Colton shook his head firmly. ‘I am sorry, Bartholomew, but I cannot permit this. I will not have it put about that a murder has taken place in my College in the wake of this nasty affair of the poisoned wine. If I had thought you would try to prove Philius had been murdered, I would never have allowed you to come here. I expected you simply to confirm that Philius died as a result of his earlier affliction.’
‘Did you ask me to come because you want to know what really happened, or because you want me to say what you hope to be true?’ asked Bartholomew quietly. ‘Because I will not lie for you.’
Colton looked angry. ‘Philius could not have been murdered! I ate breakfast with him this morning! He had been very careful about his personal safety after Isaac’s death: he locked his room at all times, even when he was in it. You are mistaken if you suspect foul play. I tell you, poor Philius had an attack of the same evil humours that struck him before.’
Bartholomew disagreed. ‘He seemed to have recovered from that.’
‘Seemed, yes,’ insisted Colton. ‘But you know diseases appear to be healed and then return with greater vigour. You must have seen how that happened with the Death?’
That was true. Bartholomew had seen many plague victims who seemed to be mending, but promptly died just as their family and friends were giving thanks for their deliverance. But he was certain that was not what had happened to Philius. He looked reappraisingly at Gonville Hall’s Master. Did he have something more to hide than a desire to suppress rumours that might damage his College’s reputation? Colton had been present in his College when Isaac was murdered and now, it seemed, he had seen Philius at breakfast – a matter of hours before the man had been dispatched. And Colton had been at the feast where Grene had died.
‘If the humours had burst forth from his body as you suggest,’ said Bartholomew, ‘then we would see signs of it. He would have vomited, or had some other kind of flux, and there would be a recurrence of the small blisters I saw earlier.’
‘What are you saying, Matt? That someone forced his way in and killed him?’ asked Tulyet.
Bartholomew nodded slowly.
‘That is ridiculous!’ snapped Colton dismissively. ‘I have told you already that Philius has been careful since Isaac’s death. He kept his door locked at all times, and allowed few people in. And you are asking me to believe that someone entered the College, and killed him in broad daylight? As I told you, I saw him fit and well at breakfast when I joined him here, in this very room, this morning.’
‘If he had been fit and well at breakfast, why should he suddenly die a couple of hours later?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘If his humours were unbalanced, he would have complained about it then.’
‘Perhaps it came upon him all of a sudden,’ said Colton, exasperated. ‘And how could a murderer gain access to his room? The door was locked.’
‘Was it locked when you found his body?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘With him dead inside?’
Colton considered. ‘Well, no. It was unlocked when I found him like this, but he might have opened it as these evil humours burst forth in an attempt to call for help.’
‘Then why did he not die outside in the yard?’ persisted Bartholomew. ‘Unless you moved the body?’
‘I have touched nothing!’ said Colton angrily, enunciating each word. ‘And the reason I have touched nothing is so that we might quell any vicious rumours that Philius’s death was anything but natural. I did not want you claiming that I have tampered with evidence. And, anyway, see reason, man! You are reading far too much into all this. Philius died, purely and simply, of a surplus of the evil humours that sickened him a few days ago.’
‘Why do you keep saying Philius’s last illness was caused by evil humours?’ demanded Bartholomew. ‘We both know very well that he was poisoned with the same substance that killed Grene and Armel.’
‘I know nothing of the sort!’ retorted Colton. ‘I suggested to Philius, only this morning, that his ailment a few nights ago was a case of an overly acidic purge. He was not poisoned.’
Bartholomew stared at Colton in disbelief. ‘Really? And I suppose this new diagnosis has nothing to do with the fact that you do not want your College associated with the murder of University scholars? Did you and Philius sit down together and discuss how you might best protect Gonville Hall from unseemly rumours?’
Or, he thought, perhaps it was more sinister than that, and Colton had ensured Philius would not live to spread tales of tainted purges and slain book-bearers.
Colton flushed furiously. ‘I resent that implication, Bartholomew. You are accusing me, and one of your own medical colleagues, of plotting to tell the most atrocious lies!’
Bartholomew sighed, weary of argument. ‘But even you must see there are problems with your conviction that Philius’s illness and subsequent death were natural, Master Colton – such as why did Philius display the same symptoms of poisoning as did Armel and Grene, if his ailment was caused by an excess of bad humours? And why was Philius so careful to lock his door, if he had nothing to fear?’
Colton said nothing, but glowered at Bartholomew, clenching and unclenching his fists.
‘You said Philius secured his door,’ Bartholomew continued relentlessly, ‘but why was his room unlocked when you discovered his body? The answer to that is because his killer did not latch it when he left.’
‘That is dangerous, unfounded speculation!’ hissed Colton. ‘How can all this be true? Philius would hardly unlock the door and allow a killer in his room!’
‘He probably did not know this person was a killer when he admitted him,’ said Bartholomew, with more patience than he felt Colton deserved, ‘but it is clear from the state of the room that they struggled.’
Colton shook his head angrily, and gestured at Philius. ‘There is no blood to suggest a wound, and his head is not caved in. There are no marks on his corpse at all. You should have evidence before you make such horrible assertions.’
‘Give me a few moments to inspect the body, and I might be able to provide you with some,’ said Bartholomew, fighting not to lose his temper. He felt vulnerable in the room where Philius had probably been murdered, even with Tulyet standing behind him, and Colton’s unsettling attitude was not making him feel any better. He considered giving in to Colton’s demands, just to ensure measures were not taken to ensure his silence over Gonville’s precious reputation. He had not wanted to become involved in the investigation of the suspicious deaths in the first place, and bitterly resented the fact that it seemed to have placed him in such a dangerous position.
Colton scowled at him, but then, to Bartholomew’s surprise, he yielded. ‘Very well, then. I suppose that unless you satisfy yourself that poor Philius died of a flux of bad humours, rumours will follow that Gonville is seeking to hide the truth. But, be assured, Bartholomew, I will ask Doctor Lynton from Peterhouse to verify anything you find. I will not have my College dragged through the mire because you are unwilling to admit that you misdiagnosed Philius’s illness the first time.’
He walked to the other end of the room so he would not have to watch, and began to pare his nails with a small knife in the light from the window.
Bartholomew bit back several scathing remarks that flooded into his mind, and bent to inspect Philius once again. It appeared that the Franciscan had prepared himself for bed when he was struck down – wary of over-exerting himself following his close brush with death a few days before – because he wore a long brown nightgown with a silk robe over the top. His feet were bare, so perhaps he had already been asleep. Bartholomew felt carefully around the friar’s head, but Colton was right in saying there was no wound. Then he looked at the dead man’s neck, but there was no bruising and no marks to suggest throttling. Finally, he drew the gown up, and looked for puncture wounds. With Tulyet’s help, he turned the body over, but there was nothing to be seen.