‘Did you see anything that might help us catch their killer?’ asked Tulyet. ‘Or did any of you visit them in the shed yesterday?’
‘It was their private place,’ explained Julien, ‘where they went for time together as a family. They disliked being disturbed.’
‘So what happened when the fire began? Who first noticed it?’
‘Delacroix saw smoke when he went to the kitchen for bread,’ replied Julien. ‘He sent Goda to raise the alarm, while he went to see about putting it out. The rest of us stayed well back, so we would not get in the way.’
‘Did it cross your minds that the Girards might still be inside?’
‘Of course not!’ snarled Delacroix. ‘The door was open, so we naturally assumed they had left.’
‘And Goda seemed certain that it was empty,’ elaborated Julien. ‘Then Tangmer ordered it shut to contain the blaze – at that point, he still thought we could put it out.’
‘Goda,’ mused Michael. ‘Are you on good terms with her?’
‘You think she is the killer?’ Delacroix laughed derisively. ‘The Girards knew how to look after themselves – they would never have been bested by a tiny little woman.’
‘Besides, Goda has no reason to harm us,’ added Julien, shooting him a glance that warned him to guard his tongue. ‘No one here does.’
‘What about the dagger?’ asked Tulyet, laying it on the table. ‘I have scrubbed the soot off it, so examine it again now it is clean. Do you recognise it?’
There was a moment when Bartholomew thought he was playing tricks – that Tulyet had substituted the murder weapon for another in the hope of catching the culprit out – but then he saw the wide blade and the jewelled hilt, both of which gleamed expensively. It was a world apart from the greasy black item he had plucked from the rubble.
‘No,’ said Julien, peering at it. ‘But it is ugly – a thing specifically designed for the taking of life. You should throw it in a midden, Sheriff, where it belongs.’
‘I think it is handsome,’ stated Delacroix, a predictable response from a warlike man. ‘But I have never seen its like before.’
One by one, the other peregrini approached to look, but all shook their heads.
‘So none of you noticed anything unusual about the shed before the fire?’ pressed Michael when they had finished. ‘No strangers loitering? No visitors you did not know?’
‘Just the ones we have already mentioned,’ replied Julien. ‘The miller, the ditcher and the two knights from the castle.’
‘Plus all those Benedictine nuns,’ put in Delacroix, glaring at Michael.
They interviewed the Spital staff next, beginning with Tangmer and Amphelisa, although Bartholomew quickly became distracted when Amphelisa described how she had mended a persistently festering cut on Delacroix’s leg. He asked how she had come by such skills.
‘From being near Rouen when the Jacquerie struck,’ she replied. ‘The slaughter was sickening. Delacroix will tell you that the barons were worse, but the truth is that both sides were as bad as each other.’
‘Yet you agreed to house him here,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘Him and his five renegade friends.’
‘Because Julien begged me to. Besides, the Girards said they wished they had never become involved with the Jacquerie, and I suspect Delacroix and his friends will feel the same way when they are older and wiser.’
Bartholomew was not so sure about that, but she changed the subject then, telling him her views on treating ailments of the mind with pungent herbs. He listened keenly, aware all the while of the scent of oils in her clothes. They made him wonder if he should distil some in Michaelhouse, as there were times when the presence of a lot of active young men, few of whom bothered to wash, drove him outdoors for fresh air. Then he remembered that it would not matter after July, because he would be living with Matilde.
Meanwhile, Michael and Tulyet questioned Tangmer, who seemed smaller and humbler than he had been before he had been caught harbouring Frenchmen.
‘I founded this place to atone for my niece’s crimes,’ he said miserably, ‘and to redeem the Tangmer name. But now foul murder is committed here. Will we never be free from sin?’
‘Not as long as you shelter dangerous radicals and pass them off as lunatics,’ said Tulyet baldly. ‘So, what more can you tell us about yesterday?’
‘Nothing I have not mentioned already. I knew I should have refused these people sanctuary, but Amphelisa … well, she is a compassionate woman. Of course, having those nuns here at the same time has been a nightmare. I live in constant fear that one will guess what we are doing and report us.’
He had no more to add, so Tulyet beckoned Eudo forward. The big man approached reluctantly, twisting his hat anxiously in his ham-like hands.
‘Where were you when the fire started?’ asked Tulyet, watching him fidget and twitch.
‘Out,’ replied Eudo, furtively enough to make the Sheriff’s eyes narrow. ‘I arrived home just as the alarm was being raised. I opened the gates then, so we could get water from the stream. We used buckets, you know. They were–’
‘“Out” where exactly?’ demanded Tulyet, overriding Eudo’s clumsy attempt to divert the discussion to safer ground.
Eudo would not look at him. ‘On private Spital business. I cannot say more.’
‘Did you go alone?’
Eudo glanced at Tangmer, who nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘Yes, but I cannot–’
‘Who did you see on this mysterious excursion?’ snapped Tulyet. ‘And bear in mind that I am asking for your alibi. If you cannot provide one, I shall draw my own conclusions from all these brazen lies.’
‘He is doing it for me,’ interposed Tangmer, much to Eudo’s obvious relief. ‘I sent him to the town to buy some decent ale. You see, Amphelisa makes ours, but … well, she has a lot to learn about brewing. I am loath to hurt her feelings, so Eudo gets it for me on the sly.’
‘I do,’ nodded Eudo. ‘But I cannot prove it, because I am careful never to be recognised there. Obviously, we cannot have word getting back to Amphelisa.’
It sounded a peculiar tale to Michael and Tulyet, who pressed Eudo relentlessly in an effort to catch him out. They failed.
‘He has just put himself at the top of my list of suspects,’ muttered Michael, when they had given up, leaving the big man to escape with relief. ‘He is not even very good at prevarication – I have rarely heard such embarrassingly transparent falsehoods.’
‘He is third on mine,’ said Tulyet. ‘After de Wetherset and Heltisle.’
Goda was next. She flounced towards them, resplendent in her handsome kirtle. Her shoes were new, too, and over her hair she wore a delicate net that was studded with beads. She was so tiny that when she sat on the bench, her feet did not touch the floor, so she swung them back and forth like a restless child.
‘I was in the kitchen all morning, making bread,’ she began. ‘Delacroix came to beg some, then left. He was back moments later, jabbering about a fire. I ran outside, and saw smoke seeping through the shed roof.’
‘Then what?’ asked Michael.
‘I yelled the alarm. All the staff dropped what they were doing and raced to put it out. However, I can tell you for a fact that none of them were near the shed when it started – I would have noticed.’
‘Obviously, the fire was lit some time before the smoke became thick enough to attract your attention,’ said Michael. ‘Ergo, how do you know that a member of staff did not set the blaze and then slink away, ready to come running when the alarm was raised?’