The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker (15 page)

‘But I wouldn’t have killed him –
why
should I kill him? What possible reason could I have had?’

‘Maybe he’d already stolen the jewels from Ralph Glover and you wanted them for yourself?’ Coroner Roger hazarded, squinting pensively. ‘Or maybe it’s simpler than that. You say you went with him to deliver the money and stuff early in the month?’

‘Yes, the Feast of St Nicholas. We got a receipt for it all. Check with Canon Stephen, the Treasurer. He’ll confirm that Peter and I brought the receipt back. He should have it now. Ralph the Glover signed it himself.’

‘But what if you thought you could rob him, eh?’ Roger asked shrewdly. ‘What if you went back there on the twenty-first, killed the glover and took his money? What if your friend saw the jewels and money here in this hall after he heard about Glover’s death? You might feel the need to silence him for ever, mightn’t you?’

Jolinde felt as if his world was toppling about him. ‘Me, kill Peter – kill the glover? Why, when I have enough money already? And where could I have hidden it?’

‘Show us the rooms where you and your friend slept.’

Still ashen-faced with shock, Jolinde took them to the ladder and clambered upstairs. ‘This was Peter’s. That is mine,’ he said, pointing to palliasses separated by a hanging cloth.

Baldwin studied the place. As Jolinde had said, there was nowhere to conceal even a small amount of money. Jolinde’s area was as messy as Peter’s, with blankets over the floor and a spare dirty shirt bundled up and hurled into a corner of the room. No chest, no box, not even a small sack was visible. No vial of poison – but that would have been discarded long ago in case of suspicion. Baldwin tentatively prodded at the bedclothes, but there was nothing beneath them.

Returning to Peter’s side of the chamber, he crouched with the Coroner at the side of the messed bedclothes. Roger sniffed and looked at Baldwin, who nodded, saying, ‘Yes, it smells as though his bowels were loose. I don’t wish to put my hands into the filth there.’

‘Poor fellow,’ Jolinde said. He was close to tears. The sight of the scruffy bed, merely a leaking palliasse of straw with cheap blankets lain atop, brought home to him once more that Peter would never return. ‘Poor Peter.’

Baldwin lifted the blankets gingerly and shook them. There was nothing here. The palliasse beneath was of thin material stuffed with a cheap filling of straw and hair. Baldwin took his dagger and slitted it from top to bottom, pulling out the stuffing, but there was nothing hidden inside.

He rose and went to Jolinde’s own bed. He glanced at the lad, who nodded. ‘If it’ll prove my innocence,’ he said.

Baldwin pulled his bed apart, but there was no money hidden among the straw. There was a chest with a water jug on top. Baldwin moved the jug and opened the chest, revealing robes, cloaks, shirts, the detritus of a young man. ‘Did he have any other places in which he could have secreted things?’

‘No. All our belongings are kept here.’

Simon could see that his friend was confused. A thought came to him. ‘What of other friends? Could Peter have given the money to someone else? Someone who could hide it for him?’

‘His only friends were among the Cathedral staff, sir,’ Jolinde said dismissively. ‘To whom could he have given such a treasure without being denounced? No one here would help him steal from the Cathedral.’

‘Perhaps his friend wouldn’t have known what he was being asked to look after,’ Baldwin mused aloud.

‘We are forgetting another person,’ Coroner Roger said nastily. ‘If
you
had stolen the stuff, Jolinde, you’d have given it to one of your friends to protect, wouldn’t you?’

‘Like who?’ the young man scoffed, but then his expression took on a nervous look when the Coroner continued:

‘
What about your woman
?’

When they left the glum Jolinde, Coroner Roger led the way to the gate and out to the High Street. They were walking along in the direction of Sutton’s Inn where Jolinde’s woman worked, when the Coroner suddenly saw a man he recognised. He called out and waved, and the man crossed the road to join them.

‘Bailiff, Sir Baldwin – this is the city Bailiff, William de Lappeford. It was he who found the dead glover’s body.’

‘Oh?’ Baldwin said, turning to the man with interest.

‘That’s right, sir. I found him when his apprentice Elias had murdered him.’

De Lappeford was a large, slow man with a heavy forehead and a fixed frown of concentration. He looked the sort of person whom Baldwin would trust to obey an order entirely honestly, but who should never be put in a position of authority where independent thought was needed.

Sir Baldwin asked mildly, ‘What do you think of the apprentice?’

‘Elias? A fool, if he thought he could get away with killing his master.’

