The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 2 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

  De Lisle slowly sat down again, the clerk’s pen was poised over his parchment, Alfred looked hopeful.

  “De Kellseye knew he was very ill and was dying. His window gave me the clue. He told her he longer had anything to fear but God. He wanted to protect his beautiful wife and have his estate restored to her in her widowhood. His plan was to pretend he was going to establish his innocence and make it look as if he were murdered to keep him silent. He started laying the foundations of his plan some months ago, and I believe he bought himself time by saying I had to be found. He still had to choose his method. At first, when I found drops of recent blood in his room I thought he’d been murdered there and taken to the menagerie to cover up the deed as an accident. But there was a complete lack of evidence. What did I know about the man himself, both from the past and the present? He was a thinker, a planner. He made himself as inconspicuous as possible – a model prisoner. At night, of course, he was locked in his room. Nor could he plan an escape from the Tower because that might endanger his wife and family. Otherwise he moved about freely. He would know the routine at the menagerie, and when Osric and his assistants would be busy and he could slip in unnoticed.

  “When I examined the body I found he had a huge and prominent tumour in his abdomen.” I had been lucky there. His illness could have been far more hidden. “I suggest the surgeon opens up his body, and that you question those who served him – he was probably eating very little. I also found marks on his arms from copious bleedings. The doctor confirms he attended him yesterday morning, that de Kellseye had complained of a weakness of the humours, but did not mention his stomach. Also, de Kellseye said he would dispose of the blood in the bowl. This was where the blood on the floor came from. He smeared that blood on his tunic before going to the menagerie.”

  I stopped. They were all gaping at me.

  “Well,” de Lisle prompted me. “What happened then?”

  “It was a brave and wild act, but maybe the knowledge he only had a few days left in this earthly sphere gave him the necessary courage. He unbolted the lion’s cage, exposed his tunic, and must have taunted the lion.”

  There was a choking sound. Alfred looked white. “I hope it were quick,” he said. “But, the sword wound?”

  “Ah,” I hesitated. I’d hoped he’d forget that. “He must have stabbed himself just as he entered – perhaps threw his sword into the sewers or the river.”

  “Hummm.” De Lisle stared down at the oak table, frowning. “I don’t like it at all. The man killed himself – that is against the laws of God.”

  “That’s why I asked for this private interview. He did it for the sake of his wife and family. He sacrificed his own honour for them. Proclaim it an accident – he was faint from bleeding and his illness and didn’t know what he was doing. The lion was provoked and only followed his natural instinct for blood. Meet Mistress de Kellseye. Talk to her and then make your decision.”

  I now had to wait. Would de Lisle investigate further or would he, in a manner of speaking, throw me to the lions?

  Was it my imagination or did the air smell sweeter once I had crossed the moat and passed through Lion Gate and was on the outside again, alone this time and a free man? Even the lump on my head did not feel so tender. I knew exactly where I was headed. There were old friends to visit, old ties to inspect, before I headed north again . . . yes, of course I was going north again. Wasn’t I?

  I wanted to run, just in case de Lisle changed his mind, but I forced myself to walk. The tumour had indeed been a big one and further questioning confirmed my suspicions. The surgeon said de Kellseye would indeed probably have lived only a few more days. De Lisle and the surgeon and those others of us who were asked to speak told the Coroner and jury that it was an accident. The widow and family were safe, though I sensed de Lisle would be keeping an eye on her just in case the missing money mysteriously resurfaced.

  As I walked I recalled the last conversation I’d had before leaving the Tower.

  “That was quite a blow you gave me the other night,” I told Osric. “You must have been worried I’d find out what really happened and give you away.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, but his eyes betrayed the truth.

  “I know it was you who put the sword in. You arrived first and alone and saw in an instant what de Kellseye had done and that he was dead. You feared that Hannibal would be destroyed for attacking a live man and so you drew your sword and stabbed him – to save your lion’s life by making it look like murder. You chased Hannibal into his cage somehow – that lion must really love you – and tossed the sword into the bear’s cage, under the straw, retrieving it later when I saw you.”

