The Nightingale Gallery smoba-1 Read online

  'Except Vechey!' Allingham broke in. 'He said, "There were only thirty-one!" '

  'Do you know what he meant by that?' Cranston asked.

  'No, I wish to God I did!'

  'The physician was sent for,' Cranston continued. 'Master de Troyes. He came. He examined Sir Thomas's corpse, pronounced him to have been poisoned, and claimed the potion was placed in a half-drunk cup of wine beside Sir Thomas's bed. Now Brampton was last seen late in the evening taking a wine cup up to Sir Thomas's chamber and was not seen alive again. The next morning, after Sir Thomas had been discovered dead, Brampton's corpse was found swinging from a beam up in the garret. Master Vechey was here when Brother Athelstan and I came to the house for the first time. He went out late on the same evening, God knows where, and was found hanging from a beam under London Bridge. Now we have evidence which we will keep privy for the time being which will prove that neither Brampton nor Vechey committed suicide. Though, Lady Isabella, we are no further forward in resolving the mystery of your husband's death.'

  'It could still have been Brampton!'

  It was Buckingham who spoke. Cranston looked at him.

  'What makes you say that?'

  The clerk shrugged. 'I accept you have your own reasons for claiming Brampton did not commit suicide but that does not mean he is innocent of Sir Thomas's death.'

  Cranston grinned.

  'A good point, Master clerk. You would make a good lawyer. I shall remember that.'

  There was a sudden commotion at the door. A servant scurried in, leaned over Sir Richard's shoulder and whispered in his ear. The merchant looked up.

  'Sir John, there is a messenger, a cursitor from the sheriffs office, who wishes to speak to you.'

  'I will see him, Sir Richard, by your leave. Tell him to come in.'

  The cursitor, a pompous young man, swaggered in. 'Sir John, a message from the under sheriff.' He looked around him. 'It concerns Master Vechey.'

  'Yes!' Cranston said. 'You may speak here.'

  'He was seen in a tavern down near the riverside. The landlord of the Golden Keys said a man who fitted Vechey's description was there drinking late at night. He left with a young, red-haired whore whom he had never seen before.'

  'Is that all?' Cranston asked.

  'Yes, Sir John."

  Cranston dismissed the cursitor. Athelstan felt the mood of the company in the hall lift.

  'See!' Dame Ermengilde cried exultantly. 'Vechey was seen with one of his whores. Master Buckingham must be right. Brampton may still have killed my son, and Vechey's death be totally unconnected with this.'

  Athelstan could see Cranston was not pleased by the news.

  'Nevertheless,' he snapped, 'I have other questions. Lady Isabella and Sir Richard, I must ask you to stay. The others, I would prefer to leave.'

  Dame Ermengilde was about to protest. Her son stretched across the table and touched her gently on the wrist, his eyes pleading with her. She rose, threw one withering look at Cranston and followed the others out. Sir John watched them go.

  'Lady Isabella,' he said softly, 'have you ever been to Nightshade House in Piper Alley near Whitefriars?'

  'Never!'

  'And you have no knowledge of an apothecary called Simon Foreman?'

  'I have heard of him but never met him.'

  Athelstan saw the fear in Lady Isabella's eyes. Her face lost its golden hue, becoming pale and haggard.

  'Sir Richard?'

  'No!' As he leaned forward, he clapped his hand to his side, where his sword should have been. 'You come into this house!' he hissed. 'You insult both me and Lady Isabella, hinting we go amongst rogues and vagabonds. Don't be clever, Cranston! My brother was murdered by poison. I resent the inference in your questions that one of us visited that apothecary and secured the poison to carry the murder out.'

  'Yet this afternoon,' Cranston said conversationally, 'both Brother Athelstan and myself went to that apothecary's shop. He claims he sold poison to a woman fitting your description, Lady Isabella. She was dressed in a black cloak lined with white fur, had chestnut hair, was of your height and colouring.'

  'I have never been to Whitefriars! I have never visited an apothecary's shop!'

  'You do have a black cloak lined with white fur?'

  'Yes, like hundreds of women in the city!'

  'Have you ever met Foreman?'