‘Did you find any money in Elias’s belongings?’

‘No, nor jewels. He must have hidden them somewhere already.’

‘How old was the corpse?’ Simon wanted to know.

‘Oh, it was fresh. Still quite warm to the touch, and the blood hadn’t congealed.’

‘So it’s not likely the lad had much time to run away and hide things, is it?’ Simon pointed out.

‘Perhaps not. But Ralph was up early.’

‘Ah, Bailiff Puttock,’ the Coroner smiled, ‘you don’t know the people of this city that well, obviously. It happens that Ralph was up well before dawn each day, when it was his habit to leave his home for a walk. The apprentice could easily have waited until his master had left the house, before going to the strongbox, taking the jewels and money, then dashing off to hide them somewhere. His master must have returned, realised what had happened, so his apprentice killed him.’

‘Would the glover have gone to his parish church each morning?’ Baldwin enquired.

‘He went to the Cathedral for the Lady Mass at first light every day. He always used to say it was the most pleasant of all the services, standing there before the statue of the Virgin. He said She reminded him of his own wife.’

‘The lady is dead, I assume?’ Baldwin asked gravely.

William nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Mistress Glover and their daughter died when a wagon overturned in the street. They were smothered with barrels of stores.’

‘An accident?’

‘Oh yes, Sir Baldwin,’ the Coroner confirmed. ‘A wheel came off and it rolled over. Nothing suspicious in it.’

Baldwin continued, ‘So Ralph was out of the house that morning and Elias meantime could have taken his money and hidden it elsewhere. Is there anywhere that seems likely?’

‘I wondered about his woman, young Mary at the baker’s, but she denies it,’ William said. ‘She admitted that Elias had been there that morning, but as for giving her anything, she just said no. Said that he had seen her almost every day for the last few months, but that morning he arrived and they stood chatting for a long time. Nothing more. They were in her father’s shop, and he was there. He confirmed her story, and in fact he said that Elias ran out, realising he was late.’

‘Was his master cruel to him?’ Simon interrupted. ‘I’ve seen plenty of cases where a man was so scared of being beaten that he took action first to protect himself. Could this Elias have attacked his master in self-defence?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Roger answered. ‘The bread was still quite warm in Elias’s hands, so he
had
hurried back from the baker. And Ralph Glover was the kindest of men.’

Baldwin asked, ‘Has he confessed?’

‘No, murderers rarely do,’ William said off-handedly. ‘But Ralph himself had asked me to call on him, saying he’d discovered a theft. I daresay the apprentice was the culprit.’

‘Ralph spoke to you that morning?’ Simon asked.

‘No, the day before, but it was in the street and he said it was a matter to be discussed in private. Obviously because it was embarrassing that his own apprentice was robbing him.’

‘So it was a theft that had already happened – yet you say the boy took the stuff and killed his master
before
going to hide it!’ Baldwin smiled. ‘This sounds inconsistent.’

‘Look, the main point is, the apprentice is a fool. He stabbed the glover with his own dagger then admitted it was his own.’

Baldwin studied de Lappeford a moment. ‘You are telling me that the boy left his knife in the body?’

‘No, he had dropped it.’

Simon and Baldwin exchanged a glance. Simon said doubtfully, ‘Was he drunk?’

‘No.’

‘But you’re saying he was stupid enough to kill his master and steal his money, intelligent enough to conceal the money where you can’t find it, but thick enough to drop his own incriminating dagger there on the floor by his master?’

‘Felons often make mistakes.’

Baldwin tilted his head to one side. Addressing the Coroner, he asked, ‘Did the boy’s blade match the stab wound?’

‘The wounds were about half an inch wide, while his blade was an inch at the base.’

‘Is the body . . . ?’

‘It’s buried, Sir Baldwin,’ Coroner Roger admitted apologetically.

‘Well, at least tell me how many wounds there were.’

‘Seven at the front of his torso, all about the heart; another four in his back.’

‘So it was a frantic attack,’ Simon mused.

Baldwin was trying to calm himself but the excitement was almost overwhelming him. ‘Coroner, if a man is stabbed so many times, I’ve always found it was a berserk attack, not one committed by a rational person. And the dagger is always thrust in up to the hilt – bang, bang, bang. That would mean the wounds should be at least an inch wide. How long was the blade? Would it have gone from one side through to the other if forced hard?’

‘The glover was a big man, Sir Baldwin. No, the blade couldn’t have gone all the way through.’

