‘Then any one of them might have dropped the relic, or left it there for us to find,’ said Michael, closing his eyes tiredly. ‘Tuddenham, Hamon, Dame Eva, Isilia, Wauncy, Siric. Damn!’ He slammed his clenched fist on the windowsill in frustration. ‘If only we had been more observant!’
‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew ruefully. ‘Because we know that the only way someone could be in possession of the relic would be if he had killed Unwin, or had some knowledge of his death. Therefore, whoever put the relic under Norys’s body is the murderer.’
‘I suppose this killer wanted us to think exactly what we did,’ said Michael, disappointed to learn, yet again, that absolute evidence of Norys’s guilt was lacking. ‘That the relic fell from Norys’s clothing, and is therefore confirmation of his guilt.’
‘No!’ exclaimed Bartholomew suddenly, his voice loud in the silent church. ‘That is not what happened. It is not even what we are supposed to think, because it is not meant to be there at all. Stoate dropped it!’
‘What?’ asked Michael dubiously. ‘How have you arrived at that conclusion?’
Bartholomew straightened from where he been leaning against the wall, and began to pace as he reasoned it out. ‘Stoate was in such a hurry to reach the side of his most affluent patient that he tripped up the chancel steps in his haste. His bag came open and some of its contents spilled out. The relic must have fallen with them.’
‘Stoate killed Unwin?’ asked Michael in disbelief. ‘But why? This makes no sense, Matt!’
‘Oh, no!’ groaned Bartholomew, putting his hands to his head as the whole affair became crystal clear in his mind. All the disjointed scraps of evidence suddenly snapped together to form a picture that was so obvious, he was appalled he had not seen it before. ‘I see what happened. How could I have been so stupid?’
‘You tell me,’ said Michael.
‘The night Unwin died, Stoate introduced himself in the tavern. We had a lengthy conversation about various aspects of medicine.’
‘Yes,’ said Michael, remembering. ‘All of them highly unpleasant.’
‘I am sure Stoate told me he practised surgery – mainly bleeding, from the sound of it.’
‘Yes, he did,’ said Michael. ‘You were inappropriately delighted about the whole business.’
‘He denied yesterday that he ever said so,’ said Bartholomew. He flopped on to the bench next to Michael, and closed his eyes. ‘He said that Mother Goodman does it if it is needed, but Mother Goodman has told me that he did it on at least two occasions, including once when she was present. She interrupted our conversation in the Half Moon the first night we stayed there, to tell us the prices Stoate charged for opening vessels in different parts of the body, and he did not contradict her.’
Michael nodded. ‘I remember that. So, Stoate is a liar. However, that does not also make him a murderer or a thief. I do not see where all this is leading, Matt.’
‘Unwin’s body had an injury on the arm, near the elbow, and one sleeve was drenched in blood. I see exactly what happened. Unwin went to Stoate to be bled, and Stoate bled him to death!’
Michael gazed at him for a moment, and then gave a short laugh of disbelief. ‘The fatal wound was the cut to the elbow and not the stab in the stomach?’
‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is more easily done than you might think. If the incision made for phlebotomy is too deep, or the wrong vein is cut, a person can bleed to death very quickly if the surgeon does not know how to stop it. Stoate is not a surgeon, and has not been trained to practise phlebotomy. He killed Unwin with his ignorance and arrogance!’
‘So you are not exaggerating when you say bleeding is bad for the health?’ said Michael. ‘You had me convinced long before all this happened, but now I can promise you that no barber with his bloody knives will ever come near my veins.’
‘I wish none had come near Unwin’s,’ said Bartholomew fervently. ‘I suppose his anxiety for his new post made him feel a need to drain away the humours that were making him nervous.’
‘And Stoate killed him outside the church where we found all that blood,’ said Michael, scratching his head.
‘That was why there was so much of it on Unwin’s sleeve. How could I have missed it?’ Bartholomew ran a hand through his hair in agitation. ‘It did not escape William: he asked me why there was blood on Unwin’s arm, and I made a bad assumption – that it had drained out of the stomach when he had been lying in a different position than the one in which we found him.’
‘And now Stoate is busily denying that he practises phlebotomy, lest you associate the small cut on Unwin’s elbow with a physician who dabbles in surgery.’
‘But why did he not deny it from the start?’ asked Bartholomew, rubbing his head. ‘Why claim that night in the tavern – within a very short time of Unwin’s death – that he did bleed people?’
‘Two good reasons,’ said Michael, considering. ‘First, Mother Goodman was sitting near enough to hear every word; her position as village midwife means that she knows he bleeds people – and we have seen enough of that lady to guess she would not sit quietly knitting, while a physician she loathes lies about what he does. And second, you were very persistent with your questions, whether you appreciated it or not, and had the poor fellow scrambling to provide you with answers.’
‘I did not!’ protested Bartholomew. ‘You make me sound like William in inquisitor mode.’
‘You can be very intimidating, Matt, particularly to people who do not have your training. And on that subject, I can also say that I very much doubt Stoate has been to Paris and Bologna Universities as he claims. He is too young, and why should someone with those qualifications settle in a remote village like this? He would be in London or York or Norwich, making his fortune.’
‘He certainly dispenses odd cures,’ agreed Bartholomew. ‘Like ground snails for sore eyes. Our eyes are better, but the eyes of everyone who slapped that paste on them are still inflamed.’
‘So, crushed snails is not something that the mighty physicians of Paris recommend, then?’ asked Michael with a smile. ‘Nor do they teach bleeding?’
‘They do not,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is heartily denounced as something tradesmen do. But I cannot believe I was so blind about that cut on Unwin’s elbow. After he had bled to death, Stoate must have dragged Unwin back into the church, and then stabbed the body and stole the purse to make it appear as though he had been murdered by an opportunistic thief for his belongings.’
‘And it stands to reason that if Stoate stabbed Unwin’s corpse to make his accidental death seem like murder, he also did the same to Mistress Freeman’s throat. You were right all along, Matt. The killer heard that Norys had been accused of killing Unwin, and Mistress Freeman was desecrated to make us believe that was true.’
‘So, what shall we do?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Stoate is with Tuddenham at Wergen Hall now.’
‘We must confront him,’ said Michael. ‘And the sooner, the better.’
They headed up the path toward Tuddenham’s manor. Since dawn was only just beginning to lighten the sky, most of Wergen Hall’s inhabitants were still in bed, and the house was in darkness. Eventually, Siric answered the door to Bartholomew’s insistent hammering.
‘What now?’ he snapped. ‘Sir Thomas is sleeping, and needs no more leeches tonight.’
‘Is Stoate with him?’ asked Michael.
Siric shook his head. ‘Sir Thomas had a bad night, but about an hour ago he started to sleep like a baby. I did not want a physician prodding him and disturbing his rest, so I sent Stoate home.’