The guard had taken Eleanor’s invitation to accompany them to the chapel quite literally and was now kneeling in ardent prayer only a few feet away.
“What news have you for me?” Eleanor sang softly in Latin as she kept an eye on the guard to her left.
After hesitating over how best to respond, Thomas chanted, “The dagger and some concerns.”
The first part of his answer pleased the prioress. “Tell me of the former.”
“I found it hidden in the straw, where others should have discovered it had they looked, but none did, which is no better than we feared.”
“Alleluia!”
Thomas buried his face in his hands and hoped he could match his prioress’ discretion in this covert conversation. “The crafting is well done, yet the object bears no distinctive mark.”
“Has it kin amongst the cook’s tools?”
“Sadly.”
“Might it have been stolen?”
He hesitated, wanting very much to say it had been. “Or not,” he finally forced himself to reply. “Whether dropped by accident in the rush to escape, or deliberately left as some ruse, remains unclear.”
Eleanor fell silent as she studied the guard. Although he seemed uninterested in their discussion, she began a regular litany of prayers.
Thomas dutifully followed until the final Amen.
The guard remained on his knees, hands clasped tightly, and apparently unaware of his companions.
“Will you ask if anyone recognizes the knife?”
“If so, I shall claim I found it near the kitchen.”
Eleanor gazed up at the cross. “Be careful, lest you ask the man who did this deed. He might choose to silence you.”
The likeness of one immediately came to the monk’s mind, the man’s arms encircling him. Then he imagined a knife pricking his breast. Thomas flinched. The vision vanished, and he nodded concurrence with her plea for caution.
The guard rose to his feet.
Their chance to exchange information had ended, but Eleanor knew her monk had more to say and that something troubled him. After all the crimes they had solved together, she knew Brother Thomas would never recoil at the prospect of facing a murderer. What else was worrying him? She would chance one last question.
“Have you left a concern unspoken?” she chanted.
Thomas visibly paled.
Although the guard’s head was bowed, he now leaned against the chapel wall where he could see what the two religious did.
“Tell me quickly. We must leave.”
“The younger son gave false witness today. He did not return as he claimed in the early morning. I did not see him at all until later in the day.”
Eleanor’s eyes widened. That might well make Huet another suspect in this killing. Yet, if he had done it, his heated defense of the cook suggested he did not want an innocent to suffer for his crime. Might that mean there was a complication to this murder? Might it even have been self-defense? Yet there had been no sign of a struggle.
She frowned. There was something else that bothered her. Why had Huet lied so publicly when he knew Brother Thomas could give witness against him?
Glancing at the guard, she saw he was showing some impatience and knew she could not ask her monk more.
“I pray that God will have mercy on his soul if he is guilty of this sin,” she whispered.
“Amen,” Thomas responded, turning his face away.