by Tessa Harris
“The pugilistic stance,” muttered Thomas, holding his lantern aloft and casting its meager light over the corpse. It appeared as if in a defensive position, with its elbows and knees flexed and its hands clenched in fists. “The muscles stiffen and shorten in high temperatures.”
Hascher shot him a horrified look, and the younger anatomist read his expression. “It can occur even if the person is dead before the fire,” he explained, adding: “Let us hope that this is such an instance.”
Hanging his coat on a nearby peg, Thomas opened his medical case and took out his apron.
“Has the body been identified?” he asked.
The professor looked blankly. “I do not know.”
“No matter,” said Thomas as he set to work.
Starting with a cursory examination, he could be sure the corpse was male, even though the hair had been scorched and what was left of the skin was blackened. It was while he was looking more closely at the lower torso, however, that his heart missed a beat. From his case he retrieved a small hammer and with it tapped what at first glance appeared to be a shinbone. On closer inspection, however, Thomas knew he was mistaken.
“Vhat is it?” asked Hascher, as Thomas tapped again.
“’Tis metal,” answered the anatomist, staring at a twisted and buckled iron leg. He straightened his back. “I know this man,” he said, his voice flat with shock. He thought of lank-haired Aaron Coutt leaping around like a hare on his makeshift limb. “He was the stable lad at the inn at Brandwick.”
“So vhat vas he doing in ze voods?”
Thomas had a good idea but said nothing.
“And zis . . .” The professor remained transfixed by the corpse. “An accident?”
Thomas refused to commit himself until he had probed further, although a theory was beginning to take shape. The old ruins and the secret stash of smuggled goods he had uncovered came to mind. Now that he knew the hapless youth’s identity, there was little doubt in his mind that he was dealing with a murder rather than an accident. Recalling the isolated woodland glade where illicit goods were traded, he thought it was very likely that the stable lad had met his untimely end at another’s hand. However, as Dr. Carruthers frequently reminded him, as an anatomist, his was to discover not the why, but the how. Thomas narrowed his eyes in thought and focused on the task in hand. “The corpse is only partly incinerated,” he observed. “If it had been completely burned, then only fragments of bone and the metal would remain.” He bent down low, his magnifying glass in hand. “A human body burns rather like a tree trunk, you see, Professor. First the outer layers of the skin fry, then peel off, until, shortly afterward, the thicker underlayer of skin shrinks and splits. It is then that the yellow, subcutaneous fat starts to ooze out. ”
“And zis fat makes good fuel, ja?” asked Hascher.
“Only if it has sufficient material nearby to act as a wick,” replied Thomas, plunging a scalpel into the blackened tissue.
“Like a candle?”
“Indeed. The youth’s clothes absorbed the fat and drew the flames toward it.”
The professor watched Thomas examine the corpse in silence for a moment before he asked: “So you are saying ze burning process vas interrupted?”
Thomas looked up. “I’m saying it was never properly begun. This was a halfhearted botched affair to dispose of a corpse. It takes approximately seven hours for a body to sustain its own fire. This was only alight for half—” Suddenly he broke off. His attention had been diverted by something on the dead man’s chest.
“The gorget, if you please,” Thomas said, holding out his hand.
Professor Hascher quickly obliged, selecting the probe from the array of instruments on an adjoining table.
“You have found somezing more?”
Thomas was holding his breath, concentrating on an area of chest near the heart. As he pierced the charred skin, there was a sound like rustling leaves. “Tweezers!” he called, and within a few seconds of probing he had retrieved the object of his curiosity from within the thoracic cavity. He held up a small spherical ball to the lantern’s light.
“A shot!” cried the professor, his eyes opening wide in surprise.
“That is what killed Aaron Coutt,” said Thomas emphatically. “He was, most definitely, murdered.”
Hascher’s finger suddenly flew into the air. “Could it be . . .”
The thought occurred to both men at the same time.
