The two golden imps appeared in Flutek’s eyes. “The most appealing hypothesis to me is that your chicanery is designed to distract attention from the matter of greatest import. Namely, the five hundred grzywna stolen from the tax collector. What say you, physician?”

“The same as usual.” Reynevan yawned. “We’ve been through all this. I’ll respond in an unoriginal, boring way to your unoriginal, boring question. No, Brother Neplach, I won’t share the money stolen from the tax collector for several reasons. Firstly, I don’t have the money, because I wasn’t the one who stole it. Secondly—”

“So who stole it?”

“To be boring: I have no idea.”

The two golden imps leaped up and turned a lissom somersault.

“You’re lying.”

“Naturally. May I go now?”

“I have proof that you’re lying.”

“Oho.”

“You claim,” said Flutek, his eyes drilling through Reynevan, “that your imagined moot occurred on the thirteenth of September and that Kaspar Schlick took part in it. But I know from first-rate sources that Kaspar Schlick was in Buda on the thirteenth of September 1425. Thus, he couldn’t have been in Silesia.”

“You have third-rate sources, Neplach. Wait a moment, it’s an entrapment. You’re trying to trick me, ensnare me, and not for the first time—am I right?”

“You are.” Flutek did not bat an eyelid. “Sit down, Reynevan. I haven’t finished with you yet.”

“I don’t have the money and I don’t know—”

“Be quiet.”

They said nothing for some time. The imps in Flutek’s eyes calmed down, almost vanished. But Reynevan wasn’t deceived. Flutek scratched his nose.

“But for Prokop…” he said softly. “But for the fact that Prokop has forbidden me from laying a finger on you, you and that Scharley of yours, I’d have got what I wanted out of you already. With me, everybody finally talks; not one person has ever stayed silent. You, too, be certain, would tell me where the cash is.”

Reynevan was more experienced now and wasn’t to be frightened. He shrugged.

“Yeees,” Flutek continued after another break, looking at the rope hanging from the ceiling. “And this one would also have talked. I’d have wrung a testimony out of him, too. It’s a real pity he managed to hang himself. Know what? For a moment, I really thought he might have been in that grange… You really disappointed me by not recognising him…”

“I constantly disappoint you. It sorrows me greatly.”

The imps jumped slightly.

“Really?”