Paul Doherty - Murder Wears a Cowl

‘Keep on the straight and narrow,’ he warned. ‘From next Monday, the sheriffs intend to use all malefactors in the city gaols to clear the ditch and have the rubbish rowed out to sea to be dumped.’

Corbett, still thinking about the corpse he had just viewed, stopped at Fleet Bridge to buy a ladle of fresh water from tipplers selling it from stoups and water barrels. The others joined him and they washed their mouths before continuing down Holborn towards the Strand. They passed the church of St Dunstan’s in the West, the Chancery record office, went under Temple Bar and on to the broad Strand leading down to Westminster. The great highway was lined by the freshly plastered and painted great inns belonging to certain nobles; the road was busy with judges, lawyers and clerks, dressed in their rayed gowns and white coifs, making their way to and from the courts.

Outside the hospital of Our Lady of Roncesvalles, near the village of Charing, Corbett stopped to admire the new beautifully carved cross erected by his royal master in memory of his beloved wife Eleanor. Moving on, they rounded a bend in the road and saw before them the gables, towers and ornately carved stonework of Westminster Abbey and Palace. Entering the royal precincts by a small postern gate in the northern wall, they saw, to the right, the great mass of the abbey and, nearer to them, wedged neatly between the abbey and the palace grounds, the beautiful church of St Margaret. Yet the splendour of both the abbey and the church was tarnished by rusting scaffold stacked haphazardly against the walls by the masons who had ceased work when the treasury had run out of money to pay them.

Cade pointed north, around the other side of the abbey. ‘Over there,’ he remarked, ‘in the middle of a small orchard you will find the ruins of Father Benedict’s house and,’ he moved his arm, ‘behind the abbey church is the Chapter House where the Sisters of St Martha meet. Shall we go there first?’

Corbett shook his head. ‘No, first we will visit the palace and see the steward, he may be able to give us more information.’

Cade pulled a face. ‘The steward is William Senche. He’s usually half-drunk and can’t tell you what hour of the day it is. You know how it is, Sir Hugh, when the cat’s away the rats will play.’

They led their horses into the palace yard. The King had been absent from his palace for several years and the signs of neglect were apparent; weeds sprouted in the palace yard, the windows were shuttered, the doors locked and barred, the stables empty and the flower-beds overgrown. A mongrel dog ran out and, hackles raised, stood yapping at them until Ranulf drove it off. Near the Exchequer House, overlooking the overgrown riverside gardens, they found a glum-eyed servant and despatched him to search out William Senche. The latter appeared at the top of the steps leading from St Stephen’s Chapel and Corbett muttered a curse. William Senche looked what he was: a toper born and bred. He had bulbous, fish-like eyes, a slobbering mouth and a nose as fiery as a beacon. With his scrawny red hair and beetling brow, he was a very ugly man. He had already sampled the grape but when he realised who Corbett was, he tried to put a brave face on it; his answers were sharp and abrupt but he kept looking away as if he wished to hide something.

‘No, no,’ he remarked in a tetchy voice. ‘I know nothing about the Sisters of St Martha. They meet in the abbey and things there,’ he added darkly,’ are under the authority of Abbot Wenlock and he’s very ill.’

‘So, who’s in charge?’

‘Well, there are only fifty monks, most of whom are old. Prior Roger is dead, so the sacristan Adam Warfield is in charge.’

The man danced from foot to foot as if he wished to relieve himself. His nervousness increased as Cade moved to one side of him and Ranulf to the other.

‘Come, come, Master William,’ Corbett mildly taunted. ‘You are an important official, not some court butterfly. There are other matters we wish to talk to you about.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, one in particular, Father Benedict’s death.’

‘I know nothing,’ the fellow blurted out.

Corbett plucked him gently by the front of his food-stained jerkin. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is the last lie you will tell me. On the evening of Tuesday, May twelfth, you discovered Father Benedict’s house on fire.’

‘Yes, yes,’ the fellow’s eyes snapped open.

‘And how did you do that? The house can’t be seen from the palace yard.’

‘I couldn’t sleep. I went for a walk. I saw the smoke and flames and rang the tocsin bell.’

‘Then what?’

‘There’s a small well amongst the trees. We brought buckets but the flames were fierce.’ The man pulled his lips down which made him look even more like a landed carp. ‘When the fire was out we examined the rooms. Father Benedict was lying just behind the door.’

‘He had a key in his hand?’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Anything else untoward?’

‘No.’

‘And do you know how the fire started?’

‘Father Benedict was old, he may have dropped a candle, an oil lamp, or a spark from the fire could have been the cause.’

‘And you noticed nothing suspicious?’

‘No, nothing at all. I can’t tell you any more than that. Adam of Warfield would be of more help.’ With that the fellow turned and bolted like a rabbit who had suddenly seen a fox.

Corbett looked at Cade, raised his eyebrows and went back through the postern gate into the abbey grounds, the under-sheriff laughing loudly at Ranulf’s mimicry of the steward’s accent and strange antics.

Before them rose the great mass of the abbey church and its stone carvings: snarling gargoyles and visions of hell. Corbett studied the latter, fascinated by the horrors the sculptor had so subtly depicted. Beneath a triumphant Christ in Judgement, the damned were being led by ghastly demons to be cooked in a great vat of bubbling oil where devils poked the unfortunate lost souls with spears and swords like cooks would do when boiling pieces of meat. Corbett heard a noise and looked to his left across the great empty vastness of the old cemetery. The grass and hemp were almost a yard and a half high but Corbett glimpsed an old gardener doing his best to clean the area around the graves.

‘Sir,’ Corbett called out. ‘You have a task and a half there.’

The man half turned and faced Corbett with watery eyes and dirt-stained cheeks.

‘Oh, aye,’ the gardener replied in a thick rustic accent, tapping a derelict headstone. ‘But my customers don’t object.’

Corbett smiled and looked away at the great rounded buildings overlooking the cemetery.

‘Is that the Chapter House?’

Cade nodded.

‘And the crypt lies beneath it?’

‘Yes.’

Corbett studied the thick buttresses and heavy granite wall. ‘Tell me again, how the crypt can be entered.’

‘Well, behind the Chapter House,’ Cade said, ‘lies the cloister but the crypt can only be entered by a door in the south-east corner of the abbey church. As I have said, the door is sealed. Behind that door there’s a low vaulted passage which descends by a steep flight of steps. These steps are broken and, to get down into the crypt, where the treasure lies, special ladders have to be used.’ Cade narrowed his eyes. ‘I have already told you this so why the fresh interest?’

‘I am just thinking of Father Benedict’s cryptic message.’ He smiled at the pun. ‘I wondered if his warning was about the treasury? Perhaps he saw something?’

Cade shook his head. ‘I doubt it. The treasury door is sealed, barred and locked, and even if you could get in, you would need siege equipment to reach the heart of the crypt. Moreover, I doubt if the good brothers would allow someone to climb out of their crypt with bags of treasure.’