The Witching Pool: A Justice Belstrang Mystery (Justice Belstrang Mysteries Book 2) by John Pilkington (love letters to the dead .TXT) 📗

finally nodded. After dismissing Mistress Dowling, who rose and quickly vacated her chair, he beckoned the doctor forward.

Breathing hard, Robert Belstrang sank down on his straw bale and waited.

TWELVE

Boyd’s evidence did not take long. In a dispassionate manner, he spoke of examining the body of Howell Rhys in the crypt of the church. His first task, he explained, was to verify whether the deceased had perished by drowning, as was supposed. And in that, he was obliged to report, the finder of the body had been mistaken. This caused another murmur of voices, which Standish quelled at once. Frowning at Boyd, he asked him to explain – which answer brought a collective sigh of dismay.

‘By poison?’ The Justice echoed. ‘How can you know that?’ Whereupon my friend repeated what he had told me the day before, about the lack of water in the lungs and other signs, as well as the suspicious bruising on the body. Hence, he added, it was his opinion that the deceased had-

But he got no further; raising a hand, Standish stopped him in mid-sentence. ‘I do not wish to listen to more opinions, doctor,’ he said frostily. ‘I’ve heard enough of those from Mistress Dowling. Instead, I ask you this: could the marks you saw on the deceased’s body have been occasioned by him forcing his way through a wood in the dark, perhaps causing him to fall – perhaps a number of times?’

Boyd eyed him stonily. ‘Would not my answer to that also amount to an opinion?’ He enquired.

Standish bristled. ‘I pray you, sir, answer the question.’

‘Very well, then: I think it most unlikely,’ Boyd told him. ‘It looked to me more as if he had been in a fight.’

There was another restless stirring among the watchers, to be silenced once again by the magistrate. ‘Be that as it may,’ he said, ‘from what I see, there’s no evidence at all that he was poisoned. But then again…’ here he paused, and looked deliberately at the jury. ‘Even if that were so, does it not seem likely, given what we know of the deceased’s state of mind, that he could have taken it on purpose?’

‘In which case,’ Boyd demanded, ‘why on earth would he go to the trouble of trying to drown himself?’

The response was a murmur and, to my quiet satisfaction, one or two stifled laughs - but Standish was having none of it.

‘For the reason we have already heard,’ he retorted. ‘That in his troubled state, he wished to die at the same spot where his lover Mistress Cobbett perished. The poison – if indeed there was any – might simply have been a means to ensure that he succeeded in his aims.’

To that Boyd made no answer, and soon after he was asked to withdraw. For a moment he hesitated, then appeared to think better of it. But as he turned to walk back to his seat, he caught my eye, and I understood: my friend was more than dissatisfied - he was annoyed, which was rare for him. The matter was not finished, his gaze told me; my spirits lifted at the thought.

The next witness to be called was Thomas Rowden, master of the late Howell Rhys.

He came forward at a slow pace: a stolid man, walking stiffly. Having taken the oath, he fixed Justice Standish with a look of disapproval, as if he resented having to attend him. From the start, his evidence was that of a man who clearly had better things to do.

Yes, he confirmed, he was the farmer who had employed Rhys for more than a year. He had engaged him in time for last year’s lambing, having had good reports of his work. No, he had no knowledge of when the boy, as he referred to him throughout, had made the acquaintance of Mistress Cobbett. He believed it was true, however, that Rhys had sometimes left the fields by night and crossed the river to keep tryst with the girl. Then, it came as no surprise to him.

‘What do you mean by that?’ Justice Standish enquired.

‘What I mean,’ Rowden replied, ‘is that if ever a boy had his head in the clouds these past months, it was him. He was moonstruck… his mind not on his work. I had to chastise him, more than once. Lovesick, some might call it - that or bewitched, as Cobbett’s woman put it.’

My hackles rising anew, I glanced at Boyd, who was tight-lipped. Once again, I thought, we were being told that those ill-fated lovers had been the victims of a madness caused by conjuration. And my view was only hardened as the Justice questioned his witness further.

‘On the night in question, that of Thursday last by my reckoning,’ Standish asked, ‘were you aware that Rhys had abandoned his duties and gone elsewhere?’

‘Not till the morning after, when he was found,’ Rowden answered sourly. ‘He stayed out with the flock some nights, so I wouldn’t have known.’ He shook his head. ‘No shepherd I ever knew would have gone off and left ‘em like that.’

Unless he was abducted, I wanted to say - and I might have done so, had Standish’s next question not prevented me.

‘You knew the deceased well – better than any other person present,’ he said. ‘In which case, I ask whether you are able to say that he was capable of taking his own life. Would you so swear?’

‘Well now…’ Rowden hesitated. ‘He was sad enough and mad enough… so aye, I believe I’d say so. And now he’s gone and done it, I hope to God he pays the price for his sins.’

He drew a breath, shifting on his feet. ‘Am I finished now?’ he demanded. ‘For if I don’t get back to my fields soon, I’ll likely have sheep scattered from here to the Indies. Do