‘A death every month,’ he murmured. ‘On or around the thirteenth.’
‘What’s that, Master?’
‘The whores: they were all killed around the same date, their throats slashed, their genitals mutilated.’
Ranulf made a rude sound with his lips. ‘What do you think, Master?’
‘Firstly, it could be some madman who just likes to kill women — whores especially. Secondly, it could be someone searching for a particular whore or-’
‘Or, what?’
‘Some practitioner of the black arts — magicians always like blood.’
Ranulf shivered and looked away. From his window he could see the towering mass of St Mary Le Bow, where Corbett had struggled and fought against a coven of witches led by the beautiful murderess Alice Atte-Bowe.
‘I don’t know,’ Corbett murmured and went on to read the memorandum on the death of Father Benedict: a short, caustic report from the coroner’s clerk. According to this, on the night of the twelfth of May, the monks at Westminster had been woken by the roar of flames and had rushed out to see Father Benedict’s house, which stood in a lonely part of the abbey grounds, engulfed in flames. The brothers, organised by William Senche, steward of the nearby Palace of Westminster, had tried to douse the flames with water from a nearby well but their efforts had been fruitless. The building was gutted except for the walls, and inside they found the half-burned corpse of Father Benedict slumped near the door, key in hand and, beside him, the remains of his pet cat.
There was no apparent cause of the fire. The shuttered window high in the wall had been open and a light breeze may have fanned the blaze caused by some spark from the fire or candle flame.
Corbett looked up. ‘Strange!’ he exclaimed.
Ranulf, half-watching the line of felons being manacled in the courtyard below, jumped.
‘What is, Master?’
‘Father Benedict’s death. The priest was an old man, Ranulf, and therefore a light sleeper. He gets up in the middle of the night, disturbed by a fire which has mysteriously started. He’s too old to climb out of the window so he grabs the key, reaches the door but never opens it. What is stranger still, is that his cat dies with him. Now, a dog might stay with his master but a cat would leave, jump out, especially as the window was open, yet the cat also dies.’
‘It could have been overcome by smoke,’ Ranulf suggested.
‘No.’ Corbett shook his head. ‘I can’t understand how a man could reach the door, have the key in his hand, yet not struggle for a few seconds more to insert the key and turn it. Yet, it’s the cat which really puzzles me more. The few I have known remind me of you, Ranulf. They have a keen sense of their own survival and a particular horror of fire.’
Ranulf looked away and pulled a face. Corbett went back and studied Cade’s scribbles on the bottom of the memorandum. According to the under-sheriff, earlier on the day he died Father Benedict had sent a short letter to the sheriff saying that he knew something terrible and blasphemous was about to happen but that no further details were available. Corbett shook his head and looked at the last, greasy, tiny scrap of parchment. A short report from a government informer about rumours of the master counterfeiter, Richard Puddlicott, being seen in Bride Lane near the Bishop of Salisbury’s inn. Corbett tapped the parchment against his knee and stared at the dirty rushes on the floor. So many mysteries, he wondered, but Puddlicott really intrigued him. The King’s messengers had been pursuing the villain all over Europe, so what was he doing in England? Was his presence linked to these deaths? Or was he in London for some other nefarious purpose? Either for his own or for Amaury de Craon’s? Corbett sat lost in his own thoughts, sipping his wine until Cade returned.
‘Did you find the papers interesting, Corbett?’
‘Yes, I did. You have no clues to the murderer of the whores?’
‘None whatsoever.’
‘And Lady Somerville?’
‘She was returning with a companion from a meeting of the Sisters of St Martha at Westminster. They went along Holborn and stopped for a while at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Lady Somerville then announced she would slip across Smithfield to her house near the Barbican. Her companion objected but Lady Somerville just laughed. She said she was old and, being involved in her good works, was well known to all the rogues of the underworld who, therefore, would not accost her.’ Cade shrugged. ‘Lady Somerville had one son who had been out roistering with friends. He returned in the early hours, discovered his mother had failed to return and organised a search. His servants found her body near the gallows in Smithfield, her throat cut from ear to ear.’
‘But no other mutilations on the corpse?’
‘None whatsoever.’
‘Before her death was Lady Somerville distressed or anxious?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Exactly, Master Cade.’
The under-sheriff hid his irritation. ‘Well, one of her companions claimed she was withdrawn and kept muttering a certain proverb.’
‘Which is?’
‘Cacullus non facit monachum; the cowl doesn’t make the monk.’
‘What did she mean by that?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it was a reference to another of her charitable duties.’
‘Which was?’
‘She often laundered the robes of the monks at Westminster. You see their abbot, Walter Wenlock, is ill. The prior is dead so Lady Somerville often supervised the abbey laundry.’
Corbett handed back the sheaf of parchments.
‘And Father Benedict’s death?’
‘You know what we did.’
‘Strange, he didn’t unlock the door?’
‘Perhaps he was overcome by the smoke, or his robe caught fire?’
‘And the cat?’
Cade leaned against the wall and tapped his foot on the floor. ‘Master Corbett, we have corpses all over London and you ask me about a cat?’
Corbett smiled. ‘I just can’t see why the cat couldn’t escape through the open window?’
Cade raised his eyebrows then narrowed his eyes.
‘Of course,’ he murmured. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘I would like to see the house or what remains of it. And the message Father Benedict sent to you?’
‘We don’t know what it meant, it could be anything. You know the scandals which can plague the lives of priests and monks. Perhaps it was something like that or it could be connected with Westminster.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, the abbey and palace are deserted. All building work has come to a sudden halt because the King cannot pay his masons. The Exchequer and Treasurer now travel with the King, so the court has not been there for years. Wenlock the Abbot is ill and the community rather lax. Indeed, the only importance about Westminster is that the King has moved a great deal of his treasury to the crypt beneath the Chapter House.’
Corbett looked up startled. ‘Why?’
‘Because of the building work at the Tower. Most of the rooms there are now unsafe. The crypt at Westminster Abbey, however, is probably the safest place in London.’
‘You are sure the treasury is safe?’
‘Yes, on the very day Father Benedict died I went down to see him but he was absent so I checked on the treasury. The seals of the door were unbroken so I knew it was safe. You see, there is only one entrance to the crypt, the sealed door. Moreover, even if someone got in, the narrow flight of stairs down to the crypt have been deliberately smashed and the rest of the building protected by the thickest walls I’ve ever seen.’
‘And Master Puddlicott?’
‘All I can say,’ Cade replied, ‘is that the bastard has been sighted in London, albeit the sighting is secondhand.’
‘He must be here for mischief!’
Cade laughed drily. ‘Of course, but what?’
Corbett nudged the now dozing Ranulf awake.