Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries) (40 page)

‘What do you expect to find after all this time?’ he grunted, as he handed them to his clerk. To his surprise, Thomas hardly looked at them, but rubbed them between his fingers, then held them to his thin, pointed nose where he sniffed at them like a hound on the scent.

Gwyn gave one of his booming laughs, laced with derision. ‘What in hell are you doing, man? Are you going to track down the robbers by their smell?’

Unfazed, the little priest nodded. ‘Maybe I will, as something is tickling my memory.’

He handed the keys back to the coroner. ‘Feel those again, sire, do they not seem greasy to you? And there is an odour which I have smelt somewhere before.’

John did as he was bid and then handed the keys on to Gwyn, who made a great performance of sticking them under his huge moustache and sniffing loudly.

‘There is something,’ agreed John cautiously. ‘But what use is that to us?’

Thomas stood up. ‘I think that we should go again to that ironmaster’s house in Duck Lane.’

The dwelling and workshop was still empty when they arrived half an hour later. John was prepared to wave his royal warrant at anyone who questioned their right to be there, but it all seemed deserted. Going around to the back, they saw that weeds were already reclaiming the muddied yard, and someone had broken into the house by smashing the temporary repairs that Gwyn had made to the back door. They went in and looked around the gloomy workshop and at the confusion of bits of metal that lay on the dusty benches and earthen floor.

‘If there was anything useful here, it’s been stolen by now,’ Gwyn growled. ‘Good job that the son took away all the tools.’

‘What are we looking for, Thomas?’ demanded de Wolfe.

The clerk scanned the rough shelves above the workplaces and then looked on the floor under the benches. He bent down and picked up something, then reached up to a shelf and took down a rusty metal pot. He sniffed both these unprepossessing objects, then handed them to the coroner.

‘How do these compare with those keys, Crowner?’

John obediently put his nose to them, then passed them to Gwyn.

‘It’s the same smell, like beeswax and turpentine, at a guess.’

The Cornishman grudgingly agreed. ‘So what does it mean?’ he asked.

The clerk held out the object from the floor. ‘I think you noticed this last time we were here, Crowner. A little wooden box, half-filled with the stuff from this pot. It’s a soft wax, that could be used for taking impressions, so that a metal copy could be made by a competent craftsman.’

‘But then it would be the originals that stank of the wax, not the copies!’ objected Gwyn.

Thomas smiled smugly. ‘I feel sure that the copies would have to be repeatedly matched to the wax impression, while the blank wards were being filed down to make sure they were an exact fit.’

Light dawned on de Wolfe. ‘So Canon Basset could have pressed the keys of the chest into the wax, then brought it here for this man Osbert Morel to make copies?’

Thomas nodded energetically. ‘Certainly! The only problem is when would he have access to both keys to allow him to do that?’

They all thought about that for a moment. ‘Both keys are only together when the chest is actually being opened in that deep chamber in the Tower,’ said Gwyn. ‘But the Keeper is always there then, having brought his own key.’

John shrugged. ‘I wonder if he stays all the time when men from the Exchequer are checking and rechecking the contents?’ he said. ‘I suspect old Herbert de Mandeville would have often gone back to his chamber upstairs and left Simon to get on with his boring tasks.’

‘Unless he was in conspiracy with the canon himself,’ suggested Thomas.

John cautiously dipped his finger into the brownish substance in the pot and found it to be as firm as a pat of good butter. His fingertip sank into the surface and left a perfect impression. He repeated the process with the smaller amount in the little box, with the same result.

‘That’s how it was done, then!’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Simon Basset, man of God or not, is our culprit. He managed to copy both keys and then when he was in the Tower on one of his legitimate visits to check other boxes, he somehow opened the treasure chest without being seen.’

Gwyn leaned back against a table, making it creak alarmingly.

‘How would he manage that? There was always a guard with him, surely?’

‘Basset was very well known there; he was a senior member of the Exchequer and came regularly to deal with the inventories,’ countered Thomas. ‘I doubt the guards would be watching him like a hawk all the time he was there. They weren’t to know that he wasn’t supposed to open that particular chest.’

De Wolfe nodded. ‘It happened, so that’s how it must have been done, for lack of any other explanation. He could have slid some gold objects under his wide cassock while he was pretending to count the items. Maybe it was done over several sessions, not all at once.’

Back in their chamber in the palace, John put their trophies of the wax box and pot of mixture on his table and regarded them solemnly.

‘There is one big problem with all this,’ he said sadly. ‘If Simon Basset was the perpetrator, why was he murdered?’

There was a silence as the other two contemplated this recurring riddle.

‘He must have had an accomplice,’ said Gwyn. ‘Otherwise, who killed the ironmaster? I can’t see a fat canon committing murder on the marshes, even though it was not far from his house.’

‘And where is the stolen treasure now?’ asked Thomas. ‘There is no trace of it in the canon’s house, so presumably this unknown accomplice has it in his keeping – and perhaps eliminated Simon Basset to avoid having to give him his share.’

De Wolfe peered into the wax pot as if he could find the answer in its rusty depths.

‘Clever though you have been, Thomas – and I give you full credit for it – we are no nearer solving the mystery because of it. We need this second villain – and most of all we need to recover that gold, or we’ll have the wrath of the king and his Council upon us.’

For lack of any other inspiration, the next day John rode into the city to question Herbert de Mandeville about the keys. Gwyn stuck with him like the shadow he had become, but no assailant leapt from a side street to attack him. The Constable of the Tower was not pleased to see the coroner yet again, but given the Justiciar’s overriding authority, he had no choice. The interview was fruitless, as the Constable vehemently denied ever leaving Simon Basset alone with the chests in the strongroom. John did not believe him, as there was something in his voice that was too defensive and it was patently obvious that he could never have admitted to being in dereliction of the rules for opening the boxes. In fact, at first de Mandeville refused to accept that the canon was involved in the theft at all and tried to denigrate John’s evidence that the keys from Simon’s pouch had been pressed into wax for nefarious purposes.

