Satan in St Mary

throat while he listened to her speak. She described her marriage, widowhood, the management of the tavern and the nature of her relationship with the two dead men. "I knew both men, " she repeated, "but only because they came here. "
    "Jean Duket called you a whore and Crepyn's mistress, " Corbett replied. "Why?"
    She grinned. "Jean was a stupid, malicious woman with a tongue like the clapper of a bell. She can say what she likes but her words are the fruit of anger and envy. "
    "Do you know why Crepyn and Duket argued?" Corbett enquired.
    "No, I do not. "
    "Or why Duket should commit suicide?"
    "No, " Alice replied. "But he was always a timid man. Fearful of his own shadow!"
    "What was Crepyn involved in?"
    Alice sat and thought, the doubt and perplexity visible in her beautiful eyes and face. "He was a money-lender, " she replied slowly. "A man who rose high in city politics. A man of the Populares who was loyal enough to the Crown but still supported the radical politics of the great… " she stammered, "of de Montfort. "
    "And Duket? Why did he quarrel with Crepyn?"
    "Crepyn was a money-lender disliked by many people. The Dukets were not the only ones caught in his net. "
    She lowered her eyes. "Perhaps Crepyn deserved what he got, " she continued softly. "Sometimes I used to warn him but he only laughed. " There was a silence as she played with the hem of one of her silk gloves.
    "Is that all?" Corbett asked.
    She nodded. "For a while, " she added, then rose and walked to a large chest in the far corner of the kitchen. She took out a flute and brought it back to Corbett. "Your visit has saddened me, Master Clerk. I feel unhappy and angry at the stupid deaths of two men I knew. I always find the flute soothes the roused humours of both mind and body. "
    Corbett sat as if in a trance. The flute was almost the replica of one he had owned in the golden time so long ago. Before it disappeared in a funeral pyre on which he had thrown the shattered flute. He stretched out his hand like a dreamer and took the flute, stroking its polished wood as if it was the face of a long-lost child who had suddenly returned. He put it to his lips and played, the spine-tingling, haunting tune, bitter-sweet, filled the room with its sound. Hugh played and could almost feel the Sussex sun on his face, almost see the small child dance and laugh, while his wife leaned against a wall, arms folded smiling at both player and dancer. He played on, ignoring the hot tears which scalded his eyes and rolled down his face. Then it was gone, both the music and the vision and he was alone in a room with a beautiful woman staring fixedly at him.
    Corbett laid the flute down gently on the table, bowed and walked quietly out of the kitchen, through the tavern into the cold darkness of the street. He had forgotten about his mission, for old wounds had been opened and the pus poured out. He saw the dirt and filth of the street and the rubbish-filled gutter. The wine stains along the wall, the mongrel dog sniffing at the bloated body of a dead rat, the beggar in rags, covered with sores, cowering in the corner from the cold and the world. He knew he should not have played the flute; the world had been ordered then, closed and neatly filed like the scrolls in Couville's record office. In such a world he saw nothing good but, there again, nothing ugly. He felt the nightmares returning and remembered the disordered life he had led after his wife had died and the months he had spent in the cool darkness of that Sussex monastery. Then, just as he was about to leave Paternoster Row, he felt a hand on his elbow. He turned, and recognized one of the tapsters from The Mitre. The lad thrust the flute into Corbett's hands.
    "My mistress, " he said, "says you should keep it and come again and play for her. " Corbett nodded and, gripping the flute, disappeared into the darkness.
Six
    Corbett had taken from the coroner the names of the three wardsmen who had mounted guard on Saint Mary Le Bow and, the day after he had met Alice, he decided to interrogate them. All three were tradesmen plying their individual craft in the alleyways and lanes of Cheapside. All three swore to the same story and Corbett felt sure that they were speaking the truth as they saw it; they had been summoned by a messenger from one of the under-sheriffs of the city to guard the entrance of the church late in the afternoon on the same day that Lawrence Duket had fled there for sanctuary. They had