by Paul Doherty
Thirdly, there was Master Chobham to deal with. On his return from St Grace’s, sitting slouched in the saddle as Philomel plodded along, Athelstan had carefully reflected on all the logical possibilities behind John Gaddesden’s murder here at the Sign of Hope. There was one that he was determined to pursue. Cranston returned, shaking his head.
‘As far as I can learn, Brother,’ he declared, ‘nobody took a horse this morning.’
‘It’s only four miles to Saint Grace’s Priory,’ Athelstan replied, ‘nothing more than a swift walk, and the same for the return journey. Moreover, I would wager that the trackway I rode along was not the shortest route.’ He tapped the table top with his fingers. ‘It’s very clever, Sir John. Saint Grace’s was ideal for an ambush. Nothing is more desolate or lonely than a Carthusian house: it’s part of the rule for the good brothers to avoid each other. Even if a stranger was glimpsed it would not necessarily provoke interest. And there is something else …’
‘Brother?’
‘This business of Castile, Sir John, I think it’s more important than we realise. I am trying to create a picture, resolve a puzzle. Now, correct me if I am wrong: there’s a king of Castile on the one hand and the claims of John of Gaunt on the other, and these claims are taken very seriously.’
‘Of course, Brother. You must remember who Gaunt is: the son of the famous Edward III, younger brother to the ruthless Black Prince. Both these princes took armies to France. The prospect of an English army landing in Castile or crossing the border from Southern France is not too fanciful. Naturally they claim it is secret business, but it’s not hard to guess that Thibault is meeting the envoys in Canterbury to discuss the possibility of an English army entering Castile and what support it will receive. Why do you ask now, Brother?’
‘We are making progress, Sir John, but it’s like going through a castle where all the doors are locked and we have to open them.’ Athelstan got to his feet. ‘Let us close with our enemy. Time is passing. I have a deep suspicion that Azrael may be preparing to flee and do his best to evade capture. Bring Master Chobham here. Oh, and whatever I say, agree with.’
‘Brother, what are you playing at?’
‘I am playing at nothing. I am pursuing the truth. We are on the verge of unravelling this great mystery. But come, hurry, we have waited long enough.’
Cranston left and returned with a sweaty-faced Chobham. The taverner was swathed in a great bloodstained apron. He began to apologise for his appearance.
‘Oh shut up!’ Athelstan tried to curb the rage still seething within him. ‘Just shut up!’ The friar pointed at the chair. ‘Sit down and tell me the truth or else.’
Chobham hurried to obey. ‘Brother Athelstan,’ he flustered, ‘what is this? What do you mean, the truth?’
‘John Gaddesden. He invited his killer, the assassin known as Azrael, into his chamber, but Gaddesden was dead when Azrael left. How he died or who was there is not your business. Nevertheless, let me assure you, the only way the murderer could have escaped that chamber was through the door. So he must have had the duplicate key which, as you informed me and the King’s officer here, never left the keyring you hug so close to your fat belly. Now that’s a lie, you know it is, and so do I. I suggest you were ordered, forced, coerced or blackmailed to leave the key out to be collected and told it would be returned on the morning after the murder. I suspect you found it where you left it.’
‘But the latches on the door?’ Chobham gasped, mopping his brow.
‘Never mind those, master taverner. I will, in God’s own time, resolve that mystery as well. I wish to deal with you. So, Sir John?’ Athelstan glanced at the coroner. ‘What is the punishment for being the accomplice in the murder of a royal clerk?’
‘Hanging.’ Cranston had caught Athelstan’s mood and tenor. The coroner moved to tower over a now quivering taverner. ‘Of course, the Crown’s lawyers could argue it was misprision of treason or even high treason itself, bearing in mind who Master Gaddesden was. That’s not all,’ Cranston leaned down to glare at Chobham, ‘there’s your deceit, your pretence. Oh yes, mine host, it could be the filthiest pit in Newgate for you followed by a brutal journey on a sledge to Tyburn to be hanged until you are half dead, then your body opened. Who knows, Brother, the Crown lawyers may even argue that Master Chobham who, by his own admission, controlled the second key, was the murderer. Now that could entail a very, very nasty end.’ Chobham put his face in his hands and began to sob.
