Bascot looked across at Gianni and the boy surreptitiously made a circle in the palm of his left hand with the forefinger of his right, then pointed at the jewels and meshed the fingers of his hand together. The Templar nodded. The same thought had occurred to him. The coin Gianni had found atop the cliff face and the jewellery were of the same period, that of the reign of King Stephen. If Gerard Camville was correct in his assumption that the coin was part of a hidden cache, it could be the jewellery had also been in the hoard. If that was so, whoever Cotty had stolen it from would be reluctant to claim ownership because it would be impossible to prove a legitimate provenance of the items. It was a tenuous link, but it was there. Even if the coin, or the jewellery, did not have any connection to the murders of Brand or Fardein, they could prove the existence of a cache of valuables that belonged, by right, to the crown.
“I think I would like to speak to this thief you are holding, Roget,” Bascot said.
The captain gave the Templar a look of surprise. “I did not think you would be interested in such a simple crime, mon ami. There is unlikely to be any murder done in this theft; Cotty would never have the courage. He is just an insignificant little villain who climbs inside people’s houses and steals whatever he can find.”
Mindful of Gerard Camville’s stricture to keep private the existence of the coin, Bascot did not want to reveal his true purpose for wishing to question the thief and so was careful with his answer to Roget.
“This jewellery is valuable-murder has been committed for items of much less worth. Even if Cotty is not responsible for the two deaths I am investigating, he may have stolen the jewellery from the person who did kill them, and if so, I want to know who it was.”
A smile lit Roget’s weary features as he fingered one of the rings. It was set with a large topaz and the jewel glowed like the eye of a cat. “You could be right. As soon as I have made my report to the sheriff, we will go to the gaol and question Cotty a little more zealously.”
Sixteen
Bascot went with Roget while he made his report to the sheriff. Gilbert Bassett was with Camville, and both men listened attentively as Roget told of the fire and how Cotty had been apprehended. When the captain produced the jewellery found on the thief and related the guild master’s opinion that the age of the rings dated from the reign of King Stephen, the Templar could see from the expressions on their faces they had formed a similar conclusion to his own.
Camville readily agreed to Bascot’s suggestion that he accompany Roget to question the thief, and the two men set off down into the town. The town gaol was located near to the centre of Lincoln and not far from the casket maker’s house where the fire had occurred early that morning. It was a squat rectangular building of thick stone housing four large cells and a small area furnished with pallets and a table where the guards slept or ate when not on duty. Cotty had been placed in a cell at the far end and was secured to the wall by a manacle around one leg. When Roget and the Templar entered, his face became fearful and he shrank back against the wall.
“I’m telling the truth, Captain Roget,” he whined. “I found that jewellery. I didn’t steal it, and may God strike me dead if I’m lying.”
“Then le Bon Dieu will save me the trouble of slicing off your toes,” Roget answered complacently. One of the guards had come into the cell with them, and the captain ordered him to fetch a stool. When it was brought, the captain grabbed one of Cotty’s legs and, propping the thief’s foot on the top, drew the short sword from his belt. The edge was sharp and reflected pinpoints of light from the flaring torch held by the guard. Cotty’s long toes wriggled as he tried to extricate his foot from Roget’s grasp.
“No, Captain, no,” he screamed. “You ain’t going to cut off my toes, I beg of you. I won’t be able to walk.”
“Nor will you be able to climb,” Roget replied, “and that will save me a great deal of trouble.” With these words, Roget lowered the blade until its edge rested on the joint of the thief’s largest toe. Blood began to well from the wound. “If you tell me the truth about where you stole the jewellery, I might only take off one of these miserable worms,” he said to Cotty. “But if you do not…”
The threat was enough. Cotty began to blubber and admitted that his tale of how he had come by the sack was only partially true. “I found it, Captain, just like I said, but not on the ground. It was in the wall of one of the houses, behind a stone that was loose. I found it when I was climbing up to get to a casement in the house beside it.…”
And so the thief’s story came out. It required little prompting from Roget beyond a slight pressure on the knife he held against Cotty’s toe. The thief said that in the late afternoon of the day before he had been in the lane behind the row of houses where the guard had found him and noticed that one of the windows on the top storey of a house appeared to be unlatched. He kept watch for the rest of the day and evening and, when no light appeared behind the shutters after darkness fell, he thought the room was most likely used for storage purposes and not a sleeping chamber. Aware the premises belonged to a clothier, Cotty said he thought he might be able to steal some better clothing than the rags he possessed. His only reason for doing so, he said, “was to keep my bones warm, Captain. I was perishin’ from the cold.” He said he thought the best way to climb up to the unlatched casement was to scale the stones of the building next door, which belonged to the silversmith, Tasser. “It’s stone all the way up, Captain, as you know, and made that way for to keep his workplace safe from the flames of the forge.”
When Roget had nodded at his explanation and eased the pressure of the knife a little, Cotty became more garrulous. “’Twas easy to scale it, Captain. There’s some good toeholds on them stones ’cause the mortar’s beginning to crumble. I was up it in a minute, intending to climb along a wooden beam that edges onto the stone on Tasser’s building and get up to the clothier’s casement.”
He paused for a moment, his eyes glistening as he drew a deep breath and then went on. “But I never got onto the beam. I’d just got level with the floor of the top storey on Tasser’s house when I felt one of the stones was loose. I pushed it and it turned sideways a little bit, like there was nothing behind it, so I put my hand inside and felt around. It seemed like there was some bundles in there, so I grabbed ahold of one and pulled it out. It was that sack you took off of me that came out in my hand, Captain, the one with the jewellery inside.”
He stopped again, looking at Roget to see his reaction. When he got nothing but a slight increase of pressure on the knife, he winced and quickly finished his tale. “It was just then that the tocsin began to ring. I knew as how everyone would come out into the streets and maybe into the lane-for all I knew the fire could have been inside Tasser or the clothier’s house and I’d be burned to death-so I shoved the sack inside my tunic and climbed down. I thought I’d hide in the silversmith’s yard ’til I knew it was safe to come out.”
He threw a hateful glance at the guard standing at the door. It was one of the men that had caught him. “Looks as how I should of stayed hidden a bit longer.”
Cotty had hardly finished speaking before Bascot and Roget were running from the gaol, Roget yelling at two of his guards to follow. When the little thief had spoken of “bundles” the Templar and captain had realised it was more than likely there were other sacks of valuables secreted in the hidey-hole Cotty had found. If Tasser had been alerted by Roget’s questioning at the houses along Mikelgate about the owner of the jewellery, the silversmith would, by now, have had time to dispose of the rest of the cache.