Read Online Crowner's Quest by Bernard Knight - Free Book Online Page B

breeze.
    The coroner’s gaze went to the edge of the planks that formed the seat of the privy, worn smooth by several generations of canonical buttocks. ‘No scratches or mud there, Gwyn,’ he observed. ‘If he had hanged himself he would have had to stand on there to tie the rope above, then launch himself into eternity.’ John turned and dragged Thomas forward. ‘Get up there and see how far you can reach to the roof-beams.’
    As the lame clerk scrambled awkwardly up on to the seat, Gwyn grabbed his leg and pretended to push him down one of the twin holes into the malodorous pit below. The clerk shrieked in terror and tried to kick him in the face.
    ‘For God’s sake, stop it, you pair of fools!’ snarled de Wolfe.
    ‘But the little runt is too small to reach,’ objected Gwyn.
    ‘The canon was only a hand’s length taller, so lift him up a little,’ snapped the coroner.
    With a grin, the officer grabbed the clerk around his waist and hoisted him up a few inches. ‘About there?’ he demanded.
    ‘Can you reach the knot now?’ demanded de Wolfe.
    Thomas waved his hands in the air, but they fell well short of the knot tied around the rafter that supported the woven wattle under the thatch.
    ‘Is he high enough?’ asked Gwyn again.
    John stood back in the doorway to check Thomas’s elevation compared to the dead man’s height. ‘Plenty high enough – so there’s no way he could have tied the rope up there. Somebody much taller did it for him, standing on the seat.’
    He motioned Gwyn to put Thomas down and his officer again resisted the temptation to drop the clerk into the ordure below.
    ‘No more to see here,’ grunted de Wolfe, and turned to face the handful of servants and priests who stood at the bottom of the privy steps. ‘Did any of you see anything untoward out here last night? Any strangers in the yard or the house?’
    There was a chorus of denials. Then the old steward spoke up. ‘Most of the servants from the Close were either at their homes or at Yuletide revelries in the taverns, and the priests were either in the cathedral or celebrating at each other’s lodgings.’
    ‘And anyone can come to this yard down the side passage,’ added the resident secondary, a pale young man with a hare-lip. ‘From there they can come into the house through the back door.’
    De Wolfe paced the yard, but could think of no way to further the matter. ‘Right, the inquest will be held here at the second hour of the afternoon. All of you will be present.’ He strode off up the side lane, making for home and a confrontation with his wife.
    When he reached the house in Martin’s Lane, however, only Mary was there. ‘The mistress has gone off to St Olave’s’, she informed him archly, ‘then to eat with her cousin in Fore Street, she said.’ She wagged a finger at him. ‘You’re still in disgrace. Last night was a great disappointment to her.’
    De Wolfe snorted in disgust. ‘The bloody woman! The party was almost over – and only I and the Archdeacon left them.’
    ‘It doesn’t need much for the mistress to take umbrage,’ observed Mary, sagely. ‘Now then, Master John, do you want me to make you a meal?’
    De Wolfe picked up his cloak again. ‘No, dear Mary, I’ll go down to the Bush before the inquest – I’ll have a bite to eat there.’
    As he marched out, the buxom maid murmured under her breath. ‘I’ll wager you’re hoping to get more than a bite at the Bush, my lad!’
    His favourite tavern, run by his favourite woman, was built with empty plots of ground on either side. This gave the name Idle Lane to the short cross street that joined the top of Stepcote Hill to Priest Street in the lower part of the city. The inn was a square, thatched building with frame walls filled with wattle-and-daub.
    John pushed open the door, ducked his head under the low lintel and went into a hubbub of sound, smell and smoke. The fire glowing on a wide stone hearth had no chimney, but vents