‘I accept what you say, Brother! Perhaps just in time, here he comes!’
Philip Cabe had slipped through the doorway. He caught sight of Cranston and Athelstan, swaggered across and slumped down on the stool Athelstan pulled over.
‘Sir John, the hour is early.’
‘Master Cabe, the matter is pressing.’
Athelstan studied the seaman carefully. Cabe looked much the worse for wear – he was unshaven and his grey eyes were bleary from a heavy night’s drinking.
‘What are you worried about, Master Cabe?’ Athelstan asked gently.
‘Nothing, Father.’
‘You want something to drink?’
The seaman shrugged. ‘Perhaps watered ale?’
Cranston called out the order and they waited until it was served. Cabe sipped gingerly from the tankard.
‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘The truth,’ Athelstan replied.
‘I have told you that already.’
Cranston leaned over and squeezed the man’s wrist.
‘No, you haven’t. You are a liar, a thief and a murderer! And, if you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll see you hang!’ Cranston smiled bleakly. ‘Now, be a good boy and put both hands on the table, well away from the knife tucked in your belt. Come on!’
Cabe obeyed.
Cranston smiled. ‘You may touch your tankard but nothing else. Now, my secretarius will describe things as they are.’
Athelstan edged closer. ‘You were second mate on the God’s Bright Light,’ he began, ‘when it attacked and sank a fishing smack off the French coast, killing all its crew. But this was no chance attack. Roffel knew that there was silver on board. He found the silver and carried it back to the God’s Bright Light. However, Roffel, in Sir John’s words, was a mean bastard. He should have shared the silver with his crew, especially his officers, as well as with the crown. Instead he hid it away in some secret place. By some chance you and Bracklebury found out about it.’
Cabe stared dumbly at his tankard.
‘Now Roffel fell ill and died. In fact, he was poisoned.’
‘I didn’t do that,’ Cabe muttered.
‘I do not claim you did, but Roffel’s demise provided you and Bracklebury with an excellent opportunity to search the ship. You found nothing. But once the God’s Bright Light had anchored in the Thames you and Bracklebury could search more thoroughly. You drew up your plans. The crew, apart from a small watch, would be sent ashore and Bracklebury would take the opportunity to search the ship thoroughly from poop to stern.’
Cranston sipped from his own tankard.
‘Now, if both of you had stayed behind it might have created some suspicions – after all, no sailor is eager to stay on board a ship back into port after a time at sea.’ Athelstan placed his tankard down. ‘Now, Bracklebury had Roffel’s corpse taken ashore. The whores came on board and then you and most of the crew left. However, you didn’t fully trust Bracklebury, so you insisted that he stayed in communication with you. You devised a system of signals between Bracklebury, with the lantern on board ship, and you, in some darkened recess on the quayside.
‘Now, everything went according to plan until that sailor and his whore returned, just before dawn, to find the ship completely deserted. Master Cabe, I can only imagine both your fury and doubt over what had happened. You must have been mystified by his disappearance! How had this been done? Where was Bracklebury and, above all, where was the silver?’
‘A fairy story!’ Cabe scoffed.
‘Oh no,’ Athelstan persisted. ‘Sir John here knows I am telling the truth. You, Master Cabe, began to believe you had been double-crossed. And you began to wonder who it was. Now, while you were hiding in the shadows, you had seen the whore Bernicia come down to Queen’s hithe. Perhaps you thought she and Bracklebury had planned to steal the silver and make a fool of you?’
‘How would Bracklebury know Bernicia?’ Cabe muttered.
Athelstan shrugged. ‘Oh, you never know, Master Cabe, in this world of lies, greed makes strange allies. Anyway, somehow or other, you became convinced Bernicia knew where the silver was. So you planned to meet her and used Bracklebury’s name.’
Cabe drank from the tankard and sneered.
‘But, if Bracklebury was her ally, how could I appear as him?’
‘That I don’t know,’ Athelstan replied truthfully.
‘Something had changed your mind so that you believed Bracklebury may not have double-crossed you but that Bernicia certainly had: Anyway,’ Athelstan continued, ‘you took Bernicia to a secret drinking place, invited yourself back to her house, cut her throat and ransacked the place.’
