Murder on High Holborn (15 page)

‘Yes, people talk about Ferine,’ Wiseman said. ‘He knew some very dubious people, apparently. His friend Duncombe denied it when I mentioned it to him, but he was lying. Have you interviewed him yet?’

Chaloner nodded. ‘But I will speak to him again if you think he is hiding something.’

‘He is – I could tell by the way his pupils contracted. You might try speaking to Richard Hubbert and Thomas Odowde, too. They were also Ferine’s cronies.’

‘Has a Cartographer Royal been appointed recently?’ asked Chaloner, moving to another subject.

‘There is no such office. However, I heard Williamson say something about buying maps from a resident of New Amster—New
York
. They will be used to oust the Dutch from other areas that the Privy Council thinks should be ours. If Rupert and Buckingham can agree on a plan of attack, of course.’

‘Did Williamson mention John Scott?’

‘Yes, I think he did. Why? Do you know him?’

Chaloner nodded, thinking it was typical of Scott that he should equate selling a few charts with being granted a royal appointment.

‘But most chat is about HMS
London
,’ Wiseman went on. ‘Admiral Lawson is pressing for her to be weighed, although she was a massive ship, and I cannot see such a venture succeeding. I dislike that man. He fought for Parliament during the wars, and there is some suggestion that he is a Fifth Monarchist.’

Chaloner stared at him. Was Lawson the guest who Jones and Quelch had wanted to corner at the club? Was he to play a role in their uprising? If so, then the situation was serious indeed, because Lawson commanded the entire Channel Fleet.

‘Prince Rupert told me about Lawson’s peculiar religious beliefs,’ said Wiseman, seeing his friend’s alarm. ‘It is very worrying. The Admiral is charged with protecting us from the Dutch, but if he is a secret fanatic … There are disquieting rumours about the ship
London
, too.’

‘What are they?’

‘At first it was said that she exploded because someone was in her powder magazine with a naked flame, but now there are doubts. Her loss weakens our navy considerably, to the advantage of the Hollanders.’

Chaloner frowned. ‘What are you saying? That she was destroyed deliberately?’

‘There are certainly concerns to that effect. And with Lawson being a Fifth Monarchist…’

Chaloner woke the next morning in the same chair with a blanket tossed over him, and could hear Wiseman snoring in the room next door. His first thought was a guilt-ridden one: he had missed Hannah’s pickled ling pie. His second was that he had a great deal to do that day, and should grab the opportunity to make an early start.

He stood and stretched, easing the stiffness from his limbs. Someone had cleaned his coat and boots while he had been asleep, so he put them on, walked to the window and opened the shutter. It was just growing light, and the streets were already echoing with the low roar of traffic – trundling wheels, clattering feet and the sounds of cattle being driven to market. It was still raining, but only lightly.

Being on the top floor, Wiseman’s rooms afforded a fine view of the surrounding rooftops, close-packed and glistening wet. Chief among them was the unusual shape of the Anatomy Theatre. Students gathered by its door – one of the masters was about to give a demonstration. Chaloner watched idly, most of his mind on making plans for the day ahead.

First, he would see whether Thurloe had decoded the cipher. Next, he would report to the Earl, hoping that Hannah had not been too offensive to him the night before last, after which he would hunt down Duncombe, Odowde and Hubbert. Then he needed to explore Lawson’s link to the Fifth Monarchists. He decided to ask his friend Captain Lester about it – Lester would certainly have an opinion on a fellow sea-officer.

He was about to leave Chyrurgeons’ Hall when Wiseman appeared wearing a billowing nightgown. The surgeon bellowed for his breakfast, then began the peculiar ritual of stone-lifting that he performed each day. Some of the rocks he hefted were enormous, and explained why his muscles bulged like those of a prize fighter.

‘You should do it,’ he panted. ‘A trim physique would be useful in your line of work.’

Chaloner looked down at himself. ‘I
am
trim.’

Wiseman sniffed dismissively and turned his attention to the procession of servants who began to bring plate after plate of food. ‘Excellent! There is nothing like red meat to set a man up for the day. And nothing like six raw eggs whisked with wine and cream either, while shredded cabbage does wonders for the digestion. Come on, Chaloner. Do not be shy.’

