‘Yes!’ hissed Joan urgently. ‘Or all our work will have been for nothing. Now hurry!’
Chapter 17
Chaloner’s pen was so slick with sweat, blood and ink that he was afraid of dropping it. It meant he was forced to rub slowly and patiently at the cords that bound him, which was difficult when every instinct screamed at him to hack as hard as he could. Joan and Misick were mad, he thought, to think they would be spared when the horde reached the office.
He tried to think rationally, to guess what they planned to do, but it was hopeless, so he concentrated on moving his makeshift blade instead. Were his efforts paying off or was he wasting his time? He could not tell, but it was the only chance he had, so he persisted. Meanwhile, Misick busied himself at the table. Chaloner could not see what the physician was doing, although it was something that involved foul smells.
Joan grabbed a coat from a bench and began to tug it on. It was an ancient thing, which covered her finery and would render her indistinguishable from the invaders. It was also flecked with silvery grey hairs.
‘Slasher!’ exclaimed Chaloner, recalling the dog’s unusual pelt. ‘That is Oxley’s coat. You say you never dealt with Farrow yourself, so someone did it for you – Oxley, a lout who would do anything for money. I saw him here when Taylor hurt his toe. Now I know why: to receive orders from you.’
Joan did not affirm or deny the charge, but the knowledge allowed the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place, leaving Chaloner so stunned that, for vital seconds, he neglected to saw at the cord.
‘But Oxley is dead,’ Wiseman pointed out. ‘He has not been prompting Farrow today.’
‘He and his family were murdered.’ Chaloner started working on the rope again when the protesters began to pound on the door; it was sturdy, but it would not withstand such an onslaught for long. ‘Which means that Lettice could not have nursed the boy in his final illness. Shaw was lying – and there is the real mastermind behind the madness! Not Taylor, but someone pretending to be him, and who told the gullible Doe that he “manages everything with a song”. Shaw! A talented singer.’
‘Shaw?’ asked Wiseman doubtfully. ‘Really?’
Chaloner recalled the paint on the music shop door, different to that on the other houses. And why? Because Shaw had put it there himself! Then he had persuaded the watcher that he and Lettice were responsible folk who would not leave their house. But Shaw had left it, of course. For a start, he had been wearing a coat when he had been called to his window, and who wore coats indoors?
‘He killed two birds with one stone,’ he said, answers coming thick and fast. ‘First, he silenced a family who knew the truth about him. There were no buboes on Emma—’
Misick turned to smirk at him. ‘But everyone believed me when I said there were.’
‘And second, if everyone thinks that Shaw is locked up with the plague, then he is free to wander about as he pleases, to stir up trouble among people with grievances.’
Chaloner tried a second time to see what Misick was doing, but the movement caused the pen to skid out of his fingers and drop to the floor. Joan looked sharply at him, so he began talking to distract her while he frantically twisted his hands this way and that in the hope that he had sliced through enough of the cord to allow him to snap it.
‘Shaw speculated in tulips—’
‘He did,’ said Misick, turning to nod. ‘And lost everything, poor soul.’
‘Which he would not have done had his fellow bankers stood by him. He claims to be happy selling music, but how can it be true when he and Lettice have to endure the condescending patronage of men like Backwell?’
‘Backwell means well,’ said Joan. ‘But he is insensitive.’
There was a loud crash, followed by a triumphant cheer. The door had fallen in.
‘They lost a child.’ Chaloner looked at Misick. ‘Because they could not pay for a physician.’
‘I would not have charged them.’ Misick held up a glass flask and inspected its contents. ‘But they did not know me then. Now Lettice has suffered a similar fate.’
Downstairs, the looters’ excited cries turned to disappointment when they discovered the shop devoid of riches. How long would it be before they broke into the locked pantries?
‘Misick!’ barked Joan, her voice cracking with tension. ‘Hurry!’
‘I am going as fast as I can,’ the physician snapped back.
‘You will be too late,’ warned Chaloner. ‘The rioters will be here at any moment, and you will be torn to pieces.’
‘They do sound angry,’ said Misick nervously. ‘Shaw cannot expect us to die on his account, so perhaps we should leave while we can.’
