‘Damn!’ muttered Langelee. ‘There goes our benefaction from Islip.’
‘He said he left something in your chamber, Matthew,’ said Agatha, treating Michael to a glower for his accusations. ‘He said that you would understand what it was, and that you should go to Merton Hall as soon as possible.’
‘Damn the man!’ exclaimed Michael furiously. ‘And today, of all days!’
Bartholomew darted towards his room, heart pounding as he wondered what the Master of Music and Astronomy could have left for him that would induce him to go to Merton Hall. It did not bode well for Clippesby’s innocence. He wrenched open his door, then stopped in mute horror, so abruptly that Michael piled into the back of him and made him stagger. In the middle of the bed was a single object: a set of metal teeth.
CHAPTER 12
‘I told you so!’ gasped Michael as he hurried along the High Street with Bartholomew and Langelee in tow. ‘Clippesby is our man. All this rubbish about the wolf was a ruse. There is no wolf. If Wolf is involved, then it is as a victim, and he is floating in a well somewhere with his throat bitten out.’
Bartholomew was finding it difficult to move as quickly as he wanted. People had poured into the town from the surrounding villages, and they blocked his way. Everyone was wearing his or her best clothes, so dull homespun browns and creams were virtually absent, and the streets were alive with tunics and kirtles of red, yellow, green, blue, orange and purple. There was a heady scent of perspiration and perfumes, and the more usual aroma of sewage was almost entirely absent. People’s faces were intense, determined to see, touch or even speak to England’s leading churchman, and Bartholomew was painfully aware that many of them would go to considerable lengths to ensure they did so. He heard townsfolk muttering about scholars monopolising the Archbishop, and scholars mumbling back that Islip’s time was too valuable to waste on layfolk. It did not bode well for the Visitation passing off peacefully.
‘It was not Clippesby who attacked me at Stourbridge,’ said Bartholomew, trying to move through the crowd without jostling anyone and concentrate on refuting Michael’s conclusions at the same time. ‘I was sitting on top of him when that happened.’
‘Dick was right: there are two of them,’ said Michael breathlessly. ‘Clippesby and someone else. I allowed myself to be influenced by your arguments, which were based on sentimentality: you are fond of the man and wanted him to be innocent. But he is not.’
‘All I can say is thank God you did not treat him at Michaelhouse,’ said Langelee. ‘Perhaps that is why he ordered his accomplice to kill you: you are the reason he was exiled to Stourbridge.’
‘Then why did he hit the wolf with a stone and drive him away?’ asked Bartholomew, aware of the increase in noise as Islip’s procession drew nearer. ‘He saved my life.’
‘That is probably how he wanted it to look,’ argued Langelee. ‘You have said all along that the killer is cunning, and Clippesby is a very clever man, for all his madness. Only a devilish mind would have thought to fish Hamecotes from the cistern and dump him in King’s Hall before Tulyet’s men reached it. And we know from Brother Paul that he has escaped several times.’
‘This is a damned nuisance,’ grumbled Michael, aware that his finery was becoming drenched in sweat. ‘I should be greeting the Archbishop, not chasing lunatics.’
‘Why does Clippesby want us to go to Merton Hall?’ asked Langelee of Bartholomew. ‘He told Agatha you would understand. Do you?’
‘No – unless he has guessed the identity of the killer, and knows it is someone staying there.’ A sense of unease gripped Bartholomew. ‘I hope he does not attempt to confront the wolf alone.’
‘Clippesby is the killer, Matt,’ repeated Michael doggedly. ‘And he has summoned us to engage in some kind of confrontation, after which he imagines he will emerge triumphant. We shall have to be careful he does not draw us into a trap.’
The bell of St Mary the Less began to toll, indicating that the Archbishop and his entourage had reached the Trumpington Gate. The massive cheer that went up from the crowd was audible, even at the Great Bridge.
‘He is here,’ said Langelee grimly, as more trumpets blasted. ‘A grand gate-opening ceremony has been arranged before Islip enters the town officially, which means we have about an hour before he reaches St Mary the Great.’
‘We must have Clippesby under lock and key before then,’ said Michael. ‘All of us – Masters, Fellows and certainly the Senior Proctor – are supposed to attend a service of thanksgiving before Islip processes to the Hall of Valence Marie for a feast. I do not want Clippesby seeing him as his own personal meal, and using his teeth on the man.’
‘We have the teeth,’ Bartholomew pointed out, feeling them bang up and down in his medical bag as he moved. ‘The killer cannot bite anyone without them.’
‘He may apply his own,’ said Michael, struggling to keep up with his more agile colleagues.
Bartholomew saw the monk’s flushed face and heaving chest, and slowed further still, not wanting him to have a seizure. He pulled the steel fangs from his bag as he walked, and inspected them properly for the first time. They were more or less how he remembered them, although they were tarnished with age. The only difference was that the incisors had been honed to a vicious sharpness – keen enough to draw blood even from the lightest touch. They were expertly made, and the hinges on either side were well oiled and in good working order. Uncomfortably, he wondered how they had come to be in Cambridge, and kept returning to the same conclusion: Duraunt had brought them. He had not destroyed them, as he had claimed, but had kept them for some reason he had declined to share.
They arrived at Merton Hall to find it strangely deserted. No servants were in the grounds; Bartholomew supposed they had all gone to watch the Archbishop. The silence was unsettling, and he thought Michael was right to be worried about a trap. The monk hammered on the door, then opened it when there was no answer. He leaned against a wall to catch his breath, and indicated with a wave of his hand that Bartholomew and Langelee should look upstairs. While they obliged, he used the time to inspect a pile of saddlebags that were packed and waiting by the door.
Bartholomew and Langelee crept up the stairs and entered the hall. Bartholomew held one of his surgical knives, while the Master produced a massive ornamental dagger with a jewel-studded hilt. The hall was empty, so they aimed for the solar. When Bartholomew hauled open the door, Langelee shot inside with his weapon raised, but no one was there. The grubby possessions of Eudo and Boltone were still scattered around, but there was no sign of the three merchants or the two surviving scholars. By the time they had finished searching the house, Michael had been through the saddlebags.
‘These belong to Duraunt and Polmorva,’ he said, pointing at the smallest two. ‘There is poppy juice in one and an academic tabard in the other. I think they intend to slip away during the Visitation.’
‘What about the others?’ asked Bartholomew, hoping the monk was wrong, although flight at such a time looked suspicious, to say the least.
‘They belong to the merchants, judging by their contents,’ replied Michael. ‘Do you think this means they have a culprit to take back to Gonerby’s vengeful widow?’
‘You mean Clippesby?’ asked Bartholomew in alarm. ‘I hope they have not harmed him, on the grounds that it will be safer to take a corpse than a live victim.’
‘He told us to come here,’ said Langelee, annoyed. ‘But the place is empty. Was he trying to draw us away, do you think, sending us chasing shadows so he can kill the Archbishop more easily?’