The Nightingale Gallery

this city.' De Troyes stood up. 'Do you have any more questions?'
    Cranston belched, Athelstan shook his head and the physician swept out of the room without a backward glance.
    They found Sir Richard's group still waiting in the solar. Athelstan gathered his writing tray, paper and quills, putting them carefully back into the leather bag. He had written very little, but would make a thorough report later. He hurried back to where Sir John, legs apart and swaying slightly, stood leering lecherously at Lady Isabella, who stared back frostily.
    'I think,' Sir Richard said quietly, that Sir John needs a good night's sleep. Perhaps tomorrow, Brother?'
    'Perhaps tomorrow, Sir Richard,' Athelstan echoed, and slipping his arm through Cranston's turned him gently and walked him out of the hall. Sir John suddenly spun round and looked back at the company, his heavy-lidded eyes half closed. Athelstan followed suit and glimpsed Sir Richard's hand fall away from Lady Isabella's shoulder. Something in the merchant's face made Athelstan wonder if they were more than just close kin. Was there adultery here as well as murder?
    'Oh, Sir Richard!' Cranston called.
    'Yes, Sir John?'
    'The Sons of Dives – who or what are they?'
    Athelstan saw the group suddenly tense, their faces drained of that pompous, amused look as if they regarded Cranston as the royal jester rather than the king's coroner.
    'I asked a question, Sir Richard,' Cranston slurred. 'The Sons of Dives? Who are they?'
    'I don't know what you are talking about, Sir John. The ill effects of the wine?'
    'The wine does not affect me as much as you think, Sir Richard,' Cranston snapped back. 'I will ask the question again.' He bowed towards Lady Isabella. 'Good night.'
    And, spinning on his heel, Cranston lurched with as much dignity as he could muster through the door, Athelstan following behind.
    Once clear of the house, Cranston waddled as sure as a duck to water towards the welcoming, half-open door of an ale-house across Cheapside. Athelstan stopped and looked up at the starlit sky.
    'Oh, good God!' he groaned. 'Surely not more refreshment, Sir John?'
    Nevertheless, he hurried after; the water had apparently revived the good coroner and Athelstan wanted to clear his own mind and define the problems nagging at him. The alehouse was almost deserted. Sir John seized a table near the wine butts.
    'Two cups of sack!' he roared. 'And some-?' He glared at Athelstan.
    'Watered wine,' the friar added meekly.
    The sack disappeared down Sir John's cavernous throat. More was ordered, and the coroner clapped his podgy hands.
    'An excellent evening's work!' he boomed. He nodded in the direction of the Springall mansion. 'A coven of high- stepping hypocrites.' He turned to Athelstan, bleary-eyed. 'What do you think, Monk?'
    'Friar!' Athelstan corrected him despairingly.
    'Who gives a sod?' Cranston snapped. 'First, I wonder why our good Lord Fortescue was there? I think he left a little later than he claims.' Cranston belched. 'Secondly, Brampton. They say he was rifling through his master's papers, and they have evidence of it, so it is easy to imagine the quarrel between him and Sir Thomas. Springall would feel betrayed, Brampton furious that he had been caught as well as fearful of dismissal.' Cranston drummed his stubby fingers on the wine-stained table top. 'But if Brampton was innocent,' he slurred, Vhy was he made to appear guilty? There's no answer to that.'
    'And if he was guilty,' Athelstan added, 'what was he looking for? What great secret did Sir Thomas Springall possess?'
    Athelstan gazed across the tap room, watching two drunken gamblers shove and push each other over a game of dice.
    'Even so,' he murmured,*why should Brampton kill his master and take his own life? Revenge followed by remorse?'
    A loud snore greeted his question. Cranston had now fallen back against the wall, his eyes closed, a beatific smile on his fat, good-natured face.
    'Was Sir Thomas murdered because of the secret?' Athelstan muttered. 'Or was his wife an adulteress, playing the two-backed beast with her husband's brother?'
    Some men kill for gold, he thought, others for lust. And Dame Ermengilde? Did she play a part in this charade, trying to advance the interests of her favourite son, Sir Richard? And the other two, Vechey and Allingham? Strange creatures, battening like fleas on the skill and acumen of Sir Thomas. And, of course, young Buckingham. Athelstan shuddered. He had met men like