The Treason of the Ghosts

be having many of these. Have you read it,
Master Blidscote?’
    ‘Aye,
Sir Hugh.’
    ‘What
does it say?’ Sir Maurice demanded.
    ‘ “ Thou shalt not bear false testimony.“ ‘
    ‘He
didn’t.’ Deverell’s wife half rose from the chair, her face a mask of fury. ‘He
didn’t bear false testimony.’
    Her
neighbour coaxed her back, patting her gently on the shoulder.
    ‘There’s
a true mystery,’ Blidscote continued, ‘about Deverell’s death.’
    ‘Explain!’
    ‘Well,
Sir Hugh, the shutters were still barred, all the
doors to this house were locked. So how was Deverell murdered? How did the
killer manage to pass this message to the victim?’
    Corbett
stared at the pasty-faced bailiff. It was still early morning yet Blidscote had
been drinking even though he hadn’t recovered from the previous night’s bout.
You are frightened, Corbett thought: at the appropriate time I’ll squeeze your
ear like a physician would a boil and see what pus comes out.
    ‘I
mean, I had to force the door,’ Blidscote stammered.
    Corbett
looked behind him and saw the lock buckled. He walked across, opened the door
and stood in the porch. On either side rose plaster walls. He glimpsed the
Judas squint high on the right side.
    ‘Apparently
Deverell refurbished this door,’ Blidscote explained. ‘It took a battering ram
to force it.’
    ‘And
there’s no other open entrance to the house?’ Corbett demanded, aware of the
others joining him in the porch.
    ‘I
tell you, Sir Hugh,’ the bailiff whined, ‘the back door and the shutters were
all locked. The neighbour became concerned. She peered through a crack in one
of the shutters and saw the body lying on the floor. She pounded and yelled.
Eventually Ysabeau unlocked the door and the alarm was raised.’
    ‘So,
why did you have to force it?’ Corbett asked.
    ‘Deverell’s
wife was in a frightful state. She claimed the killer would come back for her.
She relocked the door. We shouted and we reasoned.’ He pointed to a half-burnt
timber lying on the cobbled yard. ‘We had to force an entry.’
    ‘The
killer could have used the Judas squint,’ Corbett reasoned. ‘Look, it’s a
handspan across and the same deep. You could rest an arbalest against it. A
crossbow bolt would take whoever stood on the other side full in the face.’
    ‘I
know,’ Tressilyian replied. ‘But, according to Ysabeau, the knocking continued
even after her husband was killed. She remembers that distinctly. She was in the
bedchamber, heard the rapping on the door, the crash of her husband’s fall but
the knocking continued.’
    Corbett
stood by the Judas squint. Try as he might, pretending to hold a crossbow in one hand, he couldn’t knock at the door: it was too far.
    ‘There
would be another problem.’
    Corbett
peered through the Judas squint at Ranulf standing on the other side.
    ‘What’s
that, Clerk of the Green Wax?’
    ‘Well,’
Ranulf’s voice sounded hollow, ‘Deverell was killed in the dead of night. It
would be dark. How would you know when I appeared at the Judas squint? That’s
why these spyholes exist, isn’t it? You’d only be allowed to loose one bolt and
Deverell would be warned.’
    Corbett
asked them all to go back inside. He had the front door closed and stood in the
porch. He knocked on the door. At the same time he pretended to hold a crossbow
aimed at the Judas squint. Now he couldn’t reach that.
    ‘I
can’t do both at once,’ he murmured.
    He
then told Ranulf to act the part of Deverell but this only
complicated matters . He never knew when the soft-shoed Ranulf stood at
the Judas squint. It would be even harder at night, Corbett confessed to
himself. He opened the door and walked back into the kitchen. Were there two
killers? he wondered. One who knocked at the door, the
other positioned at the Judas squint, crossbow primed? But how would the killer
know when Deverell approached?
    ‘You
are sure,’ Corbett demanded of Blidscote, ‘that the knocking continued even as
Deverell was killed?’
    ‘That’s
what Ysabeau said.’
    Corbett
picked up the crumpled piece of parchment and turned it over. He noted the
faint streaks of blood.
    ‘That’s
Deverell’s?’
    ‘Oh
yes,’ Blidscote replied.
    Corbett
walked back to the front door and stared out. The curious still thronged at the
mouth of the alleyway. From where he stood Corbett could hear the hustle and
bustle of the marketplace. Old Mother Crauford was standing in the front of