‘That is irrelevant,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The point is that they could be the same pair as the ones I encountered tonight. I think it is too much of a coincidence that the scaffolding collapsed the instant they were making their way out of College.’
‘Coincidences do occur, you know.’
‘But if their intentions were innocent, why did they run when I tried to speak to them?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘If they had nothing to hide, it would not have been necessary to make an escape.’
‘It depends on who they were,’ said Michael. ‘I occasionally have meetings with people who would rather their identities were not made known to the world at large. Why do you think I am so efficient at solving crimes?’
‘But you are a proctor,’ said Bartholomew. ‘People have good reason to be telling you secrets. None of the other Fellows should need to have furtive guests in their quarters. Perhaps it was Simeon and Osmun from Bene’t that I saw; Langelee said they had been to visit him shortly before the building collapsed.’
‘If they were visiting Langelee innocently – and the fact that he mentioned them to you suggests they were – they would have no reason to hide their identities from you as they walked out.’ Michael had almost finished the chicken, and all that remained was a growing heap of gnawed bones. He turned his attention to the bread and pastries.
‘I suppose so,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But I am still certain that it was no accident that the scaffolding fell.’
‘If you are right, Matt, that means one of two things. Either someone – the scholars of Bene’t, for example – wants the building work at Michaelhouse to suffer a serious setback for some reason. Or someone intended another person harm.’
‘Who would induce that kind of dislike?’ asked Bartholomew.
Michael chewed his bread thoughtfully. ‘Well, since it was my room that was demolished, I think we must suppose that I was the intended victim.’
‘You? But why?’
‘I imagine because I have a fabulous reputation for solving murders, and someone is worried that I might uncover who did away with our much-beloved Master Runham.’
‘A Michaelhouse scholar?’ asked Bartholomew, after a moment. He closed his eyes. ‘Not again, Brother! It is bad enough that someone murdered Runham, but that the killer is also prepared to strike at you so that his crime goes undetected is much worse – it is premeditated and deliberate.’
‘Do not be so ready to jump to conclusions,’ said Michael. ‘Personally, I think you are wrong about the scaffolding. I think it was coincidence that it fell just as you were wrestling a couple of visitors to the ground, and I think it was chance that my room happened to be the one that was worst affected. But I do think that the two hooded men you attacked tonight were probably up to no good, and I suspect it was somehow connected to the other pair you challenged last week.’
‘Something to do with Runham?’
‘Possibly,’ said Michael.
Bartholomew sighed. ‘Another coincidence in all this, if I am right about the scaffolding and the whole thing was an attempt on your life, is that it is odd that the last time the mysterious pair were seen emerging from the College was the night you became ill.’
Michael raised sardonic eyebrows. ‘But you said it was the insect bite that made me unwell. Are you now suggesting someone hired a bee to act as an agent to kill me? How was it paid? In honey?’
‘I am merely mentioning that I think it is odd that those two appear both times your life has been in danger recently.’
Michael selected a pastry and deigned to humour him. ‘So are you certain it was the bee sting that made me ill, and not something else – something slipped into my food or drink, perhaps?’
‘No, the infection in your arm caused the problem. It …’
With sudden clarity, Bartholomew remembered the salve he had used to relieve the intense itching in Michael’s arm – the salve that was missing from his bag by the time he needed it to heal the rat bite in the riverman’s leg a couple of days later. Had someone tampered with it, replacing the healing balm with something sinister? Was that why Michael’s wound had festered? It was too ludicrous to imagine. How could anyone know which salve Bartholomew would use on Michael? But the answer to that was clear: it was a standard cure and instructions for its use were written on the jar.
Bartholomew told Michael what he had reasoned, but the monk shook his head impatiently. ‘No, Matt. You have let Runham’s accusations about me being poisoned unsettle you. The fact is that you told me not to scratch that sting, and I did not listen. My resulting illness was my own fault – although I will never admit that to anyone else.’
He reached out and selected one of the sweet pastries, swallowing half of it in a single bite. Bartholomew was still uncertain. ‘Then what happened to the salve afterwards? Who took it?’
‘No one took it, Matt. You probably lost it – or Gray or Bulbeck borrowed it and forgot to replace it.’ He shoved the second half of the cake in his mouth. ‘This is good. You should try some.’
Absently, Bartholomew took a pastry and ate it, while he tried to think of a reason why two men might enter the College – at least twice now – and decline to allow their identities to be made known. Nothing came to mind, and he turned his thoughts to his conversation with Adela. He outlined what she had told him, adding that Matilde remained insistent there was some link between the gossiping Patrick and the equally loose-tongued Wymundham, while Michael ate the last of the food.
‘That is very interesting, Matt. It was good of Adela to put self-preservation second to seeing justice done. Her information helps me a good deal.’
‘It does?’ asked Bartholomew, sipping the mulled ale that he had allowed to grow cold.
‘It tells me that the Bene’t scholars know more than they have revealed about Wymundham’s death – it seems reasonable to assume that the leg was his – and it might even tell me who killed Brother Patrick. I feared that case might prove impossible to solve, but now I have a clue.’
‘You think Heltisle and his colleagues killed Wymundham in Holy Trinity Church? And that Brother Patrick saw the murder, and that he was stabbed to ensure his silence?’ asked Bartholomew, thinking Michael’s deductions from Adela’s revelations sounded just as far-fetched as his own musings about Michaelhouse’s two intruders.
‘That is about the size of it. It fits what we already know. Shortly after Raysoun’s death, you saw Wymundham slip into Holy Trinity Church. You said he was moving furtively, as though he did not want to be seen. I suspect one of his colleagues had lured him to that meeting, perhaps claiming to be me wanting to know what Raysoun had whispered with his dying breath.’
‘And then, when he arrived, he found a deputation from Bene’t awaiting him, and they smothered him in the church?’ asked Bartholomew uncertainly. ‘I do not know, Brother. It was a weekday, and Holy Trinity stands on the Market Square. It is scarcely a secluded spot for a murder.’
‘But Wymundham would not have gone to a secluded spot,’ argued Michael. ‘The man was not a fool, and he was already burdened with anxiety about the secrets he wanted to tell you, but did not. Holy Trinity would have been perfect – public enough to make him feel safe, but far enough from Bene’t so that he would not associate a summons there with his murdered colleague.’
‘But it was a poor choice as far as the killer was concerned,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘Both Brother Patrick and Adela probably saw what happened.’
‘The door should have been barred,’ agreed Michael. ‘But I doubt there was time to arrange a murder too carefully. Raysoun was already dead, possibly stabbed then pushed, and Wymundham was on the verge of exposing his College’s misdemeanours. You cannot expect any plan developed in so short a time to be perfect.’