The House of the Red Slayer

the bell?’ the chaplain squeaked.
    ‘I did,’ Sir John replied.
    ‘How?’
    ‘What Sir John did,’ Athelstan replied quietly, turning his back to the fire, ‘was to go along to the garde-robe. An archer, carrying a small arbalest, went with him. I noticed that the window above the privy overlooked Tower Green. The archer, standing behind the curtain which hides the privy, shot a bolt and hit the bell.’ Athelstan shrugged. ‘You know the mechanism. Once it is tilted slightly the bell begins to toll.’
    ‘But it was dark,’ Sir Fulke spoke up.
    ‘No, Sir Fulke. As you may remember, at night there are torches around the bell.‘
    ‘But the bolt was never found!‘
    ‘Of course not. The snow around the tocsin was thick and undisturbed. The bolt would hit the bell and fall into the snow. When the soldiers from the garrison checked why the bell had been rung, they would be looking for footprints, not a crossbow bolt, no bigger than your hand, embedded deep in the snow and ice.’
    ‘And the crossbow?’ Parchmeiner spoke for the first time, his voice harsh and staccato.
    Athelstan shook his head. ‘Like the dagger, you could have left it in the corridor and, when finished, replaced it or dropped it down the privy hole. And who would notice? As you hastily left the garderobe and ran back to the chamber, everything was in uproar as the tocsin sounded. No one would see any connection between your leaving and the bell sounding. You had gone to the privy, not downstairs, and the guards had seen no one approach the bell. The rest was easy,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘In night-shrouded confusion, you ran up to the parapet and tossed the weapon over the wall into the ditch. If anyone saw you on the steps, you could always pass as a hero looking for the cause of poor Mowbray’s death.’ Athelstan looked at Cranston. ‘When Sir John told me about the crossbow bolt found embedded in the bear, I suddenly realised how the tocsin bell could have been so mysteriously sounded.’ Athelstan felt suddenly tired and rubbed his face with his hands.
    ‘God knows,’ the coroner boomed, going to stand legs apart in front of the prisoner, ‘how you lured poor Horne to his death, though the man was so full of fears it would be easy enough to play on them.’ Cranston clutched Parchmeiner’s face in his hand and squeezed it tightly. ‘I saw the grisly remains of your work.’
    Parchmeiner brought his head back, smiled, and spat full into Cranston’s face. The coroner wiped the spittle from his cheek with the hem of his robe then, bringing his hand back, slapped Parchmeiner across the face. He turned and looked at Athelstan as the young man struggled between his guards.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Cranston said. ‘I won’t strike him again, but he deserved that for bringing his evil deeds into my house and under my roof.‘
    He went and refilled his wine goblet. He took it over and offered it to Philippa where she sat with her uncle, but she wouldn’t even raise her head. Sir Fulke looked away so Cranston walked into the middle of the room, sipping from the cup. ‘Finally, Fitzormonde’s death.’ He made a face. ‘That was easy.’ He gestured at Parchmeiner. ‘Our young killer here pretends to leave the Tower, with people milling about during the great thaw, no one would really notice him slipping back in again, perhaps wearing a different cloak or hood. There are enough shadowy corners in this fortress to hide an army. Every evening Fitzormonde always went to see the bear and Parchmeiner seized this opportunity. Once again armed with an arbalest, he fires. The beast, enraged, launches itself at Fitzormonde. The badly secured chain snaps and the hospitaller dies. Whilst Geoffrey exploits the chaos to slip through the main gate or one of the postern doors and be safe beyond reproach.’
    ‘You have no proof!’ Parchmeiner rasped. ‘No proof at all!’
    ‘No, but we can get it!’ Athelstan answered. ‘First, I can prove that a man may climb the North Bastion in the middle of the night and at the dead of winter. But could he climb down again? I can examine the rubble outside Sir Ralph’s chamber for stains of blood from the dagger you hid there but undoubtedly collected later. Master Colebrooke can also make enquiries about who oiled the locks and doors of Sir Ralph’s chambers. The tocsin can be examined for the mark of a crossbow bolt and the ground carefully searched, for it undoubtedly still lies hidden in the