‘Nonetheless, the lad’s blade was surely not the murder weapon. Did the apprentice show any sign of being wild? Did he appear ferocious? Enraged or mad?’

William de Lappeford cleared his throat. ‘There was no one else to arrest. Who would kill a happy-go-lucky fellow like Ralph for no reason? It makes no sense. At least we know that the apprentice was aware of the money. He must have wanted to steal it, that’s what we . . .’ He threw a glance at his Coroner. ‘It’s what
I
think, anyway.’

‘And you think,’ Simon pressed him, ‘that the death of the Secondary in the Cathedral ties up with Ralph’s murder?’

‘I don’t know.’

He was saved from further interrogation by the Coroner’s dry chuckle. ‘Enough! William, you may leave us now.’ While the sulking man stomped off, Coroner Roger said nothing, clearly amused by the discomfiture of the city’s Bailiff. Then: ‘I think that shows the standard of the local investigation. You heard, Sir Baldwin, how that fool of a Bailiff – saving your presence, Master Simon! – said the glover was stabbed? Well, his body was in the shop. If Elias was acting on a sudden whim or killing his master out of fear, having already robbed him, why should he have stabbed Ralph there, when the money box was in the house? Did Ralph tell Elias to go to his shop, then, when the robbery was discovered, did he accuse his apprentice, who was by then so petrified with terror that he stabbed his master?’

‘It is feasible,’ Baldwin commented doubtfully. ‘Yet I think the apprentice may well be innocent.’

The Coroner answered briskly: ‘Let me just say that I would appreciate a second opinion of the matter. I find it difficult to imagine that a weakly looking twerp like Elias could attempt to murder his master. Most people were fond of our Ralph, Elias among them. And there is another thing.’

‘I rather thought there might be,’ Baldwin smiled.

‘Put simply, Sir Baldwin, I have to wonder whether there is a connection between the death of the glover and the Secondary. And, if the two deaths
are
connected, how should I explain the fact that Elias was in gaol at the time of the second death?
That
is my difficulty.’

‘And you would like our assistance in investigating it?’

The Coroner smiled innocently. ‘If the Dean can ask for help with his dead Secondary, why shouldn’t I request your advice on Ralph Glover’s demise?’

A short while later the three men were seated at a table in Sutton’s Inn near the Shambles. Simon caught the eye of a girl and beckoned but she carefully turned from him to serve another man, presumably a local. It took the Coroner’s hoarse bellow to persuade the girl to deign to acknowledge them.

‘Sirs? Ale or wine?’

‘Wine for me,’ said Roger. Baldwin asked for a thin ale, while Simon ordered a strong winter brew and a meat pie. When she returned, Roger took his wine and eyed her contemplatively. ‘So you’ve taken to young clerics now, have you, Claricia?’

‘Who told you that?’ she demanded, a flush rising in a steady tide from her neck upwards.

While Roger questioned her, Baldwin studied her dispassionately. Claricia Cornisshe was pretty, in a very simple way: her pale-featured, oval face had high cheekbones and slanted, almond-coloured eyes under delicately curving brows. Her nose was slender and slightly tip-tilted, and her lips were full with a faint upward lift, as though she was considering sharing a joke.

But her humour was apparently in short supply as Roger spoke.

‘Your lover boy: Jolinde. His friend Peter, did you know him at all?’

‘Peter? He wasn’t the sort to come to an Inn. I wouldn’t want to entertain him anyway.’

‘But you’re happy to entertain this other one, this Jolinde?’ Simon asked. He had sunk a good half of his ale and suddenly the world was looking and feeling better as he took up his pie and bit into it.

She looked at him without interest. ‘Jolly’s different. He’s not all holier-than-thou. I doubt whether he’d manage to stay on at the Cathedral until he gets anywhere – not that he cares. He’s too grand to remain a cleric.’

‘Too grand?’ scoffed Roger. ‘What’s so grand about a pissy priest?’

‘He’s the son of Vincent de Berwe, didn’t you know? Jolly’ll be worth more than you when his father dies, Coroner,’ she stated tartly.

Claricia instinctively liked the look of both strangers with the Coroner. The older one, the one with the beard, had interesting features, with a jagged scar that reached from his jaw almost up to his temple, giving him a slightly rakish appearance. Apart from that, when his attention was on her she could feel his utter concentration, as if everyone else in the place could hang; he had ears only for what she herself had to say. It was immensely flattering.