A Masterly Murder (58 page)

‘Voices,’ said Clippesby mysteriously. ‘I hear voices. They will tell me.’

He strode away towards the small gate that led to the gardens. Bartholomew gazed after him, wondering whether to fetch him
back.

‘That man is not sane, Matt,’ said Michael. ‘Voices indeed! Who does he think he is? The Virgin Mary?’

‘Remember what Runham said about him?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘That he was ill before he came to us? I imagine that the stresses
and uncertainties of these past few days have unbalanced him, and that we have made the poor man ill again with our accusations
and suspicions.’

‘Is it safe to allow him in the orchard, do you think?’ asked Kenyngham, wringing his hands in despair as he saw yet one more
problem to contend with. ‘Are you sure he will not ram a spade through the skull of one of the students?’

‘I do not think so,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is best to leave him to his own devices. We will only distress him if we try to
prevent him from doing what he wants.’

‘Very well,’ said Kenyngham unhappily. He pushed Clippesby from his mind, and turned his attention to the matter of the hidden
gold. ‘I will look in the attics in the south wing.’

‘Take Deynman with you,’ suggested Bartholomew, his immediate thought to put his slow-witted student in a place where he might
be safe if the mob attacked. ‘Gray and Bulbeck will stay here and ring the bell if the mob starts to mass outside.’

‘I do not think this treasure is in the College, boy,’ said Cynric in a low voice to Bartholomew.

‘Where is it, then?’ demanded Michael, overhearing and coming towards the Welshman. Cynric seldom ventured an opinion about
such matters that was not worth hearing.

‘Do you remember giving me a document to look after when we were in Suffolk this summer? I hid it in a place where I said
you would not think to look.’

‘Yes,’ said Michael, peeved. ‘I had to give you a shilling when I lost a bet that I would be able to guess where it was. And
you have never told me where you put it.’

‘I put it under Master Alcote’s corpse,’ said Cynric. ‘In his coffin.’

Bartholomew and Michael stared at him.

‘What are you suggesting?’ asked Michael uneasily. ‘That Runham hid the treasure in
St Michael’s parish coffin?’

‘Not in the parish coffin,’ said Cynric. ‘In Master Wilson’s coffin – inside his tomb.’

‘But he would not dare!’ exclaimed Bartholomew, revolted. ‘Wilson died of the plague. Even a greedy man like Runham would
not open the grave of a man taken by the pestilence.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ asked Cynric.

Michael scratched his face, fingernails rasping on his bristles. ‘You may be right. Runham was certainly prepared to use the
space in the altar to hide his ill-gotten gains. What was to stop him from storing the rest inside the tomb itself? It would
certainly explain his unhealthy fascination with it.’

‘And the strong-smelling soap served not only to smuggle riches out of the College and into the church, but to disguise the
stench from the open tomb,’ said Bartholomew.

‘That is an unpleasant suggestion, Matt,’ said Michael, wrinkling his nose in disgust. ‘But you are probably correct. And
when Runham was kneeling at that grave, pretending to pray for his cousin, he was hiding his treasure for Caumpes to collect.’

‘When any of us saw him at the tomb, our immediate reaction was to avoid him,’ said Bartholomew. ‘None of us wanted to be
invited to join him at his prayers, and I think we were all made uncomfortable by the devotion with which he revered Wilson’s
memory.’

He recalled Runham kneeling at the tomb the morning after his election, when he had fined the physician for being late. Bartholomew’s
assumption that Runham had arrived early to catch him was wrong: Runham had arrived early to place some of the treasure in
the church for Caumpes. He had not been cleaning when Bartholomew had arrived, but hiding his loot.

‘And Wilson and Runham did not even like each
other,’ said Cynric. ‘Father Paul said that they had always been rivals, and that he was surprised Runham should be so determined
to build a tomb for a man he hated.’

‘He was not building a tomb,’ said Michael. ‘He was building a strongbox for the treasures he anticipated would fill it when
he finally became Master.’

‘We should go,’ said Cynric. ‘The lane is clear at the moment. We should be able to sneak out without being seen by the rioters.’

‘But what happens if the mob attacks Michaelhouse while we are gone?’ asked Michael. ‘I do not like the notion of being outside
its walls when the trouble comes.’

