The Treason of the Ghosts

incriminating evidence was to be rejected, though anyone
knowing she’d received such a love token could have used it to incriminate Sir
Roger.
    ‘You
are sure of that?’
    ‘As
the Good Lord lives, yes.’
    ‘And
then what happened?’ Corbett insisted.
    ‘The
next morning,’ Blidscote replied, ‘I travelled to see Justice Tressilyian. At
first he wouldn’t believe what we told him, then he
swore out warrants. I went to Thockton Hall. Sir Roger, of course, denied
everything but I showed him the warrants. The armed posse I’d brought searched
his chambers. They found a bracelet and a brooch in his private coffer: these
had been taken from two of the dead wenches.’
    ‘And
Sir Roger denied having these?’
    Blidscote
smiled craftily and tapped the side of his nose. ‘What are you implying, Sir
Hugh? That someone in my comitatus, my posse, placed those trinkets
there? No, no, Sir Roger confessed they’d been sent to him in a small leather
sack as a present. He’d put them in his coffer and hadn’t given them a second
thought.’
    ‘You
mean as some sort of love token?’
    ‘That’s
right, master clerk, some sort of love token! We asked him about the knife. He
made the response as I have described. Then we asked him about the three young
women who had been killed. Again, Sir Roger confessed that one of them had
worked at Thockton Hall and he had tumbled the wench.’ Blidscote blew out his
cheeks. ‘He claimed he was innocent of the murders. I told him that was a
matter for a jury. Justice Tressilyian came down to the Guildhall, two others
with him, but he was the principal judge. A court was held and depositions taken.’
    ‘And
there were plenty of hostile witnesses. Sir Roger was not liked?’
    ‘No,
he wasn’t.’ Burghesh took up the story. ‘Melford is a prosperous town, Sir
Hugh. The old ways are dying. People resent a manor lord, a knight, winking at
their women, acting the great lord of the soil. Sir Roger had a temper, and
when angered he told people what he thought. Now people had a chance to reply.’
    ‘But
that’s not evidence?’
    ‘No,
Sir Hugh, it isn’t. I admit there was a lot of chatter and gossip, then Deverell the carpenter came before the justice. He took
an oath: how he had seen Sir Roger fleeing up Gully Lane , all dishevelled and
troubled.’
    ‘And
what was Sir Roger’s response to that?’
    ‘He
dismissed Deverell as a liar, the son of a whore.’
    ‘But
what was Deverell doing in Gully
Lane at night?’
    ‘Oh,
he was returning to Melford with a supply of wood.’
    ‘So.’ Corbett cradled his tankard. ‘We have the knife, the
brooch and the bracelet. We have Sir Roger Chapeleys certainly visiting Widow
Walmer as well as confessing to a relationship with one of the murdered women.’
    ‘There
was other evidence,’ Blidscote offered. ‘Sir Roger could not produce any proof
of where he was when those three women were killed. Time and again he was
asked. His reply was simple and stark: he couldn’t recall.’
    ‘And
the parchments he burnt?’ Burghesh added.
    ‘What?’
Corbett queried.
    ‘Ah
yes.’ Blidscote leant forward, waving a finger. ‘When I arrived at Thockton
Hall with my warrants, Sir Roger’s retainers raised the alarm. There was a bit
of a struggle; we had to push by them. Sir Roger was found in his bedchamber,
his hands and fingers black from soot. He had burnt some papers. I examined the
fragments. They were love letters, some record of his conquests.’
    ‘And Sir Roger’s response?’
    ‘He
said he could do what he liked with his own property. Justice Tressilyian was
very fair. “Tell us, Sir Roger, what you burnt ,“ he
said. “Private papers ,“ was the reply.’
    Corbett
turned and shouted across to the slattern to bring fresh ale.
    What
if I had been Tressilyian, he thought, and this evidence had been laid before
me? It certainly looked bleak. Sir Roger had had a case to answer and had
failed to do so. He had denied none of the evidence except Deverell’s, but he
had had one friend...
    ‘Sir
Hugh?’
    Corbett
glanced across at Burghesh.
    ‘What
are you thinking?’
    ‘About Furrell the poacher. Why wasn’t his
evidence believed? He claimed he saw Sir Roger leave Widow Walmer alive, that he even glimpsed others going down to her cottage.’
    ‘Furrell
was a poacher,’ Blidscote jeered. ‘He loved his ale.’ The bailiff’s face turned
puce as he realised the hypocrisy of what he was saying. ‘Even more than