Free The Tinner's Corpse by Bernard Knight Page B

breeches, with a new-looking short leather cape around his shoulders.
    ‘I’ll tell you what he means, Crowner,’ he shouted, in a bass voice. ‘The bastard is insinuating that I killed his man to damage his stream-working up there on the Teign. And it’s a damned lie, as he well knows!’
    Walter Knapman, his face purpling with anger, took a step forward and the younger fellow squared up to him, like a pair of cockerels in a farmyard challenge. Gwyn stepped forward, placed a huge hand on each chest and pushed them apart.
    ‘Who are you? And what’s all this about?’ demanded de Wolfe.
    ‘I’ll tell you who he is!’ snarled Knapman. ‘He’s Stephen Acland, the biggest troublemaker on the eastern moor. This young upstart thinks he can displace me as the chief tin-master here.’
    Acland, now red in the face, leaned sideways to shout at his rival past Gwyn’s massive bulk. ‘I can do that without slaying your men, Knapman. You’ve had your way for too long, but I’ll unseat you by fair means. Don’t try blaming me for the death of your overman.’
    ‘And what about the damage to my sluices and troughs up at Scorhill last month?’ yelled Knapman. ‘You had nothing to do with that either, I suppose – two days after I threw you out for having the impudence to want to buy half my holdings.’
    De Wolfe had allowed this angry exchange to go on in case something useful came of it. Now he decided that enough was enough. ‘Stop, you two! Has this anything at all to do with my enquiries into this death?’
    Stephen Acland swung around to face the coroner. ‘Of course not, sir. This is a business matter, which should be aired at the Great Court this week.’
    ‘Then I suggest you pursue it there, rather than screaming at each other like fish-wives before half the town!’ De Wolfe glared at both combatants, who rapidly cooled down in his forbidding presence. He noticed that the attractive woman he had taken to be Mistress Knapman was staring fixedly at Acland, her full lips slightly apart, her face pale and her eyes wide. He could not decide whether her expression was one of apprehension or enrapturement, but he also saw that her husband was now watching her intently and following her gaze across to the younger tin-master.
    Before de Wolfe had a chance to restart his inquest, Walter Knapman grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her away, almost violently, through the crowd towards the churchyard gate.
    Acland stood stock still, his eyes pinned on the woman, and de Wolfe needed no second sight to decide that Knapman’s antipathy to Acland was not wholly concerned with the tin trade. ‘Acland, have you anything to tell me about this matter?’ he called out, to bring the man’s attention back to the proceedings.
    Slowly the tinner turned to face him, his chin jutting forward obstinately. ‘Nothing useful, Crowner. I knew Henry of Tunnaford well enough, even though he didn’t work for me. He was a good man. Surely his death must have been the work of a madman.’
    ‘But which madman? Have you any suggestions?’
    A wave of whispering rippled through the front ranks of the crowd, especially the jurors, as if they were willing Acland to say something.
    ‘If it’s a madman you’re seeking, then Aethelfrith comes first to mind, Crowner. I would easily believe that he damaged Knapman’s equipment the other day, but I doubt he would kill. Though even murderers have to begin sometime.’
    ‘Tell me about this Aethelfrith – I’ve heard mention of him before.’
    Acland rubbed a hand around his beard, as if delaying an answer. ‘There are other people better able to tell you than I, Crowner – the bailiff and the constable for a start. But I can give you the common knowledge, that he is an old Saxon, of at least three score years, who has a crazy hatred of everything Norman.’
    Now one of the jurors cut in, a tinner, though not one of Henry’s team: ‘He attacked me once, sir, nearly a year past. I was on