The poisoned chalice

as soon as Lady Francesca's high-heeled step faded from the hall, 'was it an accident, suicide or murder?' His words cast a pool of silence. The warmth and cheer evaporated like mist before the sun. We all became aware how dark it was, the torches flickering and the shadows dancing against the bleak, white walls. At the centre of the table, Dacourt looked around.
    'If it was suicide,' he trumpeted, 'it's a damn' strange way to go. If it was an accident, then it can't be explained. Check the tower yourself, Sir Robert, you know it well. The wall is crenellated but there are iron bars between the gaps. Falconer would have had to be standing on the very rim to slip and fall to his death. Why should a man do that?'
    'Which leaves murder,' my master intervened smoothly. 'Impossible!' Throgmorton, the physician, spoke up.
    Benjamin leaned forward and looked down the table at him. 'How, sir! Why do you say that?'
    'Oh, our physician knows everything,' Millet quipped tartly. 'He's fond of snooping, especially through the half-open doors of any woman's bedchamber.'
    The remark provoked faint laughter and Throgmorton flushed with embarrassment. (Well, as I say, never trust a doctor. It's surprising how many of them love to see a pretty wench stripped down to her shift.) Benjamin, however, refused to be diverted. 'Master Physician, I asked you a question.'
    Throgmorton glared once more at Millet, composed himself and ticked the points off on his fingers. 'First, Falconer had the chamber you have now.' Oh, thank you very much, I thought.
    'I have a chamber on the floor above. I saw Falconer go up to the top of the tower. He seemed cheerful enough, with a cup of wine in his hand. I bade him good evening and he smiled back. No one else went up the stairs after him and certainly no one went before.' 'Are there other witnesses?' Benjamin asked. 'Do you doubt my word?' Throgmorton bellowed.
    'Tush, Tom!' Millet spoke up, slouching against the table and admiring the cheap, tawdry rings on his fingers. 'I, too, heard Falconer go up.' Millet smiled dazzlingly at Benjamin. 'My humble abode is a garret at the top of this benighted tower.'
    Benjamin grinned. 'And you would confirm what the good physician has said?' 'Of course!' 'There's one other matter,' Dacourt boomed, refilling his goblet. 'The top of the tower is covered with a fine coat of sand and gravel. Millet and I were the first to check that tower, after Falconer's body was discovered by a guard. It bore only the mark of Falconer's boots.' 'And the body?' Benjamin asked.
    Throgmorton slurped from his goblet. 'The head was smashed open and the face badly bruised. The neck was so twisted you could lay the chin on either shoulder. Of course, there was bruising throughout his whole body.' 'And the wine he drank?'
    'Good claret,' Dacourt boomed. 'Old Falconer liked his tipple. On Easter Monday, as the season of Lent finished and we need no longer abstain from wine, we opened a new bottle. Millet and I were present. We each had a cup before we left.'
    'It's a custom here,' Millet added. 'During Lent, we all, as good sons of the Church, abstain from wine. On Easter Monday, we broach the best Bordeaux.' 'So there was nothing strange?' Benjamin asked.
    Dacourt looked at me under lowered brows as if recognising my existence for the first time. 'No. Falconer was quiet and secretive but seemed in very good humour, laughing and talking rather garrulously. I did wonder if he had been in his cups before we opened the wine but he assured me he had not.'
    'I scrutinised the corpse most carefully,' Throgmorton intervened. 'There was no real smell of ale or wine fumes nor of any other substance.'
    'And the cup he drank from?' Benjamin asked, turning his chair slightly to look down the table at Dacourt. 'A pity,' the ambassador replied. 'Smashed to pieces.' 'Why do you say it's a pity?'
    'Well, it was one of a set, wondrously carved from pewter. Falconer had four; people call them liturgical cups. You know, each cup bears a picture of one of the Church's four great feasts: Advent, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.'
    'And he was drinking from the Easter one?' I asked.
    'Yes,' Dacourt replied. 'But now it's smashed to pieces.'
    'Falconer was a very religious man,' Waldegrave slurred. 'Always talking about God. He was affected by the writings of that new teacher in Germany. You know, the monk who has jumped over his monastery wall, Martin Luther.'
    (Oh, by the way, I once met Luther and his wife