Witness of Bones

by Leonard Tourney

  “I shall take every grain of care that’s warranted,” Joan said. “But Matthew must be freed. Tell me where I can find this woman, please.”

  By Matthew’s reckoning there were fifteen or twenty men in the room. Most were officers or constable’s men, the rest manacled prisoners like himself, two revealed to be gentlemen by their dress, one of them, with a handkerchief pressed to his nose to avoid contagion. Behind a high desk a sallowfaced magistrate sat. Below him a young clerk wrote busily at a little table. The chamber had a high raftered ceiling and around the periphery were benches upon which officers and prisoners hunched, their faces all turned upward toward the magistrate, although several of the prisoners looked to be asleep and one of the officers did doze, despite the noise of talking and wrangling in the room. The magistrate suffered the commotion because he was deeply engrossed in a conversation with his clerk, leaning down from his desk so that Matthew could see only the round hat he wore and nothing of his eyes.

  Matthew waited a long time before his name was called while the other prisoners were taken before the bar, charged with their crimes—a battery, three robberies, and two murders—and then dragged off again. Then he was yanked to his feet roughly and pushed toward the magistrate’s desk by the prison warder in whose charge he was. At the same time Matthew saw the constable’s man who had arrested him come forward along with the curate Hopwood and a stout old man he had never seen before but with so scarred and villainous a face that his own mother would condemn him to hang out of pity’s sake for his ugliness.

  The magistrate, to whom the clerk had earlier referred as Sir Thomas Bendlowes, peered down at Matthew as a falcon might have surveyed his prey in a field.

  “Matthew Stock?”

  “I am,” said Matthew, his voice trembling.

  “Clothier of Chelmsford?”

  “And constable of the town.”

  Sir Thomas murmured something to the clerk but Matthew could not tell by the man’s expression whether the constableship was a mark for him or against him.

  “You are charged with the murder of Stephen Graham, rector of St. Crispin’s Eastcheap. How plead you?”

  “Not guilty, sir,”

  He had answered quickly, guilelessly, the outburst of innocence, but his truth sounded like a lie, even to himself. Had he no faith in his own story?

  “Arresting officer?”

  “Michael Barrows,” said the constable’s man.

  The magistrate nodded; his clerk wrote in a great book.

  “Any witnesses?”

  “These men here, sir,” said Barrows nodding to Hopwood and the old man, who was standing a little to the rear of Hopwood.

  The magistrate turned his head toward Hopwood and nodded as though indicating that he should proceed with his account. Hopwood looked eager to give information.

  “This Stock came yesterday asking for Master Graham,” he said. “As a stratagem he told some story about how Master Graham had been in Chelmsford the day before—”

  “It was two days before,” Matthew interrupted. “And the man was not Graham but an imposter.”

  “Be silent,” roared the magistrate so that the whole room complied. “You’ll have time to say your piece before you’re hanged.” Matthew’s warder slapped him on the back to reinforce the magistrate’s order and hissed, “Hold your tongue if you want to keep it.”

  Hopwood continued.

  “He said our rector had been in Chelmsford, which thing he never was, for I know for a fact he was sick abed at his sister’s house since Sunday last, shivering with the ague. Only on the morning of his murder had he returned to the church, worse the luck for him.”

  “Well, proceed then,” said Sir Thomas Bendlowes. “What else did you see?”

  “He prevailed upon me to let him in, claiming to act upon the authority of some gentleman at court whose name I forget. Then whilst I went to fetch the rector he made himself free of the inside of the church and cut the rector’s throat from ear to ear. All this was in the bell tower.”

  Hopwood had turned to regard Matthew with an expression of disgust and horror. Matthew could see that the curate’s scathing look had its designed effect on the magistrate, whose pinched face was now even more severe than before.

  Matthew felt compelled to protest Hopwood’s accusation but remembered Sir Thomas Bendlowes’s warning and knowing that his protest would avail nothing but the magistrate’s dislike and the warder s violence, he held his tongue.

