A horse and rider clopped by on the path behind me, the man nodding a perfunctory greeting. I barely acknowledged it, however, for the sight of them had set up yet another train of thought in my mind. All those people who had seen Beric on the morning of the murder had mentioned that he was not entirely in control of his mount; but Simon and Ivo Fettiplace had spoken of him as the perfect horseman. ‘There’s never been the horse foaled that he couldn’t ride. Never a second’s trouble with any of them that I’ve ever seen.’ Until now, I had, like everyone else, concluded that Beric’s excited and agitated state had somehow conveyed itself to the animal, or made him less able than usual to master the creature. But might there not be a simpler explanation? If it had been Berenice riding Flavius that morning, she might well have found a little difficulty in handling him. Mistress Fettiplace gave her the credit of being a fine horsewoman, but had admitted that she was not quite as good a rider as her brother. ‘Very nearly,’ had been her reply when I had put that question to her.
And then there was the thumb ring worn by Bevis Godsey. He had lied about how it came into his possession, and when he realized that he must have given himself away by his own stupidity, he had sheered off in a hurry, before I was awake, leaving me to wonder why Beric would have given him such a valuable jewel, or what the latter might have done to earn it. But I now knew Bevis to be a kinsman of Katherine Glover, one with the same initials as Beric. Perhaps, when he had called at Valletort Manor, she had given it to him. But why? More importantly, why would Beric allow her to make such a gift? And where had he really been ever since the murder?
I withdrew my almost numbed hand from the stream and dried it on the grass before settling down to consider what might have happened on the morning that Oliver Capstick was murdered; but I soon realized that, in order to get a true picture, I must go back in time to the previous day. On that occasion, Beric, incensed beyond measure by his great-uncle’s criticism of his intended bride, and also by his attempt to coerce him into marrying Jenny Haygarth, had attacked Master Capstick in a fury of red-hot rage by trying to throttle him. But his own better nature, as much, I suspected, as Mistress Trenowth’s intervention, had prevented him from committing murder. He had told the old man to alter his will and be damned to him, and had ridden home to Valletort Manor, safe, as he thought, in the knowledge of Katherine’s affection.
So far I was reasonably sure of my ground. But what had followed? Had he discovered that Berenice and Katherine were really lovers? Had he gone searching for them, anxious to tell them what had taken place, only to find them locked in one another’s embrace? I remembered the tree-tent in the woods. Was that where they had lain together, out of the sight of prying eyes? And if my surmise proved to be correct, what would have been Beric’s reaction? Disbelief, horror, the sense of betrayal — surely he would have felt all these things? And when he had recovered from the first awful shock, when the truth had finally sunk in, would he not, in his anger and humiliation, have revealed all that he had been prepared to sacrifice for Katherine Glover, even consenting to his sister becoming their great-uncle’s sole heir? And would he not then have threatened to return at once to Plymouth, to tell Oliver Capstick the truth and to reinstate himself in his kinsman’s regard by consenting to marry Jenny Haygarth?
Or might he, in his bitter rage, have attacked the women, so that they were forced to defend themselves? Two to one, they could well have overpowered him. But then, of course, they must have begun to realize what a danger this furiously angry man was to them and their forbidden love. There was only one way to make sure of his silence, and that was to kill him! It was possible that Beric’s death had been accidental, but in the light of what must have happened next, I doubted it.
For what happened had surely been Berenice’s decision to murder her great-uncle and enter into her inheritance without delay. The next morning, therefore, early, dressed, except for the hat, in her brother’s clothes and mounted on Flavius, she had ridden to Plymouth, bludgeoned the old man to death while he slept and ridden home again. She had no hope of escaping notice but to be seen from a distance was an essential part of her plan. Beric would be blamed for Oliver’s murder while she and Katherine played the parts of horrified, but still devoted, sister and betrothed.
But why had Bartholomew Champernowne had to be killed? Was it possible that he had found out about Berenice’s love for Katherine, or was on the verge of suspecting the truth? In that case, where would this murderous course end? For the two women must stand in constant danger of discovery, the more so because Berenice took foolish and unnecessary risks, like dressing in her brother’s clothes and riding to a midnight rendezvous with Katherine at the Bird of Passage Inn.
And yet they had a sort of protection so long as it was widely believed that Beric had not fled abroad, but was eating Saint John’s fern in order to gain invisibility and stay close to his betrothed. And that, I saw with sudden clarity, was perhaps the real reason why it had been necessary to remove Bartholomew Champernowne. I had told Berenice that he had been going about the countryside trying to force witnesses to change their testimony; to say that it was not Beric whom they had seen on the day of Oliver Capstick’s murder. And if Beric was exonerated, the finger of suspicion would inevitably begin to point at the person who had benefited most from Oliver Capstick’s death: Berenice, herself.
Chapter Twenty
Even if I was right, and Beric was dead, what chance had I of proving it? His body could be buried anywhere in the acres of woodland that surrounded Valletort Manor. What hope did I have of locating the exact spot? But I had to try for Jack Golightly’s sake. I couldn’t let an innocent man go to the gallows for want of effort on my part.
I got to my feet and wandered a short way along the bank of the stream, lost in thought and unaware of the direction in which I was walking. I was only vaguely conscious that I was leaving Modbury behind me and plunging once more into the belt of trees that swathed the countryside between town and sea; and I failed to notice the all-embracing silence until it was broken by a voice, addressing me by name and returning me abruptly to my surroundings.
‘We meet again, Roger Chapman, but you’re a fair way off the main coastal track.’
It was the swineherd. ‘God’s Fingernails, but you startled me,’ I accused him breathlessly. The three pigs brushed past me, preoccupied with their never ceasing quest for food. ‘How did you find your goodwife?’ I added more calmly.
‘Fair! Fair!’ was the cheerful response. ‘She’s well enough, at all events, to get up from her sickbed and leave the house in order to catch up with the latest gossip. As a matter of fact,’ he went on, lunging with his stick after one of the pigs that showed a tendency to stray too far into the trees, ‘she’d already heard rumours of the murder. One of the local woodsmen had called at the cottage to tell her what he knew.’ He regarded me curiously. ‘Are you feeling all right? I don’t believe you’ve heard a word I’ve said.’
‘I was remembering a dream I had about you and your pigs,’ I said slowly, ‘while I was dozing today, after my dinner. The animals were digging under a tree and … and … Yes, I can see it clearly now!’ My excitement began to mount. ‘That’s what they were doing this morning, just before we parted company, all three of them rootling around under an oak as though their lives depended upon it. And you said … Let me see … You said what vicious creatures pigs are. You said never get on the wrong side of them or they’ll attack you. They’re partial to human flesh.’