“. . . the same pistol that killed Turgoose?” Thomas finished his colleague’s sentence. “As far as I know it remained at Boughton Hall after it was found in Abe Diggott’s cottage.”
“So . . . ,” began Hascher. “Another weapon is surely responsible ?”
“Or,” said Thomas thoughtfully, “the same weapon in the hands of Lupton’s men.”
There was a pause as both anatomists contemplated the implications of the discovery, until suddenly the professor’s finger darted in the air again as if he had just remembered something.
“What is it, professor?” asked Thomas.
“Abe Diggott, ze man charged viz ze surveyor’s murder?”
“Yes. What of him?”
Hascher lifted his clenched fist up to his forehead as if reprimanding himself. “It slipped my mind,” he said apologetically.
“What, Professor? You have forgotten something?”
Hascher nodded. “Ze old man’s date of trial is set.”
“Yes?”
The Saxon eyed Thomas apologetically. “It is ze day after tomorrow.”
Chapter 36
As he rode out of the quadrangle at Christ Church on his way to Brandwick, Thomas knew his mission was twofold: First he needed to collect Abe Diggott’s earthenware flagon, which might prove the old man’s innocence, and second he wished to visit the kiln where Aaron Coutt’s badly burned body was found. During an investigation he had made it a principle to always see for himself where crimes of such a serious nature were committed. He felt it imperative that he familiarize himself with the terrain and conditions and, of course, that he conduct a thorough examination of the surrounding area. He was becoming more convinced with every investigation he undertook that everything, be it human or animal, animate or inanimate, left a trace.
Accordingly, late that afternoon, he found himself outside the Diggotts’ cottage. He knocked and was answered by the coppicer’s wife, Rachel. She was clearly relieved to see her caller was Thomas, but fearful of what he might say.
“Dr. Silkstone! You bring news?” she said, quickly ushering him inside.
The room was gloomy but warm, and Thomas glanced over to the bed where he could see the young boy still lay.
“How does he fare?” he asked, walking over to him. He saw that he was now on his side, although asleep.
His mother, wringing her hands, pulled her features into a smile.
“The fever is gone,” she said. “And the pain lessens.”
She showed Thomas to a chair by the fire, and he settled himself down as she poured a tankard of small beer and set it by his side. It was clear she was anxious to hear news.
“I have seen your father-in-law in jail,” he reported. She sat opposite him and leaned forward. “He is frail. Very frail,” he said.
“And . . . ,” she urged impatiently.
“And it is clear to me that he was physically incapable of firing a pistol, and has been for some time.”
“But . . . ?” Thomas felt the woman’s eyes tugging at his.
“But the court will not take my word for it, Mistress Diggott. I need proof.”
“Oh?” Rachel frowned, then followed Thomas’s eyes to the earthenware pot, now standing on the mantelshelf.
“The flagon,” Thomas said bluntly. “It has gin in it?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “ ’Tis full. It’s not been touched since they took him.”
“May I?”
Thomas rose and, leaning toward the hearth, picked up the vessel, the liquid sloshing inside i
t. He peered into it. It was as he suspected. The glaze of the pot was pitted inside.
“May I take this with me back to Oxford?” he asked.
Rachel gave him a quizzical look. “You think ’twill help?” She was putting all her trust in Thomas.
“I do,” he replied with a shallow nod.
“Then you must do anything you can to bring Abe back safe, doctor,” she replied.
With the earthenware flagon and its contents stored safely in a saddlebag, Thomas rode up to Raven’s Wood in search of Zeb Godson. The climb was steep, and now and again his horse stumbled on the jagged shards of flint that peppered the bridle path. Before long, however, he reached a plateau and the going became easier.
The weather seemed to have turned; the wind had changed direction and there was a sense that spring, so long absent, was beginning to show its welcome face. Thomas noted that the woodland floor was bursting into life, too. Clusters of cowslips and celandine peeped yellow heads above the leaf carpet, and the green spears of bluebell shoots pushed through the beech mast underfoot. Now and again a breeze made the fallen leaves rustle and dance. The slightest sound caused him to look about him. He now knew that Raven’s Wood belonged not only to sawyers and coppicers and charcoal burners, but to smugglers as well as highwaymen.
