16 - The Three Kings of Cologne (27 page)

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.’

‘True,’ I agreed gloomily, trying not to smile. I had no intention of sharing with Jack Gload the one clue to ‘Balthazar’s’ identity that I thought I might have; that little flash of inspiration that had come to me like a sudden ray of light penetrating an otherwise Stygian darkness.

Robert Moresby, Ralph Mynott. Both had the same initials: R.M. And at the same moment that this realization hit me, I recollected Jane Purefoy’s revelation of finding the piece of paper on which Isabella had written three sets of initials, every set the same, with a question mark against each. At the time, I had assumed it was the sort of idle repetition that indicated a preoccupied mind; that she had been thinking of one man, and one alone, and whether or not to marry him. But now it suddenly occurred to me that, by one of those coincidences Fate throws up every now and then, all three men – ‘Melchior’, ‘Caspar’ and ‘Balthazar’ – had baptismal names and surnames beginning with the letters R and M. So the man I was looking for, the final one of the three, most probably was also an R.M. And, if my memory served me aright, he had reddish hair.

I suppose I should have seen the truth, which was staring me in the face, right away, but I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t. I was feeling too smug and pleased with my brilliant deductions to pursue them further, and was wallowing in a veritable sea of self-congratulation.

‘You’ve thought o’ something,’ Jack Gload accused me. ‘I can see it in your face.’

‘That’s just indigestion,’ I told him. ‘Your daughter gave me too much breakfast. Which reminds me,’ I added, glancing up at the sky, ‘it’ll be dinnertime soon. I intend stopping at the nearest cottage and buying whatever the goodwife can spare me. Furthermore, Jack, I have no intention of trying to complete this return journey in one day. I was exhausted yesterday evening by the time we entered Bath.’

But if I had hoped to shake off my unwanted companion, I was again to be disappointed.

‘Couldn’t do it, Chapman,’ he agreed. ‘Didn’t start off early enough today, not after you’d been to visit Master Mynott and Cecily had rolled me out o’ bed. Take our leisure, that’s what I say. Sit down and admire the view sometimes. The Sergeant ain’t expecting me back until tomorrow. And I know a neat little tavern this side o’ Keynsham where we c’n rack up for the night. Belongs to a friend o’ mine.’

My heart sank, but I could think of no way to rid myself of him. Whatever ploy I tried, I could tell that he was going to stick closer to me than a burr to a sheep’s fleece. There was nothing for it but to accept the inevitable and guard my tongue against Jack’s probing questions.

But, somewhat to my surprise, he seemed to have accepted defeat on this point; and while we ate a dinner of black bread, goat’s cheese and buckrams (or bear’s garlic, as some country people call it), washed down with a cup of homemade ale, all provided by a cottager’s wife while her man toiled in a nearby field, Jack did no more than quiz me on various problems I had solved in the past. I was, of course, only too happy to provide him with the details. (Well, I’m only human, after all, and what man can refrain from boasting now and then, especially about past success?) And by the time the soft April evening began to draw in, the sun slowly sinking amidst streamers of pale rose and gold, I was almost in charity with him. We had pursued a leisurely course along the valley floor, stopping to exchange greetings with anyone who spoke to us, and learning such snippets of news as the fact that the Princess Mary had become betrothed to the King of Denmark (not an item of much interest to either Jack or myself, but something for me to tell Adela, nonetheless) and now we were pleasantly tired and ready for our beds.

‘And here’s the alehouse I was telling you of,’ my companion remarked suddenly, indicating a small hostelry set back from the main Keynsham track by perhaps a dozen yards or so.

It appeared clean and wholesome enough with a general chamber behind the taproom where travellers could sleep for an extra charge on the price of a meal, and more again for the hire of a blanket and pillow if they didn’t fancy a night spent only on straw. The food, too, was well enough: a rabbit pottage with boiled orache and rampion added to the vegetables already in the stew. Jack chose a rough red wine to drink, but I stuck to ale; then, it by now being dark and both of us being extremely tired, we adjourned to the back chamber, where we were the only two wayfarers staying overnight.

We didn’t bother to undress. I stowed my satchel beneath my pillow, placed my cudgel where it was ready to hand should I need it, bade Jack a sleepy goodnight and knew nothing more until morning.

It was a cock crowing somewhere, answered by the bark of a dog, that woke me. The early light of dawn was seeping through a very small window, set high in the wall behind my head, but the thing that struck me most forcibly was how quiet the room was. There was no sound of breathing but my own, and none of the snores and gurgling noises that I knew from the previous night’s experience Jack could make. I sat up and turned my head. The straw mattress was empty, the blanket tossed to one side, but while the pillow still bore the impression of my erstwhile companion’s head, of Jack Gload himself there was no sign.

I heaved myself to my feet and went into the ale room, where the owner, stretching, scratching and yawning, had just entered by a side door leading from his cramped living quarters overhead.

As soon as he saw me, he grunted, ‘Your friend’s gone. Roused me before it was even light to say he had to be on his way. Said you’d pay.’

For several moments, I was rendered completely speechless, taken aback by Jack’s unexpected duplicity. Although I had never liked him, I hadn’t thought him capable of playing such a mean and low-down trick. Then uneasiness set in. The more I thought about it, the more out of character it seemed. He was a law officer: he wouldn’t want it spread around Bristol that he was a cheat and a sponger, even if it was only my word against his. There were, after all, plenty of people only too ready to believe the worst of anyone in authority.

