A Pig of Cold Poison (21 page)

‘A bad business,’ he said, with genuine if conventional sympathy.

‘Oh!’ Syme shook his yellow head. ‘My – my wife’s at her wits’ end, poor lass. She’s howding, you ken,’ he divulged, with that air of imparting a secret, though the whole of Glasgow could recognize this one, Gil thought. ‘It makes her easy upset. But I said I’d come out and ask you –’ he paused, biting his lip – ‘ask you what you thought in the case. Is my good-sister guilty, do you think, Maister Cunningham, or the girl Jess, or is my wife right that it must ha been some other enemy of the family?’

‘What do you think?’ Gil returned the question.

Syme threw him a hunted look, but considered his answer with care. ‘If Agnes hadny named her, I’d never ha thought of Jess. She’s a cheery wee soul, but not clever. I would never ha thought she’d do such a thing on her own. But I can see why John Anderson took Agnes up for it,’ he admitted. ‘She’s the means for it, since she makes many of the dainties we sell, and she’d know how to – to – it was right defty, what you described, the way the stuff had been put in the marchpane and then covered over. I can roll pills wi the best, but I’d not manage that, nor would Nicol I’d say. Agnes is neat-fingered, like Frankie and my wife.’

‘Go on,’ said Gil.

Syme looked at the candlelight reflected on his glass and said, ‘As for why she’d do such a thing, there’s never been any love lost between her and her brother. But in that family it means little, maister.’ He smiled sourly. ‘I don’t think they know what the word means. Love, I mean. The tales I could – well, never mind that. The point is, why pick on Agnes when it might as well be any of the family or none?’

‘Was her chamber searched?’ Gil asked.

‘Aye, the Serjeant and I searched it after they’d taken her up. We never found any sign she’d been working wi sweetmeats there, but then she’s been trained to clean up after hersel, like any good worker. There was no sign of the poison either, not in Agnes’s goods nor in the lassie Jess’s scrip.’

‘Interesting,’ said Gil. ‘How did her father take that?’

‘I’m not right sure he took it in.’

‘Could it have been any of the rest of the family?’ Gil asked, without inflection. Syme shook his head. ‘Why would anyone want to kill Robert, do you think?’

Syme looked uncomfortable. ‘He’s never – he’s no that easy to get on wi,’ he revealed unnecessarily. ‘I was Frankie’s prentice, and then his journeyman, till he took me into partnership, so I’ve watched the laddie growing up, and I’ve wondered, lately, about the future of the business.’

‘In what way?’ Gil prompted, when he paused.

‘Well, it seemed likely Frankie would take the boy into the partnership too, and I’m junior partner, I’d be able to say nothing on that, the way the papers were drawn up. And he’s aye been wilful, steering, fond of his own way, and his manner no always what would be best for a man dealing wi folk across a counter.’ Syme turned his glass in his hand, then took a sip from it. ‘Well enough for me, I could always sell out, assuming I could find the money, and move elsewhere. But Frankie would have to live wi it, and wi the boy’s prying and spying. No that I’ve discussed it wi him, you understand.’

‘What about Nicol?’ Gil asked. ‘And Mistress Grace? How did they get on with him?’

‘You’ve seen them,’ said Syme awkwardly. ‘Nicol just laughs when his brother digs at him. Robert’s aye been civil to Grace, and she to him, I’ll say that for him. She’s a remarkable woman, is Grace.’

Gil sat for a moment, absorbing this, and then said, ‘How long a task would it be, would you think, to –’ he hesitated for a word – ‘treat two of the marchpane cherries like that?’

‘Maybe a quarter hour, once you had all the materials to hand, for someone used to making the things. Not more than half an hour, at any rate.’

‘And when were the marchpane cherries put under the counter, do you think? Would it have been easy done?’

‘Robert finished a box of apricot lozenges that he said the mice had been at, yesterday after dinnertime,’ said Syme reflectively. ‘He’d to do without after that, for I was in the shop and watching him. I’d say there was nothing under the counter the rest of the day, nor first thing this morning.’ He shut his eyes to recall more clearly. ‘Today in the time afore dinner we’d a bit of custom, a few folk calling to talk about the mummer or congratulate Frankie, Agnes and Grace was both through the shop passing the time of day, and Robert was out at the door a lot, crying a barrel of spectacles your good-brother fetched to us last week.’ He grimaced. ‘I said it was unwise, but he would go ahead, and the chaffing and japing it earned us, well! Then we’d the upset about your wee laddie.’ He opened his eyes to look at Gil. ‘Was that him up at the table now? He’s recovered well, whatever it was he took, Christ and His saints be praised for it.’

