Constable Nash cleared his throat and announced in a booming voice, “Oyez, oyez, oyez! Ye good men of this county are summoned to appear this day in the presence of Emma Chance lying dead here before ye to inquire for our Sovereign Lord the King, when, how, and by what means she came to her death.” He paused to audibly suck in air. “Answer to yer names as ye shall be called.”
The names of the jurors were duly called, with the first named being appointed foreman. All solemnly swore their oaths with a hand on the Bible, while Magnus Fowler took out a pocketknife and began paring his nails.
“What’d you say the dead woman’s name was?” he asked without looking up.
“Emma Chance, yer honor. Relic of one Captain Stephen Chance.”
“Do we know how and when she died?”
“She was found dead Tuesday morning. But Dr. Higginbottom did a postmortem, yer honor.”
“Then swear him in, man. We haven’t all day.”
Higginbottom shuffled forward to take his seat with such painful slowness that Sebastian suspected the irascible doctor of doing it deliberately to spite the impatient coroner.
“Well?” snapped Fowler. “How did she die?”
“Death was caused by the exclusion of air from the lungs,” said Higginbottom. He paused. “In other words, she was smothered.”
A faint murmuring spread through the assembled crowd. A good portion of the villagers were obviously still expecting the verdict to be felo-de-se, or suicide.
Higginbottom waited for the muttering to die down, then said, “Both heart and lungs appeared normal on examination. The only marks of any significance on the body are a slight bruise under the chin, an even smaller discoloration on the left cheek, and a faint mark on the right arm.”
The coroner stared at him from beneath his brows. “Are you trying to tell me that a woman can be smothered without it leaving more than the faintest traces?”
“If the assailant knows what he’s doing, yes.”
“Huh.” Fowler glanced over at his clerk, who was scribbling furiously at the other end of the table. “And when did you say she died?”
“Sometime Monday afternoon or evening.”
“Anything else?”
A faintly amused light crept into the old doctor’s eyes, but he simply shook his head and said, “No.”
“Go away, then,” snapped the coroner. He waved one hand at the jury. “You will now inspect the body—but be quick about it.”
With more coughing and scraping of benches, the fifteen members of the jury rose to file past the displayed corpse. Some stared at it long and hard, trying to find the bruises reported by the doctor; others gave the dead woman barely a glance before returning to their seats.
The abigail, Peg Fletcher, was called next to testify that Mrs. Chance had gone off sketching sometime after midday and never returned. Lady Seaton testified with great dignity to having encountered the victim at the priory at approximately two o’clock. Then the miller’s wife was sworn in.
A merry-faced, husky woman in her late forties with a massive bosom and soft brown hair wrapped around her head in plaits, she reported seeing the lady walking toward the river shortly after five that afternoon.
Magnum Fowler—who to all appearances had by this point fallen asleep—opened one eye and said, “Do you possess a watch?”
Alice Gibbs laughed. “Oh, no, sir. Where would the likes of me get a watch? And what would I do with it if I had one?”
“Then how did you know it was five o’clock?”
It was an acute question. But Alice simply laughed again and said, “Why, I’d just been talkin’ to the village schoolmaster and we heard the church bells strikin’ the hour. He said he hadn’t realized it was so late. That’s how I come to remember the time.”
“Huh. That will be all, then.” Fowler turned to the constable. “Where did you say the deceased was found?”
“In the water meadows to the west of the village, yer honor.”
“By whom?”
“Young Master Charles Bonaparte, yer honor.”
“He’s here?”
“He is.”
“Call him as witness.”
There was a stir as Charles was ushered forward. The jurors from Ludlow and Bromfield—most of whom had never been privileged to set eyes on a real, live Bonaparte—gawked openly at this diminutive relative of the Great Beast.
Alexandrine Bonaparte had obviously gone out of her way to make her rambunctious offspring presentable, for he was dressed in neat nankeens and a spotless frilled shirt, and clutched to his chest a brimmed round hat of straw with a wide ribbon band. He looked vaguely intimidated by the formality of the proceedings but also, boy-like, secretly proud of the role he’d been called on to play in this exciting drama. He swore his oath in a firm voice that carried not a hint of his parents’ Corsican or French accents.