‘And you say it was found knocked over and the medicine drained?’
‘Yes, yes, Brother, but leave that. What’s that bloody ferret up to?’
Cranston got his answer. Suddenly there was a violent scuffle under the bed and Ferox emerged, his small snout bloodied as he dragged a fat, long-tailed, brown rat out into the open.
‘Good boy!’ Ranulf whispered.
‘The bloody thing’s as stupid as you are, Ranulf!’
Cranston roared. ‘He’s not here to kill bloody rats but find dead ones!’ Ranulf picked up the dead rat, opened the window and tossed it into the street. Again Ferox went hunting. The minutes passed. Athelstan watched the industrious little ferret and tried not to look at Cranston who, having taken so many swigs from the wineskin, was beginning to sway rather dangerously on the bench. Ranulf kept picking the ferret up and putting it under cupboards and behind chests. Sometimes the ferret would return, other times there would be an eerie scuffling, a heart- stopping scream, and he would re-emerge with a rat. Athelstan had to look away as Cranston began to bellow imprecations. On one occasion Rosamund came and rapped on the door. Cranston roared at her to bugger off and instructed his ‘grinning monk’, as he called Athelstan, to bolt the door.
At last Ranulf was finished. Ferox was put back in his cage. Cranston came down from his perch and all three began to move the bed and bits of furniture, Ranulf even lifting floor boards, but they could find nothing. Eventually, all three went, red-faced and perspiring, to stand in the centre of the room. Cranston’s elation was obvious. He clapped both Athelstan and Ranulf on the shoulder and apologized for bellowing at Ranulf.
‘I’ll buy you the best claret in London!’ he swore. ‘And a drink for your little friend.’
‘He likes malmsey, Sir John.’
‘Well, as far as I’m concerned, he can have a bloody bath in it! But you are sure?’
Ranulf nodded.
‘In which case, we should try the jar.’
He went across, took up the small jug and, using his wineskin, filled the jug to the brim, then raised it to his lips.
‘Sir John, are you certain?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Athelstan, I am about to find out.’ He drank from the jug, draining every drop from it. ‘ Alea jacta! ’ he declared. ‘The die is cast! Let’s see the bitch downstairs.’
They all trooped down to the solar where a tight-faced Rosamund and a much more nervous Albric sat waiting for them.
‘Sir John.’ The woman got to her feet. ‘You have been a good hour in my house. Now get out!’
‘I haven’t finished yet,’ he snapped, advancing within a few inches of her.
‘Why, what else do you want? These ridiculous allegations!’
Cranston breathed in deeply. ‘Rosamund Ingham, and you Albric Totnes, I, Sir John Cranston, King’s Coroner in the city, do arrest you for murder and treason!’
Rosamund went white and gaped. Albric slumped wet-eyed and slack-jawed. Athelstan recognized him as an easier quarry. ‘O, Lord,’ he reflected, quoting from the psalms,
‘Stretch out your hand and show your justice.’
Rosamund soon regained her composure.
‘Murder? Treason? What nonsense is this?’
‘You know full well, Mistress.’ Cranston produced from his voluminous sleeve the small jug which he had taken from the chamber above. ‘You agree, Mistress, in the presence of witnesses, that this is the jug containing your late husband’s medicine, an infusion of foxglove or digitalis? A medicine, I understand, which can strengthen the heart if taken in small doses?’
‘Yes, it is. What are you going to say, Sir John, that my husband took too much? He insisted on pouring it himself. No one else was allowed to touch it.’
Cranston nodded. ‘And would you agree, in the presence of witnesses, that this is the jug that was left in your husband’s chamber when I sealed it, and that in your husband’s death throes he knocked it over?’
‘Yes, yes!’
Cranston turned at a sound near the door and summoned over the old manservant.
‘Just in time, me lad!’ he boomed. ‘I could do with another witness. Tell me, Mistress.’ He turned back to the woman. ‘Have you ever tasted foxglove?’
‘Of course not! Sir John, you have been drinking!’
‘Yes. Yes, I have. I even drank from this jug.’
Athelstan gazed quickly at AIbric, who might be a coward but, by the look on his face, had already guessed the direction of Cranston’s interrogation. It seemed only to increase his terror.
‘Well,’ Cranston continued evenly, ‘foxglove is fairly tasteless. And that’s how you murdered your husband. He kept the main supply of the potion in a stoppered flask in the buttery. What he didn’t know is that, perhaps a month before his death, you poured the potion away and replaced it with nothing more harmful than water.’
‘Don’t be stupid, my husband would have noticed!’
Cranston smiled. ‘Where is that flask?’
‘I’ve thrown it away!’ Rosamund stammered.
‘Well, well,’ Cranston snapped. ‘Why should you do that?’
‘It wasn’t needed!’
‘Rubbish. You wished to hide the evidence! It would never have occurred to him. After all,’ Cranston continued, ‘we see what we expect to see. I understand from my medical friends that foxglove in its liquid form is both clear and tasteless. Perhaps you added something to thicken it a little? What do we have, woman, eh? A man with a weak heart, worried sick about his faithless wife, being deprived for weeks of a life-giving medicine. Oh, yes, Sir Oliver, God rest him, died of a heart seizure — but one brought about by you. Now, Brother Athelstan here is a theologian.’ Cranston glanced quickly at Albric who sat slumped in his chair, arms crossed tightly over his chest. ‘Athelstan will tell you that there are two types of sin. The first is an act, the second an omission. Albric, do you know what omission means?’
The young fop shook his head.
‘It means, you treacherous little turd, that you commit evil by not doing something. You can kill a man by throwing him into the river. You can also kill him by refusing to help him out.’
‘What proof do you have?’ Rosamund demanded.
‘Enough to hang you,’ Cranston answered sharply, coming forward. ‘You see, as your husband died, in the middle of his seizure, his hand flailed out and he knocked over the medicine jar, allowing the liquid to spill out. Now, this house is plagued by rats, hungry and inquisitive.’ Cranston was so furious he found it hard to speak.
‘What My Lord Coroner is saying,’ Athelstan intervened quietly, ‘is that if a rat would gnaw a dead man’s body, it would certainly drink any liquid left lying about. I have looked at that table,’ he lied. ‘As has the professional rat-catcher here. There are signs of rats on that table. Their tracks, as well as their dung, are all over the chamber.’ He glanced quickly at Ranulf who nodded wisely. ‘More importantly,’ he continued, ‘as my good friend here will swear, any rat who drank foxglove would soon die but we discovered no dead rat in that chamber.’ Athelstan schooled his features. He was bluffing and no Justice would convict anyone on the evidence they had produced. His heart skipped a beat as he heard Albric moan. The young man uncrossed his arms and made to rise.
‘This is nonsense!’ Rosamund snapped, a gleam of triumph in her eyes. ‘First the rat could slink away to die anywhere and we have found dead rats in the house, haven’t we, Albric?’ The young man, white-faced, just nodded.
‘That’s impossible!’ Ranulf, entering the spirit of the occasion, now spoke up. ‘Foxglove would kill a rat immediately. I would swear to that. Indeed, I could show you.’
Albric sat down again and stared fearfully at Athelstan.
‘You also mentioned treason.’ Rosamund rushed her words to hide any confusion.
‘Yes, I did,’ Cranston replied softly. ‘Last night I was attacked by footpads. I beat them off and took one prisoner,’ he lied. ‘He confessed how you hired them to kill me.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘He named you.’
‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ she sneered. ‘Are you also accusing me of hiring three footpads?’
Cranston smiled. ‘How do you know there were three?’
