Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries) (22 page)

Thankfully, it was Hubert Walter who began speaking and when he addressed de Wolfe as the most senior, his voice was grave, but in no way condemnatory.

‘Sir John, most serious news has just been delivered to us from the Tower and our first line of enquiry has to be through you.’

Mystified, John racked his brains to wonder as to what prisoner might have died in custody in the grim Tower, to require the services of the coroner. The real reason never crossed his mind until the Constable of the Tower was asked to speak. Sir Herbert de Mandeville, a tall, spare man with a haggard face and slight stoop, rose to his feet and addressed de Wolfe in a sonorous voice.

‘Sir John, you visited the Tower recently when you delivered certain chests from Winchester into my care. No doubt you recall the occasion?’

It was more a statement than a question, and as if struck by a lightning bolt John knew immediately that some catastrophe had occurred to that damned treasure. This was why the leaders of that expedition to Winchester were lined up like errant scholars before their magister.

‘I do indeed, Constable,’ he replied cautiously. ‘I saw the two boxes safely placed in your strongroom in the undercroft.’

De Wolfe deliberately made the point that he had seen the chests transferred out of his custody into that of Canon Basset.

Hubert Walter now cut in on the previous speaker. ‘So it would surprise you, would it not, if you were told that some very valuable items were now missing from one of the chests?’

There was murmuring along the line of apparent suspects at this. Incredulity and denial were the obvious sentiments, but the Justiciar held up his hand.

‘We are accusing no one at this stage, but this is a most serious matter amounting to treason and one which we cannot keep from the king.’

‘Can you tell me what is missing?’ asked John.

Hubert Walter turned to one of the Treasury clerks, a wizened man with an expression like a squeezed lemon. He consulted a parchment laid on the table before him.

‘According to the inventory, a pure red-gold collar with pendant breastplate of Saxon workmanship. A heavy gold torc, probably of Celtic origin, two solid gold necklaces, four thick bracelets, also of pure gold, four amber earrings, set in gold, a pair of jewelled brooches, set in fine gold – and a gold plate a handspan in width.’

He put down the document and glared at John, as if already convinced that he was the culprit. ‘These were the finest and most valuable objects in the whole delivery. I would hazard a guess that, in total, they would be worth at least nine hundred pounds!’

There were murmurs of mixed surprise and outrage at the estimate, which represented a very large sum of money, bearing in mind that most workers earned only a few pennies a day.

De Wolfe, bolstered by a perfectly clear conscience, asked more questions. ‘Were the chests broken into, Your Grace? Were the guards assaulted by armed men?’

The Constable returned to the attack, defending his position as guardian of the Tower and all its contents.

‘This is the whole point, de Wolfe! The boxes were unmarked and still securely locked. The doors to the strongroom and the outer chamber were also firmly locked and the guards saw nothing. If I were not convinced that evil spirits have no need of gold, I would be tempted to say that the theft was supernatural!’

Ranulf of Abingdon was emboldened to enter the dialogue.

‘Tragic and heinous though this theft undoubtedly is, sir, it certainly cannot be laid at our door.’ He waved a hand along the line standing before the tables. ‘We brought the shipment from Winchester with all due care and delivered it as ordered. Sir John here was most insistent that a full check of the contents against that inventory was made at the Tower before we left, to safeguard us against exactly what has transpired.’

The coroner, standing hunched in his black tunic like a large crow, nodded his agreement.

‘My duty – for I readily acknowledge that the responsibility for the transfer was entirely mine – was totally discharged when I saw the chests delivered to the Tower and was assured by the Treasury clerk present, that the inventory corresponded with the contents down to the last detail. What happened after that is utterly unfortunate and reprehensible, but certainly
we
hold no responsibility for it.’ He emphasised the ‘we’ and stared pointedly at the Constable of the Tower, whose sallow face flushed at the inference.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, wearing only his usual small pectoral cross and ring of office to denote his eminence, nodded in sad acceptance of what his old friend and comrade had said.

