The Nightingale Gallery

Cranston cried as he looked around. Vechey's corpse lay in the centre of the tower near a rickety hut, formerly used by guards on sentry duty. The body lay sprawled, its face covered by a dirty rag. Athelstan thought the odour came from that but, looking around, he saw the rotting heads which had been placed on spikes in the gaps of the crenellated wall.
    'Traitors' heads!' Cranston muttered. 'Of course, they spike them here!'
    Athelstan looked closely, trying not to gag. Like all Londoners he knew that once the bodies of traitors had been cut and quartered, their heads were sent to adorn London Bridge. He looked closer. Thick, black pools around the spikes showed some of the heads were fresh, though all were rotting, crumbling under the rain and wind which whipped up their oddly silken hair. Large ravens which had been busy, plucking out juicy morsels with their yellow beaks, rose in angry circles above them.
    'Their hair,' Athelstan whispered. 'Look, it's combed!'
    'I do that!' the mannikin cried. 'I always look after my heads! Every morning I come up and comb them, keep them soft, pleasant-looking. That is,' he added morosely, 'until the ravens start pecking them, though they usually leave that bit for the last. Oh, yes, I comb their hair and, when I am finished, I sing to them. I bring my viol up. Lullabyes are best.' He looked up at Athelstan, his face beaming with pride. 'Never lonely up here,' he said. 'The things these heads must know!'
    'God's teeth,' muttered Cranston. 'I need refreshment! But never mind that. This morning I swore a mighty oath not to touch the juice of the grape or the crushed sweetness of the hop. But first let's see Vechey's corpse.'
    The mannikin skipped over to show them the unexpected addition to his ghastly collection. He whipped off the rag which the wind caught and blew against one of the spiked heads.
    'You examine it, Brother,' whispered Cranston. 'I feel sick. Last night's wine.'
    Athelstan crouched down. Vechey was dressed in the same clothes as yesterday. The soft face was now puffier, its colour a dirty white. His eyes were half open, mouth slack, lips apart, displaying rows of blackened teeth. Vechey seemed to be grinning up at him, taunting him with the mystery of his death. Athelstan turned his head slightly to one side. He caught his knee on his robe and slipped. He felt queasy as his hand touched the cadaver's bloated stomach and noted that the dead man's legs were soaking wet. He inspected the gash round Vechey's neck, which was very similar to that of Brampton; black-red like some ghastly necklace and the dark, swollen bruise behind the left ear. He held his breath and sniffed at the dead man's lips. Nothing but the putrid rottenness of the grave. Then he examined the corpse's hands. No scars, the nails neat and clean, shorter than Brampton's. There was no trace of a strand of rope caught there. Athelstan looked at the mannikin.
    'Where's the noose?'
    'I tossed it away,' the fellow replied triumphantly. 'I see'd him there, I cuts him down, I loosened the noose and it falls in the water.' His face grew solemn, his eyes anxious. 'Why, shouldn't I have done that?'
    'You did well, Robert,' Athelstan replied quietly. 'Very well. You found the body?'
    'Well, no, my children did. They were playing where they shouldn't, on the starlings under the bridge. You know the wooden barriers around the arches?' He shook his head. 'So many of them. Nine, I have,' he declared. 'Should be ten but the eldest got drunk and fell in the river!'
    Cranston stared in utter disbelief at the mannikin's potency.
    'So you cut him down?' he asked. 'How did you know it was Vechey?'
    'I found coins in his pocket and a piece of parchment. It had his name on it. That and someone else's. Thomas…' he closed his eyes.
    'Thomas Springall?'
    'That's right. Look, I have it here. There's something else written.'
    The little guardian of the great gateway dug into his wallet and brought out a greasy scrap of parchment. Two names were written on it: Theobald Vechey and Sir Thomas Springall. Beneath the latter's name, written in the same hand, was Genesis 3, Verse 1 and the Book of the Apocalypse, 6, Verse 8.
    'Here, Monk,' Cranston muttered. 'You are the preacher, what do you make of it?'
    'First, Sir John, as I keep saying, I am a friar not a monk. And, secondly, though I have studied the Bible, I can't recollect every verse.'
    Cranston smirked.
    'Was there anything else?'
    The little man bobbed up and