The Tinner's Corpse

by Bernard Knight

  ‘I told him not to meddle in that testament. Nothing but ill could come of it!’ she wailed. De Wolfe seized on this, and prised the story from her. When Walter had remarried, Peter had been concerned naturally that his expectations from the inheritance were in danger, especially if Joan bore a child. His stepfather had refused to give him any hint of his intentions, either before or after the marriage, and Peter eventually persuaded Martha to approach her father, Walter’s lawyer. Robert Courteman refused outright, indignant at her attempt to undermine his professional ethics, so Martha went to work on the weaker party, her brother.

  Reluctantly, he eventually agreed to ferret out what he could and secretly searched among his father’s rolls. He reported that the testament he discovered still gave Peter and Matthew virtually half-shares in the estate, but another parchment indicated that Walter had demanded a new will be drafted, giving Joan a similar share. There was no mention of the eight-tenths, should she conceive a child, but she was to share equally with Peter and Matthew.

  ‘Philip told me only two weeks ago that the revised testament had not been signed,’ whimpered Martha tearfully, ‘but he knew that it soon would be, after Walter had made some further amendments. But now it seems clear that he knew much less about his father’s business than he thought, for another version of the will must already have been signed.’

  De Wolfe looked down gravely at her. ‘Is there anything else you should tell me?’

  Now that the dam had been breached, she seemed resigned to letting slip other matters. ‘There has been ill-feeling between Matthew and Peter these past weeks, as my husband has long suspected that Matthew has been indulgingin sharp practices with Walter’s business. Peter has been checking secretly on the commissions that Matthew has been taking on the finished tin – especially that sent abroad, to Flanders and the Rhine. It became clear that, for years now, Matthew has been persistently robbing his brother.’

  John wondered if this had much to do with the main problem, but felt he should probe further. ‘What was your man going to do about it?’

  ‘He confronted Matthew a couple of weeks ago, telling him he knew of the embezzlement. Matthew tried to deny it, but Peter said that unless it stopped straight away he would have to tell Walter. For one thing, the loss of income reflected on Peter, who might be accused of being party to the deception – and also we were losing money ourselves, as Peter lives on a small proportion of the remaining profits after Matthew had squeezed out his extra commission.’

  ‘Did he tell Walter?

  She shook her head, tears slowly dribbling down her cheeks. ‘Walter died before Peter’s ultimatum to Matthew ran out. Then, of course, we began to worry in case Matthew was behind Walter’s death, in order to prevent the scandal from being revealed.’

  De Wolfe digested this and saw there was a faint possibility of a yet unsuspected motive for Knapman’s murder. But he returned to the matter of the testament. ‘Did your husband say that he intended taking action over this situation?’

  She looked up fearfully and shook her head, but John felt that she was refusing to admit, even to herself, what she feared deep down. ‘And you have no idea where he is now?’

  She shook her head again, wordlessly, and de Wolfe tapped Gwyn on the arm, jerking his head towards the door.

  Outside, as they swung themselves into their saddles, de Wolfe was grim-faced as he spoke. ‘I’ve a bad feeling about this. Let’s get ourselves back to Polsloe as quickly as we can.’

  When they returned to the priory, everything seemed as they had left it. Philip Courteman was still slumped on his bench in the infirmary, holding his sore, bandaged head in his hands, half asleep from a potion they had given him to ease the pain.

  Dame Madge, somewhat puzzled by the coroner’s speedy reappearance, assured him that Mistress Knapman was still sleeping peacefully. Hermotherhad been sitting with her, but had just gone to the refectory to eat, the excitements of the day being insufficient to affect her appetite.

  De Wolfe stood indecisively in the infirmary, having sent Gwyn to scout around the grounds to see if there was any sign of Peter Jordan, who was now a suspect. While he waited for his officer to return, he conversed with the gaunt nun, for whom he had considerable regard. They reminisced about the previous case in which she had been so helpful, and in turn, the nun enquired after the state of body and mind of Christina Rifford, the portreeve’s daughter who had been so sorely ravished a few months earlier.