‘We have already discussed this and have to agree that whatever happened to the treasure, it occurred after you had left it in the Tower. But for the sake of completeness and from lack of any other explanation, we had to question you as a starting point.’

His gaze swept along the line of men, from William Aubrey at one end to the sergeant at the other. ‘Have any of you anything to offer on this most serious crime? Any ideas will be carefully considered.’ His tone suggested that he had abandoned any suspicions of complicity amongst the delivery team.

The only volunteer was, surprisingly, Thomas de Peyne. Normally self-effacing, he piped up with a disturbing, if obvious comment that had unwelcome implications for many officials.

‘The keys, Your Grace? If the chest was undamaged, then it could only have been opened in the proper manner. So who would have access to the keys?’

There was a chorus of murmuring and muttering from the seated members at the table. Hubert Walter waved a hand towards the Constable again and glowering Herbert de Mandeville again rose to his feet, leaning with both fists on the table.

‘There are two complicated locks on each chest,’ he snarled. ‘I keep one set of two keys for these particular boxes, one for one lock on each box – though of course I have many more keys for other chests in that vault. The other pair is held by officials of the Treasury, in this case Canon Simon Basset. I trust that no one thinks that either of us is anything other than above suspicion?’

He glared around, challenging anyone to dispute what he said.

Hubert Walter fingered the small cross on his breast as he spoke. ‘Let me be quite clear on this matter. You, Constable, hold a key to one padlock on this particular chest – and Canon Basset, our esteemed senior Treasury official, holds the other?’

The two men named stared at each other, almost suspiciously, then nodded. ‘That is so, Archbishop,’ grunted de Mandeville.

‘So neither of you independently can gain access to the contents?’

Simon Basset, his rotund face pink with embarrassment, bobbed his head. ‘It requires both of us to be present to open both locks at the same time.’

‘And I assure Your Grace – and the rest of the company assembled here – that this never happened!’ grated de Mandeville, banging the table with his fist.

‘But it must have done, otherwise we would not know that anything was missing?’ said the Keeper of the Palace, with deceptive mildness.

‘I meant until today!’ roared de Mandeville, choking back a jibe that the Keeper was an idiot.

‘Why were the boxes opened today?’ asked the Deputy Marshal, a straight-backed soldier with a broken nose.

‘All the contents of that strongroom were given a final check, before being taken to the Tower wharf tomorrow for loading on to a warship for Honfleur,’ explained Basset, with a desperate earnestness. ‘It was when the manifests were checked against the contents, that the loss was discovered.’ The Treasury man seemed about to burst into tears. ‘This is the first time that such an irregularity has occurred in all my long service to the king!’

There was a short period of further questions and discussion, but it was obvious that nothing useful would be gained from further pestering of the team that delivered the chests from Winchester and Hubert Walter brought the proceedings to a rapid close.

‘If this was not such an obvious crime of avarice, I would be tempted to add it to the list of miracles!’ he proclaimed. ‘There seems no rational explanation and I consider these men before us deserve nothing but praise for the way they safely conveyed the treasure to the Tower.’

There was a collective sigh of relief from the line of men, though John did not contribute to it, as he knew that no fault attached to him. But his hope that he could now walk away from the affair was soon dashed, as Hubert Walter continued to speak.

‘The loss of objects worth such a considerable sum from the king’s war chest cannot be tolerated – least of all by King Richard himself! The means by which they were stolen must be discovered and the culprits brought to justice, which as this amounts to treason, means by a slow and painful death!’

When it came to the king’s money, Hubert Walter became very short of Christian forgiveness, for all that he was head of the Church in England.

