The Assassin's Riddle

by Paul Doherty

  ‘What’s the matter, Sir John?’

  ‘There’s a skeleton in there.’ The coroner jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Have it removed. Tell the vicar of St Mary Le Bow the city will bear the cost of its burial. Don’t look so frightened, Henry, she’s been dead for years. Now, do you have news for me?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Flaxwith stared distractedly over Sir John’s shoulder as if he expected the skeleton to come walking out of the room towards him.

  ‘Well, come on, man!’

  ‘First, Sir John,’ Flaxwith gabbled, ‘we are keeping Dame Broadsheet’s house under strict guard and she does not suspect it. We have heard little rumours that the Vicar of Hell is much smitten by little Clarice there.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Stablegate and Flinstead were seen carousing the night Drayton was murdered. According to witnesses they drank until they were stupid. They never returned here. The same goes for those clerks at the Dancing Pig. Mine host says that after they retired to the upper chambers he saw neither hide nor hair of them till dawn. Finally, Sir John,’ Flaxwith spread his hands, ‘I have a friend who works in the muniment room at the Tower.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘We checked the subsidy rolls of 1380 for Epping in Essex. They list Edwin and Alison Chapler. Edwin is described as a clerk, Alison a seamstress. Apparently both are quite wealthy.’

  ‘Very good.’ Cranston clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Oh, before you go,’ Athelstan called out. ‘Sir John, perhaps we could have a small mummer’s play?’

  A bemused Cranston and Flaxwith followed Athelstan back into the dusty counting office.

  ‘Now,’ Athelstan began, ‘I’ll pretend to be Drayton.’ He held up his writing bag. ‘This is the Regent’s silver. Sir John, how am I killed?’

  Sir John pointed to Athelstan’s chest.

  ‘Right,’ Athelstan replied. ‘I’m dying. I fall to the ground. In my death throes, in my guilt, I remember the woman I have walled up alive so I crawl towards the hall, praying for forgiveness. That explains why we found Drayton in the position he was, but the problem remains. If the two clerks killed Drayton, how did they get out of the chamber?’ Athelstan pointed to the door. ‘Locking and bolting that from inside? If Drayton had locked himself in,’ Athelstan continued, ‘then how could the clerks enter the chamber and kill him?’

  ‘We’ve been through all this,’ Cranston grumbled.

  ‘No, listen, Sir John: we now know the only way into this room is through the door.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ Cranston said irritably. ‘And it was locked and bolted.’

  ‘Sir John, Master Henry, if you would oblige me.’

  Athelstan walked towards where the huge door lay against the wall. ‘Is it possible for you to hold that up?’

  Swearing and grumbling under their breaths, both men obliged, pulling the huge door away from the wall. Athelstan approached it. He pulled down the small trap to look through the eye grille; he stood there for a while then looked round the door.

  ‘Can we put this bloody thing down?’ Cranston gasped.

  ‘Yes, Sir John.’

  Both men pushed the door back against the wall.

  ‘Well, Brother?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Athelstan replied. ‘I’m not sure, Sir John. Master Flaxwith, do you know a good carpenter?’

  ‘Aye, there’s Laveck in Stinking Alley.’

  ‘Bring him here,’ Athelstan ordered. ‘I want this door examined from top to bottom, the grille, the locks, the bolts, the bosses, everything. I don’t care what damage is done.’ He nudged Cranston in the ribs. ‘Tell him the city will pay the costs. If it doesn’t, the Regent certainly will. Provide him with ale and bread, but he is not to leave this house until his task is finished and both I and Sir John have returned to question him.’

  Flaxwith undid the rope which held Samson tethered and hurried down the passageway.

  ‘What do you hope to achieve, Brother?’

  ‘Trickery, Sir John. The world is full of trickery and deceit. Everything is a riddle. Clerks are killed when no one is about. A moneylender is found dead in his locked counting house whilst in Southwark,’ he added bitterly, ‘crucifixes drip with real blood.’

  ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’

  ‘No I don’t, Sir John. But my parishioners do. John, you know the villains and the cunning men of the underworld. How could they do that?’

  Cranston sighed. ‘I have knowledge of it,’ he answered. ‘But usually they are fairground tricks, Brother. The blood is wine or paint.’

  ‘This was real blood,’ Athelstan replied.

