The Weaver's Inheritance (29 page)

‘So, what do you propose doing now?’ Adela asked. ‘As far as I can see, you have no proof for any of these accusations. And it’s doubtful if anyone will credit your story without it.’

‘I can only go to Mistress Burnett and Alderman Weaver and tell them what I think happened,’ I answered.

My companion shook her head. ‘Neither will believe you,’ she warned. ‘Neither will want to.’

I sighed. ‘Nevertheless, I must try. I might rattle either William Burnett or Irwin Peto enough to make one of them do something foolish. The realization that I know the truth…’

‘If it
is
the truth,’ Adela murmured.

I continued as if she had not spoken, ‘… could make them panic. Or I might plant a seed of doubt in the mind of either Mistress Burnett or the Alderman. It’s in God’s hands.’

It was Adela’s turn to sigh. I rose to my feet and she rose with me, coming round the table to embrace me. ‘Take care, Roger. If you’re right, both William Burnett and this Irwin Peto are dangerous men.’

‘I’ll be as careful as I can,’ I promised, before gently kissing her goodbye.

I left the cottage and set out in the direction of the Frome Gate, so intent on my errand that I failed to notice I was being followed.

Chapter Twenty

It must by now have been approaching four o’clock and supper-time; but although it was many hours since I had eaten dinner at an inn on the heights above Bath, so much had happened since my arrival home that I was feeling none of the pangs of hunger usual after so long an abstinence.

Traffic was thin at the Frome Gate, and the Porter would willingly have exchanged a few words with me had I not pushed my way past him, intent only on confronting first Alison and William Burnett, then Alderman Weaver and Irwin Peto, before my courage failed me. My rudeness was greeted with a sniff, and I was vaguely aware that the Porter, with a resolution to match my own, had waylaid the man behind me, determined to alleviate the tedium of a slack afternoon with a little conversation. On such slender threads of chance does human life depend, for I am certain that had my pursuer not been detained, a knife would have been slipped between my ribs once we were across the bridge and within the shadows of Saint John’s Arch. As it was, I had walked out into the sunshine of Broad Street before he could shake off the unwelcome attentions of the Porter. (This is surmise, of course, but well-founded surmise, given subsequent events.)

My eyes were momentarily dazzled as I stepped from darkness into light, and for a second or two I was unable to see what was happening. My ears, however, told me that a very public quarrel was taking place, and that the chief protagonist was a woman. Indeed, I instantly recognized the voice as that of Alison Burnett, her vituperations carrying loudly in the still, summer air.

My sight cleared and I could see the tableau ahead of me. Alison, her face livid and damp with sweat beneath her blue silk hood, her eyes wild and staring, was so beside herself with rage that she was behaving like any fishwife from Billingsgate Market. Her language, as she heaped abuse on her father’s head, was worse than anything I have ever heard used by a man, and how she came to know such expressions is a mystery. (Although Adela always used to laugh when I said as much.) Behind her hovered William, gesturing ineffectually and apparently incapable of restraining her excesses.

The opposing group consisted of Alderman Weaver, dressed in one of his old-fashioned velvet gowns and looking more ill and fatigued than he had done at any time since Irwin Peto’s arrival, six months earlier; Ned Stoner and Rob Short, together with a horrified Dame Pernelle, who had followed their master outside to ensure, if necessary, his safety; and, lurking in the doorway, the impostor himself, his face wearing a strange expression compounded in almost equal measure of defiance and guilt, or so, at least, it seemed to me.

It was obvious that Mistress Burnett, incensed beyond reason by what I had told her concerning Irwin Peto, had been unable to contain her fury, and, sometime after my departure, had marched round from Small Street to Broad Street to vent her fury upon her father. Whether she had refused to step across his polluted threshold, or whether the Alderman had forbidden her contaminating presence in his house, I had no means of knowing, but for whatever reason, the bitter confrontation, rapidly deteriorating into a brawl, was taking place in the middle of the street. Faces, some eager, some shocked, were appearing at neighbouring windows, and one or two people had already ventured out of doors to stand and gape. Such a display of paternal foolishness and filial condemnation was a rare enough sight, and one not to be missed. But it would not be long, I hoped, before someone notified the Sheriff and his Officers at the castle, and a patrol arrived to deal with this flagrant breach of the peace, before physical harm was done.

