‘I mean the theft of documents that occurred at Christmas,’ said Bartholomew.
‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Michael. ‘What documents?’
Bartholomew edged away from the monk, slightly alarmed by the anger in his voice. ‘According to Pechem and Kenyngham, Lincolne reported a theft from his friary to Walcote—’
‘Did he now?’ asked Michael softly. ‘And how is it that I have been told nothing about it?’
‘Kenyngham said it was discussed at Walcote’s secret meetings,’ said Bartholomew, regarding the monk uneasily. He had predicted outrage and indignation when he informed Michael about the rumours that were circulating about him, but not cold fury.
‘And they accuse me of this crime?’ demanded Michael.
Half wishing he had not broached the subject, Bartholomew continued: ‘They said you were seen in the Carmelite Friary the night the documents went missing; you were spotted carrying a loaded bag away from the friary towards Michaelhouse the same night; and they told me you claimed it contained bread for your colleagues, when it did not.’
‘I see,’ said Michael. He gazed into Bartholomew’s face. ‘And what do you make of this story? Do you imagine me to be the kind of man to steal from a friary in the middle of the night?’
Bartholomew shook his head. ‘Of course not, Brother. And I told both Kenyngham and Pechem that they were wrong. But what is worse than this accusation of theft is that they have reasoned that whoever stole the documents also had a good reason for killing Walcote.’
Michael gazed up at the bare branches of the trees above him. ‘They think I murdered Walcote because he was about to expose me as a common thief. Damn Walcote for his suspicious mind!’
Bartholomew shot him a sidelong glance. ‘I have no doubts about your innocence. We will have to work to prove it to those who do.’
Michael gave a tired grin. ‘You are a good friend, Matt. I do not deserve such unquestioning loyalty. It makes me feel guilty.’
Bartholomew gazed at him in alarm. ‘What are you saying, Brother?’
Michael shrugged. ‘I see I have disappointed you.’
‘No!’ said Bartholomew, still staring. ‘Are you telling me that Kenyngham and Pechem are right? That you really did break into the friary and make off with some of the University’s most valuable documents?’
‘Yes and no,’ said Michael. ‘I removed documents, but I was hardly “breaking in”. I had arranged for doors and gates to be left unlocked and the porter to be drinking ale in the kitchens with a servant who owed me a favour. It was a pity I did not know about the baker’s problematic oven sooner, because obviously I would not have used buying bread as my excuse for being caught red-handed on my way home. That was poor planning on my part.’
Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair, his thoughts tumbling in confusion. ‘But why did you not tell me this sooner? It may be important.’
‘It is not,’ said Michael dismissively. ‘However, I understand why Walcote thought so. He must have wondered why the Senior Proctor was raiding friaries in the middle of the night.’
‘He was not the only one,’ said Bartholomew, horrified. ‘So do the heads of half the religious Orders in Cambridge.’
‘It is unfortunate Walcote did not confront me about it, though,’ continued Michael pensively. ‘Then I could have taken him into my confidence, and he would not have felt the need to chatter about it at his secret meetings with people who had no right to know my business.’
‘And what was this business?’ asked Bartholomew warily.
Michael glanced at him. ‘I can assure you it was nothing sinister. The truth is that Prior Lincolne had become somewhat fanatical in his beliefs by Christmas, and I did not like the idea of storing sensitive information at his friary. Because he is radically opposed to nominalism, I did not want him to see any of the documents pertaining to the arrangements I am making with Heytesbury – who is a nominalist.’
‘You took the deeds relating to the Oxford proposal?’ asked Bartholomew in sudden understanding.
Michael nodded. ‘I took the property deeds of the church and farms I propose to pass to Heytesbury, along with the information telling us how profitable they are. Plus, I took priceless books written by other great nominalists, like John Dumbleton and Richard Swineshead. Lincolne is the kind of man to consign that sort of text to the flames, and I do not approve of book-burning.’
Bartholomew knew Michael was right on that score. When Heytesbury’s Regulae Solvendi Sophismata had been found among Faricius’s belongings, Lincolne had ordered it burned without a moment’s hesitation.
