I guessed that a general invitation was a certain way of discouraging the rest of the company, and I wasn’t disappointed. Only the butcher and his son followed me out of the hall.
We strolled across the dew-damp grass to the edge of the moat, sulky and sluggish now in the waning light. Behind us, the windows of the house suddenly blossomed with candle flames as the servants went from room to room lighting the wicks. From the stables sounded the shifting of hooves and the neigh of a horse as the animals settled themselves for the approaching night. There was a burst of laughter, quickly suppressed, from the kitchen quarters. Somewhere a dog barked, swiftly answered by another and then another. A man’s voice shouted and there was the thud of something being thrown; then all was silence.
‘Well, Master Chapman,’ the butcher said at last, ‘what do you want to ask me that you don’t want the others to hear? Because I don’t flatter myself for a minute that you’ve invited me out here for the pleasure of my company.’
I laughed. ‘You underestimate yourself, sir. But no, you’re right. There is something I wish to ask you. When you kept your rendezvous with Anthony Bellknapp in the hall last night, did you notice if he had a cudgel with him?’
Seventeen
His answer was immediate and without prevarication.
‘Oh yes! I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But now you mention it, I suppose it was odd. Surely he wasn’t afraid that I would attack him?’
‘I don’t know what he thought,’ I said slowly. ‘I’m not at all certain what he was up to. You … You didn’t happen to recognize the cudgel, I suppose?’
The butcher frowned. ‘Well … I’ve told you that I thought nothing of it then, but looking back … Was it your cudgel by any chance? I’ve noticed yours is weighted at the base, as this one was. I can recall that when Master Bellknapp swung it to and fro, it was rather like a pendulum swinging.’
‘It could have been,’ I agreed cautiously, not yet prepared to admit what I knew to be the truth. ‘I had it in the bedchamber that I shared with Anthony and his man. It would have been a simple enough matter for him to take it with him when he went to meet you. But why he would have done so is another matter.’
The three of us continued our stroll as the light dimmed still further, the wild flowers growing amid the tall grasses at the edge of the moat waving like pale flames in the dusk. The swans had long since gone to rest and the water gleamed grey and cold, like the steel of a naked sword. The trees stretched groping fingers towards the darkening sky and Ronan Bignell shivered suddenly.
‘It was about here that Humphrey Attleborough found Master Bellknapp’s body,’ he said, pointing to a clump of bushes that formed a sort of sheltered arbour near the bank. ‘He’d been out looking for his master and came running back into the house shouting that he was dead. Drowned, he said at first, and we all rushed out to see for ourselves. But when the steward turned the body over, we could see that it wasn’t an accident, but murder.’
Thomas Bignell nodded. ‘Someone had hit him a swingeing blow to the back of his head, then he’d either fallen or been pushed into the water.’
I held my breath, expecting the butcher to make the connection between the cudgel — my cudgel — that Anthony had been carrying and the weapon by which he had met his death. I was still confused as to why he had taken it in the first place if all he had wanted was a quiet talk with Master Bignell about the butcher’s daughter and son-in-law, and why he had considered it necessary to drug both me and Humphrey. But a faint light was beginning to glimmer at the end of what appeared to be a long and very dark tunnel.
It was growing cold and, turning, I suggested that we start to retrace our steps.
‘Is that all you wanted to ask me?’ Master Bignell sounded disappointed. ‘About the cudgel?’ And Ronan muttered something about it not having been worthwhile to leave the comfort of the hall.
‘Master Bignell,’ I said, ‘you told me once that you thought you might have recognized the horseman you saw near Croxcombe Manor on the night of Jenny Applegarth’s murder. Do you know who it was?’
The butcher stared at me through the gloom, looking, as far as I could see, somewhat at a loss. But he was not as simple as he liked to make out and was quicker than his son on the uptake.
Ronan demanded, ‘What’s that to do with anything?’
But his father, after a brief pause, asked, ‘Do you think that the two murders are connected?’
‘They might be.’ I spoke hesitantly as one catching at straws, not wishing to make a fool of myself by any firmer declaration. ‘So, do you have any idea who the man could have been?’
The butcher sighed regretfully. ‘If I said as much as that, then I’m sorry to have misled you. In my own defence, I have to say that there was a moment recently when I thought it could have been Master Simon, but it’s all so long ago and the more I turn it over in my mind, the less certain I am that I saw any likeness to anyone. I must apologize again for raising your hopes. Does it matter?’
I shook my head, swallowing my disappointment, as we re-entered the candlelit hall. This was now deserted, except for Mistress Bignell, our other erstwhile companions having presumably taken themselves off to bed, a fact that the lady confirmed when asked.
‘And it’s time we were asleep, too, my love,’ she said, taking her husband’s arm. ‘I’ve spoken to Dame Audrea while you were outside with the chapman, and she agrees that we may return home tomorrow, provided we agree to remain as quiet as possible for the present concerning the true circumstances of Master Bellknapp’s death. She intends that Sir Henry shall conduct the funeral rites and the body be buried as soon as may be. The family vault in the church will be opened up in the morning and Master Anthony laid to rest by evening. She counts on our discretion. And,’ Mistress Bignell added with more dryness than I would have thought her capable of, ‘she suggests that we supply the manor with an additional two carcasses a week, preferably two young, tender porkers.’
Thomas Bignell gave no sign, not so much as by the flicker of an eyelid, that he recognized this offer for what it was, saying simply, ‘That’s very gracious of Dame Audrea and I shall tell her so before we take our leave of her tomorrow.’ He turned to me, holding out his hand. ‘In case we don’t see one another again, Master Chapman, I’ll say goodnight and goodbye. If you’re ever in Wells, you must visit us.’ He appealed to his wife. ‘We shall expect it, shan’t we, my dear?’ Then without waiting for her assent, he went on, ‘Now, we must go and find Rose and Ned and see if we can sort things out between them before we go. For my own part, I don’t suspect there’s anything seriously amiss. Nothing that recent events won’t have remedied.’
This tactful way of referring to Anthony’s death at first amused, but then made me uneasy. Was I overlooking the obvious? Was I naive in not being more suspicious of the butcher as the killer of the murdered man? He had both a motive (of sorts) and the opportunity. Furthermore, he was used to killing, no doubt slaughtering many of his own animals in order to ensure the freshness of his meat. But as I watched him quit the hall in search of his daughter, closely followed by his wife and son, I couldn’t bring myself to think him guilty. There were other thoughts, other suspicions floating around in my mind like the pieces of flotsam they might well turn out to be, and in any case, I knew where to find the Bignells if I had cause to change my mind.
I went to look for Simon Bellknapp.
I was informed by the steward that he was already abed, but in spite of the lateness of the hour, he returned a grudging message by George Applegarth — who had volunteered to be my messenger — that he would see me if he must.
His bedchamber was next to Dame Audrea’s, an arrangement that I guessed had pertained since childhood; a small, stuffy room overburdened with furniture and with a row of wooden toys — horses, soldiers, cup-and-ball and even a tiny, jointed doll — arranged on a shelf alongside his bed. This was a large four-poster, far bigger than that needed by a solitary person, with dark red canopy and curtains and with numerous little drawers and cupboards let into the bedhead. (I had seen another like it some years before, in a house in Glastonbury, and presumed therefore that they were both the work of a local craftsman.)