‘In that case, you’d better hurry up and give me an explanation,’ he snapped, but then went on without waiting for it, ‘I don’t scruple to tell you, Master Chapman, that Isabella Linkinhorne was a flirt, a cock-teaser, a woman who had no hesitation in breaking her given word. So, are you going to tell me what this is about? Or are you going to waste more of my time?’ A thought seemed to strike him. ‘Has she sent you?’
The question sounded genuine enough; but if Robert Moresby were the murderer, and had guessed what my probing was about, it might be just a clever ploy to put me off the scent.
‘Isabella Linkinhorne is dead,’ I said starkly, adding, ‘And I’ve already told you that I’m here on behalf of Mayor Foster of Bristol, on whose land her body was found.’
Master Moresby’s anger drained away. He sat staring at me with a puzzled expression. ‘What do you mean, her body was found?’ he asked after a moment.
‘She was murdered,’ I said. ‘Twenty years ago.’ And I went on to explain the circumstances of the discovery and John Foster’s interest in it.
But I doubt if my companion heard much of the latter. He was sitting like one stunned, as pale now as he had been red before. ‘Dear God, dear God,’ he kept whispering to himself over and over again. And then, suddenly, in what appeared to be an agony of remorse, he began rocking himself to and fro. ‘I’ve wronged her! All these years I’ve wronged her. I thought she’d led me on, promising to marry me, and then deliberately, callously breaking her promise. Oh, God in heaven!’ He buried his face in his hands and burst into tears; hard, racking sobs that shook his whole body.
I tried steeling my heart, although it was difficult. But I could not yet afford to let it be softened by this display of emotion, because a display might be all it was. ‘Melchior’ could simply be a very crafty dissembler.
I waited for the sobs to subside a little, then said, ‘You say that Mistress Linkinhorne had promised to marry you. How long were you betrothed?’
Slowly he straightened up in his chair and gradually controlled his bout of weeping. After perhaps a minute or two, he once more had himself well in hand.
‘We were never betrothed in the formal sense,’ he said thickly. ‘That last morning I ever saw her, she finally promised to marry me. She had refused me time and time again, saying she wasn’t sure, she didn’t know, she couldn’t leave her parents, who were both elderly. Whether that was true or not, I had no means of telling. I never met either of them.’
‘It was perfectly true,’ I interrupted. ‘That they were elderly, I mean. Her father, Master Jonathan Linkinhorne, is still alive. He’s eighty-five. He and his wife were both over forty years of age when Isabella was born. But please, go on.’
He shook his head sadly. ‘There’s not much more to tell. She promised to run away with me the following day. She said it had to be a runaway match or her father would try to prevent it. I protested that if matters stood like that, we should go at once and be wed before her parents had time to find out that she’d fled. My mother was still alive in those days and she would have looked after Isabella and kept her safe, and been glad to have done it for my sake. I was always her favourite.’ He was lost for a moment in a haze of reminiscence.
‘But Isabella wouldn’t agree?’ I prompted.
‘No. She said she had to go home to collect her clothes. I said not to be so foolish. I would buy her everything she needed when we got to Gloucester. But I couldn’t persuade her. She apparently had many gowns she was fond of. And then there was her jewellery, some of which I’d given her. I promised her more and better, but to no avail. She was adamant. So we arranged that I would wait for her the following day at a house a little north of our usual trysting place, where I had a very good customer. But she never came. I have to admit my pride was hurt as well as my heart. I had been made to look a fool in front of other people. Or so I thought at the time.’ He drew a deep breath, almost a gasp. ‘Now, of course, I know differently.’
‘You used to meet at Westbury village,’ I said. ‘That much I have discovered. The last day you saw her was, I believe, a very cold day of wind and driving rain.’
Robert Moresby shook his head. ‘No, that was the following day; the day she was to meet and come away with me.’ Some expression on my face must have made him suspicious. ‘I never saw her that day. What makes you think I did?’
I avoided answering the question, merely frowning as though I had not quite understood what he had said.
‘You mean you waited all day at the house of this customer, but she didn’t come?’
‘I’ve just told you, haven’t I? It was a terrible day, lashing wind and driving rain from morning till night. I got to my friend’s house early — for you must understand that he and his wife, as well as being excellent customers, had also become friends over the years. Indeed, it was while spending a day or two with Sir Peter and his lady the previous spring, while I was out riding in the surrounding countryside, that I first met Isabella. So they knew all about her from the start, knew of my desire to marry her, of her reluctance to abandon her elderly parents. When I confided in them the preceding day that Isabella had finally agreed to run away with me, and begged leave to use their house as our rendezvous — confessed that in fact I had already taken the liberty of asking Isabella to meet me there — they were all complaisance. They even suggested that I should remain with them overnight, rather than go home to Gloucester, only to return again the following morning.’
‘That would have seemed the logical thing to do,’ I commented. ‘Why did you refuse?’
‘I wished to prepare my mother for the reception of her future daughter-in-law. Also my brother and his wife, who were still living with us at that time, above the workshop in Goldsmiths’ Row. My niece, whom you’ve met, was then a child, some five years old.’
The house would have been fairly crowded, then, especially when servants and apprentices were included in the count.
‘Mistress Linkinhorne knew of your family circumstances, I suppose?’
Robert Moresby stared at me as though I had asked an indecent question.
‘Of course she knew! I never had secrets from Isabella. But nothing mattered to her except our love,’ he added triumphantly. ‘She once told me she could live in a hovel so long as I was by her side.’
The girl was a liar, so much was obvious. Not only was she deceiving him with two other men, but everything I had so far found out about her convinced me that she was not the sort to be happy in cramped quarters, let alone one of a crowd. Provided that my companion was telling the truth, his first estimation of Isabella, as a flirt and a cock-teaser, was closer to the real woman than the suddenly rose-coloured picture he entertained of her now.
I wondered why — again if his version of what had happened was the correct one — Isabella had agreed to run away with ‘Melchior’ when subsequent events suggested that she had had no intention of doing so. Perhaps she had grown tired of his importunings and decided to put an end to them once and for all by teaching him a humiliating lesson. But on the other hand, perhaps she had had every intention of eloping with him to Gloucester, but had met someone else on her way to the rendezvous; someone who had persuaded her to change her mind. (Who? And what argument was used?) Then again, maybe the whole story was a farrago of nonsense, a pack of lies, thought up over the intervening years just in case one day the truth was discovered and Robert actually found himself confronted by an accusation of murder. And if the latter, it was quite possible that he had come to believe what he had made up. I had known this to happen.
‘These friends of yours,’ I said, trying to look like a poor peasant, easily impressed. ‘You mentioned Sir Peter just now.’
Robert Moresby’s chest expanded a little. ‘Sir Peter and Lady Claypole.’ The chest expanded even further. ‘Araminta to her friends.’ He enlarged no further, allowing me to draw my own conclusion; that he was included in this circle of the elite. My heart hardened against him.