  Osric sucked on his moustache and all he would say was, “I’ve heard that once they gets a taste for human flesh they wants it again. But he’s a gentle beast that one. I thinks his taste’ll be enough to put him off for life.”

  Osric always had preferred animals to humankind, and who’s to say he’s wrong?

  The Amorous Armourer

  Michael Jecks

  For over six years, Michael Jecks (b. 1960) has been producing the popular series of West Country novels featuring former Templar and Keeper of the King’s Peace, Sir Baldwin Furnshill, and his colleague, Simon Puttock, bailiff of Lydford castle. The series began with The Last Templar (1995) and continued with The Merchant’s Partner (1995), A Moorland Hanging (1996), The Crediton Killings (1997), The Abbot’s Gibbet (1998), The Leper’s Return (1998), Squire Throwleigh’s Heir (1999), Belladonna at Belstone (1999), The Traitor of St Giles (2000) and The Boy Bishop’s Glovemaker (2000). The following is a brand-new Sir Baldwin story.

  When he crouched at the body’s side and studied the small, insignificant-looking wound, Sir Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King’s Peace for Crediton in the county of Devonshire, was struck by the melancholy atmosphere of the place.

  Often a murder scene felt cold and sad, as if the departing soul had removed all warmth as it fled, but here, in the small hall down an alley off Crediton’s high street, there was a sense of poignant gloom that Baldwin had not experienced before and he looked about him for a moment, wondering where the feeling came from. Certainly it was cold. The fire had been out overnight and there was a damp chill in the air, as though the house had been deserted for months. Apart from that there was little to differentiate the room from many another prosperous artisan’s property, except for its comparative emptiness.

  Usually there would be tapestries, cushions and flowers and occasional scatterings of fresh herbs among the rushes to disguise the more distasteful odours where a dog or hog had soiled the floor. Walls would have paintings on them or tapestries to keep the cold at bay, tables and cupboards would have good linen spread over them, chairs would have cushions – but not here.

  Baldwin was honest enough to admit to himself that the decoration was remarkably similar to his own before his marriage. It was unremittingly masculine: there was no indication that it had ever enjoyed the influence of a woman’s hand, as if the dead man wanted nothing that might remind him of feminine comforts.

  The table tops were plain, scraped wood; stools and benches bare, the fireplace was a rough circle of fire baked clay on the earthen floor delineated by moorstone rocks. The sole evidence of luxury lay in the man’s upper chamber. He had so valued his sleep that he had constructed a bedchamber reached by ladder.

  “You recognize him, Sir Baldwin?”

  Baldwin nodded as he reached inside the shirt to study the stab wound more closely. There was a rough oval mark about in, and Baldwin considered it thoughtfully before answering. “Yes, Tanner. Humphrey the armourer.”

  “He came here little more than a year ago,” Tanner said, his gaze moving about the room. “Poor bastard.”

  Baldwin grunted agreement. “No wife?”

  “He came here when she died. Some disease or other she got in Exeter.” His tone showed that he was unsurprised by people dying in such a terrible
place. Tanner was a heavy man with a square, calm face weather-beaten to a leathery toughness. He always asserted that there were many more vicious and evil creatures in cities like Exeter than in the wilds of Dartmoor.

  “And he left behind all his memories,” Baldwin murmured, looking about him once more. It was as if Humphrey had intentionally eradicated all trace of her. Baldwin thought it sad. If his own wife were to die, he would want to remember her.

  “Some men try to forget dead women,” Tanner suggested. “Makes it easier to snare another wife.”

  “You think he was a womanizer?”

  “Not really. There were rumours he liked the whores, though.”

  Baldwin noted the gossip. Any clues could help find the killer. “Was he robbed?”

  “There’s a chest up in his bedchamber. His purse is empty.”

  Baldwin grunted to himself, then made his way laboriously up the ladder. He had never liked heights, but today the corpse distracted him enough for him to be able to get into the small bedroom before realising how far from the ground he was.

