The Treason of the Ghosts

in the taproom how he was going to visit the widow and the killer
heard.’ Corbett pulled a face. ‘That’s not the real problem: the riddle is why? Why Widow Walmer?’
    ‘It
would appear, Master, she almost had to die?’
    ‘What
do you mean?’
    ‘If
she hadn’t, Sir Roger wouldn’t have been trapped, his
house wouldn’t have been searched. The carpenter wouldn’t have remembered
seeing him in Gully Lane .’
    Corbett
sat and reflected. ‘Are you implying, Ranulf, that Widow Walmer was murdered
because she knew something? Or that she was deliberately killed to trap Sir
Roger?’
    ‘Possibly
both, but I would choose the latter.’
    Corbett
shook his head in disbelief. ‘You are a man of cunning wit, Ranulf. I hadn’t
thought of that. Let’s follow that path. Sir Roger suspects who the true killer
of the young women is. Perhaps he hints at this knowledge. So, our mysterious
Mummer’s Man spins his own murderous web to catch this knight. The only
weakness of this argument is Sir Roger was a man of hot temperament. Why didn’t
he just accuse the killer openly? Have him arrested? Drag him before Justice
Tressilyian?’
    Ranulf,
who had been preening himself at Corbett’s praise, stared blankly back.
    ‘No,
no.’ Corbett leant over and patted him on the knee. ‘I accept your hypothesis.
Let us return to Widow Walmer. Sir Roger goes for his evening of love, then
leaves. We have to believe that Furrell was telling the truth but the poacher
also claimed he saw other people slipping down Gully Lane towards Widow Walmer’s
cottage. One of these could have been the killer, the
other two must have been Repton’s comings and goings.’
    ‘Do
you think Furrell really was telling the truth?’
    ‘Yes,
Ranulf, I do. It makes sense. The killer knew that Sir Roger would leave Widow
Walmer. The goodwoman probably insisted that he not spend the night there. So
the killer goes down, he murders Widow Walmer, and finds, by good luck,
Chapeleys’ knife and sheath which had been given as a gift. Those are left on
the floor and he flees into the night. Repton goes down once and, having
fortified himself with ale and the company of Master Burghesh, returns. The
murder is known and the hunt is on. What happens next is what you’d expect.
They visit the local justice and warrants are sworn out. Thockton Hall is
searched where more incriminating evidence is found.’
    ‘I
don’t understand.’ Chanson, who had been carefully following the argument,
spoke up. ‘What was a manor lord doing with gewgaws from wenches of the town?’
    ‘If,
my dear horseman, our noble Clerk of the Green Wax is correct, then I believe
the killer sent these to Sir Roger, who mistakenly thought they were keepsakes
of some woman he had tumbled. It’s like young Adela in the taproom below
sending me a ring or a brooch—’
    ‘Lady
Maeve would have your head!’ Ranulf broke in.
    ‘Yes,
yes, she would,’ Corbett smiled. ‘But if I was Sir Roger, I wouldn’t want to
throw them away. I’d toss them into my coffer and not give them a second
thought, which is what happened. Now, it’s Sir Roger we must concentrate on.’
Corbett scratched the back of his head. ‘He didn’t help his case one whit. He
was disliked and he was blunt but three things he stoutly denied: the murder of
the young women, the slaying of Widow Walmer and Deverell the carpenter’s
evidence.’
    ‘We
should have visited him first,’ Ranulf declared.
    ‘He’ll
not change his story. This is not Repton the reeve. Deverell went on oath; he
swore a man’s life away. If he changes his story now he’ll hang tomorrow and he
knows that. I suspect that’s why he wasn’t in the taproom tonight.’
    ‘He’s
hiding from us?’
    ‘As well as from the real killer. I’ll come to
him in a moment.’
    ‘So,’
Ranulf spoke up, ‘we have the allegations laid and Sir Roger under arrest in
the crypt. Justice Tressilyian sweeps into Melford, takes his seat at the
Guildhall. Popular feeling is running high against the imprisoned knight and a
jury is empanelled.’
    Corbett
tapped the roll of the court with the toe of his boot. ‘The record will give us
the other jurors’ names. Tressilyian is under orders to gather them together for
me to question. However, I do think it’s a remarkable coincidence that the jury
was led by a man who hated Sir Roger.’
    ‘Even
so,’ Ranulf declared, ‘the evidence against the knight was impressive.’
    ‘Except in one matter: the