The House of the Red Slayer

Master?’
    ‘What the bloody hell are you doing, Brother?’
    Athelstan threw a warning glance at the coroner.
    ‘Look, Red Hand,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘You talked to me of chambers, dungeons, which were bricked up.‘
    Red Hand tried to prise his fingers free of Athelstan’s but the friar held firm.
    ‘Please,’ he murmured. ‘Did Sir Ralph have such secret cells? If you tell me, Red Hand, I can trap the man responsible for the bear’s death.’
    The madman needed no further encouragement. He turned. ‘Wait! Wait there!’ he pleaded, and ran back through the small door of the White Tower. He re-emerged a few seconds later with a little bell which he tinkled. ‘Follow Red Hand!‘ he shouted. ‘Follow Red Hand!‘
    Cranston looked in disbelief at Athelstan. Colebrooke seemed angry.
    ‘What’s the little sod up to?’ Cranston murmured as the scampering madcap led them across Tower Green to a door which had rusted firmly shut at the foot of Wakefield Tower. Red Hand slopped at the door, bowed three times and tinkled his bell.
    ‘What’s in there?’
    Colebrooke shrugged. ‘Some dungeons dug deep into the earth.‘
    ‘Open it!’
    ‘I haven’t got any keys.’
    ‘Don’t be obstructive,’ Cranston barked. ‘Open the bloody thing!’
    Colebrooke turned, hands on hips, and yelled orders. Soldiers ran over. Under Colebrooke’s instruction they wheeled across a huge battering ram, swinging its iron head against the door until it buckled and swung off its hinges.
    ‘Torches!’ Cranston ordered.
    Cressets were brought and hastily lit. Red Hand scampered down the slime-covered stairs which fell away into icy cold darkness. At the bottom of the steps ran a small corridor, narrow, dank and evil-smelling. On the right nothing but mildewed walls; on the left two cell doors, their locks rusted shut. Athelstan stiffened as he heard squeaks and rustles and, spinning round, glimpsed a brown, greasy body slinking away into the darkness.
    ‘Break the doors down!‘ Cranston bellowed.
    The soldiers attacked the heavy but rotting wood, smashing open a huge hole. Athelstan took a torch and went in. There was nothing there except rats, squeaking and scampering on a rotting pile of straw in the far corner.
    ‘Hell’s teeth!’ Cranston hissed. ‘Nothing!’
    They clambered out through the open door. Cranston held the torch up and examined the wall between the doors.
    ‘Look, Athelstan!’ he exclaimed.
    The friar studied the wall carefully.
    ‘There’s another door,’ Cranston continued. ‘But it’s been bricked up. Look, it bulges out and the plaster is fresher than the rest of the wall.’
    ‘You found it! You found it! You found it!’ Red Hand clapped his hands and jumped up and down like a child playing a game. ‘They have found the secret door!’ he sang out. ‘They’ve won the game!’ The madcap stopped shouting. ‘I did that,’ he announced proudly. ‘Sir Ralph Whitton told me to do it. The door was locked and I bricked up the entrance.‘
    ‘When?’ Athelstan asked.
    ‘Oh, years ago. Years ago!’
    Cranston snapped his fingers. ‘Smash that wall down!‘
    The soldiers set to with iron-headed mallets and hammers. Soon the corridor was thick with a foul white dust.
    ‘There’s a door!’ one of them exclaimed.
    ‘And that too!‘ Cranston ordered.
    In a few minutes the rotting wood behind the destroyed wall buckled and snapped, the soldiers creating a large enough hole for Cranston and Athelstan to crawl through. Torches were ordered and Cranston held one up.
    ‘Oh, Good Lord!’ Cranston whispered, staring at the decaying skeleton slumped on a bed of rotted muck. ‘Who is that? And what terrible son of Satan ordered such a hideous death?’
    ‘To answer your questions, Sir John, I suspect these are the mortal remains of Sir Bartholomew Burghgesh. And Whitton, a man steeped in murder, ordered it.’
    ‘Look!‘ Sir John hissed, snatching the torch and holding it up against the wall just where the white skeletal arm rested. Athelstan peered at the crude drawing of the three-masted ship carved into the stone, the same as had been found on the letters sent to Sir Ralph and others. Cranston’s eyes rounded in surprise.
    ‘Brother, you are right.’
    ‘Yes, Sir John. Now, let’s see if the rest of my theory has substance.‘
    They told Colebrooke to leave guards near the cell and eagerly returned to the cold brisk air of Tower Green.
    ‘What did you find?’ the lieutenant