There was nothing to be gained by arguing and de Wolfe left the Tower, unsure of what to do next. As they walked their horses slowly through the crowded, smelly streets, Gwyn ruminated on the litany of events that had brought them to this stage in the investigation, if it could be called that with so little progress.

‘Surely this mystery man is the key – the one who ate with Basset before he was taken ill in the bawdy house,’ he called to the coroner, pushing aside a ragged fellow who ran alongside his mare, trying to sell him a handful of bruised-looking plums.

De Wolfe moved Odin nearer, as there was a hideous racket coming from a quartet of musician-beggars who were performing at the side of the street on pipe and tabor, rebec and bagpipes.

‘So he might be!’ he yelled at his officer. ‘But how are we to find him after all this time?’ They moved on to a less noisome part of Cheapside, riding knee to knee to make conversation easier.

‘What about trying to get the sheriff’s help, now that we have direct orders from the king himself?’

They were within a short distance of the Guildhall and John felt that there was no time like the present. They left Cheapside and turned into a side street to reach the building that housed the city’s administration, an impressive stone edifice that had been built only two years after St Bartholomew’s Hospital, which also figured in the dead canon’s epic.

Leaving Gwyn holding the horses, he went inside and demanded to see one of the two sheriffs. After a cool reception from a clerk sitting in an anteroom, he produced his warrant, which he now carried rolled in an inner pocket of his short riding mantle. The sight of the three royal lions and the dangling red seal, which was large enough to cover the bottom of a pint ale-pot, immediately changed the surly attitude of the official, who led him to an upstairs chamber where Godard of Antioch was sitting at a table on a low platform, directing the activities of a trio of clerks busy scribing at desks below him.

The fleshy sheriff was no more pleased to see him than the Constable of the Tower had been, but again the sight of John’s warrant made him listen to what the coroner had to say.

‘I have now had direct and urgent orders from the king himself, to pursue this matter of the theft of royal revenue,’ said de Wolfe, in a decisive tone that made it clear that he was in no mood for prevarication.

‘What do you expect me to do about it?’ growled Godard, who like everyone in London knew of the theft from the Tower.

John explained the canon’s involvement in the crime.

‘But it is clear that there must have been at least one other involved, possibly more. One of these must have been responsible for his poisoning and I need to know who it was who ate with him shortly before he was taken mortally ill.’

‘And how by St Peter’s cods, do you think I can help you with that?’ grumbled the sheriff.

John patiently explained the need to find the tavern where they had eaten and to try to trace the other man. Godard was scathing in his response, but John’s persistence and his tapping of the Lionheart’s warrant, eventually persuaded the sheriff to give his grudging agreement.

‘You are wasting my time, de Wolfe, you must know that!’ he sneered. ‘How in hell’s name do you expect me to find a fellow, description unknown, several weeks after eating at an unknown tavern in an unknown part of England’s greatest city? Hey?’

Privately, John found it hard to disagree with him, but he was getting desperate.

‘Your constables know the city like the backs of their hands – the eating place cannot be far from Stinking Lane, as the canon walked there, according to the girl in the brothel. A fat canon may well be remembered by a skivvy or a potboy, especially if a reward is offered. I am sure the Exchequer would gladly pay a few shillings for useful information.’

After more grumbling and a grudging acceptance, the sheriff agreed to set some of his men on to the task, as long as it did not interfere with their other duties. Unconvinced that Godard would put himself to much trouble over this, John rolled up his royal parchment and put it away inside his cloak, then thanked the sheriff and went out of the building to his patient officer waiting in the street.

With no other leads to follow up, they made their way back to Westminster where, somewhat to John’s surprise, a case was waiting for him. The sergeant of the guard accosted him as soon as they entered and told him his services were needed at the back of the palace.

‘One of the laundry girls claims she has been ravished, sir,’ he announced. ‘We have a man already chained in a cell, but I’m told that this now comes under your jurisdiction.’

John sent Gwyn to collect Thomas from their chamber upstairs and the three of them followed the sergeant around to the large open area at the back of the palace, where the stables and servants’ lodgings were situated. The place was quiet, as the majority of the people and horses were far away in Gloucestershire. The laundry was a large wooden hut, steam billowing out from iron cauldrons set in stone fireplaces. Behind were several lean-to rooms where the women lived and in one cubicle a girl of about sixteen was lying moaning on a mattress laid on the floor. Two older women were tending her solicitously and raised outraged faces to the coroner as he walked in.

‘The poor wretch has been shamefully abused, sir,’ said one forcefully. Middle-aged and shabby, she held a cup of weak ale to the girl’s lips. ‘The bastard should be flayed alive, the dirty swine!’

John’s task was to confirm that the victim had indeed been raped and to record the facts for submission to the justices, which in this case would be the barons sitting on the King’s Bench in the Great Hall. However, he was no physician and needed some advice on the state of the girl, so a midwife was sent for, one of those who practised in the village. While they waited for her, he extracted the story from those who appeared to know what had happened. The girl herself was too shaken to speak coherently, her teeth chattering as she lay hunched beneath a tattered blanket, the younger woman holding her hand and making soothing noises to her.

The older woman was more than forthcoming with her evidence.

‘That evil bastard Edward Mody did it, Crowner,’ she snapped. ‘I more or less saw it happen – heard it, at any rate. He took her in this very room while I was dollying sheets in the main hut!’

‘Mody’s an ostler from the stables,’ explained the sergeant. ‘He’s the man we’ve got locked up.’