  'I don't know. I could have done. My husband had many strange friends. Anyway, why should I kill him?' Lady Isabella cried, half rising from the chair. 'He was a good man. He gave me everything a woman could desire.'

  'Lady Isabella,' Cranston said smoothly, 'it is well known that your husband had strange tastes and foibles. Did you love him?'

  'That, sir, is enough!' Sir Richard grabbed Cranston by the wrist but the coroner shook him off.

  'That will do!' Cranston was annoyed now by the arrogance of these people, thinking they could push him around whenever they wished. 'I am an officer of the king, and the crown is involved. These charges may involve treason, conspiracy as well as murder!'

  Sir Richard sat down again, breathing heavily. Lady Isabella linked her arm through his. She looked at him and shook her head.

  'My Lady,' Athelstan said softly, 'it is best if you tell the truth. You must! Your husband lies murdered. Two others have been brutally executed. The murderer may well strike again. Sir John and I go around London playing Blind Man's Buff in this deadly game. Your husband, Lady Isabella, had secrets – that is why he was murdered. Brampton was supposed to have been the culprit but, due to chance and circumstances, we have ascertained he was innocent, and he, too, was murdered, though it was made to look like suicide. Vechey saw or heard something so he, also, was silenced. Now, Lady Isabella, on your oath to the new king, have you ever visited the apothecary called Simon Foreman?'

  'No!'

  Athelstan stared back.

  'Did you love your husband?'

  'No! He was a gentle, kind man but he did not know me, not in the carnal sense. He had his own tastes…' her voice trailed away.

  'A liking for young men?' Athelstan asked.

  'He was a sodomite!' Cranston barked. 'He liked young men! He lusted after them!'

  Athelstan stared at him and shook his head. Lady Isabella put her face in her hands and sobbed bitterly.

  'My Lady,' Athelstan pressed her, 'your husband?'

  'He left me alone. I made no inquiry into what he thought or did.'

  'You, Sir Richard, do you love the Lady Isabella?'

  The crestfallen merchant pulled himself together.

  'Yes. Yes, I do!'

  'Are you lovers?'

  'Yes, we are.'

  'So you both had a motive?'

  'For what?'

  Sir Richard had lost his usual ebullience. He slouched back in the chair, his face drawn as if he realised the mortal danger they were now in.

  'For murder, sir.'

  The merchant shook his head. 'I may have lusted after my brother's wife,' he muttered, 'but not his life!'

  'In King's Bench,' Cranston barked, 'it would not appear like that. It would appear, Sir Richard, that you lusted after your brother's wife as well as his riches; that while he was alive you committed adultery with her and, with each other, you plotted together to carry out his murder and lay the blame on Brampton.'

  'In which case,' Sir Richard replied meekly, 'I must also be responsible for the deaths of Vechey and Brampton. But I have witnesses. I stayed at the banquet with my brother the entire evening. I said good night to him, and the rest of the time I was with the Lady Isabella. We shared the same bed,' he confessed.

  'And the night Vechey died?' Cranston asked abruptly.

  'The same. We have servants here. Workmen in the yard. They will vouch that I stayed here, doing accounts, going out to look at the carvings which were being made for the pageant for the king's coronation.'

  Lady Isabella drew herself up, resting her elbows on the arms of her chair.

  'If we had murder
ed Sir Thomas,' she asked, 'how could we enter his chamber, force poison down his throat or into his wine cup, and leave the room, locking and bolting the door from inside? That, sir, is impossible.' Her eyes turned towards Athelstan, pleading with him. 'I beg you, sir, to believe us. If we were in bed together, how could we go down, seize Brampton, take him up to that garret and hang him? No, I did not go to Whitefriars. I did not visit Simon Foreman. I did not buy poisons. I am innocent, not of sin but of my husband's death and that of others. I swear before God I had nothing to do with them.'

  'You sent wine up to Brampton?' Athelstan asked.

  'Yes, as a peace offering.'

  'And was Brampton in his room?'

  'No, I found out later that he was busy taking the cup of claret to my husband's chamber.' She wiped her eyes. 'The servant left the wine in Brampton's chamber and came down. That is all, I swear!'