He ventured farther into the forest, all the while following the main track that he had taken before, and after a while he came to a clearing. A familiar structure in the shape of a dome, half turfed, like some prehistoric burial mound, loomed up ahead. Zeb Godson, wearing his strange hat, was at work near it, shoveling turf.
At the sound of approaching hooves, the charcoal burner looked up. When he saw Thomas, he stopped what he was doing. Leaning on his shovel, he pushed back his bonnet with a thumb and wiped his forehead.
“Mr. Godson,” greeted Thomas as he drew near.
“Dr. Silkstone,” said Zeb Godson, returning a wary look.
“I am come about the body. I am here with the coroner’s authority.” Thomas knew Sir Theodisius would have sanctioned his visit.
Zeb Godson grunted and gave a shallow nod.
“I need to see where you found it.”
The charcoal burner’s grimy finger pointed to the disheveled pile of turf and wood only a few feet away. It seemed unkempt and unfinished. “There,” he said.
Thomas dismounted and walked forward to inspect the kiln. Half of the logs were laid neatly, but the rest of the timbers seemed already charred and blackened. He turned to Godson.
“The body was in here?”
The charcoal burner nodded. “Aye.” He coughed suddenly and spat phlegm on the ground.
Thomas could see that this interview would be like drawing blood from a stone.
“Where, precisely, if you please?”
Godson pointed to the blackened circle that measured around six feet in diameter at the nearest edge of the kiln.
“And how do you suppose it got there?” He was purposely evasive, not wishing to disclose the victim’s identity.
The charcoal burner shifted uneasily, as if affronted by the question. “I didn’t kill ’im, if that’s what you mean,” he snapped. His blackened hands tensed around the handle of his shovel. His eyes gleamed from out of their sooty sockets.
Thomas smiled. “I am not suggesting you did, Mr. Godson, but I am trying to ascertain—” Thomas stopped himself and began again in more colloquial language. “I am trying to gather information as to what circumstances may have led to this death. I would be most obliged if you could tell me when and how you found the body.”
At this assurance, Godson seemed to relax a little. “I woke early and smelled smoke,” he began. “So I came out and I saw the kiln was alight.”
“How could that be?” interrupted Thomas. “Someone had to set it alight, I assume.”
The charcoal burner could not hide his low opinion of a city dweller, ignorant of country ways. “ ’Course they did. I’d laid most of the logs for the burn, but I’d not finished. They’d put ’im over the side and put a light to ’im to get ’im started. Only ’e didn’t take proper. Too much air, you see.”
Thomas was aware that a human body could be as slow to burn as it could be quick. The combustion depended on so many various factors.
“And you have worked on the kiln since?” Despite evidence to the contrary, Thomas very much hoped that the kiln had remained as it was when Godson discovered Coutt’s body. He was sorely disappointed.
The charcoal burner snorted. “I needs earn a crust, Doctor. I can’t waste a whole burn.”
“So you are stacking new logs on top of the charred ones?”
Godson shook his head. “Them that’s charred are wasted. I’m taking ’em out.” He lifted his shovel slightly from the ground.
“And have you found anything among the burned wood? Anything you think strange?”
Again Godson remained taciturn. He shrugged. “No,” came the reply.
Thomas leaned over the shallow ridge of the kiln and peered into the blackened remains of Aaron Coutt’s funeral pyre. There was nothing obvious to be seen, save for the charred logs that carried blooms of white ash upon them.
“There is one more thing, Mr. Godson,” said Thomas, walking toward his horse. “Did you hear a shot at any time last night?”
The charcoal burner thought for a moment. “I got pissed last night, fit for nothing,” he replied. “No, I didn’t ’ear nothing.”
