The Tinner's Corpse

by Bernard Knight

  Robert Courteman might also have recognised Peter’s switch of hostility, had not Matthew, with a perturbed expression on his fleshy face, interrupted, ‘You said there were two conditions attached to the bequests and you’ve given us only one. What’s the other?’

  The elder lawyer aimed his gaze at the tinner’s agent. ‘Whereas, apart from the house, Mistress Joan shares equally with you and Peter in the present circumstances, Walter had made provision for future circumstances, when her share would increase from one-third to eight-tenths of the substantial fortune, leaving you and his stepson one-tenth each.’

  Matthew’s jaw dropped, and Peter went white above his dark moustache. ‘What possibility could that be?’ said Matthew, in a strangled voice.

  ‘If Mistress Knapman had had a child before Walter’s death.’

  There was an audible sigh of relief from the other two beneficiaries and a snarl of disapproval from Lucy and her aggressive-looking son.

  Matthew murmured to his spouse that he thanked God that his brother had remarried only five months before his death.

  But the lawyer had not yet finished. ‘Or if she was found to be with child at the time of Walter’s death.’

  There was a sense of anticlimax at this and both Matthew’s and Peter’s heartbeat had begun to subside to normal.

  Until Joan spoke up from her seat in front of the table. ‘But I am with child – and have been these past three months!’

  That evening, the coroner and his two assistants met together for the first time in several days. When Thomas de Peyne and Gwyn called at the narrow house in Martin’s Lane, they timed their arrival to avoid meeting Matilda, who detested them. She considered one a Celtic savage and the other an irreligious pervert. They knew she always attended the Sunday evening service at St Olave’s, which took place after the rigid series of Offices at the cathedral had finished. The two men, today sharing a common bond of aches and pains from their recent injuries, made doubly sure of her departure by skulking behind the corner of St Martin’s Church until they saw her leave the house.

  Inside, John was contemplating leaving his hearth for a lonely drink in his new haunt, the Golden Hind, when Mary put her head around the door screens. ‘I’ve got two battered knaves in my kitchen, saying they want to talk to you.’

  The coroner followed her into the vestibule, then down the covered passage to his backyard, where he found his clerk and his officer sitting by Mary’s cooking fire, eating hot wafers. Brutus was crouched adoringly at Gwyn’s feet, having his ears scratched by the dog-loving giant. They jumped to their feet, but de Wolfe waved them down as he joined them on a stool and took a pot of new ale from Mary, who wandered off across the yard to another shed where she did the washing, ignoring conventions about working on the Sabbath.

  After enquiring about their various cuts and bruises, John was reassured that both men were recovering well. He was particularly glad to see that Thomas remained cheerful – he even had an air of expectant optimism, as if his recent ‘miracle’ was soon going to blossom into good news. But now he had other news to report, and proudly disclosed the results of today’s spying in the cathedral precinct.

  ‘After Compline, there was a short mass to celebrate St Botolph, and afterwards some of the vicars and secondaries adjourned to the refectory for sweetmeats and a glass of wine. I managed to get myself invited to both functions,’ he added evasively, leaving the others to wonder how he continually managed to insinuate himself into the ecclesiastical life of Exeter, especially within a day of attempting suicide.

  ‘Get to the point, midget,’ rumbled Gwyn placidly.

  ‘Well, one of the visiting guests was the Chagford priest – that fat fellow we saw at the inquest. After a few cups of Anjou red wine, he began telling us of a meeting he attended this morning at a lawyer’s office in Goldsmith Street.’

  Thomas then related, fairly accurately as it later turned out, the provisions of Walter Knapman’s will and the reactions of those assembled to hear it. ‘The priest was delighted with the bequest to his church, which will see him secure for a long time – but he described with ungodly glee the reactions of some of the other beneficiaries.’

  De Wolfe was intrigued by the account, and Thomas became almost euphoric at the curt praise his master bestowed on him for bringing such useful intelligence.

  ‘So the inscrutable Widow Joan is not as virginal as she looks, eh,’ chortled Gwyn.

