Hugh Corbett 12 - The Treason of the Ghosts Read Online Free PDF

she knocked with her stick.
    ‘Who is it?’ a voice called.
    So, you are frightened, Sorrel thought, detecting a note of tension.
    ‘I have news, Master Deverell. It’s Sorrel!’
    ‘The poacher’s woman?’ The reply was sharp and harsh.
    ‘Yes, the poacher’s woman.’
    Sorrel paused. She was sure she’d heard a whisper, as if Deverell was telling someone to keep quiet. She walked around but there was no other entrance. She returned to knock at the high wooden gate.
    ‘Go away!’ the voice called. ‘I am busy!’
    ‘What are you frightened of, Deverell?’ Sorrel taunted.
    She went round to the front of the house and stepped into the porchway. She noticed the Judas squint on her right. Deverell must be frightened to be checking on everyone who came here. She pounded on the door but there was no answer so she went back to the gate and knocked again. This time Deverell pulled the bolts back and swung it open. He was a tall, thickset man with a sallow, sharp-boned face, thin-lipped and anxious-eyed. His sparse black hair was covered in dust and he was nursing a cut on his right hand.
    ‘I can treat that for you,’ Sorrel offered.
    ‘What do you want?’ Deverell sucked at the bloody cut.
    ‘I’ve seen the royal clerk.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘I thought you would be interested. We can discuss it here in the street or I can shout out what I know.’
    Deverell sighed and beckoned her in. He led her across a cobbled yard; stacks of timber lay about. Sorrel noticed how, near the back fence, the wood had been piled high but then dragged away as if Deverell was anxious lest an intruder climb the fence and use the wood to ease the drop into the yard. He led her into his workshop, a long dark shed containing a work bench, stacks of wood, racks of hammers and chisels. He gestured at a stool but kept looking over his shoulder.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ Sorrel asked. ‘Are you alone?’
    ‘My wife’s in the market,’ the carpenter replied. ‘You call yourself keen and sharp-eyed, Sorrel. You know I have no maid or servant.’
    ‘That’s what I want to talk to you about!’ Sorrel exclaimed, though that was a lie. She knew little about Deverell’s private life but she was intrigued. Deverell was a good carpenter, a master craftsman. Even Furrell had praised his work.
    ‘Why does a wealthy man like you have no apprentice, maid or servant?’ she demanded.
    ‘That’s the way I like it.’
    ‘Why? What are you hiding?’
    ‘I like my privacy.’ Deverell sat on the corner of the table as if he wanted to block her view. ‘Now, what’s really your business? Why have you come here bothering me?’
    ‘I have seen the clerk, master carpenter! Sharp-eyed he is, with close-set lips. He’s going to start asking questions . . .’
    ‘Then I’ll give him the same answer I did on oath in court. On the night Widow Walmer was killed, I saw Sir Roger Chapeleys fleeing along Gully Lane. He looked stricken and worried.’
    ‘You have got such sharp eyes at night?’
    ‘It was a clear evening. You can tell from the way a man rides, how he wears his cloak, if there’s something wrong.’
    ‘And what were you doing out there that night?’ Sorrel taunted.
    ‘I was bringing some wood into my workshop.’
    ‘I thought you had timber delivered?’
    Deverell struggled to control his temper. ‘I am a carpenter and the King’s loyal subject,’ he replied. ‘If I want to go out to look for a certain type of wood, then that’s my business.’
    ‘And that’s when you saw Sir Roger? Furrell claimed you couldn’t possibly have seen him, stricken, fleeing along Gully Lane.’
    ‘Well, he’s not here to contradict me, is he?’
    ‘No, but Furrell gave his testimony in court as well. He claimed to have seen Sir Roger that night, and he looked anything but stricken!’
    ‘Pshaw!’ The carpenter waved his hand. ‘I thought you had something to tell me.’
    ‘I have. The clerk is going to ask the same questions. Where were