‘Then we will have to be quick,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The whole point of the exercise is to prevent the riot from starting.
Those archers on the walls will not hesitate to shoot, and I do not want to see men like Blaston and Newenham hurt.’

‘Or my choir,’ added Michael. ‘Isnard the bargeman, and the rivermen Dunstan and Aethelbald, are good people whom Michaelhouse
has wronged. Come on, then, Cynric. Lead the way.’

With a grin of pleasure, delighted to be back in his role of assistant to the Senior Proctor, Cynric slipped the bar on the
wicket gate and led the way up the lane towards the church.

The High Street was still deserted, although Bartholomew could hear the ominous rumble of voices emanating from the Market
Square. He heard individual voices, too – that of Sheriff Tulyet, ordering people back to their homes, and of Mayor Horwoode
making an appeal for peace. He and the others jumped to one side as a group of mounted soldiers thundered past, swords already
drawn in anticipation of violence. Bartholomew and Michael exchanged a horrified glance and hurried on.

Bartholomew wrenched open the door to the church, swearing loudly when the sticky latch played its usual tricks. The building
was silent and shadowy. Runham still lay under his silken sheet in his coffin, and the altar that Bartholomew and Michael
had prised from its moorings remained on its side. As far away from Runham as possible was the fake Suttone, covered hastily
with a sheet and lying on two planks. Below him was a bowl, strategically placed to catch the blood that still dripped from
the body.

Wilson’s grave had once been a boxlike affair of grey stone, topped by a simple and attractive piece of black marble. Since
Runham had arrived, the box had been encased in some elaborate wooden carvings, while the life-sized gilded effigy of Wilson,
sneering at the world as it rested on one elbow and gazed across the chancel, had been grafted over the marble slab.

‘I do not like this, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, pausing with a metal lever poised over the tomb. ‘Supposing opening this
grave releases the contagion again, and the plague returns?’

‘Runham probably had it open, and the Death did not strike him,’ Cynric pointed out. Bartholomew could not help but notice
that the book-bearer was nevertheless keeping a respectful distance from the tomb and its contents.

‘But what if you are wrong?’ he asked, hesitating. ‘What if Runham hid the treasure elsewhere – with a friend, for example?’

‘Runham did not have any friends,’ said Michael, exasperated. ‘And people will die unless we are able to produce this damned
treasure soon. I cannot think of anywhere else Runham might have stored the stuff, and we do not have time to hold a disputation
over it. All we need to do is lift that slab and have a quick look underneath.’

‘All right, all right,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Stand back, then.’

He began to poke around with his lever, seeing that the mortar had been loosened all along the back. Cynric was right: someone
had been inside the tomb. Bartholomew began to heave. The slab lifted slightly, and then dropped back. He tried again, but
it was too heavy with the brazen effigy reclining on top of it.

‘We need to lift this thing off first,’ he said. ‘We will never get the lid open with this revolting carving weighting it
down.’

Cynric and Michael watched him chip away the mortar that held the effigy in its place, but made no move to assist when he
staggered under its weight.

‘It is curious how loath I am to touch it,’ said Michael, reluctantly stepping forward and wrapping his hands in his sleeves
before he handled the statue. ‘It reminds me so much of Wilson himself, that I want nothing to do with it.’

‘If you are not squeamish about opening the man’s grave, I hardly think you can be fastidious about touching his graven image,’
said Bartholomew. ‘Put it on the floor, over there. We do not want to damage it and then have more of Wilson’s cousins coming
to rectify matters.’

‘We do not,’ said Cynric with a shudder.

Once the effigy had been removed, prising open the slab was easy. The silence in the church was broken by the noise of clattering
hooves. More soldiers were hurrying to the escalating confrontation between Sheriff and mob in the Market Square.

‘Quickly,’ urged Michael, white-faced. ‘If Cynric thinks these rioters mean business, then Tulyet will not be able to control
them for much longer.’

‘I will hold it up, while you slip your hand inside the
tomb and see what you can feel,’ said Bartholomew. Michael and Cynric exchanged a nervous glance.

‘We will feel bones, boy,’ said Cynric with a shudder. ‘We will not do it, will we, Brother?’

‘We will not,’ said Michael with firm conviction. ‘Just lever the whole thing off, and then we can look inside with no need
for poking about with our hands.’

‘It is too heavy,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And if we take it off, we will never get it back on again. We cannot leave an open grave
– of a plague victim, remember – in the church where our friends come to pray.’

