The Harper's Quine: A Gil Cunningham Murder Mystery

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘Thank you,’ said Gil politely. Try spinning that line with a girl who reads Chaucer and Thomas a Kempis, he thought. ‘What were you talking about this time, apart from leeks and smoked fish?’

  ‘Where was Bridie.’ The handsome face with its lopsided mouth twisted. ‘And she, poor lass, was probably getting stabbed about then, by what you said. I had trysted to meet her after Sext by St Mary’s down the Thenawgait and she never showed. It was another lassie from the same household I was speaking to, Maister Cunningham. She said they had all left the house before Bridie, but she’d seen her at first up and down the market. I looked further, but I never saw her, and then you told me last evening she was dead, poor wee limmer.’

  ‘So you never saw her yesterday?’

  ‘That’s what I have just said.’

  ‘Do you know the name of the girl you were speaking to?’

  ‘No, but she was certainly one of Agnes Hamilton’s household, for I asked that.’

  Gil set the hat aside and said, getting to his feet, ‘Thank you, Maister Campbell. That is all I wish to ask you just now.’

  Something like surprise crossed James Campbell’s face, but he rose likewise and bowed. When Gil left he was still standing, holding his closed Horace, looking thoughtful.

  Gil made his way down the stairs and out to the yard, which he crossed in a wide curve to avoid the furious mastiff, with a nagging feeling of questions unasked. There was something he had missed, or not uncovered, or not noticed, about the whole business. Perhaps in Rothesay, he thought, crossing Rottenrow to his uncle’s house. All may be clearer from a distance.

  Maggie Baxter was disinclined to talk.

  ‘Aye, I did speak to Mally Bowen,’ she said, ‘but she had little enough to tell me. Dead between Sext and Nones, she estimated, no struggle, not forced. There was blood on the front of her kirtle, quite a lot, and a kind of odd smell on her hair. That’s all, Maister Gil, and I’ll thank you to get out of my way till I get the dinner ready. Go on!’ She made shooing motions with her floury hands.

  ‘Thank you, Maggie,’ said Gil, making for the door. ‘I noticed the smell on her hair too.’ He remembered the kerchief in his purse, and pulled it out. ‘It’s on this. I don’t know what it is, but it’s familiar. You try.’

  ‘I haven’t the time to be bothered,’ said Maggie, sniffing at the kerchief. ‘Aye, I know it, but I can’t name it the now. It’ll come to me. Now get out my way, you bad laddie, or the dinner will be late!’

  Gil left obediently, and went to look for his uncle. Finding him at prayer in his little oratory, he crossed the hall quietly and went up to his garret to find what he needed for the journey.

  Over dinner, the Official gave out a. stream of instructions and advice about travel. Gil nodded politely from time to time, and forbore to point out that he had gone to France at eighteen and returned alone five years later.

  ‘I promised you a docket for the Treasurer,’ his uncle recalled, ‘for funds for the journey, and I’ll give you a letter for William Dalrymple in Rothesay. We were at the College together, and I believe he is still chaplain of St Michael’s. In the castle,’ he added helpfully. ‘And James Henderson has given me a letter for you to take to the steward at the Bishop’s palace. One of them should be able to offer you a bed.’

  ‘And a bed for Maister Mason,’ Gil pointed out.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘He bade me ask if he might call on you after Vespers.’

  ‘Did he so? Well, I’ll be here. And what have you learned today, Gilbert?’

  ‘Little enough.’

  Canon Cunningham listened to Gil’s account of his day while Maggie cleared the table round him, and at length said thoughtfully, ‘James Campbell knew Mistress Sempill was out in the trees. Could he have gone out of the kirk during the service?’

  ‘He could,’ Gil agreed. ‘He uses a wee thin knife, and he admitted to having slipped away, he said to say a prayer to St James.’

  ‘Reasonably enough.’

  ‘But though he might have stabbed the servant lassie, I do not know why he should have killed Bess Stewart. What could he gain from her death?’

  ‘Some benefit to his sister, perhaps? Many are unaware,’ said the Canon, settling into his lecturer’s manner, ‘of the restrictions which canon law places on the remarriage of adulterers. He may have thought -‘

  ‘He has studied at St Andrews and Bologna,’ Gil interrupted.

