Swynford held up the torch and the light fell on Bartholomew. Bartholomew squinted, wondering if they had come to murder him. He struggled to his feet, dazed and clumsy, but prepared to sell his life dearly. Swynford glanced at Bartholomew disinterestedly, and gestured to someone outside. Bartholomew had a fleeting glimpse of Brother Michael, firmly in the grasp of Jocelyn and Colet, before he was hurled into the room.
'Company for you, Physician,' said Swynford. 'Now you have someone with whom you can discuss what you think you know of us.' He turned to leave. Bartholomew, savouring the sound of voices after so long alone, was strangely reluctant to let them go. He thought quickly, wondering how he might detain them.
'Gregory!' he called, trying to disentangle himself from Michael who had stumbled into him. 'Did you kill Augustus and Paul?'
'Yes and no,' replied Colet smoothly, ignoring Swynford's look of disapproval. "I killed Paul. He kept calling out for someone to bring him water. He was a nuisance, and had to be silenced. But I did not kill Augustus, he killed himself.'
'What do you mean?' said Bartholomew. 'There were no marks of violence on him.'
'So that was what you were doing with his body,' said Colet. "I wondered what you were up to. I had planned to kill the old fool, and had my knife ready to slip between his ribs as he slept. But he was awake when I entered his room, and I saw him swallow something. I was wearing a black cloak and hood, and I really think he believed I was Death coming for him. He just keeled over and died of fright.'
Bartholomew remembered Wilson's dismissive words when Bartholomew told him he had been trying to discover the cause of Augustus's death. 'He probably frightened himself to death with his imagination,' Wilson had said, and he had been exactly right. But, even if no weapon were used, it was still murder to frighten an old man so much that his heart stopped. Colet seemed about to continue, and Bartholomew could tell from the tone of his voice that he was only too happy to talk about the deeds he had done and boast of his own cleverness in evading detection, but Swynford took him roughly by the arm and pulled him away. The door was slammed shut and firmly bolted and barred again from the outside. Once more the room was plunged into pitch blackness. Bartholomew heard Michael groping around in the darkness, and moved across to him. The fat monk was damp with sweat and trembling violently.
'How do you come to be here, Brother?'
Bartholomew asked, leading him to a crate, the position of which he knew so well from his wanderings in the dark.
'How do you?' retorted Michael angrily, pulling away from Bartholomew and stumbling against the chest. 'The word is that you have gone to Peterborough on a mercy call from your old mentor the Abbott.'
Bartholomew immediately appreciated that it was a clever ploy on the part of Swynford to say that he had gone to Peterborough. It was very plausible that Bartholomew might answer a call of distress from the monks at the abbey where he had gone to school, and at any time other than while the plague raged in Cambridge, Bartholomew would have gone without hesitation. But Colet and Swynford did not know him as well as they thought.
"I would not leave,' said Bartholomew, 'when there is only me and Robin of Grantchester to help the sick.
And the Abbott would know I would not desert my patients, and would never ask me to go.'
Michael gave a grunt. "I suppose that seems reasonable.
But you still have not explained how you come to be here.'
'Oswald!' said Bartholomew suddenly. 'How is he?'
'He was hale and hearty when I saw him this morning.
Why do you ask?'
Bartholomew sagged in relief. His reasoning had been correct, and Stanmore was still safe. "I overheard Colet plotting to kill him,' he said. "I was coming to warn Oswald when I very stupidly ran into Stephen and Swynford, and I have been here since Wednesday.'
'Which was when you were said to have left for Peterborough,' said Michael. Bartholomew heard a metallic sound as Michael struck a flint, and helped him smash one of the crates so that they could kindle a splinter of wood. The light was feeble, and it gave off eye-watering smoke, but Bartholomew was grateful to be able to see, if only dimly.
Michael put the burning stick near Bartholomew's face and peered at him closely. 'Oh lord, Matt! You look terrible. You should never have involved yourself in all this. I warned you against it.'
'The same could be said for you,' retorted Bartholomew, 'for we both seem to be in the same predicament, regardless of our respective motives.'
'Never mind that,' said Michael. 'We need to get out. Come and help me look.'
'There is no way out,' said Bartholomew. 'Believe me, I have checked.'
He watched as Michael went through the same process that he had; how long before had it been?
The monk hammered and heaved at the door, he banged at the ceiling with a stick, and he prodded at the walls. Finally, defeated, he came to sit next to Bartholomew again.
"I have been in Ely with my lord the Bishop,' Michael said. 'We have been going over all the information he has been sent during the past few months about the Oxford plot.'
Bartholomew shook his head. 'There is no plot,' he said.
Michael looked at him curiously. 'We also came to that conclusion,' he said. 'Is there anything to eat here?
I missed dinner.'
Bartholomew indicated a few crusts of bread that he had been saving, and a dribble of water in the pitcher.
Michael looked at them and shuddered. He continued with his story.
"I arrived back last night,' he said, 'and it is now Friday evening. You probably have no idea of time in this wretched hole.'
'Have you seen Philippa?' Bartholomew interrupted, thinking of the reason he had gone to Bene't's in the first place.
'No,' said Michael, 'but I have seen Giles Abigny, and he told me his tale. He is not mixed up in all this, you know. I imagine that while you were ferreting around for information about Philippa you inadvertently picked up clues about this Oxford business. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that the Abignys are wholly unconnected with it all.'
'Really? Do you not think it a coincidence that all this should happen at the same time, and that Bene't Hostel figures in the Oxford business and is also Giles's second home? And that the Principal of Bene't's- before he died — was Hugh Staple ton, in whose house Giles and Philippa hid?'
'No, I do not,' said Michael. "I can see why you are suspicious, but the Oxford business has been rolling on for more than a year now. Philippa and Giles only executed their little plot over the past few weeks. And I would be as suspicious of Giles as you are, if I were not sure that Hugh and Cedric Stapleton were also innocent in all this. Hugh suspected something was fermenting in his hostel and contacted the Bishop about it. He sent reports on various comings and goings, and Cedric continued them after Hugh's death. Hugh and Cedric were fickle, frivolous men, like Giles, and quite the wrong kind of people to be recruited by Swynford. They were not even recruited for the bogus hostel group that your brother-in-law was mixed up with.'
'You know about that?' said Bartholomew, startled.
'What else do you know?' "I was telling you,' said Michael with a superior expression, 'but you interrupted me with your question about Philippa. And while we are on that subject, she has taken your supposed journey to Peterborough very personally. Abigny tells me she fluctuates between anger and sorrow, and will think of nothing else. How can you doubt her, Matt?'