The Crediton Killings

by Michael Jecks

  Baldwin nodded. “So they would be passing by that window throughout the day?”

  “Yes. Someone would have noticed if there was a man loitering.”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking,” Baldwin said mildly.

  “Eh?”

  “Did you see all Sir Hector’s silver?”

  “Yes. He had the whole of the top of the cupboard filled, and a couple of shelves beneath.”

  “How could one man carry all of that out? Even if he had a confederate in the yard it would be quite a task, wouldn’t it?”

  “I see what you mean. He’d have needed a friend outside and a wagon or something.” Paul looked around. The serving-girl was passing not far away, and she caught his eye. She finished pouring a pot of ale, slapped at a hand which was trying to lift her skirt, and joined them.

  Simon glanced at her sourly, then sighed and rubbed his temples; while Baldwin wanted to keep interrogating the innkeeper, he felt duty-bound to remain with his friend, but this endless series of questions was surely irrelevant. The boy had been caught carrying some of the stolen plate, and he was a recent, unknown recruit to the band, with no loyalty or commitment to it. It was plain as a hog in a goldsmith’s that he must have committed the robbery, and tomorrow they would begin to question him about his accomplice. Cole would answer or suffer the penalty. There was no point in this, Simon thought irascibly, and he had to bite back a few choice words.

  Cristine looked at them, her cheeks dimpling. It was her duty to remain calm and happy, to make men relax and forget their worries, and she was good at her job. Under her look, she saw the knight shift uncomfortably on his seat, and she concentrated on him. He looked shy, she thought. And rather sweet.

  Baldwin coughed. “Cristine, we’re just trying to work out how the missing silver could have been removed from Sir Hector’s room, because with so many men in here all day, no one could have carried it through the hall without being seen. We think someone must have taken it out through the window into the yard.”

  Grumpily clearing his throat, Simon said, “There’re other windows in the solar block, Baldwin.”

  “Yes, Simon.” Baldwin threw him a quick look. His friend was not as astute today as usual, but allowances should be made for his mood. “But they all give out on to the street, and someone would be sure to remark a man bundling goods through a window. I reckon it must have been out into the yard that the silver went. What do you think, Cristine?”

  She gave him a long stare. Cristine was no fool, and though she maintained her vacuous, happy smile, she was thinking quickly. “It would make sense. As you say, nobody could have brought it out through the hall here, not with all these men.”

  Simon poured himself some ale from Cristine’s jug. “Why couldn’t this man Cole have brought it all out through here?” he objected. “The men might not have noticed the silver if he concealed it on him; after all, he was one of them.”

  “Simon, think how much silver we’re talking about here,” Baldwin said with a degree of asperity. “He’d have had to bring it out piece by piece. Think of the size of the plates we found—only a few at a time could be carried without making him look suspiciously heavy—and what about sudden clanking noises? It would have taken five, or ten, maybe more trips to bring it all out. Three men were needed to carry the chest into the room, and the chest itself wasn’t that heavy, it was the weight of the silver inside. And how would he have explained so many trips to his master’s solar? No, I refuse to believe he could have done it that way.”

  “There’s another thing, sir,” Cristine said. At Baldwin’s nod, she continued, “This man, Cole, was new to the group. Those chambers are only for Sir Hector and his closest men. I think if Cole went in there just once he’d be asked what he was doing. These soldiers don’t seem very trusting.”

  “A good point, Cristine. So, to return to my idea, did you see anyone waiting outside Sir Hector’s room today? A man with a horse, perhaps? Maybe a wagon?”

  “No, sir,” she said, her eyes round. “I went past there many times, and I never noticed anyone. I’d have said if I did.”

  “See?” said Simon. His friend ignored him.

  “Other rooms behind the hall have windows which look out to the front, don’t they? Cristine, would there be any surprise if someone was spotted waiting in the street with a wagon?”

  “Of course. And they’d be told to move, too. The street’s not very wide, is it? If someone sat there waiting, there’d be plenty would tell them to clear off.”

