“Is that why you came? To investigate an unimportant murder? How commonplace.”
“Did you?”
“He was not in the plan for the grail. Ask your Templar friends. They know.”
“Dammit! Did you?”
De Marcherne stood and glared nose to nose with Crispin. “Why is this so important? I tell you, there are far greater things at stake than catching a murderer.”
Crispin grabbed de Marcherne’s coat and fisted the cloth in his hands. He brought his face within inches of de Marcherne’s. “Tell me now, or I swear I will kill you!”
The curtains rustled. Suddenly they crumpled upon themselves with a great, thunderous crash of rod and plaster that startled Crispin and de Marcherne from their confrontation.
Jack stood alone in the little alcove, the thick curtains encircling his feet, his face white. “For the love of Christ, Master, let us leave this hellish place!”
Livid, Crispin released de Marcherne and glared at Jack.
The Frenchman straightened his houppelande and brushed it off. “Perhaps your little friend is right. Perhaps it is time for you to leave before I call the palace guards. Or mine.”
Crispin swept the room with a furious glance. He grasped Jack by the collar and hoisted him inches above the floor while dragging him forward, but de Marcherne’s parting words slowed him.
“And Crispin. Since we no longer have an agreement, I must warn you. If you find the grail first, it will be the last thing you ever do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
They reached the foot of Crispin’s lodgings and he finally spun on Jack. “All I needed was one more moment, one more word from him, you senseless, sorry thief!”
Jack pouted. “Now, Master. That isn’t no way to speak to me. I’m a good lad, I am. I’m loyal to you. But when that man talked about God! I started gripping the curtains and…well it wasn’t my fault they fell! I got all queer inside. Like he didn’t have the right to speak the name of the Lord with his poisonous breath.”
Crispin mashed his lips together and stared at Jack a long time. He ran his hand over his face and nodded solemnly. “You may be right.”
“’Course I am. And you don’t truly believe he done it, do you?”
“Why not? He is evil enough.”
“Aye. That’s my point. If he did it he wouldn’t fear telling you. He’d be proud of it. I think he’s toying with you because he only wished he done it!”
Crispin said nothing. He climbed the stairs, unlocked the door, and dropped into his chair.
Jack went to the hearth to coax fire from the ashes.
Crispin watched the renewing flames. The boy busied himself tidying up the room and swept stray ashes back into the hearth.
“Very well,” Crispin said, answering Jack’s question at last. “No. I suppose I don’t believe he did it, and for the reason you cite. But God’s blood, I want him to be guilty!”
He sat with his face in his hands a long while, feeling the room grow warmer from the fire. But he also felt weary and strangely out of place. Returning to court drained his senses. His limbs even felt heavy as if he had been running in full armor.
“Again, we are placed in the unfortunate circumstance of not knowing who the murderer is.”
Jack handed Crispin a bowl of wine. “Aye. But you’ve solved difficult puzzles before, have you not?”
Crispin drank thirstily. His throat felt like parchment. “Yes. But not quite like this.”
Jack went to the larder and poured himself a bowl of wine and stood over Crispin, contemplating his pinched expression. “I wish I could help you, Master. I truly do. I haven’t a head for puzzles, I’m afraid. That is what you do.”
“So they tell me,” he said with a sigh. Jack hurried to refill Crispin’s cup.
“Jack, what am I forgetting? What small clue have I missed?”
The boy settled on the floor by the fire and hugged his legs, his bowl beside him. “I know not, Master. It seems so long ago now, though it was less than a sennight. I was only at the Boar’s Tusk very briefly.”
“That’s right. I was asleep and I felt you cut my purse-”
“Sloppy, that. You never should have felt it,” he said with a brush of hurt in his voice.
Crispin’s mind summoned the scene from one of many wine-soaked memories. “Let me think. I was asleep and…who else was there?”
“Master Gilbert, but was asleep, too.”
“Yes. And then there was you, and John the piper, and the dead man, and some assorted fellows I’ve seen a thousand times before.”
“And the servant.”
“And the servant.” Crispin squinted, trying to see the tavern in the dim corners of his memory. “The servant. He was sitting next to D’Arcy.” He thumped his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. “I only saw him…” He tilted his head to the side trying to recollect. “I only saw him through the haze of hearth smoke. And it was shadowy. But I knew he was a servant because he wore livery. Whose? Jack, do you recall his colors?”
“Ah me no, sir. I know they was dark.”
“Dark. Green or blue. I can’t remember. But he sat beside Gaston D’Arcy. How long?”
“He was there when I entered.”
“And how long were you there before you began to thieve from me?”
Jack blushed and lowered his face. “I had to get the sense of the room, Master. And though I knew the rest were in their cups-begging your pardon-I had to wait until no one was mindful of me.”
“And how long was that?”
“’Bout quarter past the hour. Once no one paid me any heed…well, that’s when I made me move.”
“So he sat beside D’Arcy all that time? Doing what?”
“Naught. Not even drinking.”
Crispin sat up. “But I saw him. He was drunk when he got up. He even fell against you.”
“Ah no, good Master. That is my way, you see. ’Twas I what stumbled against him.”
Crispin saw the room in his mind’s eye. The smoky interior flickered in the firelight. The windows were shuttered against the rain and mist. Candles on the tables offered some light but only sparsely. Crispin’s wine bowl sat before him but there were many discarded on the table, just as there had been in front of the dead man. “There were many bowls on that table. Do you tell me the servant drank from none of them?”
“I only know what I saw, Master, and as you know, I had naught to drink. Until I drank that cursed poison.”
Crispin looked at his wine but did not drink. “Jack, when you bumped into him, did you take his purse as well?”
“Ah, no, Master. He moved too swiftly for me.”
“Damn!”
“Oh, but I did get his broach.”
Crispin slowly raised his face. “Tell me, Jack,” he said, trying to calm the excitement in his voice. “You do not, by any chance, still have that broach, do you?”
“Oh, aye.”
Crispin shot from his chair and grabbed Jack by the shoulders. Jack squealed in surprise and pushed away from him. “Here now!”
“That broach, Jack. Get it!”
“Very well,” he said cautiously once Crispin let him go. He went to the door and grasped the jamb. He guiltily looked back once at Crispin before he pulled and loosened the board and reached with his stick-thin arm into the opening.
Crispin marveled that such a secret place hid under his very nose, but he admired Jack all the more for his ingenuity.
At last, Jack pulled out a parcel wrapped in a rag and tied with string. He laid it on the table and ran his hand under his nose. “Now then,” Jack said, the same hand resting on the parcel. “When I open this, you may be surprised by what’s inside. But there’s no sense in your insisting I return these items to their owners for I have long since forgotten who owned them. I am at your mercy, sir.”
Crispin returned a solemn countenance to Jack’s grave one. “I swear on my honor, Jack, that I will say nothing.”
“Right then.” Jack took his knife and cut the parcel’s string and opened the rag. Crispin’s eyes widened when he beheld the many folded documents, wax seals and leather ribbons in tact. But there were also rings, brooches, pins, and loose gems.