Кейт Седли - The Goldsmith’s Daughter

‘So what course of action did Mistress Perle decide on?’ I wanted to know, as soon as I had emptied my mouth.

Ginèvre lifted her thin shoulders in a disdainful shrug. ‘She didn’t. All she could think of doing was to come bleating like a frightened sheep to Gregory. Oh yes, he told me. Once the affair was out in the open, he saw no need to keep anything a secret from me.’

‘And what was Master Napier’s solution?’

‘Oh, he could think of nothing but to offer Gideon money – a very large sum of money – to keep him quiet.’ My hostess looked as if she were about to spit. ‘I soon put a stop to that, I can assure you. I didn’t mince my words. I told Gregory that if he parted with so much as a single groat to Gideon Bonifant, I should make Miles free of the whole sordid affair.’

I thoughtfully chewed another slice of venison. ‘And that’s how matters stood last December, on Mistress Perle’s birthday?’

I understood now Mistress Perle’s vehement assertion that Isolda had murdered her husband and her apparent unease throughout our talk together. My new-found knowledge also explained her attempt to dissuade me from speaking to Ginèvre. She had rightly been afraid that her friend, in a moment of pique and spite, would reveal to me the truth about herself and Gregory Napier.

‘So you see’ – my hostess was speaking again – ‘Barbara had quite as good a reason as either Kit Babcary or Isolda to wish for Gideon’s death.’

‘And so had you,’ I thought, but did not say so aloud.

Nevertheless, there was a possibility that Ginèvre might have come to the conclusion that Gideon was better dead than alive. Perhaps Gregory had, after all, decided to defy her and made up his mind that he would try to buy the blackmailer’s silence. She was astute enough to realise that if Gideon agreed, it could result in far more than a single payment, and I guessed that she was too proud a woman to put an end to such a situation by blabbing all to Miles Babcary. Furthermore, it was extremely likely that her husband had already confided to her Gideon’s accusation against his wife and Christopher; an accusation that would immediately point the finger of suspicion at Isolda, leaving everyone else as seemingly innocent bystanders.

But if Gregory or Ginèvre Napier or Barbara Perle was the murderer, where had they obtained the monkshood? But of course the answer to that was simple. From the same source as Miles Babcary: a liniment for aches and pains procured from Jeremiah Page of Gudrun Lane.

I glanced up to see my hostess eyeing me narrowly. Before she could say anything, however, I asked quickly, ‘Do any of your friends and acquaintances in these parts own a horse and cart, Mistress?’

She was obviously startled by this unlooked-for change of subject, and stammered a little over her reply.

‘No … Yes … What I mean is that Hugo Perle used to keep both horse and cart in the stables just around the corner, in Old Dean’s Lane. But I believe Barbara sold them after his death. Why do want to know?’

‘Do you have any idea who bought them?’ I went on, ignoring her question and posing another of my own.

‘No. No, I don’t. I’m not absolutely certain that Barbara did decide to sell.’ Ginèvre had recovered her poise and was growing irritable. ‘Although … Wait a moment! Now I think about it, I seem to recollect her mentioning that Miles Babcary was the purchaser. Or am I mistaken?’ she added to herself.

‘Have the two families, the Perles and the Babcarys, always been friends?’

Ginèvre swallowed a mouthful of venison, frowning at this continuing diversion.

‘Of course. Barbara is a Lambert by birth and a cousin of the late Mistress Babcary.’

It was my turn to frown. This fact had not previously been revealed by either Isolda or her father. To be fair, it had probably seemed irrelevant to them, but it could account for some of Gideon’s hostility towards the marriage between his father-in-law and Mistress Perle. His late wife’s kinswoman might well exert a stronger influence over Miles than a perfect stranger, who knew nothing of the family’s affairs, would do.

‘Why did you wish to know about the horse and cart?’ my hostess asked, pushing her plate aside with a slice of venison still uneaten. I averted my greedy gaze and explained that I had almost been run over outside her house, but she made little of this. ‘If you were standing in the middle of the thoroughfare, as you say you were, then I’m hardly surprised. People drive recklessly in London, with scant regard for life and limb. I doubt very much if it was a deliberate attempt on your life, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

I had to admit that she was right. I told her of the other two occasions on which I had felt, if not exactly in danger, then threatened by some unseen presence.

‘Yet it seems you were wrong both times,’ she said. ‘On your own admission, there is no evidence of harmful intent towards you on anyone’s part.’

‘No, but there ought to be,’ I blurted out.

Ginèvre smiled shrewdly at me, raising her plucked eyebrows, her thin lips lifting slightly at the corners. ‘You mean that Master Bonifant’s murderer should be trying to prevent you asking any more questions?’ I nodded and she gave her low, throaty chuckle. ‘I take your point. There might, of course, be an explanation, but I must admit that I can’t see …’ Her voice tailed away and she stared at me unblinkingly for a moment before shaking her head decisively. ‘No! Impossible!’

‘What’s impossible?’

But she refused to say another word on the subject, resisting all my pleas for her to tell me what was in her mind on the score that she had to be wrong, and that what she was thinking made no sense. And with that I had to be content.

I finished my dinner and took my leave of her, no nearer a solution to the murder of Gideon Bonifant than I had been yesterday or the day before that. I walked as far as the stables in Old Dean’s Lane and questioned a couple of the ostlers there. They both confirmed that Master Babcary had indeed bought the horse and cart belonging to Hugo Perle after the latter’s death, but also assured me that neither had left the premises so far that day. And they pointed to a placid cob, looking over the door of a stall in one corner of the yard, and to a cart lined up with three others against the northern wall. When I told them the reason for my curiosity, both men were unanimous in agreeing that the horse and cart that had so nearly run me down probably belonged to a brewer living in Knightrider Street, who had driven abroad that morning and whose recklessness was a byword in the area.

Once again, my fears had proved groundless. Gideon’s murderer, whether Isolda or another, seemed to feel sufficiently secure to allow me to pursue my investigations unhindered. All the same, I wondered, as I walked slowly back along Paternoster Row, if I were not being lulled into a false sense of security. And what was that impossible something that had occurred to Ginèvre Napier that had not yet occurred to me?

This thought reminded me that I had not so far spoken to Gregory Napier, but I doubted if he were at his goldsmith’s shop in West Cheap or he would surely have returned home for dinner. And if I were truthful with myself, I had to admit that I was in no mood, just at that moment, to listen to a further account of the events leading up to Gideon Bonifant’s death. I needed somewhere to sit and think quietly about what I already knew, and to try to make sense of it all.

I directed my steps towards Bucklersbury. I did, however, make one more call before returning to the Voyager. As I had to pass the entrance to Gudrun Lane in my journey along West Cheap, I decided that I might as well pay a visit to Jeremiah Page and enquire if either of the Napiers or Mistress Perle had bought any monkshood liniment from him lately. A question and a groat to a legless beggar, squatting on his little trolley at the corner of the lane, quickly ascertained the exact whereabouts of the apothecary’s shop, and a few minutes later, I was standing in its dim interior.