  ‘That’s what the rest of the family want proven,’ replied Thomas waspishly. ‘According to Smithson, there was the devil of an outburst from Matthew and Peter when she claimed to be with child – and an equally loud condemnation of their doubts from Joan’s brother and mother!’

  ‘So what happened then?’ demanded de Wolfe.

  ‘Matthew, with Peter, who are both set to lose about two-thirds of what they would have had if she had failed to produce an heir for Walter, voiced their doubts as to who might be the father. They insinuated that Stephen Acland was more likely to have sired the pup. That provoked much shouting and abuse from the widow’s relatives, but the priest said that Joan herself just sat with that faint smile of hers on her pretty face.’

  De Wolfe rubbed his itching cheeks – he had missed his Saturday shave the day before and had had to scrape off a budding beard that very morning. ‘Then what happened?’ he persisted.

  ‘It seems the old lawyer, Robert Courteman, stuck his own finger in the pie. Obviously he has an interest in the matter beyond his legal obligations, as his own daughter’s fortune would be affected by how much Peter gets from his stepfather’s estate. He claimed that the terms of the testament can only be fulfilled when it is proven that Walter’s wife is indeed with child.’

  Gwyn cackled coarsely. ‘Does he intend proving it personally?’

  Thomas gave him a prim look of disapproval. ‘He said he could not approve the bequests until the pregnancy had been confirmed by someone of repute.’

  ‘He only has to wait a month or two for it to be obvious to everyone,’ grunted the Cornishman, but Thomas ignored him.

  ‘The lawyer insisted that the widow be examined by a woman wise in these matters – and the obvious choice is our Dame Madge from St Katherine’s in Polsloe.’

  John recalled the formidable nun from the small priory a mile or so north of the city. She was skilled in all matters relating to women’s ailments and the problems of childbirth. He had had reason to be grateful for her services before, when she had helped him investigate a fatal miscarriage and a rape. ‘So the fair Joan is to be put to the test,’ he mused. ‘But does this help us to put a finger on who is the most likely candidate for Walter’s murder?’

  The little clerk had one more titbit of news. ‘The priest said that there was something unspoken going on between the lawyers and Peter Jordan. The young man several times challenged the testament as not being the one he knew about. The old lawyer shouted him down, but Smithson had the impression that Peter was covertly accusing Philip, the younger Courteman, of misleading him.’

  De Wolfe gave one of his grunts. ‘I don’t know that that tells us anything. But an expectation of what was in the will might be a motive for killing, I suppose.

  ‘Walter had been married five months – he was certainly likely to change his will after marrying again. But did he know that Joan was with child when he made this last one?’

  ‘If she’s three months gone, she herself would know, even though she wasn’t showing yet,’ said Gwyn. ‘But if Acland was the father, she may have kept it from Walter – but not otherwise, surely.’

  ‘The will was dated earlier this month, which was why Jordan seemed so shocked and upset,’ added Thomas.

  ‘I can’t make head nor bloody tail of it,’ grumbled Gwyn, finishing the last of the ale that Mary had provided.

  ‘Maybe Joan had her husband killed before he discovered that she was carrying Acland’s child and cut her out of the will?’ suggested Thomas, half-heartedly.

  ‘How the h
ell would Walter know it wasn’t his child, unless he had slept in the stable since his marriage?’ rumbled Gwyn.

  ‘He would if the infant was born with hair like Acland’s,’ retorted the clerk.

  De Wolfe scowled at them both. ‘This is getting us nowhere. As it turns out, neither Walter’s brother nor his stepson have made a great deal from his death, which reduces their motive. And, by the same token, the widow and her hangers-on have increased their share of the fortune and therefore also their incentive to see Knapman dead.’

  ‘But did they all know that before the testament was disclosed?’

  Thomas voiced the obvious objections that were in de Wolfe’s mind.

  There was a long silence as they sat around the dulling fire. Then de Wolfe stood up and stretched his long limbs. He was about to announce that he was going down to the Bush for more ale, when the realisation that he was persona non grata there flooded back to him.

  ‘I’m off to the Golden Hind,’ he grunted, and glared at the other two, defying them to make any comment.

