A Traitor's Tears (19 page)

‘But what about Fran?'

‘Maybe he hoped to make a clean kill without waking her.'

‘Unlikely!'

‘Or perhaps he meant to kill us both and make it look as though I'd slain her first and then myself. It's been known, madam. Men in despair have killed their wives and children before destroying themselves; they do it thinking to save their families from scandal, or poverty after the death of their breadwinner. Or just so as to take company with them into the hereafter.'

‘Dear God,' I said. ‘But
who
was your midnight visitor
?
Who
?'

‘I have a name in mind, but …'

I had a name in mind too and, like Brockley, I felt hesitant about uttering it. I needed to think it out, to see if it made any sense. I was about to say so, when Wilder came hurrying out to us.

‘Madam, Mistress Stannard, you have a visitor. Master Anthony Cobbold is here, with a Master Peter Poole.'

A
nthony Cobbold had lost weight and his face was hollowed, the bones of his skull painfully obvious, his eyes blurred, as if by recent crying. Whatever other people had thought of Jane, he at least was grieving.

His companion, Peter Poole, was a stranger to me and I had no idea who he could be until Anthony introduced him. Then I remembered that when Anthony called on me just after Brockley's arrest, he had mentioned the man. Yes, of course, Poole was a Cobbold tenant, and was the smallholder that Jarvis, just before he disappeared, had asked to take charge of his poultry. He was a large man in middle life, fleshy and weather-beaten, very much a farmer in his sleeveless leather jerkin and gaiters. He was ill at ease in the Little Parlour, hesitant about taking a seat, as though he feared that he might make it dirty. Brockley, who had accompanied me, finally got him to sit down on a stool. He did so with an air that said that cushioned settles were only for the gentry, not for common folk like him.

‘Master Poole has something to tell you,' Anthony said to me. ‘He told me first, and I persuaded him to repeat it to Sir Edward Heron, but Heron didn't seem very interested. Only, I think you might be. Will you hear what Master Poole has to say?'

Master Poole twisted his big, calloused hands together and stared at them as if wondering whether he had washed them properly before coming to Hawkswood. ‘I dunno how important it be. Sir Edward, he thought not.'

‘Just tell me what it is,' I said. ‘Please.'

‘It were the day Mistress Cobbold, she got killed. Not a day I'd be likely to forget, or anyone would! I'd been to Woking, come back by that path that goes past the hall on the west and winds about, but in the end there's a track leads off to my place …' He seemed to become entangled in his own words and stopped. I nodded encouragingly. I was familiar enough with the Cobbold lands to follow what he meant. Brockley also nodded agreement. ‘We understand,' he said.

I said, ‘Please go on.'

‘It was hot. I was tired. Sat down on a fallen tree to take a breather. Thing is, that there track I mentioned does wind. Like a snake. There's a point, just afore it gets to where the turn-off for my place is, where it bends quite near that straight path between the hall and Jack Jarvis's cottage, the path that was only made not that long back.'

‘Two years ago,' said Anthony. ‘It's a good deal shorter than the old track to the house was. Meant felling a lot of trees, but the timber fetched good money.'

‘That's right,' Poole said. ‘Well, it's mostly woods round there, but there's an open patch where I sat down. Looks as if some cottager in the past cleared it for a crop, though Master Jarvis, he didn't use it …'

‘Quite right,' Anthony said. ‘The previous tenant grew a patch of corn there, though it never did too well, with woods all round it keeping the sun off.'

‘Well, from where I were sitting,' said Poole, ‘I could see straight across to the new path and the cottage. It sits at a kind of funny angle from the path so I could see some of the front as well as the back and there were a horse tethered at the front gate. And then Mistress Cobbold comes along on foot, on the path, and she goes in at the gate and then I saw her stop a moment, like she was listening to something – might have been voices inside the cottage. On a fine day like that, there were windows open and all.'

‘Yes, it was warm that day,' I said. ‘What happened next?'

