‘You!’ he said, staring at them, and put his seaman’s bonnet back on his head. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Rankin — John’s been taken up by the constables!’ said Marion. ‘They’re saying he’s killed a man in Vicars’ Alley.’
Elder pursed his lips in a silent whistle, and came forward to Marion’s side, putting one hand on the back of her chair and looking down at her in concern, his manner subtly possessive.
‘And did he?’
‘We do not think so,’ said Maistre Pierre.
‘Is there any need for you to be here?’ demanded Elder, turning his head to look at them again. ‘Mistress Veitch is grieving for her friend,’ he added formally, ‘and she doesny need to be pestered wi questions.’
‘I’m trying to find out who killed her friend,’ said Gil, putting a little emphasis on the term. And why did he assume we’re questioning her, he wondered. ‘That’s why I’m asking questions. Have you seen this before?’
He held up the strip of linen. Elder cast it a cursory glance and said, ‘Looks like John’s neckie. He’d lost it. Where did you — Is that blood on it? When did that happen? He was well enough the morn when he left the lodging.’
‘When did he lose it?’
‘Och, it was days ago.’ The man relaxed. ‘Was it the night he fetched me from Dumbarton that he missed it?’ Marion was staring up at him, frozen with dismay. Belatedly he met her eyes, and backtracked. ‘I don’t recall. Might ha been sooner than that.’
‘When was that?’ asked Gil.
‘Three nights since, if it’s any of your mind.’
‘Three nights? The night Naismith died? When did he set out to fetch you?’
‘I’ve no idea about that,’ said Elder. ‘He reached me some time the third watch. And that’s certainly none of your mind.’
‘And you’re sure the scarf is John Veitch’s property?’
‘No,’ said Elder. He looked at Marion again. ‘And now you’ll leave, gentlemen, while we think what’s to do about John. And whatever we do, we’ll do it without your help.’
The noon bite in the house in Rottenrow was much as Gil had feared. However since his uncle was not present and Alys was, he could have eaten dry stockfish and not noticed.
She was in the hall, helping Maggie and Sister Agnes set up the board for the meal when they came in. Socrates hurried forward to speak to her, nudging her with his long nose. Her face lit up, and as soon as the cloth was straight she left the task and came to kiss Gil.
‘Dorothea has told me,’ she said quickly in French. ‘About Tib, I mean. I came up — I’ve been with her — Gil, you won’t be severe with her, will you?’
He had no chance to answer before her father claimed her, embracing her as if he had not seen her a few hours previously. Maggie eyed Maistre Pierre and said, through the clatter of the wooden trenchers she was distributing, ‘There’s just the one hot dish for the table, since we’re all owerset the day, but there’s plenty bread and half a kebbock o cheese. We’ll no go hungry.’
‘Where is Tib?’ Gil asked. Maggie grunted.
‘Shut in her chamber and willny speak to me,’ she announced. ‘Says she’ll no eat. Lady Dawtie’s wi her the now, but …’ Her voice trailed off, and she continued setting the table. Alys returned to help her, and Gil gestured for Maistre Pierre to wash his hands at the bright majolica cistern by the door.
‘Have you been at the bedehouse?’ said Alys in Scots. ‘How are they this morning?’
‘The old men are all very shaken, and Mistress Mudie hasn’t spoken since last night, I think.’
‘Ah, the poor woman. She has suffered a great loss — that man was the centre of her life.’ Alys inspected the table. ‘Is that it, Maggie? Shall I tell Dorothea we are ready?’
When the household was seated, without Tib, and Dorothea’s secretary had said Grace for them, Alys returned to the same subject. Gil appreciated her restraint; he had no wish to discuss Tib’s misbehaviour in the hearing of the stable-hands. It was surprising how much French the men understood, particularly at times like this when they probably knew more than he did about the subject already.
‘Did you learn any more, Gil? Is there anything new since last night?’
‘Not at the bedehouse,’ said Gil. ‘Anselm had an odd tale about Agnew, but that was all.’
‘No,’ said her father gloomily, ‘all is happening elsewhere today.’
‘Why, what’s happening?’ asked Dorothea.
‘John Veitch is taken up for killing Agnew’s servant,’ supplied Gil.
‘I heard that!’ exclaimed Tam from further down the table. ‘Is that right the corp sat up and accusit him?’
‘That Hob wouldny tell you the time o day,’ objected the other stable-hand, Patey. ‘I canny see him telling tales like that after he’s deid.’
Beside him Matt nodded agreement, but did not speak.
‘Does Marion know?’ asked Dorothea.
‘She does.’ Gil described their meeting with Marion and the encounter with Rankin Elder at the house.
‘A sailor?’ said Maggie. ‘That would explain it, wouldn’t it no? If he’s been at sea all this time.’
‘It would explain much,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, accepting the dish of bannocks from Gil. Dorothea cocked her head enquiringly, and he set the bannocks down and began to enumerate on his fingers. ‘Item. She said she had never seen Naismith’s original will, did not know what was in it, but she was seated in the master’s great chair as if she is now owner of the house.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Alys. She captured the bannocks and sent them down the table. ‘She is about to become a respectable wife.’ She glanced quickly at Gil and away again, blushing.
‘Item. She has spoken to the man of law this morning but it seems they spoke only about Naismith’s transactions in the burgh. Item. Her brother returned the day the man was killed, apparently alone, from a successful venture to Spain and the Middle Sea, but not to Portugal though the child was singing a Portuguese song.’
‘Oh, is that what it was?’ said Gil, understanding.
The mason nodded. ‘And then the linen cloth,’ he went on.
‘She knew it well,’ Gil said. ‘I would say she knew every stitch.’
‘When she realized it was connected with Naismith’s death, she was frightened,’ agreed Maistre Pierre. ‘She pretended not to know what the stains were.’ Dorothea snorted inelegantly, and Alys coloured. ‘That was when our drinking-companion of last night appeared.’
‘I heard about last night,’ said Dorothea, with an amused look at Gil. ‘Maggie seems to feel there’s no ale left in Glasgow today. How’s your head?’
‘Don’t ask.’ Gil took up the thread. ‘Anyway Rankin Elder recognized the piece of linen as John’s property, which he had lost — ’
‘Ah!’ said Dorothea.
‘Exactly,’ agreed Maistre Pierre.
‘Which he said John had already lost when he fetched Elder from Dumbarton three nights since.’
‘Three nights?’ queried Alys. ‘What did he mean by that? Before or after the Deacon died?’
‘He was not in the mood to answer more questions,’ said Maistre Pierre.
‘It doesn’t work,’ said Gil, rubbing his forehead. ‘There isn’t time.’
‘Time?’ asked Maistre Pierre.
‘For John to have gone to Dumbarton the same night the Deacon died,’ supplied Dorothea, ‘whether this other man helped him at the bedehouse or not.’
‘And yet the widow said John wasn’t in his bed that night, but turned up in the morning along with Elder, as if the two of them had made a night of it.’
‘With their feet wet, you said,’ the mason recalled.
‘Elder’s boots are too big,’ said Gil, ‘but John’s that were drying — the ones that had got wet — are a good size to have made the prints we found.’