“Yet five and twenty years ago is still a quarter of a century before this time and we are talking of an old man who needed help to rise and go to chapel as a regular course.”
“As I have said, he was a determined man.”
“Therefore, if I understand your report correctly, you believe that the Venerable Connla, hearing some robbers moving in the chapel, left his bed and went to confront them without rousing anyone else? That these robbers then overpowered him and hanged him in his own bedchamber?”
“I have said as much.”
“Yet doesn’t it also strike you as strange that these thieves and robbers, thus disturbed, took the old man back to his chamber and hanged him there? Surely a thief, so disturbed, might strike out in fear and seek to escape. Was Connla a tall man who, in spite of his frailty, might have appeared a threat?”
Father Máilín shook his head.
“Age had bent him.”
“Then the Venerable Connla could not have prevented the escape of the thieves nor even pursued them. Why would they bother to take him and, presumably, get him to show them the way back to his chamber to kill him?”
“Who knows the minds of thieves and murderers?” snorted Father Máilín. “I deal with the facts. I don’t attempt to understand their minds.”
“Nevertheless, that is the business in which I am engaged because in so considering the ‘why’ and ‘wherefore’, often one can solve the ‘how’ and ‘who.’ ” She paused for a moment and when he did not respond, she added: “After this barbaric act of sacrilege, you reported that they then removed some valuable items and went calmly off into the night?”
“The itinerants were certainly gone by the next morning when one of the outraged brethren went to their camp. The emotional attitude of the itinerants, as to whether they be calm or otherwise, is not for me to comment on. I will leave that to you to judge.”
“Very well. You say that Brother Gormgilla was the first to discover the body of the Venerable Connla?”
“Brother Gormgilla always roused the Venerable Connla first.”
“Ah, just so. I shall want to see this Brother Gormgilla.”
“But I have told you all. .”
Fidelma raised an eyebrow, staring at him with cold, blue eyes.
Father Máilín hesitated and shrugged. He reached for a hand bell and jangled it. A member of the community entered but when the Father Superior asked that Brother Gormgilla be summoned, Fidelma intervened. She did not want Father Máilín interfering in her questioning.
“I will go to the Brother myself. I have trespassed on your valuable time long enough, Father Máilín.”
The Father Superior rose unhappily as Sister Fidelma turned and accompanied the religieux from the room.
Brother Gormgilla was a stocky, round-faced man, with a permanent expression of woe sitting on his fleshy features. She introduced herself briefly to him.
“Had you known the Venerable Connla for a long time, Brother?” she asked.
“For fifteen years. I have been his helper all that time. He would soon be in his ninety-first year had he been spared.”
“So you knew him very well?”
“I did so. He was a man of infinite wisdom and knowledge.”
Fidelma smiled briefly.
“I know of his reputation. He was spoken of as one of our greatest philosophers, not merely in this kingdom but among all five kingdoms of Ireland. So he was a convert to the Faith?”
“As were many in our poor benighted country when he was a young man. At that time, most of us cleaved to the old gods and goddesses of our fathers. The Faith was not so widespread through our kingdoms. Connla’s own father was a Druid and a seer. When he was young, Connla told me, he was going to follow the arts of his father’s religion. But he was converted and took his new name.”
“And became a respected philosopher of the Faith,” added Fidelma. “Well, tell me. . in fact, show me, how and where you discovered his body?”
Brother Gormgilla led the way toward the main chapel around which the various circular buildings of the community were situated. Next to the chapel was one small circular building outside the door of which the monk paused.
“Each morning, just before the Angelus, I came here to rouse and dress the Venerable Connla,” he explained.
“And on that morning. .? Take me through what happened when you found Connla was dead.”
“I came to the door. It was shut and locked. That was highly unusual. I knocked upon it and not being able to get an answer, I went to a side window.”
“One moment. Are you telling me that you did not possess a key to Connla’s chamber?”
“No. There was only one key, which the Venerable Connla kept himself.”
“Was it usual for Connla to lock his door?”
“Unusual in the extreme. He always left it open.”
“So the door was locked! You say that you went to the window? Was it open?”
“No. It was closed.”
“And secured?”
“Well, I had to smash the glass to open it and squeeze through.”
“Go on. What did you find inside?”
“I had seen through the window that which caused me to see the smashing of the window as my only alternative. I saw the body of the Venerable Connla hanging from a beam.”
“Show me.”
Brother Gormgilla opened the door and conducted her into a spacious round chamber which had been the Venerable Connla’s living quarters and study. He pointed up to the roof rafters. Great beams of wood at the height of eight feet from the ground crossed the room.
“See that one, just near the bed? Old Connla was hanging from it. A rope was twisted ’round it and one end was tied in a noose around his neck. I think that he had been dead for some hours. I knew at once that I could do nothing for him and so I went to rouse Father Máilín.”
Fidelma rubbed her jaw thoughtfully.
“Did you stop to search the room?”
“My only thought was to tell the Father Superior the catastrophic news.”
“You have told me that the door was locked. Was the key on the inside?”
“There was no sign of the key. That was why I had to squeeze back out of the window. Our smithy then came and picked the lock when Father Máilín arrived. It was the missing key that confirmed Father Máilín in his theory that thieves had done the deed, locking Connla in his own chamber after they had hanged him.”
Fidelma examined the lock and saw the scratch marks where it had been picked. There was little else to decipher from it, except that the lock had apparently not been forced at any other stage. Fidelma moved to the window, where she saw the clear signs of broken glass and some scratching on the frame which might have been made by a body pushing through the aperture. It was certainly consistent with Brother Gormgilla’s story.
She went to the bed and gazed up. There was some scoring on the beam.
“Is the bed in the same position?”
“It is.”
Fidelma made some mental measurements and then nodded.
“Let me get this perfectly clear, Brother Gormgilla. You say that the door was locked and there was no key in the lock on either side of the door? You also say that the window was secured and to gain access you had to break in from the outside?”
“That is so.”
“Let me put this question to you, as I have also put it to your Father Superior: his theory is that the