  “Then you saw Stock kill the priest?” queried the magistrate.

  “No, sir,” Hopwood said.

  “Then how do you know it was he who killed the priest and not some accomplice of his? Might there not be others?” “Stock admitted the knife that killed the rector was his own. It was as good as a confession,” Hopwood proclaimed in a shrill voice.

  “There is another witness,” said the constable’s man. “Motherwell.”

  Barrows turned and motioned for the old man with the scarred cheeks to come forward. As Matthew turned in the same direction to see who this witness might be he noticed a familiar face in the crowd. It took him but a second and the recognition gave him the first cause of hope he had had that day. It was Richard Staunton, one of Cecil’s under secretaries, a youngish man of gentle manners who had often spoken to Matthew kindly. From across the room Staunton flashed him a look of recognition and brought a single finger to his lips in a gesture of silence. Matthew gave a little nod in response and then turned his attention to this new witness.

  “This is Motherwell, sir. Sexton of St. Crispin’s.”

  “Speak man, what did you see?”

  Motherwell stepped forward a little and peered at Matthew. “Indeed, this is truly the one, as I am a Christian.”

  “Which one?” demanded the magistrate.

  “The one I saw murder Master Graham.”

  “You were in the bell tower?”

  “I was, Sir Thomas.”

  “And you saw this man kill Graham?”

  “May God feed my soul to the worms if it is otherwise,” Motherwell said. “This Matthew Stock came up to where Master Graham was inspecting Great Harry.”

  “Great Harry?”

  “The largest of the bells, sir.”

  “Then?”

  “Why he slipped cowardlike up behind him. When the rector wasn’t looking, Stock cut his throat. As though he were slicing a fresh cheese.”

  “The man lies. I never killed anyone,” Matthew cried. “A man came to Chelmsford claiming to be Graham. He asked me to come to London to inquire into the theft of Christopher Poole’s body. Yet it was not the real Graham, but another— doubtless the real murderer.”

  The magistrate glowered. “You offend justice in praising your own victim, Stock, but would do better to confess your crime and your accomplices’ identities. Improbable contradictions do nothing more than support the testimony of these honest churchmen.”

  The magistrate nodded to Matthew’s warder. “Bind his mouth. I will suffer no more interruptions.”

  The warder threw his arm around Matthew’s throat, choking him while another officer stuck a gag in his mouth and began to bind it with a leather strap. Then the warder released his choke hold and Matthew began breathing again.

  “My witness is as true as God’s word,” said Motherwell piously.

  “What were you doing in the bell tower?” asked the magistrate. “And how was it you did not go to the rector’s aid?” Motherwell lowered his head in seeming shame. “Well, the truth of it, sir, is that I was sore afraid. I was doing something at the other end of the belfry when Stock came up.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Well—”

  “Speak, man. What was it you were doing there?”

  “Marry, sir. I have this cursed condition of my bladder. Sometimes, sir, I can no more hold my water than my old wife her tongue, before she died, that is.”

  There was some laughter at this response, but the magistrate called out for silenc
e again and then ordered Mother-well to proceed as before.

  “Stock was upon the rector before I was aware and because I was afraid for my own life I kept hidden until he had fled. I looked after the rector and found such a deal of blood and so wide a swath that I knew there was naught to be done.”

  “But you are sure this is the man you saw kill Master Graham?”

  “As I hope for heaven,” said Motherwell.

  “The question then is why, ” said the magistrate. “Yet that need not be answered today. The testimonies against the man are sufficient—and as for reason I doubt not that it has to be with Graham’s outspokenness against the queen’s enemies, which I suppose this man to be, for if his coreligionists can think to kill a queen at the Pope’s behest, I see no reason why they should stint at killing a minister of the Church of England who has denounced their fraudulent practices and thereby won souls for Christ.”