  Suddenly their amiable conversation was rent by a scream from beyond the door of the adjacent cell where Joan was resting, followed by a crash, roars and yelling from a distance. The coroner rushed to the door, Dame Madge at his shoulder, and burst into the small, bare room.

  Joan was sitting up on the low bed, clutching a blanket across her bosom. Muzzy from the sleeping potion, she croaked through her bruised throat. ‘A man was there!’ She pointed shakily with her free hand to the unshuttered window. Below it, a table that had carried a wooden crucifix and a jug of water lay overturned on the floor. The window opening was empty, and when de Wolfe peered out he could see nothing but the open garden around the priory buildings – but fading shouts and thudding feet told of something amiss out there. He ran out of the room and through the outer door, turning right to follow the sounds of pursuit. Among the indistinct shouts, the only word he caught was ‘Sanctuary!’

  The stone chapel lay across the garden and he ran as fast as his long legs would carry him, outstripping the nun, whose long skirts hampered her muscular legs. Once round the corner of the chapel, he skidded to a halt at a remarkable sight. Gwyn was in the process of hurling a writhing body over the drystone wall that formed the boundary of the priory on to some wasteground lying between it and the surrounding trees. His officer then vaulted the wall in a single leap, with one hand on the top, and dropped from sight, though his roars and another’s yells rose from behind the stone barrier. As de Wolfe ran across, he heard Gwyn snarl, ‘This is the only sanctuary you’ll get, you evil little bastard!’

  Peering over the wall, he saw the tousle-haired Cornishman sitting astride a smaller figure, his massive hands pinning the wrists to the ground. Near the trapped fingers of the right hand, a naked dagger lay in the coarse grass. Gwyn’s body obscured the captive’s face, but on moving along the wall, de Wolfe saw, without surprise, that it was Peter Jordan. His face was twisted into a mask of hate as he struggled ineffectually to free himself, spitting oaths and invective.

  Hearing a rustle alongside him, John turned to find Dame Madge also peering over the wall. He took her arm gently and pulled her away. ‘I fear his language is hardly suitable for your ears, Sister.’

  She smiled at him, and her stern face lit with an almost mischievous radiance. ‘I am no recluse, Crowner, but a working sister who goes among the people every day. I doubt there is a single new oath you could teach me.’ Her smile faded as she pointed towards the wall, where Gwyn could be heard hauling the prisoner to his feet amid a barrage of curses. ‘I have no idea what this is about, Sir John, but was that man trying to harm the young lady?’

  De Wolfe nodded, as several other sisters, Lucy and a couple of priory menservants came running towards them.

  ‘I think he had climbed half through that window when Gwyn caught him just in time. He had a knife in his hand and was trying to finish what his paid assassin had failed to do in the forest this morning.’

  Dame Madge grimaced in despair at the vileness of men, then became her usual efficient self, sending the others about their business and telling Lucy to attend to her frightened daughter. De Wolfe walked back to a gate in the wall and hurried after Gwyn, who was frog-marching Peter Jordan around the perimeter to the front of the priory. ‘Best keep this young swine clear of the chapel, Crowner. He might make another break for sanctuary.’

  De Wolfe knew that, strictly speaking, sanctuary could have been claimed anywhere within the priory grounds: it was not necessary to enter a church – and certainly not to be at
the altar, as some mistakenly believed. But he held his tongue, trusting that Jordan was unaware of this. Also, he did not want to deflate Gwyn’s pride in having cornered the villain.

  The villain in question had fallen silent, perhaps thinking that the less he said, the less could be held against him. His face was ghastly white against his drooping black moustache and his eyes held a hint of madness, which de Wolfe felt must be genuine, as no one in their right mind would hope to get away with openly knifing the only person who stood between him and Knapman’s fortune.

  ‘Now, what do we do with this creature?’ asked Gwyn, as they reached the road at the front of the priory.

  ‘You take him back to Rougemont and give him into Stigand’s tender care.’

