The monk crouched between his two companions, his eyes never leaving Corbett.
‘You can’t prove that,’ he muttered.
‘Not now, but soon, perhaps.’
The monk stared and suddenly his face twisted in a malicious smile.
‘No, you can’t, clerk,’ he repeated. ‘All you can prove is that we broke our vows. Wrong? Yes, I admit we were wrong. But you did say in the presence of witnesses that we were charged with treason. I am no jurist, Master Corbett, but if fornication is now treasonable, then every man in this bloody city should be under arrest!’
Corbett got back to his feet. ‘I
shall
prove my charges. Master Limmer, Ranulf, Maltote! You will join us now! Outside the treasury door!’ The clerk smiled bleakly at Warfield. He was pleased to see all the bombast and pretence drain from the monk’s face. He looked weak like some broken old man.
‘What are you going to do?’ he whispered.
Corbett snapped his fingers and strode off, the three prisoners and their escort trailing behind. They entered the south transept and stopped before the great reinforced door. Corbett grasped his dagger and, despite the protests and worried exclamations of his companions, slashed through each of the seals.
‘What is the use?’ Ranulf murmured. ‘We do not have keys!’
‘Of course,’ Corbett cursed softly, in his excitement he had forgotten. ‘Master Limmer, I want four of your men. They are to bring one of the heavy benches. I want that door smashed down!’
The officer was about to protest but Corbett clapped his hands.
‘On the King’s authority!’ he shouted. ‘I want that door clean off its hinges!’
Limmer hurried off.
‘And some others had better bring a ladder!’ Corbett called. ‘The longest they can find!’
Corbett stood, looking at the treasury door waiting for the soldiers to return. Behind him, Ranulf and Maltote muttered dark warnings, William of Senche was gibbering with fright. Brother Richard lounged against the wall, arms folded, whilst the sacristan just stood like a sleep-walker drained of all emotion.
The soldiers returned. Six carried a very heavy church bench and behind them two more held a long thin ladder. Corbett stepped aside; Limmer pushed the three prisoners away; and the archers, thoroughly enjoying their task, drove their battering ram against the great door. Backwards and forwards they swung the heavy bench until the crashes reverberated through the empty abbey like the tolling of a bell. At first the door withstood the attack but then Limmer told them to concentrate on the far edge where the hinges fitted into the wall. Again the soldiers attacked and Corbett began to hear the wood creak and groan. One of the hinges broke loose and the soldiers stopped for a rest, panting and sweating before resuming their task. At last the door began to buckle. With another crash, followed by an ear-splitting crack, the door creaked and snapped free of its hinges. The archers heaved it to one side, snapping the heavy bolts and lock, and Corbett stepped into the low, dark stone-vaulted passage. A candle was brought and having ordered the sconce torches on the wall to be lit, Corbett grasped one.
‘Limmer, leave two, no, three archers to guard the prisoners, the rest follow me but walk carefully! The passageway is steep and ends in stairs but they have been smashed away. Take care!’ He turned. ‘Oh, by the way, where is Cade?’ Corbett realised how the under-sheriff had kept very much in the background.
‘He’s outside,’ Ranulf muttered.
‘Then bring him in!’
They waited until Ranulf returned with Cade, who stood astounded at the broken treasury door.
‘Sweet Lord, Master Clerk!’ he whispered. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing!’
‘Sweet Lord!’ Corbett mimicked. ‘I think I am the only one who does!’
They went down the passageway, the flames of the torches making their shadows dance on the walls; their footsteps sounded hollow and echoed like the beating of some ghostly drum. Corbett stopped abruptly and pushed the torch forward. Suddenly the passageway ended, and he edged forward gingerly, crouching and waving the torch above the darkened crypt below. The staircase was there – well, at least the first four steps – then it fell away into darkness. The ladder was brought, lowered and, once it was secured, Corbett carefully descended, with one hand on the rung, the other holding the torch away from his face and hair. He looked up, where the others were ringed in a pool of light.
‘Leave two archers there!’ he called. ‘And come down. Bring as many torches as you can!’
