While Edgar looked on imperturbably, Baldwin set the candle down and performed a quick investigation. He felt the man’s skin at the top of his torso. It was still warm. Then the knight sniffed at Godfrey’s mouth. There was no sweet, sickly odor of alcohol that he could discern. He probed gently at the quickly clotting wound. Beneath his fingers he could feel the smashed bones moving, and he nodded to himself. He had seen head wounds often enough. This one was certainly adequate to have caused death.
Heaving, he rolled the body over to seek additional wounds, and opened the man’s tunic to check there were no stab wounds. It was all too common for a man to inflict an apparently obvious wound on a corpse after committing a murder in an attempt to throw suspicion onto someone else. But there was nothing to be seen.
He had just hauled the body back into its original position when Tanner entered. Baldwin ignored him. Slowly easing himself up from his knees, which cracked as he came upright, he took hold of the candle and walked to the nearest mark in the rushes.
The constable was a steady man, Baldwin knew. As strongly built as a smith, he had the worn, cragged features of a moorman, with black hair that was becoming grizzled. He moved with a deceptive slowness, as though he had to concentrate to achieve the simplest task, but Baldwin had seen him roused, and knew that Tanner had a ponderous strength and, when he needed it, the speed of a striking adder. The constable waited patiently while the knight crouched at the disturbed flooring.
It was close to the door, but although the knight studied the depression with care, he could see no clues; it was merely a scraped mess at the edges of which the straws had been heaped slightly. There was nothing to be learned here. He rose and went to the other disturbed patch of rushes.
Here he paused. This part was nearer an open window. As Baldwin stood looking down, he gauged the distances. It was close to Godfrey’s body, and pointed toward the window itself, which made the knight frown. Why should someone have opened the window? He walked over to it and stared out at the dark kitchen block. That at least confirmed one thought: the culprit had presumably escaped from here; rather than fleeing from the front door and risking capture in the street, the killer had made off through the back. In the dark, Crediton’s main street wasn’t terribly busy, but there were enough people to notice a man running. It would have been safer for the murderer to nip out through the garden unseen.
“Tanner, you found the man just as he is? You didn’t see anything moved?”
“No, Sir Baldwin. He was lying just as you see him now. It was obvious he wasn’t going to get up again, not with a hole in his head like that.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I was at the inn when the neighbor’s servant came running for me. Well, not really a servant-Coffyn, the man next door, has been nervous recently, and he’s hired some lads to protect his house. They’re all hard types, and this was one of them. I came back with him, and found Godfrey here, as he is now.” He pointed at the marks near Baldwin. “Just there was where his daughter had been. Feet near the door, head pointed at the window. She’d been thumped as well and was taken to her room before I got here.”
“Was she struck on the back of the head like this one?”
“No-punched, I reckon. Her mouth was all bloody. This here,” he said, indicating the flattened area nearer the door, “this here was where Putthe the servant was lying. He was unconscious too. He had been struck on the back of the head like his master.”
“Was anyone else here when you arrived?”
“Only the neighbor, Coffyn. When he’d seen what had happened, he’d sent his man straight for me, as he should, staying here himself to guard the place.”
“Where is this Coffyn now?”
“I let him go home. He was a bit green in the face, sir, and I didn’t want him spewing all over the room. It’s in enough of a mess as it is.”
“And his man?”
“Sent him back too. He’s not a local man, and I didn’t want a foreigner mucking about in here while I waited for you, sir.”
“Good. The two who were hurt, then, the servant and the daughter: are they all right?”
“She should be fine with a rest, sir, and Putthe’s got a head like moorstone. Whoever hit him will be lucky if he can use the same club again. Clobbering Putthe hard enough to knock him out would break most cudgels.”
Baldwin gave a fleeting grin. “We should leave the girl to recover a little, but what about this bottler: do you think he will be ready to answer some questions? Is he up and about yet?”
“He’s come to, sir, but he’s pretty confused.”
“So would I be if I’d been laid out. Anyway, before we see him…That sideboard looks more than a little empty, doesn’t it?”
Tanner glanced at it in some surprise and followed the knight as Baldwin walked over to it.
It was an excellent cupboard, Baldwin saw. This was not made of cheap wood knocked together by a carpenter; this was well constructed by a joiner in good elm. There were four shelves, with doors underneath, and Baldwin gazed at it speculatively for some time. He opened the doors and peered inside. Both sides had pewter pots, jugs and plates stacked neatly, but hardly filled the space given. He shut it up again. On the shelves were some plates, of good quality, four on the bottom shelf and three on each of the others. A solitary jug stood next to a drinking horn of silver. Baldwin picked them up one at a time.
“Good silverwork, this,” he said.
“What is it, sir?” Tanner asked after glancing at Edgar in some confusion.
“Hmm? Oh, only that Master Godfrey must have been a very wealthy man,” stated the knight with sudden resolution. He clapped his hands together. “Now, let’s see whether Putthe is ready to answer some questions.” 6
T he servant was resting on a cot almost hidden behind two massive barrels. He was pale, and opened his eyes with apparent pain, grimacing as he tried to focus on the three men standing in his buttery. The single candle was inadequate, and Baldwin sent Tanner to fetch more.
“Stay there, Putthe, I only want to ask you a few questions,” Baldwin said gently, holding up his hand. As he did so, he noticed that the gesture gave him the same pose as Godfrey’s body next door. If a man was holding up his hand, he wondered, would he fall to the ground in that same position if he was struck dead in an instant? And if so, could he have been holding up his hand to tell a thief to stop?
Putthe sank back with a grunt. He was a short man, with a grave, round face. Baldwin saw that he had thin lips, which opened and closed as he spoke with a strangely mechanical action that put Baldwin in mind of a helmet’s hinged vizor; opening only reluctantly, and snapping shut when allowed to. For such a ruddy complexion, Putthe’s eyes were a curiously pale, watery blue, making him look as if he was somehow incomplete; an unfinished mannequin. Above his eyes a band of dirty cloth encircled his brow.
It was this bandage that was giving him the most pain now. His head felt as if it was splitting in half, the top being squeezed off by the pressure. Putthe grimly noted that whoever it was who had belted him hadn’t intended him to get up again in a hurry. As his skull touched the cloth of the bolster, he winced and the breath hissed through his teeth. His assailant had succeeded. He would be lying here for quite some time to come. “Sir, how can I help you?”
“You know your master is dead, Putthe-do you know who could have done this?”
“It was that mad Irishman!”
“Did you see him?”
“Tonight, sir, yes. Out in the yard. He’s been found here in the garden before. My master saw him there only a few weeks ago. Let him off, at the time, but said if he was ever found here again, he’d be-”
Baldwin held up a hand again. “What were you doing this evening?”
“Me? I was in here.”
Baldwin glanced about him. There was the usual paraphernalia of the bottler’s place of work: barrels, jugs, pots and tankards. Two stools sat near each other at one cask. Beside them were a pair of large jugs. Glancing at Putthe, Baldwin saw him wince.
Putthe had to close his eyes: the pain was like a dagger thrusting in at his temple. And his head was spinning-the world had gone mad! Godfrey’s behavior; the mistress’s weird determination to look after a common smith and permit the servants a free evening-and now this! Someone had broken in and the master was dead! Clutching at his head, Putthe moaned.
