A Bone Of Contention Part 29

He waited in vain. 'You killed Edred?' said Lydgate, his voice almost a whisper. He scrubbed hard at the bristles on his face and shook his big head slowly.

Michael flinched. 'I did not kill him deliberately. Which cannot be said for the murderer of Werbergh.'

'Werbergh?' echoed Lydgate. 'But he died in an accident.

My servants, Saul Potter and Huw saw it happen.'

'Werbergh did not die in the shed,' said Bartholomew.

'I hope this will not distress you, Master Lydgate, but I took the liberty of examining Werbergh's body in the church.

I think he died on Friday night or Sat.u.r.day, rather than Sunday morning under the collapsing shed. And he died from a blow to the head, after which he fell, or was pushed, into water.'

Lydgate scratched his head and let his hands fall between his knees. He looked from one to the other trying to a.s.similate the information.

'How can you be sure?' he asked. 'How can you tell such things? Did you kill him?'

' I most certainly did not! ' retorted Bartholomew angrily.

'I was not up and about until Sat.u.r.day, as anyone in Michaelhouse will attest.'

Michael raised his hands to placate him. He turned to Lydgate. 'There are signs on the body that provide information after death,' he said. 'Matt is a physician.

He knows how to look for them.'

Lydgate rubbed his neck and considered. 'You say Werbergh died on Friday nigh t or Sat.u.r.day? Friday was the night of the celebration at Valence Marie. A debauched occasion, although I kept from the wine myself. I do not like to appear drunk in front of the students. Virtually all of them were insensible by the time the wine ran out.'

'Was Werbergh there?' asked Bartholomew. 'Was Edred?'

Lydgate scowled, and Bartholomew thought he might refuse to answer, but Lydgate's frown was merely a man struggling to remember. 'Yes,' he said finally. 'Both wer there. Werbergh was drunk like the others. Edred was not They left together, late, but probably before most of the others.' He looked from Michael to Bartholomew. 'Do! you think this means Edred killed Werbergh?'

Bartholomew ran a hand through his hair. 'Not necesslj arily. I think he genuinely believed Werbergh had die by your hand sometime on Sunday morning, not from; blow to the head on Friday night.'

'No,' said Michael, shaking his head. 'That is false! logic, Matt. He may have killed Werbergh on Friday, bu claimed Master Lydgate had killed him on Sunday lest an) should remember that it was Edred who accompanied th drunken Werbergh home on the night of his death.'

Lydgate scratched his scalp. 'What an unholy muddle! he said.

'Unholy is certainly the word for Edred,' said Bar tholomew feelingly. 'What was his intention last night What did he think he could gain by blaming the murder on his Princ.i.p.al?'

'Oh, that is simple,' said Lydgate. 'It is the only thir I understand in this foul business.' He gave a huge sigh and looked Bartholomew in the eye. 'But I do nc know why I should trust you. You have already tried blackmail me.'

Bartholomew gazed at him in disbelief. Michael gav a derisive snort of laughter.

'Do not be ridiculous, Master Lydgate! What could Mae blackmail you about?'

But Bartholomew knew, and wondered again whethe Lydgate had overheard him and Michael discussing burning of the t.i.the barn during their first visit G.o.dwinsson.

After a few moments, Lydgate began to speak in a voie that was quiet and calm, quite unlike his usual bl.u.s.ter.

'Many years ago, I committed a grave crime,' he said. He paused.

'You burned the t.i.the barn,' said Bartholomew, thinking to make Lydgate's confession easier for him.

Lvdgate looked at him long and hard, as though trying to make up his mind. 'Yes,' he said finally. 'Not deliberately, though. It was an accident. I... stumbled in the hay and knocked over a lantern. It was an accident.' "I never imagined it was anything else,' said Bartholomew.

'Nothing could have been gained by a deliberate burning of the barn - it was a tragic loss to the whole village. That winter was a miserable time for most people, with scanty supplies of grain and little fodder for the animals.'

