“That,” said Cadfael, “I do not know. But you have one in hold who may know. One who may even know where it was laid by, who went near it, what was said about it, through those few days, as Elave could not know all, not being there. Why do we not question Conan once more, before you set him free?”
“Bearing in mind,” Hugh warned, “that this, too, may blow away in the wind. It may all along have been coins within there, but better packed.”
“English coin, and in such quantity,” said Cadfael, catching at a thread he had not considered, but finding it frail, “at the end of such a journey, and committed to her from France? But if he sent her money at all, it must needs be English money. He could have been holding it in reserve for such a purpose, once he began to be a sick man. No, there’s nothing certain, everything slips through the fingers.”
Hugh rose decisively. “Come, let’s go and see what can be wrung out of Master Conan, before I let him slip through mine.”
Conan sat in his stone cell, and eyed them doubtfully and slyly from the moment they entered. He had a slit window on the air, a hard but tolerable bed, ample food and no work, and was just getting used to the fact, at first surprising, that no one was interested in using him roughly, but for all that he was uneasy and anxious whenever Hugh appeared. He had told so many lies in his efforts to distance himself from suspicion of murder that he had difficulty in remembering now exactly what he had said, and was wary of trapping himself in still more tangled coils.
“Conan, my lad,” said Hugh, walking in upon him breezily, “there’s still a little matter in which you can be of help to me. You know most of what goes on in Girard of Lythwood’s house. You know the box that was brought for Fortunata from France. Answer me some questions about it, and let’s have no more lies this time. Tell me about that box. Who was there when it first came into the house?”
Uneasy at this or any diversion he could not understand, Conan answered warily: “There was Jevan, Dame Margaret, Aldwin, and me. And Elave! Fortunata wasn’t there, she came in later.”
“Was the box opened then?”
“No, the mistress said it should wait until Master Girard came home.” Chary of words until he understood the drift, Conan added nothing more.
“So she put it away, did she? And you saw where, did you not? Tell us!”
He was growing ever more uneasy. “She put it away in the press, on a high shelf. We all saw it!”
“And the key, Conan? The key was with it? And were you not curious about it? Did you not want to see what was in it? Didn’t your fingers begin to itch before nightfall?”
“I never meddled with it!” cried Conan, alarmed and defensive. “It wasn’t me who pried into it. I never went near it.”
So easy it was! Hugh and Cadfael exchanged a brief glance of astonished gratification. Ask the right question, and the road ahead opens before you. They closed in almost fondly on the sweating Conan.
“Then who was it?” Hugh demanded.
“Aldwin! He pried into everything. He never took things,” said Conan feverishly, desperate to point the bolts of suspicion away from himself at all costs, “but he couldn’t bear not knowing. He was always afraid there was something brewing against him. I never touched it, but he did.”
“And how do you know this, Conan?” asked Cadfael.
“He told me, afterward. But I heard them, down in the hall.”
“And when was it you heard them - down in the hall?”
“That same night.” Conan drew breath, beginning to be somewhat reassured again, since nothing of all this seemed to be pointing in his direction, after all. “I went to bed, and left Aldwin down in the kitchen, but I wasn’t asleep. I never heard him come into the hall, but I did hear Jevan suddenly shout down at him from the top of the stairs, ‘What are you doing there?’ and then Aldwin, down below, all in a hurry, said he’d left his penknife in the press, and he’d be needing it in the morning. And Jevan says take it, then, and get to bed, and give over disturbing other people. And Aldwin came up in haste, with his tail between his legs. And I heard Jevan go on down into the hall and cross to the press, and I think he locked it and took the key away, for it was locked next morning. I asked Aldwin later what he’d been up to, and he said he only wanted to have a look inside, and he had the box open, and then had to shut and lock it again in a hurry, and try to hide what he was about, when Jevan shouted at him.”
“And did he see what was in it?” asked Cadfael, already foreseeing the answer, and tasting its bitter irony.
“Not he! He pretended at first he had, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was, and in the end he had to admit he never got a glimpse. He’d barely raised the lid when he had to close it again in a hurry. It got him nothing!” said Conan, almost with satisfaction, as if he had scored over his fellow in some way by that wasted curiosity.
It got him his death, thought Cadfael, with awful certainty. And all for nothing! He never had time to see what the box held. Perhaps no one had then seen it. Perhaps it was that prying inquisitiveness that set off another man’s quickening curiosity, fatal to them both.
“Well, Conan,” said Hugh, “you may take heart and think yourself lucky. There’s a man from the Welsh side of the town can swear to it you were on your way to Girard’s fold well before Vespers, the night Aldwin was killed. You’re clear of blame. You can be off home when you choose, the door’s open.”
“And he did not even see it,” said Hugh, as they recrossed the outer ward side by side.
“But there was one who believed he had. And looked for himself,” said Cadfael, “and was lost. Fathoms deep! And in one more day, or two, three at the most, Girard would be home, the box would be opened, what was in it would be known to all, and would be Fortunata’s. Girard is a shrewd merchant, he would get for her the highest sum possible - not that it would approach its worth. But if he did not himself know where best to sell it, he would know where to ask. If it was what I begin to believe, the sum left for her in its place would not have bought one leaf.”
“And only one life stood in the way, to threaten betrayal,” said Hugh. “Or so it seemed! And all for nothing, the poor wretch never did have time to see what should have been there to be seen when the box was opened. Cadfael, my mind misgives me - yesterday, when Anselm examined that box, gold leaf, purple dye, and all, Girard and the girl were present? How if one of them proved sharp enough to think as we are thinking? Having gone so far, could a man stop short now, if the same danger threatened his gains all over again?”
It was a new and disturbing thought. Cadfael checked for an instant in midstride, shaken into considering it.
“I think Girard never gave it much thought. The girl - I would not say! She is deeper than she seems, and she it is who has so much at stake. And she’s young and kind, and sudden undeserved death has never before come so near her. I wonder! Truly I wonder! She did pay close attention, missing nothing, saying little. Hugh, what will you do?”
“Come!” said Hugh, making up his mind. “You and I will go and visit the Lythwood household. We have pretext enough. They have buried their murdered man this morning, I have released one suspect from their retinue this afternoon, and I am still bent on finding a murderer. No need for one member rather than another to be wary of my probing, as yet, not until I have filled up the score of that day’s movements for him as I took so long to do for Conan. At least we’ll take note here and now of where the girl is, until you or I can talk with her again, and make sure she does nothing to draw danger upon herself.”