Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘- and I canny have him talking to Humphrey the now, I’ll not answer for it if his brother gets him worked up again, the soul — ’

‘I know you,’ said Agnew. ‘David Cunningham’s nephew, aren’t you no? Is it you that’s to be married soon? What’s been happening here?’

‘The Deacon’s dead,’ said Gil baldly. ‘Taken up dead in the garden this morning. It seems as if he’s been stabbed.’

‘Stabbed?’ repeated Agnew in amazement. ‘That’s what Millar said and all, but I thought surely — who would do a thing like that? I hope no my brother,’ he said anxiously.

‘- and what kind of a brother would make a suggestion like that about a poor soul like Humphrey, I’d like to know — ’

‘Humphrey’s been as vexed as any of them,’ Millar reassured him. ‘I canny think it was him, Maister Agnew. And it’s no a good moment to speak to him, for they’re about to go to Terce and Sext and then they’ll say extra prayers for the Deacon, as Sissie says, and keeping the Office hours aye calms him.’

‘Oh, aye, I suppose,’ said Agnew reluctantly. ‘And when did it happen? Naismith was wi me yestreen, but he left me after an hour. That’s the last I spoke to him.’

‘It must have been this morn,’ said Millar before Gil could speak, ‘or maybe in the night, for he was in his own lodgings when I came home about ten o’clock, and I canny think how it could have happened. Because,’ he added to Gil, ‘it’s just come to me, the door here.’ He waved at the door Gil had just stepped through. ‘I locked it when I came in and went to my own bed, and it was locked just as usual this morn when we came through to say Matins. Deacon Naismith had a key on his ring, but — ’

‘Locked?’ said Agnew. ‘You mean this door’s aye locked at night?’

‘- in course it is, and the gate locked at the other end of the garden, some of these poor souls would be away down paddling in the Girth Burn if they wereny watched at night, your own brother’s one of them, he’d a bad turn yestreen just after I’d got Anselm settled, he must have sung me out half the Apocalypse before I got the sleeping-draught down him — ’

‘That’s a relief to hear, Mistress Mudie,’ said Agnew warmly. ‘D’you ken, I don’t think Maister Naismith ever told me that. It’s a great comfort to me, mistress, that you’ve such a close eye to my brother.’

Mistress Mudie smiled at that, and the light, catching one plump cheek, showed a dimple that came and went. She crossed her arms below her comfortable bosom, the movement shedding a waft of a strong herbal smell Gil could not place, and rattled on.

‘- no more than my duty when all’s said and done, but I’ve a liking to your brother, maister, he’s a poor creature just like the others — ’

‘So what’s ado, Maister Cunningham?’Agnew asked. ‘Millar tells me you’re looking into this for Robert Blacader.’

Gil admitted this.

‘I’ve not had time to learn much so far,’ he added. ‘The man was found stabbed this morn, and we know he was home last night — ’

‘Aye,’ agreed Millar, nodding earnestly.

‘- and that’s about it. Might I come by and talk to you later?’ he asked.

‘To me?’ Agnew’s brows rose under his legal bonnet.

‘You may have been the last to speak to him,’ Gil pointed out. I hope you might be able to tell me something useful.’

‘I don’t see that,’ said Agnew dubiously. ‘If you ken he was here after he saw me — ’

‘- no doubt of that, his boots going up and down over my head, never troubled to put his house shoon on his feet, and when that man’ll be done in the wash-house I canny tell, I haveny all day to wait to lay him out, and I’ve still to put his chamber straight, what wi seeing to that stramash and finding the barrow, and answering Frankie’s kin that’s home from sea, that was here looking for the Deacon as well, though I canny see how he didny tell the lad himself, the dinner will be late if I canny get on — ’

‘None the less,’ persisted Gil, ‘I’d be glad of a word. Will you be in your own chamber in the Consistory later today?’

The washhouse was one of the outhouses leaning against the north wall of the yard. Led to it by Mistress Mudie in full tongue, they found the Deacon laid on a board balanced across two of the great washtubs, his outstretched right arm pointing accusingly at the rafters. Maistre Pierre, a lantern in his hand, was carefully examining so much of the corpse as he could in its present rigid state, but looked up as they entered.

‘Ah, Gilbert, there you are,’ he said, and nodded to Lowrie. ‘We have got the gown off him at least, which gives us a better look at the rest.’

‘- never have tolerated such a thing for any of the bedesmen, why any Christian soul should have to put up with it for himself I canny tell — ’ said Mistress Mudie behind Gil.

‘What have you found?’ Gil asked.

‘He had been drinking,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Not to excess, I am not suggesting he was drunk, but he had taken a refreshment. Also his supper, which one may clearly see was kale with lentils and meat of some sort.’

‘Sweet St Giles,’ said Gil. ‘Can you tell me the vintage of the wine?’

‘No,’ said Maistre Pierre regretfully, ‘though I think it was fortified. The smell is still in his mouth, very faint. Try for yourself.’

Gil bent, quelling his distaste, and sniffed at the open mouth. The cold lips and ginger-bristled jaw were still wet with rain and smelled of the man’s stale breath, and a faint scent of the yew-tree under which the corpse had lain clung to the flesh, but there was also an intimation of alcohol, the treacly savour of a fortified wine. Malvoisie, perhaps, he thought, or sack or that stuff from Xerez. A lentil, fragments of dark green matter and a wisp of meat clung unpleasantly to the back teeth in the lantern-light.

‘Yes,’ said Gil. ‘And his death?’

‘Stabbed,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘as I surmised. See.’ He turned back the blood-stiffened folds of cloth fastidiously, exhibiting the wounds on the fleshy torso. ‘This one, and this, have bled quite badly, but I think this is the one that reached the heart.’

‘In the chest, no the back,’ said Gil. “And the weapon? No a large one, I’d have said.’

‘Well, for these, an ordinary small dagger, not much bigger than an eating-knife if that. But look at this.’ He pointed carefully with one big forefinger. ‘I checked the direction of the cuts. These two that bled are quite shallow, as if he was stabbed in anger by an opponent standing in front of him and using his left hand. The third is deeper, done with a bigger blade, and goes in direct, but also from in front, and has found the heart.’

‘Two assailants? And one of them left-handed,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘Has his own dagger been used?’

‘Quite clean,’ reported Lowrie, investigating both weapons where they lay by the corpse’s well-shod feet. ‘And so’s the whinger. And his boots are no worse than you’d expect if he was out in the burgh yestreen. Splashes of mud, no more.’

‘Anything else? What’s in his purse?’

‘I have not yet examined the purse.’

‘- the very idea, going through the poor man’s things like this, and all before he’s made respectable, lying there in all his dirt, the soul — ’

‘There is blood in the creases of his right hand, as if he put it to the wound, no more, but his fingernails are not damaged. And there is something else strange.’ The mason ducked round Naismith’s outstretched, accusatory arm to reach the head, and began to smooth the lank brown hair aside with a surprisingly delicate touch. ‘Bring the light here, will you.’