  Baldwin was about to ask another question when there was a series of hoarse shouts. Turning, he saw the captain emerge from his rooms, bellowing.

  “What is it this time?” groaned Paul.

  “Come on, Baldwin,” Simon muttered, levering himself upright with difficulty. “It’s about time we were back at Peter’s…”

  “Sir Baldwin!” Sir Hector pointed at them, and Paul the innkeeper felt his earlier premonition of evil return in full force at the sight of the man’s ghastly face. “Sir Baldwin, come here! There’s been a murder.”

  7

  Moving urgently, they ducked behind the tapestry into the antechamber at the rear of the hall. The rooms at either side formed a solar for wealthy guests where they could relax in privacy away from the row of revellers at the inn. On the right was Sir Hector’s bedchamber; to their left, storerooms. The captain led them inside one of these; a white-faced servant was waiting for them, gripping three smoking candles in his hand.

  “I was looking for some clothes, sir,” he explained to Baldwin. “My master asked me to fetch a fresh shirt, and when I opened the chest, there was a cloak on top, and then this serving girl!” With a trembling hand, he lifted the lid and Baldwin found himself looking down on the still, calmly beautiful face of Sarra.

  Simon choked and turned away, stumbling to the window. It was not the sight of death—he was all too used to that—but the oval face with the narrow nose, surrounded by a mass of fair hair looked, at first glance, like his wife. The eyes seemed to stare directly at him, as if in rebuke for his behavior.

  Ignoring him, Baldwin studied the chest and noted the details dispassionately. He took in the general layout of the room before concentrating on the body before him.

  The storeroom was low-ceilinged, stinking of damp, with a small window overlooking the road. It was ill-lit by the candles grasped by the servant, a darkly suspicious-looking man, with square features and a grizzled beard. In here were placed a number of chests which held some of Sir Hector’s less valuable belongings. Many were open. Baldwin saw clothing, some armor, bolts for a crossbow, wineskins, saddlebags, a helmet…the kind of detritus which accumulates round a warrior after many years of travelling.

  The chest was vast. Standing at least three feet high, and four feet long, it was made of wood bound with iron hoops, and held the captain’s clothing. Baldwin leaned forward to study the interior while Simon groaned once more at the sight of the body inside.

  Sarra lay twisted, with her arms hidden beneath her. Her knees were bent and turned to one side to allow the lid to close. Her posture was that of a young girl snatching a rest, but she was as lifeless as a rag doll. A strip of green cloth ran tightly from her mouth to the back of her neck, making caverns of her cheeks. Baldwin felt her forehead, but there was no heat. She had been dead some little time. Her breast too was still, with no motion as of breathing, and he sighed: another young life wasted. Feeling a quick anger, he drew his dagger and cut the gag, pulling it away. More cloth projected from inside her mouth, and he gently removed that. Whoever had wished to silence her had made a very competent job of it.

  She was dressed in a light blue tunic, embroidered with tiny flowers. Touching it, he could feel that the cloth was expensive, and he noted the fact with a raised eyebrow. A serving-girl would not usually be able to afford such material. Her head lay on a bolt of fine, golden fabric which Baldwin thought could be gauze, and her hair mingled with it. She looked as if she had
just awoken from a slight sleep, her eyes freshly opened, and he half-expected her to smile and welcome her visitors.

  “Help me get her out,” he said, and heard the harshness in his voice. It was one thing to find the corpse of a man, for men were born to fight and die, but quite another to find the body of a young and beautiful girl. The servant helped him, taking the knees and lifting while Baldwin grasped her shoulders. They set Sarra down alongside the chest, and Simon saw that her hands had been bound with another cord made from the same stuff as the gag. “So that’s how you died, then,” Baldwin muttered.

  “How?” Simon asked, curiosity overcoming his squeamishness. Peering over the knight’s shoulder, he saw the stain on the clothing in the trunk. “Stabbed?”

  “Yes. And viciously, too. Look, the thrust of the blade went right through her and damaged the cloth behind her. She was in there already, then, before being killed.”