  De Wolfe helped Gwyn to tie the wrists of the now silent captive with a length of rope, the other end being lashed to the saddle of his officer’s horse. He watched as they set off for Exeter at a walking pace, Jordan half dragged, half stumbling behind the mare on the mile-long journey, which John expected to be his last sight of the outside world until he was taken to the gallows beyond Magdalen Street.

  He saw them vanish through the trees, then went back into the infirmary to check on Mistress Knapman’s condition after her fright, and to offer a final apology to Dame Madge for the disturbance of the normally placid life of Polsloe Priory. At the same time, he craved the permission of the amiable prioress to hold an inquest in the yard next day, as the body of Oswin still lay in the shed that was their tiny mortuary.

  Late that afternoon, John de Wolfe marched across the drying mud of Rougemont’s inner ward towards the undercroft of the keep. Gwyn and Thomas were at his heels, the clerk carrying his shapeless bag containing parchments, ink and quill.

  They went down the few steps and under the forbidding archway that led into the gloomy cavern, half below ground, that extended under the whole keep. One part was open, with a filthy floor of packed earth that acted as store-room, torture chamber and lodging for the gaoler. The other half was partitioned by a wall, in which a gate of rusty iron bars gave access to half a dozen cells of indescribable squalor.

  Gwyn went across to an archway screened by a wattle hurdle and woke the gaoler with a none-too-gentle prod of his boot. Muttering and swearing, Stigand staggered to his feet and waddled over to the gate, jangling some keys on a ring at his belt. Inside, the cells led off a short passage and the surly custodian unlocked the first door on the left, then stood aside to let them enter.

  In the semi-darkness, it took de Wolfe a moment to make out the occupant, sitting dejectedly on the slate slab that served as a bed. A cracked earthenware jug and a stinking leather bucket stood on the soiled straw of the floor, through which a rat rustled its way to a corner.

  Although Peter Jordan had been incarcerated for only a few hours, he was already filthy from his surroundings: every surface in the cell was coated with a mixture of oozing damp, mould and the excretions of previous tenants.

  He looked up, and in the gloom de Wolfe could see that his dejection had turned to defiance. ‘You’ll regret this mistake, Crowner!’ he hissed, his voice trembling with emotion.

  ‘Not nearly as much as you will, lad, when you’re standing on a ladder with a rope around your neck,’ replied John evenly.

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong – and you can’t prove that I have.’

  Gwyn prodded Jordan’s shoulder with a finger, jerking him backwards. ‘What about climbing in at your stepmother’s window with a knife in your hand?’

  ‘I had no knife in my hand – I drew that after you assaulted me, to defend myself, you great brute!’

  Gwyn burst out laughing, his guffaws echoing through the vault, but de Wolfe’s black brows came together in anxiety. This was no ignorant villager they had to deal with but an intelligent merchant, with two lawyers in his wife’s family. ‘I’m here to take your confession, Jordan,’ he said. ‘You can add anything in your defence, and my clerk will record it all for the King’s justices, when they come to try you at the Assize.’

  The captive spat contemptuously into the straw. ‘Confession be damned! I’ve nothing to confess – nor anything else to say to you, unless my father-in-law is here to protect me.’

  The coroner sighed. This was going to be more difficult that he had expected. ‘How did you get Oswin to kill for you? Was it just a matter of money?’

  Jordan looked straight ahead when he answered. ‘I know nothing of Oswin’s acts. He is Matthew’s man, and you are talking to the wrong person.’

  ‘It wasn’t Matthew who climbed through the priory window,’ said Gwyn.

  ‘I was only trying to see how Joan was faring, after her ordeal.’

  Both de Wolfe and Gwyn barked in amusement at this remark.

  ‘Did her room have no door, that you needed to clamber through the window?’ chortled the Cornishman.

  ‘That damned brother-in-law of mine was sitting outside. I wanted to avoid him.’

  De Wolfe nodded. ‘Because he misled you over the testament?’

  Peter’s head jerked up. ‘That’s no crime, to want to learn what your rightful inheritance might be.’

  ‘But killing your stepfather was a crime – and for nothing, as it turned out. Philip’s information about the will was out of date.’

  ‘I did not kill Walter – I have not killed anyone!’ He dropped his eyes to the floor again. ‘I have nothing more to say to you.’

