'Hardly merits being called a packman, though I'm told he was more respectable once upon a time.'
In the hole, partly obscured by the new spring weeds, was a body lying face up, his glassy eyes staring at the midday sun. A few bluebottles buzzed around the bloody fluid around the battered lips, and John could see that there were already yellow fly eggs on the eyelids. The face was badly bruised and one ear was half torn from the side of the head.
'You say you know who he is, then?' demanded the coroner.
'A well-known pedlar in these parts by the name of Setricus Segar,' replied Luke. 'Tramps the roads of Dorset and Devon trying to earn the price of his ale, on which he seems to live instead of solid food. '
De Wolfe looked down at the pathetic figure crumpled in what was almost a ready-made grave. Hard as he was from years of fighting and killing, as well as the morbid tasks of a coroner, he could not but feel a twinge of pity for this wreck of a man having come to such a dismal end.
'Then it's unlikely that he was robbed for his purse, if he was as poor as you suggest,' he said. 'What about his pack or whatever he carried to sell his wares?'
Another man spoke up this time, introducing himself as Edgar, bailiff of Honiton. He was a tall, fair man of obvious Saxon blood, dressed in a short serge tunic and cross-gartered breeches. 'That's the odd thing, sir! His pack wasn't worth two bent pennies, just a few pins and needles and some creased cloths. But it was found untouched a mile from here, hidden under the hedge at the side of the road.'
'Is this how he was found?' John waved a hand at the cadaver.
'Indeed it was, Crowner,' said the bailiff. 'We know better in Honiton than to move a body before you are summoned,' he added virtuously. 'One of these men found him last evening when he was dumping weeds from the field.'
'Do we know when he was last seen alive?'
'A carter from Seaton said he saw Setricus in Wilmington the day before yesterday, trying to sell his wares.'
Gwyn, who had stepped into the hole and was testing the dead man's limbs, looked up. 'Stiff as a plank! With these fly eggs, but no maggots yet, I reckon he died the night before last, if he was seen the day before that.'
De Wolfe nodded at his officer. 'Have a good look at him, Gwyn. See how much of a battering he's suffered.'
Then he turned around beckoned Luke away from the ring of locals who were gawping down at Gwyn's examination.
'Why do you think there might be some connection with the death in Axmouth?' he muttered, out of hearing of the others.
De Casewold's chubby face was pink with excitement as he expounded his theory. Like his clerk, he obviously thrived on mysteries and violent intrigue.
'It was where the pack was found, John! It was hidden in the hedge just outside a ruined toft down the road. No one lives there, but there were signs that someone had been using it very recently. And there were cartwheel tracks in the track alongside the hovel, as well as fresh ox-droppings in the pasture.'
The coroner disliked this man using his Christian name so familiarly, but he concentrated on trying to extract some sense out of what he was telling him. 'What has that got to do with our corpse down on the Axe?' he growled.
The Keeper leant forward, as if imparting some great secret. The sour breath from his bad teeth made John move back sharply, but he listened intently to his deductions.
'I'm sure there are illicit goods coming into the harbour there - but they have to be shifted inland. The only way to move heavier stuff is by cart, probably at night so as not to make it too obvious.'
'So what has this to do with a dead pedlar?'
'Maybe he was too nosy - or tried to steal something from them. Why else would anyone want to beat a penniless drunk to death?'
John thought the notion unlikely but not impossible - and he had no better theory to offer. 'I'd better have a look at this place - a mile away, you say?'
De Casewold nodded, but just then Gwyn gave a shout.
'His head's been cracked like an egg, Crowner. Hit with something hard and heavy, I reckon.'
Even Thomas, who usually hung back when his big colleague was ministering to the dead, moved to the edge of the hole with Hugh Bogge to see what Gwyn had found. He saw a long gash in the greying hair of the scalp, as long as a man's hand.
'Surely that must be from a sword or big knife?' he quavered, a hand to his mouth.
Gwyn guffawed and poked his finger into the gash to feel the broken plates of bone grinding against each other. 'No, you don't need a sharp weapon for this! A good smack with a club or a bit of tree-branch will split the scalp as clean as a whistle!'
As Thomas cringed and moved back from the pit, the coroner joined his officer and between them they looked at the corpse in more detail. Pulling up the threadbare clothing, they found bruises all over the belly and chest, many fractured ribs being felt under the thin skin of the emaciated pedlar. When they had finished, John told the bailiff to have the corpse carried the short distance back into Honiton, where he would hold an inquest in the churchyard in a couple of hours. Leaving Gwyn and Hugh Bogge to organise a jury, he motioned to Thomas and they joined the Keeper in a short expedition to the ruined cottage. Their horses covered the distance in a few minutes and they alighted at a semi-ruined hovel set on its own in a half-acre of overgrown land.