'You do not need to remind me,' said Lydgate bitterly.

'I was terrified the whole time thatyou would decide to tell the villagers who was the real cause of their misery - me and not that dirty little Norbert you helped to escape.'

'You knew about that?' asked Bartholomew, astonished.

Lydgate nodded. 'I saw you let him go. But I kept your secret as you had kept mine. Until the last few weeks, that is, when you threatened to tell.'

'I have done nothing of the sort,' said Bartholomew indignantly. 'The whole affair had slipped my mind and I did not think of it again until the skeleton was uncovered in the Ditch. Edith thought the bones might be Norbert's and I told her that was impossible.'

'How do you know?' asked Lydgate curiously.

'Because I received letters from him,' said Bartholomew.

He looked at Michael. 'Copies of which were concealed in a book I have recently read,' he added.

Then it must be Norbert who is trying to blackmail me and not you at all! He has waited all these years to claim justice! I see! It makes sense now!' cried Lydgate.

Various things became clear in Bartholomew's mind from this tangled web of lies and misunderstandings.

Lydgate must have already been sent blackmail messages when Bartholomew and Michael had gone to speak to him about Kenzie's murder, which was why he had threatened Bartholomew as he was leaving G.o.dwinsson, and why he had instructed Cecily not to contradict anything that was said. And it was also clear that Lydgate's aversion to Bartholomew inspecting Werbergh's body was not because he was trying to conceal his murder, but because he was keen to keep his imagined blackmailer away from events connected to his hostel.

'Not so fast,' said Michael, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully.

'We must consider this more carefully before jumping to conclusions. We found copies of Norbert's letters in a book. That tells us that he probably kept them to remind himself of the lies he had written, so he would not contradict himself in future letters. Perhaps he always intended to return to Cambridge to blackmail the man who almost had him hanged for a crime he did not commit.'

'Were these blackmail messages signed?' asked Bartholomew of Lydgate.

Lydgate shook his head. 'There have been three of them, all claiming I set the barn alight, and that payment would be required for silence.'

'What about Cecily?' asked Bartholomew. 'Could she have sent the notes? After all, you are hardly affectionate with each other.'

'She did not know it was me who set the barn on fire!' said Lydgate with frustration. 'No one does, except the three of us.'

'But why has Norbert not contacted me?' mused Bartholomew looking puzzled. 'I would have thought he rnifiht, given what I risked to save him.'

'Perhaps he is afraid you will not support him,' said Michael. 'How does he know you can still be trusted after twenty-five years?' He rubbed at the bristles on his chin.

'But it does seem that you were right and that Norbert has returned to Cambridge. We find his letters to you and Master Lydgate receives blackmail notes. It is all too much of a coincidence to be chance.'

'So it was Norbert and his a.s.sociates who attacked us a week ago, looking for the book that contained that vital piece of evidence?' said Bartholomew, standing and beginning to pace, as he did when he lectured to his students and needed to think. He had sometimes carried the Galen in his medicine bag and it had probably been there when his room had been searched. But the night he was attacked, he had left the book behind because it was going to rain and he did not want it to get wet. Norbert and his a.s.sociates had been unfortunate in their timing.

'And Norbert killed Werbergh?' asked Lydgate. He rubbed at his eyes tiredly. 'Even with my story and your information, it is still a fearful mess. I can make no sense of it. It was all clear to me when I thought Bartholomew was the blackmailer.' He watched Bartholomew pace back and forth, and then cleared his throat. 'One of the notes said Dominica would die as a warning,' he said huskily.

'What is this?' said Michael, aghast again. 'A warning for what?'