  The chamber was large enough for a thick palliasse and chest, which he opened. Inside were clothes and some plate. A thief would have stolen them. There was one other thing Baldwin noticed. By the side of the palliasse was a cloth, a square of fabric with careful embroidery all about the edge. “A pretty kerchief, Tanner,” he said, letting it fall to the constable.

  Back on solid ground, Baldwin took the kerchief back and smelled it. There was a faint odour of perfume about it. “Whose was this?”

  “I’ve never seen it before,” Tanner said.

  “No? It is a decorative little scrap, though. And out of place in a bachelor’s hall. Keep it by, Tanner. We may need it.”

  “He won’t, will he?” The Constable observed, stuffing it into his belt.

  “No, Humphrey is beyond caring. Shame he wasn’t wearing some of his armour when this happened,” Baldwin said. Blood had flowed thinly from the dead man’s wound, but there were one or two smudges, as if someone had stood in the gore. Perhaps it was the killer? he mused. No matter. The prints were too indistinct to be able to tell anything from them. “The door was open?”

  “No, Sir Baldwin. Locked. We had to come in through the window.”

  Baldwin looked up at the unglazed window. It was high in the western wall to catch the dying sun without allowing a thief to clamber in with ease, and now he looked he could see that the timber mullions had been broken. “You got in there?”

  “Yes. But when I got here, there was no key in the door.”

  “Where was it?”

  “On a ring of keys on his belt. Here.”

  Tanner passed him the heavy keyring and Baldwin stood weighing it in his hands. “You suggest somebody was in here, stabbed the armourer, left, and the armourer then obligingly rose and locked the door after him? Not with that wound.”

  “No,” Tanner agreed. “He couldn’t have got to the door and locked it. He must have died almost immediately.”

  “So someone else locked the door. From outside, or from in here?”

  “There’s no other way in or out that I’ve found.”

  “Good! So they left by the door,” Baldwin said. “And that means that they must have had a key of their own. Who would have been friendly with this man?”

  “That I don’t know, Sir Baldwin.”

  “Neither do I, so let us speak to the neighbours.”

  They were all waiting outside under the suspicious gaze of a watchman who held his wooden staff like a man keen to show his expertise. No one would dare to run away.

  Not that there was much point, Baldwin reminded himself. There was nowhere to run to for people whose business and livelihood was tied up with Crediton. However all the neighbours must be kept until they had been attached, made to pay a surety that guaranteed that they would attend the Justice’s court when he next appeared. All of them would be fined anyway, because any man who lived near a murder was taxed for the infringement of the King’s Peace, which was why the men shuffled resentfully.

  “You have sent for the Coroner?” Baldwin asked Tanner quietly.

  “Yes. The messenger left at the same time as the man sent to fetch you.”

  “Good. So we need not keep these folk too long, hopefully.” Baldwin said. “Although the dull-witted fool may take his time.”

  “He usually does,” Tanner growled.

  Both knew the Coroner. Sir Roger de Gidleigh had been a useful ally in Baldwin’s previous investigations, but he had been thrown from his horse earlier in the summer and was confined to his bed, a shrunken, twisted reminder of his previous hale and powerful self. In his place Sir Gilbert of Axminster had been installed.

  Compared with Sir Roger, Sir Gilbert was a weakly and insipid youth. Sir Gilbert had never taken part in a battle, nor had he earned his rank from proving his honour. No, he had become a knight under the ridiculous rules by which any man who owned an estate worth more than £40 each year could be compelled to take up knighthood; it led to cretins like Sir Gilbert wearing the golden spurs, Baldwin thought contemptuously. Feeble-minded doddypolls who were scarcely capable of lacing their enamelled sword-belts. And once knighted, Sir Gilbert’s puerile sense of humour and effeminate manner had led to his advancement to Coroner. With a King like Edward II, who preferred favourites like Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser to his own wife, it was no surprise that men like Sir Gilbert found senior posts.

