By Murder's bright Light

called out the order and they waited until it was served. Cabe sipped gingerly from the tankard.
    ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
    ‘The truth,’ Athelstan replied.
    ‘I have told you that already.’
    Cranston leaned over and squeezed the man’s wrist. ‘No, you haven’t. You are a liar, a thief and a murderer! And, if you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll see you hang!’ Cranston smiled bleakly. ‘Now, be a good boy and put both hands on the table, well away from the knife tucked in your belt. Come on!’
    Cabe obeyed.
    Cranston smiled. ‘You may touch your tankard but nothing else. Now, my secretarius will describe things as they are.’
    Athelstan edged closer. ‘You were second mate on the God’s Bright Light,' he began, ‘when it attacked and sank a fishing smack off the French coast, killing all its crew. But this was no chance attack. Roffel knew that there was silver on board. He found the silver and carried it back to the God’s Bright Light. However, Roffel, in Sir John’s words, was a mean bastard. He should have shared the silver with his crew, especially his officers, as well as with the crown. Instead he hid it away in some secret place. By some chance you and Bracklebury found out about it.’
    Cabe stared dumbly at his tankard.
    ‘Now Roffel fell ill and died. In fact, he was poisoned.’
    ‘I didn’t do that,’ Cabe muttered.
    ‘I do not claim you did, but Roffel’s demise provided you and Bracklebury with an excellent opportunity to search the ship. You found nothing. But once the God’s Bright Light had anchored in the Thames you and Bracklebury could search more thoroughly. You drew up your plans. The crew, apart from a small watch, would be sent ashore and Bracklebury would take the opportunity to search the ship thoroughly from poop to stem.’
    Cranston sipped from his own tankard.
    ‘Now, if both of you had stayed behind it might have created some suspicions — after all, no sailor is eager to stay on board a ship back into port after a time at sea.’ Athelstan placed his tankard down. ‘Now, Bracklebury had Roffel’s corpse taken ashore. The whores came on board and then you and most of the crew left. However, you didn’t fully trust Bracklebury, so you insisted that he stayed in communication with you. You devised a system of signals between Bracklebury, with the lantern on board ship, and you, in some darkened recess on the quayside.
    ‘Now, everything went according to plan until that sailor and his whore returned, just before dawn, to find the ship completely deserted. Master Cabe, I can only imagine both your fury and doubt over what had happened. You must have been mystified by his disappearance! How had this been done? Where was Bracklebury and, above all, where was the silver?’
    ‘A fairy story!’ Cabe scoffed.
    ‘Oh no,’ Athelstan persisted. ‘Sir John here knows I am telling the truth. You, Master Cabe, began to believe you had been double-crossed. And you began to wonder who it was. Now, while you were hiding in the shadows, you had seen the whore Bernicia come down to Queen’s hithe. Perhaps you thought she and Bracklebury had planned to steal the silver and make a fool of you?’
    ‘How would Bracklebury know Bernicia ?’ Cabe muttered.
    Athelstan shrugged. ‘Oh, you never know, Master Cabe, in this world of lies, greed makes strange alhes. Anyway, somehow or other, you became convinced Bernicia knew where the silver was. So you planned to meet her and used Bracklebury’s name.’
    Cabe drank from the tankard and sneered.
    ‘But, if Bracklebury was her ally, how could I appear as him?’
    ‘That I don’t know,’ Athelstan replied truthfully. ‘Something had changed your mind so that you believed Bracklebury may not have double-crossed you but that Bernicia certainly had. Anyway,’ Athelstan continued, ‘you took Bernicia to a secret drinking-place, invited yourself back to her house, cut her throat and ransacked the place.’
    “What proof do you have of this?’ Cabe snapped. Cranston leaned over, tapping the table. ‘I’ll be honest, not much, my bucko. But, there again, perhaps if we took you back to that secret drinking-place, who knows who might recognise you?’
    Cabe’s face became even paler.
    ‘Come on,’ Cranston urged gently. ‘Sooner or later the truth will be out.’
    ‘What happens—’ Cabe looked up. What happens if I tell the truth, as I see it?’
    Cranston gestured with his hand. ‘Murder is murder,