‘Not too fine,’ sniggered Wilkinson. ‘Or he would not have been lodging with Parker.’
‘Dregs,’ announced Parker grandly. Everyone looked at him for an explanation, but none came, and it was not long before he turned his attention back to the bust.
‘How did Underhill spend his time, if he was not obliged to work?’ asked Chaloner, choosing to treat Parker’s peculiar proclamation as irrelevant.
‘By reading, mostly,’ replied Franklin. ‘No subject was too abstruse for him, and he was rarely without a tome. They were his greatest love.’
Chaloner had seen Underhill twice, and on both occasions he had been admiring the Earl’s books. Had someone taken umbrage when he had availed himself of a few? Murder seemed an extreme response to petty theft, but violence always escalated in hot weather, and it appeared that Parker had tampered with the wine. He studied the twenty faces in front of him, thinking that the Gorges people and the Treasury men were certainly high on his list of suspects, as was the spiteful Rector Wilkinson.
‘Did any of you dislike Underhill?’ asked Kipps. Chaloner regarded him askance, astonished that he should expect that question to be answered honestly. ‘Other than Kole.’
‘I did like him,’ objected Kole, licking dry lips. ‘He was charming, and I am proud to have known him. In fact, he was my favourite governor, and I shall miss him terribly.’
‘Liar,’ sneered Cocke. ‘You detested each other. Wilkinson is right: Underhill was always exposing your stupidity, which is something no man appreciates.’
‘Rubbish!’ cried Kole. ‘We did enjoy lively exchanges of opinions, but there was nothing antagonistic in our relationship. Unlike yours – he was always catching you out in lies and misrepresentations. And, while Wilkinson is wrong about me, he is right about you: Underhill did think that you were the Gorges thief.’
Cocke’s expression hardened. ‘I am a respectable man.’
‘Gorges is full of lunatics and liars, while the Treasury is run by rogues,’ declared Wilkinson haughtily. ‘And the Court is worse than both. Clarendon should hang the lot of you.’
While Kipps struggled to keep the peace by offering the detained guests leftover cake and more wine, Chaloner interviewed each one in turn. When he had finished, Chaloner leaned against a wall, to review both what he had learned from their replies and what he had been able to deduce from his own observations.
Underhill had declared the Chapell Pavilion too hot, and had gone to the Great Roome to cool down, although his real intention had almost certainly been to steal books, probably ones he had identified on his earlier visit. He had been alive when the first wave of guests had taken their leave, because the Great Roome was an open hallway, and a corpse there would have been noticed. Thus all those who had politely departed after the Earl’s speech could be eliminated as suspects, which left the twenty who were clamouring at Kipps to be allowed to go home.
Underhill had been throttled, like Nancy Janaway, and as Chaloner doubted there were two active stranglers with connections to Chelsea, he suspected that both lives had been taken by the same hand. Thus Kipps’ suggestion of a fanatical outsider invading Clarendon House to kill a guest at random was unlikely.
The remaining courtiers and Treasury men could also be eliminated, because the first group had been involved in a drinking game in which the absence of anyone would have been noted, while the second had been discussing the King’s gold, and no one had dared slip away, lest they missed something important. Thus all had alibis in each other. This left Chaloner with eight potential suspects.
First, Kole, whose responses to questions had been incriminating, and who had lied about his interactions with the victim. Next, Cocke, who Underhill had accused of the Gorges thefts, which was certainly a powerful motive to kill. Third, Parker, who professed to be the victim’s friend, but whose behaviour was eccentric to say the least. Fourth and fifth, Franklin and Mrs Bonney, who might have learned that Underhill was a thief, and aimed to prevent a scandal and a possible withdrawal of funds – both would want to protect Gorges, given that their livelihoods depended on it. Sixth, Reymes, who would love to see the Earl embarrassed with a crime. But was he reckless enough to do it, knowing that fingers would automatically point in his direction? Chaloner glanced at the angry red face and decided that he was. Seventh, Doyley, whose military past meant he was no stranger to bloodshed, and who, as a man of considerable learning himself, might object to a crime that targeted precious books. And last, the vindictive Wilkinson, who might well strangle someone for warped reasons of his own.