‘Or,’ Athelstan intervened, ‘you could tell us the truth and we would leave you alone. I have a feeling, Sir, that you were forced. I truly believe you did not realise the game you had been drawn into. So come,’ Athelstan snapped his fingers, ‘what do you choose, life or death?’
Chobham needed no further encouragement. In short, sharp sentences he blurted out how he had been attacked here in his own chamber at the Sign of Hope. How he had been threatened and told to wait for a message which would instruct him to allocate a certain room to one of the guests and to hand over the duplicate key to that chamber.
‘I was told that it was in connection with your pilgrimage. Once you’d arrived here, the message would be sent.’
‘And it was?’
‘Late on Monday evening after you arrived here,’ Chobham confessed, ‘a scrap of paper was pushed under my door. It could have been written by anyone. I burnt it when I found out what had happened. The message was simple enough: I was told to give John Gaddesden a certain chamber and to leave the duplicate key in the lock to the washtub.’ Chobham shrugged. ‘That’s an old laundry room, an outhouse overlooking the stable yard, which has a door with a huge, disused lock. You can easily fit a key in there and no one would notice it. I left it as I was ordered to. I never imagined what would happen.’
‘But you must have heard about the murders in the city?’ Cranston demanded. Chobham just shook his head.
‘I never, I never …’ His voice faltered.
‘You didn’t think to keep the washtub door under close watch?’
‘Go out yourself, Brother, and see. The old wash house stands between stables. People constantly pass it tending to their horses or moving from one part of the tavern to another. Moreover it was after dark. The door is ancient, the lock deep. Nobody would notice a key inserted there. I left it and found it returned the following morning.’ He paused at a knock at the door. Athelstan rose and answered it, listening carefully to what Crispin the carpenter told him before thanking his parishioner and closing the door.
‘So,’ Athelstan sat down, pulling the chair closer to Chobham, ‘you have no idea who threatened you?’
‘No!’
‘So why did you obey?’
Chobham wiped his greasy face with a rag. ‘I had no choice,’ he mumbled. ‘He knew things about me. I didn’t realise what he was plotting.’
‘Do you know anything about him?’
‘Just a mocking voice, rather young, and a garrotte string around my throat. Nasty threats to reveal my secret sins. As I said,’ Chobham gasped, ‘I never imagined it would lead to two men being cruelly murdered in my tavern. Yet even if I handed over the key,’ Chobham’s face abruptly changed, the tears drying up, replaced by a knowing, cunning look, ‘the latches,’ he continued, ‘they were brought down. I mean …’
‘I have also considered that,’ Athelstan retorted, ‘and I know the answer, as you do, master taverner.’ Athelstan rose and crossed to the door of his own chamber. He opened it and pushed it sideways, the door moved going back on its three supple, well-oiled leather hinges. Athelstan closed the door and pushed again. ‘You see,’ he declared. ‘If I push this door to the side, back on its hinges, a gap is created on the other side. The hinges are not metal but supple enough to move. Now, on some of your chamber doors, master taverner, the gap is quite narrow, but it is much broader on others. Anyway, it’s quite easy to push the door back on its hinges, create a gap wide enough to insert a dagger and prise the latchet down at both top an
d bottom. Once I have, I lock the door with the duplicate key as the assassin did, and walk away.’
Athelstan paused. ‘And, of course, there is another way, isn’t there?’ He returned to his door and pulled up the latches. ‘It’s quite possible to lift the latch so it hangs over the clasp. But when I slam the door shut the latch falls down. It may drop into its clasp or drop beside it. But that doesn’t really matter, does it? The door is locked and will have to be forced. Both lock and latch will be damaged.’
