Michael JECKS - The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

Jolinde felt as if his world was toppling about him. ‘Me, kill Peter – kill the glover? Why, when I have enough money already? And where could I have hidden it?’

‘Show us the rooms where you and your friend slept.’

Still ashen-faced with shock, Jolinde took them to the ladder and clambered upstairs. ‘This was Peter’s. That is mine,’ he said, pointing to palliasses separated by a hanging cloth.

Baldwin studied the place. As Jolinde had said, there was nowhere to conceal even a small amount of money. Jolinde’s area was as messy as Peter’s, with blankets over the floor and a spare dirty shirt bundled up and hurled into a corner of the room. No chest, no box, not even a small sack was visible. No vial of poison – but that would have been discarded long ago in case of suspicion. Baldwin tentatively prodded at the bedclothes, but there was nothing beneath them.

Returning to Peter’s side of the chamber, he crouched with the Coroner at the side of the messed bedclothes. Roger sniffed and looked at Baldwin, who nodded, saying, ‘Yes, it smells as though his bowels were loose. I don’t wish to put my hands into the filth there.’

‘Poor fellow,’ Jolinde said. He was close to tears. The sight of the scruffy bed, merely a leaking palliasse of straw with cheap blankets lain atop, brought home to him once more that Peter would never return. ‘Poor Peter.’

Baldwin lifted the blankets gingerly and shook them. There was nothing here. The palliasse beneath was of thin material stuffed with a cheap filling of straw and hair. Baldwin took his dagger and slitted it from top to bottom, pulling out the stuffing, but there was nothing hidden inside.

He rose and went to Jolinde’s own bed. He glanced at the lad, who nodded. ‘If it’ll prove my innocence,’ he said.

Baldwin pulled his bed apart, but there was no money hidden among the straw. There was a chest with a water jug on top. Baldwin moved the jug and opened the chest, revealing robes, cloaks, shirts, the detritus of a young man. ‘Did he have any other places in which he could have secreted things?’

‘No. All our belongings are kept here.’

Simon could see that his friend was confused. A thought came to him. ‘What of other friends? Could Peter have given the money to someone else? Someone who could hide it for him?’

‘His only friends were among the Cathedral staff, sir,’ Jolinde said dismissively. ‘To whom could he have given such a treasure without being denounced? No one here would help him steal from the Cathedral.’

‘Perhaps his friend wouldn’t have known what he was being asked to look after,’ Baldwin mused aloud.

‘We are forgetting another person,’ Coroner Roger said nastily. ‘If you had stolen the stuff, Jolinde, you’d have given it to one of your friends to protect, wouldn’t you?’

‘Like who?’ the young man scoffed, but then his expression took on a nervous look when the Coroner continued:

‘ What about your woman ?’

When they left the glum Jolinde, Coroner Roger led the way to the gate and out to the High Street. They were walking along in the direction of Sutton’s Inn where Jolinde’s woman worked, when the Coroner suddenly saw a man he recognised. He called out and waved, and the man crossed the road to join them.

‘Bailiff, Sir Baldwin – this is the city Bailiff, William de Lappeford. It was he who found the dead glover’s body.’

‘Oh?’ Baldwin said, turning to the man with interest.

‘That’s right, sir. I found him when his apprentice Elias had murdered him.’

De Lappeford was a large, slow man with a heavy forehead and a fixed frown of concentration. He looked the sort of person whom Baldwin would trust to obey an order entirely honestly, but who should never be put in a position of authority where independent thought was needed.

Sir Baldwin asked mildly, ‘What do you think of the apprentice?’

‘Elias? A fool, if he thought he could get away with killing his master.’

‘Did you find any money in Elias’s belongings?’

‘No, nor jewels. He must have hidden them somewhere already.’

‘How old was the corpse?’ Simon wanted to know.

‘Oh, it was fresh. Still quite warm to the touch, and the blood hadn’t congealed.’

‘So it’s not likely the lad had much time to run away and hide things, is it?’ Simon pointed out.

‘Perhaps not. But Ralph was up early.’

‘Ah, Bailiff Puttock,’ the Coroner smiled, ‘you don’t know the people of this city that well, obviously. It happens that Ralph was up well before dawn each day, when it was his habit to leave his home for a walk. The apprentice could easily have waited until his master had left the house, before going to the strongbox, taking the jewels and money, then dashing off to hide them somewhere. His master must have returned, realised what had happened, so his apprentice killed him.’

‘Would the glover have gone to his parish church each morning?’ Baldwin enquired.

‘He went to the Cathedral for the Lady Mass at first light every day. He always used to say it was the most pleasant of all the services, standing there before the statue of the Virgin. He said She reminded him of his own wife.’

‘The lady is dead, I assume?’ Baldwin asked gravely.

William nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Mistress Glover and their daughter died when a wagon overturned in the street. They were smothered with barrels of stores.’

‘An accident?’

‘Oh yes, Sir Baldwin,’ the Coroner confirmed. ‘A wheel came off and it rolled over. Nothing suspicious in it.’

Baldwin continued, ‘So Ralph was out of the house that morning and Elias meantime could have taken his money and hidden it elsewhere. Is there anywhere that seems likely?’

‘I wondered about his woman, young Mary at the baker’s, but she denies it,’ William said. ‘She admitted that Elias had been there that morning, but as for giving her anything, she just said no. Said that he had seen her almost every day for the last few months, but that morning he arrived and they stood chatting for a long time. Nothing more. They were in her father’s shop, and he was there. He confirmed her story, and in fact he said that Elias ran out, realising he was late.’

‘Was his master cruel to him?’ Simon interrupted. ‘I’ve seen plenty of cases where a man was so scared of being beaten that he took action first to protect himself. Could this Elias have attacked his master in self-defence?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Roger answered. ‘The bread was still quite warm in Elias’s hands, so he had hurried back from the baker. And Ralph Glover was the kindest of men.’

Baldwin asked, ‘Has he confessed?’

‘No, murderers rarely do,’ William said off-handedly. ‘But Ralph himself had asked me to call on him, saying he’d discovered a theft. I daresay the apprentice was the culprit.’

‘Ralph spoke to you that morning?’ Simon asked.

‘No, the day before, but it was in the street and he said it was a matter to be discussed in private. Obviously because it was embarrassing that his own apprentice was robbing him.’

‘So it was a theft that had already happened – yet you say the boy took the stuff and killed his master before going to hide it!’ Baldwin smiled. ‘This sounds inconsistent.’

‘Look, the main point is, the apprentice is a fool. He stabbed the glover with his own dagger then admitted it was his own.’

Baldwin studied de Lappeford a moment. ‘You are telling me that the boy left his knife in the body?’

‘No, he had dropped it.’

Simon and Baldwin exchanged a glance. Simon said doubtfully, ‘Was he drunk?’