Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘Poj!’ said John, reaching out to Gil’s plate. Gil checked the sticky little paws and gave the boy another spoonful.

‘It isn’t porridge, John,’ he said. ‘It’s applemoy. Nancy,’ he called down the table, ‘bring me his wee dish.’

‘Moy?’

‘He never grasps the whole word, does he?’ Gil said. ‘Thank you, Nancy. You’re a good lass.’ Nancy gave him a watery smile, bobbed and went back to her own seat. ‘We should call you Tuttivillus, wee man.’

‘Have you still the list you made, ma mie ?’ Catherine asked Alys. ‘You should study it after supper. It might prove of value.’

‘It was certainly no accident, by what you say,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘The sweetmeats were deliberately poisoned. Could they have been intended for someone else?’ He turned his head. ‘Is that someone at the door? Who would come calling at this hour?’

‘Syme,’ guessed Gil, as his father-in-law rose. ‘He’s the most likely.’

He was right. Admitted in a flurry of apologies for disturbing their supper, James Syme bowed to the company, refused a seat at the table, and begged a word with Gil when he was free.

‘I’m about done here,’ Gil said, ‘if Pierre will excuse me. John, go to Mammy Alys.’

‘Take dish,’ ordered John, sliding to the floor.

Gil obediently handed him the little painted plate with its mound of applemoy, and he pattered round the table to Alys. Gil rose, wiping food from his person, and Maistre Pierre said, ‘Go above to my closet, if you wish.’

Seated in his father-in-law’s comfortable panelled closet, with its shelf of books, its jug of Malvoisie left ready, Alys’s sewing lying on the windowsill, Gil handed Syme a glass of the golden wine and studied the man.

‘A bad business,’ he said, with genuine if conventional sympathy.

‘Oh!’ Syme shook his yellow head. ‘My — my wife’s at her wits’ end, poor lass. She’s howding, you ken,’ he divulged, with that air of imparting a secret, though the whole of Glasgow could recognize this one, Gil thought. ‘It makes her easy upset. But I said I’d come out and ask you — ’ he paused, biting his lip — ‘ask you what you thought in the case. Is my good-sister guilty, do you think, Maister Cunningham, or the girl Jess, or is my wife right that it must ha been some other enemy of the family?’

‘What do you think?’ Gil returned the question.

Syme threw him a hunted look, but considered his answer with care. ‘If Agnes hadny named her, I’d never ha thought of Jess. She’s a cheery wee soul, but not clever. I would never ha thought she’d do such a thing on her own. But I can see why John Anderson took Agnes up for it,’ he admitted. ‘She’s the means for it, since she makes many of the dainties we sell, and she’d know how to — to — it was right defty, what you described, the way the stuff had been put in the marchpane and then covered over. I can roll pills wi the best, but I’d not manage that, nor would Nicol I’d say. Agnes is neat-fingered, like Frankie and my wife.’

‘Go on,’ said Gil.

Syme looked at the candlelight reflected on his glass and said, ‘As for why she’d do such a thing, there’s never been any love lost between her and her brother. But in that family it means little, maister.’ He smiled sourly. ‘I don’t think they know what the word means. Love, I mean. The tales I could — well, never mind that. The point is, why pick on Agnes when it might as well be any of the family or none?’

‘Was her chamber searched?’ Gil asked.

‘Aye, the Serjeant and I searched it after they’d taken her up. We never found any sign she’d been working wi sweetmeats there, but then she’s been trained to clean up after hersel, like any good worker. There was no sign of the poison either, not in Agnes’s goods nor in the lassie Jess’s scrip.’

‘Interesting,’ said Gil. ‘How did her father take that?’

‘I’m not right sure he took it in.’

‘Could it have been any of the rest of the family?’ Gil asked, without inflection. Syme shook his head. ‘Why would anyone want to kill Robert, do you think?’

Syme looked uncomfortable. ‘He’s never — he’s no that easy to get on wi,’ he revealed unnecessarily. ‘I was Frankie’s prentice, and then his journeyman, till he took me into partnership, so I’ve watched the laddie growing up, and I’ve wondered, lately, about the future of the business.’

‘In what way?’ Gil prompted, when he paused.

‘Well, it seemed likely Frankie would take the boy into the partnership too, and I’m junior partner, I’d be able to say nothing on that, the way the papers were drawn up. And he’s aye been wilful, steering, fond of his own way, and his manner no always what would be best for a man dealing wi folk across a counter.’ Syme turned his glass in his hand, then took a sip from it. ‘Well enough for me, I could always sell out, assuming I could find the money, and move elsewhere. But Frankie would have to live wi it, and wi the boy’s prying and spying. No that I’ve discussed it wi him, you understand.’

‘What about Nicol?’ Gil asked. ‘And Mistress Grace? How did they get on with him?’

‘You’ve seen them,’ said Syme awkwardly. ‘Nicol just laughs when his brother digs at him. Robert’s aye been civil to Grace, and she to him, I’ll say that for him. She’s a remarkable woman, is Grace.’

Gil sat for a moment, absorbing this, and then said, ‘How long a task would it be, would you think, to — ’ he hesitated for a word — ‘treat two of the marchpane cherries like that?’

‘Maybe a quarter hour, once you had all the materials to hand, for someone used to making the things. Not more than half an hour, at any rate.’

‘And when were the marchpane cherries put under the counter, do you think? Would it have been easy done?’

‘Robert finished a box of apricot lozenges that he said the mice had been at, yesterday after dinnertime,’ said Syme reflectively. ‘He’d to do without after that, for I was in the shop and watching him. I’d say there was nothing under the counter the rest of the day, nor first thing this morning.’ He shut his eyes to recall more clearly. ‘Today in the time afore dinner we’d a bit of custom, a few folk calling to talk about the mummer or congratulate Frankie, Agnes and Grace was both through the shop passing the time of day, and Robert was out at the door a lot, crying a barrel of spectacles your good-brother fetched to us last week.’ He grimaced. ‘I said it was unwise, but he would go ahead, and the chaffing and japing it earned us, well! Then we’d the upset about your wee laddie.’ He opened his eyes to look at Gil. ‘Was that him up at the table now? He’s recovered well, whatever it was he took, Christ and His saints be praised for it.’

‘He’s well,’ agreed Gil, ‘and we owe Mistress Grace a debt for life.’

‘And we were all in and out,’ continued Syme, nodding agreement, ‘looking up and down the street for this Erschewoman Grace says called her to help. I suppose in all that time there would have been opportunity for someone to put the box where you found it, but I never saw such a thing when we locked up for dinnertime, and Robert, Our Lady send him grace, was never eating at anything. Which he would have been if it was there.’

‘So it probably wasn’t there,’ agreed Gil. ‘And over the dinner-hour? Where was everyone? Where did you eat your own dinner?’

‘With the family,’ said Syme modestly. ‘It shortens the time I’m away from the business, and eases the burden on my wife just now.’

‘So was everyone there?’

‘Not everyone. Nicol was absent, and Mistress Mathieson herself a course, and I believe her mother ate with her, the two of them off a tray. Robert and myself went through to the dining-chamber when we closed the shop, and Agnes came down from above, and Frankie from somewhere about the house, and Grace, and then Frankie gave thanks for the food and we sat to eat. The family eats separate from the household,’ he divulged, with a return to his usual manner, ‘Frankie hasn’t held by the old ways like your good-father here.’