'This is painful for me,' said Lydgate. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, large hands dangling, and his head bowed. 'One note said that if I did not comply and leave money as instructed, my daughter would die. I sent her immediately to Chesterton for safety. During the riot, Edred came back to say she was I in Cambridge again. I went out to see if I could find her but it was too late. She already lay dead, her face smeared in blood and her long golden hair soaked in gore and dirt. Ned from Valence Marie lay by the side of her, a dagger in his stomach. I pulled it out. I suppose it might be possible she was just a random victim of the riots, but I am sceptical so soon after I had the letter threatening her life.'

Bartholomew thought of Lydgate's story in the light of what he had been told by Cecily and Edred. They claimed they had seen Lydgate standing over the dead Dominica and Ned, holding a dripping knife. If everyone was telling the truth, then Cecily and Edred had indeed seen Lydgate standing over two bodies with a dagger, but had misinterpreted what they had seen. On the strength of these erroneous a.s.sumptions, Mistress Cecily had left her husband, and Edred had applied what he had known of the other deaths to reason that Lydgate had not only killed Dominica and Ned, but Werbergh and Kenzie, too.

Bartholomew rubbed the back of his head. Cecily, Lydgate and Edred all said it was Dominica they had seen lying dead near Ned from Valence Marie. In which case, where was Joanna? Bartholomew was certain she was dead, or the Tyler family would not have gone to such lengths to prevent him from looking too closely into her disappearance. But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the woman with the unrecognisably battered face and long, golden hair was Joanna and not Dominica at all. It had been dark, both during the riot and in the Castle mortuary and that, coupled with the fact that the face had been battered, would have made definite identification difficult, if not impossible. And finally, there was the ominous patch of blood in the Tylers' house.

He glanced at Michael, wondering whether to share his thoughts with Lydgate. The monk had been watching him intently and gave a barely perceptible shake of his head.

Michael had apparently guessed what Bartholomew had been reasoning, but thought the evidence too slim to give Lydgate hopes that he might have been mistaken and that Dominica might yet be alive.

'Dominica's name was not among the dead,' said Michael when he saw Bartholomew was not going to speak. 'Why did you not claim her body?'

Lydgate put his head in his hands. 'I did not know what to do,' he said. 'Cecily was gone, and there was no one with whom to discuss it. I decided to let Dominica's death remain anonymous until I had had time to think.

You see, the soldiers at the Castle were saying that the woman who had died had been a wh.o.r.e. I did not want to risk Dominica's reputation by claiming that this wh.o.r.e was her. Half the town knew that she had a lover and she would always be remembered as the wh.o.r.e who died in the riots. I had to think before I acted, so I said nothing.'

'You went to her grave, though,' said Bartholomew.

Lydgate fixed his small eyes on Bartholomew. 'Yes. And you found me there. I thoughtyou had come to gloat. You were lucky I did not run you through.'

'Does your wife know about the blackmail notes?' asked Michael.

'I told her I was being blackmailed, but I did not tell her why. She was concerned only for Dominica, and cared not a fig for me or my reputation should all this come out.

She ran away from me the night Dominica died and lurks in her underground chamber at Chesterton.'

'You know where she is?' asked Bartholomew, startled.

'Of course!' said Lydgate dismissively. 'My wife is nota woman richly endowed with imagination, Bartholomew.

I knew immediately that she would flee to the same place where we had hidden Dominica. And even if I had not guessed, my friend Thomas BiG.o.d would have told me.

BiG.o.d has been a good ally to me. He gave me an alibi the night Dominica died and is keeping Cecily safe until such time as we can settle our differences - if we ever bother.'

'Cecily believed you killed Dominica,' said Michael baldly.

Lydgate gave a faint smile. 'So Thomas BiG.o.d tells me.

Silly woman! She can stay away as long as she likes. The house is more pleasant without her whining tongue.'

Bartholomew let all this sink in. Cecily was hiding away, and Lydgate had not been fooled for an instant about her whereabouts. Lydgate had told Cecily that Bartholomew had been blackmailing him, but she had shown no compunction about helping the man she thought was her husband's enemy. To Cecily, Bartholomew had been an instrument to use against her husband. That must have been at least partly why she had helped him to escape from the manor at Chesterton: she believed she was releasing her husband's blackmailer to continue his war of attrition!

