Read Online Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries) by Bernard Knight - Free Book Online Page A

again identified the body to the sheriff, to legalise the enquiry that the Londoner was insistent upon.
    ‘You say he was stabbed, not drowned?’ demanded Godard, in his rather high-pitched voice. ‘I see no blood?’
    ‘He’s been washed in the damned river for the better part of a day,’ snapped John, his patience at breaking point. More calmly, he forced himself to explain the whole circumstances. ‘We happened to see the culprit running away, but we had no chance to catch or even recognise him,’ he added.
    Almost automatically, Gwyn began to step forward to perform his usual task of removing the clothes from the body, but de Wolfe, with uncharacteristic tact, motioned him back. Instead, William stood forward and once again removed the canvas sheet.
    ‘There should be a wound in his chest or belly,’ said the coroner, as the sheriff bent closer to the corpse. After fiddling with the black garment that covered Basil of Reigate, Godard nodded his agreement. ‘Here, there’s a rent in the cloth, just below his breastbone.’
    John peered more closely until his hooked nose almost touched the stiff wool, the sodden cloth having dried in the sun. As the sheriff pulled the material flat, he saw a tear something over an inch in length in the midline, about two hands’ breadth below the root of the neck.
    William began to pull the long cassock up over Basil’s head, struggling against the stiffness of death that had set in more markedly since the body had been removed from the water.
    Though this intimate examination was being held in the open air, the bailey of Baynard’s Castle was closed to all but those who had business there and there was no audience apart from a few curious men-at-arms who were kept at a distance by the gestures of William’s fellow watchman.
    When the cassock was taken off, a thin undershirt of creased, damp linen was revealed and again there was a similar slit cut in the chest area. ‘Lift it up, man!’ ordered Godard and a moment later, he waved a hand at the pallid skin which so far was free from even early discoloration of corruption.
    ‘There’s your injury, coroner!’ He pointed a finger at the stab wound which was oozing a small amount of blood, but was careful not to touch it. De Wolfe had no such scruples and prised it apart with his two forefingers to look at the edges.
    ‘Blunt at one end, so it was a blade with one sharp edge and a flat back!’ he declared.
    The sheriff looked at him cynically. ‘And how does that help you, sir?’ he asked. ‘There are probably ten thousand such knives within a mile of here.’
    John ignored him and transferred his eagle-eyed inspection to the corpse’s face.
    ‘What are you looking for now?’ asked Godard. ‘The cause of his death is patently obvious!’
    ‘He slipped off the landing stage while he was still bleeding,’ snapped the coroner. ‘Roll him over on to his face,’ he ordered, forgetting his role as an invited observer. William looked at his master, but the sheriff just shrugged and the watchman hoisted up one shoulder of the corpse. As the dead clerk turned over, Gwyn and Thomas, knowing what to look for, bent to watch the face and were rewarded by a flow of pink frothy fluid from the nostrils and mouth.
    ‘Stabbed he might have been, but he went into the river alive and drowning finished him off,’ declared de Wolfe, with a note of satisfaction in his voice.
    Godard of Antioch looked unimpressed. ‘Any wherry-man could have told you that!’ he said ungraciously. ‘What difference does it make? If he’d not been stabbed, he’d not have gone into the river and died, so your mysterious assailant is still a murderer.’
    ‘All information may be useful,’ muttered John obscurely, annoyed that the sheriff was undoubtedly correct.
    They checked that there were no other injuries on the body and William replaced the canvas and wheeled the cart back into the mortuary shed, where at least it would be out of the direct