  Simon winced. “Why kill her?”

  Baldwin glanced at him. “Why? Because she saw someone, I would imagine. She witnessed the robbery, and had to be silenced. What I would like to know is, why her killer bound and gagged her. Was he not going to kill her at first—and then something made him change his mind? No matter: she was stabbed and left to die alone in the darkness.” He gently rolled the body over. “Bring the candles lower. Ah, yes. One knife-wound high in her chest, on her left side.” He pursed his lips. “Another here, a little lower, just above the breast. From where they came out at the back, both were angled sharply.” He studied the cloth carefully in the inadequate light, trying to make sense of the marks on it. After a minute or two he sighed and looked up. “I’ll need to look more carefully in the daylight. It’s impossible to see anything in here.”

  “The poor girl.” Sir Hector was standing above Baldwin staring down at Sarra’s body. The captain was clad in hose and boots, bare-chested, but wearing his sword—Baldwin assumed correctly that he rarely went anywhere without it. His torso was as white as a lump of goose fat making him look strangely young, but with livid pink stars and slashes of scar tissue from his career as a soldier.

  “You knew her?” Baldwin asked coldly.

  “She was a serving-girl here called Sarra.”

  “Did you see her today?”

  “Not that I noticed.”

  “When were you last in here?”

  Sir Hector looked round the little storeroom with distaste, “I am not in the habit of entering places like this. I watched to see that my chests were brought in yesterday when we arrived here, but I’ve not been in here since.”

  Baldwin spoke to the servant. “Has anyone been in here today?”

  “I was here this morning, sir—it was when my master asked for his tunic before he went out—but she wasn’t there then. I’d have seen her, and if I had, I’d have called for help as soon as I did, I’m sure.”

  “So she was not here earlier. She must have been killed today.”

  “Cole must have done it when he robbed me.” Sir Hector’s eyes were fixed on the body, but there was no mistaking his anger.

  “Perhaps,” Baldwin said musingly. “Though it seems odd.”

  “Sir, I didn’t kill her! You must believe me, I—”

  Holding up a hand, Baldwin reassured the panicking servant. “Don’t worry, I’m only trying to see when someone might have come in here last. You say you were here this morning?” The man nodded, but his wary, dark eyes showed no lessening of his fear. “Early morning, or late?”

  “It was early,” Sir Hector interrupted. “As soon as I rose.”

  “Could anyone else have got in here? And if they did, would they have been seen?” Baldwin questioned, his eyes still on the servant.

  “Anybody could have got in, but—” said Sir Hector heavily.

  “Sir Hector, do you allow all your men to have access to your private chamber?” Baldwin asked coolly, spurred by the disruption of his questioning.

  The captain hesitated. “No, but some of my men who are trusted can always gain admission.”

  “Such as?”

  “Servants, my officers…a few people.” He spoke reticently.

  “And who are these servants and officers?” Baldwin asked suavely.

  Simon wandered to the chest while Sir Hector, glowering, listed the men who formed his private guard, the men in whom he placed his highest trust, beginning with Henry the Hurdle and John Smithson.

  The bailiff was, for the first time, feeling a prickle of interest. In the past he had found getting involved with murder enquiries distasteful: as an investigator he sometimes felt tainted by the evil of the act. Too often he had been plucked from his comfortable, safe home-life, and tossed headlong into wild and conflicting emotions, for, in his experience, at the root of all murders were passions which, for some reason, suddenly spilled over and became extreme. Such ferocity had always been a mystery to him, for Simon’s life had ever been moderate and relaxed.

  However, since Peterkin’s passing, the security and certainty of his whole being seemed ill-founded, as if the sickness which had killed his little boy was now gnawing at the vitality of his entire family. After his son’s burial, Simon’s desire to dispense justice had withered, for he had little concern for others now his own life had been so cruelly wrecked.