Chaloner was too fraught to be satisfied by the confirmation of his suspicions. He could hear footsteps on the stairs, along with an increasing cacophony of frustrated yells, and his wrists burned from his frenzied struggles to free them.
‘All will be for naught if we do not carry out his commands,’ snapped Joan. ‘You heard him: we follow his orders to the letter or not at all.’
‘He is tying up loose ends – he wants you dead so that you cannot betray him.’ Desperately, Chaloner turned to Misick, hoping to appeal to the weaker of the two. ‘Whatever you are doing will not work, so stop before—’
‘Yes, it will,’ interrupted the physician. ‘My Plague Elixir explodes when mixed with spirit of turpentine, so all I have to do is insert fuses of cloth, which can be set alight…’
‘And then what?’ demanded Chaloner, when hammering footsteps indicated that the invaders were scattering through the offices. ‘Throw them at people while they just stand there? You must see this is madness!’
‘Farrow will lead the looters in here, but he has outlived his usefulness, so the first bottle will be for him,’ replied the physician. His voice was unsteady and he scowled at Chaloner. ‘The second will be for you. The fight will go out of the rest once they see you burn, and we shall escape down the back stairs during the ensuing confusion.’
‘What happened to turn you so bitter?’ asked Wiseman pityingly, while Chaloner was so stunned by the ludicrous nature of the plan that he was momentarily lost for words. ‘Joan?’
‘I have more talent than all the other bankers put together,’ she snarled. ‘But will I ever be Master of the Goldsmiths’ Company? No. However, things will be different tomorrow. Shaw has a powerful sponsor who will reward me for all I have done these last few weeks.’
‘There is no powerful sponsor!’ cried Chaloner, astonished that she should believe such a wild claim. ‘If there were, Shaw would not be selling music from a shop that reeks of sewage.’
Joan addressed Misick urgently as the rioters entered the room next door. ‘Is that the last one?’
Misick nodded, but at that moment a stone flew through the window and sheer chance saw it knock the flask from his hand. It fell to the floor, where it smashed. He dabbed at the droplets on his wig and reached for another, but anxiety made him careless and he inadvertently bumped against the lamp. His hair ignited with a dull whump.
He issued a horrified shriek and tried to pull it off, but it was fastened too securely. Then the flames caught his coat and within seconds he was a human torch. He howled in pain and terror, while Joan surged forward in an effort to rescue the remaining flasks.
Panic gave Chaloner strength, and he twisted his hands with all his might. Suddenly he was free. He grabbed the quill sharpener from the desk and slashed through the cord that held Wiseman. Rage blazed in Joan’s eyes as she prepared to lob the missiles she had grabbed, but Misick knocked into her. Plague Elixir and turpentine slopped out, and the inferno that was Misick did the rest. There was another dull whump, and then there were two burning people in the room. Chaloner started towards them, appalled.
‘No – it is too late,’ shouted Wiseman.
At that moment the door flung open to reveal Farrow, whose savagely vengeful expression suggested he was not about to listen to reason. Chaloner put
his head down and charged, sending the brewer sprawling back into his cronies. Yelling for Wiseman to follow, Chaloner clambered over the chaos of arms and legs, and turned left, hoping the back stairs were where he expected them to be, or he and Wiseman were doomed. They were, and he took them three at a time, Wiseman lumbering at his heels.
The stairs led to the kitchen, where a dozen men were laying siege to the locked pantries, clearly in the belief that gold was stockpiled within.
‘We must stop them,’ breathed Wiseman, aghast. ‘But how?’
Chaloner put a hand to his head, which ached with tension, and saw that his fingers were a mess of blood and ink. It gave him an idea. He smeared it on his neck, hoping the light would be too dim to expose the ruse. Wiseman grasped the plan immediately, and flung himself into action.
‘Plague!’ he bellowed, while Chaloner reeled into the kitchen. ‘He has the plague!’
There was a concerted dash for the back door, but other would-be looters had just succeeded in battering it down. There was a collision, followed by a frenzied skirmish as each group tried to force its way past the other. Smoke billowed into the kitchen, while the crackle of approaching flames and the screams of those trapped on the upper floors did nothing to calm the situation.
