I finished my ale. ‘You hired me,’ I pointed out huffily, ‘to try to solve this mystery, yet you dismiss the one sensible solution I’ve come up with as nonsense.’
‘We-ell …’ Timothy began, but I interrupted him.
‘Listen, I have something more to say. Let us return to the murder of Thaddeus Morgan. Someone knew that he was to meet Lionel that night outside Holy Trinity Priory and followed him. There, that same someone learned of the following evening’s rendezvous which was to provide Lionel with the name of the Duke’s would-be assassin. Now, think! Who among your five original suspects had the best means of access to your secrets? To the fact that you, as His Grace’s Spy-Master, had become privy, through the Brotherhood, to the plot to kill Duke Richard?’
‘Well, who?’ he demanded petulantly.
‘Ralph Boyse, of course. The man you have always been sure was a spy for the French. He had a link directly to Lionel Arrowsmith. Berys Hogan!’
Once again, Timothy choked over his ale. ‘Lionel wouldn’t be so foolish as to talk to Berys Hogan about such important matters. You insult him. A good thing after all that Matthew isn’t here to listen to such slurs against his kinsman!’
I sighed. ‘A clever woman can wheedle anything from a man if she puts her mind to it. Think! Everyone kept warning Master Arrowsmith that he was playing with fire by courting Berys. She is affianced to Ralph Boyse, a man, you all said, of uncertain and violent temper. Yet Ralph showed no indications that I could see of jealousy, not even when he must actually have watched them together in a courtyard of Baynard’s Castle.’ And I told Timothy what I had witnessed. ‘Therefore I believe Berys was only following her betrothed’s instructions when she permitted Lionel’s attentions. Any information she could glean from him was passed on to the man she is really in love with. Whether or not she knew the reason for what she was doing I have no means of telling and in any case it doesn’t concern me. But there is your link between the French, the murder of Thaddeus Morgan and the plot to kill the Duke of Gloucester.’
I could see that Timothy was beginning to be convinced in spite of his natural disinclination to believe Lionel a prattling fool, or King Edward capable of such devious scheming as I had attributed to him. But neither could he deny that my arguments had a thread of reason and plausibility running through them, making sense of what had, until now, seemed a totally inexplicable problem. All the same, he refused to accept my explanation without a struggle and hunted around for further objections. After a moment or two he found them.
‘I’ve told you before,’ he said with relief, ‘that Ralph could not possibly have killed Thaddeus Morgan. He was known to have been inside Baynard’s Castle at the time. There are witnesses who saw him with Berys Hogan. Nor, and again I repeat myself, was he at Northampton when Thaddeus first sought me out. He could not have known of the visit.’
I ignored his first point and fastened on the second. ‘He had no need to be apprised of the plot because he was already a party to it. What he discovered, through Berys, once he had rejoined the Duke’s household at Canterbury, was that you were also now in the secret. It was a sad blow for him, no doubt, but as long as you had no idea from whence the danger came, or why it threatened, he had nothing to fear. But what it did was to make his task far more difficult, as security about the Duke was immediately tightened.’ I added, ‘Why did he tell Duke Richard a lie when he said he was going into Devon? He has never been there in his life. The interesting thing, therefore, is where he was, and what he was doing during his absence.’
Timothy wriggled uncomfortably on the bench, folding his arms across his chest and rocking himself gently from side to side. ‘You still haven’t explained Ralph’s presence in Baynard’s Castle the evening of Thaddeus’s murder.’
‘He has an accomplice,’ I answered slowly. ‘Ralph is not an assassin, he’s a spy and needs to be kept in place by the French, who are unaware that you already suspect him. There were two men whispering together that day in Baynard’s Castle. It was this second man who killed Thaddeus Morgan.’
Timothy swore softly, unlocked his arms and slewed round to face me. ‘I suppose that’s possible,’ he admitted grudgingly.
‘I think it more than possible. I think it highly probable.’
‘But in the name of the Virgin, who is it? Jocelin d’Hiver? I’ve never trusted those Burgundians and Flemings. They’re rightfully liegemen of King Louis. If the French hadn’t arranged for the murder of Duke Charles’s grandfather fifty years and more ago I doubt there would ever have been any rift between them. They say that the English entered France through the hole in John the Fearless’s skull.’
‘Maybe,’ I replied. ‘But I don’t think our man is Jocelin.’
‘Who, then?’ My companion’s voice was tense.
I hesitated for a second or two before I said with more assurance than I felt, ‘Matthew Wardroper.’
Timothy drew a long, shuddering breath. ‘Now I know you’re mad,’ he said feelingly, his tone lightening with relief. ‘Young Wardroper came to us as innocent as a newborn babe of all that had previously happened. I’d stake my life that he’s no more a French spy than you are. Than I am. By heaven, he’s Lionel Arrowsmith’s cousin!’
‘Birth’s no bar to a man committing treason, as has been proved often and often. Money is a powerful inducement in the game of treachery and double-dealing. The greed for gold has turned many a respectable coat in the past. Why should its lure be any less powerful in the present?’
Timothy peered into his mazer as if in need of sustenance, but finding it empty he leaned back against the wall and linked his hands behind his head. ‘Go on, then,’ he jeered. ‘I’m listening. Tell me why you suspect young Matt. This, I suppose, was your reason for preventing him from coming with you this evening.’
‘I didn’t reach my conclusions either lightly or easily,’ I said almost guiltily. I spared a thought for Matthew’s parents, the eminently respectable Sir Cedric and his beautiful wife, then put them resolutely out of my mind and continued, ‘To begin with, as you already know, my footsteps were, by God’s grace, directed to Chilworth Manor in the same week that Matthew joined the Duke’s household in London. I neither saw nor spoke with Sir Cedric, but I sold Lady Wardroper a pair of gloves. At one point during the course of our transaction she broke into song, humming a stave or two of the verse before giving voice to a snatch of the refrain. “It is the end. No matter what is said, I must love.” You’ve heard it often enough.’
‘Not I!’ Timothy exclaimed. ‘I’ve no ear for music.’
‘Nor I, but I can recognize words when I hear them. Lady Wardroper told me that it was French, a Trouvère song called C’est la fin, especially affecting, she said, if accompanied by the little Breton bombardt.’ I paused for a moment with raised eyebrows, but Timothy made no response. ‘Ralph Boyse often sings it. It is one of his favourite airs and the instrument he plays is a Breton bombardt.’
‘Well?’ my companion demanded impatiently as once again I hesitated.
‘The goodwife of Sir Cedric’s shepherd mentioned to me that a travelling musician had passed that way the preceding month and had played for him and Lady Wardroper, lodging for the night in the guest hall at Chilworth Manor. The goody also mentioned that Matthew was then at home. “Kicking his heels” were her words, “and waiting to take up his new appointment in the Duke of Gloucester’s household.”’