By Murder's bright Light

hang. She can’t prove what she said. What else, Brother?’
    ‘Somebody boarded that ship,’ Athelstan declared, ‘and somehow killed those three men. But how and why I don’t know. However, you heard what Crawley said? No one from the neighbouring ship, the Holy Trinity, saw or heard anything amiss and that includes Bernicia ’s shouting.’ Athelstan angrily shook his head. ‘Someone is lying, Sir John, and we must discover who. How do we know every sailor left the ship? There could have been someone hiding on board.’
    ‘Oh, I see,’ Cranston said sarcastically. ‘And he killed those three sailors with no fuss or trace, continued passing the signals and then disappeared into thin air, just like the felon robbing the merchants’ houses?’ Athelstan smiled. ‘No one disappears into thin air, Sir John, and that goes for the house we have just visited. I have a suspicion. No, no.’ He held a finger up as expectation flared in Sir John’s eyes. ‘Not now. Let’s deal with Roffel’s widow. But, before that, do you know a tavern called the Crossed Keys near Queen’s hithe?’
    ‘Yes, the landlord’s a relative of Admiral Crawley. An old seafarer. Why, what’s the matter, Brother?’ Athelstan leaned his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. ‘Roffel used to buy usquebaugh, a Scottish drink, there. He kept it in a flask that he always carried with him. By the way, Sir John, have you noticed how Crawley ’s name keeps recurring? He disliked Roffel. We have only his word that no one approached the God’s Bright Light. He must have heard Bracklebury shouting to Bernicia . And now his cousin owns a tavern where Roffel bought the usquebaugh that, I suspect, contained the arsenic that killed him.’
    Cranston drained his cup and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
    ‘Let’s visit the tavern.’ He tapped the side of his fleshy nose. ‘Then we’ll go to see someone else — a man who knows about what happens along the river because he earns his living from it.’
    Cranston left some coins on the table and they strode out of the alehouse. It was beginning to rain. The streets were empty so they kept to the shadow of the houses to avoid the filthy puddles as well as to shelter from the rain.
    ‘We should have brought the horses,’ Athelstan grumbled.
    ‘Shut up and say your prayers!’ Cranston quipped back.
    They found the Crossed Keys tavern nestling behind the warehouses. It was a sailors’ haunt, filled with a babble of voices. Customers from every nationality thronged the taproom: Portuguese clad in gaudy clothes, their faces bearded and swarthy, silver earrings dangling from their ear lobes; Gascons, proud and argumentative; and Hanseatics, solemn-faced, sweating under their fur caps and cloaks. A salty, fishy odour mingled with strange cooking smells. Cranston licked his lips as a servitor pushed by him with a bowl of diced steak under a thick onion sauce. Athelstan wisely moved the coroner on through the noisy throng towards the landlord, squat and round as a barrel, who stood in front of a great fishing net pinned to the wall. The fellow kept surveying the taproom, shouting out orders to his sweat-soaked servitors. Athelstan could see he had spent his life at sea from his rolling gait and eyes creased after years of straining against the sun and biting wind. A merry-looking man, with his rubicund cheeks and balding head, he was mouthing a string of colourful oaths which made even Cranston smile.
    ‘You are the owner?’ Cranston asked, coming up in front of him.
    ‘No, I am a peeping mermaid!’ the fellow replied out of the corner of his mouth as he turned to shout orders into the kitchen.
    ‘Jack Cranston’s the name and this is my secretarius, Brother Athelstan.’
    The coroner extended a podgy hand. The landlord grasped it and smiled.
    ‘I have heard of you. I am Richard Crawley, one-time ship’s master, now lord of all I survey. I know why you are here or can I guess? Roffel’s death. God damn him!’
    ‘You didn’t like him?’
    ‘Like my cousin, Sir Jacob, I hated Roffel’s guts. He was a bad bastard and I hope he gets what he richly deserves, rotting in hell—’ He broke off suddenly and shouted at a scullion. ‘By a mermaid’s paps! Hold that platter straight! You’re listing like a scuppered ship!’
    ‘Why did you hate him?’
    ‘Why not? The same reason as Sir Jacob. I had a half-brother,’ the landlord continued, lowering his voice, ‘a