Susanna GREGORY - The Mark of a Murderer

‘Lord!’ muttered Michael, when Powys finished and they took their seats again. ‘I am not sure your idea of eating here was a good one, Matt. It is a bizarre experience, to say the least.’

‘I hear a man was killed at Merton Hall on Saturday night,’ said Norton, as servants brought baskets of boiled eggs and dried fruit. Pats of butter were placed at regular intervals along the table, along with substantial slabs of an oily yellow cheese; the smoked pork was sliced and placed on platters, one to be shared by two Fellows.

‘News travels fast,’ said Michael, rubbing his hands in gluttonous anticipation. ‘Matt inspected the corpse, and says Chesterfelde was murdered with a knife.’

Norton nodded eagerly. ‘I heard a dagger had been planted so hard in his back, that it pinned him to the floor.’

‘Please!’ said Paxtone sharply. ‘Not at the table!’

‘You are a physician,’ said Norton, startled. ‘Surely you are used to a bit of blood and gore?’

‘Not while I am dining,’ replied Paxtone firmly. ‘We can talk about the Archbishop’s Visitation instead. He is going to sleep in King’s Hall, you know. Wormynghalle has been persuaded to give up his room, since it is huge and Hamecotes has taken himself off to Oxford.’

‘I hope Hamecotes brings back some books on philosophy,’ said Wormynghalle wistfully. ‘The last time he went, he concentrated on theology and law.’

‘He has been on book-buying missions before?’ asked Michael, reaching for the meat.

‘Twice,’ said Powys. ‘He is rather good at it, actually, because he has contacts in some of the richer Colleges – Balliol, Exeter and Queen’s.’

‘I only hope he remembers the discussion we had about spurs,’ said Norton, giving the impression that he thought a journey solely for books was a waste of time. ‘There is a smith in Oxford who makes excellent spurs. I wish he had told me his plans to travel in advance, rather than slinking off in the middle of the night. Then I could have reminded him.’

‘What happened to this corpse in Merton Hall?’ asked Dodenho, overriding Paxtone’s distaste for the subject and determined to have some gossip.

‘He died from a wound in his wrist,’ replied Michael obligingly. ‘The blood vessels had been severed, and you know how quickly a man can die from such wounds, if the bleeding is not stanched.’

‘Then the rumours that he was stabbed are wrong?’ asked Norton. ‘That will teach me to listen to scholars. They are a worthless rabble for garnering accurate information.’ He gnawed on a piece of cheese, and seemed oblivious of his colleagues’ astonished – and offended – expressions.

‘Chesterfelde was stabbed in the back,’ acknowledged Michael. ‘But the fatal injury was to his arm. It was odd, because he died elsewhere, and his body must have been dumped among his companions as they slept.’

‘Chesterfelde,’ mused Norton, pondering the victim’s name. He turned to Dodenho. ‘You know a Chesterfelde, do you not? I recall you entertaining him in your room last term. You got drunk together, and he was sick on the communal stairs.’

‘It was probably a different Chesterfelde,’ said Dodenho shiftily.

Michael narrowed his eyes. ‘Bailiff Boltone told me the murdered Chesterfelde had visited Cambridge on several previous occasions.’

‘Names mean nothing,’ said Wormynghalle lightly, seeing Dodenho’s face grow dark with resentment. ‘Look at me, with the same name as a tanner. There may be more than one Chesterfelde from Oxford who regularly travels to Cambridge.’

‘This fellow was burly, with dark hair,’ offered Norton obligingly. ‘In his early twenties.’

‘That is him,’ said Michael, looking hard at Dodenho.

‘Well, perhaps I did meet him,’ admitted Dodenho reluctantly. ‘But I do not know him.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Norton. ‘You sniggered and whispered in your room like a pair of virgins.’

Dodenho saw he was cornered, and that continued denials would be futile. He sighed. ‘He was a sociable sort of fellow who liked to drink – it was the wine that made him giggle – but he was not a friend. Simply an acquaintance.’

‘Then why did you deny knowing him?’ demanded Michael.

‘Because I wanted to avoid being interrogated,’ snapped Dodenho, finally giving vent to his anger. ‘I know how you work – quizzing people who have even the most remote associations with the deceased – and I did not want you adding me to your list of suspects.’

‘Do you know who killed this poor man?’ asked Powys of Michael, breaking into the uncomfortable silence that followed. Paxtone pointedly set down the little silver knife he used for cutting his food, and declined to eat as long as the discussion was about corpses and murder.

‘Not yet,’ replied Michael.

‘Were these Merton men deep sleepers?’ asked Wormynghalle curiously. ‘You say they dozed through the dumping of a body in their chamber.’

‘We suspect a soporific was used on them,’ said Bartholomew.

‘That would make sense,’ said Paxtone, intrigued, despite his antipathy to the subject. ‘I read about a similar incident that took place in Padua: a murder carried out in the presence of insensible “witnesses”. I recall that poppy juice was used.’

‘These men are from Oxford,’ said Michael, taking an egg with one hand and more meat with the other, ‘so they may well have access to sinister texts from foreign places, telling them how to render men senseless while they murder their colleagues. What a feast! And what makes it so especially fine is that there is not a vegetable to be seen. Only meat will help me solve the mystery surrounding this particular victim’s death, because it is complex and nothing is what it seems.’

‘I have a theory,’ said Dodenho, who had recovered from his embarrassment at being caught out in a lie, and was back to his confident self.

‘You do?’ asked Michael, cheeks bulging with pork. ‘Let us hear it, then.’

‘Well, it is a reductio ad absurdum , really.’ Dodenho cleared his throat and adopted an expression he imagined was scholarly. ‘Consider this proposition: what I am now saying is false.’

‘The “liar paradox”,’ said Bartholomew, wondering what the man was getting at. ‘Expounded by Bradwardine in his Insolubilia . What does it have to do with Chesterfelde?’

‘Nothing,’ replied Dodenho impatiently. ‘I never said it did – I just said I have a theory. It relates to the paradox I have just mentioned, and it is my idea, not this Bradwardine’s. I could grow to dislike you, Bartholomew, always telling a man his ideas belong to someone else.’

‘I thought you meant you had an idea relating to Chesterfelde, too,’ said Norton accusingly. ‘But all you did was change the subject to something that revolves around you.’

Dodenho shrugged. ‘I can think of worse things to discuss.’

Eventually, Powys stood and said the final grace, dismissing the Fellows to their teaching. Paxtone walked with Bartholomew to the gate, with Michael trailing behind, his large face glistening with grease. Reluctantly, Bartholomew declined Paxtone’s offer of a visit to the clyster pipes, knowing duty called him to the Tulyet household and Dickon.

‘Good luck with the Devil’s brat,’ said Paxtone. ‘And with your murder. I hope you solve it quickly, so it does not plunge us into a series of riots, like those at Oxford.’

‘So do I,’ agreed Michael. ‘Especially with the Archbishop’s Visitation looming.’

As it transpired, Paxtone’s recommendation to dally before visiting Dickon was a good one, and, by the time Bartholomew and Michael arrived, the boy had recovered from his initial shock and was back to normal. The injury comprised a small bruise surrounding a minute perforation, and needed no more than a dab of salve. The operation was over in a moment, and Bartholomew and Dickon were relieved to discover it was painless for both of them. This was not always the case, because Dickon employed fists, teeth, feet and nails to fight off the physician’s ministrations, often resulting in Bartholomew being just as badly mauled as his small patient.