‘He’s well,’ agreed Gil, ‘and we owe Mistress Grace a debt for life.’

‘And we were all in and out,’ continued Syme, nodding agreement, ‘looking up and down the street for this Erschewoman Grace says called her to help. I suppose in all that time there would have been opportunity for someone to put the box where you found it, but I never saw such a thing when we locked up for dinnertime, and Robert, Our Lady send him grace, was never eating at anything. Which he would have been if it was there.’

‘So it probably wasn’t there,’ agreed Gil. ‘And over the dinner-hour? Where was everyone? Where did you eat your own dinner?’

‘With the family,’ said Syme modestly. ‘It shortens the time I’m away from the business, and eases the burden on my wife just now.’

‘So was everyone there?’

‘Not everyone. Nicol was absent, and Mistress Mathieson herself a course, and I believe her mother ate with her, the two of them off a tray. Robert and myself went through to the dining-chamber when we closed the shop, and Agnes came down from above, and Frankie from somewhere about the house, and Grace, and then Frankie gave thanks for the food and we sat to eat. The family eats separate from the household,’ he divulged, with a return to his usual manner, ‘Frankie hasn’t held by the old ways like your good-father here.’

‘Where was Nicol?’ Gil asked. ‘Was he ill? Mistress Grace said he was abed, but he seemed well enough when he came down.’

Syme hesitated, his expression disapproving.

‘You’d best ask Nicol himself about that,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll not – no. It’s for him to tell you, if he will.’

Tell me what? Gil wondered. What had Nicol meant with his talk of a journey? Where had he been?

‘And was that the order that you gathered?’ he said aloud. ‘You and Robert, and then Agnes, and Frankie, and Grace?’ Syme nodded. ‘And your wife?’

‘She’d spent the morning by the fire in our own house, stitching at bairn-clouts,’ said Syme, his face softening again. ‘I think she’d never moved. When I’d eaten my dinner, I went home to take her down to St Mary’s Kirk, to hear Mass where her own mother liked to hear it, and she nearly fell when she stood up, her legs were that stiff.’

Gil nodded. The man was a partial witness, of course, but he could check later, perhaps with the servant, and meantime it did seem as if he could leave Eleanor out of the matter. Which left –

‘Mistress Mathieson,’ he said. ‘Your good-mother, I mean. Is she capable of –’

‘No,’ said Syme firmly. ‘Even if she could rise from her bed, which I doubt, she’d a right bad time of it, it seems – even if she rose, as I say, she’s neither the skill nor the ability to concoct sic a thing. She might put it in place, but she’d have to get someone else to make it for her.’

‘Her mother?’ Syme shook his head. ‘And nobody suggested the other apothecaries – Wat and Adam, or Mistress Bothwell.’ Another shake of the head, an impatient exclamation. ‘No, I agree. But that leaves us with,’ Gil counted them off on his fingers, ‘Agnes, her father and Mistress Grace. If Frankie Renfrew poisoned his son, he put up a very good act this afternoon, and Mistress Grace tried as much as you did to help him.’

‘Aye, but she would anyway,’ said Syme without thinking. ‘I mean,’ he elaborated, ‘she’s a clever woman, if she’d been the one to put the stuff there in secret, she’d see she’d have to dissemble.’ He put a hand over his eyes. ‘Our Lady save me, what am I saying here?’

‘I agree,’ said Gil again. ‘So unless it was you –’ Syme snatched the hand away to stare at him, then realized Gil was not serious – ‘we are forced to assume it was Agnes.’

‘Aye, I see your reasoning. You make it very clear.’ Syme sagged in his chair, and swallowed the remaining wine in his glass. ‘It’s as much like the way we’d think through a case. Is it this, is it that, using one argument or another to discard till you’re left with a single – well.’

‘The other thing I’d like to know,’ said Gil, ‘which might have some bearing on it all, is where the poison came from.’

