"And this poor boy?" I looked back at Ned's ravaged face. "Was he one of them?"

"Not to my knowledge," Underhill whimpered, allowing himself the most fleeting glance at the corpse on the floor. "He had no family of note, but he was the most dedicated student. I cannot imagine who would want to hurt Ned-it is truly evil." His shoulders convulsed.

"I think Ned saw or heard something he should not," I said grimly. "Have you informed the constables or the officer of the watch that Sophia is missing?"

"No," he said, and hung his head again. "It is not dark yet-I suppose I have been hoping that she would return before supper, or at least before nightfall. My wife has taken to her bed-she is of course convinced that Sophia is dead or dying somewhere. She does not know about Ned yet. I am trying to take a more rational view, but it is not easy." He took a deep, steady breath, as if to demonstrate the struggle to master his weaker feelings.

"If she has not come home by tomorrow morning, I will do everything in my power to help you find her, I swear," I said solemnly. The rector seemed about to reply, but I suddenly held up my hand for silence; from outside in the corridor I had caught a noise so slight it might only have been a rafter creaking, but to my taut nerves it sounded very like the tread of a foot on a floorboard. We waited for several moments, our breath held tight in our throats, but there was only the muted buzzing of an insect against the windowpane.

"I must go to the hall and declare this latest tragedy to the community," Underhill said, taking the Book of Hours from my hand and replacing it inside his doublet. He ushered me through the door and bent to lock it behind us. "I think we cannot avoid calling in the constables now, since it seems the killer is indeed among us. But if you are questioned, Doctor Bruno, perhaps it would be prudent if we keep Foxe to ourselves," he added in a whisper.

I nodded, and watched him descend the stairs, his shoulders bowed under a burden that I suspected he would never shake off.

COBBETT HAD LEFT the door to his lodge open and stood with his back to it, arranging his keys in the little wall cupboard. The room still smelled strongly of vomit. He glanced over his shoulder as I entered.

"Another death, they're saying," he grunted. "In the chapel itself, this time. I've been instructed to keep the gates locked now. He was a good boy, that Ned, proper hardworking. Who would do such a thing? I begin to wonder if this isn't the Devil's work after all, Doctor Bruno."

"Sophia Underhill," I said, pressing the door shut behind me, "did you see her leave college this morning, Cobbett?"

"Aye," Cobbett said noncommittally, turning back to his key cupboard. "Slipped out in all the commotion, right after Master Slythurst went back up to the tower. When her mother come down a few minutes later, I just told her Mistress Sophia must have gone on ahead."

"And you haven't seen her return at any time?"

"No. Is she not back?"

"She hasn't been seen all day," I said. "Did she tell you where she was going?"

"No," he said shortly. "But she'll not have got far."

"Not in this weather," I agreed. "Not in her condition."

He shuffled back painfully to his chair behind the desk and looked at me expectantly. I stared at him in disbelief, feeling as if time itself had slowed down almost to a standstill.

"What condition? Do you mean that she is ill?"

Cobbett raised an eyebrow to indicate what he thought of my naivete.

"Come on, Doctor Bruno, you haven't been in the cloisters that long."

"You mean, she-? No." I shook my head; surely this was some malicious gossip the old porter had picked up from the servants. "How can you be sure?"

"My wife had ten, sir, God rest her. Do you think I can't spot the signs? A good three months in, I'd say, poor girl."

My head was reeling with the magnitude of this revelation. If Sophia was indeed with child, the fear she had confided to me seemed all the more urgent. But then who was it that she feared-her father or the child's father? Was that the danger she had mentioned?

"But who-? Did she confide in you whose child it was?" I heard the note of panic rising in my voice.

"She confided nothing, Doctor Bruno, I just use the eyes God gave me, unlike most round here. I seen her meeting someone in the library Saturday evening, while all the college was out at the disputation. Least, I seen her going up there and some feller following not long behind."

"Who, though?" I cried, exasperated.

Cobbett shrugged, his expression ruminative. "He had a cloak on with a hood up. Could have been anyone. I do know I didn't see him come through the gateway, so whoever he was must have been in college already."

I paused, pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger as I struggled to make this latest information fit. So Sophia had been one of the people in the library whom Ned had overheard. But who had she met there, while the college was almost empty?

"Does her father know?" I asked Cobbett.

"You are joking, aren't you? Her father would barely notice if she gave birth to it right in front of him, and Mistress Underhill's no better. If you ask me, they've only themselves to blame-both behaving like the world ended when young John was killed, as if his sister was of no matter to them. Mind you," he said, leaning in, "I was wondering how she was going to keep it from the rest of the world once she couldn't do up her corset, and that day wasn't so far off. Perhaps that's why she's chosen to run away now."

"I didn't know you had ten children, Cobbett," I said, pausing at the door and looking at the old man with renewed respect.

"Well, I haven't now," he said, philosophically. "Good Lord saw fit to take most of ' em back. Got two daughters left, one married a farmer out Abingdon way, the other's a laundress."

"I'm sorry," I said, redundantly.

"Nothing to be sorry about, it's the way of things. Anyhow, listen to me prattling, I almost forgot-I have a letter for you." He pulled open a drawer from his table and rummaged around until he came up with a folded piece of paper, which he held out to me.

Intrigued, I turned it over; my name was written in an elegant, unfamiliar hand and I quickly opened the letter to see that it was written in flawless Italian.

"He left it with me this morning," Cobbett said, "and in all the upheaval over poor Doctor Coverdale and now this latest, I clean forgot to hand it over. I do apologise."

My heart plummeted as I skimmed the letter; in a very elaborate style, it begged my assistance in recommending its author to the service of the French ambassador as a tutor of languages to his children, as he wished to marry soon and his tenuous university post would not allow him to keep a wife.

"This is from Master Florio?" I asked with a sigh, glancing at the foot of the letter where it was signed with only an initial so curlicued and ornate that it could have been anything.

"Course. Does it not say?"

So this was the letter he had mentioned so furtively; Florio was not, then, the mysterious correspondent who had first set me on the trail of the Catherine Wheel. Another blind alley, and I was no closer to finding the one person in the college who had known about the Foxe connection before any of us.

"Damn him," I muttered, crushing the letter in my fist, though I was not sure if I was damning Florio for his innocence or the anonymous letter-writer for being so cryptic. "Cobbett-might I ask you a favour?"

"I shall do my best to oblige, sir."

"I need to leave college late tonight. I have an…errand that I must see to. Would you leave the gate open for me, say at half an hour to midnight?"

The old porter's brow creased in consternation. "I would like to help you out, sir, but the rector has given strict instructions for the gate to remain locked now with these latest deaths, and no one to be allowed in or out after dark. I dare not go against his word-if there is another attack I will be out on my ear for neglecting my duty."