The solution to the problem, however, eluded me for the present and I told the landlord that I was ready for my breakfast. Dried herring, stale oatcake and a pot of even staler ale did nothing to improve my temper, and I called for the reckoning as soon as I had finished this unsavoury repast.

It was then that I discovered my purse was missing. The thongs which attached it to my belt had been cut through as neatly as you please while I slept and I hadn’t felt a thing. I hadn’t even missed its weight since I got up, so busy had I been dwelling on Jack Gload’s perfidy. My first reaction was that the alehouse keeper had purloined it, but my accusation was met with such a furious and resentful denial that I believed him. Foolish, perhaps, but intuition told me that this was also Jack’s handiwork. And still I couldn’t see why.

‘I can’t pay you,’ I told my host, showing him the cut thongs and explaining my predicament.

He took a little persuading that I was indeed telling the truth, but once convinced that it was so, he merely shrugged and said, ‘Then you’ll have to work for what you owe me.’

I protested vehemently, but he was adamant.

‘That’s my rule and I ain’t altering it for no one.’ And just to prove that he was serious, he locked the alehouse door and pocketed the key.

I considered him foolhardy for he was not a big man and someone of my height and girth could easily have overpowered him, but he was evidently a good judge of character and had gambled that I wouldn’t offer him violence. I might bluster and threaten a bit, but he would come to no harm.

As it happened, I had already decided it would be a waste of time to resist in any way, and asked resignedly, ‘What must I do?’

He jerked a thumb towards a trapdoor set in the alehouse floor.

‘There are a dozen or so barrels of ale in the cellar that want bringing up and standing along the back wall. I’m not an unreasonable man, and if you do that for me, I’m willing to call it evens.’

‘I should just think you would be!’ I exclaimed bitterly when I had lifted the trapdoor and surveyed the steep, almost vertical ladder that descended into the cellar’s depths. But I had no choice. I stripped down to hose and shirt and began.

It was well past dinnertime – almost noon I guessed by the position of the sun, which I could see through the window – before I had finished this labour of Hercules. It had taken a good deal of cajoling – and a solemn promise not to escape – to persuade my host to open the shutters, and it was only when I genuinely appeared in danger of lapsing into unconsciousness from the heat that he finally agreed. But in the end, all the casks – and there were fourteen of them, not twelve – were lined up against the back wall of the ale room and I was at last free to resume my journey. I was drenched in sweat; every stitch I had on clung to me in such an indecent and revealing fashion that I hoped I should encounter no females for an hour or two until I was once again fit to be seen. (Mind you, I can’t answer for the ladies. It might have given them the treat of their lives.)

To the landlord’s credit, he had plied me with ale throughout my ordeal, and pressed another, final stoup into my hands just before I wished him farewell.

‘I’d have a word with that so-called friend of yours,’ he advised me on parting. ‘If what he did was meant as a joke, it’s a mean sort o’ trick, that’s all I can say. He’s been here afore and he knows my rules, cause he asked me once what I’d do if someone couldn’t pay.’

‘Oh, I shall be having a word with him, you needn’t worry about that,’ I responded grimly. ‘I shall also be reporting him for theft.’

‘I shan’t be worrying,’ my host chuckled as he held the door wide for a couple of dusty travellers (both men, thankfully) who were making their way up the grassy incline from the track. ‘I’m darned grateful to him. Between you, you’ve saved me a back-breaking job. God speed you, friend.’

The warmth of the April day and a slight breeze dried my clothes faster than I had expected, and by the time I had passed through Keynsham, I presented a more or less respectable sight, but I was, of course, unable to stop for any refreshment, having no money. I did, however, pause in a sheltered spot on the banks of the little River Chew, strip to the waist and wash away the dust and sweat of the morning as well as I was able. After which, feeling somewhat better, in body at least, I settled down to walk the remaining five or six miles to Bristol.

I had ceased wondering what Jack Gload’s game might be. Physical strain had taken over to such an extent that my mind felt numb, and all my effort was centred on putting one foot in front of the other. My cudgel saved me on more than one occasion from actually falling over, while my satchel felt as if it were packed with stones instead of the few necessities Adela had insisted I carried with me. Tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep, I would seek out the errant law officer and lay a charge of theft against him. But until then, I had enough to cope with in my aching back and arms and my general fatigue.

This all-encompassing tiredness is the only excuse I can offer for the way I walked into the trap without even the smallest presentiment as to what was coming. The walls of the city were within sight, the din and the stench reaching out to fill my ears and nostrils as they do with every big town in the kingdom. I had approached from the east and could already make out, from certain vantage points of high ground, the people passing in and out of the Redcliffe Gate. Although I guessed it to be late afternoon, the days were lengthening apace and there was still plenty of traffic, both of the two-legged and four-wheeled variety, on the roads. But there were also those pockets of quietness which every traveller experiences, where both people and carts suddenly, and for no apparent reason, thin out, leaving one almost alone in the landscape.

This happened as I descended into a hollow with thick scrub on either side. I had deviated from the main track by some yards on to a narrower path where the going was softer for my aching body. As I dropped down between the banks of the hollow, I was aware of nothing except the overmastering desire to reach home; certainly not that I must have been followed for the last half mile or so. Normally, my senses would have alerted me to danger, but, as I said, my mind had ceased to function. I was thinking of nothing but a hot supper and one of Adela’s concoctions of primrose leaves and honey which, applied externally or taken internally, would ease my joints and muscles of the worst of their pain.