‘Where it came from? Have you never sorted that out yet?’ Syme shook his head. ‘I suppose it’s only been two days. What did Wat and Adam learn?’

‘Wat thought it might be made from almonds. He found a scrap of nutmeat at the bottom of the flask.’

‘From almonds? I never heard of a poison made from almonds,’ said Syme, as everyone else had done. He paused, however, and said after a moment, ‘You could ask at Nicol. He knows some surprising things, though whether he’ll tell you is another matter.’

‘Nicol? Yes, of course, he studied with a Saracen in the Low Countries. I suppose if it exists the Saracens will have heard of it.’

‘Oh, you can be sure.’ Syme set his glass down, and began to gather himself together. ‘I’m right grateful to you, maister. It’s no great comfort, I’ll admit, but what you say has clarified my mind. Now I have to bring my wife to accept it, if I can.’

‘It must be hard for her,’ said Gil. ‘But I’d not thought she had much affection for her brother, or for her sister.’

‘I think that makes it all the harder,’ said Syme.

‘He’s a good man and a wise one, for all his irritating ways,’ Gil commented, when he had returned to the hall after seeing Syme out to the street, and recounted the gist of the conversation. ‘Eleanor Renfrew has done better than she realizes yet.’

‘I think she’s beginning to see it,’ said Alys.

‘Perhaps.’ Gil sat down on the settle beside her and sighed. ‘This is difficult. I feel I ought to act in the matter of Robert’s death, but I’ve no idea what to do next. I suppose I can hardly call on Nicol at this time.’

‘He would have no objection,’ surmised Maistre Pierre.

‘So it could have been Agnes, with or without Jess,’ said Alys, ‘but Maister Renfrew or Grace would have had as much chance to place the box of sweetmeats.’

‘So would Nicol. I wonder if he really was in his bed all day? But he seems not to want a place in the business, which removes one reason for disposing of his brother, and he seemed to find Robert more amusing than annoying. Hardly worth the risk of poisoning him, at any rate.’

‘He might dissemble,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Could he?’ said Alys.

‘Probably not. And I’d think Eleanor could have done it, but she would have had to pick her moment so as not to be seen.’

‘But she would know when the family would be at dinner and the shop would be empty,’ Alys pointed out, ‘and she could just walk into the house. And we have to consider Syme himself, of course.’

‘We do. I think he was telling the truth, but he did dislike Robert.’

‘That much?’ queried Alys.

Gil sighed again. ‘Poison is a hidden crime, I suppose it might go with hidden passions. If we ignore the idea of a stranger for the moment, we have,’ he counted, ‘seven people, no eight, close enough to Robert and with access to the house and the shop to have put the sweetmeats there for him.’

‘But Mistress Baillie or Meg would have to procure the poison from somewhere else,’ Alys objected, ‘and from someone else.’

‘And if they got it in Glasgow,’ contributed her father, ‘whoever provided it is not saying.’

‘So we’re left with Renfrew himself, Agnes, Nicol and Grace, Eleanor and Syme. We’re going round in circles.’

‘Indeed,’ said Maistre Pierre gloomily, ‘we have one corpse whom nobody disliked, and we find nobody we can plausibly suspect of killing him on purpose, and another who was widely disliked, and far too many people to suspect. If you call on Nicol, I come too, and pay my respects to the dead. And you,
ma fille
?’

‘No,’ she said reluctantly, ‘I have things to do here in the house.’

Nicol, surprisingly, was acting the part of his father’s elder son with some aplomb. Robert’s body was already washed and shrouded, laid out on a black-draped trestle in the same room where he had died, with a branch of candles either side of his head. When Gil and his father-in-law were shown in, by a sniffling maidservant, an older woman, Nicol welcomed them and handed each a brimming glass.

‘To drink to his memory,’ he said.

‘Usquebae,’ said Maistre Pierre, accepting his glass with reluctance, and went forward to commiserate with Maister Renfrew who was standing bleakly at the foot of the bier, surrounded by his friends of the burgh council. Gil stayed beside Nicol.

‘I think maybe your father would rather not speak to me just now,’ he said.

‘More than likely,’ agreed Nicol, and paused to greet another guest. ‘Christ aid us, we’re a bigger draw than the sheep wi two heads at St Mungo’s Fair. You’re no drinking your aquavit.’

