Michael JECKS - The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

Baldwin gave the man a long, thoughtful stare, then nodded and reached into his purse. He drew out a coin. The beggar’s face lit up with delight when he saw it, and he bowed. ‘Thank you, Master, thank you.’

Coppe wanted to leave and invest the money in a refreshing pot of ale, but something made him remain standing there, watching the knight peering again through a shuttered window. ‘He’s dead, you know.’

Simon crossed the street casually as Baldwin nodded slowly. ‘I had heard. I wanted to see where he had lived.’

‘They ought to make him a saint,’ Coppe said gruffly.

Simon glanced up at the house. ‘Why? Was he good to you?’

‘He was always giving us money. Not like some of the tightfisted bastards in this city. If you was on fire they wouldn’t piss on you without charging for their time and trouble – aye, and for the ale they’d drunk, too.’

‘But Ralph was generous?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Him? He used to give feasts to the poorest of the city. At Christmas and Candlemas, and if the weather stayed bad, he’d give another on Lady Day. Any of us who could get to his door was always welcome to a pot of wine and some bread. He didn’t feel the need to wait for a feast day.’

Coppe was gazing up at the house with an expression of such sadness and longing that Simon found himself wishing he could have met Ralph. Certainly for a man to have earned the trust and loyalty of even a tatty beggar like this one spoke of his Christian spirit.

Baldwin interrupted his reverie. ‘Have you often been inside his hall?’

‘Often enough.’

‘I should like to go inside to see whether anything is missing. Would you know if anyone would have a key to it?’

John Coppe cast an eye up and down the knight, his mind recalling his first assumption. Baldwin did not look like a thief, but sometimes the wealthiest men in the land could behave worse than the poorest. That was how they became rich. ‘Why would you want to go inside?’

‘I am Keeper of the King’s Peace in Crediton and the Coroner has asked me to enquire about Ralph’s death. I want to see whether he was robbed of anything other than his money when he died.’

‘Oh! Well, in that case I’d try there,’ Coppe said, pointing at the house next door but one. ‘Ask for David. He used to see quite a lot of Ralph.’

It was a larger place, but not so well looked after, to Simon’s mind. The paint was peeling from the woodwork and the limewash hadn’t been renewed for many a long year. Strips had faded or been discoloured by the smoke and soot of the adjoining buildings and it had an air of shabbiness, like a woman who has lost interest in her looks and cares only for the essentials of life: no longer bothering about her physical appearance, only about being comfortable.

The owner was a cheerful enough fellow: stooped, peering through narrowed eyes under a thin greying thatch of curling hair. He wore a good quality shirt and tunic, although both had seen better days. He looked enquiringly at the three men when he came to his door, and when Baldwin told him who he was, he agreed to let them see the house and shop so long as he himself stayed with them.

‘This is fair,’ Baldwin said. ‘I would prefer witnesses.’

The four entered the dead glover’s hall first. The neighbour had a key and he threw open the front door, standing aside to let Baldwin lead the way inside, Simon behind him.

It was much like any other little hall. The corridor from the front door led along the length of the shop into the hall itself, behind which was a small pantry and parlour. Baldwin stood and contemplated the hall, then went upstairs with David while Simon went out and opened the door from the pantry. At the back was a little yard with a variety of plants growing in raised beds prettily laid out with wickerwork walls to keep the compost and manure in place. The back door was locked with a wooden peg that fitted into and securely held a latch.

Simon surveyed it, but it told him nothing about the death of the glover or the identity of his killer.

Walking back inside, he crouched at the fireside. Coppe had sat down on a stool at the wall and Simon saw that his foot had left ashy prints over the floor. When the door opened, a little of the fire’s ashes were disturbed by the draught, blowing out of the hearth and onto the floor where people would step in it and, like Coppe, tread the ashes all over the place.

When Baldwin came down the ladder, he saw Simon at the doorway. ‘Nothing up there, I’m afraid.’

In the shop itself Baldwin and Simon asked their companions to wait in the street doorway while they looked around. Simon in particular had hoped to find ashy footprints, but there were none. So many people had come in after finding the body that there was nothing more to be discovered. He leaned against a large counter-top with his arms crossed while Baldwin stood in the middle of the floor and gazed about.

The room was square, with skins and leathers tied together and hanging from strings looped over hooks on all the walls. Behind the counter were shelves, and here lay some of Ralph and Elias’s finished products: soft pigskin gloves; delicate and dainty light gloves for ladies; heavier, working two-fingered gloves, into each finger of which the wearer pushed two of his own; fine soft gloves for a gentleman; even thick gauntlets for men-at-arms.

Simon found his attention wandering. He looked at the hanging furs and leathers, smelling the faintly sour odour of the smoke, barks and urine used in the tanning processes. Then he found himself contemplating the paintwork. On the wall at the front there was only good, clean whitewash. Only when he noticed some marks low on the side wall under some skins did he feel his interest waken. He crossed the room and bent, touching the marks and sniffing at his fingers. ‘Aha! This is where he died, then.’

‘Why are you so sure?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Men who’ve been stabbed will often thrash about and kick, won’t they? The floor in the house there had ash on it. Some had got onto Ralph’s boots, I guess, and when he fell, his boot caught the wall. These smudges are wood ash. I imagine he opened the door to someone, turned to lead the way in here and that was then they threw the first blow, getting him in the back. Ralph fell, and his boots scuffed up the wall here.’

From the doorway, David spoke up. ‘He wasn’t there when they found him.’

‘Where was he?’

‘Here.’

Simon crouched again. There was blood in a dried and crusted pool where David pointed. ‘Someone must have moved him.’

David shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Only in so far that he was moved away from the door. The killer couldn’t get in and out with him lying in the way,’ Simon said. ‘Then again, perhaps someone wanted to avoid trouble.’

The ‘First Finder’ of a murdered man would be fined to ensure he appeared at the Coroner’s court. Many chose to avoid that cost by pretending not to see a body.

Baldwin added, ‘So many men prefer to deny seeing anything. It is cheaper.’ He noticed a small frown on David’s face as he absorbed all this. Baldwin’s tone sharpened. ‘Did you see anyone here the morning Ralph died.’

David looked as though he was about to shake his head, but then he grimaced unhappily. ‘Masters, it’s so hard to know what to do for the best, but yes, I saw someone with him that morning.’

Baldwin’s eyebrows rose. ‘Did you tell the Bailiff or anyone?’

‘There was nothing to tell! I saw Ralph and another man entering here. That’s all. I looked away, and when I looked back, they were gone.’

‘Didn’t it occur to you that the man with him might have killed Ralph?’ Baldwin exclaimed disbelievingly. ‘You saw Ralph with his murderer and did nothing ?’