‘The lady knocks on the door and she's let in. After a few minutes, out comes Master Wyse. He unties the horse, gets astride and turns right, as if he was heading towards the hall, only he didn't go far. He turns off into the trees, far side of the track from me. Just disappeared. And just after that, two fellows arrive with a ladder and start setting it up against a tree by the track – seems they had some trouble positioning it right.'

Brockley broke in. ‘You say that Master Wyse turned back towards the hall, that he'd just come from? That makes no sense. He'd said he was in a hurry to get on the road to London!'

‘Yes, he did,' Anthony agreed. ‘And that's just it. That's precisely why I think that this could matter, only Sir Edward didn't agree. Go on, Poole.'

‘There's not much more. Out comes Mistress Cobbold, taking her leave, and she sets off back towards the hall, and then, well, I can't be that certain who it was, but I thought I saw someone moving, on foot, among the trees where Master Wyse had gone, almost as if … as if whoever it was were following her, only out of her sight. By then, those two fellows with the ladder had it settled and they're climbing up it. They start work with a saw and then Master Jarvis, he comes out and starts doing summat in his garden. I didn't think anything about anything then,' said Poole. ‘No one ever asked me questions except about what Master Jarvis said to me when he came to ask me to look after his chickens. Only I've heard things since, like you've just said, about this man Wyse being in a hurry to get on the road to London, and so what was he doing, turning the wrong way and then riding into the woods and then – if it was him – sneaking through them on foot as if he was following Mistress Cobbold?'

I said, ‘You are saying you think Master Wyse left his horse tethered in the woods and set off to follow Mistress Cobbold, on foot and keeping among the trees?'

‘Summat like that.' Poole twisted his hands together more unhappily than ever. ‘Didn't think much about it
then
,' he burst out. ‘Only now, with hearing things, like …'

Anthony said, ‘You say that Master Wyse turned into the trees before the gardeners came with their ladder. So they never saw him. That explains why they never mentioned him when they were questioned. The woods are dense. Well, you know them. Big oaks, spreading branches, thick in leaf in July. The gardeners who were up the ladder could see the cottage and the garden and a good length of the path, but not down among the trees. They didn't see him leave the cottage and they couldn't have seen him once he was in the wood. They wouldn't be able to see a horse if one was tethered there, or anyone slipping off on foot and keeping under the trees.'

‘I got up and went on home just after the gardener fellows started with their saw,' said Poole. ‘Didn't see no more.'

‘Did none of them see
you
?' I asked.

‘Don't think so. I were sittin' in the shade, very quiet, like. None on 'em looked my way, even.'

‘Why didn't Sir Edward think any of this was important?' I wanted to know.

‘He said Wyse had already told his tale and explained that he stopped for a short talk with Jarvis, and went into the cottage, and yes, Mistress Cobbold did arrive not long after that,' said Anthony. ‘But he said she only greeted the two of them and then he left her to talk with Jarvis. That's Wyse's version. He didn't mention riding off into the woods but Heron said it was a warm day, and he might have wanted to ride in the shade. Or he had some other errand taking him out of the way – Priors Ford village lies in that direction. And Sir Edward said how could anyone be sure where the rider went after he'd gone into the wood? And if a man were glimpsed there, walking, why should it be Wyse? Could have been a farmhand taking a shortcut to somewhere.
No, no. All this is making too much of too little
.' Anthony was by now doing what amounted to a mimicry of Sir Edward's somewhat portentous voice.

‘Sir Edward still thinks the guilty man is myself,' said Brockley.

He and I looked at each other. I was sure that we both now harboured the same suspicion but neither of us had yet spoken the name. It was time to do so. I said, ‘For various reasons, I am beginning to think that the guilty man is Wyse. That occurred to me before you arrived, Master Cobbold. I believe Brockley here would agree.'

‘Yes,' said Brockley. ‘I would. I always have said that he looked like an assassin.'

‘Though why he should want to harm Jane Cobbold, I can't think,' I said, ‘but all the same – Brockley, could last night's intruder have been Wyse?'

‘Intruder? What's this?' demanded Anthony.

We explained. Anthony was horrified. ‘Has this been reported to Sir Edward, or one of the local magistrates or constables? To anyone?'

