The Butcher Of Smithfield: Chaloner's Third Exploit in Restoration London (Thomas Chaloner Book 3)

by Susanna Gregory

  ‘I bought a notice in The Newes last month,’ announced the fat apothecary. ‘I lost a bay gelding from near the pump in Chancery Lane, and was hoping an advertisement might see it home. Tom Wright got his beast back when he bought a notice, and so did Captain Hammond. But I am still waiting for mine to appear.’

  ‘You are just unlucky, Reeves,’ said Nott. ‘Not everyone who advertises is fortunate enough to have his property returned. The thieves must have taken it into the country, away from the influence of the newsbooks. Not everyone reads them once you get past Islington.’

  ‘We were talking about the relative virtues of coffee and tobacco, Reeves,’ said Brome, not wanting to discuss business when he could be relaxing. ‘Which do you prefer?’

  ‘Tobacco, of course,’ replied Reeves. ‘But we were talking about horses, which is far more interesting. Unless you have news to impart? And I do not mean foreign stuff, either. How is the Queen? The last I heard, she had distemper. My dog had that, and it was not pretty.’

  ‘You had better call it an “indisposition” next time,’ whispered Hodgkinson to Brome. ‘Reeves is not the first one to question your use of “distemper”. I know it is what the Court physicians told you, but they obviously do not know how to communicate with the general public, and you do not want to be responsible for the rumour that the Queen is a hound.’

  ‘She is a good lady,’ said Chaloner coolly, thinking of the small woman with the dark, unhappy eyes who had asked him to go to Portugal. ‘You should never write anything disparaging about her.’

  ‘William Smegergill is murdered,’ said Nott, addressing the room in general. ‘His brains dashed out, and then his head forced into a puddle until he drowned.’

  ‘Oddsfish!’ exclaimed Reeves. ‘That is an unpleasant way to go! I heard he had taken to playing strange music of late, and that Maylord did the same. On one occasion, they bowed a discordant harmony at Court, and the King was obliged to order them to stop.’

  Nott tamped more tobacco into his pipe. ‘What an odd coincidence! L’Estrange has been doing the same thing. My shop is opposite, as you know, and I often hear him playing. For the last three weeks, he has been practising some very nasty tunes.’

  ‘Foreign jigs,’ elaborated Reeves darkly. ‘They are probably designed to bewitch us, so Dutchmen can steal our horses while we listen. Why do you think they have built themselves a navy?’

  ‘To develop trade routes to Africa, America and the Far East,’ replied Chaloner. He knew a lot about the Dutch, and their navy was an interesting subject to him. ‘They are expanding their—’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Reeves, evidently not of a mind for erudite discussion. ‘They want our horses, and anyone who disagrees with me does not deserve to own one.’

  Thurloe and Temperance had been right when they said no one at Newgate would know Mary Cade, and even the two shillings Chaloner had earned from L’Estrange did not buy him the information he had hoped for. It was not easy to part with funds that could have been spent on food, but he reminded himself that a few lean days were a small price to pay for his friend’s welfare. One warden, more helpful than the others, suggested he try the Fleet Prison, because it held mostly debtors, and the woman in the picture looked too well fed to be the common kind of criminal. Chaloner supposed it was worth a try, although he was loath to set foot in another gaol that day. Visiting Newgate had left him nauseous, and he wondered whether he would ever be able to enter a prison without the uncomfortable sense that he might never come out.

  That evening, he played his viol, then sat at the table, studying the music he had taken from Maylord’s chimney. It made no more sense to him than the rest of his investigation, and when he attempted to play it, his landlord hammered on the wall to make him stop. He wondered why the old musician had kept such dismal compositions when the best place for them was on the fire. Chaloner might have put them there, had he been able to afford the fuel to light one.

  He was too restless to sleep, mostly because he was hungry and there was nothing to eat. When he saw it had stopped raining, he went out, not with any specific destination in mind, but just to prowl around the city that was now his home. He glanced at the lamp-lit windows of the Golden Lion before he left, and was bemused to see Giles Dury there. The assistant news-monger was gazing absently into the street, and although Chaloner could think of no earthly reason why Dury should be watching him, he still slipped back inside his house and exited through the back door instead.

