Shadow of the Raven (29 page)

“Sir, I beg you. No!” Mr. Bailey was pleading with someone.

Seconds later Nicholas Lupton came barging through the door and stormed toward Thomas.

“You have Charlton?” he barked, before pulling himself up suddenly within a few feet of the cadaver, driven back by the stench.

Thomas, momentarily caught off guard by the intrusion, composed himself. “I believe so, although no formal identification has been made,” he replied, his voice raised over the rhythmic thud of the stocks.

Lupton, struggling for breath in the foul-aired room, reached for a kerchief from his pocket and clamped it over his mouth. “I feared this would happen,” he cried. “Now all hell will break loose. He'll hang for this and not before time!” Incandescent with rage, he strode back toward the storeroom door.

Perplexed, Thomas called out to him. “Who, Lupton? Who will hang?” he asked.

The steward turned. “Diggott, of course. Who else could have killed Charlton?”

The anatomist frowned. “Adam Diggott? But I thought he escaped.” Thomas recalled yesterday's commotion and seeing the coppicer fleeing into the forest.

The steward clenched his jaw. “My men found him cowering in Raven's Wood in the early hours,” he replied. “He's as guilty as sin.” His voice was tinged with a victor's disdain.

Thomas felt suddenly roiled. He did not believe for a moment Adam Diggott could be capable of murder, and yet, admittedly, he was the most obvious suspect, and his capture fitted Lupton's plans so perfectly. Too perfectly.

Just as the steward began to make his way out once more, Thomas called to him.

“One more thing, Lupton.”

“Yes?”

“When did you last see Mr. Charlton?”

Lupton frowned. “After I returned from Oxford. Midafternoon, I suppose.”

“And what sort of state was he in?”

“The man was a wreck, as usual,” came the barked reply.

“Thank you,” said Thomas. Such information might not have been specific, but it might prove helpful in pinpointing the time frame of death. It might also prove invaluable in solving this particularly unsavory death.

W
ord had been sent ahead to prepare a room at the Three Tuns to receive Charlton's body. Geech had offered the game larder, a cold room with a flagstone floor that could easily be sluiced. The lack of a good source of daylight was a concern to Thomas, but a plentiful supply of tallow candles had compensated. By now Walter Harker had been informed of the death, and he joined Thomas for the postmortem examination. In his capacity as village constable, he had seen some grisly sights over the years, but still, he was shocked at the severity of Charlton's injuries.

The back of the young man's skull had been smashed to a pulp by the mill wheel, and his left leg, what remained of it, was mangled and broken. Normally in such cases, Thomas would look for signs of a struggle: bruising to the face or skin under the fingernails. As he examined the arms, however, the doctor's attention was immediately drawn to the left wrist. Taking his magnifying glass, he peered at a deep laceration. It was recent, but not so recent. The wound had been sutured and was possibly no more than a week old. Yet while the outward appearance of the corpse was most shocking, Thomas knew it was its inner workings that held the key to the chainman's death. That was why he wasted little time in incising the chest cavity. He retrieved a small saw from his medical case. Beginning at the clavicle, he made a Y-shaped incision and opened the rib cage so that he could examine the lungs. They appeared heavy and overinflated, a sure sign of death by drowning. Slicing through the trachea, he found what he suspected: more of the fine foam he had seen oozing from the young man's mouth.

“It seems that Mr. Charlton was alive when he hit the water,” he told Harker, who was peering over his shoulder.

As Thomas pried further into the lungs, there was more evidence to back up this theory. A quantity of silt and some splinters of twigs were also present. The river was a raging torrent after last night's storm, full of mud and debris. If Charlton had been in the woods during that storm, he may have stumbled and lost his footing, sending him plunging into the water.

Thomas knew three options now presented themselves: firstly that the chainman had slipped and fallen into the water, in which case his death was an accident; secondly that he had jumped into the water with the intention of killing himself; or thirdly that he had been pushed into the water, in other words, that he had been murdered, whether by Adam Diggott, or by a person or persons as yet unknown. Yet there was one more avenue Thomas wished to explore.

“The candle, if you please, Constable,” he said, directing Harker to position the taper so that its light was directed toward Charlton's left ear, the one least damaged. Bending low, his magnifying glass in hand, Thomas inspected the auditory canal. It was bloody. He motioned to Harker to raise the candle over the nose. The nasal cavities were filled with blood, too.

He stared once more at the dead man's face and tried to remember it in life. He recalled seeing Charlton less than twenty-four hours before, at the inn, as he witnessed Adam Diggott being arrested. The thundery air had been still and close, and his freckled face had been moist with sweat. He had mopped his brow with a kerchief. It was then that Thomas remembered the patch that had covered his right eye. There was no trace of it. The force of the water must have swept it away.

“More light, if you please, Mr. Harker,” he called.