‘That was all?’ he asked. ‘You committed the theft only to remove sensitive items from the Carmelite Friary?’
‘Yes,’ Michael confirmed. ‘But I wish you would not insist on calling it a theft. It was nothing of the kind. It was merely me taking documents from one place and securing them in another. If I were a serious thief, I would have had the gold that was stored in the chest, too, not just the texts.’
‘True,’ acknowledged Bartholomew, recalling the scrap of parchment he had found in Michael’s room when he had been writing an account of Faricius’s murder. Walcote’s list of stolen items had mentioned no missing gold.
‘I could hardly be open about what I was doing, could I?’ Michael continued. ‘How do you think Lincolne would have reacted if I had told him he was no longer to be trusted with some of the University’s business?’
‘He would have been offended,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And he might even have been vindictive.’
‘Quite,’ agreed Michael. ‘This arrangement with Oxford is important, and, after losing the Mastership of Michaelhouse to it, I did not want all my work to come to nothing because an old bigot like Lincolne got wind of it by rummaging through the documents stored in his friary.’
‘Where did you put these books and deeds?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘You could not store duplicate copies in St Mary’s tower – what would be the point of keeping two sets in the same place? – and you always claim that you never keep anything valuable in your office or in your room at Michaelhouse.’
‘Right,’ said Michael. ‘But I do keep them in a damp little corner of Michaelhouse’s wine cellars. But only Chancellor Tynkell, Agatha and now you know about that.’
‘So you had good reason to assume that last night’s intruders did not find what they wanted: you knew that whatever it was would have been in the cellar?’
Michael rubbed his chin, the bristles rasping under his fingernails. ‘I have already considered the possibility that last night’s raid was related to the documents I “stole”, and discounted it. I suppose it is remotely possible that someone was desperate to get his hands on an annotated copy of Dumbleton’s Summa Logicae et Philosophiae Naturalis, but I sincerely doubt it. I do not know what these intruders thought they might find, but I cannot believe it was anything to do with my arrangements with Oxford or the nominalist texts I have safeguarded.’
‘How can you be sure?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘I imagine Heytesbury would love to see the finances of the properties he plans to take from you. Has it occurred to you that he has a very good reason to search your room?’
‘Heytesbury?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘I do not think so, Matt! The man is a scholar, for God’s sake, not a burglar!’
‘He is also a cunning negotiator who is determined to do his best for Oxford,’ argued Bartholomew, declining to mention that Michael himself was also a scholar, but that did not stop him from removing what he wanted from the Carmelite Friary. ‘You cannot be sure that he was not one of the intruders.’
‘Heytesbury and Morden?’ asked Michael, amused. ‘They would make odd bedfellows.’
‘Heytesbury might have hired someone else to commit the burglary,’ pressed Bartholomew. ‘He is not stupid, and would not risk being caught stealing from the Senior Proctor’s room himself.’
‘We will put these questions to Morden later today,’ said Mich
ael. ‘But I think you are wrong. And anyway, the person in Cambridge whom Heytesbury seems to like best is your nephew Richard. The lad has taken to carrying ornate daggers and riding black war-horses around the town. Perhaps he has also taken to burglary.’
‘No!’ said Bartholomew firmly. ‘Not Richard. He may be a fool, but he is not a criminal.’
Michael shrugged. ‘As I said, we will ask Morden.’
‘Several important issues were discussed at Walcote’s meetings,’ said Bartholomew, dragging his thoughts away from the unpleasant possibility that Richard might have been the man who attacked him on the darkened stairwell. ‘Besides repairing the Great Bridge and discussing philosophy, they talked about the plot to murder you and the theft from the friary. I wonder whether Walcote thought the two subjects were connected.’
‘You think he believed that someone wanted me dead, because I am seen as a thief ?’ asked Michael. He blew out his cheeks in a sigh. ‘It is possible, I suppose.’
‘Some people believe that Walcote’s investigation of the theft led him too close to the culprit,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘Pechem and Kenyngham saw an association between his death and the theft you committed.’
