Athelstan muttered. ‘Why, what’s wrong with the Chief Justice? What’s he got to do with Bonaventure?

‘Fortescue is hopping like a cat on hot bricks, demanding something should be done, but he has no more idea than I what can be done. Anyway, we’re off, Athelstan, back to the Springall house!’

‘Sir John! I am busy with matters here. Two deaths, two burials.’

The coroner walked towards him, a wicked grin on his satyr-like face.

‘Now, now, Athelstan. You know better than that.’

Of course, the friar did. He knew he had no choice in the matter but cursed and muttered as he filled his saddle bags, harnessed Philomel and joined Cranston who sat slouched on his horse on the track outside the church. They stopped for Athelstan to leave messages with Tab the tinker, now drinking away the profits of Meg’s funeral at the nearest tavern, and began the slow journey down to London Bridge and across to Cheapside. Cranston was full of good cheer, aided and abetted by an apparently miraculous wineskin which never seemed to empty. Athelstan tried to apologise for his part in the quarrel at their last parting but the coroner just waved his words aside.

‘Not your fault, Brother!’ he boomed. ‘Not yours! The humours, the heat of the day. We all quarrel. It happens in the best of families.’

So, with Athelstan praying and cursing, and Cranston farting and swaying in his saddle, they cleared London Bridge and pressed on to Fish Street Hill. Of course, when the wine ran out, Cranston’s mood darkened. He announced that he didn’t give a rat’s fart for mumbling monks.

‘Orders were orders!’ he roared, looking darkly at the friar, before going on to regale both him and the horses with an account of the meal his poor wife was preparing for the coming Sunday.

‘A veritable banquet!’ Cranston announced. ‘Boar’s head, cygnet, venison, quince tarts, junkets of apple-flavoured cream . . .’

Athelstan listened with half an ear. Allingham was dead. He remembered the merchant, long, lanky, and lugubrious of countenance. How unsettled and agitated he had been when they last had visited the Springall house. He glared darkly at Cranston and hoped the coroner was not too deeply in his cups.

On their arrival at the house in Cheapside Athelstan was astonished to find how calm and collected Sir Richard and Lady Isabella were. The friar suddenly realised that Cranston’s claim that Allingham was murdered was really a piece of pure guesswork on his part. Sir Richard greeted them courteously, Lady Isabella beside him. She was dressed in dark blue velvet, a high white lace wimple on her head. She recounted how they had gone up to Master Allingham’s chamber and, finding the door locked, had ordered the workmen from the yard below to force the chamber.