  He wandered aimlessly, alert to the sounds of the night: the rumble of drunken voices from alehouses, the shriller babble of an argument in a coffee house, the distant howling of a pack of dogs, and the ever-present roar of water rushing under London Bridge. He went all the way to Cripplegate without anyone giving him more than a passing glance. When he arrived at Monkwell Street, he took refuge in the gate to Chyrurgeons’ Hall, standing so still that he was invisible to all but those with the very sharpest eyes. Leybourn’s house was lit in two places. The attic on the top floor had a lamp, and Chaloner could see his friend working there, snatching books from the shelves around him with a fierce concentration that said he was deep in one of his incomprehensible theories.

  The second light was at the back, so Chaloner scaled a wall and dropped silently into the garden. He walked stealthily towards the kitchen and looked through the window. Mary sat by the hearth, and three men were with her, all drinking from Leybourn’s best silver goblets. Chaloner regarded them thoughtfully. They were the same three who had attacked him and Smegergill, and then who had chased him at the Rhenish Wine House: Nose, the leader, and his henchmen, the Scot and Fingerless. Mary had obviously not been boasting when she claimed to know dangerous people. Yet surely she could not have set her cronies after him that night? They had exchanged a few cool words by that point, but nothing to warrant murder. Or had she already identified Chaloner as a threat to her plans, and had decided to act promptly?

  He could not hear what the foursome were saying to each other, and suspected they were keeping their voices low so as not to be heard upstairs. He looked at the door that led to the hallway and saw a piece of twine emerging from under it. He did not understand its significance until he heard the faint jangle of a bell. Immediately, the men rose and made for the back door. As they left, the Scot and Fingerless shoved Leybourn’s goblets in their pockets, although Nose left his on the table. None of them noticed Chaloner in the shadows. A few moments later, Leybourn appeared, yawning and rubbing his eyes. Mary insinuated herself into her arms, and he bent to kiss her.

  Chaloner turned away and made his way home.

  Chapter 7

  For the first time since Chaloner had returned from Portugal, the sun was shining when he woke. It caught the brown leaves in the churchyard of St Dunstan-in-the-West, and turned them to a deep, glowing orange that shimmered in the breeze. Yet even the glories of a bright autumn day did not distract him from his worries.

  He was deeply disturbed by what he had witnessed at Leybourn’s house the previous evening, and his inclination was to visit the Fleet Prison in a concerted effort to see what could be learned about Mary. But Newburne was due to be buried at noon, and there was a chance that Chaloner might overhear something important as the mourners talked together. He would be no good to Leybourn if he was obliged to leave London because of a lack of employment, so he decided to dedicate the morning to the solicitor’s murder.

  Newburne had lived on Old Jewry, an affluent thoroughfare that ran between Cheapside and the London Wall, which boasted two churches and the kind of houses that were owned by the upper mercantile classes. It did not take him long to identify Newburne’s home. It was one of the largest, and a lot of money had recently been spent on it. He recalled the tales of Newburne’s wealth, and saw they had been true – and so they should be, he thought. The man had earned a wage from L’Estrange, had business dealings with Crisp, and had been in the Lord Chancellor’s pay.

  It was too early for anything to be
happening, but Robin’s Coffee House was opposite, and provided a comfortable refuge in which to watch and wait. He found a seat in the window, and handed over a large leather token worth threepence to the coffee-boy; his cat had knocked a jar from the mantelpiece that morning, and he had recovered the token from among the shards. It was enough to buy him three dishes of a thick black sludge that felt as though it was doing harm when he swallowed it, and free access to a fire and The Newes, published that morning. Men came to drink before they started work, all thrusting through the door with the cry, ‘What news?’ Most received the reply that there had been an outrage perpetrated on Mr Cobb. Curious to know what outrage, Chaloner read:

  It came to me this day, from a very sure hand, that one Mr Cobb, the Vicar of Wollaston, Northamptonshire, applying himself according to his duty to God and the lawes of the land to the Reading of the Divine Service, found the Common Prayerbook so bedaubed with tar and grease upon the services for the day that he was obliged to borrow another. Something I should add to this, of what I myself know for a certain truth. But first, it is too early to mention it; and secondly, it is too foule for the Honour of the Nation to be made publique.

