Pat McIntosh - The Merchant's Mark

‘Near as noisy as a stoneyard,’ commented the mason.

‘What’s that you say?’ asked Maister Riddoch, bustling into the chamber. He was small, bald and neat-featured, his expression both anxious and wary. Over leggings and a worn leather jerkin he had put on his good stuff gown to entertain visitors. He flourished the matching hat of tawny wool in a jerky bow and went on, ‘Forgive me keeping you waiting, maisters, a wee bit business wi my landlord. A boneyard? Aye, it’s like a boneyard, now you say, wi the staves there and the puncheons here instead of the legbones and skulls. A good thought, maister!’ He laughed nervously. ‘A good thought. Now, Mistress Riddoch’s to bring a refreshment and you can tell me what’s the trouble. Something wrong with Augie Morison’s last load, you say? I’m sorry to hear that, for he’s a good customer. What is it, was aught damaged? Aught missing?’

‘No so much missing,’ said Gil, ‘as changed.’

‘Strange, you say?’ Riddoch had put the hat on, and it slipped sideways as he tilted his bald head sharply to catch Gil’s words. He pushed it straight, staring hard at Gil. ‘What way, strange?’

‘One barrel had been exchanged,’ said Gil, pitching his voice louder.

‘Never in my yard, surely!’ Riddoch had obviously heard that clearly. He swallowed. ‘One o the pipes o crockware, was it?’

‘The small barrel. The puncheon.’

‘Puncheon.’ The man swallowed again, and and nodded. ‘I mind it. One o my make. He had it lashed on the back o the cart. But his man aye sleeps the night in the barn,’ he averred. ‘How would anything get near the cart without waking him?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ said Gil.

The door opened, to admit a comely young woman with a tray in her hands, and Riddoch turned to her. Socrates, at Gil’s feet, raised his head, his nose twitching.

‘Mistress, here’s these gentry telling me a strange thing. One o Morison’s last load was the wrong puncheon when he got it home.’

She paused in setting down the tray, to exchange a long look with her husband.

‘The wrong one?’ she repeated. ‘Saints preserve us! What way the wrong one?’

‘It was a different barrel,’ said Maistre Pierre, eyeing the contents of the tray appreciatively. ‘Mistress, what is this you offer us? It looks very good.’

Mistress Riddoch blushed becomingly, and laid the tray on the stool by the hearth.

‘There’s ale,’ she said unnecessarily, indicating the jug, ‘and today’s bread, and a dish of potted herring. Riddoch’s very partial to a bite of potted herring to his midday piece, whether it’s a fish day or no.’ Her eyes met her husband’s again in an anxious smile. ‘And some pickled neeps,’ she added, moving the little dish into sight from behind the ale-jug.

‘Was it marked?’ asked Riddoch.

‘It was well marked,’ said Gil, wishing he had got a list from Andy. ‘Two shipmarks at least — Peterson and Maikison, I think — and several merchants’ marks including Maister Morison’s.’

‘But not Thomas Tod’s,’ contributed Maistre Pierre, ‘though the barrel we expected had been lifted from Tod’s ship on Monday.’

‘Saints preserve us!’ said Mistress Riddoch again, looking from one to another of them. She had a plump, sweet face under her white linen headdress, and now wore a serious expression as she counted on her fingers. ‘Monday, you say? So it lay here on Monday night?’ She turned to her husband again, biting her lip. ‘Who else’s cart lay here on Monday, Riddoch?’

‘But how did Augie’s man not notice it was the wrong puncheon?’ worried Riddoch, not answering her. ‘I mind the man well, he seems a sharp fellow, and helpful enough. Offered to watch the barn on his own last time he was here, let the other carters go drinking round at the tavern. Right enough I suppose that would ha been Monday.’

‘Nobody noticed the exchange, until it came home and we were about to open it,’ said Gil. ‘I suppose they were alike in size.’

‘Then it must ha been another of my puncheons,’ said Maister Riddoch positively. ‘Any that works wi barrels, maister, will tell ye — a barrel out of one yard’s as different from a barrel out of another as kale is from neeps. It’s like hand-write. I’ve heard Maister Abernethy the notary say he kens the hand-write in this document or that. Barrels is the same. Every man has his ain way of doing things.’

‘So also in my craft,’ said Maistre Pierre. He and the cooper exchanged glances. ‘So this puncheon that came home to Glasgow must have been switched for another of your make.’

‘Monday,’ said Mistress Riddoch again. She faced her husband and raised her voice a little. ‘It was Monday night the thief was in the yard, Riddoch. Could that be it right enough?’

‘Monday?’ He counted on his fingers as she had done. ‘Aye, mistress, you’re quite right, it was Monday night. But that canny be the answer — he was nowhere near the carts, whoever he was.’

‘A thief?’ Gil repeated innocently. ‘Did you take him?’

‘No, we never. I heard something fall over in the yard,’ said Mistress Riddoch, concentrating on pouring ale, ‘so I looked out, and I thought something was moving, so I woke Riddoch, and he rose and put his boots on, but he found nothing. I’ve tellt you, husband, whoever it was, they were moving about near the gate.’

‘There was nobody to see when I went out,’ said the cooper. ‘Time I got on my boots, he was away.’

‘You say you saw something moving?’ said Maistre Pierre to Mistress Riddoch.

‘Aye,’ she said, handing him a cup of ale. ‘It was a clear night, and the moon near full, you ken, so the yard was well lit. There was a banging, like something going over, and a kind of shouting, and it woke me, and when I looked out I saw …’ She faltered, and glanced at her husband.

‘I tell you, you were dreaming, Jess,’ he said sternly. ‘Better safe than sorry, and you did right to wake me, for there had been someone in the yard, but there was nothing like what you thought you saw. There was nothing taken, and never a great roll of stuff here that night.’

‘I wasny dreaming,’ she said, as if she had said it often already. ‘I was dreaming before I wakened, about the yard and the men working, but what I saw was never part o my dream.’

She handed Riddoch his ale, and began to cut the loaf on the tray.

‘What did you think you saw?’ Gil asked.

‘Movement,’ she said, and paused in her work. ‘Like, maybe, two or three men. There was certainly two in the light, and I thought another moving in the shadows by the barn.’

‘What were they doing?’

She looked at her husband, and back down at the loaf. ‘I couldny see what the man by the barn was up to. If there was one,’ she added, before her spouse could comment. ‘But the two out in the moonlight were bent over some big thing, I couldny make it out. Almost like as if it was someone lying on the ground, it was. So then I woke Riddoch, and he woke the men, and then I had to help him wi his boots.’

‘There was nothing of the sort in the yard when I got down,’ said Riddoch firmly.

‘Aye, for they never waited while you went down and got the door open,’ she responded, and sawed another wedge off the loaf. ‘I tell you, husband, I saw them go when I looked out again.’

‘How many?’ asked Gil. ‘Did they have a puncheon with them?’

‘I never saw a puncheon. One was away up the kailyard. Likely he went out the back yett. And the other — the other went by the barn.’ She paused, biting her lip, and began spreading potted fish.

‘Did you see what he looked like?’ asked Maistre Pierre, watching her hands.