Michael’s face was sombre. ‘I can accept that people see me as the kind of man to steal, but I cannot imagine how they could see me – me – as the kind of man to take the life of my deputy.’
‘What shall we do about it?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘It was my original intention to prove you innocent of the theft, so that you would be absolved of the murder. Your confession just now has put paid to that plan.’
‘Then we shall just have to go one step further, and find Walcote’s killer instead. That will prove me innocent beyond any shadow of a doubt.’
They were silent for a while, each wrapped in his own thoughts.
‘Did you know that Walcote made a list of the documents you took from the Carmelite Friary?’ asked Bartholomew eventually.
Michael nodded. ‘He jotted down his initial report in rough, then scribed it more neatly for the Chancellor – who knows exactly why I removed those particular items, before you ask. Carelessly, Walcote discarded his first copy in the box where we keep used parchment. I found it later.’
‘It was among the scraps in your room.’
‘I meant to burn it, but I forgot. It must have sat there undisturbed and forgotten for three months, until you discovered it by chance.’
‘Why did the Chancellor not tell Walcote that the theft from the Carmelite Friary was not what it seemed?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Did Tynkell distrust Walcote?’
‘He considered him too gentle and too easily led. Tynkell decided not to tell Walcote the truth about the “theft”, although he was obliged to ask him to investigate. It would have looked odd had he instructed him to forget about it.’
Bartholomew was feeling exhausted by the twists and turns the plot had taken. He was also hungry, and was grateful when the bell chimed to announce that breakfast was ready.
‘And there are other things I do not understand,’ Michael went on as they walked slowly towards the hall, ‘such as what is Simon Lynne’s role in all this? I am sure he is connected in some way, because I am positive he is lying.’
‘And Tysilia and the meetings at St Radegund’s,’ said Bartholomew. ‘There is a link between her and Walcote, I am sure.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Michael noncommittally, ‘although I am less convinced of that than you. We shall visit Matilde again today, to see if she has learned anything new.’
Matilde. Bartholomew sighed at yet another aspect of the case that was worrying him, and he wished with all his heart that she was anywhere but at St Radegund’s with Tysilia for company.
Michael nudged him in the ribs, and gave a weak grin. ‘Do not look so sombre, Matt. I know this has not been a pleasant night, but we will solve this mystery. And we will have Arbury’s killers brought to justice.’
‘But not by Easter Day,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You claimed we would have this mess cleaned up before Sunday, and it is Friday already.’
‘That was when I had only two deaths to investigate, and when the case seemed less complex. I had not anticipated that more people would die. The wager we had, giving the winner an evening of indulgence at the Brazen George, is now invalid. What are your plans today? Will you help me?’
‘I have patients to see,’ said Bartholomew.
‘Then I will accompany you, and you can assist me when you have finished,’ suggested Michael. ‘Now that the only decent student you ever had – Tom Bulbeck – has gone to make his fortune in Norwich, you are in need of a good assistant.’
‘I have other students,’ said Bartholomew, not wanting Michael with him while he did his rounds. Although he often did take his students with him, he preferred to work alone. Most people did not take kindly to spotty youths poking at them and asking impertinent questions, and he knew that the sick were more likely to be honest about embarrassing symptoms if there was not a crowd of undergraduates listening with mawkish fascination. And Michael would be worse. He would not like hearing descriptions of bowel movements and phlegm production, and was likely to intimidate any nervous patients with his impatience and distaste.
‘None of your students will compare with me,’ bragged Michael. ‘You will see. Once you have seen me in action, you will never want a student with you again.’
‘Very well,’ said Bartholomew reluctantly, seeing that the monk was not to be deterred and that he would have company that morning, whether he wanted it or not.
‘We shall see your patients as soon as we have eaten breakfast, and when we have done that, we will return this glove to Prior Morden and ask him how he came to lose it. And then I think it is time we paid another visit to St Radegund’s Convent. The time for lies and deceit is over, Matt. We shall put the fear of God into all these people who have been lying to us – Lincolne, Morden, Simon Lynne, Horneby and those disgraceful women at St Radegund’s Convent – and then we shall have some answers.’
