The Weaver's Inheritance by Kate Sedley

voice. ‘I’m only trying to be helpful; making you free of my observations.’ A thought struck me. ‘Do you know what’s going to happen to the cottage?’
    The Sheriff’s Officer eyed me with distaste, not without good reason.
    ‘You don’t miss an opportunity, do you?’ he sneered. ‘And Mistress Bracegirdle not yet laid to rest in her grave.’
    ‘I don’t ask for myself,’ I assured him hastily, ‘but for an impoverished widow and her little son who have just returned to Bristol after seven years in Hereford…’
    Before I could explain further, the guard interrupted me, his blue eyes suddenly widening with pleasure.
    ‘Adela Woodward! Is that who you mean? She married a Hereford man – I forget his name. Is it her? Is she back at last, then?’
    ‘Adela Juett,’ I said, ‘cousin in some degree or another to my mother-in-law, Margaret Walker. Yes, I believe her name was Woodward before her marriage.’
    ‘Well!’ The round face beneath the red hair beamed with delight. ‘Tell her Richard Manifold was asking after her. She’ll remember me, I don’t doubt.’
    I promised most earnestly to pass on his message, and then returned to the subject of the empty cottage without any further resentment on the part of my companion.
    ‘Best go to the Priory and ask,’ he advised, adding, ‘they’ve carried the body there already.’
    At these words, I hesitated, not hurrying away as Richard Manifold seemed to expect.
    ‘In that case,’ I said persuasively, ‘might I just go in for a moment or two and look around?’
    I could see from his expression that he was about to warn me off, but then he recollected that I was to be the bearer and interpreter of his good wishes to Adela Juett, and thought better of it.
    ‘Very well,’ he grudgingly agreed, ‘but only for a minute. Leave the door ajar and if you hear me whistle, come straight out. It’ll mean someone’s coming. Though why you want to look inside beats me. There’s nothing to see. Nothing out of the ordinary, that is.’
    I thanked him and, after glancing round to make sure that I was not observed by any passer-by, I pushed open the door and went inside.
    *   *   *
    My informant was right: there was nothing to see beyond the normal paraphernalia of everyday living. The rushes on the floor were several days old, but not yet in urgent need of replacement. When the fire was lit, the smoke rose straight up through a hole in the roof, which, like most of those in Bristol, was tiled with slates. The cottage walls were made of wood and plaster. A bed, covered with a quilt of faded and badly rubbed amber velvet, occupied one wall of the room and appeared not to have been slept in. A stool, a table, a chair and a corner cupboard which held the dead woman’s few possessions, made up the remainder of the furniture, except for a carved wooden chest standing beneath the window. This latter, on inspection, proved to be disappointingly empty, but the pot suspended from the crane arm, over the burnt-out ashes on the hearth, was still half-full of what smelled like mutton stew, a crust of congealed fat covering the surface. A clean wooden bowl and spoon were laid out on the table. There seemed to have been no disturbance of any kind, no struggle or scuffle, confirming me in my belief that Imelda Bracegirdle had known her attacker and had felt in no danger from him or her. My guess, therefore, was that she had been strangled suddenly, from behind, with no prior warning.
    I said as much to Richard Manifold when I rejoined him outside, but he shrugged and said no doubt his Sergeant had already noted all these things and that they would be included in his report to the Sheriff. As for himself, he held by his opinion that Mistress Bracegirdle had been killed by a thief who was after her money.
    ‘For you must know,’ he added, ‘that the gossip along the Mead is that she had a secret hoard of gold hidden somewhere in the cottage.’
    ‘Then why didn’t