The old servant nodded and continued, ‘The children loved their father. When he died they were both so sad. I remember coming across them, crying in each other’s arms. It was the only time I saw that.’ He looked up at us. ‘Since my mistress died and this argument over the painting began, I have not known what to do or say. It has been a burden, sirs – ’

‘Then let us help you,’ Philip said quietly.

Vowell sighed deeply. ‘Mistress Johnson, as she was then, perhaps remarried too soon, only a year after Master Johnson died. But it was hard for her to keep the business going on her own, some people didn’t like trading with a woman, and the children were too young to help. But her new husband, Master Cotterstoke, he was a good man. My mistress knew that. The children, though – ’

I spoke quietly, remembering Barak and his mother. ‘Perhaps they thought it a betrayal?’

He looked up. ‘Yes. It was not – nice – to see them then. They would sit giggling and whispering together in corners, saying and doing – ’ he hesitated – ‘bad things.’

‘What sort of things?’ Philip asked.

‘Master Cotterstoke had a fine book of Roman poems, beautifully written and decorated – it was all done by hand; most books then were not these blocky printed things we have nowadays – and it disappeared. All the servants were set to look for it, but no one found it. And I remember the children watching us as we searched, smiling at each other. Other things of the master’s would go missing, too. I think the children were responsible. Yet Master Cotterstoke and especially the mistress thought it was us, careless servants. We always get the blame,’ he added bitterly.

‘The mistress and Master Cotterstoke were much preoccupied with each other then; the mistress had become pregnant. They barely noticed the children.’ He shook his head. ‘That angered them even more. I think Edward and Isabel had become much closer, united in their anger. Once I overheard them talking together on the stairs. Master Edward was saying they would be disinherited, everything would go to the new baby, their mother scarcely looked at them any more . . . And then – ’

‘Go on,’ I urged gently.

‘Sometimes Master Cotterstoke worked at home in the afternoon, going over his accounts. ‘He liked a bowl of pottage mid-afternoon. The cook would prepare it in the kitchen and take it up to him. One day after eating it he was violently sick, and very poorly for several days after. The physician thought he had eaten something bad. He recovered. But one of my jobs then was keeping down vermin, and there was a little bag of poison bought from a peddler that was good for killing mice. I remember just after Master Cotterstoke was ill, getting the bag from the outhouse to put a measure down in the stables and noticing that some had been taken – it had been almost full.’