up the other end.
Bartholomew stayed where he was. 'It will not take a moment,' he said. 'Wait outside if it distresses you, and I will do it alone.'
'What are your reasons for this?' asked de Wetherset, setting the coffin back down and eyeing Bartholomew with resignation.
Bartholomew pointed to the woman's coffin. 'When we exhumed the body of the lady, she was in an advanced state of decay. The coffin is flimsy, and the lid does not fit properly. If the woman was in there, Master de Wetherset, you would need more than a few bowls of incense to keep her presence from being known. She would be smelt from the porch.'
De Wetherset let out an exclamation of dismissal.
'Rubbish! The shock of the exhumation has addled your brain, and now you are suspicious of everything.
Gilbert is right. Let us just get this done.'
Bartholomew looked at Michael for help. Michael raised his eyes to the ceiling, but rallied to his side. 'It will take only a few moments. What harm can it do?'
'Why can we not just let the poor souls rest in peace?' muttered Cuthbert. 'Both murdered, and now, even in death, they are not safe from desecration!'
De Wetherset was torn. He looked at Gilbert's pleading eyes and grey, exhausted face, and then back to Bartholomew. He sighed. 'In the interests of thoroughness, and to satisfy the Doctor's unpleasant curiosity, I suppose the coffins may be opened. Do it if you must.'
Gilbert backed out of the door. 'I want to see no more decaying corpses. I will wait in the church.' 'I will wait with you,' said de Wetherset. 'I too have had my fill of sights from beyond the grave.'
Cuthbert followed them out, his fat features set in a mask of sorrow.
When they had gone, Michael turned to Bartholomew irritably. 'Is this really necessary? De Wetherset will be furious if you are wrong, and poor Gilbert is at the end of his tether!' then wait outside,' said Bartholomew, losing patience.
'It is for your Bishop that we are investigating this.'
Michael went to sit on the steps as Bartholomew took a knife from his bag and levered up the lid of the woman's coffin. The cheap wood splintered, but the lid came off easily. He stared in shock, unprepared for the sight that faced him. He took a deep breath and stood back.
'Well?' said Michael.
Wordlessly, Bartholomew went to perform the same operation on Froissart's coffin, while Michael went to look in the woman's. Michael stared down at the corpse in the coffin in mystification and, hesitantly, went to look at Froissart's too. Bartholomew shut it before he could see.
'Look if you will,' he said, 'but it is only Froissart, alone and unmolested.'
Michael gazed in horror at the woman's coffin. 'Where is she?' He began a fruitless search of the crypt, hunting for a body that was not there.
Bartholomew scratched his head. 'Who knows? We should tell de Wetherset.'
Michael went to fetch him while Bartholomew re nailed Froissart's lid. De Wetherset peered cautiously into the woman's coffin.
'Nicholas of York!' he breathed. He raised a white face to Bartholomew. 'How?'
Bartholomew inspected Nicholas's body. There was some stiffness, but Bartholomew imagined he had not been dead for more than a day. Like Froissart, a deep purple mark on his neck indicated that he had been garrotted.
He told de Wetherset, who looked at him blankly.
'But how could this have happened? And where is the body of the woman?'
'Someone must have stolen her,' said Michael. 'But Gilbert said he had been guarding the crypt, and that it is always locked. How could anyone have gone in without him seeing?'
'Where is Gilbert?' said Bartholomew. The small clerk had not followed de Wetherset back into the crypt.
'He is unwell. I have told him to wait in the church with Father Cuthbert,' said de Wetherset. 'All this has proved too much for him. But how could anyone take a body from here while the gate was locked?'
'Perhaps the gate was not locked,' said Bartholomew quietly.
De Wetherset looked blank for a moment. 'What?' he said sharply. 'What are you saying? Gilbert has been my personal clerk for the past ten years. I trust him implicitly.'
'Gilbert always came with you and Buckley when you opened the University chest,' said Bartholomew slowly.
'He knew about Nicholas of York's book. He was with you when you found the friar, and he helped us remove Froissart from the tower. Now we find he is the person to have the only key to the crypt during the time the woman's body disappeared.'
'That is preposterous!' de Wetherset almost snarled.
'Gilbert is my trusted clerk. How do I know that one of you is not behind all this?'
There is nothing to be gained from this line of thought,' Michael intervened smoothly, giving Bartholomew a sharp glance. 'All we need to do is to talk to Gilbert. Come.'
He led the way out of the gloomy crypt and the others followed.
De Wetherset walked to the Lady Chapel where he had left Gilbert, but his clerk was not there, and neither was Cuthbert. The Chancellor walked outside.
'He has probably gone for some fresh air,' he said.
There was no sign of Gilbert outside either. De Wetherset hailed a lay-brother who was sweeping the path. The lay-brother strolled over to them.
'Poor Gilbert,' he said in response to de Wetherset's question. 'He came tearing out of the church as if it were on fire. Then he ran straight to the bushes there and disappeared. He ate at the Cardinal's Cap last night, and I have warned him about the food there.'
De Wetherset glared at Bartholomew. 'You have made him sick!' he exclaimed.
Bartholomew was looking over at the bushes where the lay-brother had pointed. 'Oh, I do not think so,' he said. He found the two tombstones and the tree he had used to calculate the entrance of the pathway to Primrose Alley from the church tower, ran through the angles and formulae in his mind, and headed for the spot where the entrance was concealed. De Wetherset and Michael watched him dubiously as he poked around the bushes before giving a triumphant shout.
They hurried over and he pointed out the path to them, almost invisible in the dense foliage, but an unmistakable pathway nevertheless.
That proves nothing!' snapped de Wetherset. 'Gilbert?
Are you there?'
He began to force his way through the undergrowth, while Michael followed. Bartholomew, recalling vividly the last time he had taken the path, grabbed at Michael's habit.
'Wait! We should fetch the Proctors,' he said urgently.
He forced his way past Michael and seized de Wetherset.
'Wait!' he repeated.
There was a slight whistling sound followed by a thud, and de Wetherset gazed in disbelief at the arrow that trembled in the tree-trunk only inches from his head.
Wordlessly, he turned and fled, thrusting Bartholomew out of the way in his haste to escape. Bartholomew followed more slowly. He knew that had Janetta's men meant to kill, the arrow would be in de Wetherset, and not in a tree. Perhaps Gilbert's loyalty to his Chancellor was worth something after all.
When he emerged into the sunshine, de Wetherset was white with fright, while Michael was bewildered.
'Gilbert might be dead in there,' de Wetherset gasped.
'He might be injured.'
'He might have set the archer there, 'said Bartholomew.
De Wetherset strode over to him and grabbed him roughly by the shoulder. 'One more allegation like that, and you will be looking for a new teaching position!' he snapped angrily.
