By Murder's bright Light

heavy and he , too, slept for a while. Then he found himself being vigorously shaken awake by Cranston , his fat face pushed close to his, a finger to his lips. Athelstan felt cold and cramped, his arm a httle sore. He strained his ears. He heard occasional sounds from the house below, then the cry of the watch.
    ‘Twelve o’clock midnight! Cold and hard, but all’s well!’
    ‘That will be Trumpington!’ Cranston whispered.
    Athelstan was on the point of dozing off again when he heard a movement, a mere slither on the tiles above. Cranston gripped his arm and hissed, ‘Blow out the candles! Don’t move!’
    Athelstan stared up through the rafters at the tiles. Was it only a cat? he wondered. Then his stomach lurched as one of the tiles was removed. Another was prised loose, then another, so within minutes a square was opened, revealing the starlit sky. Athelstan saw the evening star and idly wondered why it was there before a dark shape leaned down and a bag was lowered. Cranston heard a clink, a rope slithered through the gap and a dark shape flitted down as quietly as any hunting cat. Cranston waited. The man crouched in the garret, his boots covered in soft woollen rags. He was moving towards the door when Cranston sprang with an agility which took even Athelstan by surprise.
    The man crashed to the floor under the full weight of Cranston ’s massive body, the wind knocked out of him.
    ‘I arrest you!’ Cranston roared, leaning over the man and grasping him by the neck. ‘I, Jack Cranston, coroner, have got you!’
    The man tried to wriggle free, but Cranston ripped his hood off and grabbed him by the hair.
    ‘You are trapped, my little beauty!’ he boomed. He banged the man’s head on the floorboards. ‘That’s for me!’ He banged it again. That’s for Brother Athelstan!’ And again. ‘And that’s for that poor maid you killed, you heartless bastard!’
    Cranston then dragged the man to his feet. He deftly plucked the dagger from the robber’s sheath, pushed him through the garret door and dragged him down the stairs into the passage on the floor below. Athelstan lit a candle and followed. He held the flame up against the felon’s bruised, dazed face.
    ‘I’ve never seen him before.’
    ‘No, you won’t have done,’ Cranston said. ‘But you are right, Brother. I bet this bastard’s a tiler!’
    The sounds of doors opening and shouts below showed that the rest of the household had been roused. Cranston went to the top of the stairs and bellowed for silence.
    ‘Shut up!’ he roared, clutching the footpad in one hand. He shook the man as a cat would a rat. ‘We’ve still got business haven’t we?’
    The man could only groan in reply. Cranston marched down the stairs, dragging his prisoner with him. Athelstan followed behind, pleading with Sir John to be careful.
    ‘I’ll be bloody careful!’ the coroner roared.
    The servants had gathered, their faces pallid in the candlelight. Cranston shook the man again, put a finger to his lips for silence and waited by the front door. He must have waited five minutes before Athelstan heard the crunch of a boot and the voice of beadle Trumpington.
    ‘Well past midnight. Cold and hard, but all’s well!’
    Cranston flung open the door, dragging the felon with him.
    ‘Oh no, it’s not, my lad! The time is bloody ripe to say just how unwell things really are!’

CHAPTER 12

    Sir John Cranston stretched his long, stockinged feet in front of the roaring fire. He beamed at his lady, the adoring Maude, who sat beside him, hands in her lap, her girlish face wreathed in a beatific smile, her corn-coloured hair tied in braids. She had been summoned from her bed by her husband’s triumphant return home. Cranston sipped from his favourite wine goblet and stretched his great legs until the muscles cracked. He wagged a finger at the astonished under-sheriff, Shawditch, who had also been summoned. Athelstan could only stare into the fire and quietly pray that he wouldn’t laugh.
    ‘You see,’ Cranston explained for the third time, ‘my secretarius and I had the same line of thought.’ He pointed a finger at Shawditch. ‘Always remember, Shawditch, Cranston ’s famous axiom “if a problem exists then a solution to it must also exist”.’ Cranston winked at Lady Maude. ‘And we knew the problem. A merchant’s house — empty except for the servants, who live on the ground floor — is entered without any visible sign of force and looted.