Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

He stopped to stoke his mouth with bacon and cabbage, then sluice it down with a noisy gulp of ale.

‘Is that their main complaint?’

When he had swallowed sufficiently to speak, Gwyn continued. ‘No, they are mad at this Saxon fellow, the one they blame for damaging their workings. Many say that it must have been him who killed Henry of Tunnaford and others claim that he must also have slain Knapman. Some want to organise search parties to seek him out and lynch him.’

This fitted with what de Wolfe had heard, but he had always abhorred mob justice and decided to tackle de Revelle about keeping order in the county. ‘Did you hear anything about Walter Knapman? How do the tinners feel about his death?’

‘There’s a big split in their ranks. He employed over a hundred himself and they bemoan his passing, not least because they are unsure what will happen to their livelihood. Another lot work for Acland and are at daggers drawn with the Knapman crowd, especially as he was preventing Acland from expanding his business and giving them more work.’

Thomas roused himself to intervene. ‘Did anyone confirm what the priest suggested, that Acland was dallying with Walter’s new wife?’

The Cornishman wiped broth from his pendulous moustache with the back of a hand. ‘There were some winks and nudges when I asked if there was bad blood between the two tin-masters. One man in the Crown hinted that Knapman knew of his wife’s affair and was planning to set some of his men on Acland one dark night — but maybe that’s just alehouse romancing.’

‘Did you learn anything else of use?’

‘I heard some hints about brother Matthew. Some of the tinners — especially the loners who worked neither for Walter nor Stephen Acland — say that Matthew is crooked. He overcharges on his dues for selling their bars and fiddles the prices. I’m not sure how it works, but a couple of tinmen, after a few quarts, were grumbling about him. One suggested that he was even cheating his own brother.’

John pushed away his gravy-soaked trencher, unable to eat any more. ‘You seem to have wheedled a lot of gossip out of them in only a few hours.’

‘Didn’t need much wheedling — they drink like fish and their tongues are easily loosened. They seemed to take to me, especially when I let it be known that my own father was a tinner before he turned to fishing.’

‘They took to you because you’re even uglier and rougher than most of them,’ sneered Thomas, with a brief return to his old baiting of the coroner’s henchman.

For once, Gwyn looked pleased at the little clerk’s insult, hoping it heralded a rise in Thomas’s spirits. In spite of all the teasing and mock contempt Gwyn usually showered on him, he was quite fond of him, and since his recent depression had been concerned for his welfare.

The coroner hunched over his final pot of ale and, half to himself, mulled over the situation in and around Chagford. ‘We’ve got one apparently senseless slaying of an inoffensive tinner, old Henry, and, within days, a more subtle killing of his master. So are they connected and did the same hand kill both men?’

All he got by way of an answer from Gwyn was a grunt, and Thomas had subsided once more into silence.

‘There seems to be a possibility that this Aethelfrith could have killed the overman, as it’s in his territory, so to speak, and he’s been seen damaging other tin-workings. But killing Knapman seems unlikely — Dunsford is well away from his usual haunts and, anyway, it looks as if at least two men attacked Walter.’

‘Maybe there’s more than one mad Saxon on the moor?’ contributed Gwyn, using his dagger to slice a shrivelled apple from last autumn’s crop.

‘No one’s suggested it yet,’ said de Wolfe, with a shrug. ‘Now then, we’ve got Acland, who had a grudge over tin-works with Walter Knapman and who strongly objected to him campaigning to be the next Warden of the Stannaries. And he fancies Knapman’s wife, who is now an attractive and probably wealthy widow ready to snap up.’ He rasped his fingernails thoughtfully down the black stubble on his face. ‘And Gwyn says he heard murmuring about brother Matthew’s possible dishonesty, even towards his brother. It may be only a rumour, but if it is true, if Walter was beginning to suspect such treachery, would Matthew want him silenced?’

‘A bit far-fetched, Crowner,’ rumbled Gwyn. ‘I only repeated what I heard from two tinners, and it may have no damned truth in it at all.’

De Wolfe pondered this, then finished the last of his ale and stood up. ‘I’ll go down to the town and see the grieving family again. I’d better tell them of the arrangements for the inquest and the return to them of the corpse for burial.’

Thomas roused himself enough to tell his master that he had seen the carter arrive with Knapman’s body some time ago.

‘A young fellow on a good horse was escorting it along the high street.’

‘That will have been Peter Jordan, the stepson. I need a word with him, too.’

Leaving Gwyn still eating and his clerk perched despondently on his bench like a bedraggled sparrow, de Wolfe went down to the bailey and fetched Odin from the stable. He walked him slowly down the lane to Chagford, pulling his cloak around him as a chill wind began to blow from the east. Though signs of spring were everywhere, a great band of grey cloud was moving across the sky, with a pinkish tinge that suggested snow to come.

The town was full of men as he passed the square, some already drunk and quarrelsome even though it was only early evening. The booth for the coinage was finished and an overflow from the alehouses around it were using it for drinking, arguing and fighting. Gwyn had been right when he observed that tinners were a tough bunch — it was a night for local folk to stay behind their own front doors.

When he reached the Knapman demesne below the church, Harold came out of the back door as de Wolfe handed his stallion to an ostler’s lad. The Saxon looked even more tragic than before and was wringing his bony hands as he came across the yard. ‘The master has come home, Crowner. He’s in the main living room now.’ He spoke as if Walter was alive and waiting to receive guests. ‘Peter is here, as well as Matthew,’ added Harold, in a sepulchral voice.

He led the way indoors, and as John passed through the central passage he looked into the larger room and saw a shrouded body lying on the table, a lighted candle at head and foot. The parish priest and two old dames were with it, the one to shrive and the others to wash the tinner’s corpse.

The steward showed him into the other room, where a silent group sat around the large stone hearth that occupied most of one wall. Matthew Knapman and Peter Jordan rose as he entered and Harold pulled an oaken stool across for him to join the half-circle around the fire. The delectable Joan and her mother Lucy acknowledged him with nods and faint smiles, but Joan’s surly brother Roland merely scowled at him.

The coroner perched on his stool like a black raven among some pigeons and a woodpecker — Joan had discarded her mourning dress and was wearing a kirtle of iridescent green silk. John hoped that she would revert to her black for the inquest and burial tomorrow, or local tongues would wag more than ever.

He broke the silence by explaining that an inquest was necessary because of the violent death, and repeated his view that it was unlikely any light would be cast on the identity of the perpetrator.

‘The jury, in a death that happened miles away, will have no personal knowledge of the circumstances, and can only reach a verdict of murder by persons unknown,’ he said baldly.

‘What about this presentment business?’ asked the stepson. De Wolfe marked him down as a sharp, intelligent young man, even if the black moustache overpowered the narrow, pale face.