It was curious fare for so early in the morning, but Chaloner ate it anyway. His day promised to be busy, and he did not know when the next opportunity to dine would arise. He sat in the window as he struggled with the slippery egg mixture, staring into the yard below.

The students had disappeared inside the Anatomy Theatre, and a queue of people was forming by the gate. Some were paying patients with appointments, but the bulk were London’s poor, who came to be treated free of charge in exchange for letting the
medici
practise on them. He watched sympathetically, thinking they must be desperate indeed to resort to surgeons, when it was common knowledge that most did more harm than good.

He snapped into alertness when he saw Eliza Hatton among them, her pale beauty visible even in the dim light of dawn. The porter noticed it, too, and fawningly indicated that she was to advance to the front of the line, much to the disgust of those who had arrived before her.

‘That is Alice Fanshaw,’ said Wiseman. ‘I am treating her for a pathological coldness of the limbs. Damn! She is coming up to me now, and I am not dressed.’

‘She told me that her name is Eliza Hatton.’

‘Then you misheard,’ said Wiseman, grabbing his red coat and tugging it over his nightgown. ‘She is definitely Alice Fanshaw – I knew her mother. Besides, Eliza Hatton is dead.’

A cold shiver ran down Chaloner’s spine. ‘Dead?’

‘Torn limb from limb – literally, by all accounts.’ Wiseman grinned rather diabolically as he donned a pair of scarlet breeches, tucking the nightgown in to hide it and adding six inches to his waistline. ‘And when she was found, blood was still pumping from her body, thus proving that the illustrious William Harvey was correct in his theory about the heart’s role in venous circulation.’

Chaloner could have done without that detail. ‘When did this happen?’

‘Forty years ago,’ replied Wiseman, as he knelt to put on his shoes – smart black ones with crimson heels. ‘So do not worry, I doubt you will be asked to solve the case. Of course, I doubt there is any truth in it: it is a tale to titivate the gullible.’

‘So why did she lie to me?’

‘She is a mysterious lady.’ Wiseman went to the mirror to fluff up his auburn curls. ‘But I shall ask her if you like. She will not regale
me
with falsehoods.’

‘Thank you. She knew Paul Ferine, you see, and her answers may help Temperance. I will hide behind the curtains and listen.’

‘You will not!’ declared the surgeon. ‘She will want to discuss personal medical details, and it would be unethical to let you eavesdrop. So shut yourself in my bedchamber and stay there until I tell you to come out. How do I look? Is there any meat between my teeth?’

Before Chaloner could reply, footsteps heralded the arrival of Eliza – he could not think of her as Alice – so he stepped into the room that Wiseman indicated. There was a knock and she was in, entering while the surgeon was still busy with a tooth-brush. She closed the door in the admiring porter’s face, and held out a limp white hand for Wiseman to kiss. The surgeon obliged with a courtly flourish, although he scowled and made an irritable gesture behind her back when he saw the bedroom door was ajar. When Chaloner did not close it, Wiseman took her to his laboratory instead. Chaloner tiptoed towards it and put his ear to the door.

Eliza was complaining about an inability to sleep, and she and Wiseman discussed several remedies before settling on a draught of poppy juice and mandrake. These were potent herbs, but Chaloner supposed the surgeon knew what he was doing. She emerged from the consultation so abruptly that he was not sure he had managed to duck fully out of sight. Wiseman accompanied her to the gate, his eyes fixed appreciatively on her behind as she preceded him across the yard. Chaloner slipped back to the bedroom, where he waited until the surgeon returned.

‘She has gone,’ Wiseman reported with a wistful sigh. ‘And do not ask what she wanted, because it was personal. Nothing to do with Eliza Hatton or Ferine.’

‘Did you ask her about them?’

‘Lord, I forgot!’ Wiseman became defensive when he saw Chaloner’s irritation. ‘My first responsibility is to
my
profession, not yours, so you will have to question her yourself. But do it gently: she is a sensitive woman.’

‘So is Temperance,’ said Chaloner pointedly.

Sensitive or not, Chaloner needed answers from Eliza, so he hurried out of Chyrurgeons’ Hall, aiming to speak to her. He caught up with her on Aldersgate Street, but before he could hail her she had flagged down a hackney and clambered in. Had she seen him, and was escaping before he could ask questions? Or was she just a woman in a hurry? He decided to find out, and jumped on the back of the carriage, landing lightly enough not to warn the driver that he was carrying a non-paying passenger. It was something done as a dare by small boys, not by grown men, so more than a few people stared at him as the carriage rattled along.