Athelstan stood for a while staring at Chobham busy dabbing his eyes or scratching his unshaven cheeks. ‘I asked a member of my parish, Crispin the carpenter, to go along the galleries of your tavern, Master Chobham. He found the latches well-greased. More importantly, some chamber doors, if pushed back on their leather hinges, create a gap wide enough for a dagger and, in some cases, even your fingers, to pull the latch down. But,’ Athelstan stood over the taverner and stared coldly down to him, ‘you know that, don’t you? There have been occasions here when some traveller becomes very sick or even dies and the door has to be forced, the latches pulled free, the lock turned with the duplicate key. Anyway,’ Athelstan paused, ‘tell me, Master Chobham, how did Azrael threaten you? Your love of soft, perfumed flesh? Of romping on your bed with some pretty maid, your wife being absent in the city visiting her brother at the Mitre?’ The taverner just stared back. ‘And, when were you actually threatened, the day and the time?’
‘Thursday last in the afternoon.’
‘Impossible!’
‘Brother Athelstan, I assure you it was then. My wife,’ the taverner gulped, ‘as you say, being absent.’
‘Why is this significant?’ Cranston demanded.
‘Sir John, Thursday was the time when Azrael was busy in the Tower killing and threatening, some twenty miles away on the other side of the Thames.’
‘He could not be in two places at the same time.’
‘Sir John, I wonder, I truly do,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘After all, Azrael has four faces and four wings.’
‘What do you mean?’ Chobham gabbled.
‘That does not concern you.’ Athelstan clapped Chobham so firmly on the shoulder the taverner startled. ‘Go away,’ Athelstan whispered, ‘and wait until I am truly finished here.’
Chobham scuttled out of the door. Athelstan and Cranston waited until his footsteps faded along the gallery outside.
‘What are you going to do now, Brother?’
‘I am going to hunt a demon, Sir John, trap him and, hopefully, despatch him to judgement, although it could be difficult and arduous. I need to study and reflect, so I am going to become a hermit. I do not wish to see anybody, I have nothing to say to anybody. Sir John, I want my parishioners to take turns guarding this chamber. I would also be very grateful if you would personally supervise both them and whatever food is brought up for me to eat.’
‘And then what?’
‘Sir John, trust me. Let the day go, the night come, the moon set and the sun rise. In the end, God’s justice will be done and seen to be done.’
True to his word, Athelstan became a hermit. He set out his writing tray, lit candles to create a constant pool of light and prepared to list everything he had learnt. Most of the time he sat staring into the middle distance as he recreated everything that had happened since he had walked into Mephan’s house in Milk Street. Time and again he reviewed the sequence of events and began to list what he called ‘milestones to murder’, significant details which might lead to a solution. How this solution would be worked out, Athelstan had yet to plot. Nevertheless, as he conceded to Sir John, time was of the essence and might be running out. He recalled that violent affray in the chantry chapel at St Grace’s: his assailant had been injured and would need some form of physic and medical care. Occasionally Cranston came up to sit beside him. Athelstan would ask after everyone then insist on returning to his task.
‘I am revising time and again,’ he assured Cranston, ‘and when I am finished, then we shall move. In the meantime, have you noticed anything untoward about any of our fellow pilgrims?’
Cranston shook his head and informed Athelstan that many of them were keeping to their own chambers or bedlofts. Athelstan worked on. Eventually he had the list he wanted, a possible path through the tangled thicket of murderous mystery. First, the description of the Gesarene demoniac in Chapter 8 of St Luke’s Gospel: the way ‘legio’ and ‘multi’ had been picked out and why Mephan would be fascinated by the verses as well as the secret contained in those two words. Secondly, he now understood the ease with which Felicia and Finchley had been so swiftly murdered and why no one had fled into the street. Thirdly, he believed the ransacked receipt coffer was worthy of note and was linked to what he had glimpsed in Mephan’s kitchen. Fourthly, the timing of Azrael’s sinister appearance in Mephan’s garden; the taunting of Athelstan with a corpse of a magpie, its neck all twisted, the reference to its plumage being the same as Athelstan’s robes, were all items of great importance. Fifthly, Mephan’s greed, and his boasting to young Felicia about the profits to be made played a decisive part in the clerk’s murder and that of his household.