‘No.’ Gil set the glass down untouched beside the others. ‘Nicol, there’s a couple things I’d like to ask you.’

‘Is there, now?’ Nicol looked at him sideways. ‘But will I like to answer them, man?’

‘You won’t know that till I ask you,’ Gil pointed out.

‘That’s a true word,’ agreed Nicol, seeming much struck by the argument. ‘Well, ask away.’ He glanced over at the group by the bier. ‘They’ll no hear us.’

‘The poison,’ Gil said, keeping his voice low.

‘No idea,’ said Nicol promptly.

‘No idea of what? Of what it is, or where it came from?’

‘Neither.’ Nicol looked past him as the door opened, and another member of the council entered with his face solemnly arranged. ‘Maister Walkinshaw, it’s right good of you. Aye, a sad loss to my faither. Hae a glass in the lad’s memory, will you? Aye, he’s yonder, looking the picture of health, save that he’s deid.’

‘Syme thought you might know what it was,’ Gil said, as Clement Walkinshaw sailed past him, wearing a fortune in black velvet and sipping usquebae.

Nicol gave him a sharp look. ‘Did he, now?’

‘On account of your studies abroad,’ Gil persisted. ‘He thought your Saracen master might have met such a thing.’

‘Oh,’ said Nicol vaguely. He appeared to give it some thought, but shook his head. ‘No, I canny mind that he mentioned it to me.’

‘If you think of anything,’ said Gil, ‘I’d be pleased to know of it.’

‘You’d be amazed at what I think of, times,’ said Nicol with a happy smile. Gil eyed him with a feeling of bafflement. He seemed about to go off into one of his strange moods again, and there was still a question for him.

‘Where were you the most of the day?’ he asked, in fading hopes of an answer.

Nicol giggled. ‘I was away a journey,’ he claimed, as he had done earlier. ‘Sic dreams as I had. You should try it yourself sometime.’

‘Try what?’ Was this connected with Syme’s cryptic remark?

‘Your wee wife kens.’ Another giggle, a sly sideways look. ‘Though I think it never took her as far,’ Nicol added, on consideration.

‘Right.’ He could ask Alys later, then. ‘How is your good-mother? How has she taken this?’

‘None too well,’ Nicol admitted, sobering. ‘Poor lass, it’s a shock to her, and her new delivered. She’d a liking for Agnes and Robert both, for all the business wi the gloves, being a gentle soul hersel and no too far from them in age. Her mammy tells me she keeps saying how she canny believe it.’

‘Could I get a word with her, do you suppose?’

‘Wi Meg?’ Nicol looked surprised. ‘What way would you – aye, very likely. Isa,’ he said to the maidservant, as she opened the door to admit another mourner, ‘see if my minnie would gie Maister Cunningham a word, will you, lass?’

Gil was aware that it was unusual for a man not related to her to visit a new mother this soon after the birth, but nearly half an hour later, the time it must have taken to spread the embroidered counterpane and pillow-bere, dress the cradle and get the new mother back into her bed attired in the blue satin wrapper with the gold cords, he found himself offering mingled congratulations and condolences to Meg and her mother.

‘Aye, it’s a sair business,’ sighed Mistress Baillie, patting her daughter’s shoulder. ‘It was dreadful to hear the word that Robert was dead, and then when they came up to take Agnes away –’

‘Don’t, Mammy,’ said Meg. She was propped on several pillows, the cover on the topmost embroidered with bees as big as Gil’s thumb; in the candlelight she looked weary.

‘And to think she might have found the stuff here in the house,’ pursued Mistress Baillie. ‘I was never skilled in stillroom work, maister, and nor’s my lass here, and I was never so glad of it as now. To be connected wi such a –’

‘Mammy, please!’

‘But I hear you’ve a daughter,’ Gil prompted. This got him identical proud smiles, and Mistress Baillie rose and went to peer into the cradle, shielding the candle with her hand. He followed, and having been well brought up dutifully admired the crumpled red creature inside, claimed it resembled its grandmother, tucked a silver coin into one of the little hands with its exquisite fingernails, and eventually led the conversation round to the morning’s visitors. They were quite happy to list all the gossips who had called to admire wee Marion, and too much of the conversation which had gone on over the cradle; it became obvious that Agnes had not shown her face, though Grace had been there for part of the morning.