  Robert Courteman wasted no time in setting about the verification of Joan’s child-bearing. On the afternoon of the reading of Walter Knapman’s testament, he sent a servant to Polsloe Priory to enquire if Dame Madge would be kind enough to examine the widow. He sweetened this request with a small donation to the priory funds, making a note that this was to be added to his legal fees deducted from the final settlement of the will. The servant returned with the redoubtable nun’s agreement, asking that the lady attend upon her at Polsloe the next morning.

  Courteman decided that he needed an independent witness to hear Dame Madge’s verdict from her own mouth and sent his son Philip on Monday morning, with Joan’s mother as chaperone.

  The trio left from the East Gate at around the eighth hour, the ladies jogging side-saddle on the palfreys they had brought from Chagford and Philip on a brown gelding. The road passed through St Sidwell’s, then through a mile of mixed farmland and woods to reach the foundation where six nuns dispensed spiritual and bodily help to the locals.

  The buildings were small, all in wood apart from a new stone chapel, which Philip Courteman had ample time to study as he waited outside in the compound, adjacent to the West Range of buildings. The two ladies were escorted inside by a young novice, and half an hour later they emerged, Lucy with a broad grin and Joan with a faint smile of satisfaction on her usually inscrutable features. They were followed by a tall, grim-looking nun, who reminded Philip fleetingly of John de Wolfe. She advanced on him, her black robe swirling in the keen wind, her face framed tightly in a snow-white wimple and flowing head-veil.

  ‘If you are the lawyer, I understand that I am formally to confirm to you that the lady is indeed with child,’ she said, her long face looking as if it had been carved from a boulder of granite moorstone. Before he could answer her, the flinty face suddenly broke into a charming smile, almost as if a different person lived within. ‘And I can certainly do that, young man! God has granted her the gift of motherhood, and in five or six months, Christ’s family will have increased by one new member – unless she has twins!’ She smiled again, and raised her hand to make the Sign of the Cross in farewell to the three visitors.

  Philip Courteman gallantly helped the two ladies up on to their saddles, and a moment later they were heading for the wooded track back to Exeter.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In which Crowner John makes several discoveries

  The distant cathedral bell had tolled some time ago for the mid-morning offices of Nones, Sext and Terce. De Wolfe and his clerk had just come from the Shire Hall in the inner ward of Rougemont, where a short session of the County Court had sentenced two thieves to mutilation, their right hands to be cut off in the undercroft by Stigand, the gaoler, and another two to be hanged. The sheriff was as uncommunicative with de Wolfe as he had been since the Lydford episode, and had stalked back to his chambers in the keep as soon as the cursing prisoners and their wailing families had been dragged from the court-house by his men-at-arms.

  As usual, John was fretting about the chaotic system of law enforcement that had developed and the inability of the government to keep its promises for reform. ‘It’s damned nonsense to have manor courts, burgess courts, county courts and the King’s courts, all competing for the same business,’ he complained to Thomas, who had heard it all before.

  ‘There’s good money to be made by all of them,’ the clerk answered mildly.

  ‘And it’s my job as coroner to drive as much of it as possible into the royal courts,’ retorted his master. ‘That’s why Hubert Walter set them up, to trim the wings of sheriffs and barons. But how can he expect me to prevail against them, when his judges don’t come round the counties when they should?’

  Thomas hurried to keep up with his master’s loping stride, his left foot dragging slightly from the old phthisis in his hip. ‘I heard from a visiting canon last week that the Eyre was in Wiltshire and should be here at any time now,’ he said breathlessly.

  De Wolfe snorted as he headed back towards his chamber in the gatehouse. ‘How often have we heard that, Thomas? The Assize should come several times a year, but we’ve seen no sign of it since last summer, in spite of the Justiciar’s promise when he visited a few months back.’

  His grumbling was cut short as they approached the arch of the gatehouse, under which the stairs to his office climbed steeply up from the guardroom. The sentry on duty at the top of the short drawbridge over the dry ditch was holding up his lance and waving his arm to stop a horseman who was cantering up the hill towards them, his steed frothing at the mouth. He clattered to a halt under the raised portcullis and slid from his saddle, almost into the arms of the sentry. Sergeant Gabriel emerged from the guardroom and joined the coroner and his clerk, who were waiting to see what this urgency was all about.