  ‘Ah. Well, Gilbert, you must follow the scent where it leads you, and hope you have not gone astray. Meanwhile there is this matter of the harper’s bairn. Do you know, I might act for the laddie. He needs someone to see him right, poor bairn.’

  ‘That would be a great relief to me,’ Gil said.

  His uncle shot him a look, and a crease appeared at the side of his mouth. All he said, however, was, ‘You are enjoying this hunt, aren’t you, Gilbert?’

  ‘I am,’ he admitted. ‘It seems wrong, when two women have died, but I feel as if I have woken up after months asleep, like the lassie in the old tale.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said his uncle drily, ‘considering what came to the lassie. Well, well, you must make the most of what God sends you. I will write you out that docket for the Treasury, and then I am for the Consistory, to look over the papers for a matter tomorrow morning. I will be back after Vespers.’

  Gil, having exchanged the docket for a satisfactory sum of money, returned to the house and finding his uncle still out retreated to his garret again, to go over the evidence he had collected and to consider what he hoped to find out in Rothesay. Seated cross-legged on his bed, he worked through what he knew, dogged by that same feeling of something missed, or not noticed, or not asked. The man with the best reason for killing Bess Stewart had witnesses to show he had not, including Gil himself. The men with the best opportunities had no reason that he had yet uncovered for doing so. The death of Bridie Miller must be connected, since as he had said to the mason it was not logical to assume two killers with the same method of working, loose at the same time in a town of five thousand souls, but John Sempill had a witness to show he was on his way up the High Street when she died, and if James Campbell was telling the truth he had been down the Thenawgait at Sext waiting for a girl who never showed. Gil himself had seen him only a little later, just beyond the Tolbooth.

  ‘If he killed Bess,’ he said aloud, ‘then he might have a reason for killing Bridie. But if not the one, then not the other.’

  Glancing at the window, he was surprised to realize that it must be well after Vespers. He unlocked his legs, and rubbed the circulation back into them, reflecting that Aristotle had less application to real life than he had hoped.

  By one of the hall windows, David Cunningham and the mason were discussing a fine point of contract law over a plate of Maggie’s girdle-cakes. They greeted him with pleasure, but returned immediately to the question of what constituted attendance on site, dark red head and black coif nodding in time to one another’s words. Gil looked in the small cupboard for a wine-cup, and failing to find one made for the kitchen. The mason’s voice floated after him as he went down the stairs.

  ‘And at Cologne, a friend of mine …’

  Maggie and the men were round the kitchen fire, gossiping. Gil found a cup and was returning to the stair when one of the stable-hands said, ‘Maister Gil, did ye know the serjeant’s planning to make an arrest?’

  ‘I did not,’ said Gil. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘He never said,’ admitted the man regretfully. ‘But it’s someone for the lassie Miller, that had her throat cut in Blackfriars yard.’

  ‘It was not her throat,’ said Maggie quickly, with a glance at William the kitchen-boy. ‘I spoke to Mally Bowen that washed her.’

  ‘And I saw the body,’ said Gil. ‘She was knifed in the ribs, poor lass. When is the serjeant planning this, Tam?’

  ‘He never said that neither,’ said Tam. ‘Just that he knew who it was. I got this off his man Jaikie when we went
to fetch the horses in.’

  ‘Ah, hearsay,’ said Gil.

  ‘It’s just as good,’ said Tam. ‘Jaikie knows all the serjeant’s business, he tells me all kind of things.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Gil.

  ‘Never worry, Maister Gil; said Maggie cheerfully. ‘The half of it’s likely made up.’

  Up in the hall, the Official and Maistre Pierre had moved on to the question of whether the stoneyard at the quarry qualified as the site. Gil sat down and poured himself wine, quite content to listen to the argument, but they left it unresolved and turned to him.

  ‘Well, Gilbert,’ said his uncle. ‘I have had a profitable discussion with your friend here. He has a very generous suggestion to make concerning the harper’s bairn which we can put to John Sempill when we can meet him.’

  ‘John’s out this evening. What would that be?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Provided the harper agrees,’ stipulated the mason.

  ‘Oh, understood. But I would be greatly in favour of it, as the boy’s legal adviser. Maister Mason is offering to foster the child into his own household and raise him.’

  ‘Alys would like that,’ Gil said.

