Murder most holy

the Inner Chapter being a waste of time. Callixtus falls from a ladder in the library, Alcuin disappears. There is a rumour that, although Brother Bruno had nothing to do with the Inner Chapter, he fell down the steps of the crypt at the very time Alcuin was supposed to be there. Brother Roger, a half-wit, claims there is something wrong in the church and talks about the number twelve or thirteen. Well, Sir John, what do you think?’
    A loud snore greeted his declaration. Athelstan turned. Cranston sat in the room’s one and only high-backed chair in front of the small fire, fast asleep, smiling and smacking his lips. Athelstan sighed and went across to make him more comfortable, stoking up the fire and going back to his notes. He sat for an hour trying to make sense of what he had been told, whilst Cranston snored and, in the distance, Athelstan halfheard the tolling of the monastery bell calling the brothers to Divine service. The sun began to set. Cranston woke with a start and, patting his stomach, first visited the garde-robe, then went into the buttery to pour himself a jug of mead.
    ‘Not now, Sir John.’ Athelstan followed him in. ‘We have work to do.’
    Cranston ’s face was a study in self-pity. ‘Friar, I am thirsty.’
    ‘Sir John, we have work to do.’
    ‘Such as?’
    ‘Sir John, you are the coroner. You visit the scene of these crimes and the sooner we resolve the mysteries,’ Athelstan added hopefully, ‘the sooner we can resolve the secrets of the scarlet room.’
    Cranston put down the tankard and smiled. ‘Brother Athelstan, you have my full attention.’
    They went back to the cloisters. Athelstan vaguely remembered that the crypt was in a small passageway just off the north side of the church. The cloister garth was silent except for the buzzing of bees fluttering around the flowers growing near the tinkling water fountain. The small desks the brothers used for copying and writing had been pushed away. Athelstan recalled the long hours he used to spend here, taking advantage of the good daylight to copy out some learned tract. He paused. Brother Callixtus had been his mentor and Alcuin always had a penchant for theological writings. Had they seen something or studied some tract connected with the Inner Chapter? Athelstan stared at the small fountain. Blackfriars’ library was famous, containing manuscripts from all over western Europe, not just the writings of his order, but those of ancient philosophers as well as other theologians.
    ‘Come on, Athelstan!’ Cranston urged, nodding towards the great, iron-barred door. ‘The secrets of the crypt await us!’ Athelstan nodded and pushed the door open.
    ‘Steep steps,’ he muttered. ‘They fall away into the darkness. I used to think it was the entrance to hell.’ He pointed to a sconce torch just inside the door. ‘You have a tinder, Sir John, light that!’
    The coroner obeyed and the resin-drenched torch spluttered into life.
    ‘Do that again, Sir John,’ Athelstan asked, closing the crypt door behind them.
    He looked bemused. ‘For God’s sake, Brother, the torch is lit!’
    ‘No, do it again! Repeat the action!’
    Cranston reluctantly obeyed. ‘What’s the matter, Brother?’
    ‘Well, let us try and visualise what Brother Bruno must have done. Look, Sir John, the top step is broad and safe. The torch is in the wall as you close the door behind you. Brother Bruno would turn, as you did, to light that torch. Now the top step, as I have said, is broad; there’s enough space for someone to be waiting behind the door. Bruno comes in, and turns. Like you he would be half-off balance as he stretches to light the torch.’
    ‘So,’ Cranston interrupted, ‘you are saying someone was lurking here in the darkness and gave the old man a violent push, thinking he was Alcuin?’
    ‘Yes, I am.’
    Athelstan carefully took the torch out of its iron bracket and held it out against the blackness, making the shadows dance on the steep steps falling away beneath them. Athelstan pointed to the iron hand-rail.
    ‘When I was a novice here, everyone was frightened of these steep, sharp-edged steps. That’s why the hand-rail was put in. No man, especially an old one, even someone like Alcuin, could survive such a fall.’
    ‘But Alcuin was not pushed,’ Cranston observed. ‘Poor Bruno was. Admittedly the wrong man, but the question still remains — why was someone waiting for Alcuin? And why would Alcuin come here? You