Chaloner was thoughtful. There were motives galore for Underhill’s murder, but what about Nancy’s? He was tempted to ask about her while he had everyone together, but the guests were restless, frightened and resentful, so it was not a good time. Besides, it would be better to learn more about her first, so as to be armed with hard facts. He nodded to Kipps to say he had finished, and the Seal Bearer announced that everyone was free to go.
The courtiers were the first to depart, doing so in a noisy throng, and sounding much as they did after one of White Hall’s infamous debauches. Chaloner wondered what the Earl, lying in his stately chamber above, thought of the hullabaloo. The Treasury men and Doyley were not long in following, although they did so with more decorum; Warwick and Doyley even asked Kipps to thank the Earl for his hospitality, although Reymes thrust past muttering that he wished his host to the devil. The Gorges contingent was last.
‘Will you return to Chelsea tonight?’ Kipps asked conversationally, as he held open the door.
‘Tomorrow,’ replied Franklin. ‘We shall stay with my brother Richard tonight. He has plenty of room now that his lodgers have fled the city.’
‘A visit to London is a rare opportunity to replenish our supplies at the market,’ elaborated Mrs Bonney. ‘Everything is a good price at the moment, because the plague keeps so many customers away. We plan to stock up on pegs, needles, thread, spades, baskets, plates—’
‘And clogs for the fairies in the garden,’ interposed Parker.
Cocke laughed nervously. ‘Dear old Parker! Always trying to amuse us with jests.’
‘I shall not go shopping, of course,’ declared Kole loftily. ‘I shall visit Lincoln’s Inn, to locate deeds that prove the government’s seizure of my College was illegal.’
Chaloner watched them walk down the torchlit drive. Parker was reeling all over the place, obliging Franklin and Mrs Bonney to hold him up. Had he had too much of the wine he himself had doctored, or was something else amiss?
‘I have not decided where I shall be tomorrow,’ said Wilkinson, speaking in a low hiss that made Chaloner jump – he had thought everyone had gone. ‘Perhaps here, perhaps there. It depends where the Lord sends me.’
He stalked away, head held high, although his dignity suffered a blow when he stumbled over a pothole. Chaloner took a deep breath to clear his head, but the air was hot and reeked of the city, even from a distance. Kipps came to stand next to him.
‘Cocke,’ the Seal Bearer declared. ‘He is the culprit. Underhill found out he was a thief, so Cocke wrung his neck. And as the fellow is a desperate lecher, we can conclude that he killed Nancy when she rejected his advances. There, I have solved the case already.’
‘Maybe,’ said Chaloner. ‘Although others also have motives.’
He listed them. When he had finished, Kipps tapped his chin thoughtfully.
‘There was a lot of coming and going all night, and I saw every one of your eight leave the Chapell Pavilion at one point or another, although I cannot recall exactly who went where when.’
‘Well, try,’ instructed Chaloner shortly. ‘You do not need me to tell you that this is important.’
Kipps screwed up his face in an expression of intense concentration – one that looked vaguely painful – but eventually, he shook his head. ‘I am sorry, Tom. It will not come. But we had better remove the body now. The Earl will not be very pleased if it is still on the stairs whe
n he comes down for his breakfast.’
Chaloner deposited Underhill in the Westminster charnel house, and then walked home to Covent Garden. It was a cloudless night, but there was so much dust in the air that he could not see the stars, while the light cast by the moon was feeble and sickly. He heard the rumble of wheels on cobbles, and knew it was the wagon that collected the plague dead, doing its business in the darkest hours of the night in the hope that the true scale of the problem would not cause panic among the general populace.
He arrived to find a carriage waiting outside his house, and although there was no coat of arms to identify it, he knew exactly to whom it belonged.
