Yet why should Henry Stokoe have committed the mortal sin of ending his life before his appointed time? When William Crozier put this question, Agnes ventured that he had been complaining of pains in the stomach and bowels for two days prior to his demise. Their father, Godfrey Stokoe, in his time also a master baker and founder of the family business, had died of a malady of the bowels and endured dreadful agonies before the good Lord in his mercy put an end to his suffering. Agnes testified that Henry had, all his life, feared sickness. He was known as a stern man of considerable resolve, but he dreaded succumbing to the same fate as Godfrey.
George watched as William Crozier fixed his gaze upon Agnes. In the faltering light from the candle, her face was ghost-white. She was weeping uncontrollably, unable even to attend to Mary, who was bent double by her side. From the gathering of onlookers, the tall man limped towards her: John Laidlaw, who scorned the notion of the restless dead. As though he could not help himself, he drew Agnes to him, allowing her to nestle in the crook of his one good arm. Yet within a moment, he stepped back, dropping his arm and muttering a few words to his son, Robert. It was almost as though reason had asserted itself and he had become desperate to rid himself of Agnes. George could comprehend his embarrassment, together with the reason why Crozier was studying the pair with such scientific curiosity.
John Laidlaw farmed a stretch of land within sight of the fourteen arches of the fine new bridge at Berwick-upon-Tweed, and he and Robert sold produce at the town market, a stone’s throw from Henry’s bakery. John’s wife, long a sickly creature, had died five years ago, but he had not remarried. John was by repute a bluff, likeable fellow, but older folk in the district nonetheless continued to approach him with circumspection. The Laidlaws were a family whose name had long been feared in the Border country. They were Reivers, and amongst the fiercest of those outlaws who had for many years wreaked havoc among peace-loving folk on either side of the boundary between England and Scotland
When King James united the thrones of England and Scotland, he made clear his determination to crush such lawlessness. George had often heard his late father talk of witnessing the proclamation made by the King when he halted at Newcastle on the journey south for his coronation in London. It was to be forbidden to speak of “the Borders”. Henceforth, this part of the kingdom, an outpost no longer, would become “the heart of the country” – formally, “the Middle Shires”. As for those whose trade was terror, they were to be prosecuted with fire and sword.
Within weeks of the royal proclamation, seven score of the nimblest and most powerful thieves had been slain. Borderers were forbidden to carry weapons; nor could they own a horse valued in excess of fifty shillings. Houses were razed to the ground and families scattered to the four winds. A choice had to be made and John and his father – since deceased – decided to collaborate with the monarch against their former allies in robbery and rapine. The information that they provided led to the deaths of many men, subjected to Jeddart Justice and thereby executed without benefit of a trial. The Laidlaws’ reward for showing loyalty to the Crown (or for their treachery, as some saw it) was to be granted ownership of those fertile acres by the river. The clan of Laidlaw duly prospered and twenty years later John, once an unruly and hot-tempered young ruffian, was as respectable as he was affluent.
Yet memories were long in these parts. For George, the Reivers were a dying breed that counted for little, but older folk recalled many instances of their ruthlessness and savagery and it remained common knowledge that, fifty years ago, John’s father had led an attack on a farmstead owned by Henry’s Uncle Charles. The raid left the old man mortally wounded and all his family’s sheep were stolen. No love was lost thereafter between the Stokoes and the Laidlaws.
As for Henry, it was as well-known in the locality that his habitual strictness was wont on occasion to give way to red-faced rage. Within his own household, his temper sometimes manifested itself in violence. His wretched sister was sometimes seen with her eyes blackened and not a soul in Berwick believed her anxious excuses, that a door had struck her in the face, or that she had tumbled down a flight of stairs. Yet she could not leave his house, for her wastrel husband’s death had left her with not a farthing to her name and, besides, she would not abandon her beloved niece to her brother’s sole care. In truth, she was as much Henry’s prisoner as if he kept her under lock and key.
Small wonder that, according to gossip, she had turned to John Laidlaw for comfort and consolation.
Not a word of this supposed scandal was uttered at the inquest, the evidence being confined to the bizarre circumstances attendant upon Henry’s death. The conundrum was this: if he did not kill himself, how did he die? It is impossible to cut one’s throat by accident. The only alternative to a verdict of suicide was to determine that someone had stabbed Henry to death. Yet if this was a case of murder, it seemed to follow that Agnes was at best a liar and at worst a murderess. From this conclusion, the jurymen had shrunk.
Nonetheless, as William Crozier confided when he and George were alone in chambers, it was plain that a verdict of suicide could not in conscience be sustained. Too many objections were arrayed against it. First, it appeared that Henry had lain in his bed in a composed manner, with the bed-clothes undisturbed. If he had stabbed himself, how could he have portrayed such serenity in death? Second, there was no blood in the bed, saving a tincture on the bolster whereon Henry’s head lay. Third, from the bed’s head there was a stream of blood on the floor which ran along till it ponded in the bending of the floor in a very great quantity. Further, there was another stream of blood on the floor at the bed’s foot, which also ponded, but there was no continuance or communication of blood in either of these two places, from one to another; neither upon the bed. It followed that Henry had bled in two places, severally. Moreover, a doctor deposed that, upon turning up the mat of the bed, there were found clots of congealed blood in the straw of the mat underneath.
