The Deadliest Sin (46 page)

William still failed to see where this lecture was going. ‘So what killed the rats and the others?’

The apothecary patiently continued his explanation. ‘I gave the rats some scrapings from inside the boots and on the hose – it was virtually a paste, but that was because the rotten
skin of the beggar, together with dirt from his feet and sweat, had probably softened what I suspect was originally a dry powder made from pounding a large number of seeds extracted from yew
berries.’

William was still confused. ‘But how could that kill a man – in fact, two men, if you count the beggar?’

‘In my profession, we very often apply our medicaments through the skin – apart from giving cures by mouth, that is about the only other route available, other than by a clister
through the back passage. Rubbed into the skin, especially with some kind of fatty base, some of the drug gets absorbed into the body.’

William Hangfield frowned as he digested this information. ‘So someone would have to sprinkle the powdered yew seeds into the boots and hose undetected, if he – or she – wanted
to cause harm to the victim?’

Matthew nodded his agreement. ‘It would be a brownish colour and as the clothing was the same hue, it might well go unnoticed.’

‘Would this be effective in a single dose or would the effect only work over a long period?

‘I have seen two cases of yew poisoning in my lifetime, both in children who ate the attractive berries. Thankfully, both survived after forced vomiting and energetic purging, but they
became very ill within a few hours, again with twitching and fits and a very irregular pulse. So a single large dose can kill quickly, but I doubt that could be achieved through the skin, so a more
long-term application would be needed, which could build up to dangerous or fatal levels.’

William had by now grasped all the essentials of the method of killing, but the vital question now remained – who was responsible? He had one last question for the apothecary.

‘The previous illness, which cleared up when he left the house for London – have you any idea what that might have been?’

Matthew considered this for a moment.

‘It was certainly not the yew poison. He had an obvious excess of bile in his system and there are a number of poisons obtainable from plants in the hedgerows and woods that would do that.
I would suggest it might have been an extract of ragwort, that tall yellow weed that grows everywhere. That sometimes kills horses and asses, even when they merely eat hay that contains the dried
plant – but there is no way of being certain.’

William thanked Matthew Herbert sincerely for his help and asked him to keep the evidence safe until he knew how the coroner wanted to proceed. It was about time he told Ralph fitz Urse that the
investigation had been revived, so he trudged back to the castle with the news.

As luck would have it – though possibly bad luck – he found the sheriff in the coroner’s chamber, sharing a jug of red Anjou wine as they chewed over the latest news of King
Edward’s problems. It was not long since the humiliating defeat at the battle at Boroughbridge and though Bristol was a royal stronghold, the tide was turning against him, mainly from the
Scots and his own barons, though even his wife was beginning to lose patience with her husband’s infatuation with the Despensers, both father and son.

The two men were arguing about the prospects of war when William came in, and he had some difficulty in bringing them back to the problems of the immediate present.

‘I know how Robert Giffard was murdered, sirs,’ he announced as soon as he had managed to get their attention. ‘But I have no idea who did it!’

Nicholas Cheyney stared at him as if he had suddenly lost his wits and the coroner glared at him ferociously.

‘What are you talking about?’ he barked. ‘We’ll never know what happened to Giffard. There’s nothing left to discover.’

His officer tried to keep a smug expression from his face. ‘But I’ve just discovered it, sir. He had poison put in his boots and hose!’

‘In his boots!’ yelled the sheriff. ‘Are you quite mad, William Hangfield?’

Hurriedly, the serjeant explained, before the others had apoplexy. He told them the whole story of the beggar, the dead rats and his involvement of Matthew the apothecary.

‘He says there’s no doubt about the yew being the poison, and though he has never heard of it being used through the skin, there is no medical reason why it shouldn’t
work.’

Eventually, the two senior men grudgingly accepted that the officer was neither mad nor playing some inexplicable practical joke.

‘We must hear this from Matthew Herbert’s own mouth,’ growled the coroner. ‘Then discover who the culprit must be.’

‘It has to be someone in the Giffard household,’ snapped the sheriff. ‘No one else would have access to either his boots or, in the previous suspected poisoning, to his
food.’

