short story · fiction · 2 min read
Tyger, Tyger
A medieval coroner's jury investigates a brutal street killing in 14th-century London — until a most unusual horse-drawn vehicle arrives, and two very recognisable gentlemen step out.
On Tuesday after the Feast of Epiphany, John Tyger was found dead of an unnatural death in a flat rented by Alice his wife in the parish of St Clement Candlewick in the Langbourn ward. The coroner and the sheriff called an investigative jury to examine the case.
They found that on the preceding Sunday, a certain John Edworth, brother of the late Osbert Pledour, was riding in the company of some men, who were taking Walter Selby, a rebel against the King, towards the Tower of London. John Edworth met John Tygre, who had killed his brother Osbert. He said he would have something to say to him when the opportunity occurred. The two men separated full of anger, and from then on each waited to kill the other.
On the next Monday, before midnight, John Edworth and two unknown men met John Tyger at the top of Sopers-Lane, in the Cheap Ward. Immediately a fight started, with the two Johns drawing their swords, and the two unknown men using a so-called ‘Irish knife’ and a quarterstaff. John Edworth and his companions chased John Tyger from place to place. However, at the head of Wood Street John Tyger fell over a heap of dung. This allowed John Edworth and his companions to mortally wound him while he was on the ground. John Edworth stabbed John Tyger with his sword, three times on the back of his head, once on the left side, and once under his left ear, while one of the two unknown men inflicted wounds with his staff on his sides, back, arms and neck. When night watches heard this, they ran there and found the wounded John de Tygre. Some of his friends carried him to his wife’s flat where he had his ecclesiastical rights and lingered until Sunday when he died in the ninth hour.
John de Eddeworth and his companions immediately fled to an unknown location; as far as the jurors could establish they had no possessions. A warrant goes to the Sheriffs to arrest John and his companions as soon as they are found.
At that moment a vehicle of a sort never seen before drew up. It was a kind of box on wheels, drawn by a horse.
From it descended two gentlemen, very strangely dressed. One, who wore a hat with peaks fore and aft, bowed to the coroner.
“Sir,” he said, “I believe you may be searching for two miscreants whom I saw disappearing into a little church down that alley there.”
He turned to his companion.
“Watson, your time -travelling hansom cab is indeed a most clever invention. How fascinating to see that crime does not differ from century to century,” observed Sherlock Holmes.