Free Study of Murder, The (Five Star Mystery Series) by Susan McDuffie Page A

locked?”
    “Very soon after, there was a hammering, and Da got up to see to it. It was that Master Woode, that’s what he said when he returned. He was not pleased about it, neither.”
    That accorded with what I remembered. When I left Phillip at the gate, it had been locked.
    “Sir, please can I go?” Avice’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “I’ve duties to attend to in the kitchen.”
    I gave her leave to go, and went to find Master Delacey. I climbed the wooden stairs to the third floor and found him in the chamber he shared with Ralph Berwyk. Julian Delacey was seated at his desk when I entered, speaking to Master Berwyk. Neither man looked pleased to see me.
    I asked to speak privately with Delacey and he grudgingly agreed to see me in the downstairs room in a few minutes, making it plain he wished me gone. So, obligingly, I left and descended the stairs to the ground floor.
    I walked outside, enjoying the fresh September breeze after the close inner air of the murder room. I breathed deeply, feeling my lungs expand and, for a second, aware of the ceaseless beating of my own heart. How could it be, I mused, that the sky was so blue, the day so lovely, and inside the tenement a man lay murdered? And why had he been slain?
    I could have wondered how I had wound up in the thick of yet another murder to investigate but that would catch no evildoers. I had agreed to help find who committed this heinous crime. What I had to do was find the murderer. And I thought I would not have to look very far.
    In the far back of the yard was a small cottage. I guessed that was the place where Avice lived with her father. As I watched, I saw Avice walk back toward the hut, crying bitterly. It seemed she had taken the death of Clarkson much to heart, and I wondered at that.
    Certainly Anthony and Crispin seemed less disturbed, as I saw several of the younger students kicking a ball around in the back, seemingly happy to be free of lectures for the day. Although perhaps they should not have been there, they seemed loath to leave the college grounds and get back to their own lodgings. One gave the ball a hard kick and it landed in front of me, nearly hitting me. I wished I could have played, but the limp I have makes it hard, so I threw the ball back at them and went back inside to speak with Master Delacey.
    Julian Delacey was a short man, stocky, with reddish hair and a belligerent manner. He seemed personally affronted that someone had been murdered at his college, thus disrupting his scheduled lectures and disputations. Phillip Woode had said Delacey was studying canon law, hoping for a position with the church at some point, although he had yet to take holy orders. From the little I knew of lawyers, I thought perhaps he would make a good one, for he seemed argumentative enough.
    “Now,” he said, sitting down across from me, “what was it you needed to speak with me about? There is much to be done here today, and I can spare little time.”
    “Your chamber is near to Master Clarkson’s, is it not?”
    “Yes.” Delacey nodded. “And what if it is?”
    “Did you hear anything untoward last night? Any sounds of a struggle?”
    “I heard nothing. I would have told you before this if I had.” Delacey’s jaw thrust forward in an unlikeable fashion as he spoke and once again I felt my hands tighten as I listened to him speak.
    “What were you doing last night?” I asked.
    “Studying. I have obtained a text of Johannes Andrea and I was deeply absorbed in it. I heard nothing.”
    “No one entered the master’s room?”
    Delacey shook his head no. “Not that I heard. But I was deep in study.”
    “And what of Berwyk? Where was he? Do you know?”
    “He often goes out. He has a woman in the town. But he was back before Ivo locked the gate, and asleep soon thereafter. I heard him snoring as I read.”
    “You heard nothing else?”
    “Just that Phillip Woode, coming in late, from some ale-house or another.” I decided