  Alys’s father nodded, smiling fondly at the sound of her name. ‘So long as she stays under my roof,’ he added.

  ‘And we must hope that will continue to be possible.’ The Official glanced at the mason, and a portentous look passed between them. ‘A very profitable evening, Maister Mason.’

  ‘More than I have had,’ began Gil, and was interrupted by a furious barking.

  ‘What is going on across the way?’ His uncle craned to look out of the window. ‘Why, there is the serjeant at Sempill’s door.’

  The gate to the Sempill yard was open, and through the gateway they could see Serjeant Anderson making his stately way to the house door, taking the long way round past Doucette, who was out at the end of her chain hurling abuse. The burgh’s two constables trailed cautiously after him.

  ‘Has he decided to arrest John Sempill?’ Gil speculated. Maggie arrived, with another hastily poured jug of wine, and stood staring across the street.

  ‘I tried to get a word with Tammas Sproull,’ she said with regret, ‘but he was past the kitchen gate before I could speak to him.’

  The serjeant vanished into the house, his men after him. Someone emerged briefly to shout at the dog, who went sullenly back to her kennel. Maggie inspected the plate of girdle-cakes and lifted it to be replenished.

  ‘They’re taking a while,’ she said hopefully. ‘He’s maybe putting up a fight.’

  ‘He’s not there, whoever it is,’ said Gil, looking along the street. ‘Here they all come-back- from Compline.’

  Philip Sempill, James Campbell, resplendent in their expensive clothes, picked their way along the muddy street. Euphemia Campbell and her stout companion followed, the Italian just behind them, and to Gil’s great annoyance one of the two gallowglasses came into sight bringing up the rear.

  ‘Sempill said those two had gone on an errand. I want to talk to them.’

  ‘Could that be why he denied them?’ said his uncle, still watching the Sempill house. The returning party crossed the yard, the dog emerged to bark and was cursed back to her kennel, and all six vanished into the house as the serjeant had done. ‘You might as well fetch more girdlecakes, Maggie. They’ll be a while longer.’

  On the cue, the door of the Sempill house opened. The mastiff rushed across the yard bellowing threats, and the constables and the gallowglass emerged dragging a struggling figure. The swaying group got itself down the stairs with difficulty, followed by the serjeant. Behind him came a gesticulating James Campbell, seriously impeded by his sister, who was clinging to him and screaming. They could hear her quite clearly above the dog’s clamour.

  ‘My!’ said Maggie with delight.

  ‘Who is it?’ said David Cunningham. ‘Who have they arrested?’

  ‘The Italian,’ said Gil. ‘He’s found his foreigner.’

  The serjeant, ignoring the Campbells, sailed across the street to hammer on the Cunningham house door. Maggie, muttering, was already on her way to answer it. They heard her questioning the caller through the spy-hole, then the rattle of the latch, and her feet on the stairs again.

  ‘It’s Serjeant Anderson,’ she announced unnecessarily, stumping into the hall. ‘Wanting a word with the maister.’

  ‘And with Maister Gilbert Cunningham and all,’ said the serjeant, proceeding into the room in her wake. ‘Good evening, maisters.’

  ‘Well, well, Serjeant,’ said the Official, pushing his spectacles up and down his nose. ‘What is this about, then?’

  ‘Just to inform you, sir,’ said the serjeant, with some relish, ‘that we’ve just lifted the man that knifed Bridie Miller. Seeing Maister Gilbert Cunningham was seeking her the length and breadth of the town these two days, I thought you’d want to know we’ve got the man, since he’s likely the man you want as well.’

  ‘But what proof have you -?’ Gil began.

  ‘Well, I looked at the body,’ said Serjeant Anderson, ‘and I saw she’d been stabbed with a wee little knife with a long blade. And I thought, Who carries a knife like that? An Italian, that’s who. And where is there an Italian in Glasgow? In Maister Sempill’s house. So we’re just lifting the Italian and his wee knife now, and if you’ll come down to the Tolbooth in the morning, when I’ve got him to confess to my killing, we’ll see if we can get him to confess to your killing.’

  ‘But that’s not proof!’

  ‘Proof? We’ll get a confession in no time, and who needs proof then? I’ve a burgh to watch, Maister Cunningham. I’ve more to do than go about asking questions,’ said the serjeant kindly. ‘It’s far quicker my way.’