‘My God, Matt!’ breathed Michael, as they emerged from the single-roomed shack near the river where Dunstan, one of Bartholomew’s oldest patients, lived. ‘How can you stand to do things like that day after day?’
‘The same way you are happy dealing with the crimes of the University, I imagine,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘Although I do not see what you are making a fuss about. None of the cases this morning have been particularly difficult.’
‘Not for you, perhaps,’ said Michael fervently. ‘I have a new-found admiration for you, Matt. You have nerves of steel and nothing revolts you – not the phlegm that old man had been saving for your inspection, not that festering wound that smelled as though its owner was three days dead, and not prodding about in that screeching child’s infected ear. No wonder you do not object to examining bodies for me. It is a pleasure for you after what your living patients require you to do.’
‘Do you plan to help me in the future?’ asked Bartholomew mildly, smiling at the monk’s vehemence. ‘You promised that I would never want a student after I had been assisted by you.’
‘You probably will not,’ said Michael haughtily. ‘I have no doubts that I dealt with your patients better than would any of your would-be physicians. But I am not for hire. You will have to manage without me.’
‘How will I cope?’ asked Bartholomew, amused.
‘Now you have finished, we should begin the real business of the day,’ said Michael, taking Bartholomew’s arm and steering him up one of the lanes that ran between the river and the High Street. ‘We must talk seriously to Morden about his glove, then I want to question Eve Wasteneys again: I want to know whether Dame Martyn’s “nephew” – Lynne – still lingers with his “aunt”.’
‘Not if he has any sense,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He was frightened of something, and abandoned the Carmelite Friary very promptly. He may be at Barnwell, though. Perhaps we should look for him there, as well as St Radegund’s.’
As th
ey walked along the High Street, they met Brother Timothy outside St Mary’s Church. He had been giving the beadles their daily instructions, and was just dispatching the last of them to go about their business. He was grimly satisfied to hear they finally had a solid clue regarding the mystery, and willingly agreed to accompany them to arrest Morden. Together, the three of them made their way to the Dominican Friary, where Timothy knocked politely at the gate.
While they waited for an answer, Timothy nodded down at his cloak. ‘Look at this. What a mess, eh?’
Bartholomew had already noticed that instead of the black prescribed by the Benedictine Order, Timothy’s cloak was a uniform and rather tatty grey.
‘You should invest in another garment,’ advised Michael, regarding it doubtfully. ‘No self-respecting Benedictine wants to be mistaken for a Franciscan – and you will be, if you wear that.’
Timothy grimaced. ‘It was filthy from wandering around Cambridge’s muddy streets, and so I took it to Yolande de Blaston to be cleaned.’
‘Yolande de Blaston?’ asked Michael. ‘The whore?’
‘She also takes in laundry,’ said Timothy. ‘She is expecting her tenth child, and her whoring days are limited now. She needs all the money she can lay her hands on for her first nine brats, so all us Benedictines send her our laundry; we feel sorry for her.’
‘She is not as good a laundress as Agatha,’ said Michael, studying the cloak critically. ‘Yolande used water that was too hot, and it has taken the colour out.’
Timothy nodded. ‘I shall have to take it to Oswald Stanmore to be re-dyed. Do not mention this to Yolande, will you? I do not want her to worry that the Benedictines will take their trade elsewhere when she is about to give birth. She has more than enough to concern her already.’
Bartholomew was impressed that Timothy should consider the feelings of a lowly prostitute when he must have been angry that his fine cloak had been so badly misused. It was true that Stanmore could re-dye the damaged fabric, but it was unlikely to be as good as it had been. Bartholomew felt new admiration for a man who was not only prepared to overlook the damage to his property and the inconvenience of looking like a Franciscan, but was also keen that the perpetrator should not suffer for it. Timothy was right: Yolande de Blaston was desperately poor, and would need any work provided by the Benedictines.
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