Sword and Song Read Free

to guess what had happened. Nell had brought her customer here, they’d lain together and he’d then stabbed her. She’d clearly put
up no struggle – she must have been taken entirely by surprise.
    “Would Nell have had a knife?” I asked Mrs McDonald.
    “Maybe. Or maybe she borrowed one from the kitchen.”
    “Could you check if one’s missing?”
    She cackled. “Wouldn’t do no good. God knows what’s in there. There are twenty women in this house go in there to cut themselves a wedge of bread or cheese, or get a drink of
ale. Stuff’s always coming and going.”
    I sighed. “It doesn’t matter. He almost certainly brought the knife with him, anyway.”
    Hugh frowned. “How do you know that?”
    “Because he took it away again. Maybe it could be identified as his – some people put their initials on their cutlery, or their coat of arms.”
    “Are you saying this is a man of family?”
    “I’m not saying anything at the moment. Many men carry a knife with them – butchers for instance, or some other trades. Or – ” I hesitated and Hugh raised his
eyebrows. “Maybe he came prepared,” I said. “Maybe he always intended to kill Nell.” I looked down on the girl’s body. One stab – a cold calculating gesture
rather than a frenzied, impulsive attack. This looked carefully planned.
    “But why, for heaven’s sake!” Hugh demanded. “Because of a book!”
    I looked down at Bedwalters. “Had she mentioned a book to you?”
    He shook his head.
    “He did take the book, I suppose?” Hugh asked.
    There were few places in the room where a book might have been put away. A small clutter of feminine things – a gap-toothed comb, a few hairpins, a ribbon – lay on a table and, on a
chair, a neat pile of clean clothes. With great reluctance I slipped my hand beneath the mattress on which Nell lay, feeling for a book and finding only a purse, a poor cloth thing. When I emptied
it into my palm, I came up with three pennies, two farthings and a small but beautiful brooch in the shape of a red rose.
    “I gave her that,” Bedwalters said. I put it into his hand. “Last year, on her birthday. She used to wear it when we were together.” He stared down at the small thing on
his palm, then closed his fist around it.
    “Look,” Hugh said. “There’s no difficulty about this. In three days or so, Nell’s spirit will disembody and she’ll be able to tell us what happened.
She’ll tell us all about the book and who her customer was.”
    He was right, of course. The spirit, once it disembodies, always lingers in its place of death; poor Nell would be confined to this house for eighty or a hundred years before her spirit’s
final dissolution. And it’s a rare murder victim who won’t accuse its killer. But Nell’s murderer must surely have taken that into account.
    “He may not have given her his real name,” I said.
    Silence.
    “Right,” Mrs McDonald said. “So I can shut up the room and get on with business, till she comes back to us, can I? About time.”
    “I’m staying here,” Bedwalters said.
    For a moment he sounded remarkably like his old self, calm, confident, a man of business and standing in the community. He looked haggard still, but I felt a sudden hope that after all
he’d be all right, that he’d come through this tragedy and build up the pieces of his life again.
    “I won’t leave her,” he said firmly. “Someone must keep her company.”
    “The undertaker,” Hugh murmured.
    “I’ll deal with her,” Bedwalters said. “Mrs McDonald and I will lay her out decently, and deal with her body and spirit.” He caught my hand. “You catch him,
Patterson.”
    “Of course,” I said soothingly.
    Hugh and I went out into the chill warmth of the August night, stood looking up and down the cobbled street. I felt like a traitor, assuring Bedwalters that I could achieve something I was
already convinced was well-nigh impossible.
    “The fellow will have left town,”