‘And it must be someone who knows a great deal about yew poison and how it could be absorbed through the skin,’ added William, sagely.

‘That servant who acts as an apothecary fits the bill best,’ grated the sheriff. ‘What was his name, Stogursey or some such?’

‘Remember that the lady Eleanor had the same access to his food and his boots,’ objected fitz Urse. ‘And there is this suspicion that she might be carrying on with Jordan fitz
Hamon.’

‘But she would not have enough knowledge of poisons to pull off this yew-in-the-boots trick,’ scoffed Nicholas Cheyney, always ready to contradict the coroner.

Again, William threw in a reasonable contribution. ‘The one who knew about the yew seeds and was able to prepare them need not be one who actually administered them, sirs.’

The other two digested this for a moment. ‘If so, then even Jordan fitz Hamon could be behind the murderous plot!’ said the coroner.

The sheriff, who was ultimately responsible for law and order in the county of Somerset, turned to William with new orders.

‘We need to shake the tree of the Giffard household and see what falls out. Take a couple of men-at-arms with you and get to the truth of this affair, even if you threaten them with
torture.’

Hangfield sincerely hoped it would not come to that, but he touched his forehead respectfully and left to carry out his orders.

At the house in King Street, he sought an audience with Mistress Eleanor, brushing aside any delaying tactics by Edward Stogursey. She was in the doctor’s chamber with the new physician, a
pleasant-looking man of about thirty, but William, invoking the command of the sheriff, asked her to step into an empty living-room nearby.

‘Madam, we have now discovered how your husband died – he was murdered by the poison from yew berries,’ he announced bluntly. ‘The deadly substance could only have been
administered by someone in this household – and his previous illness in February may have been from putting a tincture made from ragwort in his food, again obviously by someone in the
house.’

The new widow paled and clutched at her throat in a typically feminine gesture of shock. ‘Are you sure of this? Who could have done such a terrible thing?’

‘No one is above suspicion, madam,’ said the serjeant, drily indicating that even the lady of the house herself was a candidate. ‘I need to interrogate every servant
immediately, to get at the truth.’

The two soldiers that he had brought with him rounded up all the staff and drove them into the back yard, where they stood in trepidation. William, wearing his most ferocious expression,
repeated the news he had given to Eleanor Giffard and then demanded that anyone who had any information must give it that instant or suffer the consequences, which included a hanging for conspiracy
to murder.

Edward Stogursey typically protested that he objected to being humiliated like a common criminal, but William pointed out that he was the best candidate, due to his knowledge of herbs, plants
and drugs generally – and as the most senior servant, his easy access to every household activity.

‘The poison was sprinkled or smeared into the victim’s boots and hose!’ he thundered. ‘I am going to discover who did that, even if it means putting everyone to the
Ordeal!’

This was a blatant bluff, as the Ordeal as means of divining guilt had been abolished in the previous century, but his meaning was clear and there were moans from some of the men and muffled
shrieks from the two women.

‘Who would have dealt with the master’s boots, such as cleaning them?’ rasped Hangfield, glaring around at the servants huddled in the yard.

A small voice piped up, hesitantly. ‘Me, sir, but I didn’t do anything bad, honest!’ It was Henry, who came forward and dropped to his knees in front of the coroner’s
officer. ‘I loved the master, sir; he was always kind to me.’

Eleanor gave a sob and ran forward to pick up the little lad to comfort him. ‘Of course you did nothing wrong, Henry, we all know that!’

There was a sudden commotion at the end of the short line of servants as one man made a sudden dash for the back gate. One of the soldiers ran after him and sent him crashing to the ground
before he could escape, dragging him back to throw him in front of William Hangfield.

‘So, you do more than cooking here, John Black! Since when do cooks see to their master’s boots and hose, eh?’

The fat man crawled to his knees and tried to embrace William’s legs in supplication. ‘I thought the powder was doing him good, sir, after his illness in the winter,’ he
blubbered unconvincingly.

The serjeant gave him a kick that sent him sprawling.