  It sounded intriguing, and Chaloner wondered whether L’Estrange really did have a ‘foule’ secret to impart to his readers, or whether it was just a device to make them buy the next issue. He glanced across the road, but Newburne’s house was still closed, so he read that Rowland Pepin, famous for his Cure of the Rupture and Broken Belly, also made ‘easy truffles of all kinds’, and that Theophilus Buckworth’s lozenges still worked against coughs, catarrhs and strongness of breath. He also learned that in Vienna, there was news of the Turks ‘up and down’, which was vague enough to mean nothing at all. His own piece was there, too, although it had been edited to make it more sensational than it should have been.

  Eventually, when he started thinking he should have gone to the Fleet Prison after all, the door to Newburne’s mansion opened, and people began to arrive to pay their respects. First in was a man in a cloak and a large hat, surrounded by a mob of heavily armed henchmen. The Butcher of Smithfield was obviously intent on dispatching his obligations early, although Chaloner did not imagine there would be much of a queue, given Newburne’s unpopularity. He was surprised to see he was wrong: the funeral was not due to take place for another three hours, but a huge number of folk followed Crisp’s example. Chaloner could only assume they were making obligatory appearances, so as not to offend one of Newburne’s three powerful and generally nasty masters. After a while, when the initial rush was over and Crisp and his henchmen had gone, the spy attached himself to a party of law-clerks and followed them inside.

  The front parlour contained Newburne and his coffin, reclaimed from St Bartholomew the Less for the occasion, and Dorcus Newburne. She was prettier than he expected, and her face was kind. She sat in a chair at the foot of the casket, clothed in black from head to toe. L’Estrange was at her side, hand resting solicitously on her shoulder, while Brome and Joanna hovered uncertainly nearby.

  Brome looked uncomfortable in his dark mourning gear. The sword he wore was thin and new, and Chaloner was under the impression that it had never been drawn. Joanna was equally awkward in a boned waistcoat that over-accentuated her skinny figure. She eschewed the current fashion for wigs, and her brown hair still fell in the ridiculous rabbitear style he had come to associate with her. She was pale and sad, and her large brown eyes looked bigger than usual that day. When Dorcus began to cry, she knelt next to her and held her hand. L’Estrange leaned down to murmur something encouraging, and the widow reached up to touch his cheek. He shot her one of his grins, all flashing teeth, gleaming eyes and glinting earrings, but the smile faded when he spotted Chaloner. Ignoring Dorcus’s squeal of distress, he abandoned his post and came to grab the spy’s wrist, shunting him into an antechamber where they could speak privately.

  ‘I told you: I do not want the Earl meddling in Newburne’s death,’ he hissed. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘The Lord Chancellor sent me to represent him,’ said Chaloner, freeing himself with rather more vigour than was necessary. He disliked being manhandled.

  L’Estrange folded his arms and looked resentful. ‘I am sorry for you. Funerals are grim affairs, and I would give a good deal to be elsewhere today. However, Dorcus has need of me, so here I am.’

  ‘I am sure she does,’ muttered Chaloner.

  ‘These occasions invariably attract phanatiques,’ grumbled L’Estrange, waving a disparaging hand towards the mourning chamber. ‘The types who daub tar on prayer-books.’

  Chaloner could not see any obvious religious bigots. ‘Where are they?’

  L’Estrange flapped another vigorous hand, so his earrings swung. ‘The booksellers for a start. Why do you think I want to fine them all into oblivion? Then there is Muddiman – a brazen phanatique. Even Brome and Joanna display disconcerting signs of treachery on occasion – I heard them playing music composed by Locke last night, and he was a damned Roundhead!’

  ‘Did you retrieve Newburne’s key?’ asked Chaloner, changing the subject. L’Estrange was deranged, and should not be allowed to control the government’s sole means of disseminating information. He might use it to start another civil war. ‘You said you—’

  ‘I cannot bring myself to do it,’ interrupted L’Estrange. ‘Not today. I will ask tomorrow, when her husband is not in the coffin next to us. I plan to pay her a little private visit in the morning.’

