‘Nicholas,’ I said, ‘would you look under the printing press and see if there is any type in the upper tray? I am not sure I could manage it.’ If there was, I would have to get the boy to detach the tray somehow, so that I could see if it was the same type used in printing the French book, or something else; had Greening been planning to print the Lamentation?

Nicholas twisted his long body under the press and looked up with an easy suppleness I envied. ‘No print in the tray, sir. It looks empty.’

‘Good,’ I said, relieved.

He rose and stood looking around. ‘What a poor place. To have to live as well as work here, amidst this smell.’

‘Many live in far worse conditions.’ Yet Nicholas was right, a man who was able to keep a printer’s business going should have been able to afford a home. Unless his business was failing; perhaps he had not been sharp enough for this competitive trade. Lord Parr had said Greening’s parents were poor, so where had he got the capital to buy the press and other equipment to start the business? I saw, by the bed, a dark stain on the floor. Blood, from the injuries Greening had received. Poor fellow, not yet thirty, now rotting in the common graveyard.

There was a plain wooden coffer beside the bed. It was unlocked, and contained only a couple of stained leather aprons, some shirts and doublets of cheap linen, and a well-thumbed New Testament. No forbidden books; he had been careful.

Nicholas was bending over a little pile of half-burned papers on the floor. ‘Here’s where they tried to start the fire,’ he said.

I joined him. ‘Under the shelf of inks. If Okedene hadn’t come the place would have gone up.’ I picked out one of the half-burned pieces of paper ‘. . . le chat est un animal méchant . . .’ ‘Pages from the book he was printing,’ I said.

Nicholas looked around the room. ‘What will happen to all this?’

‘It belongs to his parents now. The power of attorney gives me the right to take out probate on their behalf. Perhaps you and Barak could deal with that. The author will have paid Greening to print his book, that money will have to be repaid. Otherwise the materials will be sold and the proceeds given to his parents. The printing press will be worth something.’

I looked at the paper on the shelf. Not a large stock, but with nearly all paper in England imported, it had a market value, and as Fletcher had suggested, it would be worth stealing, as would the working type. But it hardly explained two attempted burglaries by separate parties.