The steward scurried away. Athelstan and Cranston made their way through the opulently furnished house to the bleak garret at the top. The steward, now in total awe of Sir John, came up with the food. Cranston ordered him to bring candles and the thickest woollen blankets he could find. The steward obeyed. Cranston and Athelstan settled down.
At first the coroner insisted on recounting every blow of the river battle, with anecdotal references to his days of glory when he served with Prince Edward against Philip of France. At last, his belly full of capon and after generous swigs from his wineskin, Cranston began to doze. For a while Athelstan just sat in the darkness, remembering his own days in France and his brother Francis who had died there. He shook his head to clear it of the still-painful memories and thought instead about his parish. He prayed that Basil the blacksmith and Watkin the dung-collector would not come to blows. His eyes grew heavy and he, too, slept for a while. Then he found himself being vigorously shaken awake by Cranston, his fat face pushed close to his, a finger to his lips. Athelstan felt cold and cramped, his arm a little sore. He strained his ears. He heard occasional sounds from the house below, then the cry of the watch.
‘Twelve o’clock midnight! Cold and hard, but all’s well!’
‘That will be Trumpington!’ Cranston whispered.
Athelstan was on the point of dozing off again when he heard a movement, a mere slither on the tiles above. Cranston gripped his arm and hissed, ‘Blow out the candles! Don’t move!’
Athelstan stared up through the rafters at the tiles. Was it only a cat? he wondered. Then his stomach lurched as one of the tiles was removed. Another was prised loose, then another, so within minutes a square was opened, revealing the starlit sky. Athelstan saw the evening star and idly wondered why it was there before a dark shape leaned down and a bag was lowered. Cranston heard a clink, a rope slithered through the gap and a dark shape flitted down as quietly as any hunting cat. Cranston waited. The man crouched in the garret, his boots covered in soft woollen rags. He was moving towards the door when Cranston sprang with an agility which took even Athelstan by surprise.
The man crashed to the floor under the full weight of Cranston’s massive body, the wind knocked out of him.
‘I arrest you!’ Cranston roared, leaning over the man and grasping him by the neck. ‘I, Jack Cranston, coroner, have got you!’
The man tried to wriggle free, but Cranston ripped his hood off and grabbed him by the hair.
‘You are trapped, my little beauty!’ he boomed. He banged the man’s head on the floorboards. ‘That’s for me!’ He banged it again. That’s for Brother Athelstan!’ And again. ‘And that’s for that poor maid you killed, you heartless bastard!’
Cranston then dragged the man to his feet. He deftly plucked the dagger from the robber’s sheath, pushed him through the garret door and dragged him down the stairs into the passage on the floor below. Athelstan lit a candle and followed. He held the flame up against the felon’s bruised, dazed face.
‘I’ve never seen him before.’
‘No, you won’t have done,’ Cranston said. ‘But you are right, Brother. I bet this bastard’s a tiler!’
The sounds of doors opening and shouts below showed that the rest of the household had been roused. Cranston went to the top of the stairs and bellowed for silence.
‘Shut up!’ he roared, clutching the footpad in one hand. He shook the man as a cat would a rat. ‘We’ve still got business haven’t we?’
The man could only groan in reply. Cranston marched down the stairs, dragging his prisoner with him. Athelstan followed behind, pleading with Sir John to be careful.
‘I’ll be bloody careful!’ the coroner roared.
The servants had gathered, their faces pallid in the candlelight. Cranston shook the man again, put a finger to his lips for silence and waited by the front door. He must have waited five minutes before Athelstan heard the crunch of a boot and the voice of beadle Trumpington.
‘Well past midnight. Cold and hard, but all’s well!’
Cranston flung open the door, dragging the felon with him.
‘Oh no, it’s not, my lad! The time is bloody ripe to say just how unwell things really are!’
CHAPTER 12
Sir John Cranston stretched his long, stockinged feet in front of the roaring fire. He beamed at his lady, the adoring Maude, who sat beside him, hands in her lap, her girlish face wreathed in a beatific smile, her corn-coloured hair tied in braids. She had been summoned from her bed by her husband’s triumphant, return home. Cranston sipped from his favourite wine goblet and stretched his great legs until the muscles cracked. He wagged a finger at the astonished under-sheriff, Shawditch, who had also been summoned. Athelstan could only stare into the fire and quietly pray that he wouldn’t laugh.
‘You see,’ Cranston explained for the third time, ‘my secretarius and I had the same line of thought.’ He pointed a finger at Shawditch. ‘Always remember, Shawditch, Cranston’s famous axiom "if a problem exists then a solution to it must also exist".’ Cranston winked at Lady Maude. ‘And we knew the problem. A merchant’s house – empty except for the servants, who live on the ground floor – is entered without any visible sign of force and looted. The housebreaker disappears.’ Cranston drummed his fingers on his fat knee. ‘Now that problem would tax any law officer. However, when Athelstan and I visited the last house, where the poor girl was killed, we noticed that the straw beneath the garret’s roof was rather damp. Well’ – Cranston leaned over and squeezed Athelstan’s hand – ‘in the normal course of events, the average law officer would have thought, "Ah, I know how the felon got in – through the tiles. He removed some, climbed down, robbed the house, went out through the roof and replaced the tiles behind him. Easy enough for a professional tiler." The trouble with that theory, though, is that another tiler could easily detect what had been done.’ He glared at Shawditch. ‘Is that clear?’
The man nodded vigorously.
‘So we asked Trumpington if a tiler had been summoned, and when he said yes we accepted his story.’ Cranston leaned over for Lady Maude to fill his goblet. ‘And if the beadle had had the roof examined by a tiler, who had found no signs of disturbance, then this could not be how the thief entered the house. But’ – he waved an airy hand – ‘this is where our logic comes in. Brother Athelstan and I considered the following possibility: what if Trumpington, the beadle, was involved in the housebreaking and the tiler used to check the roofs was also involved?’ Cranston slurped from the goblet. ‘A subtle little piece of trickery that might have deceived us had we not noticed those damp rushes.’ Cranston licked his lips. ‘Isn’t that right, Brother?’
‘Sir John,’ Athelstan said, ‘your logic is impeccable. Trumpington and the tiler were working hand in glove. The beadle would find out which houses were empty and how they were organised. Then, while he was patrolling the streets, bawling out all was well, his accomplice was busy robbing the house.
‘Have they confessed?’ Shawditch asked.
‘Oh yes, and some of the plunder has been found in their houses,’ Cranston replied. ‘They are now in Newgate awaiting trial. For the murder of that girl, both will hang.’
He got to his feet and warmed his great backside before the fire. ‘Master Shawditch,’ he said magnanimously, ‘you may have credit for the arrest.’
‘Sir John, I thank you.’
‘Nonsense!’ Cranston replied. ‘Now be off with you. Make sure that all the stolen property is returned to its owners.’
Once the under-sheriff had left, Cranston was about to continue with his tales of triumph, even threatening to go back to his great victory on the river. But Athelstan yawned and stretched.
‘Sir John, I thank you for your hospitality, but the hour is late and tomorrow we have other business.’
‘I know, I know,’ Cranston replied testily. ‘That bloody Fisher of Men is still sending messages to me. He probably wants to be paid for the corpses he’s plucked out of the river.’