The Burgundian's tale

I judged there were no more than a dozen steps, although I didn’t count them, ending in a small landing about three or four feet square. To my right was a door, partially open, and when I put my eye to the crack, I could see that the room beyond was indeed a bedchamber. The door was almost on a level with the head of the bed, but this was hidden from my view by richly embroidered curtains. The walls, too, as far as I could make out, were hung with those tapestry-like embroideries that I had seen being made in the Needlers Lane workshop. Such light as there was on this rainy May morning came through two windows whose shutters and horned panes had been opened to the elements. Mistress St Clair evidently liked fresh air.

I listened carefully for a few seconds, but the silence was absolute. Cautiously, I eased myself around the edge of the door and found that I was standing, not on rushes, but on a thickly embroidered carpet that covered most of the floor. (The mistress of the house was obviously a keen promoter of her own wares.) Two large chests, their lids carved with an elaborate pattern of grapes and vine leaves, stood against the far wall and were full to overflowing with clothes. Neither was properly shut, and several errant sleeves, part of a velvet skirt, a gauze scarf and one or two belts spilled over the sides.

The bed, whose hangings, as I could now see, depicted the story of Daphnis and Chloe, occupied most of the space and was set on a raised dais in the centre of the room. With even greater trepidation than before, I parted the curtains and peered through, wondering what possible excuse I could offer if I should come face to face with Mistress St Clair, resting there. But, fortunately for me, the bed was empty. Its coverlet was dazzling, so thickly embroidered with all the glories of an English summer garden, including birds, bees and dragonflies, that its basic material was invisible. A small, plain cupboard stood to one side of the pillows and supported a candlestick and candle.

I withdrew my head and examined the inside of the door through which I had entered. There was a bolt — quite a substantial one — near the top and, when tested, I found it ran easily and noiselessly in the wards. But whether or not Judith used it to secure her bedchamber as often as was prudent I had no means of knowing. A similar inspection of the bolt on the inside of the main door of the room showed this to be stiff with disuse. She plainly felt herself to be under no sort of threat from inside the house itself.

I gave a final glance around before deciding that I had tried my luck far enough for one day, and descended the stair to find a worried Bertram peering anxiously upward, praying for my speedy return.

‘I thought someone was coming just now,’ he chided me.

We completed the length of the passage and, before letting ourselves out into the garden, I also examined the inside of this door for locks and bolts. There were two of the latter, bigger than those in Mistress St Clair’s bedchamber and both kept well oiled. The lock, too, was substantial, situated just beneath the latch, but the key, large and extremely visible, hung on a hook alongside the door where everyone could reach it without difficulty. Anyone leaving the house on the night of the murder had only to ensure that this door and the two in Judith St Clair’s bedchamber were unlocked and unbolted to be able to go and come back at will.

The rain had stopped at last. The ground squelched under our feet as Bertram and I crossed the soaked and pallid grass. A wood pigeon rustled through the branches of a tree, and although it was only mid-morning, the light was poor, cloaking the garden in shadow. We walked down the gently sloping central path to the little landing stage on the Thames. Gulls, chasing the herring boats upstream to Westminster, wheeled and called overhead with their sharp, staccato cries, and a kingfisher, disturbed by their commotion, flew up from its nest in the bank, a flash of iridescent green and blue. Brown-fingered seaweed slapped the shore, and the river itself, London’s great highway, gleamed like polished metal under a watery shaft of sunlight that suddenly pierced the overhanging clouds.