When the patients were all resting, Bartholomew slipped out and went into the room that had been Augustus's and that was now used to store clean blankets and linen. He carefully closed the door. The shutters were already fastened, but the wood had swollen and warped over many years, and were ill-fitting enough to allow sufficient light for Bartholomew to see what he was doing.
He crouched on the window-sill and peered up at the ceiling. He had never really noticed the ceilings in the south wing before. They were really quite beautiful, with elaborate designs carved into the fine dark oak.
Looking carefully, Bartholomew could see no evidence whatsoever of a trap-door. He wondered if Wilson had been lying to him. He jumped down and lit one of the supply of candles he had appropriated from the hall for use in the sickroom. Climbing back onto the window-sill, he held the candle up and looked again. He could still see nothing.
He put the palm of his hand against the ceiling and pushed gently, and he was startled to feel it move. He pushed again, and an entire section of the ceiling came loose. He had to drop the candle to catch the heavy wood and prevent it from crashing down onto his head.
Carefully, he lowered the loose panel onto the floor, relit his candle, and cautiously poked his head into the space beyond.
At first. he could make nothing out, but then gradually he saw that the trap-door, as Wilson had called it, did little more than conceal a way into the attic. He did not know what he had expected — a cramped secret passage, perhaps, with dusty doorways leading away from it. Still holding the candle he hauled himself up, bemused to think that Wilson had been fit enough to do the same.
There was not sufficient room for him to stand upright, so he walked hunched over. The candle was not bright enough to illuminate the whole of the attic, and it faded into deep shadows at the edges. There was an unpleasant smell too, as if generations of small animals had found their way in, but had become trapped and died. Bartholomew shook himself. He was being fanciful.
The attic was basically bare, the wooden floor covered in thick dust, scuffed here and there by some recent disturbances. He walked carefully along the length of the south wing, his way lit by small holes in the floor, although whether these were for providing light or for spying on the people in the rooms below, he could not say. Over the commoners' room, he could clearly hear the Benedictine whispering comforting words to Alyngton, while over what had been Swynford's room — where d'Evene had died — he could even read the words on a book that lay open on the table. At the very end of the attic, he found the second trap-door. It was marked by a large metal ring, and when Bartholomew pulled it up, he saw that it gave access to the last staircase. Wilson could easily have climbed into the attic, walked along to the second door, and slipped away down the stairs and back to his own room.
So could the murderer of Paul, Montfitchet, and Augustus.
He lowered the door and retraced his steps, carefully examining the floor for any more entrances and exits.
He found none, but at the far end, where the south wing abutted onto the hall, he found a tiny doorway. He squeezed through it, and down a cramped passageway that was so full of dust and still air that Bartholomew began to feel as though he could not breathe. The passageway turned a corner, and Bartholomew faced a blank wall. He scratched at the stones and mortar with his fingernail. It was old, and had evidently been sealed up many years before. He stooped to look for any signs that it had been tampered with in recent days, but there was nothing. The passageway must have run in the thickness of the west wall of the hall, and perhaps emerged in the gallery at the back. He vaguely recalled Sir John complaining that an old door had been made into the ugly window that was there now, so perhaps the secret passageway had been blocked up then. Regardless, it seemed that the sturdy wall blocking the passage was ancient, and would have no bearing on the current mysteries.
He turned round, and began to squeeze his way down the narrow passage again. As he reached the point where the passage turned the corner, he saw that one of the stones had been prised loose about the level of his knees, and that something had been stuffed into the space. Gingerly, he bent towards it, and eased it out. It was a very dirty green blanket that smelled so rank that Bartholomew obeyed his instinct, and hurled it away from him. As it lay on the floor, something caught his eye. It was a singe mark, about the size of his hand.
Heart thumping, he picked it up by the hem, and took it back into the attic where he spread it out on the floor. It was the blanket that Bartholomew had inspected on the night of Augustus's death. There were the singe marks that had made Bartholomew think that Augustus had not been imagining things when he had claimed someone had tried to burn him in his bed. And there were other marks too — thick, black, encrusted stains ran in a broad band from one end of the blanket to the middle. Bartholomew knew old blood-stains when he saw them, and their implication made him feel sick.
Augustus must have been taken from his room and hidden up in the attic before Wilson conducted his clandestine search below. Perhaps the murderer had watched Wilson through the spy-holes, or perhaps he had hidden Augustus's body in the small passageway, so that Wilson would not have seen it when he effected his own escape.
If Wilson had already explored the attic as he claimed, he would have known the little passage was blocked, and would not have tried to use it to get away.
And then what? When Wilson had gone? Augustus had been dead, and no counter-claims from anyone would make Bartholomew disbelieve what he knew.
Had the murderer believed Augustus was still alive, and battered him when he lay wrapped in the blanket? Had Wilson been lying, and it was he who had returned later and battered the poor body? And regardless of which solution was the right one, where was Augustus now?
Bartholomew retraced his steps, carefully exploring every last nook and cranny of the attic, half hoping and half afraid that he would find Augustus. There was nothing: Augustus was not there. Bartholomew went back to the passage. The dust had been disturbed, and not just by his own recent steps. It was highly likely that Augustus had been hidden here until the hue and cry of his death and disappearance had died down.
The candle was beginning to burn low, and Bartholomew felt as though he had gained as much information from the attic as he was going to. At the last minute, he stuffed the blanket back into the hole in the wall again, as he had found it. He did not want the murderer, were he to return, to know about the clues he had uncovered.
He lowered himself through the trap-door back into Augustus's room and replaced the wooden panel.
As it slid into place, Bartholomew again admired the workmanship that had produced a secret opening that was basically invisible, even when he knew where to look.
He brushed himself off carefully and even picked up the lumps of dust that dropped from his clothes. He did not want anyone to guess what he had been doing. He put his ear to the door, and then let himself out silently.
He glanced in at his patients, and went down the stairs. The sky had clouded over since the morning, and it was beginning to rain. Bartholomew stood in the porch for a moment, looking across the courtyard. It was here he had fallen when Wilson had pushed him down the stairs. He closed his eyes, and remembered the footsteps he had heard as he lay there. That must have been Wilson effecting his escape across the attic floor. In his haste to get away, he had obviously forgotten to move with stealth, and Bartholomew had been able to hear him running.
Bartholomew thought about the night that Augustus had claimed there were devils in his room wanting to burn him alive. It was clear now: someone had climbed through the trap-door into Augustus's room, locked the door, and tried to set the bed alight. Whoever it was had escaped the same way when Bartholomew and Michael had broken the door down. But that still did not mean that Michael was innocent. He could easily have let himself out of the attic through the other trap-door and run round to Augustus's staircase to be in time to help Bartholomew batter the door. It would even explain why Michael had been virtually fully dressed in the middle of the night.