A fourth, and highly significant, instance was that the bloody knife was found sticking in the floor a goodly distance from the bed and that the point of the knife, as it stuck, was towards the bed, with the half away from the bed.
Upon mature reflection, the jury – whose verdict Crozier had wisely refrained from drawing up in form – might have been prompted by the combination of these factors alone to desire of him that Henry’s body might be taken out of the grave. But their discussions were also coloured by whispers about the relations between Agnes and John Laidlaw. Some said that their acquaintance was innocent enough, and that it arose simply because Robert, a handsome, swaggering boy of seventeen, had set his cap at young Mary. The wagging tongues would not be stilled, however. Henry was not the only man who resented John Laidlaw’s good fortune and several of those who knew both families hinted that John was eager to find himself another wife and that his heart was set upon Agnes. Henry, no-one doubted, would have moved heaven and earth to prevent such a match, but once a Reiver, always a Reiver. Had John determined to steal the prize that he coveted so much?
The jury’s request to the coroner that he order an exhumation of the deceased’s remains was unusual and not to be granted other than in the most exceptional circumstances. Yet William Crozier scarcely hesitated before directing that before he would call a verdict the inquest proceedings would be adjourned and Henry’s body disinterred. In truth, George reflected afterwards, Crozier had, by dint of a few discreet observations, led the jurors to follow the path that he regarded as just.
As a consequence, the jurymen, witnesses and all others principally concerned with the case, together with the Laidlaw father and son, invited by the coroner to act as companions for Agnes and Mary, were gathered around the excavated burial place at a time of night when other law-abiding folk were slumbering in their beds.
The corpse was of a livid and carrion colour. George flinched at the sight of it. Like any young man, he had a sneaking belief in his own immortality and any reminder of the inevitabilit
y of death was unwelcome. Notwithstanding his repugnance, however, he found himself craning his neck as Agnes was summoned to the graveside.
“Step forward, Mrs Milburn,” William Crozier said. His voice was low and yet there was no doubting his authority.
The woman took two paces towards the open grave and then fell on to her knees, quietly sobbing a prayer. George could not distinguish the words, and yet he knew that she was pleading to the Lord that He might give up a sign of her innocence.
“Touch the body,” William Crozier commanded.
Earlier that day, William Crozier had reminded George of the venerable tradition that, if a person guilty of murder should touch the corpse of his victim, the dead body will respond in such a way as to condemn the malefactor. Stories abounded of corpses that sweated, or blinked, or whose hands moved or dripped blood when their murderers were pressed to brush them with their fingertips. The tales held a gruesome fascination for the young man, and yet he found it them impossible to believe. Moreover, he had never known a man less credulous than William Crozier, a man who insisted upon proof of even the most self-evident proposition before he would credit it. Crozier was more widely read than anyone George had ever met, and his list of accomplishments was as eclectic as it was formidable. He was by nature cautious, and yet unafraid, where circumstances so required, to be daring. Yet George was startled when Crozier announced that he would require those connected with the deceased and his household to touch his body once it was lifted from the ground.
“So – not only Agnes but Mary, too?”
“Certainly.”
“Pray, sir, would you not acknowledge that the notion that a suspected murderer should be tested by the ordeal of touching the dead belongs to a bygone age?”
Crozier grunted. “You have the confident assurance of the young. For those of us who have lived longer and seen a little more, matters are not always so straight and simple.”
George was alert enough to recognize that he had not received a direct answer. “Surely you cannot believe that the daughter . . .”
“Why not?”
“She is little more than a child!”
“Take another look at her, my boy. She may be young, but she is already a woman.”
“A woman with no reason to kill her father,” George said hotly. “My understanding is that, although he could be rough with her, she accorded him all the respect that was his due.”
“It is not easy to look into the heart or mind of another,” Crozier murmured. “Who knows what treacherous thoughts may lurk beneath the most innocent surface, like weed in a woodland pool.”
“There would be no logic to it! The crime is apt to bring destitution upon her.”
“So you regard young women as creatures of logic?” Crozier permitted himself the glimmer of a smile.
“I have never seen distress in such abundance.”
“I do not doubt that the girl is unhappy. Whether that betokens a lack of culpability is a different matter.”
George sighed. “I am most reluctant to believe that Agnes killed her brother, far less that her niece is a common murderess.”
Crozier clamped him on the shoulder. “You have a good heart, my boy, and that is not wholly out of place in an officer of the court. One must seize every opportunity to utilise one’s brain and one’s ingenuity, provided they are directed to the service of a just cause. A professional life need not invariably be as dry as parchment. But mark this, a man of law should never sacrifice the ability to think clearly. Even when he is called upon to think about a woman.”
“Is it possible that John Laidlaw . . . ?”
“My mind is open to many possibilities.”
“Including suicide?” George said quickly.
