Privately, de Wolfe wondered if the same nasty shock might trigger some useful reaction in Adam of Dol, but when they reached the little house behind the church, no one was in. The four investigators came back down the steep cobbles at the side of the church and went in through the front door.
Inside the empty nave, they saw Adam with his back to them, up a ladder set against the blank wall at one side of the chancel arch. He wore an old black robe stained with paint, the skirt pulled up between his legs and tucked into a broad leather belt. A tray of small pots was balanced precariously on one of the rungs and he was leaning out with a small brush, meticulously putting pigment on another of his terrifying images.
He was so intent upon his artistic endeavours that he failed to hear them come in. Gwyn nudged his master and pointed to the new scene, mostly in red and black, which contrasted starkly with the whitewashed walls. It was only partly completed, but showed an angel and a winged devil fighting over an agonised human, each trying to drag him up to heaven or down to hell. The details were very well drawn and the face of the angel was undoubtedly that of Adam himself. The devil was equally clearly that of Henry Marshal, Bishop of Devon and Cornwall!
‘That’ll not increase your popularity in the cathedral precinct,’ said John in a loud voice. The priest turned so suddenly that he was in danger of falling from the ladder, but when he saw who his visitors were, he snarled, ‘I don’t give a tinker’s curse what they think down there! They’re only interested in fancy vestments, good food and their fat tithes and prebends. Saving souls is the least of their concerns.’ He turned back to his painting, deliberately ignoring the coroner and his companions. He was adding a disembowelled corpse to the free hand of the bishop-devil, presumably one which Satan had already seized from the forces of heaven.
John waited patiently, while Brother Rufus stared with rapt attention at all the other wall-paintings, and the ever-inquisitive Thomas wandered over to the chancel steps to leaf through a thick book that lay on a wooden lectern.
After a little time Adam finished what he was painting and leaned back a little to admire his work. Then he put his brush on the tray and slowly came down the ladder. Rubbing his hands on his grubby tunic, he came across the nave towards de Wolfe, his red face as truculent as ever. ‘Anyway, what do you want, Crowner? I’ve seen enough of you lately. Can’t you leave us alone?’
The ‘us’ brought home to John that he had an unpleasant duty to perform. Quite bluntly, he told Adam of the gruesome death of his priestly neighbour less than an hour before. If he had been hoping for a reaction, he was not disappointed, for after a moment’s shocked inertia, the burly priest gave a bull-like roar and charged at the coroner, his hands open as if to seize his throat.
Gwyn, who had spent many years as bodyguard to his master, stepped calmly between them and grabbed the priest’s wrists in a bear-like grip, forcing the man down to his knees.
‘Now, none of that or I’ll have to hurt you,’ he said benignly.
However, Adam’s mouth could still function and he poured out a torrent of invective at de Wolfe, widening it to include the sheriff, constable, bishop, all the archdeacons and most of the Exeter canons. ‘If you had not persecuted that poor man, he would still be alive!’ he raged. ‘He lost his faith, as many of us do at some time or another, but he was hounded into insanity by you all.’
Rufus tried to intervene, pointing out that though racking doubts about the very existence of God were an occupational hazard of being a priest, few were driven to madness and self-destruction. Adam ignored him and continued to rage at the coroner and the faithless world in general, his fleshy face almost purple with anger.
John let the abuse wash over him and motioned to Gwyn to let the man get to his feet, though the Cornishman kept a wary eye on him in case he became violent again.
As the priest continued to shake his fist, wave his arms and rant about the indolence of the Church, Thomas sidled up to de Wolfe and tugged at his sleeve. ‘Crowner, come over here, quickly,’ he whispered, and pulled him the few paces to the chancel steps where the Vulgate now lay open on the lectern. The clerk pointed a finger at one page, where John saw faint but distinct underlining in powdery charcoal beneath some of the beautifully regular lettering of the Latin text. Thomas turned feverishly to another page, which he had marked with a small feather dropped by one of the birds that nested in the roof beams. ‘Here again passages have been marked — and in other places!’ he hissed.
As de Wolfe stared at him with dawning comprehension, he became aware that Adam’s tirade was running down in volume and virulence. The priest had noticed the activity near his lectern.
‘Are these the same quotations as at the scenes of death?’ he muttered, leaning closer to his clerk.
Thomas bobbed his head. ‘This one is from St Mark about the moneylenders in the temple — and the first was that about the millstone around the neck.’
Adam’s angry monologue had faded to silence now and de Wolfe saw that both Gwyn and the castle chaplain had turned to listen to what Thomas was saying. ‘Hold him, Gwyn, I have some questions for that man!’ snapped John urgently, but he was too late. With surprising agility for one so heavily built, Adam of Dol raced for a small door at the front of the nave, alongside the entrance from the street. Gwyn pounded after him, but the priest slipped through and slammed it after him. They heard a bar being dropped on the inside and though Gwyn crashed his great body against the oaken door, it shuddered but held fast. The four left in the nave clustered around the doorway in excited frustration.
‘Where does this lead?’ demanded de Wolfe.
‘It can only be to the bell-tower,’ suggested Rufus.
Shouting over his shoulder to Gwyn to break it open, de Wolfe ran out into the narrow street between the church and the city wall near the West Gate. Turning, he looked up at the squat, square tower that had been erected only a few years earlier with funds donated by a rich burgess in memory of his wife. Just under the flat top, there was a small arch on each of the four sides, which allowed the peals from the central bell to ring out over the city. He could see no one under the front arch so he hurried back into the nave.
Gwyn had failed to shift the door with his shoulder and rubbing his bruised muscles, was on his way to fetch Adam’s stout ladder to use as a battering-ram. There was silence from behind the door and John wondered whether Adam might decide to follow his fellow priest’s example by killing himself. However, the coroner decided that it seemed out of character with the man’s truculent nature, unless by leaping from the bell-tower, he could land on the coroner and personally send him to hell, having failed the previous night with his leather bag.
As he waited impatiently for Gwyn to break down the door, de Wolfe noticed that Brother Rufus and Thomas were staring at the other gory scenes painted by Adam high on the walls. They were pointing at particular parts of the murals, which were frighteningly realistic in their sharp detail. ‘Crowner, look at that face — and that one,’ brayed the monk. ‘Can you see who they are?’
John peered up, following Rufus’s finger. Though the main characters in the scenes were angels and devils, there were several smaller individuals, almost all agonised victims of sin. Suddenly, his eyes registered what the other two were indicating. In the lower corner of the first painting, one face was unmistakably that of Aaron, the Jewish moneylender, and in the next, a woman with flowing hair and prominent breasts was Joanna of London. Astounded, John moved along and found the merchant sodomite Fitz-William, then the unmistakable pointed beard and close-set eyes of Richard de Revelle.
‘No sign of the crowner here, in his gallery of rogues,’ chaffed Rufus. ‘I suppose as you were the last victim he hasn’t had time to include you.’