The House of Shadows

distracted.’
    Athelstan pulled the mantrap over, placing it closed at the bottom of the steps. He then walked down between the vats and barrels to the far wall. The brickwork here was uneven and Athelstan noticed, just above his own gaze, a rather large gap.
    ‘Sister Wax,’ he murmured, recalling his discovery at the squint hole at the church earlier that day. ‘Sister Wax, you’ve helped me again!’
    The wax on the brickwork was soft and clean, freshly formed.
    ‘Master Rolles, come here.’ The taverner came down to join him. ‘Did you place a candle here?’
    The taverner brushed the wax with his fingers.
    ‘No, no, I didn’t. By the amount of wax, a candle must have been burning here for some time.’
    Athelstan asked Rolles to bring a tallow candle down. The taverner took one from the box beneath the staircase, lit it and placed it in the niche. The cellar lanterns were doused. Athelstan went back up the steps, ignoring Cranston’s moans about the darkness, then turned and came slowly down again. Even though he was aware of the small lights in the wall-niches, he was still attracted by that solitary candle burning at the far end of the cellar. He reached the bottom step.
    ‘Sir Laurence was murdered.’ His voice echoed sombrely through the darkness. ‘Master Rolles, please light the lanterns. Sir John, if you would...’
    They left the cellar and walked out into the stable yard, well away from any eavesdropper.
    ‘I’m sure Sir Laurence was murdered,’ Athelstan repeated. ‘That’s how it was done. Somebody, somehow primed that trap and invited him down to the cellar. I wonder what the lure was? Perhaps a revelation about the mysteries now besetting us, or something else?’
    ‘It was dangerous,’ Cranston declared. ‘Somebody else could have been killed.’
    ‘I don’t think the assassin cared. The real question is, who is it? The taverner? Any of those knights? And the Judas Man and Mother Veritable seem to be able to come and go as they wish.’
    Athelstan stared across at the hay barn.
    ‘Do we have one assassin, Sir John,’ he asked, ‘or two? Even more? Think of these mysteries as lines. We have the Misericord’s strange doings; we have that infamous robbery twenty years ago; we have the death of those two young women; now we have the murder of two knights. It’s a question of logic, Sir John. Do the lines run quite separate and parallel, or do they meet, tangled up with each other?’
    He was about to continue when the Judas Man came swaggering through the gate, his face bright with pleasure.
    ‘I’ve found him!’ He clapped his leather-clad hands. ‘Brother Athelstan, I apologise for my earlier rudeness, but the Misericord’s been caught.’
    ‘Whereabouts?’
    ‘Just near Bishopsgate. I had men on the road leading out. They’ve sent a message; the Misericord is safely in Newgate and I shall visit him there.’ Chuckling with glee, the Judas Man tapped Athelstan on the shoulder and entered the tavern.
    ‘He’ll find little comfort there,’ Cranston murmured. ‘Brother, where are you going?’ Athelstan was already striding towards the gate.
    ‘Why, Sir John, to Newgate. I want to question the Misericord before the Judas Man pays him a visit.’
    This time Cranston found it difficult to keep up with Athelstan’s pace as they threaded through the needle-thin alleyways down to the quayside. They were delayed for a short while, as bailiffs with staves and clubs were trying to break up a small but very noisy crowd shouting, ‘Shovels and spades!’ the usual cry which went up along the riverside whenever any private individual tried to take over a stretch of the Thames.
    ‘It’s happening along both banks of the river!’ Cranston exclaimed as they climbed into Moleskin’s barge.
    ‘That’s right, Sir John,’ Moleskin agreed. ‘If the rich have their way they will buy up every plot of land along the Thames . I won’t be able to moor my barge without paying a tax, whilst you, Sir John, won’t be able to water your horse.’
    ‘And the women of the parish,’ Athelstan interrupted, ‘won’t have anywhere to wash their clothes. Water is a gift, Sir John; as the Gospel says, the Good Lord lets his rain fall on the just and the unjust.’
    ‘But the unjust gets more,’ Sir John quipped, ‘because he owns a bigger barrel.’
    ‘And has stolen the just man’s,’ Moleskin added, pulling back the oars and taking the boat out across the choppy tide.
    While