‘So now you know,’ Alison was screaming at the top of her voice, her finger pointing accusingly at Irwin Peto, ‘that that
creature,
that
thing,
is not your son! I demand that you hand him over to the law immediately!’

While she paused to draw breath and ease her aching throat, the Alderman was able to storm into battle. ‘How dare you come here,’ he demanded furiously, ‘with some trumped-up story, concocted between you and that paid lackey of a chapman, trying to pretend that this isn’t Clement! Can you really believe that I don’t know my own son?’ He glared fiercely at William. ‘Get her away from here, now, at once! Haven’t you more authority over your wife than this? Although, on second thoughts, perhaps you haven’t. I’ve thought for years that you’re a weak, inept sort of being, whose only talent is for empty boasting.’

‘Be quiet, you stupid old goat!’ Alison had got her second wind. ‘Don’t you ever speak to William like that again!’ She looked round and saw me, falling upon me with claw-like hands, urging me to tell her father all I had learned from Morwenna Peto.

I hesitated, not from any reluctance to blacken Irwin Peto’s name, but because I was wondering just how I was going to disclose my suspicions concerning her husband. I hadn’t bargained on such a public venue or an audience of anyone but the people most closely concerned in the matter. But the crowd of neighbours venturing into the street was growing by the minute.

‘Go on!’ screamed Alison, shaking my arm. ‘Tell him! Shout it from the rooftops so that everyone can hear! That man is
not
my brother!’

I cleared my throat. ‘Can’t we all go somewhere more private?’ I begged.

But before anyone could answer my question or comply with my wishes, Irwin Peto suddenly started out of the shelter of his doorway, crying, ‘No, Jude, no!’ There was an urgency in his voice that, because of the previous attempt on my life, alerted me to present danger. Moreover, his eyes were fixed on something, or somebody, immediately behind me. And in that split second, I recollected the shadowy figure I had seen skulking around Adela’s cottage, and which, mistakenly no doubt, I had later assumed to have been Timothy Plummer. Resisting the very natural impulse to glance over my shoulder, I dropped to the ground and rolled sideways.

There was a gasp from the onlookers, a shriek from Mistress Burnett and a terrible groan of protest and despair from her father. Seconds later, Irwin Peto pitched down beside me, measuring his length on the cobbles, the knife that had been intended for my back embedded in his chest up to the hilt. The person he had addressed as Jude, and whom I recognized at once as the man who had tried to drown me in the Fleet, fled up the street towards the High Cross, running straight into the arms of Richard Manifold as he rounded the corner, four other Sheriff’s Officers hard on his heels.

*   *   *

Irwin Peto was still conscious, although breathing stertorously, when Ned Stoner and Rob Short carried him into the Alderman’s house; but death was not far off, and I could see the knowledge in his eyes. His unintentional murderer, arrested and pinioned by Richard Manifold and his fellow officers of the law, had been hustled in after him, and I had followed with William and Alison Burnett, a horrified Dame Pernelle and a distraught Alfred Weaver bringing up the rear. The street door being firmly shut against prying eyes, Ned and Rob laid their burden down on the floor of the hall, propping up Irwin’s head with a cushion. The rushes beneath him were soon soaked with his blood.

‘Ned, run for the physician as fast as you can!’ the Alderman quavered. And when Ned hesitated, realizing that such an errand was futile, his master shouted, ‘Go, man! Go! Hurry, for God’s sake!’ He knelt down beside Irwin, holding one of his hands. ‘Clement,’ he moaned. ‘Clement! Don’t die. I can’t bear to lose you again.’

At these words, the dying man opened his eyes and seemed to summon up all his remaining strength. ‘I’m … not … your son,’ he breathed. ‘I’m not … Clement.’

I glanced at William Burnett and saw him start, then stand as though turned to stone, a sudden desperate, hunted look on his face. And I knew that all my suspicions of him had been correct, at least where Irwin Peto was concerned. A moment later, in a sudden torrent of words, Irwin himself confirmed William’s complicity in the affair; a confession gasped out with an urgency that made it obvious time was running out for him, and that he wished to make amends before he died. How much Alison and the Alderman were able to understand immediately, while that fading voice rasped and rattled in their ears, I cannot be certain; but in the long silence that succeeded his final words and his soul’s departure from this world, I saw the gradual dawn of comprehension in their eyes.