  Despite the tears, Athelstan still wondered if her adultery made her an assassin or perhaps an accomplice to murder. The friar felt the frustration grow within him. How had Sir Thomas been murdered? And how had Brampton been hanged? And Vechey? Athelstan dallied with the thought of tying each of the people in this house down to their exact movements during the night Sir Thomas died, as well as the following one when Vechey disappeared, but realised the futility of it. Moreover, there was no real proof linking the murderers with anyone in the house. Perhaps they had been carried out on the orders of someone else? But who? And how? Why?

  Athelstan stood, walking up and down just beneath the dais, his fingers to his lips. Cranston watched him carefully. The clever friar would sift one fact from another. The coroner was quite prepared to let Athelstan use the advantage they had now gained.

  'Lady Isabella, Sir Richard,' he began, 'I have no real proof to convict you. Nevertheless, we have enough evidence under the law to swear out warrants for your arrest and ask for your committal to Newgate, Marshalsea, or even the Tower.' He held up his hand. 'However, we wish for your cooperation. We want the truth. The Sons of Dives… you belong to them, don't you, Sir Richard?'

  The merchant nodded.

  'Everyone in this household is a member, are they not?'

  'Yes,' Sir Richard replied meekly. 'Yes, we are. The church condemns usury and the loaning of money at high interest. The Guilds also condemn it. However, in every guild, in every livery company in the city, groups of merchants get together in some society. They give themselves strange names. Ours is known as the Sons of Dives. We lend money secretly to whoever needs it but charge interest much higher than the Lombards or Venetians. The money is delivered quickly. Payment is over a number of years. We choose our customers carefully: only those who can underwrite the loan, give pledges that they are good for the money they have borrowed. A petty mystery, our guild is full of such covens.'

  'And the riddles? The shoemaker?'

  Both Sir Richard and Lady Isabella shook their heads.

  'We don't know!' they murmured in unison.

  'And the scriptural quotations from Genesis and the Book of the Apocalypse, you have no clue to their meaning?'

  Again a chorus of denials. Athelstan returned to the table, rolled up the piece of parchment and put away his quills and inkhorn.

  'Sir John, for the moment leave matters be. Sir Richard and Lady Isabella now know that perhaps we are not as stupid or as feckless as sometimes we may appear. You may rest assured, Sir Richard, that in the end we will discover the truth and the murderer, whoever he or she may be, will hang at the Elms for all London to see!'

  Cranston pursed his lips and nodded as if Athelstan had said all there was to say. They bade both the merchant and his paramour adieu.

  As they left the Springall mansion and waited in Cheap- side for an ostler to bring their horses round from the stables, Athelstan sensed Cranston was furious with him but the coroner waited until they had mounted and moved away from the house before stopping and giving full vent to his fury.

  'Brother Athelstan,' he said testily, 'I would remind you that / am the king's coroner and those two,' he gestured in the direction of the Springall house, 'Sir Richard and that expensive paramour of his, are guilty of murder!'

  'Sir John,' Athelstan began, 'I apologise.'

  'You apologise!' Cranston mimicked. He leaned forward and grasped the horn of Athelstan's saddle. 'You apologise! If you had kept your mouth shut, Friar, we might perhaps have gained the truth. But, oh no! We established that Lady Isabella went to the apothecary's. We established that she and Sir Richard are lovers, adulterers, fornicators, and in only a matter of time we could have had a confession that they were guilty of Sir Thomas's death as well as the others!'

  'I don't accept that, Sir John. There is no real proof of murder. Oh, they are guilty of adultery.' Athelstan felt his own anger rise. 'If that was the case, Sir John, we would hang half of Cheapside for adultery and still not discover who the real murderer is.'

  'Now, look.' Sir John leaned closer, his face choleric. 'In future, Brother, I would be grateful if you would observe the courtesies and, before making any pronouncements, consult with me. As I said, / am the coroner!'

  'Let me remind you, Sir John,' Athelstan retorted, leaning back in his saddle, 'that I am a clerk, a priest, and not your messenger boy, your little lap dog! In these matters I will say what I believe is best and if you find it so difficult to work with me, then write to my father prior. This is one burden I would be relieved of!' The friar's voice rose so loud that passersby stopped and looked curiously at him. 'Do you think I look forward to this, Sir John? Going around listening to the fat and the rich of the land confessing their secret sins, and secretly mocking us every time we reach a stone wall and can go no further? Do you?'

