The Cheapside Corpse (16 page)

‘There is only me here now,’ he said glumly. ‘So if you want a room, I got plenty spare.’

‘I shall bear it in mind,’ said Chaloner, sincerely hoping he and Hannah would not be reduced to accepting. ‘Now, what can you tell me about Georges DuPont?’

‘Why do you want to know?’ asked Grey suspiciously.

‘Because Spymaster Williamson charged me to find out.’

‘Christ! I heard rumours that DuPont was an intelligencer, but I dismissed them as nonsense. Clearly, I should not have done, given that his death has attracted the government’s interest.’

‘Why did you not believe the tales?’

‘Because he did not move in the right circles. He was always disappearing into the St Giles rookery, for a start, and nothing ever happens in there that is interesting enough for espionage.’

‘Where in St Giles did he go? And who did he meet?’

‘He never told me, but you could ask his friend Everard. Of course, I have no idea where he lives either, but he has a purple nose. That might help you track him down.’

‘Why? Is it an unusually large one? Or an odd shape?’

Grey shook his head. ‘No, it is quite normal. Just a different colour to most.’

Chaloner suppressed a sigh: he doubted that snippet of information was going to prove very useful. He moved on. ‘What can you tell me about DuPont’s death?’

Grey looked furtive. ‘Well, it was not the plague – it was some other kind of fever.’

‘That is not what Dr Coo says.’

Grey’s expression darkened with anger. ‘For a saint, he had a very loose tongue. He should have kept quiet, like I asked. Then my tenants would not have moved out, leaving me all alone with debts to pay.’

Chaloner was beginning to think he was wasting his time. He asked to see DuPont’s room, and followed Grey up stairs that needed to be negotiated with care, as several had rotted away.

‘He did not use his quarters here very often,’ the landlord said as they went. ‘He must have had another place elsewhere. Probably Bearbinder Lane, given that is where he died.’

‘I understand he was a criminal.’ Grey opened his mouth to deny it, but Chaloner raised his hand. ‘No lies, please – unless you would rather explain yourself to Williamson?’

‘God, no!’ blurted Grey. ‘Very well, then. DuPont was a thief, although I do not know any more than that. We never discussed it – wise rogues keep their doings to themselves, and DuPont was good at what he did.’

‘How do you know he was good if you never talked about it?’

‘Because he was often flush with cash, as talented felons always are. Of course, he never kept it very long. He liked playing cards, see.’

‘You leased him a room, even though you knew he was dishonest?’

Grey twisted around to glare rather defiantly. ‘Even crooks have to sleep somewhere, and their rent money is as good as anyone else’s.’

They arrived at the top floor, where he opened a door to reveal a dismal chamber. There were patches of mould on the walls, and one window shutter was so badly warped that the chamber might as well have been open to the elements. The bed was a mess of rumpled covers, a pair of boots lay in a corner where they had been tossed, and a half-eaten meal was on the table. A glance told Chaloner that nothing had been touched since DuPont had left, probably because no one wanted to risk infection.

‘He took nothing with him when he went?’ he asked, stepping inside reluctantly.

‘A bag, but I did not see what he put in it. Dr Coo had already diagnosed the plague—’ Grey stopped speaking abruptly when he realised that he had just contradicted his earlier claim. He shot a sly glance at Chaloner, who tactfully pretended not to have noticed. ‘I stood here in the doorway, and asked where he was going. He said he had business in Bearbinder Lane.’

‘What kind of business?’

‘He did not tell me, but he had entertained a visitor not long before, and I think it might have had something to do with him.’

‘Who was it? His friend Everard?’

‘No – someone smaller. But he was wearing one of those plague-masks, so I never saw his face, and there is not much I can tell you about the rest of his clothes, except that they were good quality without being showy. Yet there was one thing…’

‘Yes?’ prompted Chaloner.

‘It will sound odd, but he hissed under his breath. I think he was nervous.’

As well he might be, thought Chaloner, if he was in company with a man who had a deadly and contagious disease. ‘Is there anything else?’

‘Well, there was a jingle when DuPont hefted the bag over his shoulder, and I know the sound of shillings clattering together when I hear it.’

‘You think this hissing man gave him money?’