Lydgate sighed. 'I knew Dominica was seeing a scholar.

The day after I sent her away, I heard him throwing stones at her window. When he saw he would get no response, he left and I followed him. But I am too big and clumsy for such work and I lost him before we reached the High Street.'

Unfortunately for Kenzie, thought Bartholomew. He might still be alive had his killer seen the hulking figure of Lydgate pursuing him.

'All I saw was a man in a scholar's tabard,' continued Lydgate wearily. 'I could not see him well enough to identify him again.'

'It was James Kenzie, the David's student who was murdered,' said Michael.

Lydgate gazed at the Benedictine in mute disbelief, and then slammed one thick fist into the palm of his other hand. 'Of course!' he exclaimed. That student was killed the same night I followed Dominica's visitor.

No wonder you paid me so much attention!'

Bartholomew and Michael exchanged a look of bemus.e.m.e.nt, wondering how Lydgate had never put the two together in his mind before. Lydgate did not notice and continued. 'So, Dominica chose a Scot! She knew how to be hurtful. What more inappropriate lover could the daughter of a hostel princ.i.p.al chose than an impoverished Scot?'

'But if you did not kill him, who did? And why?' asked Bartholomew, wanting to get back to the business of solving the murders, away from Lydgate's domestic traumas.

Lydgate looked at him as though he were mad. 'Why, Norbert, of course,' he said.

Bartholomew paced up and down and shook his head impatiently. Lydgate followed him with his eyes. 'But why?

Norbert has no reason to kill Kenzie.'

'What about the ring?' asked Michael. 'The lover's ring that Kenzie had lost to Edred that day?'

'Why?' said Bartholomew. 'Why should Norbert want the ring? And if you recall, Kenzie wore no ring when he died. Edred had stolen it earlier - or at least, had stolen the fake.'

Lydgate nodded. 'Edred tried to claim a reward by offering a cheap imitation of Dominica's ring. I grew angry with him and since then he has been sulky with me. That is why he accused me of those murders - as I said, it is the only thing I truly understand in all this muddle.'

'Ah!' said Michael. 'So, the slippery friar changed his allegiance. This begins to make sense. Repulsed by you in his attempts at winning favour, he was recruited by, or turned to, Norbert. It was Norbert who told him to make sure you were blamed for all those deaths by coming to us, and it was for Norbert that Edred searched Matt's room looking for the Galen. I think Edred believed what he told us was true and I think he was afraid of you. But he was working for Norbert all the time!'

It was dark in the church now and the only light came from the candles. There seemed to be little more to be said and Michael and Lydgate stood. As Lydgate stepped forward, he stumbled against Michael's bench.

Bartholomew caught him by the arm and prevented him from falling. Lydgate peered down at the bench and grimaced.

'How long have your eyes been failing?' asked Bartholomew gently.

Lydgate glared at him and pulled his arm away sharply.

That is none of your business,' he snapped, but then relented. 'My eyesight has never been good, but these last three years have seen a marked degeneration. Father Philius says there is nothing I can do. I have told no one except Dominica. It is worse at night, though. Everything fades into shadow.'

As they opened the door of the church, they saw an orange glow in the sky and, very distantly, they could hear shouting and screams carried on the slightest of breezes.

'Oh, Lord, no!' whispered Michael, gazing at the eerie lights. 'The riot has started!'

'My hostel!' exclaimed Lydgate and hurried away into the night without so much as a backward glance. Michael watched him go.

'How did you guess about his sight?' he asked.

Bartholomew shrugged. 'The signs are clear enough.

He rubs his eyes constantly and he squints and peers around. When I paced, he spoke to me in the wrong direction. And he failed to see the bench he fell over.