Hamo Gough stared about him in dumb fury at the wreck of his sleeping quarters, several times opening and shutting his mouth like a stranded fish, in speechless indignation. I decided it was politic to leave before he could express his anger with his fists. And although I could easily have beaten him if it came to a fight, my heart would not have been in it. I wished him a brief good-day, whistled to Hercules and prepared to go. As I did so, I tripped over the grey blanket that had been Hamo’s covering, but now lay, a torn and sorry mess, among the debris of the mattress. I stooped to retrieve it — it, at least, was not past salvaging — but realized as I did so that it was not really a blanket, as I had formerly assumed, but a cloak. And its original colour had been pale blue, not grey, although it had weathered to its present shade probably over a period of years exposed to the strong sunlight that poured in through the open door of the hut during the summer months.
But the thing that really arrested my attention was a shield embroidered in faded scarlet silk on what proved, when the garment was held the right way up, to be the left shoulder of the cloak. Inside the outline of the shield was a bell, over-sewn in satin stitch to form, when new, a solid block of colour. It suddenly dawned on me that I had seen this badge many times in the past three days since arriving at Croxcombe Manor: it was the badge of the Bellknapp family and adorned the livery of their servants. I shook out the cloak and held it up with both hands. It had not been made for a tall man, nor one of any great girth. Nor, I suspected, had it been worn for a very long time. Six years, perhaps?
The cloak was rudely snatched from me, and I spun round to find Hamo Gough looking positively murderous.
‘Get out!’ he roared. ‘Thee and that bloody dog o’ thine! Get out! Get out!’
He turned and reached for his spade, which was propped against the wall in one corner of the hut. I yelled at Hercules to follow me and ran.
He came after us, but we were too quick for him, my legs being longer and stronger; while Hercules, giving one last, defiant bark, outstripped me in the desire to save his hide. Finally, when I decided we were no longer being pursued, we eased up, trying, as we passed the cottages and duck pond, to look more like a man and his dog out for a late afternoon stroll.
I felt convinced in my own mind — but without a shred of proof — that the cloak had belonged to the missing page, and that there had been some link between him and the charcoal burner. But what that link was, I was no nearer knowing than before.
Supper was an awkward meal. Everyone avoided looking directly at any other person, and suspicion and unspoken accusations hung in the air, poisoning the atmosphere. Only the steward seemed unperturbed as he went about his official duties, attending to the comfort of both the household members and the guests — three pilgrims returning home to Southampton after visiting Glastonbury — who had begged sustenance and shelter for the night. Their presence was at once a blessing and a curse; the former because it ensured that we were all on our best behaviour, the latter because no one could discuss the topic uppermost in everyone’s mind. The visitors had been informed that it was a house of mourning and were consequently very subdued, providing none of the merriment and anecdotes of the wider world that usually enlivened a stranger’s visit. I noted that the Bignells were still with us, and, upon enquiry, Thomas informed me that they had decided to remain another night at Rose’s urgent request.
‘She’s been having fits of the vapours all day,’ he confided in a low voice, ladling another helping of pike in a galentyne sauce on to his plate and shovelling it into his mouth like a man whose appetite remained unaffected by sudden death or family problems. ‘Maybe there was something in what Master Bellknapp wanted to tell me, after all.’
When the meal was finished and the three pilgrims had been shown to the guest chamber, I sought out Dame Audrea and again asked her permission to speak in turn to the other members of the household.
‘I’ve already told you to do whatever you deem fit,’ she said coldly. ‘But don’t forget young Master Attleborough.’
I promised that I would see him first, but warned the dame I thought it unlikely that he was the murderer.
‘I think he would have run away by now. He had his chance when you sent him to fetch me back this morning.’
Nevertheless, I sought him out almost at once, George Applegarth having informed me Humphrey had retired to the chamber we had both shared, until sometime last night, with the murdered man. I found him sitting on the edge of his truckle-bed, his head propped despondently in his hands.
‘What am I going to do now, Chapman?’ he asked, tears welling up in his eyes. ‘Here I am, far from my native county, robbed of my master and not likely to find another half as good anywhere else.’
I sat down facing him, on the big four-poster bed with its hangings depicting the story of Diana and Actaeon.
Not knowing the answer, I ignored this heartfelt plea and asked, ‘When you fetched the all-night from the kitchen yesterday evening, your master was already here, in the bedchamber, when you arrived?’
Humphrey blinked stupidly at me for a moment or two, taken aback by the abrupt change of subject. Then he nodded.
‘I think so … Yes, he was. I remember now. He was undressed, with his bed-robe over his night-rail.’
‘Did he drink any of the wine?’
Again there was a pause while Humphrey thought — a distinctly slow process.
‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘He had a beaker almost straight away. He said he was thirsty. Then he had another one.’
‘And after that? Did he touch the wine again?’
‘I don’t suppose so. He didn’t usually drink as much as that before going to bed. Said too much wine gave him bad dreams. But last night, it was as if …’
‘As if what?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing really. Just a stupid idea that came into my head at the time.’
‘Go on!’
‘Well …’ Humphrey was reluctant to tell me. ‘Is it important?’
‘It might be. Anything might be important if you want to unmask the murderer.’
‘All right. It just occurred to me that he was making up his mind to something he had to do. The wine was giving him courage.’
It was my turn to nod. ‘And what were you doing while he was drinking the wine?’
‘I stripped off, ready for bed.’
‘So while you were undressing, you didn’t have your eyes fixed on Master Bellknapp all the time?’
‘I suppose not. Why?’
‘So you might not have noticed if he’d slipped a sleeping potion into the jug? Poppy and lettuce juice, for instance.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘To make sure we both slept soundly and didn’t wake when he left the bedchamber to meet Master Bignell. Did you have any of the wine?’
Humphrey nodded slowly, a frown creasing his brow.
‘Yes … Yes, I did. One beakerful. I … I thought I felt strangely heavy when I woke up this morning, and although I couldn’t remember them in detail, I knew I’d had peculiar dreams. I felt sick, too, and I’d overslept. It was well past sunrise. But I never thought I might have been drugged. I just thought something I’d eaten at supper had disagreed with me. I’m still not sure I believe it.’
I recounted the symptoms I myself had suffered, and, after a while, he became convinced they were the same as the ones he had experienced.
‘But I still don’t understand why the master would have gone to all that trouble if all he wanted was to talk to Master Bignell. There was no harm in that. He could have told me. He could have told you. It was none of our business if he wanted to speak to the butcher. We wouldn’t have spied on him.’