Perhaps we looked for the wrong thing. The anonymous informer had written that we would find here what we sought, but how did the writer know what it was we sought?
I stood in the center of the small chamber, hands on hips, and studied the shadowed room. If I wished to hide an incriminating weapon, where would I do so?
The pillows and mattresses had seemed a likely place, but examination had found nothing but goose feathers and chopped straw. The sun, now slanting through the narrow window, illuminated the fireplace and at the top of the opening I saw a brief glimmer of some white object, pale against the soot of the mantel.
The white fragment hung, barely visible, from the inside of the mantel. A place where nothing white should be, nor would it remain so for long in such a place. I stepped to the hearth, reached into the cavity, and drew from behind the mantel a scrap of linen cloth about as wide as my foot and twice as long. It had evidently been stuffed hastily into a crack between the stones, and a corner had fallen free, which I had not seen until the afternoon sun began to penetrate the chamber and illuminate the hearth.
The linen cloth was white, but not completely so. Nearly half of it was speckled with a reddish-brown stain. The fabric had been used to absorb blood. Was this Sir Henry’s blood? Was this what Sir Roger had been told to seek? Sir Roger thought so.
“Blood,” he said, “or I’ll swim the Isis on St Stephen’s Day.”
Both the sheriff and I had, in our work, seen much blood. There was no mistaking the stains upon the cloth.
“Sir Henry’s blood, you think?” Sir Roger continued. “Some man wished to hide it, so it’s not likely ’twas used to staunch a bloody nose.”
“Aye. Forced into the crevice between stones, it might have gone undetected, but a corner fell free.”
“So we’ve caught a murderer, eh? But which one? Two of Sir Henry’s squires occupy this chamber.”
“We must devise some way,” I said, “of learning which is guilty. If we bluntly ask, each will blame the other — unless both conspired against Sir Henry — and we might never learn the truth of the matter.”
“Hang ’em both. We’d be sure to have the guilty lad then.”
I turned to study Sir Roger’s face, but could not tell whether he was serious or spoke in jest.
“’Twould be best to be certain,” I said. “And if this is Sir Henry’s blood, the weapon which struck him down may be nearby as well. I don’t think a felon would cast away his weapon, then keep the fabric with which he wiped away the gore.”
“Keep both, or cast away both, eh?”
“Aye. Let’s return to the search. Perhaps there is in this chamber some secret place where an awl or bodkin may be hid. Such a weapon is slender and requires little cover.”
I placed the bloodstained linen fragment in my pouch while Sir Roger lifted the chests from the floor aside the table and inspected them. He then turned the table over, to see if any slim instrument of death was hidden underneath. None was.
This was a chamber fit for squires, not knights. Aside from the beds and table there was no other furniture in the room. I went to the hearth again and felt the crevices between stones inside the opening, seeking some tiny crack where a thin iron probe might be concealed. I found nothing but soot.
Only one other object remained in the chamber. A lampstand stood at the foot of one of the beds, where a cresset rested to light the chamber at night. Where upon a lampstand could a man hide a bodkin or an awl? The thought seemed absurd, but having no better thought, I moved the cresset to the table and upended the stand.
The shaft of the lampstand had been turned, and where the turner had fastened the work to his lathe there was a small hole. I know little of joinery, but enough to know that this cavity was to be expected. I gave it little attention, so nearly missed the stub of dark iron which had been driven into the lampstand through its base.
Sir Roger saw me studying the upturned stand and spoke. “What have you there?”
“A bit of iron rod where none should be,” I said, and held the stand out for his inspection. The sheriff scowled down at the visible end of the iron shaft, then tried to pluck it out. He had no success. Some man had driven this slender bit of metal deep into the lampstand.
“The marshalsea will have pliers,” I said. “Let’s go there and see if we can draw this bit of iron from the stand. Perhaps if we can see all of it we will know better its use and how it came to be here.”
“Lead on,” Sir Roger said, and grasping the lampstand he followed me from the chamber.
We found Ranulf the farrier beginning his afternoon work, rested from his dinner. I showed him the lampstand and asked if he had a tool which could draw the thin iron rod from the spindle. He nodded, went to his bench, and produced an implement used for wrenching nails from horses’ hooves.
So little of the iron pin extended from the base of the lampstand that Ranulf found it difficult to find purchase on the metal with his tool. The pliers slipped their grip several times before the farrier managed, with forearms bulging and knuckles white, to loosen and then extract the object.
Ranulf lifted the thin rod before Sir Roger and me, and I reached out and took it from his tool.
“What was that there for, d’you suppose?” Ranulf said. “Lampstand didn’t need no bracin’.”
The bodkin or awl or whatever it once was had been filed to a needle-point. No wooden sphere covered the blunt end, but somewhere in the castle or nearby I was sure such a ball might be hid or discarded. There was no need for so sharp a point on a rod unless it was made to plunge through some other thing, and a larger surface against a man’s hand than just the blunt end of the rod would be needed for that work.
“Speak to no man,” I said to the farrier, “of what has been found here.”
“Aye… What is it, an’ why was it there?”
“Don’t know of a certainty. But when we learn of it we will tell you. Until then, keep silence.”
The farrier tugged a forelock when Sir Roger and I turned to go, me with the iron pin in my hand and Sir Roger with the lampstand. The bodkin was a bit longer than my longest finger. This was likely long enough to penetrate a man’s brain if thrust through his ear. Was this the thing we were to seek, which the crudely written message had advised us of? This seemed likely.
Dinner was finished when we entered the hall. Grooms and valets had already completed their meals and departed, and Lord Gilbert and Lady Petronilla were standing at their places at the high table. Lord Gilbert saw us enter the hall, saw the lampstand in Sir Roger’s hand, and raised an eyebrow. The bodkin in my hand was too small to be seen across the hall.
The others who yet remained at the tables had stood when Lord Gilbert did so, and I watched the squires to see if one would flinch to see the sheriff holding forth the lampstand wherein he had hidden a murder weapon.
Conversation in the hall faded as first Lord Gilbert, then the others watched us enter and approach the high table. The squires also fell silent, curious expressions upon their faces as they saw Sir Roger approach Lord Gilbert with a common lampstand which must have seemed similar to the one they had last seen in their chamber. Neither youth showed any sign of fear or apprehension. Their expressions were bland; no furrowed brows, darting eyes, or chewed lips. One of these squires, or both, I thought, should be a traveling player.
“What is this?” my employer asked when Sir Roger stood before him.
“Master Hugh has discovered…”
“A lampstand, m’lord,” I interrupted Sir Roger. I did not know what more than that the sheriff might say, but thought the less others in the hall knew of the stand, where it was found, and what was discovered within it, the better.