A Corpse at St Andrew's Chapel Read Online Free PDF Page B

St Andrew’s Chapel yard seems bleak.
    I scanned the building as I approached. It was not so disordered as the wall, but there were slates missing from the roof. I suspected that the worshipers got wet on rainy Sundays.
    The chapel is small; no more than twelve paces long and perhaps seven paces wide. So the tower at the west end of the structure is also small, but it is within the tower that John Kellet lives. The room is convenient, I suppose, as well as cheap. When the priest wishes to call his small flock to mass, he has but to walk to the center of his chamber, where the bell rope passes through from floor to ceiling.
    Slate shingles on the porch were in poor repair, also, and I noted that the door was beginning to rot at the base as I pushed it open and entered the dim interior of the chapel.
    Sunlight slanting through the narrow south windows illuminated dust motes floating like down in the still air. The dust would eventually join the layer of grime which covered the flat surfaces inside the chapel. I ran a finger across a windowsill and left a dark streak in the accumulated dust of many years.
    I turned to the stairway which led to the vicar’s room and was about to ascend when I heard the door at the head of the stairs creak open on corroded hinges. The priest had heard me open the door from the porch and was descending to discover who had entered his seldom-visited demesne.
    I was again astonished at the girth of John Kellet. I do not understand how a priest who tends such a meager garden can grow so fat. I had apparently interrupted his dinner, for I saw a grease stain on his long tunic and he licked his fingers as he came into view at the foot of the stairs.
    The tunic was black, as befits a priest. As he approached I saw that it was made of a soft, fine wool. It was wrinkled and food-stained, but of better quality than the tunic that Thomas de Bowlegh, vicar of a larger church, wore.
    “Ah, Master Hugh,” Kellet’s voice echoed off the grey stones of floor and walls. “What…what brings you here this day?”
    I wished to return quickly to the miller’s broken arm, so did not squander time with niceties.
    “A man died along the path to Bampton yesterday…or perhaps the night before.”
    The priest started, and his sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes grew wide.
    “Alan, the beadle,” I continued. “Did you know him?”
    “Uh…aye, I believe so. Along the path, you say?”
    “Aye. Just the other side of the wood beyond the churchyard. Plowmen found him this morning.”
    “Did he have lands there?” the priest asked.
    “No. He’d gone out to watch and warn Tuesday eve, and never returned.”
    The priest pursed his lips. “Tsk,” he muttered. “Such a young man…but death takes us all.”
    “Did you hear any strange, unnatural sound Tuesday eve?”
    “Why, no. This death, does it trouble you?”
    “I think, perhaps. The man’s throat was torn, as if a wild beast had attacked him. His head was broken, I know not how, and his shoes are taken, which no beast would do.”
    “A beast, you say?” The priest frowned, and his mouth dropped open for a moment.
    “Perhaps. His throat was torn. Fangs or claws might be the cause. Do you know of any wild hounds ranging in this parish?”
    Kellet scratched the back of his shaggy head. “I’ve heard of nothin’ like that. ’Course, there is much waste land between here an’ Aston, since the great death. Beasts could prowl there an’ none the wiser.”
    “Have any cotters hereabout lost animals recently? Sheep, or even fowl?”
    “Oh, a duck or two goes missing every month or so, but I think a fox would do no harm to the beadle.”
    “If you learn of evidence that savage beasts have been seen or heard, you must send word to me. It is my duty to keep Lord Gilbert’s lands free of such marauders…if such there be.”
    “Mayhap,” the priest said, scratching his scalp again, “wolves have come down from Wales. The winter past was cruel. I have heard