Thomas would wager it was Geech’s gin that put him in such straits. He thanked Godson for his cooperation.
He grunted once more. “So you going after ’em?” he asked, just as Thomas was about to mount.
“After whom?”
“Them that killed Coutt, o’ course.”
Thomas turned. “You knew Coutt?” Thomas thought of the lad’s metal leg, which would have made him easily identifiable to the villagers.
“I knowed ’im all right,” said Godson, adding: “ ’E played a dangerous game.”
“What do you mean?”
“ ’E were a spy for them at the hall,” came the blunt reply. “For that new steward.”
The unexpected sight of the stable lad at Boughton suddenly flashed before Thomas. He knew there had to be some connection with the stash of smuggled goods at the old ruins.
From his saddle he looked along the track, now framed by verdant leaves. “How far is it from the old ruins to where Mr. Turgoose was murdered, Mr. Godson?” he asked.
The charcoal burner cupped his sooty hand and rubbed his neck in thought. “A mile, I’d say.”
Thomas wondered it was so far. The distance cast doubt on his theory that the surveyor and his party had come across the smugglers’ stash at the ruins.
“Thank you, Mr. Godson,” said Thomas. He was just about to turn his horse when the charcoal burner raised an arm.
“There is something you wish to tell me?” asked the doctor.
The charcoal burner squinted against the sunlight that now lanced its way into the clearing.
“Abe Diggott,” he said.
“Yes?”
“He didn’t kill the mapmaker. Nor did Adam.”
Thomas steadied his horse, which was growing restless. “What makes you so sure?”
Godson shifted awkwardly and paused before delivering his words. “Because we was near the place where the mapmaker was killed, sir.”
Thomas whipped ’round. “Oh? Why was that?”
“We wanted to fright ’em,” he mumbled. “They wasn’t welcome, so we gave ’em a scare.”
Thomas thought of the soot he had scraped off the foliage near the scene of the murder. “You blacked your faces, yes?” It suddenly made perfect sense. He’d heard of gangs in Surrey sooting themselves so they could continue hunting free of charge on common land. From the charcoal burner’s expression, however, there was more. “You saw something, didn’t you?” pressed Thomas. “You saw who killed Mr. Turgoose?”
The charcoal burner shook his head vigoro
usly. “I swear we never. We ’eard the ’orse whinny when it fell into the pit and we ’eard the shot. Then we ran as quick as lightning.”
“We?”
“There was a few of us.”
“Who?” As soon as he had asked the question, Thomas knew it would be futile to ask the man to betray his friends. “What were you doing in the woods?”
The charcoal burner lifted his smoke-smudged face and looked Thomas squarely in the eye. With a rueful expression that betrayed his deep regret, he confessed: “ ’Twas us that dug the pit.”
Chapter 37
“So vhat have we here?” asked Professor Hascher, watching Thomas set down the earthenware flagon on his workbench back in Oxford.
“I very much hope it is the proof that will save a man’s life,” he replied.
For a moment, the professor looked puzzled until he realized: “Ah, it contains ze gin?”
Thomas nodded. “This is Abe Diggott’s flagon. The glaze inside is deeply pitted.”
“And you zink zere is lead in ze glaze zat is reacting viz ze gin, ja?”
“I am convinced of it,” he replied.
The pair of them set to work. Professor Hascher took charge of the controlled experiment once more, impregnating a piece of paper with schnapps, while Thomas worked with the gin. To each sample Hepar sulfuris was added. Both of them tensed. Hascher’s sample remained unaltered, but within a minute the gin sample had turned a murky gray; within four it was completely black.
“You vere right.” The professor beamed. “Ze lead concentration must be at least double zat of ze ozer gin.”
Thomas nodded. The relief was obvious in his expression, although he knew it was only one step in proving Abe Diggott’s innocence. He took a deep breath and shrugged. “Now all I need do is convince a judge and jury of the effect this poison can have on a man,” he said.