He reached the bottom and waited while the archers, with a great deal of muttering and cursing, came to join him. More torches were lit and as their eyes became accustomed to the light they glanced around. The crypt was a huge, empty cavern, the only break being the central column which, Corbett deduced, was the lower part of the great pillar rising to support the high soaring vaults of the Chapter House above. He sucked in his breath. Was he going to be right? Then he glimpsed it: the precious glint of gold and silver plate from half-open coffers, chests and caskets.
‘Surely, they should be locked?’ Cade muttered, seeing them at the same time as Corbett did. He ran across to one. ‘Yes! Yes!’ he said excitedly. ‘The padlocks have been broken!’ He held his torch lower. ‘Look, Sir Hugh, there’s candle grease on the ground.’ He edged towards a white blob of wax. ‘It’s fairly recent!’ he cried.
The others dispersed, examining the various caskets and chests. Some of them had their locks broken, others had been smashed with an iron crowbar or axe, and the contents had been rifled. But none was empty.
‘The crypt has been plundered!’ Corbett announced. ‘Some plate has been taken! But that is bulky, cumbersome and unwieldy and very difficult to sell. Look!’
He pulled from a chest a small silver dish encrusted round the rim with red rubies. He held it close to the flame of his torch. ‘This is engraved with the goldsmith’s hallmark and the arms of the royal household. Only a fool would try to sell this. And our thief is no fool.’
He went back to stare at the great pillar and noticed that portions of the column had been cut away by a stone mason to form a series of neatly made recesses. Corbett put his hand into one of these and drew out a tattered empty sack. ‘By all the saints!’ he muttered. ‘Everyone. Here!’ He held up the tattered remnants of the bag. ‘Our thief did not come for the plate but for the newly minted coins of gold and silver. I suspect these recesses were once full of bags of coins and now they have all gone. These sacks were the thief’s quarry.’
‘But how did he get in?’ Cade asked.
Corbett walked over to the grey mildewed wall of the crypt, built with great slabs of granite.
‘Well,’ Corbett murmured, his words echoing through the darkened vault. ‘We know the thief could not come from above. He certainly didn’t come through the door.’ He tapped his boot on the hard concrete floor. ‘From below is impossible, so he must have burrowed through the wall.’
‘That would take months,’ Limmer answered.
‘You’ve been at a siege?’ Corbett asked.
The soldier nodded.
‘These walls are thirteen feet thick. No different from many castles. How would a commander breach such a wall?’
‘Well, a battering ram would be useless. He would probably try and dig a hole, a tunnel beginning at the far side of the wall under the foundations and up.’
‘And if that didn’t work?’
‘He would attack the wall itself. But that would take a long time.’
‘I think our thief had plenty of time,’ Corbett muttered. ‘I want you to examine the wall with your torches. If the flame flutters from a violent draught, that’s the place.’
It took only a few minutes before Ranulf’s excited yell, from behind some overturned chests, attracted their attention. Corbett and the others examined the place, and Ranulf pushed against the stone.
‘It’s loose!’ he said. ‘Look!’ He pointed to the mounds of dusty plaster around the foot of the wall.
‘Oh, Lord!’ Corbett whispered. ‘I know what he’s done.’ He tapped the wall. ‘On the other side of this is what?’
‘The old cemetery.’
‘Let’s go there.’
They rescaled the ladder. Corbett ordered the archers to guard it whilst, outside the door, the three prisoners stood silent and forlorn, their hands and feet quickly bound. Corbett and the others, at a half-run, went out of the abbey and into the old cemetery. They had to wade through the waist-high hempen coarse grass and other shrubs before they stood before the walls of the crypt. Here the signs of an intruder were more apparent: a broken spade, a rusting mattock, pieces of old sacking and Ranulf even found a silver noble shining amongst the weeds. Corbett tried to visualise the inside of the crypt and pointed to a fallen, battered headstone.
‘Pick that up!’ he said.
The stone was easily shifted to one side, revealing a hole large enough for a man to go down. Corbett looked round and grinned to hide his own nervousness. He could not stand such enclosed spaces and knew what terrors would assail him if he got stuck or was unable to turn. He shrugged uneasily.
‘I have a fear of such places,’ he whispered.
Ranulf needed no second bidding but, on hands and knees, wriggled down the hole, Corbett heard him scuffling down the tunnel like some fox returning to its earth. After a few tense minutes Ranulf returned, covered in dirt, but smiling from ear to ear.