‘Then we will lever and you can feel,’ said Michael, snatching the metal rod from him. ‘You are more used to that sort of
thing than us.’

Bartholomew sighed, wanting the whole matter over and done with. ‘Hurry up then, before I change my mind.’

Cynric and Michael leaned on the bar, and Bartholomew peered into the dark space within. He could see Wilson’s coffin, already
beginning to crumble and crack with age, and he fancied he could detect the paler gleam of bones within it. It stank of dampness
and mildew and ancient, rotting grave clothes, and he felt himself gag. Before he could lose his nerve completely, he thrust
his hand inside, careful not to touch the coffin, and felt around. Triumphantly, he emerged with one of the College’s silver
chalices. He rummaged again, and found two silver patens and the lovely thurible that the founder had left to Michaelhouse
in his will.

‘You were right,’ he said, smiling up at Cynric. ‘This is exactly where Runham hid his treasure!’

‘Now why did I not think to look there?’ said a voice from the shadows of the nave.

Bartholomew rose to his feet fast, holding the thurible like a weapon that could be hurled and looking around
him for the owner of the voice. Cynric and Michael seemed as bewildered as he was.

‘Now, now, Matthew,’ said Adela Tangmer, stepping out from the shadows and giving him one of her open, cheerful grins. ‘Put
down that lovely work of art before you damage it. Thomas Caumpes has his crossbow loaded, and he will not hesitate to use
it, if I ask him – which I will if you start throwing around goods that I intend to sell.’

Michael gazed at the vintner’s daughter in astonishment. ‘You?’ he exclaimed. ‘You are the secret relative whom Suttone was
prepared to kill for?’

Behind her was Caumpes, still wearing the blue tabard that marked him as a Fellow of Bene’t College. He was white with shock
and fear, and Bartholomew noticed that the crossbow was unsteady in his hands. His eyes looked haunted, and Bartholomew suspected
that the traumas and anxieties of the past few days had made him unpredictable, and that his shaking fingers might even loose
a quarrel by accident.

Adela beamed with her long teeth. ‘And why not, Brother? Do you think I am insufficiently attractive to warrant such devotion?’

Michael clearly did: he gaped at the woman’s plain features, her baggy brown dress and practical riding cloak, at a loss for
words. More horses pounded past outside, indicating that Sheriff Tulyet intended to quell the rebellion with all the resources
at his disposal.

‘Are you leaving the town?’ the monk asked, gesturing to the saddlebag thrown over Adela’s shoulder. ‘I do not blame you.
A riot is brewing. But if we can get this silver to Michaelhouse, we may yet prevent trouble.’

‘My leaving has nothing to do with that,’ said Adela. ‘My father is driving me to distraction with his insistent
whining about marriage. I might be obliged to stab him if it goes on much longer, and I do not want to do that.’

‘Stab?’ asked Bartholomew, appalled. ‘So, it was
you
who killed de Walton and Brother Patrick, not Caumpes?’

‘I told you it was not me—’ began Caumpes. Adela silenced him with a wave of her hand.

‘When you escaped from Bene’t’s burning hut, I thought our game would be over,’ she said. ‘But then you started chasing shadows
that were nothing to do with us, and Caumpes acted as decoy to lead you away from where I hid in the trees. I was able to
escape – after I made an end of de Walton, of course. I did not want him talking before I was ready.’

Bartholomew thought it likely that poor de Walton had known very little. He was sure the man had not guessed it was Adela
behind the plotting that had so damaged his College.

‘And Patrick?’ asked Michael. ‘He saw Suttone smothering Wymundham, so you killed him, too?’

Adela gave a careless nod and pulled a handful of metal spikes from her saddlebag. ‘I stabbed him with one of these – the
implements I use for plucking stones out of horses’ hooves. And I will kill you with them, too, unless you do as I say.’

‘So that was why the shape of the wound was so unusual,’ said Bartholomew, recalling the round injury in Patrick’s back.

‘But why did you tell us about Patrick fleeing from Holy Trinity Church?’ asked Michael. ‘We know now that it was no corpse
that made him run away.’

‘She wanted to make us look more closely at Bene’t, so that suspicion would be removed from her,’ said Bartholomew, before
Adela could answer. ‘It was a ruse.’