  ‘Serjeant, I thank you for your offer, but I saw the Italian inside St Mungo’s at the time Bess Stewart was killed. He’s not my man, and I’m not certain he’s the man you’re after either. Why should he kill Bridie Miller?’

  ‘Why should anyone kill a bonnie lass?’ said the serjeant. ‘One reason or another, no doubt. Now I’d best get back to my men, so if you’ll excuse me, sirs -‘

  ‘I’ll come out with you,’ said Gil, as shouting floated up the stairs from the front door.

  He and the mason followed Serjeant Anderson down and across the street, where a small crowd had gathered and was watching through the gates with interest as the Italian was dragged across the yard of the Sempill house. The mastiff was adding her contribution, but over the thunderous barking Gil heard a number of comments.

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘If he’s no guilty now, he will be by the morning.’

  ‘How will they get a confession? He doesny speak Scots.’

  ‘That’s no bother. Write something down and make him put his mark to it.’

  The lutenist saw Gil and attempted to fling out a beseeching hand.

  ‘Signore avvocato! Aiutarmi, aiutarmi!’

  The man holding his left arm buffeted him casually round the head, and he went limp.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ said the other man in disgust. ‘Now we’ll have to carry him.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Gil asked Maistre Pierre.

  “‘Maister lawyer, help me.”’

  ‘What the devil is going on here?’ demanded John Sempill in his own gateway, his voice carrying without effort over the dog’s noise.

  Euphemia Campbell uttered a shriek which hurt the ears, let go of her brother and sped across the yard to her protector, pursued vengefully by the dog until it was brought up short and choking at the end of its chain. A great waft of her perfume reached them on the evening air, making the mason sneeze, as she exclaimed shrilly, ‘Oh, John! John! He says Antonio killed Bridie Miller and maybe Bess as well!’

  The Italian, hearing her voice, roused himself with an effort and broke free of the loosened grasp of his captors to fling himself at her feet, clinging to the hem of her dress.

  ‘Donna Eufemia! Donna
mia, cara mia bella! Aiutarmi! Non so niente!’

  ‘Oh, God, the poor devil,’ said Gil, and moved forward.

  Euphemia Campbell, staring down at her servant, said, ‘John, do something! He says he killed them!’

  ‘Oh, he did, did he,’ said John Sempill, and swung an arm. Everyone else stood frozen for a moment. There was a choking gurgle which was not the dog, and one of the constables stepped forward and tipped the lutenist over with his foot. The small man turned a dulling, incredulous gaze on his mistress. Then blood burst from his mouth and he was still.

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Gil again. The mason, beside him, was muttering what sounded like prayers. Euphemia Campbell stared open-mouthed at the dead man, and down at the blood on her gown. A groan escaped her, and she shivered.

  ‘Euphemia!’ said John Sempill. She turned to him, still shuddering, and he held her with one arm, staring hungrily down at her as the final drops of the lutenist’s blood dripped off his whinger into the dust of the courtyard.

  ‘Take me in, John. I must lie down!’

  ‘Now, I wish you’d not done that, maister,’ said Serjeant Anderson majestically, ‘but there’s no denying it’s saved me a bit of bother. Come on, lads,’ he said, beckoning his constables away. ‘We’ll away down the town. Don’t fret, you’ll get your groat, you’d made the arrest.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘It was murder,’ said Gil. ‘And the devil of it is, he’ll get away with it.’

  ‘You think the Italian was innocent?’ said Maistre Pierre.

  They were riding along the north bank of the Clyde, and Dumbarton’s rock and castle were just coming into view ahead of them down the river. Maistre Pierre, on a sturdy roan horse, his stout felt hat hanging down his back on its strings, was the image of a prosperous burgess on a journey. Behind them, Matt had not uttered a word since they left Glasgow. Gil himself, in well-worn riding-boots and a mended plaid, felt that he did not live up to the quality of his own mount or Matt’s. David Cunningham had always had a good eye for a horse.

  ‘Innocent of the two women’s deaths, certainly,’ he said. ‘I saw him in St Mungo’s all through Compline, at the time when Bess was killed, which in turn makes it less likely that he killed Bridie Miller.’