  ‘The men I have arrested,’ Cranston continued, ‘used secret levers or mechanisms.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s the case here,’ Athelstan said. ‘The crucifix was bleeding when no one was holding it.’

  ‘What about Huddle?’ Cranston asked.

  ‘A cunning, subtle painter. What he can do with a paint-brush is beyond me. But why this, eh, Sir John?’ He linked his arm through Cranston’s as they walked down the passageway. As I keep pointing out to you, my Lord Coroner, I am a Dominican. My order, to its eternal shame or credit, has the reputation of being the Domini Canes.’

  ‘The hounds of God!’ Cranston translated. ‘The Inquisition?’

  ‘Precisely, Sir John. It is their duty to investigate so-called miracles, question self-confessed prophets. In our library at Blackfriars, there is a book, a record of such investigations. Now, Laveck is coming to examine this door and I have no desire to return to Southwark, so what I propose, Sir John, is that we visit Blackfriars.’ He nipped Cranston’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, I have just remembered, Father Prior is on a brief pilgrimage to St Thomas’s shrine at Canterbury.’

  Cranston stopped, a stubborn look on his face.

  ‘Our mother house also has a new cook,’ Athelstan added slyly. ‘A man who can perform miracles with a piece of beef or roast pheasant. Even His Grace the Regent tried to tempt him into the kitchen of the Savoy’

  The coroner clapped Athelstan on the shoulder. ‘Brother, if you weren’t a Dominican, you’d make a very good tempter. The spirit is willing but the flesh is very weak. Accordingly, my only answer to such temptation is yes.’

  Robert Elflain, clerk of the Green Wax, left the Chancery Office and made his way up Holborn towards Fleet Street. It was Wednesday and Elflain was determined that he would spend some part of the day away from the cloying, suspicious attitude of his comrades. Everything had gone wrong. Alcest had sworn that in the end they would have nothing to fear but Elflain was worried. He did not like the fat coroner whilst that sharp-eyed friar seemed to sense something was wrong. Alcest had demanded that they stay together, that no one should wander off, but this was Wednesday and, at Dame Broadsheet’s, Laetitia would be waiting: those soft eyes and even softer skin, that long, sinuous body! Elflain was tense, he needed to burrow his face into her swanlike neck and embrace her body.

  He passed Newgate and tried not to look at the scaffold: that would reawaken his fears. If only Chapler had been more accommodating, everything would have gone smoothly! Elflain loosened the collar of his shirt and cursed as he slipped on the offal dripping along the cobbles from the butcher’s stall. On the corner of an alleyway he turned and stared back: was anyone following him? The crowds milled about, grouping round the stalls, haggling with the traders. Elflain heaved a sigh and continued on his journey. When he glimpsed the front of Dame Broadsheet’s house he felt a glow of satisfaction in the pit of his stomach. He hurried along until he reached the door. Naturally, it was closed and bolted because Dame Broadsheet only had a licence to sell ale in the evening. Elflain groaned. There would be the usual tarrying as he explained to a suspicious porter who he was and why he had come. Dame Broadsheet was ever suspicious of some bailiff or tipstaff trapping her and bringing a charge against her of conducting a house of ill repute.

  Elflain banged on the door. Silence. He knocked again.
r />   ‘Elflain!’

  He turned and stared at the hooded, cowled figure which had appeared like a ghost behind him.

  ‘What the . . .?’ Elflain stepped forward but it was too late.

  The catch of the small arbalest was sprung and the barbed bolt took him full in the heart, smashing through flesh and bone. The clerk staggered back against the door, writhing in pain. He glimpsed the cowled figure drop a small parchment scroll at his feet and then he died, even as the door swung open.

  CHAPTER 8

  When Sir John Cranston left Blackfriars, his stomach was full of capon pie but his mind was totally bemused by what he had read in the library. As he and Athelstan reached Ludgate, the coroner took his hat off and shook his head.