Grey nodded. ‘Because I had asked DuPont for the rent earlier that morning, and he said he did not have a penny to his name. He could have been lying, but I do not think so. He never went anywhere else that day, so he could only have got the coins from his hissing guest.’

Chaloner began a systematic search of the room. It was unpleasant, but his diligence paid off with the discovery of a bundle of papers cunningly concealed inside the seat of a chair. There were seventeen in all, and each comprised a single sentence. He read a few randomly:
ten the sun in wood
,
eagle in bear twelve
,
three swan in bread
, none of which meant anything to him whatsoever. All were signed
your Father in Cheepsyde
.

He stared at them. Were they evidence that DuPont
was
a spy? He supposed they must be, although instinct and experience told him that the missives were too short to contain any useful intelligence. He gazed at them for a long time, but no answers came and eventually he gave up. Perhaps someone in Bearbinder Lane would know.

It was not a particularly long walk from Long Acre to Cheapside, but Chaloner felt lethargic, and wished he could afford a hackney carriage. The fresh air had done nothing to sharpen his wits, and his sore throat was not helped by the fact that the sooty air made him cough. He had also left home with nothing to eat. He bought a meat pastry from a street vendor, but it was soggy, salty and dripping with fat. He swallowed as much as he could bear, then tossed the remainder away, where a stray dog took one sniff and shot him a reproachful look.

He reached Fleet Street, and was trudging wearily along it when a familiar aroma assailed his nostrils, one powerful enough to be detected even with a cold. It came from the Rainbow Coffee House. He brightened. Perhaps a dish of coffee would serve to rouse him.

The Rainbow had the distinction of being one of London’s oldest coffee houses – its owner James Farr claimed it was second only to Bowman’s in Cornhill. It stood at the point where Fleet Street narrowed to accommodate the inconvenient Temple Bar, a gate that had probably once been effective at excluding undesirables from the city, but that was now a nuisance to traffic and pedestrians alike. There was always pushing and shoving to get through it, and Farr did well out of those who needed a reviving draught after the experience.

Chaloner opened the door and entered. He did not know why he liked the Rainbow. It reeked of burned beans and cheap tobacco, its patrons were opinionated bigots, and its coffee was terrible, although it did have the distinction of being considerably stronger than anything that could be bought elsewhere. He declined to sweeten it with sugar – as a silent and meaningless protest against a trade he felt was immoral – which rendered Farr’s brews virtually undrinkable.

As was their habit, the regulars had gathered at a table by the window. Besides Farr, who was mean-spirited and parochial, there was Fabian Stedman, a young printer who seemed to spend most of his working hours in the Rainbow, and who held such radically Royalist convictions that Chaloner sometimes wondered if he was a government spy, hired to entrap anyone who disagreed with him. Then there was Sam Speed, a bookseller who only sold texts that were seditious, obscene or controversial, along with medicines to help the reader recover from the shock afterwards.

As usual, they were bickering about the contents of the government’s latest newsbook, specifically a report about the declaration of war that had been read out recently in Bristol. Apparently, the city worthies had been too busy to do it sooner, and had been reprimanded by the Privy Council for their tardiness. To make amends, they had put on a splendid display with a whole chorus of trumpets and a show of drawn swords.

‘But everyone there knew we were at war anyway,’ Farr was saying. ‘It is a port, and such places will be invaded first when the Dutch attack, so they have been preparing for months.’

‘That is not the point,’ argued Stedman. ‘His Majesty took the time to write that proclamation, so the least Bristol’s mayor could do was have it read out.’

‘The King did not write it,’ averred Speed scornfully. ‘One of his clerks did. He would never be sufficiently sober for such a task. Or he would spot a woman that he would rather—’

‘That is treason!’ cried Stedman outraged. ‘How dare you malign His Majesty!’

‘Did you hear about that coffin-shaped cloud over Hampstead?’ interrupted Farr conversationally. ‘It was said to glow purple before exploding into a thousand pieces. It means that a great disaster will soon befall our city.’

It was as if Chaloner had never been away – these were the exact same matters that were being aired back in February. Perhaps it was the Rainbow’s constancy that attracted him to its smuggy interior, given that stability was a feature sadly lacking from the rest of his life. Speed would always denigrate the current regime, Stedman would leap to defend it, and Farr would change the subject as and when he pleased. And it was never long before someone reported a celestial omen that was held to be a portent of doom.

