“You believe,” said Radulfus, eyeing him gravely, “that it may have some bearing on the only case I know of that Hugh Beringar now has in hand? But that is a case of murder. What can a book, present or absent, have to say regarding that crime?”
“When the clerk was killed, Father, was it not taken as proven by most men that the young man he had injured had killed him in revenge? Yet we know now it was not so. Elave never harmed him. And who else had cause to move against the man’s life in the matter of that accusation he made? No one. I have come to believe that the cause of his death had nothing to do with his denunciation of Elave. Yet it does still seem that it had, something to do with Elave himself, with his coming home to Shrewsbury. Everything that has happened has happened since that return. Is it not possible, Father, that it has to do with what he brought back to that house? A box that changes in weight, and one day handles like a solid carving of wood, and a few days later rings with silver coins. This in itself is strange. And whatever is strange within and around that household, where the dead man lived and worked for years, may have a bearing.”
“And should be taken into account,” concluded the abbot, and sat pondering what he had heard for some minutes in silence. “Very well, so be it. Yes, Hugh Beringar should know of it. What he may make of it I cannot guess. God knows I can make nothing of it myself, not yet, but if it can shed one gleam of light to show the way a single step towards justice, yes, he must know. Go to him now, if you wish. Take whatever time may be needed, and I pray it may be used to good effect.”
Cadfael found Hugh, not at his own house by Saint Mary’s, but at the castle. He was just striding across the outer ward in a preoccupied haste that curiously managed to indicate both buoyancy and irritation, as Cadfael came up the ramp from the street, and in through the deep tunnel of the gate tower. Hugh checked and turned at once to meet him.
“Cadfael! You come very timely, I’ve news for you.”
“And so have I for you,” said Cadfael, “if mine can be called news. But for what it may be worth, I think you should have it.”
“And Radulfus agreed? So there must be substance in it. Come within, and let’s exchange what we have,” said Hugh, and led the way forthwith towards the guardroom and anteroom in the gate tower, where they could be private. “I was about to go in and see our friend Conan,” he said with a somewhat wry smile, “before I turn him loose. Yes, that’s my news. It’s taken a time to fill in all the comings and goings of his day, but we’ve dredged up at last a cottar at the edge of Frankwell who knows him, and saw him going up the pastures to his flock well before Vespers that afternoon. There’s no way he could have killed Aldwin, the man was alive and well a good hour later.”
Cadfael sat down slowly, with a long, breathy sigh. “So he’s out of it, too! Well, well! I never thought him a likely murderer, I confess, but certainty, that’s another matter.”
“Neither did I think him a likely murderer,” agreed Hugh ruefully, “but I grudge him the days it’s cost us to prise out his witnesses for him, and the fool so sick with fright he could barely remember the very acquaintances he’d passed on his way through Frankwell. And still lying, mark you, when his wits worked at all. But clean he is, and soon he’ll be on his way back to his work, free as a bird. I wish Girard joy of him!” said Hugh disgustedly. He leaned his elbows on the small table between them, and held Cadfael eye-to-eye. “Will you credit it? He swore he’d seen nothing of Aldwin after the girl’s reproof sent the poor devil off in a passion of guilt to try and retrieve what he’d done - until he knew we’d found out about the hour or so they spent together in the alehouse. Then he admitted that, but swore that was the end of it. No such thing, as it turned out. It was one of the eager hounds baying along the Foregate after Elave who told us the next part of the story. He saw the pair of them cross over the bridge and come along the road towards the abbey, with Conan’s arm persuasive about Aldwin’s shoulders, and Conan talking fast and urgently into Aldwin’s ear. Until they both saw and heard the hunt in full cry! Frightened them out of their wits, he says, you’d have thought it was them the hounds were coursing. They went to ground among the trees so fast nothing showed but their scuts. I fancy that was what put an end once and for all to Aldwin’s intention of going to the abbey with his bad conscience. Who knows, after the young priest confessed him he might have got his courage back, if
Only today has Conan admitted that he went after him a second time. They were both a shade drunk, I expect. But finally he did go out to his flock, when he was certain Aldwin was far too frightened to involve himself further.”
“So you’ve lost your best suspect,” said Cadfael thoughtfully.
“The only one I had. And not sorry, so far as the fool himself is concerned, that he should turn out to be blameless. Well, short of murder, at least,” Hugh corrected himself. “But contenders were thin on the ground from the start. And what follows now?”
“What follows,” said Cadfael, “is that I tell you what I’ve come to tell you, for with even Conan removed from the field it becomes more substantial even than I thought. And then, if you agree, we might drain Conan dry of everything he knows, to the last drop, before you turn him loose. I can’t be sure, even, that anyone has so much as mentioned to you the box that Elave brought home for the girl, by way of a dowry? From the old man, before he died in France?”
“Yes,” said Hugh wonderingly, “it was mentioned. Jevan told me, by way of accounting for Conan’s wanting to get rid of Elave. He liked the daughter, did Conan, in a cool sort of way, but he began to like her much better when she had a dowry to bring with her. So says Jevan. But that’s all I know of it. Why? How does the box have any bearing on murder?”
“I have been baffled from the start,” said Cadfael, “by the absence of motive. Revenge, said everyone, pointing the finger at Elave, but when that was blown clear away by young Father Eadmer, what was left? Conan may have been eager to prevent Aldwin from withdrawing his denunciation, but even that was thin enough, and now you tell me that’s gone, too. Who had anything against Aldwin so grievous as to be worth even a clout in a quarrel, let alone murder? It was hard enough to see the poor devil at all, let alone resent him. He had nothing worth coveting, had done no great harm to anyone until now. No wonder suspects were thin on the ground. Yet he stood in someone’s way, or menaced someone, surely, whether he knew it or not. So since his betrayal of Elave was not the cause of his death, I began to look more closely at all the affairs of the household to which both men were attached, however loosely, every detail, especially anything that was new, this outbreak being so sudden and so dire. All was quiet enough until Elave came home. But the only thing but himself he brought into that house was Fortunata’s box. And even at first sight it was no ordinary box. So when Fortunata brought it to the abbey, thinking to use the money in it to procure Elave’s release, I asked if we could examine it more closely. And this, Hugh, this is what we found.”
He told it scrupulously, in every detail of the gold and purple, the change in its weight, the possible and disturbing change in its contents. Hugh listened without comment to the end. Then he said slowly: “Such a thing, if indeed it did enter that house, might well be enough to tempt any man.”
“Any who understood its value,” said Cadfael. “Either in money, or for its own rare sake.”
“And before all, it would have to be a man who had opened the box, and seen what was there. Before it was made known to them all. Do we know whether it was opened at once, when the boy delivered it? Or how soon after?”