  It hurt Baldwin particularly because he had been a “Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ and the Temple of Solomon”, a Knight Templar, who had risked his life in the hell-hole of Acre in 1291 as that great city fell to the Saracen hordes. The Templars had been honourable, devoted monks who had taken the threefold oaths of poverty, chastity and obedience, and yet they had been slaughtered for personal gain. The French King had covetted their wealth, so he unleashed a storm of impossible accusations against them, having them arrested and then burned at the stake like heretics, all because he wanted their money.

  That was the prick that drove Baldwin to investigate crimes: he had been the victim of persecution; he had suffered from the lies of politicians; he knew how difficult it was to deny the claims of bigots. All made him determined to protect others who suffered from injustice.

  The memory of his dead friends brought a scowl of disgust to his face; the memory of his comrades’ foul deaths made him wear an expression of glowering bitterness, which lent his dark features a ferocious air, a fact which was brought home to him when he caught the eye of a young girl, who recoiled as though from a blow.

  Abruptly he turned and glanced again at the dead man’s hall, trying to drive away the memory of burning Templars.

  “Looks new still, doesn’t it?” Tanner said, following the direction of his look. He was still unused to his Keeper’s sudden mood swings, even after six years.

  Baldwin grunted assent. The hall shone, showing the gleaming white of fresh limewash. The oak timbers were light-coloured, fresh and had hardly twisted or cracked yet. It would need a couple of good winters to weather them.

  Alongside was the man’s place of work. Before talking to the waiting neighbours, Baldwin entered it.

  It was a long, low building, as new as the hall. At the far end were the huge hammers which were tripped by cams beneath, driven by the massive wheel outside in the leat. A large anvil sat in the middle of the floor, standing upon a tree’s trunk, and all about were sheets of metal, tools and the detritus of the forge: broken blades, offcuts from helmets or plate armour. At one corner stood straw dummies with armour bound to them. A trestle contained two helms and various farming implements: scythes, hammers, axes, and blades for wooden shovels.

  Everywhere there was the stench of the armourer: the sharp tang of metal and rust, the insidious odour of oil, the brackish, unpleasant scent of the filthy water used to quench the red-hot metal and temper it, but above all there were two smells: the sweetness of the beeswax which was rubbed over the metal while still ho
t to prevent rusting, and the noisome stink of animal excrement, almost human in its foul pungency.

  “He has a pig?” Baldwin asked. There was no sign of it.

  “Everyone has a pig,” came Tanner’s laconic reply.

  Baldwin nodded, but walked to the corner where the smell came from. “Nothing here.”

  “Maybe it’s out in an orchard or woods?”

  “Odd time of year for that,” Baldwin said. Hogs were usually left to rootle about in yards on their own, which was why they so often escaped and caused such mayhem in the roads. They were such a nuisance that if someone caught another man’s pig, he could demand its execution and claim its trotters as reward.

  He could learn nothing from a pig’s excrement. Baldwin peered about him again. It was a remarkably clean, well ordered smithy. Blacksmiths he had known tended to work bare-chested, apart from their leather aprons, in black, sooty rooms. They were invariably wiry, lean men with hands scarred from gripping hot metal, their faces weathered and crazed with wrinkles from staring into white-hot charcoal as they tempered blades and armour. Humphrey’s forge was almost clean and tidy. Only by the anvil itself were there the fine silvery flakes which showed that red-hot metal had been worked.

  “Massive hammers, those,” Tanner mused.

  “You need them to make blades,” Baldwin said, then he paused. “I wonder if it was one of his own which killed him?”

  Back outside, he studied the shuffling, anxious men.

  “Who lived nearest the armourer?” Baldwin called out. Although there was a general movement among the men standing before him, no one cared to volunteer information to the Keeper of the King’s Peace. He was the most powerful and important of all the King’s local officials, and as such inspired fear. It was a constant cause of irritation and near-despair for Baldwin. He could never understand why he should be viewed with such alarm. However today he was aware of a certain lethargic dullness growing within him. It was not his place to investigate and report on murders – that was the Coroner’s duty – and Baldwin wished to be gone from here. In truth it was tempting to go and leave Sir Gilbert to his task – but if he did, he knew he could fear that the wrong man could be arrested for the murder. He had no faith in Sir Gilbert.