‘What news?’ asked Farr, voicing the traditional coffee-house greeting as he turned to see Chaloner standing behind him. ‘And where have you been? You disappeared without a word, and we all thought you must have died.’

‘Of the plague,’ elaborated Speed darkly. ‘Sent by the Dutch to demoralise us and make sure they win the war. There have now been twenty cases in the St Giles rookery.’

‘And two near Cheapside,’ added Stedman. As usual, they were more interested in talking than listening, which suited Chaloner perfectly. ‘I have taken up smoking, which is the only way to combat the miasmas that carry pestilential diseases.’

To underline his point, he puffed a prodigious amount of it into the already thick air.

‘I have better remedies than that,’ said Speed, reaching for a bag at his side. ‘First, there is Red Snake Electuary at three and six a pint.’ He slapped a bottle on the table. ‘Then there are Bayhurst’s Lozenges and—’

‘You should not use too much tobacco, Stedman,’ said Farr, interrupting what promised to be a lengthy list. ‘It is toxic. Did you not hear about the experiment conducted by the gentlemen of the Royal Society? They acquired some tobacco oil from Florence, and it killed a cat and a hen.’

‘The Royal Society is always dispatching some hapless creature in the name of science,’ said Speed disapprovingly. ‘I cannot say I like it.’

Nor did Chaloner, who had always been partial to cats and birds.

‘Have you heard that the Dutch landed troops in northern Scotland last night?’ asked Farr, dropping his voice to a fearful whisper. ‘Word is that they will be in London later today.’

‘That cannot be true,’ stated Chaloner, surprised that anyone should believe such an outlandish claim. ‘No army can march that fast. And no messenger either.’

‘I am only repeating what I was told,’ said Farr huffily, and Chaloner recalled that the coffee-house owner’s sense of geography had never been good.

‘I hope you have all bought
The
Court & Kitchin
,’ said Speed affably. ‘If not, I have plenty for sale. It is well worth a browse, although I recommend a dose of Goddard’s Drops before you start. Some of Mrs Cromwell’s recipes are deeply disturbing.’

Chaloner still had Thurloe’s copy in his pocket, so he pulled it out and leafed through it. ‘Stewed collops of beef, almond tart, cheese-cake, barley broth,’ he read aloud. ‘These are not disturbing at all. My mother used to make them.’

Too late, it occurred to him that this might be taken as an admission of a Parliamentarian past, and he wished he had not spoken. Fortunately, Farr came to his rescue.

‘So did mine, and they were very nice. No medicinal draughts are needed for those, Speed.’

The bookseller snatched the pamphlet from Chaloner’s hand, and found the page he wanted. ‘Then what about
this
section, telling people to pickle cucumbers?’ he demanded, stabbing at the words with an indignant forefinger. ‘We all know that cucumbers are poisonous. And then there is marrow pudding’ – he made it sound distinctly sinister by lowering his voice and speaking in a hiss – ‘which she had for her breakfast every day. And still does.’

Chaloner could not help himself. ‘Actually, she has a little bread and a lightly poached egg.’

‘How do you know?’ demanded Stedman, eyes narrowing.

‘I heard it in a coffee house,’ lied Chaloner.

‘Then it must be true,’ asserted Farr. ‘Although I am sorry to learn that you took your custom elsewhere. Have we done something to offend you?’

‘He is tired of Speed trying to sell him remedies every time he appears,’ said Stedman sulkily, sparing Chaloner the need to invent an excuse.

‘Have you heard about the new comet?’ asked Farr, off on a tangent again.

‘It is the same one that we saw in November,’ scoffed Stedman. ‘A bright, white thing with a long tail. It must have gone all round the Earth, and come back for a second look.’

‘I doubt they are sentient,’ said Speed coolly. ‘And it is
not
the same anyway. The recent one is not as bright.’

‘Then there was the purple mist with the leprous spots,’ Farr went on, cutting across whatever Stedman started to say. ‘All are signs that the plague is coming. As Speed says, the Dutch have sent it over deliberately.’

‘There was another omen, too,’ said Speed soberly. ‘Taylor the banker saw a three-headed serpent in the sky, and claims that each face represented a different financial disaster: the war, the Colburn Crisis and the plague.’