Crozier grunted, as if to acknowledge the thrust. “We have already established that the indications that Henry Stokoe did not die by his own hand are impossible to controvert. It follows that whoever killed him attempted to convey the impression of felo-de-se, but with a crudity that betrayed the subterfuge.”
“Very well, then. If he was murdered, who do you think . . . ?”
Crozier lifted his thin hand, requiring silence. “You know me well enough, George, to understand my reluctance to speculate without evidence. Proof is what matters.”
“And in the absence of proof?”
Crozier frowned. “This is a case where, I shall admit to you, there is a risk that justice may be frustrated because of the paucity of evidence of guilt. It is right, in my judgment, to take extraordinary steps with regard to the obtaining of such evidence.”
“You refer to the exhumation?”
“It is an opportunity to test the tradition of which we have spoken.”
Crozier’s saturnine features yielded no hint of what thoughts might be coursing through his mind as he gave this equivocal reply. And yet George was sure that those thoughts were more refined than his principal had admitted. William Crozier would have a plan.
The onlookers in the graveyard had broken up into distinct knots. The vicar stood with the sexton, his helpers and the coroner’s men; the jurors were clustered together; and the deceased’s daughter was close by John Laidlaw and his son. Only George stood apart, watching intently as William Crozier spoke again to the bereaved sister.
“Pray touch the body, Mrs Milburn.”
“Have mercy upon me, sir,” she pleaded.
“It is a simple matter.”
“I cannot touch him!”
“You must.”
“Are you a man or a ghoul?” John Laidlaw demanded.
“I am the coroner, charged with determining how Henry Stokoe died,” Crozier said, pointing at the corpse. “My word in this matter is law, Mr Laidlaw. You will do well to remember that, my good sir.”
The farmer raised his walking stick and, for a moment, George thought that the man was about to approach his principal and knock him down. But if the thought occurred to him, he contrived to suppress it in time. When Agnes Milburn cast a pleading glance at Laidlaw, he gave her the faintest of nods and lowered the stick.
The dead man’s sister bent over his dead body and touched the skin of his neck with her forefinger.
George held his breath.
Nothing happened.
Silence reigned in the graveyard as Agnes averted her gaze from the dreadful sight of her brother’s remains and stumbled back to her place by Mary’s side. John Laidlaw did not reach for her, and George surmised that the man was striving to suppress his emotions, so as not to give the scandalmongers any more fuel to add to their fire.
George cast a glance at his principal. William Crozier’s acuity of mind was famed throughout the county; he thought deeply before he spoke, and deliberated at even greater length before he acted. As an adversary, he was formidable. And yet he was not God. He was not infallible.
Did he suspect Agnes of having cut her brother’s throat so that she might share her life with John Laidlaw instead? If so, why had Crozier believed that this macabre little play, albeit worthy of a better-lit stage, would reveal the truth of Henry Stokoe’s death?
“Step forward, Mary.”
Crozier’s voice was firm yet unemphatic. If it troubled him that the corpse had not reacted to Agnes’ touch, he gave no hint of it.
The girl flinched. She turned to look at the Laidlaws, father and son, and it was as if she found encouragement in their steady gaze, for without more ado she walked towards the corpse and touched it, as her mother had done.
Again, nothing happened.
In anticipating the exhumation, George had considered whether William Crozier might find some reason, and some means, to confront John Laidlaw and accuse him of the crime. Yet he had only to contemplate the possibility that Laidlaw had murdered Henry Stokoe to encounter objections that seemed to him to be insuperable.
In the first instance, the narrow flight of wooden stairs that wound up to Henry’s bedchamber was old and unsound. Even a girl as light on her feet as Mary could not help
but make a noise as she ascended. Henry would surely have been disturbed had a burly fellow such as Laidlaw climbed up to the top floor. Even if Laidlaw had reached the room without waking his victim, it was impossible to believe that he could have entered and committed the crime without causing a greater disturbance. Henry was not infirm; he would have resisted once wakened. Yet how could an assailant have reached him without breaking into his sleep? Whilst Henry might not have been sufficiently concerned by the arrival in his room of his sister – or, perhaps, his daughter – he would not have remained in repose for a moment on being confronted by John Laidlaw.
As for access from outside the room, there was another difficulty. It was only practicable to ascend to the top floor of the house by climbing from the lower roof of the house next door. In principle, an intruder might have entered unobserved by that route. Stokoe’s neighbours were an aged couple who slept on the other side of the house. They might have seen and heard nothing. The window was directly above Henry’s bedhead and it would be a simple matter to take him unawares. But the climb would require a monkey’s agility and John Laidlaw, for all his strength, was incapable of it. Five years ago, he had crippled his right arm and leg in falling from a horse and since then he had walked with a pronounced limp. For a man of fifty to make such an ascent, armed with a knife, would have been a feat even were he in the prime of health. George could not conceive that Laidlaw would have attempted the endeavour, however fierce his devotion to Agnes. The likelihood would have been another plunge, this time to the street below. John Laidlaw, rather than Henry Stokoe, would have met his Maker.
When George dared to say something to his principal of these conjectures, William Crozier merely gave him a mirthless smile and did not trouble to reply.
The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunnits Page 28