‘This is ridiculous!’ he sputtered. ‘You can’t prove it!’
‘Oh, yes I can,’ Cranston retorted. ‘The carpenter who examined the door will swear how the metal boss beneath the grille has been loosened, removed, greased and reclasped. It’s the only solution, Master Flinstead. And, again, there’s no real mystery about how you left the house.’ Cranston took a swig from his wineskin then stretched till his muscles cracked. ‘So, it’s Tyburn for you, my lad.’
‘A perfect crime,’ Athelstan declared. ‘You knew the silver was coming: you loosened the boss, you knew which one, eh? How many times have you and Stablegate seen your master peer through the grille?’
Flinstead just shook his head.
‘Of course,’ Athelstan continued, ‘something might have gone wrong. However, your master had no kith or kin, you had all night, and some of the next day, to put it right.’ He shrugged. ‘Or even flee. As it was you committed a crime which you thought no one could lay against you. Well, at least till now.’
Flinstead slid down the wall, putting his arms across his chest as if feeling a draught of icy air. Cranston crouched dwon beside him.
‘Do you want a drink, lad? It will warm your belly and feed your wits.’
Flinstead shook his head.
‘Now for robbery and murder,’ Cranston spoke quietly as if discussing the weather, ‘you just hang. But the silver you stole belonged to the Regent. His Grace John, Duke of Lancaster. That’s treason. So it will be no quick death. The executioner will wait until you are half dead, then cut you down from the gallows, slice your body from neck to crotch and pull your heart and entrails so you see them before your eyes close. Afterwards, he’ll cut you up like a butcher does collops of meat. Your head will be fixed over London Bridge. Your quarters? Well, heaven knows where they will go. One to Temple Bar, perhaps the rest to the ports, Dover and Southampton, all nicely pickled in a bucket.’
Flinstead’s head sagged.
‘Take him out!’ Athelstan declared. ‘Sir John, put him in another room in the house. Well away from Stablegate.’ He winked. ‘Haven’t you read the Book of Daniel, Sir John?’
Cranston caught his drift. He hauled Flinstead to his feet and pushed him out of the counting house. Athelstan stood, arms crossed, staring down at the floor. He felt excited yet cold, as he always did when he trapped a murderer. Excited because he had resolved the mystery, cold at the terrible evil he had witnessed. On the one hand, Drayton’s blood cried to heaven for vengeance but, on the other, Athelstan knew that Cranston’s words were no empty threat. Flinstead would stand before King’s Bench, the Justices would convict and the young clerk would suffer a horrifying sentence. Athelstan closed his eyes.
‘O Lord,’ he prayed quietely, ‘don’t hold their blood to my account. You, the searcher of hearts, know that I am innocent of any desire for their lives.’
He opened his eyes as Cranston pushed the arrogant Stablegate into the room.
‘Sir John, what is this?’ the clerk protested.
‘Shut up!’ the coroner bawled. He pointed to a stool. ‘Sit down!’ Cranston came across to Athelstan, his face red with excitement, whiskers positively bristling, blue eyes popping ‘What now, my little monk?’ he whispered.
‘Friar, Sir John!’
‘Bugger that! Are you going to tell him the same story?’
Athelstan plucked Cranston by the sleeve and, looking round the portly coroner, stared at Stablegate. The young man gazed flint-eyed back.
‘Have you ever been in the presence of a demon, Sir John?’ Athelstan murmured. ‘Well, if not, count this the first time. Stablegate will tell us nothing.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘Silence, Sir John.’
Both the coroner and Brother Athelstan waited. Now and again the friar would walk towards the door and ostentatiously begin to undo the clasp. He glanced over his shoulder at Stablegate who just watched him, narrow-eyed.
‘What am I doing here?’ the clerk protested. ‘Sir John, if you are to arrest me then swear out the warrants. If not, let me go.’
Athelstan screwed the clasp back on more tightly. ‘Is this some game?’ Stablegate scoffed.
He froze as Sir John abruptly whipped out his broad stabbing dirk, walked across and grabbed him by the hair, pressing the dagger into the soft desk of his neck.
‘In my long eventful life,’ the coroner rasped, ‘I have killed good men. God be my witness, I am sorry, but I took their lives in battle. They were warriors. They fought for what was right as I did. I regret every spot of blood I have split. Each day I pray for their souls. I have given money to the almshouses but you, sir, are nothing but a bag of corruption, a thief, a swindler, a murderer, a lying toad from hell!’
Stablegate remained unabashed Athelstan secretly marvelled at the iron-hard malice of the man.
‘Cut me or cut me free,’ Stablegate retorted.
‘Oh, I’ll cut,’ Sir John breathed, resheathing his dagger. ‘A thousand cuts and a thousand more. Brother, how long do I have to have the stench of this turd in my nostrils?’
‘Take him away now,’ Athelstan ordered. ‘Put him back with Master Flaxwith and bring Flinstead here.’
Sir John pulled the clerk to his feet and pushed him out. Flinstead returned drying the tears on his cheeks. Athelstan waved him to the stool.
‘You may well weep, sir,’ he began. ‘I have sung the same song to Master Stablegate as I did to you.’
Flinstead glanced up.
‘He’s confessed, you know. He claims that he stole the silver but you killed Drayton.’
‘That’s a lie!’ Flinstead screamed, jumping to his feet. ‘It was Stablegate! His idea from the start! When Drayton used to keep us waiting outside, Stablegate would study that bloody door. At night, in the tavern, he developed his scheme. It took a week to loosen that boss: I would take the accounts into Drayton and distract him whilst Stablegate worked on the clasp.’ Flinstead held up his hands. ‘God be my witness, I stole the silver. I told Drayton I had knocked Stablegate unconscious and that there were footpads in the house who were bent on slitting his throat. I ran down the passageway with the silver. Drayton locked the door and began screaming. Stablegate then went back. He was pretending to be hurt. “Master,” he croaked I heard him whilst waiting in the shadows. “Master, Flinstead has struck me! It is me. Master, look!”’
‘Was it dark in the passageway?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Oh yes. Stablegate had removed the boss. He then loosed the crossbow.’ Flinstead shrugged. ‘The rest is as you described. We went out of a window which we carefully closed behind us. Stablegate insisted that we spend the evening being well seen by other people. The next morning we came back. We knew Flaxwith would be doing his usual rounds. We broke in through a window and while Stablegate took him down to the strongroom, I locked the shutters we had opened the night before.’
‘And then Master Flaxwith organised the door being broken down?’
Flinstead nodded.
‘And Stablegate secured the boss he’d removed the previous night,’ Athelstan added. ‘He’d coated it with a glue so that when the door was broken down it held fast and, in the confusion, one of you simply replaced the clasp on the inside.’
‘Yes,’ Flinstead moaned. ‘We practised it so many times. Stablegate even had a piece of wood made containing a boss and clasp. He showed me how it could be done: a crossbow bolt is only an inch across, the hole is at least twice that. He said Drayton would come to the grille; at such a close distance, any wound would kill. Drayton would be dead by morning…’ His voice trailed off.