Paul Doherty - Assassin in the Greenwood

'Dead as a nail!' he exclaimed. 'How long?' Corbett asked.

Maigret knelt, put the back of his hand against the dead man's cheek and neck. 'Oh, about an hour.'

'So he must have died during the attack?' Corbett asked.

'I would think so,' Maigret snapped, wrinkling his nose disdainfully.

Corbett crouched on one side of the corpse, Friar Thomas on the other. The cleric whispered words of contrition in the dead man's ear and sketched a blessing in the air as Corbett carefully examined the corpse. He satisfied himself that the hands and ankles were free from any rope marks then undid the dead man's belt. He lowered his head and sniffed at Lecroix's mouth, trying to ignore the streaks of saliva drying on the dead man's beard. Corbett pinched his nose and looked up at Branwood.

'He was drunk when he killed himself. His breath stinks of stale wine!'

Naylor, who had been busy lighting the sconce torches, trudged deeper down into the cellar.

'There's been a wine cask broached.'

Corbett stared into the darkness. He saw a wooden box lying lop-sided, beside it a pewter cup.

'He was a toper,' Maigret commented.

Corbett nodded and stared up at the piece of rope still wrapped round the rafters and once again at the box and fallen cup.

'Did any of you see him this evening?' he asked.

'I did,' Friar Thomas replied, his fat face now drained of any trace of humour. 'Just before the attack I met him on the stairs. He was deeply in his cups.'

Corbett once more examined the corpse, paying particular attention to the fingers, noticing how call used those of the left hand were.

'He was left-handed?' he asked.

'Yes, yes,' Branwood murmured. 'Sir Eustace was always cursing Lecroix because he served from the wrong side.'

Corbett got to his feet, wiping his hands on his robe.

'God knows why,' he announced, 'but perhaps the attack tipped the balance of his mind. I suggest Lecroix came down here to hide. He broached the cask of wine and, in his cups, decided to take his own life. He stood on that box, slipped the rope over the beam and the noose round his neck, kicked the box away and his life went out like a candle flame.'

Corbett stared down. Something was wrong but he couldn't place it. He closed his eyes. He had seen enough for one day. He was exhausted after the hot, dusty journey up the ancient Roman highway, Branwood's revelations, Vechey's death, the grisly attacks on the castle, and now this.

'Sir Peter,' Corbett declared, 'you are right, this castle is accursed.'

'Well, tomorrow,' Branwood retorted, 'we will carry the curse back to the forest. I am going to take this outlaw alive and string him up like a rat in the market place. Naylor, remove the body!'

'Where?'

'In the death house next to his master. Friar Thomas, keep a still tongue in your head. No one will miss poor Lecroix, and who cares if he was a suicide? He and his master can be buried together.'

The sheriff led them out of the cellar back into the hall where scullions were laying the high table for the evening meal. Just inside the door of the hall, servants were waiting with bowls of water and napkins. Everyone washed carefully and took their places at the high table. Friar Thomas said the benediction and Sir Peter ordered the evening meal to be served. Both Corbett and Ranulf felt queasy after what they had seen in the cellar as well as their visits to the kitchens earlier in the day but the food proved to be quite delicious: a young piglet, its flesh soft and sweetened, served in a lemon sauce, whilst Sir Peter was generous in filling everyone's wine cup with chilled wine of Alsace. He grinned at his guests.

'I cannot guarantee the food and drink are not poisoned but an armed guard now stands in the kitchen. I have sworn that if anyone else dies, the cook and his scullions will hang.'

'Physician Maigret,' Corbett insisted, 'my apologies for asking you this again, but you do know what poison killed Vechey?'

The physician's eyes snapped up. 'No, but I suggest a concoction ground from a dried noxious plant-henbane or belladonna.'

Corbett sipped from his cup. 'And you cannot guess how it was administered?'

'I have told you once,' the physician retorted, 'we have scrutinised everything Vechey ate or drank at table or in his chamber. Why do you ask now?'

'I was thinking of Lecroix. Could he have been the culprit? Could there have been a private feud between him and his master, and then, overcome by remorse, Lecroix took his own life?'

'I'd thought of that myself,' Maigret trumpeted.

'But why?' Friar Thomas intervened. 'Lecroix was a simple man. He could hardly fill a goblet, never mind buy some deadly potion and then administer it in a way no one can discover.'

Corbett sipped at his wine. Lecroix, he thought, might be the murderer but there was something in that cellar, something he had seen which was out of place, and whilst the conversation turned back to the outlaws' recent attack on the castle, Corbett brooded on what he might have missed.

More courses were served: fish in a tangy sauce, roast beef in an onion stew, small loaves of wheaten bread. Corbett ate quietly, half-listening to Sir Peter's plan for the following morning. His eyes grew heavy. Images of Maeve flickered through his mind then Uncle Morgan bawling out some Welsh song, Edward screaming at him from the throne at Westminster about that damnable cipher, three kings visiting the two fools' tower with the two chevaliers… A grinning Ranulf nudged him awake.

'Master!'

Corbett smiled and picked up his wine cup. His stomach felt heavy, one of those rare occasions when he had eaten far too much and drunk too fast. Corbett loosened the belt around his waist to make himself more comfortable – then sprang to his feet.

'Of course!' he whispered to his startled companions. 'Of course!'

'What's the matter, man?' Branwood shouted.

Corbett looked at him. 'Sir Peter, my apologies but I have just realised that Lecroix was murdered.'

'What do you mean?' Branwood snapped.

'Nothing,' Corbett replied sourly. 'Except the way a man puts on his belt. Where is Lecroix's corpse now?'

'Where it was left, under a sheet in the cellar. You know soldiers, Sir Hugh, they are superstitious and refused to remove the corpse of a suicide except in daylight hours.'

'Then we had better go down,' Corbett insisted.

At Branwood's order, soldiers appeared with torches and led them down to the cellar. Corbett crouched in a pool of light and pulled back the sheets covering the corpse.

'Lecroix was left-handed?' he asked.

'Is this necessary?' Roteboeuf asked languidly. 'God's tooth, man! Having to look at Lecroix when he was alive was enough to put you off your dinner!'

Corbett ignored the sniggers. 'The corpse has not been disturbed?'

'Of course not.'

'Well,' Corbett said, 'look at the belt.' 'Oh, for God's sake!' snapped Branwood. Corbett tapped Lecroix's belt.

'You notice how the tongue at the loose end of the belt lies to the left?' 'So?'

'Lecroix was left-handed. I found that out when we examined the corpse earlier. This belt should be on the other way round, looped through the clasp, with the tongue of the belt hanging to his right.'

'He was so bloody drunk,' Naylor muttered, 'it was a wonder he could put it on at all.'

Corbett shrugged. 'I thought of that, until I remembered something else. See how this belt is fastened?' He undid the belt carefully and held it up. 'Now all the holes on this belt except for one are undamaged, for the simple reason that they were never used. A belt is a very personal article. We fasten it the same way every day – unless, of course, we become fatter.' Corbett moved his finger to a hole further up the belt, well away from the one Lecroix had used. 'See how this hole has been torn, slightly gouged? We can tell, from the specks of creamy leather underneath, that this was very recent.' He put down the belt and got to his feet. 'So I ask you first, why did Lecroix put his belt on the wrong way? Secondly, we have seen the hole he always used – so why is this one, much further up the belt, so recently damaged?'