel had been murdered in Saint Giles’s Church, I made no mention of the crypt, or where I’d seen the bloodstain on the floor. Yet when you insisted on my showing it to you, you didn’t hesitate, but took a candle and descended at once into the old synagogue cellars, going straight to the very spot.’ I reached across the table suddenly and gripped his wrists with my hands. ‘Now, how do explain that, if you didn’t kill him?’

He sprang to his feet, wrenching himself free of my grasp.

‘You can’t prove it!’ he shouted.

‘I just have,’ I answered steadily, speaking with a confidence that I did not really feel.

He was frightened now, and frightened people do foolish things. If he had stopped, just for a moment, to think about it, he had the perfect reply to my accusation. If it were true, how had the body come to be discovered in Jewry Lane? Who had moved it? But Luke was already scared; appalled by what had happened. But, I guessed, he was more afraid that another man, an innocent man, would be found guilty of the crime and hanged for something he had not done. He had been congratulating himself on how well he had covered his tracks and diverted attention away from his friendship with Marianne Avenel, only to find that Burl Hodge had been accused in his stead. How long had he been trying to convince himself to say nothing, to let events take their course? Perhaps he had already decided to maintain his silence. But now here was I telling him that I was privy to his secret.

Maybe it tipped him into a sort of madness. Or maybe it was simply relief at being able to share his guilty knowledge with someone else. Whatever the reason, he blurted out, ‘All right! All right! Yes, I killed Robin Avenel, but, like you said, it was an accident.’ He was breathing hard as though he had been running. His eyes glittered feverishly. ‘I didn’t mean to stab him, but he started shouting at me like a man possessed. Don’t ask me what he was shouting about; nothing he said made any sense. Then he came at me with his dagger, cursing and swearing, and I could see he was serious. He meant to kill me if he could. I was yelling too by this time, frightened half out of my wits. I managed to grab him around the waist and we struggled for a while. I can’t really remember what happened next; it’s all such a muddle inside my head. I only know he suddenly stopped shouting and slumped to the ground … And when I looked …’ Luke’s voice caught on a horrified sob. ‘When I looked, his dagger was sticking out of his chest. It had pierced him right through his heart.’

Luke began to laugh hysterically, rocking himself backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet. ‘And do you know what, chapman? The silly part of it is, that if I’d set out to do just that, I couldn’t have done it. I would have botched it. People like us don’t learn how to use weapons such as swords and daggers, now do they?’ He continued with his rocking and inane laughter for a few more seconds, long enough for me to rise from my stool and come round the table towards him. But then he snapped to attention, his face transformed into a mask of hatred. ‘Still, now I’ve killed a man once, maybe I can do it again.’

Before I had time to realize what he would be up to, he spun round and reached up to a shelf fixed to the wall behind him. When he turned back, he was holding one of his mother’s long-bladed kitchen knives in his hand.

He smiled. ‘If you’re dead, then who’s to know what really happened?’

I hastily put the width of the table between us.

‘Put the knife down, Luke,’ I said gently, trying to stop my voice from shaking. ‘Don’t be so foolish! How are you going to explain killing me?’

The smile broadened. ‘I’ll say you attacked me. I’ll say you tried to force me into confessing to the murder of Master Avenel so as to save your friend, Burl Hodge.’

He was talking wildly now, not considering what he was saying, and I regarded him warily. In normal circumstances, I was a good deal stronger than he was, but a desperate man, teetering on the edge of unreason, can often display a disproportionate strength. I moved cautiously in the direction of the door. He laughed and made a sudden rush at me, leaping the table.

I turned sideways on to him and felt the knife slash the top of my arm. I was unaware of any pain, only of the need to protect myself. I flung out both hands and grabbed the knife blade as it swooped once more towards me. I was vaguely aware of a cut hand and blood trickling down my left wrist and into my sleeve.

Help arrived in a most unexpected guise, as what appeared to be the three Furies burst through the cottage door and flung themselves on Luke Prettywood, taking him by surprise and bearing him easily to the ground. Bess Simnel and Maria Watkins then sat astride his chest while Margaret Walker, panting a little after so much exertion, clambered to her feet to see if all was well with me.

‘You’re bleeding like a stuck pig,’ was her comment once she had finished her examination, ‘but it’s nothing serious. You’ll live. Now run and fetch that useless lump, Richard Manifold. We three overheard everything that passed between you and this murderer here.’ Noting my puzzled frown, she deigned to explain. ‘When you left my cottage, we followed you — Maria and Bess and myself — to see what you were up to, and we’ve been listening outside the window ever since we arrived. We’ll confirm what was said.’ She gave the struggling Luke a venomous glance. ‘You may not have meant to kill Robin Avenel,’ she spat at him, ‘but you were quite prepared to let Burl Hodge take the blame. You’d have watched him hang just to save your own worthless skin. And no one in Redcliffe will ever forgive you for that.’ She collapsed heavily on to the hapless youth’s legs and glowered up at me. ‘For heaven’s sake, get on your way, Roger! Go! Don’t just stand there like the great, gormless idiot that you are.’

I stooped suddenly and kissed her, a big, smacking kiss full on her lips. She looked astonished, but not displeased.

I kissed her again and went.

There is not a lot more to tell.

Richard Manifold, who, I think, was beginning to have doubts, if not about Burl’s culpability, then certainly about his chances of making the case against him stick, was grateful for my proof of Luke Prettywood’s guilt and the three goodies’ testimony, which corroborated my story. Not that anyone would have known it from the surly way in which he behaved, berating me for withholding evidence and upbraiding Margaret Walker and her friends for putting themselves in danger. But he got short shrift from my three avenging Furies.

‘You’d have had another murder on your hands if we hadn’t followed Roger here,’ my former mother-in-law informed him roundly. ‘Luke was about to kill him.’

‘Kill him! Kill him!’ echoed Maria and Bess, wagging their heads vigorously and showing their blackened stumps of teeth.

The sergeant made a valiant attempt not to look too downcast by the fact of my survival as he marched his prisoner away under guard, flanked by Jack Gload and Peter Littleman. The former could barely contain his satisfaction at the outcome: he still bore the scars of Luke’s Midsummer Eve attack.

I went home, accompanied by Margaret Walker, to confess all to Adela, to be scolded, exclaimed and fussed over and made to feel a hero — which I wasn’t. I was also made to promise — although this was done so subtly that I hardly noticed it at the time — to concentrate on my work as a pedlar now that Burl’s innocence had been happily established. The cuts on my upper left arm and hand were bathed and bandaged with sicklewort leaves, in order to staunch the flow of blood. Then I was sent to bed with a potion of lettuce juice to help me sleep, while my womenfolk kept the children quiet and no doubt discussed my latest antics with pursed lips and much sad shaking of their heads.