  But there was a poignancy to this killing. It was not merely the superficial resemblance of Sarra to his wife, it was the manner of the girl’s death. This murder was yet another proof of how unfair and cruel life could be. He had a sense that, if he could resolve it, he might in some way compensate for the unreasonably early death of his son. It would be a cathartic exercise.

  Now that Peterkin was gone, Simon could feel the unnecessary death of another more keenly. If this had been a fellow who had died after a drunken brawl, or a man killed while arguing over a woman or a game, he would have remained unmoved, but the combination of the dead girl’s visage and the demeaning cache in which she had been stored fired his anger against whoever might have committed this crime.

  Baldwin had returned to his study of Sarra’s body while Simon mused, and the bailiff watched with lackluster eyes as he used his dagger to slice through the cord binding her arms, then listened with half an ear while the knight talked to the captain.

  “So we have to assume that this killing was done either by one of your trusted officers, or by a servant from the inn, or by someone who broke in through one of the windows.” He wandered over to a shutter and tested the heavy baulk of timber which held the doors closed. Moving it, he found it was heavy and fitted closely in its rests. “Not easy to shift that,” he muttered.

  “It must have been one of the inn’s people,” Sir Hector growled.

  “I doubt it.” Turning, Baldwin stared at him. “You have told me that you only permitted your most trusted men into this area. You would not want to have strangers wandering round your private apartments, would you? No, the only people who would have come in here were your men.”

  “And her.”

  “Her?” Baldwin glanced down at the body. “You allowed her in?”

  “Yes. I liked her.” He stopped, looking at Baldwin as if expecting a rebuke.

  “Hmm. I see, so she knew the silver was here, too. But unless she talked to someone, the most obvious suspects must be your own men.”

  “One of them: Cole,” Sir Hector said between gritted teeth. “Otherwise someone from the town who thought they might be able to make a quick killing.”

  Simon shot a glance of loathing at him, but the captain appeared unaware of his pun.

  Baldwin repeated, “Cole,” thoughtfully.

  Leaning down, Simon saw that the gauze was heavily stained with blood, and the firm imprint of the girl’s body could be clearly perceived: her legs, her hands, her head. But there was a jutting edge in the clots which marred the outline and made him frown.

  “Couldn’t he have had an accomplice, waiting outside? Someone he could pass the things to, once he had murdered poor Sarra?” Sir Hector aske
d.

  “I can’t see how. It is the same as before, when we were thinking it was only a theft: anyone trying to get in from the street would have been noticed—this road is busy at all times of the day—and someone loitering on the other side of the window in the stableyard would attract attention from an ostler or one of the other inn-workers. I suppose it’s possible that it was a coincidence that the robbery and killing happened at the same time, but it hardly seems likely. Tell me, you say you liked the girl—are you aware of anyone who could have wanted to kill her? Someone who hated her?”

  “Her? She was only a serving-girl from an inn, Sir Baldwin. How could someone hate a creature like that?” Sir Hector spread his hands in astonishment.

  Baldwin nodded, his eyes straying back to the body before him. In life she had been pretty, and he was not surprised that the captain had “liked” her, a euphemism which left little to Baldwin’s imagination, but he could understand that the captain would find it hard to comprehend an unimportant young wench might have enemies who could want to kill. The reasons were legion; a jealous lover; a jealous wife disposing of her husband’s lover; a lover discarding his mistress because she had become an embarrassment…and so on. Still, as the man said, it was more probable that Cole had killed her. She must have discovered him taking the silver, and he stabbed her to ensure her silence.

  While he ruminated, Simon carefully lifted the cloth by a corner, peering underneath. “Baldwin. Look at this.”

  “What? Ah, that is interesting!” Baldwin reached down. Beneath the cloth was a third silver plate. The knight bent and took it out. “There is the proof. The murderer must have been the thief. He killed Sarra because she had seen what was happening. She knew who he was.”

  “That bastard!” Sir Hector stepped quickly to Simon’s side and stared at the plate in Baldwin’s hands, tarnished where the blood had marked it. “So he killed her when he stole my silver.”