The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

After thanking Egbert for his help, William went off to report to Ralph fitz Urse about his suspicions that there might be a connection between the beggar’s death and the tragedy at the Giffard household. At first, the surly coroner ridiculed even the faint possibility that the two events might be related, but in the absence of any better explanation, fitz Urse grudgingly agreed to his officer following up any leads that might strengthen the suspicion.

The first place that Hangfield went was St James’s Priory, to enquire what happened to the clothing that the compassionate Eleanor Giffard had caused to be sent to them. He found a lay brother who worked for the almoner, who dealt with alms and all other charitable activities. This man, himself a Bristolian, knew at once who had been given some of the clothing.

‘So old Gilbert is dead, is he?’ he exclaimed. ‘May God rest his soul; he deserves it after the poor life he had. He was an archer in the King’s army years ago, but fell on hard times.’

William, anxious to strengthen his tenuous case, cut short the brother’s reminiscences. ‘So you say it is certain that the boots and hose, together with a cote-hardie that you gave him, came from Mistress Giffard?’

The other man nodded. ‘No doubt at all. It was I who received the bundle from that young lad who brought it from the physician’s house – and I handed some of it on to old Gilbert.’

Satisfied that he was at least confirming some of the links in the chain, William’s next stop was the apothecary’s shop in Corn Street. He carried the sack containing the boots and hose in one hand and, because of the stink, left it outside the door whilst he went in to seek Matthew Herbert.

The apothecary listened patiently while William explained the events of the morning and his idea that there might be some connection between the clothing and the death of both the beggar and the physician.

‘It was the dead rats and especially the way one of them died that struck me,’ he said earnestly. ‘The spasms and the twitching, then suddenly dropping dead, was similar to what happened to Robert Giffard. Surely, the fact that the clothing came from that house and was given to the beggar, who died soon afterwards, could be significant?’

Matthew was too polite a man to have the same scathing reaction that the coroner had shown, but he wondered if Hangfield’s devotion to his duties was stronger than the evidence he was proposing. However, he was intrigued enough to humour the officer.

‘You say you have brought these boots and the hose with you?’

William nodded. ‘I left them outside on the street – I doubt anyone will have stolen them, as they smell quite badly.’

‘Bring them through to the back yard, where we can stay in fresh air.’

When William brought the sack through, he found Matthew sitting on a bench in the small cobbled area behind the shop. He had brought a metal tray, which he placed on the ground and asked the coroner’s officer to place the boots and hose upon it. The smell was not too bad in the open air and William first lifted out the boots to show Matthew.

‘See the way those rats had devoured parts of the softer leather of the uppers?’ he said, pointing with a finger. ‘They must have found it tasty, as about a quarter of the boot has gone.’

‘And you say the hose was poking out of the holes?’

William nodded, pulling out one thigh-length stocking from the sack. ‘Those vermin had chewed part of this as well; there’s a hole in the toe where it was sticking out of the shredded boot.’

The apothecary studied the items, peering into the boot, apparently oblivious of the slimy state of the inside. He poked around with his finger, then studied its tip short-sightedly.

‘I’ll have to get one of my apprentices to look at this stuff; he’s got far keener sight than me.’

Then, Matthew picked up the stocking, made of fine brown wool, and peered at the ragged edges of the holes made by the rats. He took a small wooden spatula from a pocket and scraped around inside the boot, then turned the hose inside out and scraped some of the slimy mess from the foot. William watched this with interest.

‘Is there something there?’ he asked.

The apothecary grunted. ‘I’m not sure. There is so much slime from the sloughing of the dead man’s skin that it’s hard to tell. As I said, I’ll get my lad, Stephen, to go through it with his sharp eyes. Come back in the morning and I’ll tell you if I’ve found anything significant.’ With that, Hangfield had to be content, though he was not sure if the apothecary really was hoping to make some discovery or whether he was just humouring him.

‘Do you want to see the dead rats?’ he said hopefully. ‘In case there is anything you can tell from the way they died?’

Matthew Herbert shook his head. ‘I don’t need dead rats, but I may have a need for some live ones,’ he said enigmatically.

Given the coroner’s lack of enthusiasm for William’s latest theory, the officer did not report his visit to the apothecary and carried on with his normal work, checking on witnesses for an inquest next day on a boy who had been crushed by a collapsing wall in the city, a not infrequent accident, given the cramped building conditions and often the shoddy workmanship.

That evening, he went home and again regaled his family with the day’s events. His small son, Nicholas, was fascinated by his account of the dead rats and chewed boots, asking for more details of each morbid episode from the hovel on Welsh Back. His mother was afraid that this might give him nightmares, but with the resilience of the young, Nicholas slept like a log all night.

Early next day, his father escaped from the castle chapel as soon as possible and made his way down to the apothecary’s shop, hoping against hope that Matthew Herbert would have found something to bolster the conviction that the clothing had something to do with Giffard’s death. The apothecary left his desk and motioned him into the back room.

‘See those? Dead as mutton,’ he said, pointing at three dead rats on the floor.

‘But I didn’t leave them with you,’ said William, puzzled at the sight.

Matthew shook his head. ‘No, they’re not your rats, they are ones my apprentices caught for me yesterday. I needed them for a test.’

He explained that he had locked the three rodents in a large box, giving them some cheese and meat mixed with a substance he had scraped from the inside of the boots and soaked from the lower part of the hose.

‘It killed them overnight, with the same symptoms of twitching and fits that you saw in your hovel on the quayside!’

Hangfield stared at the dead rats with fascination. ‘So what was it that killed them?’ he asked excitedly.

‘That was the hard part,’ said Matthew with satisfaction. ‘I thought I saw something in the slime in the boot when you were here yesterday, but my apprentice did much better and picked out a few of these.’

He held out a small dish on which was a smear of brownish slime, embedded in which were a number of tiny yellowish spheres, each the size of a pin-head.

‘What the devil are they?’ demanded William, whose fairly good eyesight could just about see them.

‘You may well call upon the Devil, for these little things killed those rats – and maybe killed that poor beggar, as well as your physician,’ announced the apothecary firmly. ‘They are the seeds of the yew tree, and are extremely poisonous.’

Hangfield felt a wave of exultation that his intuition had proved correct, though he soon tempered this with thought of the difficulties that still lay ahead, such as how was it done and by whom?

‘But how could seeds in hose and boots kill a man?’ he pleaded. ‘The death of the rats I understand – you gave it to them in food. That could not have happened to either the beggar or to Robert Giffard.’