Paul Doherty - By Murder's bright light

The beadle took his heavy bunch of keys and began to free the prisoners, who rubbed their fingers and faces. The smiling Franciscan waddled up.

‘May Christ bless you, Master Shawditch.’

‘Aye,’ the under-sheriff mumbled. ‘May Christ bless me. Now, Father, you make sure that the beadle spends my money well. Come along, Sir John.’

The under-sheriff walked on, Cranston hurrying behind him.

‘They say you are a bastard,’ Cranston murmured. Though a fair bastard.’

‘Aye, Sir John, and I have heard the same about you.’ Shawditch looked over his shoulder, back at the stocks. ‘I thought as much.’

‘What?’

‘That bloody pickpocket has just filched my coin from the beadle!’

Cranston grinned and held a gloved hand up against an ear which was beginning to ache in the stinging cold.

‘Too bloody cold for anything,’ he murmured as they turned into Bread Street.

‘Not for the burglars,’ Shawditch replied.

He stopped before a tall timber-framed house, well maintained and newly painted. Cranston stared appreciatively at the gaudily painted heraldic shields above the door.

‘Selpot must have sold a lot of skins,’ he commented.

‘Aye,’ Shawditch replied. ‘Including those of many of his customers.’

They knocked on the door. An anxious-faced steward ushered them into a small comfortable parlour and pushed stools in front of the roaring fire.

‘You want some wine?’ He looked at Shawditch.

This is the city coroner, Sir John Cranston,’ the under-sheriff told him. ‘And you, I forget your name?’

‘Latchkey, the steward!’

‘Ah, yes, Master Latchkey.’

‘We’ll have some wine,’ Cranston trumpeted. ‘Thick, red claret.’

He looked around the small room, admiring the gleaming wainscoting, the rich wall-hangings and a small painted triptych above the fireplace. Bronze hearth tools stood in the inglenook and thick woollen rugs covered the stone floor.

‘I am sure Master Selpot has some good burgundy,’ he continued, threateningly.

Latchkey hurried across to a cupboard standing in the window embrasure and brought back two brimming cups.

‘Well, tell us what happened.’ Cranston drained the wine in one gulp and held his hand out for a refill. ‘Come on, man, bring the jug over! You don’t happen to have a spare chicken leg?’

The fellow shook his head dolefully, then refilled Sir John’s cup before telling his sorry tale – his master was absent from the city and, on the previous night, some felon had entered the house and stolen cloths, precious cups and trinkets from the upper storeys.

‘And where were you and the servants?’ Cranston asked.

‘Oh, on the lower floor, Sir John.’ The man gnawed at his lip. ‘You see, the servants’ quarters are here, no one sleeps in the garret. Master Selpot is insistent on that. I have a small chamber at the back of the house, the scullions, cooks and spit boys sleep in the kitchen or hall.’

‘And you heard nothing?’

‘No, Sir John. Come, let me show you.’

Latchkey promptly led them on a tour of the sumptuous house, demonstrating how the windows were secured by shutters that were padlocked from the inside.

‘And you are sure no window was left open?’

‘Certain, Sir John.’

‘And the doors below were locked?’

‘Yes, Sir John. We also have dogs but they heard nothing.’

‘And there’s no secret entrance?’

‘None whatsoever, Sir John.’

‘And the roof?’

Latchkey shrugged and led them up into the cold garret, which served as a storeroom. Cranston gazed up but he could see no chink in the roof.

‘How much has gone?’ he asked as they went back downstairs.

‘Five silver cups, two of them jewelled. Six knives, two of them gold, three silver, one copper. A statuette of the Virgin Mary carved in marble. Two soup spoons, also of gold. Five silver plates, one jewel-rimmed.’

Shawditch groaned at the long list.

Downstairs Cranston donned his beaver hat and cloak.

‘Could the servants have done it?’ he asked.

Latchkey’s lugubrious face became even more sombre.

‘Sir John, it was I who discovered the thefts. I immediately searched everyone. Nothing was found.’

Cranston raised his eyes heavenwards, thanked the steward and, followed by an equally mystified under-sheriff, walked back into the freezing street.

‘How many did you say,’ Cranston asked. ‘Six since Michaelmas?’

Shawditch glumly nodded.

‘And where’s Trumpington?’

Shawditch pointed along the street. ‘Where he always is at this hour, in the Merry Pig.’

Stepping gingerly round the piles of refuse, they made their way down the street: they turned up an alleyway where a gaudy yellow sign, depicting a red pig playing the bagpipes, creaked and groaned on its iron chains. Inside the taproom they found Trumpington, the ward beadle, stuffing his face with a fish pie, not stopping to clear his mouth before draining a blackjack of frothy ale. He hardly stirred when Cranston and Shawditch announced themselves; he just gave a loud belch and began busily to clean his teeth with his thumbnail. Cranston tried to hide his dislike of the man. He secretly considered Trumpington a pig, with his squat body, red, obese face, quivering jowls, hairy nostrils and quick darting eyes under a low forehead, always fringed with dirty yellow hair.

‘There’s been a robbery!’ Trumpington announced.

‘Yes, the sixth in this ward!’ Cranston snapped.

Trumpington cleaned his mouth with his tongue and Sir John, for the first time in weeks, refused an offer of a drink or a morsel to eat.

‘It’s not my fault!’ Trumpington brayed. ‘I walk the streets every night. Well, when it’s my tour of duty. I see nothing amiss and the robberies are as much a mystery to me as they are to you, my fine fellows.’

Cranston smiled sweetly and, placing his hands over Trumpington’s, pressed firmly until he saw the man wince.

‘You never see anything amiss?’

‘Nothing,’ the fellow wheezed, his face turning slightly purple at the pressure on his hand.

‘Well.’ Cranston pushed back his stool and lifted his hand. ‘Keep your eyes open.’ He tugged at Shawditch’s sleeve and they both left the taproom.

‘A veritable mystery,’ Shawditch commented. He glanced warily at Cranston. ‘You know there will be the devil to pay over this.’

Cranston waited until a group of apprentices, noisily kicking an inflated pig’s bladder down the street, rushed by whooping and yelling. Then he thought aloud. ‘Six houses. All in this ward. All belonging to powerful merchants but, with their owners away, occupied only by servants. No sign of forced entry, either by door or through a window. Robbery from within?’ He shook his head. ‘It is impossible to accept collusion between footpads and the servants of six different households.’ He blew out his cheeks, stamping his feet against the cold. ‘First there will be murmurs of protest from the city council. Then these will grow to roars of disapproval and someone’s head will roll. Eh, Shawditch?’

‘Aye, Sir John, and it could be mine. Or yours,’ he added flatly. ‘When there’s a breakdown in law and order, God knows why, they always think that punishing some city official will make matters better.’

Cranston clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You have met Brother Athelstan?’

‘Your clerk? The parish priest of St Erconwald’s in Southwark?’ Shawditch nodded. ‘Of course. He is most memorable, Sir John, being as different from you as chalk from cheese.’

Shawditch smiled as he recalled the slim, olive-skinned Dominican monk, with his jet-black hair and the smiling eyes that belied a sharp intelligence and ready wit. At first Shawditch had considered Athelstan to be secretive, but he had realised that the Dominican was only shy and rather in awe of the mountainous Sir John with his voracious appetite and constant yearning for refreshment.