Susanna GREGORY - The Mark of a Murderer

‘You are right,’ agreed Michael bluntly. ‘I was relieved when Matt suggested you come here for a few days. The Visitation is important, and I cannot risk anything or anyone damaging our prospects.’

Clippesby laughed harshly. ‘Honesty! Well, at least that is refreshing. But you need to open your mind, Brother. Just because I do not distil my knowledge from books does not make me insane.’

‘Talking to animals is not something normal men do,’ said Michael with an unrepentant shrug.

‘Saint Francis did it,’ countered Clippesby. ‘And no one accused him of madness.’

‘He was kind to animals – he did not ask their advice and repeat their philosophical theories. There is a difference. But this debate is going nowhere, because we will never agree.’

‘No,’ said Clippesby softly. ‘We will not. So, what will you do? Lock me here until I conform to your way of thinking and admit I am wrong? Send me to some remote parish, where I will never see an Archbishop’s Visitation? Or slit my throat and be rid of the embarrassment permanently?’

‘No!’ cried Bartholomew, appalled he should think they would consider such dire options.

‘No?’ asked Clippesby sharply. ‘No what? No to murder or exile, or no to letting me return to my duties at Michaelhouse?’

‘No to the latter, and that is for certain,’ said Michael firmly. ‘Two men, possibly more, have died from peculiar wounds and Rougham was seriously injured. He says he saw you attack him, so you are currently at the top of my list of suspects. I want you to remain here until you are either exonerated or we have positive proof of your guilt. Only then will we discuss what to do next.’

‘I have not killed anyone,’ reiterated Clippesby angrily. ‘I cannot imagine why you insist on believing Rougham over me, when you know what the man is like. He lies. Have I ever lied to you?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Michael. ‘But I never know when to believe you. Sometimes you speak gibberish, while other times you make perfect sense.’

‘I will stay,’ said Clippesby, gesturing to his bed. ‘But you will find I have nothing to do with these crimes. When you do – and only then – we shall talk sensibly, and discuss how best to live with each other’s oddities.’

Michael gaped at him. ‘Some of us are more odd than others, so will have to make bigger concessions.’

Clippesby smiled. ‘I am willing to be flexible, Brother. However, it is not your gross eccentricity I was referring to. It is Father William’s.’

‘Now there we do agree. I just have one more thing to ask. When you talked about us keeping you here or killing you, why did you select a slit throat as the means of execution?’

‘Because that is what I saw the wolf trying to do to Rougham,’ replied Clippesby. ‘And then there was the man in Merton Hall’s cistern.’

‘What man?’ asked Bartholomew, an uneasy feeling beginning to gnaw at the pit of his stomach.

‘The one who died near the well,’ elaborated Clippesby patiently. ‘There was him a week or so ago, and there was Chesterfelde on Saturday night.’

‘Chesterfelde?’ asked Bartholomew, bemused by the sudden stream of information. ‘You saw what happened to him? But you just said you did not.’

‘No, I told you I did not kill him,’ corrected Clippesby pedantically. ‘However, I did not see what happened, because I could not bring myself to watch. You know how I deplore violence. The hens were braver: they saw his wrist cut, resulting in his death. The first man was different, though, because it was his throat that was gashed, not his arm.’

‘The first man,’ said Bartholomew uneasily. ‘You mean Okehamptone?’

‘No, Okehamptone died when the wolf had him – the chickens told me about it. Chickens do not like wolves. I am talking about the man who was put in the cistern after Ascension Day.’

‘He is talking about the body you found when you were rescuing me,’ said Michael to Bartholomew, although the physician did not need him to state the obvious. ‘We have four victims with throat injuries now: Gonerby, Okehamptone, the cistern man and Rougham.’

‘But I cannot say for certain whether all four of those were claimed by the wolf,’ said Clippesby. ‘Just the two I was watching when the wolf found them – Rougham and the man in the cistern – and Okehamptone, because the chickens told me about him. I know nothing about your Gonerby, while Chesterfelde was most certainly not killed by the wolf.’

‘This wolf,’ said Bartholomew carefully. ‘Have you spoken to him at all?’

‘I would have nothing to say to a creature like that. I do not associate with rough beasts that kill for pleasure, only with those who can help me understand the natural universe.’

‘Then what about the chickens?’ pressed Michael. ‘Did they talk to it?’

‘Do not be ridiculous, Brother! I have already told you that hens dislike wolves.’

‘Hopefully, Tulyet will retrieve this other body today,’ said Michael. ‘Then we might have some answers – some rational answers.’ He shot Clippesby a reproachful glance.

‘It happened more than a week ago now,’ mused Clippesby, lost in reverie. ‘I went to the towpath, where there are always birds ready to talk – moorhens, geese and ducks. I met the hens, and we were appalled when our philosophical debate was interrupted by murder.’

‘Tell me what you saw,’ said Michael with a sigh, valiantly striving to distil truth from the confused jumble of information that Clippesby was spouting. ‘Exactly.’

‘I saw nothing, as I told you already. But the chickens saw the man’s throat bitten out.’

Bartholomew and Michael argued all the way back to Michaelhouse. Bartholomew thought Clippesby had picked up snippets of gossip when he had escaped to wander in the town, while Michael claimed he knew too much for his knowledge to have been innocently obtained. He believed Clippesby’s inexplicable absences from Stourbridge were proof that he was deranged enough to kill and remember nothing later, except for the snatches of information he attributed to his animal friends.

‘You know he is good at eavesdropping,’ Bartholomew insisted. ‘He always has been, ever since he arrived in Cambridge. He sits very still for long periods of time in odd places. He may well have witnessed these murders.’

‘I cannot believe you trust him. He is demented! You are a physician – you do not need me to tell you this. He cannot distinguish between reality and fiction, and he genuinely believes animals talk to him. He is the chickens and the rats who saw these murders, and he is also the wolf that committed them.’

‘He cannot be both.’

‘Then how is he aware of the man in the cistern? The only folk who know about him are you, me and Tulyet. And the killer, of course.’

‘Not true. All sorts of people will have heard about him by now: Dick’s soldiers, the inhabitants of Merton Hall who came to haul us out. And what about Eudo and Boltone? They knew about the corpse, or they would not have attacked us when we approached the place where it was hidden.’

Michael declined to be diverted. ‘Clippesby might not understand what he has done, but he is our man. I am becoming increasingly certain of it.’

‘Well, I am not. He seems so rational at times.’ Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair. ‘I am completely out of my depth with him, Michael. Most of the time he is gentle and innocently fascinated by the natural world, no matter how bizarre his methods of gathering information about it.’

‘I see we will not agree until we have more evidence.’ Michael sighed. ‘I am grateful Paul has agreed to keep him under lock and key until we tell him otherwise. It is better this way – for him as well as for us. I do not want him racing up the High Street and biting the Archbishop of Canterbury’s throat, while the rest of us are all busily trying to impress the man.’