Bascot and Gianni spent most of the morning searching the silversmith’s premises. The manufactory was locked when they arrived, with a guard at the door, but the sheriff had given Bascot the keys confiscated from Tasser when he was arrested. The silversmith’s two remaining employees had been ordered to go to their homes and stay there until they were deemed innocent of connivance, or otherwise, in the theft of the stolen pieces of silver, so there was no one on the property to hinder their search.
Once inside, they went up to the floor above the manufactory and into Tasser’s office. Since access to the hidey-hole was in this chamber, it was here the pair began their search. When a careful examination of each of the stones in the rear wall revealed none loose in their setting except the one screening the hiding place, they turned their attention to the floorboards, carefully knocking on each one to ensure the space beneath was not hollow. When the search proved fruitless, they carried out the same procedure in Tasser’s sleeping chambers.
Bascot then hoisted Gianni up onto his shoulders so he could crawl into the small space under the roof of the building, gaining entry through a trapdoor in the ceiling of the main bedchamber. The Templar waited hopefully as he heard the boy scamper across the boards above him, prying into every corner. When Gianni reappeared and shook his head, they went downstairs to the hall and carried out the same procedure there and also in the kitchen. Still finding nothing, they went into the manufactory. This was a much more difficult area to sift through, as there were shelves closely packed with the implements of Tasser’s trade and numerous boxes containing everything from strands of fine silver wire to the lumps of tin used to make an alloy with melted silver.
Leaving Gianni to examine the stones of the forge-which were now cold-Bascot turned his attention to the locked chests on the floor. Although he and Roget had examined the contents a few days before, Bascot wanted to make sure the silversmith had not, in the interim, added coins previously hidden in the wall. Again, their efforts proved useless. No more secreted items were found, nor did any of the coins in Tasser’s money chests bear any image other than that of King John, his brother Richard, or their father, King Henry.
Tired and frustrated, their hands and faces begrimed from their efforts-especially Gianni’s-the pair went into the tiny room that Roger Fardein had used for sleeping. It was as bare as the Templar remembered, the scuffed leather satchel still hanging empty from a peg on the wall and the dented pewter mug and empty flagon sitting on the small table beside the apprentice’s thin mattress. Nonetheless, Bascot asked Gianni to search the room again and watched as the boy ran his nimble fingers over the straw of the pallet and around the plank on which the bed rested. He then examined every crack and crevice he could find, both where the floor joined the wall and along the wood of the doorway, ending his search by making a gesture asking the Templar to hoist him aloft so he could run his fingers along the top of the lintel above the door. The boy was extremely thorough and Bascot knew Gianni hoped to repeat a previous triumph when he had found a scrap of red cloth that had proved instrumental in discovering the identity of a murderer, but this time his endeavours were in vain. At last the boy turned to his master with a doleful expression and shook his head, reluctantly admitting defeat. The Templar was disappointed, and knew the sheriff would be also, but was certain that if there were more valuables to be found, their search had ensured they were not hidden on Tasser’s property.
Clapping Gianni on the shoulder and assuring him that even if his efforts had not been fruitful, they had been worthwhile, he gave the boy two silver pennies from his scrip and told him to go and purchase a couple of meat pies from the nearest bake shop and a jug of ale from an alehouse farther up Mikelgate.
“There are only the silversmith’s records left for us to go through,” he said. “I doubt whether he was foolish enough to make a record of his illegal transactions, but we must be sure. The task will take some time and it is nearly midday. Once you return and we have eaten, we will begin.”
As Gianni hurried away, Bascot returned to the upper storey of the dwelling and back into the room Tasser used as an office. A chill was beginning to creep over the building now the forge had gone out, and the Templar pulled his cloak closer around him as he looked for, and found, a tinderbox to ignite the charcoal lying in a brazier. He also touched the flame to a couple of beeswax candles standing in handsome silver holders. While he waited for Gianni to return, he pulled some of the rolled sheets of parchments from the pigeonholes of a large open-face cupboard and looked at the dates appended on the outside. The ones he had taken out were from several years before so he searched until he found those that pertained to the last few months and placed them on the table alongside some blank sheets of parchment, an inkpot and a sheaf of quill pens.
After Gianni returned and they had eaten their makeshift meal, it had not taken long to determine that Tasser was a careful record keeper, even if his literacy seemed to be limited to an odd combination of words in Anglo-Norman, French and Latin. One of the items described in the lists, a silver saltcellar, was entered as a saler, which was an Anglo-Norman word derived from the Latin sal for salt, while the word used to describe the silver gilt overlaying the cellar was a French word, argent. Spoons were listed in French as cuiller while a paten made for the nearby church of St. Peter at Arches was described by the Latin word patina. Tasser’s writing was not scholarly, but it was legible, and the figures noting monetary amounts precisely limned. Most of the sheets seemed to be a recording of pieces made in the manufactory, with a list of purchasers down the left-hand side of the page, and a description of the item and date alongside. Every entry had three amounts arranged in columns on the right-hand side. The first number appeared to denote the cost of manufacturing the item, the second the amount for which it had been sold and the third the profit gained from the transaction. Bascot and Gianni went through each one, but could find nothing untoward.
They turned next to a pile of scrolls tied in a bundle with a silk ribbon. Most of these gave the delivery date and cost of supplies but a few were lists of items bought for resale. All of the latter were purchases from local citizens, the names of some of them familiar to Bascot, and recorded the customers’ placement of an item either as a deposit on the commission of a new piece or as a sale for cash money. There was no record of the jewellery Cotty had discovered, or of the pieces of stolen silver found in the manufactory the day before, but Bascot had not dared to hope there would be.
Only one list defied an understanding of its purpose. It merely had a column of single letters down the left-hand side of the page-a half dozen altogether-each letter different except for the appearance of L twice, and beside each letter was an amount. Two of the sums were considerable, but all of them above one hundred shillings. Gianni and Bascot pored over it for a time, but it seemed to bear no relation to any of the other records or have any obvious meaning. Finally they pushed it aside in frustration.
The Templar again scrutinised the records relating to the industry of the manufactory. The silversmith’s profits from his legitimate business were considerable. Tasser was a very rich man. That being so, why did he feel the need to have dealings with thieves? Not only was he risking prosecution under the law but also the loss of membership in his guild. Was it simply greed? Was Tasser, like the fabled King Midas of Phrygia, so consumed with his love of wealth that he would risk all, and perhaps even commit murder, to slake his lust for money?