“No,” Brother Godwine said firmly. “No purse either. You say the purse was stolen? Oh, heaven! What a calamity! Was the pouch stolen, too? Will we ever learn what the Holy Father wished to tell us?”
Bell had examined the strap inch by inch. “No cuts and it would be hard to remove the pouch without marks.”
“Perhaps he was not wearing it?” Magdalene was dying to say that the pouch could have been hidden, but she dared not.
Sir Bellamy nodded to her remark, then patted Brother Godwine’s shoulder. “Yes, of course you will learn what the Holy Father wished to tell. The bishop will send a messenger to inform the pope that Baldassare was slain and the contents of his pouch lost.”
“We will be blamed. The Holy Father will call us guilty of great neglect to allow his messenger to be murdered on our doorstep.”
“Not if you help me find the killer and we can tell the pope his messenger is avenged.”
“Gladly. We will all gladly help. But Messer Baldassare did not enter the priory by the front gate. I swear it! No one knew of his presence until the body was found.”
“And when was that?”
“At Prime. We—we heard crows cawing. All through the service the crows called. The sacristan bade the lay brother who assists him, Brother Knud, to see if some offal had been left in the graveyard. And Knud found…found…oh, it was terrible!”
“I’m sure it was,” Bell said. “Can you show me just where the body was found?”
The porter led the way out of the chapel and across the chancel to the north porch door, Magdalene following silently on Sir Bellamy’s heels. As annoyed as she had been with him for forcing her to make a statement about Baldassare, she was now grateful because she realized it was important for her to see where the crime had been committed. Sabina saw much with her fingers, but only what she had touched, and the shock and fear could easily have made her forget things.
The porter opened the door but did not step out. Pointing, he said, “There. You can see where he was found. The lay brothers have not been able to wash away the stain of the blood.”
“There was a great deal of blood?”
Brother Godwine shuddered. “A pool of it, and that after his shirt and tunic and cloak were soaked.”
“And the blood? Was it red and liquid, or brown and like a jelly or a crust?”
The porter drew a shaky breath. “Oh, I do not know. I could not look.” He shuddered again. “And I certainly did not touch it.”
Bell wished that the brothers had not been so quick to clean the victim’s clothes. He would have liked to see for himself just how hard the bloodstains were and how much blood had been absorbed. To those unaccustomed, blood always seemed a pool or a flood when it might have been only a smear. He stepped past Brother Godwine and knelt to examine the stain. No, the mark was not owing to insufficient washing; the stain had soaked into the rough places in the mortar and stone.
“He was almost certainly killed here, on the porch, and I think some hours before Prime,” Bell said. “Let me go look at the body again.”
He went in and recrossed the chancel briskly. Brother Godwine hung back, but Magdalene kept pace with him, intensely curious about why he wished to re-examine the body. This time, despite Brother Godwine’s anguished exclamation, he pulled down the shroud and turned the corpse so that the cut in the flesh was clear. The body turned like a block, except for one arm and leg that flopped limply. Curious as she was, Magdalene stepped back a bit, and when he bent almost close enough to kiss the wound and pulled and prodded at the flesh, she drew her breath in sharply.
“Yes, as I thought, killed long before Prime. This stiffness takes some hours to form. He was rigid when you found him, was he not?”
“I do not know,” the porter said, sounding stifled. “Brother Infirmarian took charge then. You may speak to him if you must.”
Bell nodded, lifting his gaze from the wound for a moment to glance at Magdalene, who had come closer once more now that she knew what he was doing. He nodded and bent to study the cut even more closely. “I will, but later. I will want to know if he agrees with my thoughts. It seems to me that whoever stabbed Baldassare was standing close and that Baldassare made no resistance and did not move until the knife went in.”
“How do you know that?” Magdalene asked, voice hushed.
“The wound is not torn, and the way the knife went in makes me think the two were nearly of a height. I would guess they knew each other well, that they walked from somewhere together, perhaps arm in arm, the killer’s left arm in or near Baldassare’s right. Under cover of their talk, the killer drew his knife in his right hand, turned to face Baldassare—perhaps to make a point, but I do not think they were arguing—and suddenly brought up the knife and thrust it into Baldassare’s neck.”