  “The man has a wife,” said Hopwood. “It is likely she is an accomplice, for she came to the church in search of her husband the very day of the murder.”

  “Did she?” said the magistrate, interested. “Then I shall write out a warrant for her arrest, for if man and wife be one flesh and the one be a murderer it follows therefrom that the other is an accomplice at least. Bind this man Stock over for the next assizes. He shall stand trial for his crime. Meanwhile his accomplices shall be found out.”

  Matthew felt himself being dragged off. He cast an eye to where he had seen Richard Staunton before but now Staunton was gone and in his place was the man who had represented himself to be Stephen Graham smiling triumphantly. Bound and gagged as he was, Matthew was helpless to even point an accusing finger much less denounce the plotter and he felt hot tears of rage fill his eyes

  Stearforth had slipped into the magistrate’s chamber in time to hear Motherwell give his testimony against Matthew Stock and was gratified by the results, wishing only that the sexton had made a more presentable appearance. Was it possible that one so vile featured, so stamped with the look of Cain, should be given credence in a hall of justice, his professed piety and mighty hypocritical oaths notwithstanding?

  But Sir Thomas Bendlowes had seemed to believe Motherwell’s words, even though Stearforth had held his breath when the man had inquired how Motherwell had happened to be in the belfry at the same time Stock was slitting Graham’s throat. Pissing in the corner, indeed! Fearful that he himself would be slain, indeed! Motherwell was at least an inventive knave—not one to be caught napping by a question aimed at discovering his bald-faced mendacity. Yes, there was that to be said for him. What man, after all, was completely devoid of virtues?

  Now, to Stearforth’s way of thinking, there was only one thing wanting in Stock’s arraignment, which was some explicit mention of Sir Robert Cecil as he whose commands bade Stock come to London and St. Crispin’s Church.

  Stearforth raised this very point with Richard Staunton only a few moments later when Matthew had been removed and the two men could find a quiet corner.

  “That pasty-faced dimwit Hopwood mentioned something about Stock’s professed patron,” Stearforth said. “Referred to him as some great gentleman at court. Bendlowes did nothing to draw the matter out.”

  “I’m surprised our mutual friend does not have Hopwood in his pocket to such a degree that he can put more exact words in Hopwood’s mouth,” said Staunton, whose elegant suit of clothes was drawing as much of Stearforth’s attention as was the man’s freshly trimmed beard and mustache.

  Stearforth laughed. “That pious fool would fall through such a hole, though he held on for dear life and had his buttocks stitched to the lining. But, never fear, though we might have wished Cecil’s complicity broadcast from the rooftops, Stock’s side of the story will come out in due course. Believe me, he’ll talk as his trial draws near and he sees himself without help, save what he can muster by clinging like a drowning man to every would-be rescuer. I suppose your master appreciates the vulnerability of his own situation?”

  Staunton shrugged. “He asked me to come down here and observe the proceedings against Stock. He said nothing about being worried, one way or t’other.”

  “Ah, a very cool gentleman indeed, the queen’s principal secretary,” remarked Stearforth. “But he’s no fool, as all the world knows, and since he knows his pet is taken, he cannot help but be alarmed as to what Stock may declare in an effort to save himself from hanging. You must make sure that he does talk, Staunton.”

  Staunton looked up at Stearforth with an expression of mild annoyance, and Stearforth knew he must be careful with this proud, disdainful servant, who having betrayed one great master could hardly be trusted to prove faithful to another.

  Staunton flashed a superior smile and said, “Never fear. My master has commanded me to duties beyond those you have imagined. I shall see that Stock spills every unsavory detail, implicates every great person, and in sum, is made the very wrench by which Cecil is unbolted from the queen’s esteem. Within a week the scandal will be trumpeted throughout Europe.”

  “And if it does not work out so?” Stearforth asked, finding his companion’s confidence irksome.