‘What proof do you have of this?’ Cabe snapped.
Cranston leaned over, tapping the table. ‘I’ll be honest, not much, my bucko. But, there again, perhaps if we took you back to that secret drinking-place, who knows who might recognise you?’
Cabe’s face became even paler.
‘Come on,’ Cranston urged gently. ‘Sooner or later the truth will be out.’
‘What happens-’ Cabe looked up. ‘What happens if I tell the truth, as I see it?’
Cranston gestured with his hand. ‘Murder is murder, Master Cabe, and murderers hang. But those who turn king’s evidence may seek the royal pardon and agree to leave England’ – Cranston screwed up his eyes and looked towards the door of the tavern – ‘for, shall we say, three years?’
Athelstan grabbed the seaman by the arm. ‘For the love of God, Master Cabe, tell us the truth!’
‘Can I have some wine, Father?’
Cranston ordered him a goblet of claret. Cabe sipped at it carefully.
‘These are the facts,’ he began tonelessly. ‘Roffel was a murdering bastard. God forgive us, it wasn’t the first time he attacked a ship and killed the prisoners, but this time it was special. Roffel was looking for something.’ He shrugged. ‘Ah, well, you know what happened. Afterwards Bracklebury and I decided to confront him. Now, perhaps, Roffel meant to lock the cabin door but he didn’t; anyway it was very rare for us just to walk in. On that morning, however, we did; Roffel was sitting at his table, the money belt before him, silver coins spilling out. We knew at a glance what had happened. Roffel just roared at us to get out and said he would hang us if we ever did that again.’ Cabe rubbed his face. ‘Well, Bracklebury and I were furious. It wasn’t the first time Roffel had stolen our shares.’ Cabe glanced at Athelstan. ‘Whatever you think of me, Father, I am a good seaman and I am not frightened of anything that walks on earth. My whole body is one scar from head to toe. And for what? Stale wine, cheap whores, a damp bed in some seedy alehouse?’ He picked up his goblet and gulped at the wine. ‘Bracklebury and I laid our plans, but then Roffel fell ill and died.’
‘Did you murder him?’ Cranston interrupted.
Cabe raised his hand. ‘Before God, I had no hand in Roffel’s death!’
‘Did Bracklebury?’
‘God knows! Anyway,’ Cabe continued, ‘Roffel’s death gave us the opportunity to search the cabin. We went through everything but there was no trace of a belt full of silver. The ship anchored in the Thames, Bracklebury took Raffel’s corpse ashore and, for a while, we acted our parts. We allowed the sailors to have their whores on board then, as you said, Bracklebury cleared the ship. Bracklebury was a good mate but I didn’t trust him fully so we agreed that, about each hour, he would flash the signal lamp towards shore and I would answer.’ Cabe licked his lips. ‘The rest of the officers were too drunk to remember where each of us wandered off to. I spent most of the bloody night on that quayside fearful of everything. What happened if Bracklebury didn’t find the silver? What happened if Bracklebury did and decided to flee? It was then that I saw the whore Bernicia standing on the quayside, looking out to the ship. I heard Bracklebury curse her and the misbegotten creature disappeared.’ Cabe slurped his wine. ‘The mist shifted – sometimes it blanketed the God’s Bright Light completely, at other times it parted. I saw the signals being flashed and the admiral’s boat go across. We had expected that but Bracklebury said he would fob him off.’ Cabe splayed his fingers out on the table top. ‘The next morning I thought I was in a nightmare. The God’s Bright Light was deserted. There was no sign of Bracklebury or the rest of the watch. I immediately concluded that Bracklebury had found the silver and either killed his two shipmates and fled or shared it with them and jumped ship.’ He smiled thinly at Cranston. ‘But it wasn’t as simple as that, Sir John, was it? There was all the mystery of who kept passing the signals between the ships and neither myself nor anyone else had seen anyone leave or approach the God’s Bright Light.’ Cabe tapped the table top. ‘That did intrigue me, because Bracklebury couldn’t swim.’ Cabe gulped at the wine and stared beseechingly at Cranston. ‘You promise I won’t hang?’