The driver slowed as they reached High Holborn, and stopped opposite the Talbot. Chaloner jumped off, swearing under his breath when mud caused him to land with an ungainly stagger. He hid behind a stationary cart, and watched her approach a nearby house. The amount of time it took her to undo the door told him it was unlikely to be her own. He waited until she was inside, then followed. The door was locked, but that was no obstacle to a man who made his living out of entering places that wanted to keep him out. He took two metal probes from his pocket, and had the satisfaction of hearing the mechanism snap open almost immediately.

Inside was a long, gloomy corridor that smelled of dust and stale air. There was no one in sight, and a glance into the rooms he passed showed furniture swathed in sheets, and windows and chimneys boarded up – the owners were away, and intended to be so for some time. He crept on, noting cobwebs hanging in gossamer strands across the stairs: Eliza had not gone up there, or they would have broken. He reached a kitchen that smelled of old fat and mouse droppings, but she was not there either. The back door had been barred from the inside, and a layer of dust along it told him that it had not been moved for some time.

He retraced his steps and searched the entire ground floor, but found no Eliza. Puzzled, he climbed the stairs, feeling the cobwebs brush his face. He was almost at the top when he stumbled – two of the last three steps were of radically different heights. He had seen similar devices in castles, designed to wrong-foot invaders, but he had never before encountered them in a private house. He explored the upper floor as carefully as he had the bottom, but Eliza had disappeared without a trace for the second time in as many days.

It was not far to Lincoln’s Inn, and Chaloner walked there briskly, baffled by what had happened. He had been trained to locate secret passages and hidey-holes, but the house had none that he could find. Moreover, it had had a peculiarly desolate feel, and he could not escape the conviction that something terrible had happened there.

He arrived to find Thurloe in the garden, although he was vexed to see that the ex-Spymaster had company in the form of one William Prynne, another Lincoln’s Inn ‘bencher’. Prynne held some of the most odious views in the city, which he liked to make public by means of pamphlets. He despised everything about the age in which he lived, and decried Catholics, theatres, Quakers, maypoles, mince pies, bowls and horse racing with equal fervour. Thurloe liked him no more than Chaloner did, so the spy was surprised to see them together.

‘Long hair offends me,’ Prynne was braying. He was a bustling, elderly little man who wore a felted cap to hide the fact that his ears had been chopped off as punishment for writing scurrilous nonsense about the King’s mother. ‘I consider it sinful, effeminate, vainglorious, evil, immodest, indecent, lascivious, wanton, dissolute, whorish, ungodly, pernicious, offensive, ridiculous, foolish, childish, unchristian, hateful, unmanly, depraving and unseemly.’

Thurloe’s own flowing locks were tucked under his hat, which seemed to have been enough to make Prynne forget them. ‘You do not approve then,’ the ex-Spymaster said mildly.

Prynne had worked himself into a frenzy. ‘I do not, and—’

‘Tom!’ exclaimed Thurloe, when he saw Chaloner. ‘What a nice surprise. Have you come for that book I offered to lend you? You must be in a hurry, so let us fetch it now.’

‘But I have not finished telling you about my latest pamphlet,’ cried Prynne. ‘And I rose early to catch you, as I knew you would want an exclusive preview.’

‘How kind.’ Thurloe fixed Prynne with a baleful eye. ‘But such tracts must surely be expensive to produce? Perhaps you should curtail your opinions and save some money.’

‘It is expensive,’ agreed Prynne. ‘But I have nothing else to spend it on. Personally, I am glad the process is costly, as we would be inundated with all manner of rubbish if everyone could afford it. My latest piece on Court fashions is—’

‘I would not rail against long hair if I were you,’ interrupted Chaloner. ‘The King has some, and if you lose his favour, he will dismiss you as Keeper of Records at the Tower.’

‘Tom has a point, Prynne,’ said Thurloe. ‘You know how much you love that work.’

‘I do love it,’ acknowledged Prynne. ‘But His Majesty has
short
hair. He shaved it off when he started to go grey, and now he wears a periwig. I have nothing against those.’

‘You do not mind wigs, yet you object to hair?’ asked Chaloner, mystified. ‘Surely wigs are far more vain? They—’