‘Not yet,' I said. ‘We were all very shaken after our disturbed night and Brockley had some points he wished to mention to me before we reported what had happened. But reported it must be, of course, and quickly. I think I'll go to Sir Edward direct.'

‘The man could have been Wyse,' Brockley said. ‘Hero knows him well. She wouldn't have given tongue if she scented him. Though admittedly, the man's face was masked and by moonlight … well …'

I had sat down on a settle and now found myself sagging tiredly into the corner. ‘All the same, it makes precious little sense. Wyse decoded that cipher letter and it was about business for an illicit loom in Dover. What on earth has that to do with anything? With Wyse himself, or Jane Cobbold? Or Jarvis, come to that, and yet the letter was on him when he was found. It's all
absurd
.'

‘If Wyse did the decoding, is it certain that the letter really said what he claimed?' Anthony asked suddenly.

‘All this talk of ciphers – you mean letters that look like jumble and nonsense and aren't?' Poole asked, bewildered.

‘Yes, precisely,' Anthony told him.

‘And you think this Master Wyse made up what the letter said and it really said summat else?' Poole, for all his rustic demeanour, was no fool.

‘Yes, just that,' Anthony said.

‘I wonder,' I said. ‘Wyse handed the key to the cipher over to Walsingham once he'd found it, and I would expect Walsingham to have it checked against the letter by someone else, just to make sure it was accurate. He's thorough.'

Brockley was running his fingers through his hair and I would have liked to do the same, except that when I was getting up, Dale had as usual crimped my hair and fixed my headdress securely and I couldn't.

‘
Nothing
makes sense,' I said. ‘
Why
should Wyse want to attack Mistress Cobbold? Did she overhear something when she first arrived – when she was still outside in the garden? I suppose that's possible. But where does the unlicensed worsted loom come in? It's like a pattern that isn't complete – there's a missing piece in the middle!'

Anthony and Poole left shortly after that. When they had gone, Brockley said: ‘I was going to tell you, out in the garden, but before I got to it, our visitors arrived all of a sudden and distracted us. I have had a word with Hawthorn. He says his cousin at Cobbold Hall has never hinted at any kind of dispute between Master Cobbold and his wife, and certainly, if either of them had been having a love affair, you can place a wager on the servants knowing. They always do. If there'd been any trouble between the Cobbolds, of any kind, Hawthorn's cousin would have told him. Seems that Hawthorn's cousin isn't the most discreet man in the world.'

‘So that theory looks unlikely,' I said. ‘We won't find the missing piece there. Brockley, we have to tell Sir Edward what happened last night and we should do it at once.' My disturbed night had left me very tired but I knew I must not give way to it. ‘Now,' I said.

It was an hour's ride from Hawkswood to Edward Heron's house. I went in formal fashion with an escort. Sybil, the Brockleys and Joseph all accompanied me. The sky had clouded over by dawn but the day was dry and pleasantly cool for August. We made good time and found Sir Edward at home. Joseph took care of the horses, while a butler ushered the rest of us into a lofty if not very welcoming parlour.

The house dated from the last century and had tall but narrow windows like glorified arrow slits, very unlike the generous mullions of Hawkswood. As a result, the rooms were shadowy, and made darker still by the oak panelling and furniture, and the heavy tapestries, which were all in sombre colours and depicted gloomy scenes, such as the Last Judgement (that one included a lurid view of damned souls in hell), the assassination of Julius Caesar, and the like.

Within a few minutes the household chaplain, Parkes, came to us. I had met him before, and had good reason to dislike him. He had dark, rounded eyebrows the same shape as Norman arches, and an unsmiling face, with long, vertical lines between his eyes and from nostrils to chin. He was, as usual, gowned in black and had ink-stained fingers. He asked our business and then said that we could entrust it to him. He would take careful notes and make a report to Sir Edward.

‘We need to see him ourselves,' I said. ‘The matter could be of grave importance.'

There was a chilly pause, during which Parkes tried, with a steely silence, to intimidate us into doing as we were bid, and we stood our ground in mute determination. I had been right to bring companions. Four to one is a good arrangement when you need to overcome resistance.