I waited a moment or two before speaking again to allow him time to master what appeared to be a very natural grief. But when he seemed to have his emotions under control, I said, ‘On the morning Mistress Linkinhorne should have joined Robert Moresby at your sister’s house, she was seen talking to a man near Westbury village. His face was hidden by his hood, which was drawn well forward, concealing his features, it being an extremely wet and windy day. That — forgive me — that wasn’t yourself by any chance?’
A suspicion as to where my questioning was leading suddenly seemed to strike him and once again he coloured up, but this time with anger.
‘As I don’t know which day it was, I cannot say for certain that I was not the man. But if, Master Chapman, you are implying that I might have murdered Isabella, I must ask you to leave my house immediately.’
Ralph Mynott had risen to his feet and was now glaring down at me, his pale eyes flashing with anger. He had a temper all right; and for a man with normally so meek and mild an appearance, he could look surprisingly dangerous when roused. It did nothing to reassure me that he was telling the truth and that I could rely on his word. Moreover, I was forcibly reminded of his sister’s tipping bed at Hambrook Manor. The Mynotts were a family to be wary of, I decided. On the other hand, it didn’t mean that Ralph had murdered Isabella.
For a start, even had he done so, I had not a scrap of proof to link him with the crime, and there was always the difficulty of how he could have put the body in the grave in the nuns’ graveyard. How would he have known about it? How would he have managed to transport the body there? This didn’t mean that I was entirely convinced of his innocence, but the more I considered the facts, the more I realized that at the back of my mind, for some time past, I had been nurturing the growing conviction that, where knowledge and opportunity had been concerned, ‘Balthazar’, the man who was said to have lived in Bristol, was most likely to be the killer.
I uncoiled my length from the chair and towered over my host. Two could play at being threatening. Ralph took a step backwards, his angry expression changing to one of uneasiness. Beneath his mild exterior, he was a bully, and in my experience, bullies are easily intimidated.
‘Master Mynott,’ I said quietly, ‘are you prepared to swear to me, by Christ and all His Saints, that you did not murder Isabella Linkinhorne?’
He blinked. I supposed it was a nervous habit. But there was no other hesitation, not so much as by a second.
‘I swear,’ he said, adding, ‘I loved her. I couldn’t have harmed her.’
And on reflection, if what he had told me was the truth, Ralph Mynott had not known of Isabella’s perfidy until many months after she was dead. If it was the truth …
I sighed to myself. It seemed to me that there probably never would be a satisfactory answer to the question of who had killed Isabella Linkinhorne. It was too long ago. But for my own pride’s sake, I had to keep trying.
I took my leave of Master Mynott and wondered if he would tell his wife about my enquiries. I rather fancied that he wouldn’t. She didn’t look the sort who would take kindly to the tale of a long lost love. But what next? I asked myself as I shouldered my satchel and made my way across the town to the West Gate. And to that question there was only one answer. I had to find ‘Balthazar’. But how to locate him? Except that he had reddish hair and probably still lived in Bristol, I knew as little about him as I had known about Ralph Mynott.
But then, suddenly, with a flash of inspiration, I wondered if that were really true.
Sixteen
‘So here you are, Chapman,’ said a most unwelcome and slightly breathless voice behind me. ‘Off home, are you? I suppose you thought you’d given me the slip.’ The tone was reproachful.
I turned my head. Jack Gload was only a pace or two behind me.
‘I had no intention of giving you the slip,’ I retorted. ‘Why would I want to do that? I was under the impression that you were spending some days with your daughter. I left you sleeping like a baby and it would have been a shame to wake you.’
‘Well, I ain’t,’ he said. ‘Spending a few days with Cecily, that is. Children and animals, I can’t abide ’em. Besides, can’t be spared for long,’ he added importantly. ‘Too many villains in Bristol for the Sergeant to do without me, and I’m ’is right-hand man. Pete — Pete Littleman — ’e’s all right. A plodder, but ’e don’t have my brains. Leastways that’s what Sergeant Manifold says.’
I had no doubt that Dick Manifold said precisely the same thing to his other henchman. He had enough guile to keep them both happy and subordinate to his authority by playing them off against one another. But my heart sank at the prospect of Jack Gload’s company for my return journey to Bristol and, moreover, I was suspicious of his motive for accompanying me. Fortunately, he had no subtlety and asked almost at once, ‘You been to see this Ralph Mynott, then?’ He didn’t wait for my assent, but continued, ‘What did ’e have t’ say for ’imself?’
As we had reached the West Gate, I was able to postpone my answer until we had negotiated our way through against the incoming tide of traffic, exchanging some good-humoured badinage with the gatekeeper and a few bad-tempered words with a carter, who seemed to think that his load of iron ore for the city foundry entitled him to hog the entire width of the road and drive pedestrians to the wall. And by the time we were out in the open countryside, I hoped that my companion might have forgotten his question.
A forlorn hope, however.
‘So?’ Jack urged. ‘What did you find out?’ And when I did not immediately reply, he pressed again, ‘What did this Ralph Mynott ’ave to say for ’imself?’
Such persistence confirmed me in my steadily growing belief that Jack had been sent after me by Richard Manifold to question me and discover what, if anything, I knew.
The Sergeant could have found out from any number of sources — Adela amongst them — that I was on my way to Bath, and, knowing that Jack Gload had a daughter and son-in-law living in the town, despatched him on the most natural of pretexts to follow me.
‘Master Mynott was certainly acquainted with Isabella Linkinhorne,’ I admitted grudgingly, but without volunteering anything further.
‘And?’ the lawman prompted impatiently.
‘And what?’ I knew how to play stupid when required.
‘Is ’e guilty of ’er murder, or not?’
‘Impossible for me to say with any certainty,’ I confessed. ‘But on reflection, I should hazard the guess that he is not.’
‘Mmm.’ Jack shot me a sideways glance. ‘So that leaves this third fellow you were talkin’ about. You gave ’im some fancy name.’
‘Balthazar.’
Jack showed me the whites of his eyes.
‘But you don’t know ’is real name, do you?’ he asked. ‘If truth be told, you don’t know nothing whatsoever about ’im.’
‘I didn’t know anything about “Melchior” and “Caspar”,’ I pointed out, with the purpose of confusing my dim-witted companion, adding with some satisfaction, ‘But I found them, all the same.’
Jack, however, had a simple philosophy; ignore everything you don’t understand and hammer on with what you do.
‘You was lucky with this Ralph Mynott, though. Sort o’ luck you ain’t likely to run into twice. As for the other, the one what lives in Gloucester, you said you knew ’im to be a goldsmith. That were summat to go on in a town that size. Bound to lead you to ’im in the end.’
‘In twenty years, he might have died or moved away.’
‘But ’e ’adn’t,’ Jack pointed out. The argument was unanswerable, so I didn’t attempt it. He continued inexorably, ‘What I’m saying is, Chapman, you know nothing — absolutely nothing — about this third man and it’d be too much to expect that you’re goin’ to strike lucky again.’