Hugh Corbett 06 - Murder Wears a Cowl Read Online Free PDF Page A

trickster. No one had a clear description of Puddlicott but his fraudulent behaviour had wiped out the profits of many a merchant. He had been a clerk at Cambridge but now used his considerable wit and intelligence to separate people from their hard-earned wealth and kept reappearing either in England or France with his nefarious schemes. No law officer had managed to seize him or lay him by the heels. Corbett’s spy in Paris had sent a description of a blond-haired man with ruddy cheeks and a slight limp. Yet the King’s seneschal in Bordeaux had also described Puddlicott as black-haired, of sallow complexion, well proportioned in all his limbs.
    Corbett re-read the letter. All the spy had learnt was that the Master of Secrets had been talking to Puddlicott, but about what, he could not tell except Nogaret had seemed most welcoming and attentive.
    ‘I should have told the King this!’ Corbett repeated to himself and, striding to the door, with the documents clutched in his fist, he bellowed for a clerk to take them immediately to the King.
    Afterwards, Corbett stared round the untidy room. His agitation, caused by his recent meeting, had now subsided; it was best, he concluded, if he left immediately.
    ‘The sooner gone, the sooner done,’ he murmured. ‘Now, where is the honest Ranulf?’
    Corbett’s manservant, the honest Ranulf, was in the great hall squatting in a corner with guardsmen of the royal retinue, slowly inveigling them into a game of dice. The red-haired, pale-faced manservant looked around solemnly, his green, cat-like eyes serious and unblinking.
    ‘I have little skill in dice,’ he murmured.
    The soldiers smiled for they thought they had trapped a coney in the hay. Ranulf jingled his purse.
    ‘I have some silver,’ he said, ‘as has my companion here.’ He turned to Corbett’s groom and ostler, the blond-haired, fat-faced Maltote who sat next to him like some innocent plough boy. Maltote smiled owlishly at the soldiers and Ranulf grinned as he drew them into his trap. The dice was thrown, Ranulf lost and then, amidst shouts of ‘Beginner’s luck!’, he began to win. He was fully immersed in the game when he saw the soldiers look up fearfully just as he felt his master’s iron grip on his shoulder.
    ‘Ranulf, my dear man,’ Corbett whispered sweetly. ‘A word in thine ear.’
    Ranulf glowered up at him. ‘Master, I am in a game.’
    ‘Ranulf,’ Corbett said. ‘So am I. A word, away from your friends.’
    Ranulf clambered to his feet and Corbett led him away, still gripping his shoulder tightly.
    ‘Master, what is wrong?’ Ranulf winced as Corbett’s fingers dug into his shoulder.
    ‘First, Ranulf, I told you not to use those dice against the King’s soldiers. They are hard-working men and you are not here to fleece them of every penny they earn. Secondly,’ Corbett released his grip, ‘you are to return to London immediately.’
    Ranulf dropped the look of mock innocence and grinned mischievously.
    ‘Thirdly,’ Corbett continued, ‘we need to pack our belongings.’
    ‘Master,’ Ranulf whispered hoarsely. ‘I am winning.’
    ‘I know you are, Ranulf, and you’ll give every penny back! Maltote?’
    Ranulf wandered dolefully back, raising his eyes heavenwards as Maltote passed him. Corbett looked at the young groom anxiously.
    ‘You are not carrying any weapons?’ he asked warily.
    The lad smiled.
    ‘Good!’ Corbett grinned back, marvelling at the innocence in the lad’s cornflower-blue eyes. Never had Corbett met a soldier such as Maltote who knew so much about horses, was so skilled in their treatment and management but was so hopeless with weapons. If Maltote carried a knife he’d either cut himself or anyone about him. If he carried a bow he would trip himself up or poke the eye out of some innocent bystander, and he was as dangerous as any enemy if he carried spear or sword.
    ‘Maltote! Maltote!’ Corbett murmured. ‘Once you were an innocent horse soldier,