Thomas voiced what John was thinking. ‘Then the thief can only be someone who had a right to be in that strongroom. I wonder how big the stolen objects were? Could they be concealed under a cloak or tunic and smuggled out?’
De Wolfe scratched his black stubble, which was due for his weekly shave.
‘The plate was the largest thing. I remember it when the inventory was made in Winchester. Placed flat against a belly or chest, it could be taken out. The other treasures were small enough to be slipped into a deep pocket.’
‘And they were all of gold — the less valuable silver was left behind,’ added Thomas.
The three of them thought about this scenario for a moment.
‘So who would have had legitimate reason to be in the chamber?’ asked Gwyn.
‘The Constable, Herbert de Mandeville, for one,’ replied John. ‘Then Simon Basset, of course, and those knights from the Tower garrison, and a couple of the guards and their sergeant.’
The sharp wits of Thomas pointed out that both the knights and the Tower guards might well be different each time the chamber was visited, as chests were presumably arriving and departing frequently, requiring inventories to be made.
‘We mention Simon Basset, but there are a legion of Treasury and Exchequer barons, clerks and officials who might have reason to enter the room,’ added Thomas.
John groaned. ‘I’ll have to talk to them all, I suppose!’ he muttered. ‘Though no one is going to confess, if it means hanging or disembowelling.’
‘What about this key business?’ asked Gwyn. ‘It could only be someone who has managed to get hold of the correct two keys to the pair of locks on that chest.’
De Wolfe felt a shiver run up his spine. ‘Keys which I had in my possession for only four days,’ he reminded them. ‘Thank Christ the Justiciar has enough faith in me to dismiss any thought of my guilt.’
‘But even if you had the keys now, you had no way of getting into that chamber after the boxes were put there — and we know the contents were intact when we left,’ pointed out Thomas consolingly.
The coroner swallowed the last of his ale with an almost savage gesture and slammed the empty pot on the table.
‘I wish to hell I’d never had to leave Devon,’ he snarled. ‘We had problems enough there, God knows, but nothing like the things these slippery, scheming courtiers seem able to dream up. Sod it, I’m going to bed and hope that tomorrow will put an end to this sorry business!’
Next morning, after Thomas had finished his duties in the abbey, they rode up to the Great Tower, pushing their way through the crowded streets to the extreme eastern end of the great walled city that housed the tens of thousands of inhabitants now overflowing through the six gates into suburbs spreading into the surrounding countryside.
The brooding grey2 walls, a reminder of the Conqueror’s power, glowered over them as they approached. John produced his new authority from the Justiciar and dangled the imposing red seal in front of the gate guards. Though none could read it, they unhesitatingly let the coroner inside, where the builders were energetically carrying out King Richard’s order to erect new defences.
At the stables, they left their horses and an ostler took them to the steps up to the main entrance, where again a pair of sentries were impressed by John’s royal warrant. They called a page and he took them up four gloomy flights of stairs built into the thickness of the massive walls. On the second floor, the Constable, who preferred to be known as ‘The Keeper’, had a chamber with a deeply embrasured window that looked out over the river towards Southwark and the bridge.
Herbert de Mandeville did not look pleased to see de Wolfe, as he rose from behind his table.
‘I thought you would be bothering me, sooner or later,’ he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow with a crumpled kerchief. It was already very hot in the room, even at the ninth hour of the morning. A tonsured clerk came in from an adjacent office dragging a folding leather chair to the front of the table. At Herbert’s grudging invitation John sat down, leaving his officer and clerk to lurk behind him.
‘I know this is not a welcome exercise, but it has be done,’ began de Wolfe. ‘You saw yesterday that I and those who went to Winchester were paraded in front of you like suspects, so it affects us all.’
The Constable unbent a little at John’s tactful overture.
‘It’s a total mystery to me,’ he snapped. ‘If you can solve it, de Wolfe, then you deserve to be Chief Justiciar yourself, for I’m damned if I can fathom how it was done.’
They then went through the details of how the strongroom below the Tower was protected. De Man-deville eventually pulled out a silver chain from inside the pouch on his belt.’
‘This is attached to a ring sewn inside my scrip,’ he declared. ‘And on the other, there is this key, which never leaves my person, except when I am in bed.’
He held up a small iron key, then rose again and went to a large cupboard fixed to one of the stone walls. It was at least five feet square, but shallow, the edges of the doors being rimmed with iron.
‘This is my key store, where keys to most doors in the Tower are kept,’ he announced, as he opened a padlock which secured a thick hasp, fixed to the doors by metal bolts.
When the doors were opened, John saw dozens of keys of all shapes and sizes, hanging from hooks at the back of the cupboard. Many had dabs of coloured paint on their shanks or rings, some had wooden labels attached by cords and others were identified by slips of parchment tied to them. Some of the keys were almost a foot long, but most were half that size, with complicated wards cut into the metal.
‘And no one else had a key to that cupboard?’ asked John. ‘What happens when you are away or indisposed?’
‘My chief clerk has a copy,’ admitted de Mandeville, rather sheepishly. ‘But I would trust him with my life. He has been here for twenty-four years. And, anyway, in respect of the Exchequer boxes, it is immaterial, as they cannot be opened with my key alone.’
John thought this system had a glaring defect as far as the keys of the Tower were concerned, but had to admit that without the other key held by the Exchequer officials, the chests seemed impregnable. After more fruitless questioning of de Mandeville, he asked to speak to the chief clerk, a white-haired old man with severe disease of his joints. His knuckles were crippled with hard swellings and he shuffled along due to painful stiffness of his hips. However, there was nothing wrong with his brain or his tongue, and he vehemently defended his trustworthiness, claiming that the key to his master’s cupboard never left his person, even in bed. He had never opened the store to anyone without firm authorisation and the keys to the Treasury boxes had never been removed by anyone other than the ‘Keeper’ himself.
De Wolfe abandoned his interrogation and asked to be shown the scene of the crime, the chamber deep in the bowels of the Tower. De Mandeville marched ahead of them, back down the stairs and then through tortuous passages to a narrow spiral staircase that had a small portcullis and a heavy door at its bottom end.
‘This is a weak spot in the defence of the Tower, should it ever be besieged,’ he grunted, as he unlocked the door with a large key he brought from his chamber. ‘Normally, an undercroft is quite isolated from the floors above, but maybe this could be defended by two men against an army, as it’s so narrow.’
At the bottom, a man-at-arms stood on duty in the passage that led to the treasure chamber, and another man with pike and sword guarded the door through which the chests had been taken.
‘I reckon it must have been a bloody miracle after all,’ muttered Gwyn, as they waited for the Constable to unlock the door to the chamber. ‘There’s all these sentries and every damned door is locked. A flaming mouse couldn’t have got in there!’