‘And Mistress Eleanor?’ he asked.

‘She was here yestreen,’ Mistress Baillie assured him. ‘As soon as my lass was fit to be seen, Eleanor was here, wasn’t she? And right pleased at her wee sister, too. She’s in hopes that the two bairns will play thegither when they’re older.’

‘For all that hers will be wee Marion’s niece or nephew,’ said Meg, half laughing. ‘I was glad to see her, too. And then when she came up to me the day –’ Ready tears started to her eyes, and she turned her face away from the light.

‘Hard to say which of them was the more grieved,’ confided Mistress Baillie to Gil. ‘Weeping in each other’s arms, they were, I’d to fetch Grace to dose them both. And such news as Grace brought – saying the poor laddie left his goods to wee Marion with his dying breath – I tell you, maister, I wept myself.’

Gil nodded. ‘I heard him too,’ he said, ‘if ever you need a witness.’

‘Oh, it’ll not come to that,’ said Mistress Baillie. ‘And you’ve had a wee sleep since then, haven’t you, my lass? So you’ll be ready when the bairn wakes for her supper. You’ve her to think on now, you need to put your own cares aside or you’ll turn your milk.’

‘And I should go and let you rest,’ said Gil, rising. ‘I’m right grateful for your time, both of you – all three of you,’ he corrected, glancing at the cradle.

Meg laughed again, wiping her tears. ‘Maybe next time you see her Marion might have her eyes open,’ she offered.

*    *    *

‘Interesting,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Very,’ said Gil. ‘The women of the household have reacted quite differently from the men.’

He held his lantern down to see the roadway, and turned for home. His father-in-law fell into step beside him, his own lantern bobbing at his side.

‘The father presents a convincing image of grief,’ he observed, ‘but I should say his first emotion was anger.’

‘With whom?’

The lantern swung wildly as Maistre Pierre spread his hands and shrugged. ‘That was not clear. Fortune, Almighty God, the boy himself perhaps.’

‘His daughter?’ Gil stepped aside to let a group of cheerful journeymen pass.

‘Yes, certainly, it seems by the way the man is speaking that he believes both her and the maidservant to be guilty. He did not defend her, you understand, when Maister Wilkie remarked on ingratitude.’

‘Poor devil,’ said Gil. He turned in at their own pend, but paused, listening, while their shadows jumped on the walls and the roof-beams which supported the floor of Gil’s own closet overhead. ‘Was that –?’

‘Someone called your name.’ Maistre Pierre was still out in the street, peering uphill. ‘It is two people, I think. Hello? Who calls?’

‘Peter.’ A man’s voice. ‘It’s me – Adam Forrest.’

‘Is Maister Cunningham there?’ Mistress Bothwell sounded out of breath. ‘I thought I saw him.’

This time she was persuaded into the house, Adam watchful at her side, both trying to explain their errand. Lighting more candles in the hall, Maistre Pierre said soothingly, ‘Yes, yes, I can hear something has come to mind, but one of you must tell us, rather than both at once. Will you have some wine? Ale, a drop of aquavit against the cold?’

‘We’ve but now eaten,’ said Adam. ‘Christian, it’s your tale. You make it clear.’

She nodded, and sat down at Gil’s gesture, pushing her plaid back from her shoulders.

‘It came to me of a sudden,’ she said. ‘You’re still looking to know what the poison was that – that –’ She bit her lip, and Gil nodded in sympathy. ‘Nanty and I have kin in Edinburgh, maister, a cousin of our faither’s that’s a potyngar in the Canongate. We don’t get on, but kin is kin, and it came to me that Ninian Bothwell might answer your question, seeing we’ve about exhausted the resource of Glasgow.’ She glanced at Adam, and they exchanged rueful smiles.

‘The man himself, or another of the craft in Edinburgh,’ Adam expanded.

‘A good thought,’ Gil said. ‘Do you have his direction? We could send –’

‘I’ve done better than that.’ She unbuttoned the tight old-fashioned cuff of her gown, and drew from her sleeve a folded paper. ‘I’ve writ him a letter, begging his aid for kin’s sake and putting a
descriptio
of the substance to him, with Wat and Adam’s help. And its effects as well,’ she added. ‘It’s took us the most of the evening.’