  Athelstan turned his horse. 'I suggest, Sir John, we both go back to our respective homes and reflect on what has happened. Perhaps tomorrow, or the day after we may continue our investigations?'

  'You will go home when I say!' Sir John shouted.

  'I will go when I wish!' Athelstan retorted.

  And, without waiting for any reply, he urged Philomel down Cheapside, leaving the fuming coroner behind.

  CHAPTER 7

  By the time he reached St Erconwald's, Athelstan regretted his hasty words. Sir John was correct. He had pronounced on Lady Isabella and Sir Richard's guilt or innocence without any reference to the coroner. There might have been further questions Cranston would have liked to put. He wished he had taken Sir John aside, made his peace and offered some refreshment, some claret in one of the Cheap- side taverns. After all there were other strands to the case, loose ends which needed to be tied up. Who was the red- haired whore who had lured Vechey to his death? Had it been Lady Isabella? But many whores wore red wigs.

  After he had stabled Philomel, Athelstan remembered the verses from Scripture and studied the great leather- bound Bible that he kept chained in his house's one and only cupboard. Genesis 3, Verse 1: 'The serpent was the most subtle of all wild beasts in that garden God had made.' Athelstan translated as he read aloud: 'Did God really say you were not to eat any of this tree in the garden?' And the other text, the Book of the Apocalypse 6, Verse 8: 'I heard the voice,' Athelstan murmured, 'of the fourth animal shout "Come!" and immediately another horse appeared, deathly pale, and its rider was called Death and all Hell followed at its heels.'

  What could they possibly mean? Somehow Athelstan knew these texts were the key to the mystery. And Sir John? Athelstan wondered whether he should eat a hasty evening meal and go back across the city and make his peace. But he felt tired, he'd had enough, such matters would wait.

  He went out and unlocked the church and checked that all was well. He took a pitcher of water for Philomel and a dish of creamy milk for Bonaventure. He'd bought the latter just after he had crossed London Bridge. Still feeling perturbed, he went back into his house, lay on his pallet bed and stared up at the flaking ceiling. He tried to compose himself, first with a psalm, 'Exsurge Domine, Exsurge et vindica causam meant – Rise, oh Lord, rise
and judge my cause.'

  Athelstan let his mind drift, back to Cranston and the startled, frightened face of Lady Isabella. Athelstan shook his head free of such images. He wondered what the evening sky would be like and if Father Prior would send him a copy of the writings of Richard of Wallingford. Once Abbot of St Albans, Richard had invented the most wondrous instrument for measuring and fixing the stars. Athelstan had talked to another friar who had seen Wallingford's ingenious clock, the wheels within it fixed as if by magic, which not only measured the hours but indicated the states and signs, the phases of the moon, the position of the sun, the planets and the heavens. Athelstan licked his lips. He would give a fortune for one of those. Everything he owned just to have it in his hands for a few hours. Perhaps Father Prior would help? He'd already asked for a copy of the calendars of the Carmelite, Nicholas of Lyn.

  The ceiling reminded him about the church, the roof had been mended but really it was little more than a pig sty. He heard voices outside his door, rose in just his robe, peered out of the window and groaned quietly. Of course, he had forgotten, the meeting with his parishioners! They were to assemble in the nave and discuss the pageant for Corpus Christi.

  Athelstan's premonitions about the occasion proved correct. The meeting was not a happy one. Foremost among his parishioners were Watkin the dung-collector and his wife, a woman built like a battering ram, hard-faced, with iron grey hair hanging down to her shoulders. Cecily the courtesan made constant barbed remarks, hinting she knew more about Watkin than his wife did. Ranulf the ratcatcher, Simon the tiler, and a host of others thronged the nave, sitting facing each other on the church's two and only benches with Athelstan sitting between them on the sanctuary chair.

  The occasion was marred by bickering. Nothing was resolved and Athelstan felt he had failed to take a decisive role. The meeting ended with all his parishioners glaring up at him accusingly. He apologised, said he felt tired, and promised they would meet again when some decisions could be made. They all trooped out, mumbling and muttering, except Benedicta. She remained sitting on the end of one bench, her cloak wrapped about her.