Joseph Williamson ran the country’s spy network, and was a coldly aloof man who still had much to learn about espionage. He and Chaloner had an uneasy relationship in which neither quite trusted the other, although this was better than the open antagonism that had existed between them when they had first met. The coach door opened, and a hand beckoned Chaloner forward. The coach was lit from within by two large lamps, which must have rendered it unpleasantly stuffy.
‘No, do not climb in!’ the Spymaster barked, jerking back and thrusting a pomander against his nose. ‘You have probably come straight from the charnel house, and I know what horrors lie in there. Keep your distance, if you please.’
He looked older than when Chaloner had last seen him, and there were lines of strain around his eyes. War was a difficult time for any spymaster, with masses of information landing on his desk every day. And it was not just the Dutch who were a problem: the countless rebels and malcontents who had preferred Britain when it was a republic were delighted that the plague had driven the government from the city, and many aimed to turn the situation to their advantage.
‘What do you want?’ asked Chaloner, more curtly than was wise, given that Williamson was a powerful man with assassins and enforcers at his disposal.
‘To know what happened to Underhill. I met an acquaintance earlier, who told me that he has been murdered. It is a damned shame, because he was one of mine.’
‘A spy?’
Williamson inclined his head. ‘He monitored the Chelsea prison for me. You will appreciate that having two thousand captured Dutchmen so near the capital makes me nervous.’
‘Then why did you approve the plan to put them there? You must have had other buildings at your disposal.’
‘Actually, we did not – and as devout Anglicans, we cannot do what your friend Oliver Cromwell did, and commandeer churches and cathedrals for the purpose. The Theological College was chosen because it was empty, and we needed something fast.’
‘So you think Underhill was dispatched to prevent him from reporting to you?’
‘It is a possibility, don’t you agree?’
Chaloner was thoughtful. This put an entirely different complexion on the murders, and he could no longer guarantee that the killer was one of the eight suspects he had shortlisted. He could have slipped unnoticed into Clarendon House, to dispatch a rival quietly and without fuss, and so could any other intelligencer worth his salt.
‘An inmate of Gorges was also strangled,’ he said. ‘Was she a spy too?’
‘I am not so desperate that I need to recruit lunatics,’ retorted Williamson, then grimaced. ‘Although that might change if the government cuts my budget any further. I do not know why the madwoman was killed, although I imagine Clarendon has charged you to find out. Perhaps you will send me a copy of your findings when your investigation is complete?’
‘If the Earl agrees. How well did you know Underhill? Was he trustworthy?’
‘None of my spies are trustworthy, Chaloner – decent men do not dabble in espionage, as you should know. Present company excluded, of course. And to be honest, his reports were sketchy and uninformative, but I was unable to decide whether he was just not very good at gathering information, or whether he was being deliberately obstructive.’
‘Why would he be obstructive? Did you recruit him against his will?’
‘On the contrary – he was delighted to be on my payroll. Of course, I was tempted to demand a refund most weeks, as his letters were seldom worth the expense.’
The arrangement with Williamson explained a great deal, thought Chaloner. Underhill was a gentleman, but one who stole books, which suggested he had no or little income to call his own. The money he earned for spying would keep the wolf from the door, but was unlikely to stretch to luxuries like rare tomes. Did that mean he was the Gorges thief, stealing to supplement what Williamson paid him?
‘Did his reports include anything about Nancy Janaway?’
‘He said she was strangled in Gorges’ orchard by a spectre.’ Williamson saw Chaloner’s eyebrows go up and shrugged. ‘I am only repeating what he wrote. Apparently, some sort of ghost has been haunting the village, which has gullible residents terrified out of their wits.’
Chaloner did not mention that Lady Clarendon had charged him to look into that particular matter, lest the Spymaster took it upon himself to ask her why. Chaloner knew the Earl would never forgive him if he did something to bring Frances to Williamson’s attention.
‘Did he tell you anything else about Chelsea?’ he asked.
‘Yes, something rather worrisome, actually – that the prison is not as secure as he felt it should be. You will have to visit Chelsea to explore these murders, so perhaps I could prevail on you to step inside the gaol, and let me know what you think.’