  He waggled his eyebrows, and Chaloner regarded him askance, astonished that he should baulk at asking for a key, but think nothing of foisting romantic attentions on her. Or was it Chaloner who had no understanding of such matters? It was, after all, L’Estrange who had the harem.

  ‘Someone is stealing your stories,’ he pointed out. ‘And anything that damages your newsbooks also harms the government. You cannot afford to have a vital key missing.’

  L’Estrange glowered at him. ‘How does the Earl put up with your impudence? He is not a tolerant man, by any stretch of the imagination. I thought about what you said yesterday, incidentally – your conclusions about the annotated Newes and that ledger – and I have decided your theory is irrelevant. Someone must have broken into my office and stolen that one set of proofs, but it was a random event, not a regular occurrence. And the ledger can be interpreted in a number of ways.’

  Chaloner gaped at him, scarcely believing his ears. Was the man really so blind? ‘But—’

  ‘The leak is not at my office. My Angels are beyond reproach, and I forbid you to speak to them. So, the matter is closed, just like the death of Newburne. You will forget both incidents.’

  Chaloner saw there was no point in arguing. L’Estrange’s mind was made up and, as with most ignorant men, it would be virtually impossible to change. Instead, he thought about the enigmatic comment at the end of the prayer-book article.

  ‘Do you really have a foul secret to impart to the nation, when the time is right?’

  ‘You have been reading The Newes,’ said L’Estrange, pleased. ‘I hope it will pique your interest enough to purchase The Intelligencer on Monday. And yes, I know lots of foul secrets about all manner of dreadful phanatiques.’

  Chaloner was disappointed. ‘I thought that might be the case.’

  ‘Phanatiques are a danger to us all,’ ranted L’Estrange. ‘And that is why you must leave my newsbooks alone. Tell the Earl there is nothing to investigate – about Newburne or these so-called leaks. If you disobey, you will be sorry. You look very well, by the way.’

  Chaloner did not like the juxtaposition of the two comments. ‘Is there any reason I should not?’

  L’Estrange shrugged. ‘None at all. Let us hope you stay that way.’

  Chaloner returned to the mourning room. He was about to introduce himself to Dorcus Newburne as a clerk from the Victualling Office, but L’Estrange reached her first.

  ‘This is Heyden, the Lord Chancellor’s man,’ he said with a sneer.
‘Come to pay his respects.’

  ‘Why would the Earl send a representative here?’ Dorcus asked tearfully. ‘He promised me a pension, but now he is trying to wriggle out of honouring it.’

  Chaloner winced. ‘He sends his deepest sympathy, ma’am,’ he said gently.

  She looked away, touched by the kindness in his voice. ‘My husband was on official business when he died, you know. In fact, you can tell the Earl that I believe he was murdered in the course of his duties.’

  ‘He died of cucumbers, Dorcus,’ said L’Estrange, a little impatiently. ‘It is horrible, I know, but it could happen to anyone.’

  ‘But he did not like cucumbers,’ protested Dorcus, beginning to cry. ‘And who can blame him? He said he was unwell before he left for work last Wednesday, so perhaps he was already ill then.’

  ‘Did he eat breakfast that day?’ asked Chaloner, ignoring L’Estrange’s furious glare for disobeying his orders and pursuing the investigation.

  Dorcus shook her head. ‘And no dinner the night before, either, because he was too late home. All he had were some lozenges – the ones he usually took for pains in his stomach. And we all know why he had to purchase so many of those: because he was anxious about working for so many powerful men.’

  ‘But he did eat a cucumber, my dear,’ said L’Estrange, trying hard to mask his irritation, but not succeeding very well. ‘Hodgkinson was with him when he devoured it, and there are other witnesses, too. He did not dislike them as much as you think.’

  Dorcus wiped her eyes. ‘He might have swallowed some of the seeds to ease his wind, I suppose, but they should not have killed him. There is something odd going on, and I want my pension.’

  ‘Leave it to me, pretty lady,’ crooned L’Estrange; his voice was soft, but he still glared at the spy. ‘I shall make sure you are awarded your pension. You certainly do not want Heyden prying into your husband’s private life.’