Benjamin tapped the table top. 'The sensible conclusion is that our secret assassin decided to remove the danger just in case.' He waved a hand round the silent, smelly room. 'And I suspect it was someone powerful, perhaps the secret Templar my uncle is hunting. After all, Mistress Hopkins would scarcely open the door to anyone. There is little sign of a struggle so I conclude our murderer arrived as a welcome visitor.' Benjamin pointed at the pewter cup. 'Mistress Hopkins probably served him wine.' He looked under the table and picked up another cup. 'She even joined him. The assassin would assure her all was well, slip behind her chair, then fasten the garrotte string round her neck.'
'He may have also been searching for some of Hopkins's papers?' I added. 'Perhaps something the mad monk entrusted to his sister?'
We inspected the rooms on the lower floor. Their contents were pathetic though the assassin had made his presence felt; two battered coffers had been prised open, tawdry jewellery cast aside along with scraps of parchment and a thumb-marked Book of Hours, but none of these proved of any value. We went upstairs and searched amongst her paltry possessions in those dusty, shadowy chambers. 'Nothing,' Benjamin murmured.
'Perhaps there was nothing to begin with,' I replied. 'Perhaps Mistress Hopkins was murdered simply because of what she might know.'
We left the house and walked up Budge Row into Cheapside. We forced our way through the bustling market which was packed from one end to the other with stalls, carts, horses and people of every station; the poor in their rags, the rich in their costly silks. A group of powerful noblemen pressed their way through, preceded by men-at-arms three abreast, mounted on great destriers and hoisting gilded spears. The standard bearers followed, banners of bright red and yellow depicting strange devices: black griffins, scarlet dragons and silver stags.
We continued on past the stink and stench of the Shambles where the lowing of the cattle waiting to be slaughtered jangled our nerves and hurt our ears. At last we reached Newgate, that loathsome pit of hell, the city prison built around the gatehouse of the old city wall. We went through Dick Whittington's archway and banged on the metal-studded door for access.
A greasy tub of lard with filthy hair and a red, unshaven face introduced himself as the keeper and became almost fawning when Benjamin informed him who he was.
The keeper wiped dirty fingers on a stained leather jacket and jangled a huge bunch of keys.
'Come, come, my lords!' he murmured, bowing and scraping before us. He smiled ingratiatingly. 'After all, Master Taplow hasn't much time left, he's to die at two this afternoon.
He led us across the antechamber to show us a tar-drenched jacket lined with sulphur which hung from a hook on the wall. The gaoler stopped and gazed at it admiringly.
'Master Taplow's winding sheet,' the evil sod murmured as if he was examining a painting by da Vinci or Raphael.
'He'll wear that!' I exclaimed.
'Of course,' the keeper replied. 'It will be slipped round him and he'll burn all the quicker.'
'Why not just hang the poor sod?' I muttered.
'Oh, no.' The gaoler stepped back, eyes widening. 'Oh, no, we can't have that! The law is the law. Taplow is a common traitor and the law says he should burn.'
(Do you know, I am a wicked old man, I love soft tits and a good cup of claret. I must have lived, oh, well over ninety-five years, but when I eventually meet God I want to ask him a question which has haunted me all my life. Why do we human beings love to kill each other? And why do we do it in the cruellest possible ways? Excuse me, I must lift my cane and give my chaplain a good thwack across the knuckles. 'You'll not go to heaven and meet God,' the snivelling little hypocrite mumbles. 'Yes, I will, I'll tell St Peter a joke and, when he's busy laughing, I'll nick his keys.' Lack a day, I digress!)
The little grease-ball of a gaoler waddled off, taking us along passages and galleries as black as midnight, down steps coated with slime and human dirt where rats swarmed thick as fleas on a mangy dog. The smell was nauseous, the cobbled floor ankle-deep in slops. At last we came to the Corridor of the Damned, the cells housing those waiting to be executed.
'Hello there, my beauties!' A smiling, mad face pressed itself against the grille. 'Don't feel sorry for me,' the madman shouted. 'All Tyburn is is a wry neck and wet breeches!'
The gaoler spat a stream of yellow phlegm and the mad face disappeared. At last we stopped at a door. The gaoler opened it, took a cresset torch from the passageway and pushed it into a small crevice in the cell wall. The dungeon pit flared into life as the door slammed behind us. It stank like a midden and the straw underfoot had lain so long it was a black, oozy mess. A heap of rags in the corner suddenly stirred and came to life and Taplow, loaded with chains, got to his feet. He had dark hair and his plump body was covered in filth. He grinned at us through the darkness.