The Tainted Coin Read Online Free PDF

upon which rested a small chest and a cupboard. In another corner was the chapman’s bed. A larger chest, complete with iron hasp and lock, occupied a third corner, close to the fireplace. Closer inspection of the table showed a cresset, and resting nearby, flint and steel for striking a fire.
    I sought no heat, but desired more light, so unraveled a few threads from Thrale’s bed covering, set these alight with sparks from the flint and steel, then transferred the flame to the wick of the cresset.

    I opened the small chest. I sought there some document or letter which might lead me to Thrale’s sisters. Likely he could not read, for I found nothing written there. Or perhaps he kept such things in his large chest. If so, I would not see them unless the chest was not locked, or I could find another key.
    The chest was locked. The key for this box would not be so large as the one which opened Thrale’s door, therefore easier hid. I returned to the small chest and inspected its contents. No key was there. I removed the bed covers and shook them out, to no purpose. I inspected the mattress, to see if some seam might show where a key was hid in the straw, and pounded upon the pillow to learn if a key might be among the goose feathers. I found nothing.
    Next I overturned the bed to see if a key might be fixed somewhere under the frame. None was there. I moved the table and cupboard from the wall. Perhaps Thrale had hidden the key behind the cupboard. He had not, and running my fingers under the table showed no key there. I found only a splinter from the crudely made table.
    I sucked upon the offended finger and surveyed the room. Did the chapman have this smaller key with him, and it lay now buried with him in his grave, or was it yet in his cart, and I had overlooked it when I took inventory of Thrale’s possessions?
    I next inspected the smaller ground-floor room, beyond the stairs. It was empty – no bench or chest or bed or cupboard was there. I climbed the stairs and with the flame of the cresset examined the two upper rooms. They were as bare as the small ground-floor room. John Thrale lived in but one room of this house. Why, at Lammastide, had he moved to a house much larger than his need?
    I returned to the ground floor, studied again the larger room, and saw another place a man might hide a key. I bent to the hearth and from it drew a footed iron pot. Inside the pot I found the key. Whatever the chapman had stored in the larger chest, he had taken some pains that no man would open the box and discover his secret.

    The key fit the lock poorly, and I thought at first it was a key to some other lock. But eventually, after some twisting and force, I made the key to work and drew open the chest. I was stunned at what I found there.
    No letters or documents lay in the chest, but I found three leather pouches, a hammer near as large as a smith might use to pound out a horseshoe, a small, hand-operated bellows, and a tiny iron box, open at its top, narrow at the base, which was about the length of a finger and half as wide and deep.
    I could not guess why such objects might be hid securely in such a chest, but thought the contents of the sacks might explain. They did so, for one sack contained thirty or more coins similar to the one which had dropped from the chapman’s lips in St. Andrew’s Chapel churchyard. Another sack held jewelry of various and wondrous designs: wrist bands, rings, and necklaces of gold, some of these studded with precious stones.
    The third sack was smaller, and when I untied the thong which closed it I found within five small ingots of silver and one of gold, and seven small stones, one of which was green and much like an emerald. One glance at the small iron box told me whence these ingots had come. I took an ingot and fitted it to the box. It was a perfect match. After prising out the jewels, the silver and gold had been melted to fit the iron mold.
    A bench lay against the wall beside the