Then there was a booming yell, and every head swivelled towards it. There was silence, then suddenly everyone was running in the same direction. Baron and his trainband had arrived.
‘Need help, Chaloner?’ asked the King of Cheapside mildly.
The blaze in Taylor’s shop spread to the adjoining buildings with horrifying speed, and the beautiful façade that had inspired poets was quickly lost behind a wall of flames and smoke.
‘At least Randal’s book will be destroyed,’ wheezed Wiseman, his eyes streaming. ‘Along with that plague-dead maid.’
A figure approached, his hair a soggy mess that straggled down his back. It was Poachin. Baron clapped a comradely hand on his shoulder, so Chaloner supposed the rift precipitated by Doe had been mended.
‘The worst troublemakers are not Cheapside folk,’ Poachin reported. ‘They hail from the Fleet and St Giles rookeries, enticed here by the promise of loot by a man in a blue coat. He kept his face hidden, but Gabb and Knowles say it was Shaw. Yet I cannot believe…’
Wiseman gave a terse account of what had happened, while Chaloner struggled to think. Where was Shaw now? Among the masked rioters, watching the mischief he had caused?
‘I always thought his music shop was an odd concern,’ said Baron. ‘His customers were courtiers who seldom pay their bills, and I never did understand how he made enough to survive.’
‘He brought Colburn to the Feathers, even when the man bleated that he had no more money,’ added Poachin, while Chaloner thought about Hannah’s flageolet. Perhaps he should have been suspicious sooner of a creditor who let forty pounds remain outstanding for so long. ‘He kept promising that his luck would change with the next hand. It never did, of course, and when Colburn was finally ruined, I had the sense that he was pleased.’
‘And now we know why,’ said Wiseman. ‘So his debts would destroy the bankers.’
‘Plague,’ said Baron tersely. ‘That is the terrible thing Shaw has planned for today – his ultimate revenge on the whole city.’
‘And he might do it,’ said Wiseman, ‘if Taylor’s box really does contain infected cloth.’
‘Get this fire under control,’ Baron ordered Poachin. ‘I will look for Taylor.’
‘Go to the Standard,’ suggested Poachin. ‘He was there not long ago.’
Baron began to run, moving with surprising speed for a man his size, Chaloner trotting next to him and Wiseman ploughing along behind.
They reached Cheapside to find it full of howling rioters. Some were attacking the wealthier mansions, while others clustered around the plague houses, and there was a great cheer when a man arrived with a bucket of whitewash and painted over the red cross on Widow Porteous’s door. When it was done, he marched on to the next one.
‘Where are the watchers?’ cried Wiseman, horrified.
‘Fled for their lives,’ replied Baron. ‘Although the plague is not in most of the houses the authorities have shut up, so there is no real danger—’
‘There is danger!’ yelled Wiseman. He jabbed a finger at Widow Porteous, who was at her window calling down to the crowd. ‘Look at her! You can see she has a fever from here.’
‘There are fevers other than plague—’
‘Would you let her touch Frances or your children?’ demanded Wiseman. ‘No? Then I suggest you keep her in her house, where she belongs.’
They stood face to glowering face, and for a moment Chaloner thought Baron would refuse. Then the felon nodded assent, and turned to Chaloner.
‘Find Shaw before he causes any more mischief.’ He whipped around to Wiseman. ‘And you must stop Taylor. I will try to contain matters here.’
Chaloner reached the music shop to find that the cross had been daubed out, but the windows and door were still nailed shut. He hurried to the back, and was not surprised to find the rear gate unlocked. Damp footprints on the step indicated that it had been used recently.
He entered with every nerve in his body taut with tension. The shop was deserted, but then he heard someone talking in the cellar. He aimed for the stairs. There was a light at the bottom, but it was feeble, and the glow it cast did not allow him to see much. However, it did show that work had continued apace since he had last been there. The cellar floor had been raised by another ten feet, and comprised an evil, reeking soup of molten mud. It almost reached the scaffolding, which now formed a narrow walkway running around all four sides of the room. Above it all hung the massive leather bucket, mostly full and almost ready to be poured.
