The sergeant was intelligent, though not impressed. “Then what limiting factors, what firm facts, do you refer to, brother?”
“I mentioned to you yesterday, and if you care to sniff at that bottle, and try a drop of it on your sleeve, you’ll note for yourself, that it makes itself apparent both to the nose and eye. You would not easily wash out the greasy mark from cloth, nor get rid of the smell. It is not the wolfsbane that smells so sharp and acrid, there’s also mustard and other herbs. Whoever you seize upon, you must examine his clothing for these signs. I don’t say it’s proof of innocence if no such signs are found, but it does weaken the evidence of guilt.”
“You are interesting, brother,” said the sergeant, “but not convincing.”
“Then consider this. Whoever had used that poison would be in haste to get rid of the bottle as soon as possible, and as cleanly. If he lingered, he would have to hide it about him, and risk marking himself, or even having it discovered on him. You will conduct your business as you see fit. But I, were I in your shoes, would be looking very carefully for a small vial, anywhere within a modest distance of that house, for when you find it, the place where it was discarded will tell a great deal about the person who could have cast it there.” And with certainty he added: “You’ll be in no doubt of it being the right vial.”
He did not at all like the expression of indulgent complacency that was creeping over the sergeant’s weathered countenance, as though he enjoyed a joke that presently, when he chose to divulge it, would quite take the wind out of Cadfael’s sails. He himself admitted he had not captured his man, but there was certainly some other secret satisfaction he was hugging to his leather bosom.
“You have not found it already?” said Cadfael cautiously.
“Not found it, no. Nor looked for it very hard. But for all that, I know where it is. Small use looking now, and in any case, no need.” And now he was openly grinning.
“I take exception to that,” said Cadfael firmly. “If you have not found it, you cannot know where it is, you can only surmise, which is not the same thing.”
“It’s as near the same thing as we’re likely to get,” said the sergeant, pleased with his advantage. “For your little vial has gone floating down the Severn, and may never be seen again, but we know it was tossed in there, and we know who tossed it. We’ve not been idle since we left here yesterday, I can tell you, and we’ve done more than simply pursue a young fox and lose his trail a while. We’ve taken witness from any we could find who were moving about the bridge and the Foregate around the dinner hour, and saw Bonel’s manservant running after the boy. We found a carter who was crossing the bridge just at that time. Such a chase, he pulled up his cart, thinking there was a hue and cry after a thief, but when the boy had run past him he saw the pursuer give up the chase, short of the bridge, for he had no chance of overtaking his quarry. The one shrugged and turned back, and when the carter turned to look after the other he saw him slow in his running for a moment, and hurl some small thing over the downstream parapet into the water. It was young Gurney, and no other, who had something to dispose of, as soon as possible after he’d tipped its contents into the dish for his stepfather, given the spoon a whirl or two, and rushed away with the bottle in his hand. And what do you say to that, my friend?”
What, indeed? The shock was severe, for not one word had Edwin said about this incident, and for a moment Cadfael did seriously consider that he might have been hoodwinked for once by a cunning little dissembler. Yet cunning was the last thing he would ever have found in that bold, pugnacious face. He rallied rapidly, and without betraying his disquiet.
“I say that ‘some small thing’ is not necessarily a vial. Did you put it to your carter that it might have been that?”
“I did, and he would not say yes or no, only that whatever it was was small enough to hold in the closed hand, and flashed in the light as it flew. He would not give it a shape or a character more than that.”
“You had an honest witness. Now can you tell me two things more from his testimony. At exactly what point on the bridge was the boy when he threw it? And did the manservant also see it thrown?”
“My man says the fellow running after had halted and turned back, and only then did he look round and catch the other one in the act. The servant could not have seen. And as for where the lad was at that moment, he said barely halfway across the drawbridge.”
That meant that Edwin had hurled away whatever it was as soon as he felt sure he was above the water, clear of the bank and the shore, for it was the outer section of the bridge that could be raised. And at that, he might have miscalculated and been in too big a hurry. The bushes and shelving slope under the abutments ran well out below the first arch. There was still a chance that whatever had been discarded could be recovered, if it had fallen short of the current. It seemed, also, that Aelfric had not concealed this detail, for he had not witnessed it.
“Well,” said Cadfael, “by your own tale the boy had just gone running past a halted cart, with a driver already staring at him, and no doubt, at that hour, several other people within view, and made no secret of getting rid of whatever it was he threw. Nothing furtive about that. Hardly the way a murderer would go about disposing of the means, to my way of thinking. What do you say?”
The sergeant hitched at his belt and laughed aloud. “I say you make as good a devil’s advocate as ever I’ve heard. But lads in a panic after a desperate deed don’t stop to think. And if it was not the vial he heaved into the Severn, you tell me, brother, what was it?” And he strode out into the chill of the early evening air, and left Cadfael to brood on the same question.
Brother Mark, who had made himself inconspicuous in a corner all this time, but with eyes and ears wide and sharp for every word and look, kept a respectful silence until Cadfael stirred at length, and moodily thumped his knees with clenched fists. Then he said, carefully avoiding questions: “There’s still an hour or so of daylight left before Vespers. If you think it’s worth having a look below the bridge there?”
Brother Cadfael had almost forgotten the young man was present, and turned a surprised and appreciative eye on him.
“So there is! And your eyes are younger than mine. The two of us might at least cover the available ground. Yes, come, for better or worse we’ll venture.”
Brother Mark followed eagerly across the court, out at the gatehouse, and along the highroad towards the bridge and the town. A flat, leaden gleam lay over the mill-pond on their left, and the house beyond it showed only a closed and shuttered face. Brother Mark stared at it curiously as they passed. He had never seen Mistress Bonel, and knew nothing of the old ties that linked her with Cadfael, but he knew when his mentor and friend was particularly exercised on someone else’s behalf, and his own loyalty and partisan fervour, after his church, belonged all to Cadfael. He was busy thinking out everything he had heard in the workshop, and making practical sense of it. As they turned aside to the right, down the sheltered path that led to the riverside and the main gardens of the abbey, ranged along the rich Severn meadows, he said thoughtfully:
“I take it, brother, that what we are looking for must be small, and able to take the light, but had better not be a bottle?”
“You may take it,” said Cadfael, sighing, “that whether it is or not, we must try our best to find it. But I would very much rather find something else, something as innocent as the day.”
Just beneath the abutments of the bridge, where it was not worth while clearing the ground for cultivation, bushes grew thickly, and coarse grass sloped down gradually to the lip of the water. They combed the tufted turf along the edge, where a filming of ice prolonged the ground by a few inches, until the light failed them and it was time to hurry back for Vespers; but they found nothing small, relatively heavy, and capable of reflecting a flash of light as it was thrown, nothing that could have been the mysterious something tossed away by Edwin in his flight.