The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin Read Online Free Page A

her you would agree Balthazar Coffin must be unwitted to let such a woman, a widow and his wife, stray so far to market. He had best think on his own suit in such light. Would not your own advice and wisdom steer him toward his own negligence?
    Ask those who know me—there are many. There is no evil done this woman, or any other, here!
    Mgts.:
Neither the causes nor the wits of Mr. Coffin are the question at this moment.
    H:
Indeed so, Sirs! But, with respect, he paints her a model Christian soul. So she may seem to him. Yet if in the sight of others that which one takes for truth is not upheld, then neither Truth nor Law stay sightless to let such accusations fall against me.
    Her nature was otherwise, Sirs. Ask after that.
    Mgts.:
Cease this rant. You know nothing more of this woman’s disappearance and end?
    H:
Only that there was some enchantment over her ripe and plucky beauty, Sirs. I make no mistake: something in her ways to disturb Christian men and women, truth be known.
    Mgts.:
Your answer is no, Higgins? Nothing else? Is that so?
    H:
Yes, Your Honors, my answer is I know nothing more.
    Mgts.:
Then keep yourself available for further examination at the pleasure of the Court. You are scheduled for the September session in Mr. Coffin’s action.

IV

    By early March, Richard Browne, wrapped against the cold, sat at a small table poring over court records, searching for any possible clarification of Mistress Coffin’s death. With his gloved hands he occasionally scribbled notes to himself. On still another piece of paper he listed document numbers and titles as he flipped through them, reading rapidly. On top of a separate small set of papers he had placed Higgins’ deposition.
    He sat alone in the cold room, his breath smoking before him. An elderly clerk had unlocked the door for him after Browne had completed a lengthy interview with Dr. Cotton. Cotton—a large, gouty, red-faced, magisterial person—was a fellow Cambridge man. Although he had in common with Browne, as it turned out, several academic acquaintances, his Cambridge years predated Browne’s. Cotton had attended Sidney College as a classmate of Cromwell.
    At the moment Browne was feeling discouraged. He was surprised at how little he had been able to discover here. There was nothing to explain more fully Coffin’s sudden retraction of his cause against Higgins. Nor was there anything to clarify Higgins’ reciprocal retraction of his counter action for slander against Coffin. Nor was any greater light, finally, shed upon the woman’s disappearance and death. Higgins was indeed implicated in nothing more than possible negligence and contractual failures. The examination and deposition of Coffinclarified further only certain relations between families in the town and certain features of the settlement’s governance.
    Only the examination of one Darby Shaw, a cohort of Higgins, intrigued Browne. He could not say just why he was so intrigued. But he placed Shaw’s deposition on top of those papers containing Higgins’ deposition and sat back. He was tired from picking his way through it all, not only the record of the Court but the waste books filled with preliminary records. He had passed through deeds, inventories of estates, contracts, attested copies, apprentices’ indentures, inquests, and writs. His mind wandered; his body grew slack with fatigue.
    There had been, of course, moments of entertainment. He had stumbled here through all the ancient passions and vanities, the comic oddities, the upstart rebellions and enduring desires given expression in the New World. Many had been presented for being disguised with drink. One dissident woman appeared again and again among the pages. She had threatened to tear one man’s flesh to pieces; she had displayed her contempt of the Court and magistrates. Browne had skimmed through charges and counter charges of abusing the watch or other persons as proud