Taylor was squatting near the base of the steps. His nightgown was filthy, and there was blood on his sleeves. His handsome face was flushed and his eyes were too bright, while his hair was a wild mat that stood up in all directions. He was muttering to his box in an unsettled, agitated way, fiddling with the hinge. Chaloner swallowed hard. Had he already opened the thing, and touched its filthy contents? Was that why he was feverish?
‘You should not be here.’ Chaloner whipped around to see Lettice on the stairs above him. She held a gun. ‘There is plague in this poor, benighted house.’
Chaloner gaped at her. ‘I saw your body tossed on the cart…’ But all he had seen was a corpse wrapped in a blanket and a cold white hand. Understanding dawned. ‘It was Oxley’s daughter. She was supposed to have run away…’
Lettice giggled. ‘She served a higher purpose.’
‘So you killed the whole family, then told Misick to say there were buboes on Emma so the house could be shut up.’ Chaloner looked for Shaw. It was too dark to see, but he could sense the man’s presence. ‘Oxley never demanded lots of ale, and nor did you send it to him – he was dead the whole time. And he was telling the truth when he claimed that Emma was suffering from the after-effects of too much ale—’
‘If they had been better neighbours, we might have let them live. Stand still, Mr Chaloner. I will shoot you if you move.’
Chaloner had stepped towards Taylor. ‘I need to take his box away. You must know what the plague—’
‘I do – better than most,’ interrupted Lettice bitterly. ‘My daughter died of it, if you recall.’
‘Then you will not want it inflicted on anyone else.’
‘Oh, but I do!’ Her voice was hard, and the hand holding the gun was rock steady. ‘Our fellow goldsmiths could have saved us from the Tulip Bubble, but they did nothing. Well, now they will know what it is like to lose everything. And their children will die of that vile disease.’
‘But so will others who are not bankers—’
‘I do not care! Let the plague take this whole, filthy city.’
Chaloner scanned the darkness desperately. Where was Shaw? Did he have a gun, too? And how good a shot was Lettice? Would she hit him if he made a
dive for Taylor’s box?
‘You have been clever,’ he said, wondering if he could distract her with words. ‘You have created unease and ill-feeling with rumours—’
‘We created nothing. We merely exacerbated what was already there. People were angry with the bankers and the plague measures anyway.’
‘And you used Joan. Through her, you controlled Misick, Oxley, Farrow and Doe.’
‘Not Mr Doe. He acted for his own interests, although we might have given him the occasional prod. Robin appeared to him tonight, for example, in a hooded cloak.’
‘But there is no powerful sponsor. That was a lie, to convince Joan to do your bidding. Who did you claim? A member of the Privy Council? Another banker?’
Lettice giggled. ‘Spymaster Williamson, who is the kind of fellow to initiate clandestine plots. Robin told her that he would ensure she had everything she had ever wanted if she followed our instructions. She is a clever lady, but too greedy, twisted and ambitious to be wise. As if Williamson would work through the likes of us!’
Chaloner listed all they had done. ‘You fomented trouble over The Court & Kitchin and organised a sequel; encouraged your “good friend” Colburn to run up huge debts; started rumours about the integrity of the bankers that made depositors demand their money back—’
‘All so easy.’ Lettice adjusted her hat, the one with the feathers that the Court milliner had made, and something else snapped clear in Chaloner’s mind.
‘The tale that something would happen on Tuesday came from Howard,’ he said. ‘And who was his last customer? You!’
‘I might have let something slip when he handed me his final creation. It has served to heighten tension, and these things are often self-fulfilling.’
Chaloner started to edge towards Taylor again, but stopped when someone materialised at Lettice’s side. It was Shaw, holding a pitchfork with wickedly sharp tines. The couple exchanged a glance, and Chaloner sensed their excitement as the plot marched towards its climax.
‘It is time for Mr Taylor to walk along Cheapside again,’ said Lettice. ‘He will open his box to—’
The Cheapside Corpse Page 39