Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

But once past, she snatched up a firebrand, flitted up behind the leper, and set fire to his robe.

Tallow-soaked wool ignited with a ripple. The leper whirled at the heat and smell and smoke, then shrieked. He dropped his staff and ran flat out. Marian ran hard behind him.

Robin pelted out the doorway. “What the bloody living hell...?”

When the flaming leper had run a hundred feet, Marian caught up and hooked his foot with her own. The man slammed down. Kicking, she flipped him over, rolled him in the dirt, and snuffed the fire.

Robin arrived just as Marian jerked back the hood. Revealed was Seymour, journeyman miller.

“A real leper can’t run,” Marian panted. “Their toes are the first things to rot off.”

Robin stroked his beard. Seymour wept.

The Vixen of Sherwood poured herself another tot of stout and saluted the men who scooped flour into sacks.

“I saw right off he weren’t a real leper. He wasn’t crippled, nor did he stink of corruption. But some poor souls pose as lepers because they feel unclean, or wish to suffer penance. Or they have some rash like eczema, or Saint Anthony’s fire, or scrofula, so are branded lepers. But I said nothing, for it wasn’t my business.

“Until I heard that Hosea, rest his merry, drove to market every fortnight, and during his absence, this leper passed through. Yet no other village saw him. Thus, someone donned a leper’s disguise just for Long Valley Screed.

“Elgiva is young and pretty, but shows a venal streak. I suspected her right away. That’s why I forced her hand onto the corpse to see if it bled at its murderer’s touch. She passed the trial of bleeding, but only because she didn’t kill with her own hand.

“She married the miller for money, then found love when Seymour came to make repairs. But everyone knew Seymour, so he couldn’t visit with Hosea gone without creating talk. Thus he adopted a disguise — perfect, because people would shun him. He wore it again today, since Luther forbade him to return.

“Elgiva schemed to keep her money and position, yet gain a new husband — Seymour, next in line to be miller. One night she unbarred the door, admitted Seymour, and hid him in the cellar. Hosea, bless him, had no need to go down there. Seymour waited so long he had to splatter the corner.

“That day at dinner Elgiva gave Hosea brandy — his breath smelt of wine. ’Twas his favourite drink, so say the villagers, but she usually denied him. Once he was tipsy, she hied to the village to winnow, which she’s always shunned as beneath her. That left Hosea ‘alone’ to have his accident, thanks to Seymour.”

“But how?” demanded Luther. “He’s a skinny titch! He hadn’t the strength to manhandle a fat tub like Hosea!”

Robin bounced a sack to settle the flour. “Easy enough if you know how. If you’re a miller. All he needed do — wait, I’ll show you. I’d like to see myself.”

The outlaw-turned-miller propped the sack on the catchboard above the new floor plank. He kneaded a corner of the sack into a ball and tied it off with twine. “That’s Hosea’s foot.” Robin then caught up a rope and skipped down the stairs.

The only sound was the rumble and creak of the big wheel outside, the muffled tunking of gears below, the grinding of millstones. And the infernal groan.

Coming from below, Robin’s shuttered voice was startling. “Here we go! Hosea, poor fool, is drunk, staggering round and round. I’m Seymour. I see his outline against the light. Quick like, I—”

Through cracks in the floor, Luther and Marian watched the outlaw’s fingers work. He poked a slipknot up past the new plank, winkled it across, pulled it back down, shoved the noose up again to encircle the floorboard. Deftly, he flicked the slipknot over the balled “foot” on the flour sack. Then his hands disappeared.

Another pause, then, “Here comes the good part!”

Suddenly alive as a snake, the rope slithered around the plank, tightened, snatched the sack off the catchboard. The floorboard creaked, groaned, bent — and shattered. The sack was sucked down as if by a whirlpool.

They heard the bag tear. Flour fountained out of the hole.

The great millwheel shuddered to a halt. Sneezing resounded below.

Marian and Luther pattered down the stairs to find Robin Hood pale brown with flour. The shorn sack was jammed in the gears. The rope was wound around the millwheel shaft.

The dusty outlaw wiped his eyes, wheezed, “That’s the link Luther and I missed. We wondered how little Seymour could break a board and drag a fat miller through the hole. But he was a miller too.

“Remember, a man hides money where he’s comfortable? Seymour figured how an engine can kill a man. This millshaft pulls hard as a yoke of oxen. He had only to slip the noose over Hosea’s foot and tie on here. I found rope fibers on the shaft. And Hosea’s ankle was broken.