Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

Frustrated, they returned to their horses and stood in the middle of the track for a few minutes, looking at the river, the forest and the road from Exeter.

‘We may as well have a word with the miller, now that we’re here,’ grunted de Wolfe, with little enthusiasm but unwilling to leave any stone unturned. They remounted and walked their steeds down the path to the mill, which was visible behind a clump of trees near the riverbank. The rumble of the water-wheel grew louder as they approached the yard, where several ox-carts were delivering sacks of grain and loading up with flour for Dunsford and other neighbouring villages. One of the carters yelled for the miller and a dusty man soon clattered down the steps from the wooden building, banging flour from his leather apron as he came.

De Wolfe announced who they were and the miller, a florid, heavy fellow with blackened stumps for teeth, immediately became deferential and almost obsequious. Walter Knapman had been his master since the tin-master had bought the mill from the manor lord and he was eager to help any investigation into his death — not least because his job might depend on who took over from the dead owner. He also had a small item of news for the coroner. ‘Since Knapman’s men from Chagford came to search for him, a lad has said that he saw some men near the track soon after Knapman left here,’ he gabbled, waving an arm vaguely behind him.

De Wolfe’s black brows came together in a fierce expression at the words. ‘Why did we not know of this earlier?’ he demanded.

The miller turned up his whitened hands deprecatingly. ‘The boy is simple, Crowner. It only came out last night, when he was talking to his father. He’s one of my labourers, lives in that hut down on the riverbank.’ He yelled for the fellow, a scrawny, pale man who looked too frail to be lifting full sacks of grain and flour.

Within minutes, he was taking de Wolfe and Gwyn down the footpath behind the mill to a ramshackle cottage made of cob, roofed with turf. A few geese and fowls scratched outside and a thin cow was tied to a post near the hole that served as a doorway. Behind a square of hurdles, half a dozen pigs squealed their way around a mud-patch.

‘My wife keeps a few swine and our youngest son tends them. He was born late in my life and his poor mind is addled — though his three brothers are all well,’ the man said defensively. His Devon accent was so thick that even de Wolfe, a native of the south of the county, had difficulty in following his words.

‘What’s this news he might have about Master Knapman?’ the coroner snapped impatiently.

For answer, the mill-man stuck his head through the doorway and yelled something unintelligible. A moment later, a boy staggered out, helped by a push from a shadowy female figure inside the dwelling. ‘He’s wary of strangers since he was set on for sport by some soldiers passing on the road,’ explained his father, apologetically. He grabbed the lad by the arm and shouted at him, ‘Come now, Arthur, tell these gentlemen what you said to me last night.’

The boy was older than he appeared at first sight, probably thirteen or so, but his round, vacant face suggested that his comprehension was that of a child half his age. The tip of his tongue protruded between loose lips as his small eyes roved fearfully across the strangers’ faces. He muttered something that de Wolfe could not catch. ‘What did he say?’ he snapped.

The father translated and enlarged on his son’s story. ‘On the day the master vanished, Arthur here was herding the pigs in the wood on the other side of the main track, a tidy way up the hill. It must have been some time before noon as he knew he must soon come back here for his dinner.’

John thought testily that the mill-man was as bad as Gwyn for slowness in coming to the point, but with an effort he held his tongue.

‘He says he saw Master Knapman ride up the track from the mill and meet another horseman who came out of the wood. They both stopped then went back into the forest where there is a deer-track.’ He stopped to shake the boy by the shoulder and more indistinct words passed between them. Thomas, a Hampshireman, had not the faintest idea of what they said, so thick was their local accent.

‘Was that all he saw? Who was the other man? Does he know?’ demanded the coroner.

The father shook his head. ‘He knows the master by sight. The other was a stranger.’

‘Was that all he saw?’

‘No. He says another man, on foot with no horse, came out of the trees lower down the road and followed the two riders into the forest. That was the last he saw of them as he wanted his dinner and came home then.’

The lad looked from one man to the other as they spoke, his dull eyes striving to make sense of what was going on.

‘What were the men like, son?’ asked Gwyn, stooping to the boy and speaking kindly.

‘You’ll have to speak up, sir — he’s hard of hearing, too, has been since a babe.’ The father repeated the question in his loud, crude dialect and received some garbled answer from the boy.

‘He say he only knew the master — the others were strangers.’

‘Were they tall or short? What were they wearing? What sort of horse did the first man ride?’ De Wolfe rapped out a string of questions, but the result was disappointing.

‘His eyes are poor too, sir — he was the runt of our litter, as God willed it. He says the man on foot was big, that’s all he knows. The mounted man had a brown horse and wore some brown garment.’

Five more minutes of fruitless questioning brought forth no more information, but reduced the lad to frightened tears.

Gwyn, a lover of dogs and children, wagged his head at de Wolfe. ‘We’ll get nothing more from the poor boy now.’ He led him back to the doorway and placed a halved penny in his hand, before gently pushing him inside to his hovering mother.

‘Can you show us where this deer-track is?’ grunted de Wolfe to the mill-man. A few moments later, the labourer was indicating a narrow path, half hidden by a bramble bush, leading into the sweep of trees that climbed the hill on the southern side of the road.

‘Did the men from Chagford search this path on Tuesday?’ asked Gwyn.

The man shrugged. ‘I wasn’t here — and maybe they did, but there are many such tracks trodden by animals all along these roads.’

Dismounting again and leaving their horses with Thomas, de Wolfe and the other two men pushed their way through the undergrowth into the dimness of the trees. Though the leaf canopy had not yet fully opened, there were enough broken green twigs and plants to show where a passage had recently been forced along the path — and underfoot, the prints of shod horses were visible in muddy patches.

‘It’s not rained much since that storm, not enough to wipe out all these marks,’ observed Gwyn.

A hundred yards into the wood, a rocky outcrop made a small clearing in the beeches and oaks. Around it, a ring of grass and scrub alternated with mud washed down by a small stream from higher up the slope. Here there were more confused hoofmarks and some small bushes had been crushed into the mire. The three men examined the ground carefully, but could make little sense of what might have taken place there.

‘Several horses have done more than just follow the track,’ observed de Wolfe. ‘They must have moved back and forth in this area, but that’s all that can be said.’

‘And there’s nothing special about the hoof-prints — no chance of matching them with any particular beast,’ grumbled Gwyn. He followed the track a little way beyond the clearing, but soon returned to say that there were no signs that horsemen had used it recently. ‘Whoever came here must have returned by the same path,’ he added.