Chaloner inclined his head, declining to reveal that the Earl had already asked him to do it, then asked, ‘Do you know why Clarendon supports Gorges?’
It pained him to put the question, revealing as it did that his knowledge of his employer was lacking, something no good spy liked to admit, but he could not, in all conscience, ignore an opportunity to find out.
Williamson blinked his surprise. ‘Because an aunt exhibited Parliamentarian sympathies during the wars, and had to be incarcerated there. Surely he told you?’
Chaloner nodded, but his suspicion that there was more to it remained. ‘Is there anything else you can tell me that might speed the investigation along?’
‘Nothing – and I would certainly say if there were. I want answers just as badly as you.’
Once Williamson had gone, Chaloner was restless and uneasy, his mind full of questions. He knew wine would help him sleep, but the jug he had bought several days ago had turned sour in the heat, so he started to walk towards Fleet Street and the small lane that led off it named Hercules’ Pillars Alley. Halfway along was the building owned by Wiseman’s mistress, Temperance North, which housed an exclusive ‘gentlemen’s club’ – a brothel that catered to the very rich, and where decent claret was always available.
He had not seen Temperance since he had returned from sea, partly because the Earl had kept him busy in Clarendon House, but mostly because he had been afraid that she would ask about his feelings regarding Hannah’s death, a prospect that unnerved him profoundly. However, he was confident that he could deflect any uncomfortable questions that night by talking about Underhill’s murder. And as she and her girls heard a lot of gossip, they might even be able to help him.
He reached the club to find it in darkness, and the porter who usually guarded the door against undesirables – mostly men who could not afford the exorbitant prices Temperance liked to charge – was not at his usual post. A closer inspection revealed that all the window shutters were nailed up.
Panic gripped him. Had the plague struck and Temperance was dead? Then he pulled himself together. Wiseman would not have let such an event pass unremarked. He walked to the back, and saw a lamp burning in the kitchen.
‘We have been closed for weeks now,’ said Temperance’s helpmeet Maude, once he had been greeted with pleasure and settled with a cup of wine; there had also been solicitous enquiries about his well-being following Hannah’s death, but he managed to cut these short by asking after the club. ‘Our patrons dare not come, and you can understand why. Fear of the
disease drives everyone these days.’
‘So where is Temperance?’
Guiltily, Chaloner suspected that Wiseman had already told him, but the surgeon had a penchant for tedious monologues, and Chaloner often stopped listening halfway through. Fortunately for their friendship, Wiseman rarely noticed, although it did mean that Chaloner occasionally missed out on important information.
Maude smiled, revealing smoke-stained teeth. ‘In lodgings near Syon House. The girls are with her, and will continue to provide the services our courtly clients desire.’
‘The King will move to Hampton Court soon. What will they do then?’
‘Why, follow him, of course. What else?’
Maude smoked continuously as she told him her news, filling the small room with a swirling fug. Then she made some coffee, and he had taken a sip before he remembered that her brews were one of the most poisonous beverages in the country – her first husband was said to have died from a single gulp. He forced himself to swallow, unwilling to offend her by spitting it out.
When she ran out of gossip, he told her about Underhill’s death, but was disappointed when she had never heard of his eight suspects, and nor was she aware that there was an asylum at Chelsea. However, she did have a tale about Underhill himself.
‘He hailed from the Fleet Rookery, which as you know is a den of criminals. He gave himself airs, but the truth is that he was as common as muck.’
Chaloner was not surprised: he had detected something awry in Underhill’s manner from the moment they had met. Moreover, there was the way he had been described – as a gentleman, who was thought to own a country estate, although no one knew it or his kin. Had someone uncovered the deception, and killed him for presuming to foist himself on the company of the respectable?
‘His is quite a tale,’ Maude went on. ‘He was out burgling one day, but all his victim owned was books. He took them anyway, but decided to glance through them before selling them on. He enjoyed them so much that he promptly went out and stole some more. The knowledge he gleaned from them soon became prodigious.’
The Chelsea Strangler Page 9