Michael JECKS - The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

‘You do that,’ she said, unimpressed. ‘It doesn’t scare me.’

‘The Receiver may be interested in the profits of the bakery,’ Baldwin mused.

‘Well, you tell him how unhelpful I was. We’ll see whether he’s interested in the bakery, won’t we?’ she said and returned into the shop as another customer appeared.

Baldwin remained staring after her with a frown of shock on his features.

‘What is it, Baldwin?’

‘The girl has just answered my problems.’

Simon gazed at him, then back at the shop. ‘I don’t think I quite…’

‘She clearly doesn’t care for Elias, which after her fornicating with another man is no real surprise. That means that when she delayed him, we can be sure that it was so that he would be late, not because she wanted his company.’

‘So we aren’t any further forward.’

‘Of course we are. We know who the killer was.’

Simon’s head snapped round to stare, and once the pain had diminished he gasped, ‘Who?’

‘Simon, think about it. Adam was poisoned before lunch, by someone who was not in the Cathedral. All the Canons, Secondaries and others were in the Cathedral at Mass. So someone from outside the Cathedral was responsible. Adam’s bread had been poisoned. When Peter died, it was because he had eaten something bad – we think his bread. And the bread is made in the morning, then distributed after the dawn Mass. Someone always attends that service. Someone who had a good reason to want Jolinde dead.’

‘I really don’t see who you’re getting at.’

‘Probably not, so follow me,’ Baldwin said confidently.

His path took them along the High Street, but as they passed by the turning which led down to Karvinel’s house they heard a scream. They exchanged a look, then ran together down the lane to the merchant’s house.

Outside, a little boy stood shaking with horror while a young woman tried to comfort him, cradling him in her arms.

‘My master, my master…’ he kept repeating.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, while at her side a foolish looking boy stared at the door, shaking his head and weeping.

Simon and Baldwin followed the boy’s terrified gaze and walked straight in through Karvinel’s door. Nothing in the hall, nothing in the solar downstairs, but from the base of the ladder they could smell the vomit and excrement. Simon curled his lip at the odour and pointedly held the ladder for Baldwin to climb. He was soon back, his face grim and forbidding ‘We must fetch the Coroner.’

‘I’m here,’ Coroner Roger said from the doorway. He clambered up the ladder and while Simon waited below, the two men took in the scene.

‘There’s no need to guess how they died,’ Coroner Roger said.

‘No,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘Both in agony, both contorted, both vomiting and emptying their bowels.’

‘Quite. So both were poisoned, although it looks like Nick beat his wife before they died,’ Roger said thickly. ‘Who did this? And how?’

‘I cannot help but feel guilty for this,’ Baldwin said heavily. ‘I should have guessed what was likely to happen as soon as I had spoken to Jolinde. I should have guessed… Especially with what my wife told me last night. I should have guessed.’

Coroner Roger eyed him for a moment without speaking. ‘You think you know who killed these two?’

Baldwin shook his head regretfully. ‘Coroner, I know who murdered Ralph, who murdered Peter, who attempted to poison Adam, and who killed these two as well. I only wish I had been more wise last night. Come. I shall take you to the murderer.’

He turned to the ladder and slowly descended, his heart full of despondency. Like a tapestry, Baldwin knew that an enquiry into a murder would throw up coloured threads which, if arranged correctly, would create a picture that was instantly recognisable. So many of the loose cords had been in his hands the previous night, yet he had not managed to complete the picture until that last comment from the baker’s girl. If only he had not been so tired the night before, these two people might not have died.

Walking with the pensive gait of a doomed man, he left the house of death and went into the road. The young woman was still holding the boy, while near her the idiot boy had covered his face with his hands. Behind them a man leaned against a wall, his face shadowed under an overhang. A small gathering of neighbours stood near to hand, murmuring resentfully among themselves.

‘Where’s the Constable?’ Coroner Roger bellowed. A man shuffled forward apologetically. ‘Guard this door and don’t let anyone in until I return. The Karvinels have been murdered.’

The Constable gaped while the neighbours shook their heads. They would all have to pay a fine for breaking the King’s Peace. Baldwin led the way towards the High Street.

‘I was confused by the number of deaths,’ he told the others. ‘It is so rare that you find a series of killings like this. If I had thought about it, perhaps I would have come upon the truth earlier, but I didn’t. I allowed myself to be half-persuaded that the glovemaker’s death was a mere robbery, a chance theft during which the poor householder died. It is rare to find the murderer in such a case.’

‘True. The randomness of the crime makes it all but insoluble,’ Coroner Roger agreed.

‘Quite so. To be able to discover a murder one needs a reason for a man to kill. One must have a logical, comprehensible motive. So often it is based upon obvious factors.’ He paused, stopping at the side of the street while a cart rumbled past. Continuing on his way, he sighed. ‘Yet in this case we learned that there were several possibilities: the theft of Ralph’s money, the removal of a possible competitor in the race to power in the city, the theft of his stock, possibly the concealment of another crime. And then I was confused by the murder of Peter.’

‘We all were,’ Coroner Roger aid. ‘There was no sense to his death.’

‘No. And that was the point,’ Baldwin said.

The Coroner threw a look at Simon, who smiled at his confused expression and shrugged expansively.

Baldwin continued, ‘Just as it was for the Secondary Adam. Why should another Secondary die? Why should any of them? And then I hit upon the idea that another person was the target for the poison which killed Peter. Now, if someone else had helped, wittingly or unwittingly, to give the poison to Peter, then that person could also be a threat to the poisoner. And so Adam was. He had two jobs in the Cathedral: he made and replenished candles, but he also helped deliver bread in the morning. I think he knows who delivered the bread to Peter.’

‘I begin to understand,’ breathed Coroner Roger.

‘Adam was a specific victim in his own right. A murderer would hardly leave evidence about so clearly without good reason.’

‘Ahm…’ Coroner Roger gave Simon a helpless look.

The Bailiff was not sure either where his friend was leading them. ‘Do you mean that whoever poisoned Adam wanted to leave proof so that someone in that room would be blamed with Adam’s poisoning?’

‘Yes. They probably didn’t care who was blamed so long as someone was.’

The Coroner frowned. ‘How would a killer know which was Adam’s loaf?’

‘Adam and the others in Stephen’s household sit in order of precedence. It would have been easy. And then the bottle of orpiment was left in the room so that anyone could have taken the blame.’

‘And where would the killer have found the bottle?’ the Coroner asked.

‘Ah, the poison would have been bought from an alchemist. The bottle left in Stephen’s room was yellow arsenic, but I doubt that was what poisoned Adam. Yellow arsenic is bright and obvious and anyone would have seen it on – or in – a loaf of bread. Any thief could have walked into the Choristers’ hall during the mid-day service to take the little bottle. All the members of the choir would be in the church, so it would be perfectly safe. And I believe that arsenic must be treated to make it especially poisonous. The killer still has the genuine bottle of poison, I expect.’