  ‘Heaven knows, Brother,’ he exclaimed. ‘I have seen villainy enough in the city: how quickly and easily people are gulled. But what I read there is beyond all human understanding.’ He ticked the points off on his podgy fingers. ‘A goblet in which wine miraculously appears. Statues which move and cry. A cloth which is supposed to have wiped Jesus Christ’s face suddenly becoming blood-soaked. A rock on which Jesus stood that glows in the dark. Straw from the manger at Bethlehem which smells of some heavenly perfume.’ He laughed. ‘And that’s before we get on to the people! Was there really a man in Salisbury who dressed in goatskin, ate ants and honey and pretended to be John the Baptist?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Athelstan replied. ‘The human mind is a great marvel, Sir John: people are only too quick to believe. Go into any great church. I know of at least ten which claim to have the arm of St Sebastian; five which contain the dorsal fin of the whale that swallowed Jonah.’ Athelstan’s smile faded. ‘But, there again, nothing about a crucifix which drips blood.’

  ‘Do you think it could be real?’ Cranston asked.

  ‘I’d love to believe it, Sir John, I really would. I’m no different from the rest of humankind. I have a hankering for signs and wonders, but there’s something . . .’ Athelstan chewed his lip. ‘I don’t trust Watkin and the same goes for Pike the ditcher. But, talking of trickery, Master Flaxwith and Laveck must have arrived at Drayton’s house. I am eager to learn what they may have discovered.’

  They made their way through the crowds, Cranston, full of good humour as well as capon pie, doffing his cap to the ladies of the town and answering their witticisms like with like. When they arrived at Drayton’s house, the small, nut-brown carpenter Laveck had been very busy. The door had been gouged, rows of the great iron studs being removed. Flaxwith sat in a corner, one hand round the ever-vigilant Samson who licked his lips and growled when he saw Cranston.

  ‘Keep your dog under control,’ the coroner warned. ‘Now, Master Laveçk, what have you found?’

  ‘At first nothing, Sir John. The hinges are sound, the keys and locks are good.’ The man’s bright eyes grinned up at the coroner towering above him. ‘Master Flaxwith,’ he continued, ‘told me what this was all about. I knew Drayton. He was a mean old bugger.’

  ‘Yes, yes, quite,’ the coroner replied. ‘But what have you found?’

  ‘Nothing much, Sir John.’ Laveck picked up one of the great iron studs which fitted into the outside of the door. ‘This was held in place by a huge screw on the inside. It’s been loosened.’

  ‘What do you mean, loosened?’ Cranston gazed threateningly at Flaxwith. ‘I thought you examined the door?’

  ‘No, no, let me explain,’ Laveck intervened quickly. He was eager to keep the goodwill of the bailiff who had assured him he would be paid good silver for this day’s work. ‘When this door was constructed, the carpenter gouged holes in the wood then inserted these great iron studs facing outwards. They are held in place by a clasp or screw on the inside.’

  ‘Why is that done?’ Athelstan asked. ‘I know.’ He smiled at Laveck. ‘You can see them on any strongroom door but why?’

  ‘Because if someone tried to break in, Brother, these iron bosses outside take the force, protect the wood they do. It’s very, very difficult to remove them but, in this case, one has been. Here, in the second row beneath the eye grille. What seems to have happened is this.’ Laveck shuffled sideways to give them full view of the door. ‘The clasp on the inside was loosened, the bolt taken out.’ Laveck held up one of the iron bosses. ‘Look at that, Sir John. Clean as a whistle. It’s been removed, polished and greased. This,’ he picked up another one, ‘is all dark around the edge. Now, from what I can gather, a bolt was removed and greased then put back in again.’ He shrugged. ‘Is that of any help?’ He picked up the clasp or screw. ‘This held it from the inside. Notice again.’ He held it up. ‘How the rim has also been cleaned and oiled. Very clever indeed!’

  ‘Anything else?’ Cranston asked.

  Laveck shook his head. ‘Do we put it back?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Cranston answered, glancing over his shoulder. Athelstan was lost in some reverie. ‘Is there anything else, Brother?’ he asked.

  Athelstan was about to reply when there was a pounding on the stairs and Sir Lionel Havant came striding down the passageway.

  ‘Do you have the Regent’s silver yet, Sir John?’

  ‘No, I bloody well don’t! Surely you haven’t come down to ask me that?’

  ‘No, Sir John, I haven’t!’ The young knight slapped his leather gloves against his thigh. ‘His Grace the Regent is now more concerned about his clerks at the Chancery of the Green Wax. Another one has been killed, outside the house of Dame Broadsheet: a crossbow quarrel straight through his heart. According to the porter there was no one in the street, certainly no one from Dame Broadsheet’s. Elflain died immediately. He tried to speak but nothing came from his mouth except a stream of blood. Naturally, the Regent is anxious . . .’

