The Butcher of Avignon by Cassandra Clark

thief in practice, and thirdly the one who has just stolen this paltry dagger, a thief after the fact. Three,’ he repeated in a complacent tone. ‘Or, if you prefer, only two, Maurice’s theft and the theft from Maurice’s body in the chapel. No third party involved, no brains behind the scene. Just two random acts of greed. Yes?’
    He suddenly sat bolt upright and gave a smile of brilliant coldness at Grizac. ‘I would prefer another theory. It is this. The man who corrupted Maurice enough to persuade him to commit the first heinous offence then returned for a second more successful attempt.’
    He looked delighted with himself and eyed Grizac as if to challenge him. ‘Again, only two thieves to be counted. Or maybe only one, if we discount Maurice as not being a free agent in the matter?’
    He’s like one of the old Schoolmen who endlessly discuss how many angels can dance on a pinhead, decided Hildegard. Where was his compassion?
    Now he tapped Grizac on the arm. ‘Can you come up with a better theory, my friend? Who was Maurice’s master in all this? Come on, let’s hear it!’
    Grizac pulled at his lower lip, the large blue stone on his ring flashing as it caught the light. His face had gone a paler shade of grey. ‘It was valuable enough - the dagger, I mean. Encrusted with rubies and pearls and many other precious stones. Anyone would desire it if they knew about it.’
    ‘Maurice, then, driven by greed and working alone, would you say?’
    ‘Never greed!’ Grizac exclaimed in a broken voice. ‘He was an unworldly youth, pure in spirit.’
    ‘Leaving that aside, what do you think to my theory that the master plotter behind Maurice’s ill-judged actions killed him then, for some reason failing to take the dagger at the time of the murder, returned later to make good his theft? Come, tell me what you think.’
    ‘I wouldn’t know.’ Grizac wiped a hand across his eyes and turned away.
    ‘Don't distress yourself. This is a mere playful theory to try to shed light on these rather obscure events. I ask again, what could Maurice have been doing in there?’
    ‘Nobody knows. Why torment me? It could not have been Maurice’s intention to steal. No - this is to vilify the dead.’ He put up a hand as if to ward off the accusation then let it drop.
    Athanasius started to laugh. ‘You’re right, my friend. Nobody knows. And Maurice gave the appearance of being a devout youth. Maybe he broke into the treasury merely to look around? Why not? Maybe he followed someone up there, someone he suspected of being a possible thief, but being foolhardy, instead of calling the guard, he tackled the thief himself? But what about the second theft? Maybe it was committed by as unlikely a thief as your Maurice? The sisters, perhaps, who supervised the laying out of the body? Maybe in their poverty they are not as content as we imagine?’
    Grizac waved the latter suggestion aside. ‘I am undone and my life is as nought should an accusation against me be brought before our holy Clement.’ Then he added with the desperation of a drowning man clutching at straws, ‘It cannot have been the guards, can it? Both times?’
    ‘The two of them in collusion? It would be hard to make that stick for long,’ Athanasius objected at once. ‘They will be vibrantly aware that all we would have to do would be to tell either of them that their companion had confessed and the truth would come tumbling out before we could even lay our hands on the thumbscrews.’
    Hildegard saw he was used to the methods of the Inquisition.
    He went on, ‘They were the first ones to come under suspicion but theft would have been an act of stupidity beyond their capabilities.’ He smiled like a cat with the cream. ‘Now the nuns, I believe, are not unintelligent.’
    ‘The value of the dagger, as you’ve just described, could lure the guards to risk torture,’ interrupted Hildegard, ‘or are they as content as the nuns in their poverty?’ How