‘As the new Coroner of the Verge, Sir John de Wolfe is charged with investigating all serious crimes within the royal precincts. As he was also in charge of the transfer of this chest, it makes it all the more appropriate that he seeks out the perpetrators of this daring and outrageous act. I therefore give him a Royal Commission to enquire with all speed and diligence into the matter, and command that every one of the king’s subjects, from the highest to the lowest, offer him all assistance.’

Rising to show that the session was finished, he turned to speak to the nearest members of the Curia, but before doing so, gave John a slight gesture, telling him to come to him in his chambers.

The line of highly relieved ‘suspects’ also broke up and filed silently out into the Palace Yard, where they mopped sweating brows and began congratulating themselves and each other that their heads were still on their shoulders.

‘Thank Christ Almighty that you insisted on a check of that bloody box before we left the Tower, John!’ said Ranulf. ‘Otherwise we would have all been back in another small chamber there, until we all danced at the end of a rope at Smithfield or Tyburn!’

At supper in the Lesser Hall that evening, even the coming visit of Queen Eleanor was eclipsed as a topic of conversation. Apart from the usual clique around de Wolfe, other diners gravitated as best they could to be within earshot of the coroner, trying glean any titbits of gossip about the notorious theft of the king’s treasure. After vegetable potage and several fish dishes, including grayling, gudgeon and dace, for it was Friday, the eager questioning began. Relaxed after a stressful day by a few cups of wine, de Wolfe saw no reason not to respond, especially as he had very little to tell them.

‘There is no secret about this, for every man-at-arms and kitchen scullion knows as much as I concerning the matter,’ he said in answer to Archdeacon Bernard’s demand.

Ranulf nodded in gloomy agreement. ‘Almost everyone in London will know by now, though the king has yet to learn about it. There’ll be hell to pay if it’s not found before the news gets to him.’

‘We heard only that a fabulous golden treasure had vanished from the Tower!’ said Hawise in a suitably breathless voice.

‘Valuable, but hardly fabulous,’ grunted John. ‘It was part of treasure trove collected from the West Country.’

‘I understand that you had a private audience with the Justiciar after that meeting in the Exchequer,’ said Renaud de Seigneur. De Wolfe wondered how he knew that – the palace grapevine must have been working overtime.

‘It was only to give me a parchment carrying his seal with instructions for all men to give me every assistance in the name of the king,’ replied John. ‘He has commissioned me as Coroner of the Verge to make enquiries as to how this crime was committed and to retrieve the stolen property.’

Hubert Walter had in fact said a great deal more than this, but John was not going to share such confidences with this nosey crowd.

‘It is said that the golden objects vanished from a doubly locked chest, one whose keys were shared between two senior officials,’ persisted Bernard de Montfort. ‘But how could that possibly happen?’

De Wolfe shrugged. ‘That’s what I’m deputed to discover, God help me!’

Hawise d’Ayncourt, who was sitting opposite him, stretched her shapely leg to touch his calf, almost as if by accident.

‘It seems like a miracle, Sir John,’ she said, her big eyes opening even wider in pretended awe. ‘Do you believe in the supernatural?’

He grinned crookedly. ‘Not when nine hundred pound’s worth of treasure is missing, my lady! Miracles may still occur in the religious world and if a statue of Our Lady begins to weep tears of milk, then I am prepared to accept a bishop’s assurances that it is genuine. But where solid gold is concerned, I remain a confirmed unbeliever!’

Her ankle caressed his leg again and he pulled it back sharply, causing a flicker of annoyance to cloud her face. Then Ranulf, who seemed aware of what was going on beneath the table, intervened with a question.

‘Do you wish for William Aubrey and myself to assist you in this venture, John? We feel as responsible as you, as we were part of the same escort that brought those damned chests to London.’

De Wolfe shook his head. ‘The Justiciar instructed me to carry out this task personally, with only my officer and clerk. He wishes for everyone else to remain outside the investigation, to demonstrate that there can be no partiality, as everyone is both potentially innocent or guilty – even the Constable of the Tower, though he seems highly incensed at being included.’