‘Have you any suspects we should put our hands on at the moment?’ he demanded. ‘You say it must be a priest, but who are the most likely candidates?’
‘There are a hundred to choose from, Ralph, and I have no evidence against any of them. One of the possibles is locked up just across the passage here, so it can’t be him.’
The prior shook his head. ‘No, he’s not! He went out a few hours ago.’
De Wolfe stared at him. ‘But he was raving mad when I came to see him. How can he have gone? Did he escape?’
The prior shook his tonsured head. ‘After you left, he suddenly became calmer. He put on his clothes and asked us to send for his fellow priest and confessor, Adam of Dol. I had no reason to refuse. Adam came up and said he was taking de Capra back to his dwelling. I protested for a while, but had no power to keep de Capra against his will if a brother priest was willing to look after him, so off he went, as quietly as a lamb.’ The prior sounded glad to have been relieved of the responsibility. De Wolfe walked to the doorway. ‘I’ll go up to Rougemont myself very soon. My clerk needs to be put out of his misery about tomorrow — and I need to have a few strong words with the sheriff. Where is he, anyway?’
‘Eating and drinking with the Justices down at the New Inn,’ said Morin sarcastically. ‘He’s not one to let slip any chance of fraternising with the high and mighty!’
John grunted. ‘We’ll call in on him and their lordships on the way. I’ll enjoy spoiling their digestion by telling them that the hanging is off.’
De Wolfe set off for the New Inn, with Ralph Morin close by his side in case he staggered or collapsed. But his hard head and his exultation at Thomas’s rescue kept him on his feet as he walked with increasing confidence through the darkened streets of Exeter. With his white bandages swathing his head, he looked more like one of Saladin’s warriors than the King’s coroner. At the inn, the landlord told them that the sheriff had left for Rougemont and the judges had already retired, so they carried on to the castle, although John found the temptation to drag the Justices from their beds hard to resist.
With Osric and the sergeant-at-arms following behind, they arrived at the keep. There, de Wolfe and Morin marched into de Revelle’s outer chamber without ceremony. It was empty, but John hammered on the inner door to the sheriff’s bedroom, remembering the time, some months earlier, when he had caught him in there with a whore.
This time he was alone, and opened the door petulantly, dressed in a gaudy silk surcoat to cover his nakedness. He stared in sleepy incredulity at his brother-in-law’s Levantine headdress and was even more incredulous when he heard that the Gospel killer was still on the loose. For several minutes, nothing would convince him that this was not some underhand plot of de Wolfe’s. ‘But you weren’t killed, were you?’ he brayed. ‘This was just some opportunist cutpurse in that unsavoury part of town!’
John jingled the coins in his purse to quash that notion. ‘Neither was de Vallibus killed, was he? Nor that harlot in the fire — and maybe there was another who didn’t die!’ He winked at Richard, who understood that unless he was careful the full story of Waterbeer Street might leak out.
The sheriff weakened, but muttered again that there must be some mistake, so Ralph Morin yelled for Osric and Gabriel to come in from the hall. They told their story, listed the numerous eye-witnesses and then, as the coup de grâce, produced the leather bag and the parchment note.
De Revelle stared at this, then feebly suggested it might be a forgery.
‘A forgery?’ roared de Wolfe. ‘It was found inside the bag that almost killed me. And d’you think I knocked myself unconscious, then swallowed the weapon that did it?’
De Revelle, sitting slumped behind his table in his peacock-blue robe, capitulated. ‘Very well, but we’ll get that canon, Jordan de Brent, up to look at it in the morning. He’s the expert on writing.’
‘That will tell you nothing, but if it pleases you, do it. At the same time, you can get him to look at that ridiculous note you read to me about my clerk, to see if that was a forgery. Now I’m going below to the undercroft to tell my much-abused clerk the good news.’
The sheriff leapt up, his surcoat falling open to reveal a hairy chest and a white belly. ‘He’s not being released tonight, whatever you say! Not until this is put to the Justices and they agree, understand? I’ve suffered some of your damned tricks before, John, so keep away from him tonight, d’you hear!’
De Wolfe was not disposed to fight him for the sake of a few more hours in a cell and, gathering up his precious bag and parchment, left the sheriff to fume over yet another humiliation at the hands of his brother-in-law.
Feeling decidedly shaky now that the rush of excitement and exultation was fading, de Wolfe headed for home, Osric shepherding him as far as his front door. As he headed for the steps up to the solar, Mary came out of the kitchen-hut and almost fainted when she saw his bandaged head in the moonlight, for the silver orb had risen since the events of a few hours ago.
He turned down her offer to make him something to eat and drink, but told her of Thomas’s deliverance, at which she was as overjoyed as Nesta had been, for the little clerk was an object of sympathy and affection to all the women — except Matilda. The thought of his wife sent his eyes up to the solar door.
‘She’s been in bed these many hours,’ Mary reassured him. ‘So get yourself there as well. You’ll have no trouble until the morning.’
Next morning Matilda was surprisingly concerned about his head, though she cooled a little when she discovered that he had suffered the injury only a few yards from the Bush Inn. Even so, she made him promise to attend her favourite apothecary’s shop in the high street that day to have the dressing changed. When he told her of Thomas’s reprieve, she showed none of the scorn he expected — in fact, he sensed that she was grudgingly pleased that his obvious distress over his little clerk had been lifted.
After breaking his fast early, he hurried up to Rougemont, his legs, if not his head, back to normal. Gabriel had already told Gwyn of the night’s dramatic happening and the big Cornishman was half drunk with delight and celebratory ale. He had wanted to rush over to the undercroft and drag Thomas out there and then, until the sergeant had cooled him down. ‘Best wait until the crowner has sorted things out with the sheriff and the Justices,’ he warned. ‘We don’t want to mess things up by being too hasty.’
De Wolfe was about to do this now, and all his witnesses had been gathered in the Shire Hall well before the time when the court session was due to start. They were waiting for the Justices and the sheriff to come across from the keep.
Richard de Revelle had reluctantly told them the story, and they sat down at one of the clerks’ tables on the platform with solemn faces, a suspicion of a scowl on those of Sir Peter Peverel and Walter de Ralegh.
De Wolfe stood over them, told them the facts again and produced the leather bag and the parchment note. His own injury was obvious, especially as some blood had seeped through the linen, which made it look all the more impressive. A few of the witnesses from Smythen Street were called to confirm the attack, and Osric nervously added the names of others who could support the story. The judges listened in stony silence, though the Archdeacon from Gloucester looked relieved that one of his brethren looked certain to be declared innocent.
By this time the cathedral archivist, Canon Jordan de Brent, had appeared, summoned from the dusty Exchequer above the Chapter House. He sat at the table and looked at the most recent message from the Gospel killer, together with the others and the disc of hard candle-wax from the steps of St Mary Arches. He looked intently at them and then shook his head. ‘The writing is deliberately disguised,’ he pronounced. ‘All the notes are different in style and slope and are irregular, so it was not a normal freehand.’ He peered more closely at two of the notes for a moment. ‘Yet I would suggest that these two notes were by the same hand,’ He held up the first, found at the scene of Aaron’s death, and the one from last night. ‘Each of these has a strange hook on the letter T. The writer, though he has successfully varied all his other letters, must have forgotten this one quirk, perhaps in haste or panic. I think it confirms that last night’s message was written by whoever killed the Jew.’