The constable held the taper just above Charlton's head so that the light fell directly onto his forehead.

“Interesting,” muttered Thomas, scrutinizing the area. The tissue surrounding the socket was bruised, yet it was clear to the doctor that the injury was not postmortem. He lifted the lid. The white of the eye was bright red, and there was yellow discharge exuding from the tear duct.

“I need to remove the eyeball,” Thomas announced. “Will you hold the candle steady for me, Mr. Harker?”

The constable nodded. He seemed unfazed by the request.

Selecting forceps, Thomas eased the gelatinous ball out of its socket and snipped the stalk of the optic nerve before dropping the eye into a dish. It was as he suspected. A small piece of metal had pierced the cornea. Using tweezers, he teased out the offending shard, no wider than a fingernail. Nevertheless, it was big enough to cause serious damage.

Thomas held the foreign body up to Harker's candle. “Mr. Charlton had been blinded,” he said.

The constable frowned. “By the attackers in the woods, sir?”

It was a reasonable supposition, but Thomas could not be so sure. He peered at the shard again with his magnifying lens, then handed it to Harker.

“What do you make of that?” he asked the constable.

Taking the glass, Harker deliberated for a moment before giving his verdict. “ 'Tis a flake of flint, or steel, Dr. Silkstone,” he concluded.

Thomas nodded.

“Precisely,” he agreed before returning once more to the eyeball, which sat forlornly in the dish. The eye, he knew, purported to be the window into a man's soul, but this specimen, thought Thomas, went even further. It was a window onto Charlton's recent past, for embedded within its gelatinous layers it contained not only what appeared to be a particle of steel, but a fiber of felt, too.

“And this, Mr. Harker, if I'm not much mistaken, is wadding.”

The constable shook his head. “What are you saying, Dr. Silkstone?”

Suddenly Thomas realized that he had said too much already. He had been thinking out loud, something that was not judicious in the circumstances.

“An anatomist's indulgence.” He shrugged. “I fear I digress,” he said, returning to Charlton's corpse.

Next he examined to the dead man's left wrist, which had been bandaged. Thomas recalled that in court the chainman had claimed he had been attacked. He wondered if the injury had been sustained when he resisted giving the brigands his pocket watch, although he had not noticed the dressing at the time. But no, the scarring was too precise, too deliberate. There was no doubt in Thomas's mind; the wrist had been deliberately slit to sever the radial artery.

Suddenly it all made sense. The young man's agitated mental state, the lungs full of water and debris, the blood coming from the inner auditory canal and nose, indicating hemorrhaging, and finally the cut artery. All these were indications that while in an unstable mental condition, James Charlton deliberately took his own life by jumping from a height into the river. He could even envisage the place above the gorge in Raven's Wood that was most likely his launching ground.

Thomas thanked Harker and dismissed him. He needed time alone to think. Charlton's body had spoken to him, although what it had told him was of such a momentous nature that he wanted to be entirely sure of the facts before he confided in anyone. It seemed that in death this corpse had revealed what the chainman himself refused to acknowledge in life. Corroboration of this theory would, of course, be needed, but he knew it would be possible to obtain.

O
nce again Thomas rode up Boughton's drive. He was anxious to inform Lupton of Charlton's autopsy findings as soon as possible. Howard came out to greet him on the steps as Will Lovelock appeared to see to his horse. The doctor dismounted and acknowledged the apologetic bow from Howard.

“Mr. Lupton has instructed me to tell you he has no wish to receive your report, Dr. Silkstone,” the butler told him with a look of embarrassment.

It was just as Thomas had feared. The steward wished to deprive him of the chance to face his adversaries once more. He took a deep breath and shook his head.

“Then he is in luck,” replied Thomas.

“Sir?” replied a puzzled Howard.

“I have not committed my findings to paper yet, so I am able to deliver them to your master verbally,” he said.

The butler opened his mouth in a halfhearted attempt to protest, but Thomas barged past him and headed straight for the study door. Bursting in, he found Lupton seated at the desk. Looking up, the steward smiled wryly, as if he had anticipated the intrusion. He leaned back in his chair.

“Silkstone.” His eyes latched on to Thomas. “You really are too trying. If you come with one of your reports, I am not interested. Adam Diggott is in my custody.”

Thomas glowered at the man, so at ease in Lydia's seat, like a cuckoo in another's nest. “How can you be so sure that the coppicer is your man?”

Lupton let out a laugh. “Come. Come,” he chided. “Any fool can see he has the motive. Charlton witnessed Diggott shoot Turgoose.”

Thomas shrugged. “I'll admit it is very convenient, but 'tis not what happened.”

Suddenly the smile was wiped from the steward's face. “Oh?”

The anatomist nodded. “I believe I know how Mr. Charlton died.”

