The Burgundian's tale

‘Because he was threatening you.’

‘Indeed? And why would he be able to do that?’

‘Because Fulk wasn’t the first person you’d killed, was he, mistress? Twelve years ago you murdered your first husband. And I think — indeed, I’m almost sure — that if I were to dig beneath that willow tree in your garden, I should probably find his bones.’

There was silence, eventually broken by a deep sigh as Judith propped herself a little higher on her pillows. ‘I think you’re forgetting that Edmund Broderer was dragged from the river several weeks after he disappeared,’ she reminded me.

‘No, I’m not forgetting. But a body that’s been in the Thames for that length of time would be almost unrecognizable. Except, of course, by his loving wife who identified him by the shape of his feet and some intimate bodily mark.’

The slightly tolerant smile had by now quite vanished and her eyes were like steel. ‘You have been asking a lot of questions, Master Chapman,’ she snapped. ‘And, seemingly, getting a lot of answers. So tell me! Why would I have wanted to kill Edmund Broderer?’

It was my turn to smile. ‘I wasn’t sure until young Bertram Serifaber mistook Lionel for Brandon Jolliffe, and then I realized the likeness betwen them myself. And when I found young Roger Jessop, Nell’s half-brother — you remember Roger Jessop, don’t you? The young lad who used to work in your garden — and saw that he, too, bore a strong resemblance to the other two, I started to believe that they might all have been sired by the same father. This morning, therefore, I talked not only to Mistress Jolliffe but also to Martha Broderer. Both women were quite frank with me about their relationship with your former husband.’

‘A lot of men have bastards,’ my companion sneered. ‘Men are like that: incontinent where their need for women is concerned. But their long-suffering wives don’t murder them. They endure, like our poor Queen.’

‘Maybe,’ I agreed. ‘But what if a woman’s husband is proposing to leave her for his former sweetheart, his cousin’s widow? What if he’s talking of obtaining a divorce because of that wife’s barrenness? What if this woman cannot bear the thought of being abandoned and humiliated for a woman she despises?’

‘What if! What if!’ Judith St Clair broke in angrily. ‘It seems to me there’s more “what if” about your suspicions than substance. And what makes you think Edmund is buried beneath my willow tree?’

‘You’re very fond of that spot. People have told me so. Yesterday, when you invited me into your garden to stand with you under the tree, I had the feeling that you were secretly laughing at me. Mocking me. Taunting me, perhaps, with the evidence buried beneath our feet. Call me fanciful if you like, but that is how it struck me.’

She gave a hard, artificial little laugh. ‘I certainly do call it fanciful! Do you think anyone would be convinced by such nonsense?’

‘Probably not. But someone might be more interested in the fact that young Roger Jessop, a child raised and nurtured by you from his earliest days, suddenly ran away because, after a series of odd mishaps and near “accidents”, he grew to believe that his life was in danger. I wondered why that should be, until I learned from William Morgan and from you that he had been digging around the willow. The lad didn’t find anything; his suspicions of anything, or anyone, being buried there weren’t even slightly aroused. But you couldn’t take the chance of letting him live.’

My companion was really angry now. She was also beginning to be frightened. But she wasn’t as yet seriously alarmed. ‘Is that all?’ she sneered.

‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s the mystery of why you married your second husband, Justin Threadgold. Everyone I’ve spoken to, including his own brother and daughter, says that he was a violent, abusive man. So why, knowing this, did you agree to become his wife?’

‘For Alcina’s sake,’ she whipped back at me.

‘That’s the impression you’ve always given to other people, and it seems, on the face of it, to be the only reason that makes sense. But you were rich and the Threadgolds were poor. Suppose, therefore, like Fulk after him, Justin blackmailed you. Into marrying him.’

‘How could he do that?’ Judith flung at me contemptuously, but I saw her lick her lips.

I gave her back look for look. ‘That little room of the Threadgolds’, above the fireplace, looks out over your garden with a clear view of the willow tree. Only, of course, there wasn’t a tree the night Justin saw you and your sister and William Morgan burying your first husband’s body. I don’t suppose he guessed at once what you were up to, but when Edmund Broderer went missing, and his body turned up in such a state that only you could recognize it, he put two and two together. He probably claimed to have seen more than he did, but you weren’t to know that. Or you daren’t take that chance. The price of his silence was marriage. I wonder what death you were planning for him, if he hadn’t died of natural causes.’