  ‘I must see the sheriff – or someone in authority!’ panted the messenger, looking almost as exhausted as his mare, even though it later transpired that they had ridden little more than a mile.

  Gabriel, his grizzled features frowning under his iron helmet, strode forward and grabbed the man by his shoulder. ‘What’s all the panic, man? Who are you?’

  The young fellow, whose rustic dress and odour suggested that he was a stablehand, was making the most of his moment of importance. ‘I’m a groom from Polsloe, sir. Sent to report a grievous happening, not more than an hour since,’ he wheezed.

  The sergeant grabbed the reins of the mare and pushed them at the sentry, then half dragged the priory servant across to a rough bench set against the guardroom wall. ‘Sit there, get your breath and tell us what’s wrong,’ he commanded.

  At the mention of Dame Madge’s abode, the coroner and his clerk hurriedly joined Gabriel in standing over the youth to hear what he had to say.

  ‘Two ladies and a lawyer fellow came to visit our sisters this morning – I don’t know their names or business. They left after a short while to return to the city, but not more than fifteen minutes or so later, the elder lady comes flying back on her pony, all dishevelled and screaming blue murder.’

  The groom was determined to squeeze the last drop of drama out of his account, but de Wolfe was impatient. ‘Get on with it, lad!’

  ‘Several sisters came running out at the noise, then Dame Madge spoke to the lady and sent a couple of us from the stableyard helter-skelter back along the Exeter road, the women following on foot.’

  He stopped for breath, then went on with his saga. ‘The forest, what’s left of it there, starts not two hundred paces along the track from the priory. Around the bend, within the wood, we came across two loose palfreys and a younger lady lying groaning at the side of the road. A few paces away, the lawyer fellow I saw earlier was stretched out across a bush, out of his senses and with blood coming from his head.’

  He stopped and Gabriel shook his arm impatiently. ‘Then what?’ he shouted.

  The stablelad shrugged, having almost run out of informatio
n. ‘We went to succour the pair, but a moment later, Dame Madge came running up – she’s a mortal strong woman,’ he added ruefully. ‘She told me straight away to ride fast to the castle here and tell either the sheriff or the crowner that there had been attempted murder and to send a posse right away. It seems the elder lady had told her that some footpad had burst out of the trees and attacked them. That’s all I know,’ he finished, rather lamely.

  De Wolfe looked at the sergeant. ‘Get a couple of mounted men, Gabriel. This is no common highway robbery, so near the city. And I know the people involved. Something odd is going on.’ He swung round to Thomas. ‘Get up the stairs and rouse Gwyn from his second breakfast. Tell him to come over to the stables with us to get horses.’

  Half an hour later, the posse from Rougemont had reached the scene of the outrage. At a bend in the track, almost within sight of the priory, the trees crowded close to the verge. A small area of flattened grass and scrub was being guarded by two servants from Polsloe. They pointed out blood splashes on the vegetation and where a line of beaten grass and weeds led off into the trees. De Wolfe suggested to Gabriel that he take his men to follow this trail, while he himself carried on to the priory. With Gwyn and the young stable-boy – for the feeble Thomas had stayed in Exeter – John rode the last quarter-mile at a full gallop.

  In the three-roomed infirmary of the priory, he found Dame Madge and another Sister of Mercy attending to Philip Courteman, who was slumped on a bench against the whitewashed wall, having a long, but shallow cut on his scalp bathed and bandaged.

  ‘He has suffered no great harm, thanks be to God,’ announced the brawny Dame Madge, the sleeves of her black gown rolled up and a bloodstained apron wrapped around her waist.

  Philip groaned at her ministrations, but he was fully alert, though very sorry for himself.

  ‘What of the lady?’ asked the coroner anxiously.

  ‘She, too, is quite well – she has bruises on her throat, but is recovering on a bed next door with her mother beside her,’ said the nun. ‘No harm has befallen the child she carries, as far as I can tell. The good Lord has certainly looked after his own today, though the older lady Lucy gave him stout assistance,’ she added, with one of her rare smiles.