  De Wolfe folded his arms under his cloak and stood hunched over the figure drooping on the slab. ‘You would do better to talk to me, Peter. There are others who do the sheriff’s bidding who favour more violent methods of extracting confessions.’

  The young man remained silent, and from then on refused to say another word. Gwyn offered to ‘persuade’ him, and waved a huge fist under his nose, but de Wolfe pulled him out of the cell and motioned to the wheezing gaoler to lock up again.

  On the way out of the undercroft, with Thomas trailing behind, his parchments unsullied, John was philosophical about their wasted visit. ‘There’s nothing I can use at the inquest tomorrow, if he refuses to confess. All we can do is record all that’s known and let Hubert Walter’s judges sort it out when they come.’

  ‘If they come,’ muttered Gwyn under his breath.

  That evening over supper, de Wolfe dutifully told his wife of the day’s events. She seemed moderately interested because a rich widow and the nuns of Polsloe were involved, as well as the city’s most prominent lawyer and his family. As her husband had slept at home the past couple of nights, she had little to nag him about, though he knew that he would pay dearly for a long time over his part in the downfall of Theobald Fitz-Ivo, which reflected badly on Matilda’s brother. She had also lost another weapon from her armoury of abuse now that he had ceased his visits to the Bush Inn, though she could still throw some cynical barbs at him over his rejection by his mistress. ‘And where are we going tonight, husband?’ she asked, with mock sweetness, when he announced that he was taking Brutus for a walk. ‘To the Golden Hind or the Plough? Though I hear the whores are more numerous at the Saracen.’

  Without deigning to answer, he whistled to the hound and went out through the screens, slamming the door resoundingly behind him.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  In which Crowner John becomes exasperated

  As only men were eligible to be members of a jury, Gwyn had trawled around the several small hamlets strung out along the Cullompton road out of Polsloe. To get every man from the four nearest villages, as the law demanded, was patently impossible, so he rounded up twenty-five reluctant men and boys of over twelve years old. These he had shepherded down to the large compound around the priory by noon, when witnesses arrived from Exeter.

  The day was fine but breezy, and when Oswin’s bulky corpse was carried out on the chapel bier by two priory servants, a couple of stones had to be laid on the shroud to prevent it blowing away. The morning services were over and the Prioress and Dame Madge, with three of the six
nuns, joined the wide circle of jurors and witnesses around the chair placed ready for John de Wolfe.

  One other person was sitting: Joan Knapman, a scarf wound around her throat, was considered fragile after her two shocking experiences. Privately, de Wolfe thought she was as tough as her mother, who was fussing ostentatiously over her like a hen with a single chick. He went over to pay his respects before the inquest began and to ask how she fared after the attack. He admitted wryly to himself that he enjoyed being near to such a lovely young woman, and the huskiness of her voice after her ordeal made her sound even more seductive than usual.

  ‘I am as well as might be expected, thank you, Sir John,’ she said, looking up at him languorously, the close proximity of her glistening violet eyes and full lips causing him to experience fleeting thoughts that had nothing to do with the King’s coronership.

  ‘Dame Madge informs me that there has been no danger to your unborn child, Madam.’ He let his glance drop to her waist, but the only fullness was delightfully higher.

  ‘There is no problem, thank God. All I have is this soreness in my throat.’ She held back her head and briefly touched her neck with her slim fingers.

  He dragged his mind back to more professional matters and asked her one more question. ‘When you were disturbed in the priory cell, what did you see of the intruder? Was there a knife in his hand? Peter Jordan denies it.’

  She moved her head slowly from side to side, keeping her eyes fixed on his face. ‘I cannot help you at all, Crowner, for I was fast asleep, and when I was rudely woken by the crash of that fallen table, the window space was empty. I cannot even say that any intruder was there – apart from the table being tipped – let alone who it was or whether he carried a knife.’

  Her voice became weaker and rougher after so many words and de Wolfe abandoned his questions, but patted her shoulder as he thanked her for her help. He walked back to his solitary chair, and nodded to his officer to begin.