The Nightingale Gallery

you.'
    Athelstan turned to the merchant. 'Was your brother fascinated by shoemakers?'
    'I told you,' Sir Richard replied, exasperated, 'he liked riddles. Perhaps a shoemaker had offended him. I don't know!'
    Athelstan touched Sir John gently on the elbow. 'I have seen enough. Perhaps we should go?'
    The coroner looked puzzled but quietly agreed. They walked back through the kitchen and down the hallway to the front entrance of the house. They were about to leave when Sir Richard called out: 'Brother Athelstan! Sir John!'
    They both spun round.
    'You keep coming back here, yet you have not found any evidence linking the deaths, or the reasons for them. Is that not so?'
    The merchant had regained some of his arrogance and Cranston could not stop himself.
    'Yes, that's so, Sir Richard. So far we have found nothing conclusive. But, I can tell you something fresh and you may tell the others.'
    'Yes, Sir John?'
    'Whatever the evidence, whatever you may think, Stephen Allingham was murdered. You should all take care!'
    Before the startled merchant could think of a reply, Cranston had taken Athelstan by the elbow and steered him out into the sun-baked street.
    'Last time we were here,' Athelstan quipped, 'you warned me, Sir John, not to open my mouth and say things I was not bidden to. Yet you have done so today. There is no evidence that Allingham was murdered.'
    'Oh, I know that,' Sir John grunted. 'And so do you.' He stopped and tapped the friar gently on the temple. 'But up there, Athelstan, and here in your heart, what do you really think?'
    Athelstan stared at the hubbub around them, the people oblivious to his dark thoughts of murder, fighting their way through the stalls, gossiping, talking, buying and selling, engaged in everyday matters.
    'I think you are right, Sir John. Allingham's murder was well planned, and the murderer is in that house.' He pulled his cowl up against the hot midday sun. 'Shall we collect our horses?'
    Sir John looked away sheepishly. 'Sir John,' Athelstan repeated, the horses, shall we collect them?'
    Cranston let out a sigh, shook his head and gazed appealingly at Athelstan.
    'I have bad news, Brother. We are summoned to Westminster. Chief Justice Fortescue believes that we have spent enough public money and time in the pursuit of what he calls will-o'-the-wisps. He wants us to account for our stewardship. But before I clap eyes on his miserable face, I intend to down as many cups of sack as I can! You are with me?'
    For the first time ever Athelstan fully agreed with Sir John's desire for refreshment. They walked quickly through Cheapside down to Fleet Street and into the Saracen's Head, a cool, dark place off the main thoroughfare. Athelstan was pleased to see that it was empty and insisted that this time he should be host. He ordered the taverner to bring two black-jacks of brimming ale and, since it was Friday, not meat but a dish of lampreys and fresh white bread for himself and Sir John. Cranston took to the food like a duck to water, smacking his lips, draining the black-jack, and shouting for the taverner's pot boy to come and fill it again. Once the first pangs of hunger had been satisfied, Cranston interrogated the friar.
    'Come, Brother, what do you think? Is there a solution? You are the philosopher, Athelstan, though didn't one of your famous theologians say "From nothing comes nothing – Nihil ex nihiloV '
    'There must be an answer,' Athelstan said, reclining against the cool stone at his back. 'When I studied Logic, we learnt one central truth. If the problem exists there must be a solution, if there's no solution there's no problem. Consequently, if there is a problem there must be a solution.'
    Cranston belched and blinked at Athelstan. 'Where did you learn that?' he taunted.
    'Logic will resolve this problem,' Athelstan persisted. 'That and evidence. The problem, Sir John, is that we have no evidence. We can build no premise without it. We are like two men on the edge of a cliff. A chasm separates us from the other side and now we are looking round for the bridge.' Athelstan paused before continuing, 'Our bridge will be evidence, the resolving of Sir Thomas's riddles about the biblical verses and the shoemaker.'
    Cranston shook his head. 'We should have talked to Allingham.'
    'We did try, Sir John, but he obstinately refused to confide in us though I agree that he knew something. I think he was either going to flee or perhaps blackmail the murderers, without telling us. He