Lupton snorted through flared nostrils. “So do I! By Diggott's hand.”

“Not so,” countered Thomas.

The steward narrowed his eyes. “Do you expect a jury to believe your science over the hard evidence?”

Thomas was quick to correct him. “Evidence that is circumstantial. The fact that both men were in the woods last night proves nothing.”

Without standing on the usual courtesies, the doctor made his way to the window and looked out over the lawns.

Lupton watched him with a frown. “Well, man?”

Thomas remained facing the window. “Yes, I do know how he died, but, more importantly, I believe I know why.”

He heard the scrape of Lupton's chair on the polished wooden floor as he rose and walked toward him. Thomas wheeled 'round.

“You must think me most foolish,” he challenged.

Again there was a wry smile from Lupton, only this time it was followed by a mocking laugh. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Silkstone,” he replied, standing by the mantelpiece.

“You see, in life Charlton may have been able to keep his secret, but in death, it has been divulged.”

Thomas's words caused the steward to furrow his brow.

“I do not follow you.”

The doctor fixed Lupton in the eye. “There was no ambush in the woods, was there? No attack by highwaymen.”

The steward held his nerve and adopted a look of puzzlement. “What are you talking about, man? Of course there was. Adam Diggott and his gang killed Turgoose and now he has killed Charlton, too.”

“And that would suit your purpose, would it not?” inquired Thomas, but he did not wait for an answer. Instead he called Lupton's bluff.

“I now know what you and Sir Montagu have known all along.”

The steward swallowed hard and leaned an elbow on the mantelshelf, assuming an air of self-confidence. “And that is?”

“It was James Charlton who fired the pistol. He killed his master.”

“Hah!” Lupton's response was a cross between a snort and a laugh. For a moment he remained silently smirking, until his composure cracked. He stood upright and tugged at his waistcoat. “You cannot prove it,” he snapped.

Thomas was happy to volunteer the proof. On a nearby table, he opened his medical case and retrieved a glass phial containing his evidence.

“I removed fragments of metal and linen from Charlton's eye. They only need to match the remnants I found in Turgoose's wounds.” He felt quietly triumphant, but there was little joy in his victory. “That was why Charlton killed himself, was it not? He shot his master, but a public confession would not suit your purpose. You needed to pin the blame on the villagers so the law would deal with them, teach them a lesson. Boughton will not tolerate any opposition to enclosure. That was why you kept the chainman here, a virtual prisoner. You did not want him to tell the truth, to take the blame, so you concocted a story about footpads stealing his pocket watch and planted it, together with the pistol, in the Diggotts' cottage.”

“Such fantasy!” snorted Lupton.

Thomas persisted. “Charlton couldn't live with the guilt, could he? He'd tried to slit his wrists after Abe Diggott's trial. But it was the massacre of the villagers that was the final straw. He felt responsible for the deaths of three innocent people and so he threw himself into the river.” He replaced the phial in his case and turned again to face the steward. “What I don't understand is why he murdered Turgoose.”

“And you never shall,” muttered Lupton, his attention drawn by sudden movement outside the window.

Thomas frowned. “What did you just say?”

Lupton rose, went to the door, and opened it. “I said you never shall understand,” he repeated, the familiar disdain tempering his voice.

As he held open the door, a messenger entered. “You have the charge?” asked the steward.

The courier gave a shallow bow and held up a piece of parchment. “I do, sir,” he replied.

Lupton allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation. “Excellent. Then we can proceed. See that it is delivered to the governor of Oxford Jail, along with the prisoner.”

The messenger bowed and within a second was gone.

Thomas shook his head in disbelief. “Have you not heard a word of what I have been saying? There was no murder. The coppicer is innocent.” There was a note of exasperation in his tone. “Charlton killed himself.”

Lupton shook his head and clicked his tongue. “I doubt the judge will agree when he sees Adam Diggott stand before him and hears how he tried to evade arrest.”

Thomas's eyes widened. “So, he is to be charged with Charlton's murder as well as Turgoose's.”

“There is a pleasing symmetry to it, is there not?” said the steward, walking over to the fireplace.

“But you know he is innocent,” Thomas protested. “Not only can I prove that Charlton killed himself; I can prove he killed Turgoose, too, and you know it!”

Yet Lupton refused to be drawn in. He threw Thomas a scornful look. “Save your theories for the courtroom, Silkstone. Adam Diggott and his co-conspirators are as good as dead already,” he said, reaching for the bell cord. Howard appeared almost instantaneously. “Show Dr. Silkstone out, will you?”

For an instant Thomas considered refusing to leave until he had been heard, but he was forced to silently acknowledge any defiance would be futile. Instead, he simply nodded. He would have to rely on his scientific findings to reveal the truth. “I shall see you in court in Oxford, Lupton,” he said.