"I am tidying my mistress's room, and have had hard work I promise you," replied the girl, impudently. "Mayhap you will give me a help whilst you wait, Sir Taciturn? This is the fifth basket of rubbish I have borne from the demoiselle Marie's little cupboard."
"I will readily help you if you will help me," said Scarlett, pleasantly. "Canst tell me who wrote this little paper? The writing seemeth familiar to mine eyes."
"'Tis a piece of my lady's jesting," said the girl, after a glance at the parchment. "'Twas written in imitation of Master Fitzwalter's hand after we had searched his house last year. Ah, poor man, who would have then imagined so hard a fate for him?" She sighed prodigiously, and rolled her eyes.
"Tell me the story of this murder, mistress, I pray you."
She was not loth to fall a-chattering, and she told Scarlett all she knew of it. From the rambling history he discovered another strange fact, that Roger de Burgh had been cook in the Sheriff's household before he had gone to the Fitzwalter house. Slowly he began to see that the letter he had so blithely put into Marian's hand was a forgery, done by the clever fingers of the demoiselle Marie.
"So," thought he, swiftly, "Mistress Fitzwalter was persuaded to return to this place in order that Robin Hood might visit her secretly. The house was watched by a spy from the Sheriff's own kitchen. Soon as Robin came, this spy was to give warning; or, if matters pressed, kill him. But after many months of waiting, Fitzwalter came instead."
His quick mind, used to the intrigues and plots of a capricious Court, had unravelled the mystery. Yet how could he act upon this knowledge in the midst of the enemy's camp? If the Sheriff could stoop already to such foul business as this, to what further lengths would he not go? Dismissing himself through the girl, Scarlett strode out of the castle. The air seemed fresher and more wholesome without. He enquired and found his way to the house of grief, and there asked audience with its little heart-broken mistress.
Whilst Scarlett was plotting and inventing a hundred schemes to save Little John, a poor wandering priest appeared one evening before the gates of Nottingham Castle. Most humbly he begged a little bread and a drink of water; and, having received these, he blessed the place and all within it.
"You should not bless all within this castle, Sir Priest," the Sheriff told him. Monceux had pompously administered to the man's simple wants with his own hands. "There is a villain in our cells who hath done wicked murder."