‘The tunnel gets wider as you approach the base of the wall.’
‘And the wall itself?’
‘Nothing but a hole. Apparently our thief simply hacked his way through, crumbling the stone by lighting a small fire then bringing it out in sacking and scattering it amongst the graves.’
‘It would take months!’ Limmer repeated unbelievingly.
‘It can be done,’ Corbett replied. ‘I have seen miners in the King’s army perform a similar feat against castle walls. Remember, it’s not natural rock but man-made slabs of stone. Once cracked, it’s a matter of scooping it out.’
‘And the final stone?’ Cade said. ‘The one Ranulf disturbed in the crypt?’
‘The tunnel ends there,’ Ranulf replied. ‘But if you brace yourself and thrust with your feet, the stone simply slides in and out. Our thief even fashioned a great hook to pull it back. Once pushed away there’s a natural door into the crypt and the King’s treasure.’
Corbett stared round the forlorn cemetery. ‘So, we have a man probably working at night. He begins here, digs through the soft clay until he reaches the base of the wall. He then hacks through the brickwork, probably weakened by fire, bringing out the results of his handiwork in sacks. The final stone is also attacked, weakened and an iron hook and ring placed in it so it can be pushed in and out. The thief helps himself to some of the royal plate, though his real quarry are those sacks of coins.’ He stared round. ‘And now they have gone.’
Corbett rubbed the side of his face with his hand. He’d felt pleased that his theory had proved correct. But two problems remained. First, the thief? He had no doubt it was Puddlicott but where the hell was the man? And, more importantly, where were his ill-gotten gains? Corbett squeezed his lips between his fingers. Secondly, although the secret life of these monks had been revealed in the full glare of day, he still had no evidence to link them to the murders. Nothing except the scribblings of an old woman and the eyewitness account of a beggar boy and a common prostitute. Corbett sighed and looked up at the blue sky.
‘Of course,’ he muttered. ‘There’s a final problem. Who will tell the King . . . ? We have done what we can here,’ he continued loudly. ‘Master Cade, you are to take the archers and secure the treasury room, fill in the stone, bring masons and carpenters from the city and do what you can. Master Limmer, I want you to forget the law! Our three prisoners are to be taken to the Tower and, short of loss of life or limb, they are to be interrogated until the full story is known.’
The soldier, nervous at what he was being involved in, spat and shook his head.
‘Sir Hugh, two of them are priests!’
‘I don’t give a damn if they are bishops!’ Corbett snarled. ‘Take them and do what you have to. This is treason, man. They have robbed a royal treasury. You would soon object if the King could not pay your wages.’
‘How do we know they were involved?’ Cade interrupted.
‘Oh, you will,’ Corbett replied. ‘Master William perhaps, Brother Richard maybe, but Adam of Warfield definitely. I also suggest you search the latter’s chamber. I am sure you will find more than an expensive pair of riding boots.’ Corbett clapped his hands. ‘Now, come on, there’s yet more to be done.’
Limmer and Cade hurried away. Corbett slapped Maltote on the shoulder and the young messenger, who was staring open-mouthed at the hole in the ground, jumped and blinked.
‘Yes, Master?’
‘Take two horses, Maltote. The fastest we have. You are to ride to Winchester and tell the King exactly what you have seen here. You are to ask His Grace to return with all speed to London. Do you understand? You have money?’
The young man nodded.
‘Then go now!’
Maltote hurried off and Corbett grasped Ranulf by the arm.
‘Take your care whilst you can, Ranulf,’ he murmured. ‘For, when the King returns, the city will buzz like an overturned beehive!’
They waited until Limmer sent archers round to guard the secret tunnel, then Corbett and Ranulf walked back through the abbey grounds.
‘What shall we do, Master?’
Corbett watched Limmer’s archers now hurrying backwards and forwards and noted with relief that fresh troops, men-at-arms, had also arrived from the Tower. Some of the abbey lay-brothers, officials, scullions and servants from the kitchens wandered about asking questions, whilst at the gates, archers with drawn swords were pushing back a small crowd of curious bystanders.
‘Master, I asked, what shall we do?’