Page 36

“No one is certain. He was last seen leaving the Wounded Dog two nights ago.”

“Have you seen the body?”

“No, I came to fetch you as soon as I heard of it.”

“Who found it?”

“Fellow by the name of Jones, he’s the tapster at the Dog, works for Mrs. Freeman. He was walking his dog, and the dog sniffed it out.”

“Cause of death?”

“Jones wasn’t sure. He appears to have fallen and taken a blow to the head. It is possible he suffered an apoplexy. I don’t know.”

“The magistrate will have to be sent for, and the coroner will determine cause of death if there are suspicious circumstances. Does he have any family?”

“They said he lives alone.”

“An old man living alone. Doesn’t sound like a target for robbery.”

“No, my lord.”

“Who is the coroner, do we know?”

“The physician, my lord, Dr Kearns. He wears both hats. The body has been taken to his surgery in the main street—that’s where we are headed. I assumed you would want to speak to him yourself and view the body.”

Rick swallowed. He didn’t particularly fancy viewing a dead body, especially one that had been dead for a couple of days by the sound of it. But clearly it behooved him as the lord of the manor to do so and to ensure that, if there were any suspicious circumstances, justice was done.

Let into the doctor’s house on the main street by a housemaid, Rick and Reynolds were led down a corridor that bisected the house to a back door and directed to a squat stone building across the courtyard, the door of which stood ajar, flanked by two unshuttered, glassless windows.

They crossed the neatly kept cobblestone courtyard with a small stable and kennel on one side and small garden plot for vegetables on the other. The outbuilding was a single room dominated by a stone slab in the center with a bench along the back wall with cupboards below it. A stool stood to one side and a small table and chair were tucked into one corner near the door.

Two men occupied the room, the first, Rick identified as the doctor, Kearns. The second had his back to the door. Between them lay the slab on which was stretched the long thin body of the deceased, Mr. Sparrow, and from which emanated a sickly-sweet stench. Rick took out a handkerchief to cover his nose, and he noted that Reynolds didn’t bother. But then the man was no doubt hardened to grisly sights and smells.

Rick stepped into the room and nodded to the doctor who looked up from his work with a scalpel.

“Kearns, I understand this body is Mr. Sparrow, one of my tenants?”

Before Kearns could answer, the second man turned to him and said, “He is, my lord.”

Rick was startled to recognize Mr. Baines, his largest tenant.

“Mr. Baines,” he said, holding out his hand. “Might I ask your interest in this unfortunate occurrence?”

Baines took it in his big paw and shook it vigorously. “Ah, they probably didn’t tell you my lord, I’m the local magistrate.” At Rick’s look of surprise, he said deprecatingly, “I’m what you might call a yeoman farmer my lord, I own three hundred and fifty acres of my five hundred and twenty-five allotments. I’ve been serving as the magistrate for close on two years now.”

“I see,” said Rick absorbing this and recovering his hand from Baines’s crushing grip.

“Dr. Kearns has just been telling me that he believes Mr. Sparrow may have suffered some kind of episode on his way home, resulting in him falling and cracking his head.” Baines pointed to a nasty contusion on the side of Sparrow’s head. His thin, greying hair was matted with blood from the blow which was consistent with contact from a sharp object such as a rock, Rick supposed.

“I see. How old was he, Doctor, do you know?”

“Not precisely, my lord, but in his seventies, I should think. He has been a tenant since before I was born and his father before him. He lost his wife years ago, and they never had children, so he’s worked his small allotment alone for—oh, over forty years, I’d say. He was a tough old bird, I’ll say that for him. But he was never social, kept to himself pretty much. His main social outing was a weekly visit to the Dog for a pint and meal.”

Rick looked down at the thin, wiry body, the skin that had been exposed to the sun was mottled with sunspots, the rest pallid. His ribs showed, and his collarbones stood out starkly, but his arms and shoulders showed muscle still beneath the wrinkled skin. The man had worked hard to his dying day. Rick’s throat tightened.

The man’s eyes stared blindly, a rheumy pale blue, his face sunken, the wrinkles somewhat ironed out by the peace of death, the thin, bony nose jutted out of his face like an accusation, the jaw slack, the mouth slightly agape, showing a glimpse of stained lower teeth.

“So, you’ll be giving a verdict of accidental death?” he asked.