But if these surmises were correct, where was the treasure? It was not still in the secret hiding place of the abbot’s old lodgings because I had myself reached in as far as my arm would go, until my nails had scrabbled against cold earth. And yet if, as seemed most likely, Peter Noakes had hidden whatever he had found in the baggage of one or other of the rest of us, then where was it? It had plainly not been in Oliver Tockney’s pack or the search would have ended with his murder. Again, nothing could have been discovered either at the lawyer’s house or in Henry Callowhill’s. The attempted robbery at my house had been thwarted, but I knew only too well that my pack was innocent of anything unusual or valuable; and if the testimony of my own eyes was not enough, then I had just seen Sir Lionel prove it for himself. That left the goldsmith, but I discounted him. I guessed that the attempt to break into the house in St Peter’s Street had been nothing but a blind.
With all this churning around inside my head, it was small wonder that my efforts at selling my goods were met with poor success, and by the time I eventually returned to the cobbler’s shop I was bone-weary and dispirited.
‘Eh, lad, you’ve worn yourself out,’ Mistress Shoesmith upbraided me, pushing me, unresisting, into the room’s one armchair and bustling about to fetch me a beaker of ale and some of her honey cakes, baked, so she assure me, only that afternoon. ‘Now, sit still and Betsy’ll pull off your boots.’
I made a feeble remonstrance, but was too tired to resist and extended my feet to the obliging Betsy without more ado. She glanced up and gave a broad wink which I returned, but half-heartedly. I was glad when the cobbler himself entered the room and supper was served.
‘He’s worn himself out,’ my hostess informed her husband, who grunted.
‘It’s hard work getting money out of them skinflints,’ he grumbled. ‘Don’t I know it?’
‘You can have a rest tomorrow,’ Mistress Shoesmith said. ‘It’s Sunday.’
Fortunately, my hosts were not ones for sitting up late, nor was their conversation of such a nature as to keep them awake much past mid-evening. The cobbler did ask me if I fancied a visit to the local ale-house, but as the pair of us were already yawning our heads off, I declined — greatly, I thought, to his relief. Mistress Shoesmith, having imparted such gossip as there was concerning her visit to her sister, had fallen asleep at the table, her chin propped between her hands. The only one of us who seemed unaffected by the stuffy atmosphere of the little room behind the shop, its shutters closed and barred against the dark November evening outside, was Betsy. She sat on a three-legged stool in one corner, humming softly to herself, her large eyes fixed on each of us in turn, but mainly, I noticed uneasily, turned in my direction. I could only hope that her expectations of me were not too high. I wasn’t sure that I could live up to them.
It was after my hostess had awakened with a snort from her slumbers that she announced it was time to retire.
‘For there’s no point in us sitting here snoring when we might as well be comfortable in our beds. Betsy, my girl, bustle about and light the candles and lantern while I douse the fire. And then fetch a spare blanket and pillow from the chest in our bedchamber and make yourself a nest in that corner by the hearth. You’ll do very well there for a night or two.’
Once more, I was moved to protest, insisting that I should be the one to sleep downstairs, but I was again overruled, most loudly by Betsy herself. So I allowed myself to be persuaded.
‘She’s a good deal younger than you are,’ the cobbler grunted, while his wife nodded agreement. ‘’Sides, you be a guest.’
The second reason appealed to me far more than the first, and I went to bed somewhat deflated by the thought of my advancing years.
Mistress Shoesmith’s reference to lighting a lantern, which I had found a little strange, was soon explained when I discovered that although the main bedchamber was reached by a narrow flight of stairs from the living room, the second could only be entered from outside the cottage by an equally narrow flight of stone steps. As I mounted cautiously, lantern in hand, a few heavy drops of rain fell on my face and I could hear the moan of a rising wind. We were, I guessed, in for one of those storms that so often herald the coldest part of the year.
To call Betsy’s room a bedchamber was to give it a dignity it in no way deserved. I doubt if it were much more than six-feet wide by perhaps ten-feet long, while the ceiling was so low that I could barely stand upright. It contained nothing except a bed and, beside it, a small chest which held such spare clothing as she possessed and whose lid acted as a table on which reposed a broken comb, a tinderbox and flints and an earthenware jug full of stale water. There was no window and when the door was shut, no light except from the lantern I was carrying. This I placed carefully alongside the jug while I stripped down to my shirt and eased myself between the sheets.
These, though ripped in several places, I discovered, somewhat to my surprise, to be clean and smelling faintly of lavender. They had obviously been newly put on the bed, probably while I was out earlier in the day, and I was touched by such thoughtfulness. I fished around in my pack for my piece of willow bark and cleaned my teeth, at the same time wishing that Mistress Shoesmith had offered me a basin of water in which to wash away the grime of what had been a long day. But my nose had told me that cleanliness was not of great importance to either the cobbler or his wife.
I sat up in bed and regarded the door. In spite of the lack of a window, there was no dearth of air in the room, the door being extremely badly fitting, with at least two inches of space between the bottom of it and the threshold. It did, however, boast a strong iron bolt near the top, and for a moment or two I debated whether or not to use it. But the memory of Betsy’s parting smile as she wished me goodnight made me hesitate. There had been more than a hint of promise in those softly curling lips and although, at the time, I had felt too tired to respond, the fresh air had revived me. There was little chance of her appearing, however, before the Shoesmiths were safely asleep, and as I could still hear them moving about on the other side of the thin wall which separated us, I decided I might as well settle down. I opened the door of the lantern and blew out the candle, then pulled the sheet and the rough woollen blanket up around my ears and closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, how much later I wasn’t sure, I could hear that the storm had well and truly broken. The wind had risen to shrieking pitch, gibbering around the cottage as though it were trying to blow it down, and soughing through the branches of some nearby trees, rattling their near leafless branches. The draught beneath the door was lifting the rushes on the floor with such ferocity that several small pieces were floating about the room, one of which had settled on my upper lip, just below my nose, making me sneeze. It was this that had woken me.
I had just brushed it away and was settling myself to sleep again as best I could, when I heard a noise outside. It was a miracle that I could hear anything above the howling of the wind, and precisely what I heard I could not afterwards determine.
‘Betsy,’ I thought, and marvelled that any girl could be so eager for my company that she was willing to brave the cold, the darkness and the rain to be with me. It was flattering of course, but I wasn’t feeling my best and was doubtful of my power to entertain her. Nevertheless, I could hardly turn her away when she showed herself so keen. Besides, honour was at stake. Here was a chance to prove that my advancing years sat lightly on me; that thirty-one was not the end of existence.