Sixthly, the garrotting of the courier Empson. Athelstan now understood how this elusive messenger was discovered, trapped and murdered. Seventhly, the warnings delivered to Athelstan in Southwark. On reflection, Athelstan realised it would have been easy for Azrael to steal across the river, entice Bonaventure and loop the corpse of that magpie around the cat’s neck. Eighthly, the incidents in the Tower. The warnings delivered to Gaunt and his henchmen, was Azrael just demonstrating his power? Athelstan also concluded how Luke Gaddesden had been trapped and so easily murdered. The mystery around his death had been created by the bargeman Maulkin, who had been forced, bribed or possibly both, to lie about what he had seen. On that particular Thursday afternoon, Azrael had been busy murdering in London as well as blackmailing Chobham so as to prepare for another murder here at the Sign of Hope. Athelstan now understood how it all had been carried out.
Ninthly, Athelstan was now certain about how John Gaddesden was so mysteriously killed here in his chamber at the Sign of Hope. He also understood why poor Monkshood had paid a terrible price for not attending that communal prayer meeting in the taproom below, just after the pilgrims arrived at the tavern. Finally, the violent assault on himself at St Grace’s. The friar also realised how and when Azrael had learnt about his brother’s tomb as well as the friar’s determination to visit St Grace’s.
At last Athelstan was finished. On the evening of the third day after his return from the Carthusian house, Cranston asked Athelstan if he would like to join the rest in the taproom below. Physician Giole and his family had announced that they could not delay any further; they intended to return to London and make the pilgrimage on another occasion. As a fond farewell, physician Giole had promised to cook a splendid evening supper to which all were invited. Athelstan excused himself but advised Cranston to be ready and armed early the next morning. The friar then invited Pike, Watkin and the hangman to his chamber. He begged them not to drink too deeply and to have their weapons ready. More than that, he would not say, except that he pleaded with all three parishioners to keep silent on what he had asked.
A servant, as arranged, woke Athelstan just before dawn the following morning. The friar had sat and listened to all the revelry the previous evening. He had reviewed and revised his indictment then prayed fervently for divine guidance by reciting both Vespers and Compline. Afterwards he had slept for a few hours and was now refreshed, ready for the fray. He hurriedly dressed and sent the same servant to rouse Sir John and his three parishioners, who had decided to sleep in a warm, comfortable hay loft above the stables. Athelstan decided not to wait for anyone but went down into the great taproom where, as he suspected, physician Giole and his family were seated around a table close to the great window overlooking the tavern gardens. The shutters had been pulled back, the early morning light bathing the table and those group
ed around it. Athelstan felt a tingle of fear. In the half-light Giole and his coven looked truly dangerous; cloaked, cowled and booted, baggage and weaponry heaped on the floor beside them. A scullion had served them ale, bread and cheese to break their fast. They had eaten and now seemed ready to leave. Four dark, sinister figures against the light, assassins, Athelstan thought, murderous members of the tribe of Cain.
‘We have to leave, Athelstan.’ Giole didn’t even bother to rise. The way he spoke, fingers tapping the dagger in his belt, as if he’d already realised Athelstan had deduced the truth about them. ‘We have to leave,’ Giole repeated.
‘Of course you do.’ Athelstan picked up a stool and sat down facing them. ‘You must return to London. I wonder, I truly do, which one of you I injured at Saint Grace’s? I delivered a powerful, bone-crushing blow. You, Giole, could attend to it, but I suspect real physic is needed and you can hardly let the injured person hobble around for me to see.’ Giole mockingly clapped his hands.
‘You accuse us of what, friar?’
‘Let me see …’ Athelstan quietly prayed that the servant had roused Cranston and the others. The friar felt genuinely afraid sitting in this deserted taproom confronting these four killers who crouched like wolves ready to attack.
‘What do you want with us, friar?’ Giole’s voice was low and threatening.
‘You call me friar and not Athelstan, and that’s a good place to start. You truly hate me, don’t you? Not just because I investigate your bloody, nefarious handiwork but because I am a priest and, above all, a Dominican.’
‘Canes Domini,’ Felipe called out.
Athelstan noticed that the young Spaniard sat rather awkwardly and wondered if he was the one he had injured during the affray at St Grace’s.