‘Indeed, a good thought,’ said Alys, coming forward from the stairs. Gil looked at her carefully; she seemed to have been crying, but avoided his eye. Instead she embraced Mistress Bothwell and nodded to Adam, saying, ‘How will you send it?’

‘That’s why I was right glad to see you turn in at the door here,’ said Mistress Bothwell earnestly. ‘We could hire a man to take it, but I wondered if maybe you’d have a likely fellow about you that we could trust better with such an errand.’

‘Two days at least, to get to Edinburgh and back this time of year,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘And the wait for a reply.’

‘I cannot spare Luke or Thomas so long,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘We must get on while the weather holds. Would your uncle lend Tam again?’

‘He might, but I think the Provost would send it for us, as an official errand, which would be faster. I can ask him in the morning, first thing.’

Mistress Bothwell sighed in relief. ‘I hoped you’d say aye to it.’ She held the letter out. ‘My thanks on this, maister.’

‘If it helps the case,’ Gil said, checking that the direction was clear and the seal secure. ‘I take it you’ve got no further in proving the stuff, Adam?’

‘We’ve a list this long of what it isny,’ said Adam, grimacing. ‘It’s held us back in the work of the shop, no that that’s a consideration when Nanty’s life’s at stake, but the two of us has thought of little else for the last few days, and Barbara as well.’

‘It was Barbara encouraged me to write the letter,’ said Mistress Bothwell. ‘She’s a good woman.’ Beside her, Alys murmured agreement.

‘Were you at Frankie’s the now?’ Adam asked. ‘How are they all? We’d heard nothing of their trouble till Christian came up the road at suppertime. Wat and I will have to call in the morning to condole.’

‘Frankie is much shaken, as you would expect,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘We were just saying as we came home that he seems to believe his daughter guilty.’

‘So likely would the half of Glasgow,’ said Mistress Bothwell grimly.

‘And Nicol?’

Maistre Pierre grimaced. ‘I had a word with him, after you left the room,’ he said to Gil. ‘He was not sober, I should say. I asked him what he would do now, would he take up his brother’s place in the business, and he said, on the contrary, he was the more determined to go back to Middelburgh.’

‘It might just be his imagining,’ Gil said. ‘I asked him where he was all day, and he talked about a journey again, though his wife said he was abed.’

‘Ah.’ Adam Forrest exchanged a glance with Mistress Bothwell. ‘He must be still taking the stuff.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ she said.

‘Taking what?’ Gil questioned.

Adam looked disapproving. ‘Hemp. At least, a dose made from – it’s an intoxicant, a relaxant, it calms the system but confuses the mind, it prompts strange dreams.’

‘It’s right good for a vicious horse,’ supplied Mistress Bothwell. ‘I suppose the beasts willny be troubled by dreams.’

‘My mother’s groom puts hemp seeds in horse tonic,’ Gil recalled. ‘Now I think of it, there were folk that used it when I was in Paris. They would burn it and drink the smoke. One fellow swore it was better than wine for easing the mind of troubles. But I thought the hemp we grow here doesn’t have the same properties.’

‘No, potyngar’s hemp has to be imported,’ Adam said. ‘It comes from Araby, in the long run. And there’s some even stronger stuff, not the leaf but a resin of some sort, I think they call
charas
, we’ve had the dried leaf in the shop but never that. I’ve heard it’s put up in wee leather bags, and you make a drink of it or burn it.’

‘Oh!’ said Alys suddenly, and then, ‘Could that be what his drops are?’

‘Very like,’ agreed Adam, sounding struck by the idea.

‘He said I should ask you about it,’ Gil said to Alys, and she blushed darkly in the candlelight. ‘He’s by far calmer than when we were boys. Do you remember him at school, Adam? Who could have prescribed it to him, would you think? ‘

‘His father, most likely,’ suggested Adam. ‘I’d say it might help with his twitching and his odd ways, so if Frankie got his hands on some of the stuff, he might try if it worked.’ He pulled a face. ‘But it looks to me as if Nicol uses far more than he needs.’

‘Always the danger, with such a drug,’ observed Mistress Bothwell. She drew her plaid up over her shoulders again. ‘I must get home, Adam. There’s as much to be done in the morning, and food to take in for my brother and all. Will you get that letter away, do you think, maister?’