William Burnett saw it, too, and made a sudden rush for the street door; but one of the Sheriff’s men was before him, standing with his back to it, arms outspread and a drawn sword in his hand. He wasn’t yet sure exactly what was happening, but he recognized someone trying to escape and acted accordingly. He glanced for instructions at Richard Manifold, who, in his turn, looked at me.

‘You seem to be embroiled in this affair up to your neck, Roger Chapman,’ he said, ‘so I’ll hear from you next.’ He then demanded testily that the wildly protesting William Burnett should be silent, at the same time indicating that another of his men should guard the hall entrance that led into the kitchen. ‘We don’t want anyone getting out through the back of the house,’ he warned. ‘Right, I’m waiting.’ He stared down at the dead body at his feet. ‘Perhaps, for the sake of the women, it would be better if we went elsewhere.’

So, except for the two officers keeping watch on the doors, we all crowded into the parlour, where I told my story; a story which was corroborated in part by Irwin Peto’s dying testimony. But my theory that William Burnett was the murderer of Imelda Bracegirdle was more difficult to sustain, for I had no real evidence.

Alderman Weaver, however, seemed to need no proof. Fixing his eyes on his son-in-law, his breathing rapid and shallow, he panted, ‘You!
You’ve
played this dastardly trick on me!
You’ve
given me false hope that Clement was still alive! I wouldn’t put murder past you! I wouldn’t put any sort of villainy past you!’ And suddenly he launched himself at William, the force of his weight, and the unexpectedness of the attack, bearing the younger man to the ground.

Richard Manifold, who had heard the crack of William’s skull as it hit the flagstones as well as I had, started forward and, with the help of another of the Sheriff’s Officers, managed to prise Alfred Weaver’s fingers from his victim’s throat and haul him to his feet.

‘Let me alone! I— I’ll kill him!’ panted the Alderman, now shaking violently from head to foot and looking rather blue about the mouth.

‘I think you already have,’ Richard Manifold retorted grimly, going down on one knee beside the inert body lying on the floor and leaning forward to listen for a heartbeat. After a moment or two, he glanced up and slowly shook his head.

Alison gave a great sob and covered her face with her hands, but she made no attempt to touch her husband. Indeed, she seemed rather to withdraw a pace or two; and suddenly, without any words being spoken, she and her father were clasped in each other’s arms.

I looked from the horrified Dame Pernelle to Ned Stoner and Rob Short and, finally, from Richard Manifold to his fellow officers. ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ I said, quietly but distinctly, ‘William Burnett fell and hit his head while trying to escape. The Alderman was nowhere near him.’

‘That’s right,’ Ned agreed, while Rob and Dame Pernelle nodded vehemently. ‘We’ll all testify to that.’

Richard Manifold pursed his lips, but he recognized an easy way out of an unpleasant situation. He looked at his fellows, both of whom shrugged and indicated their willingness to take their lead from him. ‘Very well,’ he conceded at last. ‘If you’re all determined to corrupt the course of justice, there’s nothing I or Jack Gload or Peter Littleman here can do about it.’ But I had a strong impression that he was not as reluctant to accept our decision as he sounded. ‘At least,’ he went on, brightening a little, ‘we have one villain in custody. Can anyone explain why he killed this young man who was pretending to be Clement Weaver?’

‘He meant to kill me,’ I said. ‘He’d already tried to murder me last month, in London, by drowning me in the Fleet. He’s a member of Morwenna Peto’s gang. Morwenna had no notion why her son had disappeared or what he was up to, and was very angry with him when I put her wise. But she was, after all, Irwin’s mother, and she didn’t want him exposed and turned over to the law for punishment by me. When she realized that she had carelessly revealed the truth, and what my mission was, that, in fact, my enquiries were being made on behalf of Alderman Weaver’s daughter, then she did her utmost to prevent me returning to Bristol.’

‘This man followed you here?’ asked the Sheriff’s Officer named as Jack Gload.

‘Not exactly. When I escaped from him in London and, later, gave him the slip, he was presumably sent on ahead of me, to Bristol, to lie in wait. Unfortunately for him, but the time he found me, I had already told Mistress Burnett all that I had learned. He didn’t know that, however, so he made another attempt to kill me by stabbing me in the back. I should conjecture that he was afraid to go back to Morwenna Peto without having accomplished his mission, and was desperate to stop me bearing witness against Irwin.’