‘About your ailments,’ clarified Bartholomew quickly. ‘Not about anything else.’
‘Well, you are tending an ailment now,’ said Marjory, indicating her arm. ‘So we are covered. And someone must pass what we know to the appropriate authorities.’
‘Moleyns got out of the castle at night,’ blurted Isnard, before Bartholomew could demur. ‘And he wandered around the town … doing business. Tell him, Gundrede.’
The metalsmith obliged. ‘Moleyns charmed his “friends” – those who fluttered around him in the hope that he would write something nice about them to the King – into confiding where they kept their money. Then he hired us … I mean he hired burglars to get it for him.’
Bartholomew was thoughtful. He knew for a fact that being imprisoned had not stopped Moleyns from stealing, because Principal Haye and the Mayor had both lost purses to his sticky fingers. And Moleyns had enjoyed a lavish lifestyle in the castle, even though most of his estates had been confiscated. He recalled the felon as he had been when he had needed the services of a physician – smug, sly and deceitful, certainly the kind of man to beguile the gullible into telling him about their precious hoards.
‘So he escaped from the castle and came to tell you which houses to burgle?’ he asked, wanting to be sure he had understood them correctly.
‘Told accomplices which houses to burgle,’ corrected Gundrede, while all around there were a lot of earnestly nodding heads.
‘So it is you … I mean Moleyns, who has been stealing the tomb-makers’ supplies?’
‘No,’ snapped Gundrede angrily. ‘I just told you – we had nothing to do with that. Moleyns was interested in money – coins, which could be spent on food, wine and clothes. He was not in a position to filch heavy items for resale in distant cities.’
‘Quite,’ agreed Isnard. ‘However, the point of all this is that Moleyns’ death marks the end of a lucrative arrangement, and we are very sorry about it. Which means that no townsman killed him, so you should look to a scholar as the culprit.’
‘Were any University men involved in this … operation?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘Not that we are aware,’ replied Isnard. ‘Although we were not party to his every move. No one was, not even his wife and lawyer.’
‘Master Lyng might have been in league with him, though,’ mused Marjory. ‘When Moleyns fell off his horse, Lyng was the first to reach him, and I saw them whispering. I was too far away to hear what was being said, but Lyng nodded.’
‘Nodded how?’ asked Bartholomew, wondering if the felon had muttered something to provoke a fatal attack. ‘Angrily? Amiably? Urgently?’
‘It was too dark to tell, and then other folk surged forward and hid them from view. Lyng did not stay long, though – he was gone before you managed to fight to the front, Doctor.’
‘They might have been discussing Moleyns’ next exploit, I suppose,’ conceded Isnard, ‘although that would have been risky in front of so many flapping ears.’
‘Tynkell, Moleyns and Lyng,’ sighed Marjory. ‘They certainly had secrets!’
‘Do you know what they were?’ asked Bartholomew hopefully.
Marjory shrugged and looked away, giving the impression that she did, but was unwilling to say in front of an audience. He supposed he would have to corner her when she was alone.
‘So how did Moleyns leave the castle?’ he asked, tactfully changing the subject. ‘Dick Tulyet does not usually let prisoners stroll in and out as they please.’
‘It has a sally port,’ explained Gundrede. ‘And guards who like wine. It was a simple matter to unlock a few doors while the Sheriff and his more trustworthy officers slept.’
The notion that Moleyns had been breaking the law under the Sheriff’s nose had unnerved Bartholomew, but he dared not tell Tulyet about it himself: the Sheriff would demand to know the source of such alarming intelligence, and he was not very good at lying. He decided to visit his sister, in the hope that her calm company would allow his thoughts to settle, after which he might be able to devise a way to pass on the information without getting anyone executed.
She lived in a handsome mansion on Milne Street, from which she ran her dead husband’s cloth business. It was a profitable venture, although less so than when Stanmore had been alive. There were two reasons for this. First, because Edith preferred her transactions to be legitimate; and second, because she had taken it upon herself to champion Cambridge’s fallen women. She had employed them to work in her dyeworks at one point, which had brought her a whole raft of trouble; then she had arranged for them to produce ready-made academic tabards. Although considerably cheaper than bespoke ones, they did not sell very well, because many scholars disliked wearing garments that had been put together by prostitutes.
Milne Street was an important thoroughfare in its own right. It boasted not only several large merchants’ houses, but two Colleges, the Carmelite Friary and the Church of St John Zachary. One College – Trinity Hall – was in the process of building itself a massive new dormitory, and workmen could still be seen swarming industriously over the complex web of scaffolding that encased it. Each held a lantern, so the whole structure was alive with purposefully bobbing lights.
The dormitory was causing a good deal of resentment in the town, because it stuck much further out into the road than had been agreed at the planning stage. But Trinity Hall desperately needed the space, and stubbornly ignored the complaints of those who objected to a huge building sprawled halfway across a public highway.
Bartholomew entered Edith’s house, breathing in deeply of the comfortingly familiar aroma of spices, beeswax and wood-smoke. His sister was in her solar, a pleasantly airy room with embroidered cushions, a huge fire in the hearth, and tapestries on the wall.
‘I am going to dismiss Petit if he does not work on Oswald’s tomb tomorrow,’ she declared. ‘I want it finished now, not in a decade. But you look troubled, Matt. What is wrong?’
Bartholomew was not about to tell her the truth, because she would guess in an instant who had gossiped to him about Moleyns. ‘I do not like hunting killers,’ he said instead.
Edith smiled. ‘Then take comfort in the fact that it will be the last time. Michael will go to Rochester to become a bishop, and you will marry Matilde. The University will have to find someone else to solve its crimes.’
Bartholomew experienced a familiar sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he recalled the decision he would soon have to make. Surely it should not be this difficult? And why did his heart not sing when he thought about Matilde, as it had in the past? Did it mean his love for her had grown cold? Or was it just the prospect of a major life change that so terrified him?
‘I am not sure about Matilde,’ he said unhappily.
‘Why not?’ asked Edith gently. ‘It is what you have wanted for years.’
‘Quite – for years. It has been too long, and we may not like what the other has become.’
‘Oh, she will like you,’ predicted Edith confidently. ‘And you need someone to make you smile, so do not dismiss her out of pride or fear. As Oswald always said, if something is worth having, it is worth the wait. Except tombs, of course. They need to be finished when they were promised.’
When Bartholomew left Edith’s house, he was still not ready to tell Tulyet about Moleyns. His spirits were low, as they often were on evenings when it was dark and cold, and the houses he passed were shut up tight against the weather. Lights spilled from a few, which served to make him feel excluded, and he quickened his pace, keen to be home. He passed St John Zachary, which looked pretty with candles shining through its stained-glass windows, and on impulse he went inside, feeling a sudden urge to pray for Oswald’s soul.