‘Impossible!’ Clifford snapped. ‘Each lock is unique.’ He drew out two of the keys which the Guildmasters had left, I am no locksmith, Brother, but study these carefully. Look!’ He held both of them up against the candlelight. ‘See the curves and notches of each key? They are quite separate and distinct. Indeed, my Lord of Gaunt insisted that they be so.’
Athelstan rubbed his mouth to hide his dismay.
‘Your fourth question begs itself,’ Clifford added. ‘Did Sturmey make a duplicate of each key? But that,’ he continued hurriedly, seeing the Regent shake his head, ‘would make Sturmey a traitor who cheerfully handed over his keys to another for the locks to be opened.’
‘Devil’s tits!’ Cranston murmured. ‘How could it be done? Was the chapel guarded?’
Goodman shrugged. ‘No, why should it be? The chest was heavy with gold, and with six locks…’ His voice trailed off.
‘Who planned all this?’ Athelstan asked. ‘I mean, the gold ingots, the chest?’
Clifford pulled a face and looked at Goodman. ‘The idea of the chest and the gold being deposited there,’ he replied, ‘came from my Lord of Gaunt, though it was myself and Sir Gerard Mountjoy who chose Sturmey.’ He smiled. ‘The Guildmasters insisted on that.’
‘Because they didn’t trust me!’ Gaunt snapped. ‘I had nothing to do with the construction of the chest or the fashioning of its locks or the making of its keys. Both I and the Guildmasters decided we should best leave that to our worthy city officials here. They brought the chest and the keys direct from Sturmey’s shop this morning.’
‘And, before you ask,’ Lord Adam intervened, ‘never once did any of them hold all six keys together. My Lord Mayor bought three, Mountjoy the rest. The transaction was witnessed by both Fitzroy and Sudbury and the chest was carried by city bailiffs.’
Cranston looked, narrow-eyed, into the darkness, a gesture the Coroner always used when he was deep in thought.
‘Sir John Athelstan exclaimed. ‘What is the matter?’
Cranston smacked his lips, a sure sign that, even at this very late hour, he was beginning to miss his claret.
‘Sturmey,’ he said. ‘The name of Sturmey means something to me. Now why is that, eh? Why should a reputable locksmith, patronized by the great and the noble, strike a chord in my old memory?’
Athelstan grinned. Cranston’s memory was prodigious. He knew the names and most of the faces of London’s rogues and, even in a crowded Cheapside, could bellow out warnings to pickpockets and foists.
‘What does Sturmey’s name mean to you?’ Gaunt asked quickly.
The Coroner shook his head. ‘It will come.’ He bowed. ‘My Lord Regent, if you will excuse me and my clerk, it is imperative we call on this locksmith tonight. Where does he live?’
‘In Lawrence Lane, just off the Mercery,’ Clifford replied.
‘Then,’ Cranston grinned at Athelstan who just glared back in tired annoyance, ‘we’d best call upon master locksmith of Lawrence Lane near the Mercery and ask him a few questions, eh?’ He bowed to the Regent once more. Gaunt looked away. Cranston shrugged and walked down the church, a despondent Athelstan trailing behind.
‘Cranston!’
Sir John turned. Gaunt was now standing on the altar steps.
‘You know the Guildmasters will be back. Oh, they’ll be reasonable. They’ll demand their gold and their answers within a set time.’ He wagged a finger. ‘I need answers, too, my Lord Coroner, within ten days at the most.’ He left the unspoken threat hanging in the air as Cranston spun on his heel and walked out of the Guildhall chapel.
CHAPTER 5
Once out in Cheapside Cranston stopped and stared up at the moon. ‘The devil’s piss on them!’ he cursed. ‘Cock’s blood! What a stinking pot of turds! What a mess! The whoreson, beetle-headed, fat-bellied, treacherous bastards!’
Athelstan smiled. ‘You are, My Lord Coroner, referring to our brothers in Christ, the Guildmasters?’
‘Yes, monk, I am.’ Cranston plucked his miraculous wineskin from beneath his cloak and gulped heartily. ‘Lord,’ he breathed, ‘what a mess! How was Fitzroy killed, Brother? He didn’t take the poison before the meal, his food and all the cutlery bore no sign of any potion.’
Athelstan shook his head. ‘You are ahead of me, Sir John. I am still wondering about Mountjoy’s death.’ The friar stared across the darkened Cheapside, his gaze attracted by the lantern horns fixed outside the great merchants’ houses. He recalled the words of his old lecturer, Father Paul: ‘The root of all sin,’ the old friar had boomed, ‘is pride. And the opposite of love is not hatred or indifference but power. Power corrupts; the pursuit of it is the road to Hell.’
We are on that road now, Athelstan thought, thronged by powerful men with a raging thirst for the best things in life. We are all killers, he concluded, and despite the warm evening air, shivered. He felt like a masked swordsman being thrust into a pitch-black tourney thronged by killers, I want to go home,’ he whispered before he could stop himself.
Cranston looked at him curiously. ‘This is your home, Brother.’
Athelstan smiled and shook himself free from his reverie. ‘Aye, Sir John, but we have a locksmith to question. Tell me, why are. you puzzled by Sturmey’s name?’
Cranston blessed himself, took three more swigs from the wineskin, popped back the stopper and, linking his arm through Athelstan’s, guided him up the Poultry.
‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘But the name rings a bell. It will take time, Brother.’
Athelstan pinched his nostrils for this part of Cheapside still stank of dead birds. He tried not to look at the rats racing between the cesspits in the centre of the street to forage amongst the juicy morsels of giblets and decapitated heads of chickens, partridge, quail and plover. Two white feathers floated by and Athelstan thought of angels.
‘No angels here,’ he muttered.
‘You’re dead bloody right!’ Cranston retorted.
They jumped and stepped aside as two old ladies suddenly turned the corner, pushing a hand cart, the corpse of another old harridan sprawled over it. Athelstan sketched a blessing in the air. One of the old crones looked over her shoulder and cackled.
‘Gone she has,’ she screeched. ‘Died of the flux and it’s the lime pits for her.’
‘I wish I could stop that,’ Cranston observed. ‘They will dump the body on some church steps.’
The cart trailed away into the darkness and they continued into the Mercery. Two whores stood on the corner of an alleyway, their saffron dresses and red wigs shining like beacons in the gloom.
‘Hello, ladies!’ Cranston shouted. ‘You know the law?’
‘What law?’ the taller of the two replied. ‘We are a prayer group.’
‘It’s Cranston!’ the shorter one hissed, and the two ladies of the night fled like fire-flies up the darkened alley.
Athelstan and Cranston turned into Lawrence Lane, a dark tunnel because the houses on either side leaned over so close, a person in the highest story could actually tap on a window opposite.
‘Mind your step!’ Cranston warned.
Athelstan looked down and realized the sewer in the centre of the street had overflowed, drenching the cobbles with all kinds of putrid filth. The street reeked of sulphur which some good citizen must have poured in to kill the stench. Dark forms edged out of alleyways. Cranston tugged his cloak over his shoulders and pulled out his long Welsh stabbing dagger.
‘Good evening, my buckos! I’m Jack Cranston, Coroner.’
The sinister shadows disappeared.
They continued on, Cranston stopping to look at the shop signs which hung on poles just above their heads. At last, just before Lawrence Lane ran into Catte Street, he stopped and pointed to a sign creaking on rusting