  “Then Matthew Stock shall meet his own death, which death will then be laid at the feet of Cecil. You see, dear Stearforth, everything has been thought of. Whichever way it turns out, Cecil loses. And likewise our redoubtable constable as well.”

  Eight

  It was not a long walk from Cecil’s House on the Strand to where Graham’s sister lived. Cecil had provided her with directions, told her the woman’s name, shook her hand warmly and wished her Godspeed. His eyes had been moist and sincere.

  Joan walked speedily, her thoughts in turmoil. Everything was happening too quickly. She felt borne along on a flood in which she flailed around blindly. Presently she came to the neighborhood of scattered cottages with thatched roofs and whitewashed walls set in open pastures intersected with lanes lined with still-bare poplars and hedges. Behind her she could see the City, the grim squat Tower, St. Paul’s rising importantly, and at lesser elevation churches of more modest size memorializing a dozen saints and asserting man’s aspirations into a mottled heaven of clouds and patches of azure.

  She spent a good hour trudging up and down the narrow lanes looking for the cottage she sought, since so many of the dwellings looked alike or were half-hidden behind the hedges.

  Elspeth Morgan’s cottage was at lane’s end. Joan stood at a picket fence and regarded the cottage. Beyond it to the

  right was an open pasture where a half dozen cows grazed and farther still a man, a cowherd she supposed, sat with his back against a tree staring in her direction. A path of flat round stones led from the fence to the cottage door, which as Cecil’s informant had said was painted a bright green to match the shutters. A curl of thin smoke wafted upward from the stone chimney. Joan approached the door and knocked twice.

  Almost at once the door was opened by a woman in her late twenties, dressed plainly in a russet skirt, white apron, and frilly cap. She had pretty features, Joan thought, a flushed complexion and smooth brow, but her gray eyes were wary, as though she expected someone else. Peeking from behind her skirts were the faces of two children, a boy and a girl of about the same age. The children’s faces were also stern, little images of the mother. All seemed oppressed by more than grief at a brother and uncle’s death.

  The woman said, “What is it you want?’’

  “Are you Elspeth Morgan?”

  “I am she.”

  “Sister of Stephen Graham?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Joan Stock. I knew your brother, and I have come to pay my respects.”

  This announcement failed to have any effect on Elspeth Morgan. There was a tenseness in her voice; she continued to stare warily at Joan, and Joan wondered if she had already heard that a Chelmsford clothier by the name of Stock had been charged with her brother’s murder.

  “Were you a member of his congregation? I don’t remem
ber you.”

  “I’m a stranger here. From the country.”

  Joan’s words seemed to put the young woman more at ease. She told her children to go into the kitchen to play, then she invited Joan to enter.

  Inside the cottage the furnishings were few and simple, but there was an orderliness in their arrangement that bespoke competent housewifery. At one end of the low-ceil-

  inged room was a door leading into the kitchen, which Joan could see part of. There Elspeth’s children went to play with a fat brindled cat, teasing the creature with a ball of yam.

  “Won’t you sit down?”

  Joan accepted the invitation, relieved to sit after so much trudging through the neighborhood, and smiled pleasantly at Elspeth, who remained standing even though the room was supplied with several chairs beside the one Joan occupied.

  “Your brother’s death is a great loss to the church.”

  “It is.”

  “I understand he was a wonderous preacher.”

  “You never heard him preach?”

  Joan realized she had made an error and immediately worked to correct it. “Oh, of course. More than once.”

  “He spoke from memory,” said Elspeth, staring beyond Joan now as though he saw her dead brother in her mind’s eye.

  “He was a wonder,” Joan agreed.

  “Then you never heard my brother preach,” Elspeth said looking at Joan with the searching gaze of one who has caught another in a lie. “For he always read from a text. He was most careful for every word. He would never have trusted his memory.”

  Joan did not know how to respond to this. In the kitchen the children had stopped playing with the cat and stood looking into the room where their mother was.