Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘Was it a long wait?’ Gil asked, and bit his lip, thinking of the prentice joke. ‘How far had Nicol gone?’

‘Long enough,’ admitted Billy. ‘How long was ye, Nicol? Best part an hour, I’d say.’

Nicol nodded reluctantly.

‘All the way down the Gallowgate and back,’ Gil said. ‘It’s shorter by the back way, of course, down the Molendinar. Down the mill-burn,’ he translated, as they looked blankly, unfamiliar with the Sunday name. ‘And was Miller at home?’

Nicol’s jaw dropped. Recovering it, he said, ‘No, he wasny, nor his woman didny ken where he was, save that a laddie came to fetch him an hour afore I was there.’

Gil and Otterburn exchanged a glance. The Provost nodded at his captain, who left the chamber, and Gil said carefully,

‘What kind of time was that, then? When were you down the Gallowgate, Nicol?’

Nicol looked blankly at him, and then at Billy.

‘They’d done wi Terce,’ Billy said helpfully, ‘afore ever we set out. You could hear the bells ringing.’

‘Och, it was long after that,’ said Nicol.

‘Is that no what I’m saying? Half an hour after eight it would be, likely, when we left the lodging, and getting on for Sext when we got back.’

‘And there was nobody about Canon Aiken’s house other than the folk o the two households,’ said Otterburn. Billy nodded, the brothers shook their dark heads. All seemed to be agreeing with him.

Andro returned, with four men, rather fresher than the last set.

‘Right,’ said the Provost, and rubbed his hands together again. ‘Seeing you ken the way to this Miller’s house, my lad, you’ll take us there now. And to make certain you behave yoursel, we’ll just keep your brother and your friend here waiting for you. Any fun and games, laddie, and your brother’s the one that pays for it. Right?’

Out past the Gallowgate Port, past Little St Mungo’s, Nicol led them hesitantly down an alleyway among tumbledown hovels, little huts of wattle and clay with balding thatch and sagging walls. Women paused in their gossip and turned to stare as they went, a gaggle of children gathered in their wake, but as it became obvious where they were heading, somehow the interest evaporated. The children hesitated and turned back, the women ceased to watch them directly, though Gil suspected that by the time they stopped outside a shack no different from any of the others he could have obtained a detailed description of every member of the party from anyone within fifty yards.

Andro, following the plan the Provost had outlined before they left the Gallowgate, led two of the men quietly round the back of the little structure. Gil drew Nicol to one side, and Otterburn stepped up to the door and hammered on it with the hilt of his sword.

‘Miller!’ he shouted. ‘Open up, there! Open up for the law!’

A child in a nearby house began screaming, and a few heads popped out of doorways and as quickly popped back in. Like rabbits with a ferret in the warren, thought Gil.

‘What’s he done, maister?’ asked Nicol softly. ‘Why’s the law after him? Is he put to the horn, maybe?’

‘If he’s not here,’ said Gil, ‘he will be at the horn, for the murder of Dod Muir at the least.’ Otterburn, tiring of shouting at the door, had lifted the latch and flung it open. ‘I’d say he’s not here, would you?’

‘It’s deserted,’ said Andro, appearing in the open doorway. ‘We got in the back. There’s a workshop ahint the house, sir, you’ll want a right look at.’

The house was very small, and with eight men in it uncomfortably crowded. There was another doorway immediately opposite the one they had entered by, with a leather curtain; to the left was a single dwelling-space, to the right a couple of stalls where a goat bleated in alarm. Otterburn, ordering the men-at-arms out to watch front and back, cast a glance round the place and stepped through to the workshop Andro had mentioned. Gil stayed where he was, Nicol at his side, studying the sparse furnishings.

‘You said he had a woman,’ he remarked.

‘Aye.’ Nicol was looking about him too. ‘And there was a cooking-pot and two-three platters at the hearth, and a couple more stools, when I was here afore. And a better blanket on the bed.’ He grinned nervously. ‘He’s no a — no a good-heartit man, maister. Likely he beats her. She’s maybe took her chance when he’s away, and went somewhere kinder.’

‘Aye.’ Gil lifted the lid of the one kist in the place, with caution. It held some worn garments and a pair of down-at-heel boots; there were several choicer garments hanging on nails on one end wall of the box bed, and a pair of sturdy shoes set neatly below them. ‘He’s come into some better living lately,’ he observed. ‘Been here many times?’

‘Twice or thrice,’ admitted the man. ‘An errand for the old dame, ilka time.’

‘What was your message this time?’

‘To let him ken she was here in Glasgow,’ he said readily enough, ‘and wanting a word wi him.’

‘Was that how she put it?’ Gil asked, amused.

‘Well. Maybe no. Maybe it was more like, Tell the man Miller I’ll get a word wi him as soon as he pleases, and no to wait about .’

There was nothing under the bed, and nothing on its roof save some dust. The ledge at the top of the wall, below the rafters, yielded some oddments of broken crocks, a plain wooden comb, a few other fragments of domestic life. He prodded the bed, but found nothing stowed in it. Above the goat’s stall a bucket hung in the rafters proved to be empty.

‘If he’d anything worth it, his woman’s likely taken it with her,’ offered Nicol.

‘Maister Cunningham!’ Otterburn called from outside. Gil followed the sound across a small yard of beaten earth well-sprinkled with goat droppings, past a turf-banked furnace to a substantial shed whose door stood wide.

‘The man thinks more of his work than his dwelling,’ he observed, ducking under the lintel.

‘Aye, very like. See what we’ve found here,’ said Otter-burn, gesturing largely. Gil looked about the dark interior. There was a shuttered window, and a bench below it, the sort of low structure a man could sit astride with his workpiece on a raised portion before him. A rack of small hammers and mells was fixed to the wall below the window. Two wooden bins held scrap metal of different qualities, other tools and materials were neatly stowed.

‘A hammerman’s workshop,’ said Gil.

‘There’s more.’ Otterburn was grinning in the shadows. ‘There’s more. Show him, Andro.’

Part of the back wall of the shed swung open, and Andro stepped through.

‘There’s no air in there!’ he complained, fanning himself with one hand. ‘Aye, sir, it’s all there, all Maister Livingstone described, so far’s I saw afore you shut the door on me. A bar o siller, a sack o blanks waiting to be struck, a sack o powder I suppose could be dried argol. And here’s the dies.’

‘It’s no that secret,’ said Otterburn disparagingly, ‘but you’d no spot it unless you were right next it, in this light, and it’s a right neat wee press when you get inside, all well stowed. It’s a false back wall to the shed, see, you’d no guess unless you paced it out. See us the dies, then, man.’

There were three of them, identical in size and heft to the one which had been hidden with Dod Muir’s body. Gil moved to the door to inspect them. Two showed the cross and four mullets, with no balls as Madam Xanthe had said. One of these was badly worn. The third should be the king’s head, he thought, turning it to the light.

‘Here’s a thing,’ he said. ‘Could this be why Dod Muir was slain?’

‘Eh?’ said Otterburn from the hidden press.