The Hanged Man

Henry Dando was delighted to receive a visitor, and inclined to crow over Miles Huckbody once it was established that he was the one I wished to see.

'Why him'?' Miles asked, aggrieved. 'Last time it was me you wanted to speak to. What have I done to displease you?'

'Nothing,' I assured him, 'and I'm delighted to renew our acquaintance. But something Master Dando said needs further explanation.'

Henry was none too certain that he liked the sound of this. 'Everythink I told you was true!' he said fiercely.

We were beginning to attract the attention of others in the hall, so I sat down on a bench near the fire, with him and Miles Huckbody on either side of me.

I turned to Henry. 'When we were discussing William Woodward's disappearance, you mentioned having seen Edward Herepath on his way to Gloucester on the Friday morning, riding his bay.'

'An' so I did. Me an' a couple of others 'ad bin given permission by the master to hear mass at St Michael's. Gives us a bit of a walk, you see, an' we goes by the back roads, along Frog and Trencher Lane.' 'Which mass was this?' I asked. 'What time?' Henry Dando pursed his wrinkled lips. 'Very early. Before breakfast.'

'Prime,' I suggested, and he nodded.

'That would be it. Well, after we'd left the church, we were coming down the 'ill, and we'd reached the corner of Magdalen Lane, when we sees Master 'Erepath on 'is bay a bit further along, turnin' up Stony Hill to'ards the windmill.'

'You're sure it was him? Did you see his face?'

''E were a bit too far off fer that, and the light weren't too good that time of a March morning, but I'd know that bay o' his anywhere. An' it looked like 'im.' 'But was it Friday?' I urged.

'Could you not be mistaken? Maybe it was Thursday you went to St Michael's?' He gave me a pitying look. 'Thursday were Lady Day, weren't it'? We're expected to worship 'ere, altogether at St Mark's on any festival of the Virgin. Master Chaplain would never 'ave given us permission to go to St Michael's on the Thursday.'

Miles Huckbody concurred, adding, 'It was the Friday right enough. Henry and the others asked me to go with 'em, but I didn't feel like a walk. And 'twas the following day, Saturday, that rumours started flying about William’s disappearance.'

'Well then,' I said to Henry, 'I'm afraid you were mistaken. It wasn't Edward Herepath you saw. He went to Gloucester on the Thursday and he was riding his roan mare. I have it on the authority of the farrier who runs his stable in Tower Lane. Furthermore, also according to the farrier, Master Herepath's bay was stolen sometime Thursday night or early Friday morning.'

Miles Huckbody broke into an unseemly cackle of mirth. 'I always said your eyesight's bad, Henry Dando, but you won't have it. Now p'raps you'll believe me.'

'Nothink wrong with my eyes!' Henry was belligerent. 'I could rec'nize that bay when I see 'un, don't you worry. An' 'twere 'im. As to it bein' Master 'Erepath — well, it looked like 'im, that's all I can say. If you don' believe me, ask the others.'

But the other three men who had accompanied Henry Dando to St Michael's Church on that March morning ten months ago had, when questioned, only hazy recollections of the horseman they had seen turning into Stony Hill from Magdalen Lane. Nevertheless, they were all agreed that it had been the Friday, and that Henry Dando had immediately identified the man and his mount as Edward Herepath and his bay.

'Which only goes to show that it takes fools to believe a fool,' was Miles Huckbody's disgruntled comment as he walked with me through the fields, back to the porter's lodge. His nose had been put out of joint by not being the chief object of my visit. I grumbled sometimes to myself that my life was too full of incident, but perhaps, after all, I was lucky: perhaps a full life was better than one which was too quiet.

'I think you do Henry an injustice,' I said. 'As I told you, the bay was stolen. Maybe the man riding him that Friday morning was the thief.'

Miles was sceptical. 'In broad daylight?'

'But it wasn't,' I argued. 'Mass was over, it's true, but it still wouldn't have been much after seven o'clock. Henry himself said the light wasn't good.'

'All the more reason not to believe the old fool.' Miles was determined to give his friend no credence. 'You'd do best to discount every word he says.'

We had stopped by the pigeon loft and I could hear the soft cooing of the birds within. The noise was soothing to my senses; I was still inclined to be jumpy after my encounter of the previous evening. I laid my hand on Miles Huckbody's sleeve. 'You and Henry have both been of great assistance,' I assured him.

'Not me. I've done nothing.' He was not to be mollified so easily and went on mockingly, 'The first time you came here, you thought I might have had something to do with William Woodward's disappearance, now didn't you?'

I smiled shamefacedly. 'Maybe. But not for long.'

'I wish I had,' Miles said viciously. 'The old bastard! In league with the Devil, he was.'

'Yet his daughter says he was a very pious man.'

Miles Huckbody looked at me, then grinned slyly. 'Oh, ay! Daresay 'e might've been according to his lights. The weavers are a pious lot.' He chuckled throatily, but would say nothing more. Unsure of his meaning, I put it down to spite. Life had not been kind to Miles Huckbody; he was entitled to a little bitterness.

I took my leave, said my farewells to the porter at the gate, and made my way back across the Frome Bridge into Broad Street, and so home through all the bustle of midday to Redcliffe and nay dinner. Until I had eaten and given sustenance to my great frame, I was unable to think clearly or reassemble my thoughts about what had happened to William Woodward. I had many pieces of the picture in nay grasp, but not all of them. The truth was to be found somewhere, but there were parts of it I had not yet been able to discover. It only needed patience and time.

As I rounded the comer by St Thomas's Church, I paused, then stepped back hastily into the shadows.

Emerging stealthily from the cottage opposite Mistress Walker's was the cloaked and hooded figure who had visited Jenny Hodge. As the door closed quietly behind him, he set off at a brisk pace in the direction of Temp!e Street.

Chapter Fourteen

I followed the cloaked figure as quickly as I could, but by the time I had crossed St Thomas's Street into Long Row, the man had vanished. There was only one conclusion to be drawn, that he had entered one of the houses.

I glanced up and down the narrow alleyway, but there was no sign of life except for a thin dog scavenging among the rubbish, and two small girls bowling a hoop, crowing with laughter. It was dinner-time and most people were within doors. I approached the girls and asked if they had seen a man in a brown frieze cloak.

They both shook their heads mutely, but I had an idea that the younger of the two had been about to say something when the elder nudged her. There was that wary look in their eyes which one sees in children when their parents have demanded silence by threatening them with all the tortures of Satan if they disobey. I thanked them and turned back towards Mistress Walker's cottage in the shadow of St Thomas's Church. When I looked over my shoulder, the girls were still watching me, the hoop lying temporarily forgotten in the gutter.

I found my hostess in some distress with a bruised arm and wrist, because she had been jostled that morning in the market. Two young men, whom she identified as former friends of Robert Herepath, had deliberately bumped into her, sending her sprawling and spilling the contents of her basket. What she had found even more disturbing was how reluctant many of the onlookers had been to come to her aid.