  ‘Naturally,’ Cranston repeated.

  ‘Oh.’ Havant handed across a greasy piece of parchment. ‘This was found near the corpse.’

  Cranston undid the scroll, read it and handed it to Athelstan.

  ‘My third is like Fate,’ the scrawling hand had written.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Havant asked.

  ‘Heaven knows.’

  ‘Well,’ the knight replied. ‘You know as much as I do. Elflain has been killed, a riddle left by his corpse. The Regent has lost another clerk, not to mention his silver. He is not in the best of moods, Sir John.’

  ‘In which case you’d best tell his Grace that at least we have something in common,’ Cranston snapped back.

  Havant hurried off.

  Athelstan told Laveck to put the bolts back, then he joined Sir John further down the passageway.

  ‘Four clerks dead,’ Cranston murmured. ‘Each with a riddle left by his corpse. My third is like Fate.’ He paused. ‘No, that’s strange, isn’t it, Athelstan?’

  ‘Sir John?’

  ‘Well, four clerks have been killed; Chapler, Peslep, Ollerton and now Elflain. However, no riddle was left by Chapler’s corpse whilst the assassin apparently regards Elflain as his third not fourth victim.’

  Athelstan tweaked the coroner’s cheek. ‘My Lord Coroner, like a swooping hawk! The poppets should be proud of their father.’

  John beamed, then his smile faded. ‘Why is it important, Brother?’

  ‘Because, Sir John, you are correct: the killer draws a distinction between the murders of Peslep, Ollerton and Elflain and that of the first, Chapler.’ Athelstan sat down at the foot of the stairs, his chin cupped in his hand. ‘Sir John, could those clerks of the Green Wax be involved in some villainy?’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Forgery, theft, blackmail?’

  Cranston scratched his chin. ‘What they do, Brother, is draw up licences and letters. The seal itself is held by Master Lesures. I doubt if he would be involved in such wickedness.’

  ‘Could they forge a seal?’

  Cranston raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s not unknown, Brother. We should go down to the Chancery.’

  ‘It would be a fruitless journey’ Athelstan tapped his sandalled foot.
‘I am sure Masters Alcest and Napham will have very good explanations of where they were. I also wager a jug of wine that it was well known that Master Elflain visited Dame Broadsheet’s on a certain day at a specific hour. Yes, we would be wasting our time. I am more concerned about these riddles. Let’s have them again.’ Athelstan closed his eyes. ‘My first is like a selfish brother,’ he recited. ‘My second is the centre of woe and the principal mover of horror. My third is like Fate.’ He glanced up at Cranston. ‘What’s the centre of woe, Sir John?’

  ‘No claret,’ the coroner replied.

  Athelstan grinned. ‘The centre of woe: does it mean the word itself? Of course it does.’ Athelstan got to his feet. ‘O is the centre of the word “woe” and, without it, horror as a word would not exist. Now that was found beside Ollerton’s corpse. And what is Fate, Sir John?’

  ‘The finish . . .’ the coroner stammered. ‘The end of life.’

  ‘Fate also ends in an E, the first letter of Elfiain’s name. Peslep’s riddle’s a little more difficult, isn’t it? Like a selfish brother: what begins with P, Sir John?’

  Athelstan, fully immersed in the riddle, began to walk up and down. ‘Like a selfish brother,’ he repeated. ‘The riddle definitely refers to a P. The first letter of Peslep’s name.’ Athelstan paused. ‘That’s it, Sir John. A selfish brother’s the first to pity but the last to help: “pity” begins, and “help” ends with a P. But why the letters? These clerks have apparently been killed according to sequence P, O, E.’

  ‘Poe?’ Cranston asked. ‘No such word exists.’

  ‘Ah, we’ve not finished have we, Sir John? There’s Napham and Alcest. Add N and A and what do we have? There’s no such name as “poena” but in Latin poena means punishment.’

  ‘Punishment!’ Cranston exclaimed. ‘The assassin is playing a game with his victims. The first letter of each of their names is hidden in these riddles and the killer believes he is carrying out a punishment. But for what?’