A Wicked Deed by Susanna Gregory Page B

gentlemen. Can you recall nothing else about him? Did he have any marks or scars?’
    ‘Not that I saw,’ said William. ‘He was just an ordinary sinner.’
    ‘And you are certain he was dead,’ said Walter Wauncy, chewing slowly and deliberately on a piece of bread, as if he imagined his teeth might drop out if he were too vigorous. ‘Because dead men do not cut themselves down from gibbets and walk away.’
    ‘How can you be sure of that?’ asked Isilia, her green eyes round and sombre as she regarded the cadaverous priest. ‘Strange things have been happening here since the Death.’
    ‘Not
that
strange!’ said Tuddenham, with a bemused smile. He shook his head at his mother. ‘Have you been telling her silly tales again?’
    ‘Do not mock things you do not understand, Thomas,’ said the old lady sharply. Isilia is right: strange things have happened here since the Death.’
    She exchanged a glance with Isilia, and they instinctively moved closer together as if for protection. Bartholomew noticed that the old lady’s gaudy brooch had been exchanged for a heavy gold cross, which she clutched at with bird-like fingers.
    ‘But dead men do not walk,’ intervened Michael firmly, never a man to exercise patience with superstition. ‘The solution to all this is perfectly clear: someone removed the body after we left.’
‘Why would someone do that?’ asked Wauncy, tearing off a fragment of crust with bony fingers and cautiously placing it in his mouth. ‘If the man were dead, why bother to spirit the corpse away?’
    ‘To claim his jewels and dagger, of course,’ said Alcote impatiently. ‘And to steal his clothes.’
    ‘But that does not explain why the whole body disappeared,’ said Michael. ‘A thief would have stripped the corpse where it lay, not removed the whole thing.’
    ‘It is more likely that
the
body was stolen to prevent an investigation into its death,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is difficult to solve a murder when there is no corpse.’
    ‘True,’ said William, anxious to join in the conversation and demonstrate his deductive skills – skills he hoped Michael would report to the Chancellor when they returned to Cambridge, and that would see him appointed as the University’s Junior Proctor. ‘But it seems that the killer was interrupted before he had finished his business. When Matthew cut the body down, the man was still alive –just for a few moments. We—’
    He jumped suddenly, and leaned down to rub his shin. Michael glared at him, while Bartholomew felt his heart sink.
    ‘You cut down the body of a man who might, for all you knew, have been lawfully executed?’ asked Tuddenham, shocked. Isilia and Dame Eva exchanged a look of horror, and Wauncy shuddered. ‘That is scarcely a wise habit, gentlemen!’
    ‘Professional hangmen do not abandon their victims before they are dead,’ said Bartholomew curtly, deciding there was little point in denying what they had done. ‘It was clear this man had not keen killed legally.’ ‘Nor do hangmen abandon their victims’ clothing,’ added Michael. ‘They usually consider those part of their payment. As Matt says, there was something peculiar about the man’s death, and we sought only to avert a possible miscarriage of justice. We were right: whoever we saw die was not executed after a fair trial.’
    ‘Perhaps he took his own life,’ said Wauncy, still chewing slowly. ‘And then, when you saved him, he just walked away, seeing his rescue as an act of divine intervention.’
    ‘He was dead,’ said Bartholomew firmly. ‘I am a physician – I know a corpse when I see one.’
    ‘But there are certain illnesses and potions that make a man appear to be dead when he still lives,’ observed Wauncy. ‘I have heard stories where grieving families were delighted to discover that a loved one was not dead after all.’
    Bartholomew had been wrongly accused of misdiagnosing a dead man in the past, and was not prepared to let it