‘You damned liar! And it must have been you that put the ragwort or whatever it was in his food that caused that disorder of bile!’

‘He said it would do him good . . . I did it from the best of intentions,’ wailed the cook, with the prospect of the gallows opening before his eyes.

‘And who was “he”, may I ask?’ shouted William, relentlessly. ‘Where did this evil powder come from, eh? And who paid you to put it in his hose and
boots?’

The man grovelling on the ground whispered a name, and the officer gave him another kick.

‘Men-at-arms, come with me!’ he yelled. ‘And bring this wretch with you!’

At a shabby house in a side lane off Corn Street, the group that had left the Giffard residence came to a halt outside the door. William Hangfield hammered on it with his fist
and when there was no response, repeated the action with the pommel of his dagger.

‘Open up in the name of the King’s coroner!’ he yelled, but again there was no reaction from inside the dwelling.

‘There’s someone in there, sir,’ called one of the soldiers, who had seen a shutter open slightly on a window to their right. ‘I saw a face looking out for a second, then
it was slammed shut again.’

‘Right, give him another minute, then kick this door down!’ ordered the serjeant. As no movement was heard inside and the door remained firmly closed, one of the menat-arms
relinquished his hold on John Black and began attacking the stout oak door. He had nothing but his foot to smash against it and it was soon obvious that he was making little impression.

William grabbed the other arm of the cowed cook so that the other soldier could join his companion. Using their shoulders and feet, they thundered against the planks for several minutes until
eventually they weakened the fastenings of the bolt inside so that with a splintering noise the door swung open.

‘Find him! He’s here somewhere!’ howled William, still hanging on to the sagging John Black.

The two men rushed into the house and began searching the few sparsely furnished rooms on the ground floor. There was a shout from somewhere in the back and William answered with an urgent
cry.

‘Hold him, don’t let him get away!’

However, when he reached the room, still dragging the cook, he saw his command had been unnecessary, as the fugitive was sitting calmly on a chair, his hands folded on his lap.

‘Erasmus Crote, you’ll hang for this!’ said Hangfield fiercely. The physician shook his head and held up a small empty flask.

‘I’ll not end on the gallows, unless revenge leads you to string up a corpse,’ he said mildly. ‘I’ve just swallowed all that remained of the poison that killed
Robert Giffard. There’s no antidote. I’ll be dead within a couple of hours at most.’

William grabbed the bottle from his hand and stared at the yellowish-brown dregs that lay in the bottom. ‘We’ll make you vomit, wash your stomach out with water!’ he said
wildly.

Erasmus shook his head and smiled at the officer. ‘It would be useless; I took enough crushed yew seeds to kill a dozen cows. It’s far better this way – better for us
all.’ His eyes moved to the fat cook, cowering in William’s grip. ‘So you betrayed me, John Black! I suppose it was to be expected.’

The cook shook his head vigorously. ‘I had no choice. They were blaming it all on me. I would have hanged!’

‘You’ll hang anyway,’ grated William, ‘in place of this evil man, if what he says is correct about the poison.’

Black began blubbering again and Hangfield contemptuously pushed him back into the custody of one of the soldiers.

‘You still seem quite healthy, Crote!’ he snapped at the physician. ‘We’ll keep you locked up and, if you don’t die, you’ll swing from the gallows
tree.’

‘Give it time, officer,’ replied Erasmus calmly. ‘Though already I can feel the first twitches and racing of my pulse.’

‘Why have you done this evil thing?’ demanded Hangfield.

The lean physician, his sallow face resigned to death, sighed. ‘Envy, officer! Just envy, pure and simple. You see, I loved my profession, yet have been dogged by ill luck and feelings of
inferiority all my life.’

William frowned. ‘I don’t understand you, man.’

Erasmus gave a slight twitch as one of his shoulders had a spasm. ‘I was a good doctor, but never had a fair chance. I never was properly trained, I picked it up from years as an
apprentice in Dublin, walking the wards of a poorhouse and following a drunken doctor around a public refuge. I never had the chance to study the theory or read the famous texts, and never had the
opportunity to listen to learned teachers.’