The poisoned chalice

slay the entire chateau. Venner must have tasted the wine. He did not come down for the evening meal. Servants found him dead as a nail.' Agrippa made a face. 'Millet's been arrested for the crime.' 'Why Millet?' I asked. 'A phial of white arsenic has been found in his room.' 'It could have been placed there.'
    'I thought that but other items were discovered in the secret compartment of one of his coffers; a ciphered message to the French court, a small, white, wax candle, the symbol of the Luciferi, and more gold than Millet would earn in ten lifetimes.' 'Where is he now?' my master asked. 'In the dungeons.' 'And what did the ciphered message say?'
    'That he did not trust you, me or Sir Robert Clinton, and that we were on the verge of discovering his true identity.'
    'And I suppose that's why,' I cried, 'he poisoned Clinton's wine?'
    'Apparently, but Millet did not reckon on Venner taking a sip.'
    We were interrupted by a loud knocking on the door and Sir John Dacourt waddled in.
    'Everything is as you ordered it!' he bellowed angrily, glaring at Agrippa, this nondescript courtier who had usurped his powers.
    Benjamin smiled falsely at him. 'Sir John, I thank you. But keep a close watch on Millet. Tonight I will produce the evidence to prove he is both traitor and assassin. He may try to take his own life. See that he is offered nothing but water and bread, and that's to be tasted before given to him.' He paused. 'Give Sir Robert Clinton and Lady Francesca our deep regrets on Master Venner's death but tell them to be most careful. Keep a close eye on the others for I will prove that Millet has an accomplice.'
    Dacourt's face went as white as chalk. He mumbled a few words and left more quietly than he had entered. Agrippa looked curiously at Benjamin. 'So, the mask of Raphael covers two faces?' 'Yes, it does. But, Doctor, if you could leave us now?' Agrippa smiled, winked at me and left the room.
    My master spent the rest of the day poring over papers on his desk, muttering to himself, asking me abrupt questions about this or that, like a lawyer drawing up a bill of indictment, marshalling his arguments, ready to quote chapter and verse. In the late afternoon we slept for a while until a servant knocked, saying the evening meal was ready. We found the rest of the embassy staff tense with excitement and expectation, and, at Benjamin's and the Doctor's insistence, Raphael or Millet were not discussed.
    The meal soon ended, Benjamin asked for the table to be cleared and the hall doors guarded. A crestfallen Dacourt agreed and we sat like the court of Star Chamber in that dark, candle-lit hall, seated round the table like a panel of judges. Benjamin, who had eaten and drunk sparingly during the meal, took Dacourt's chair in the centre of the table and brought out a small roll of parchment. He took a deep breath.
    'We are here,' he began, 'to determine the identity of the blood-stained traitor Raphael, who has been responsible for the deaths of Giles Falconer, the Abbe Gerard, Richard Waldegrave, Thomas Throgmorton and Ambrose Venner.'
    Benjamin paused and I stared round at the assembled company. Lady Francesca was wearing a dark blue dress of samite tied high at the neck, her thick, white veil of gauze, falling down to her shoulders, kept in place by a fine gold chain around her hair. She was haggard and pallid with dark shadows under her eyes. Beside her Sir Robert was dressed like a parson in a black jacket with only a trace of a white lace collar peeping above it. I remembered his face as it was then, cold, impassive and inscrutable. Sir John Dacourt looked a beaten man, humiliated by the knowledge that his secretarius was a probable traitor. Peckle was tired and very nervous, his bony fingers moving continually, covered in blue-green ink stains. Agrippa sat silently watching us like some dark shadow, beside him my master, his long face as hard and white as marble – one of the few times I had seen him seethe in anger. He looked as cruel and as cold as any hanging judge at Westminster.
    'We have the murderer, Master Daunbey,' Lady Francesca suddenly spoke up. 'I thought you agreed? Master Millet tried to kill us, as he did those other unfortunates you mentioned.'
    Benjamin made a face. 'Ah, yes, Master Millet. Sir John, have your guards bring him up.'
    Again we sat in silence. Dacourt went to the door and whispered instructions to the captain of the guard. A few minutes later the young secretarius was dragged in. He