‘Miriam, sir,’ Sam said, gesturing towards her with the air of a showman. ‘As your worship desired.’
Miriam squinted up at me, trying to make out my features beneath the brim of my hat. We were in a yard behind the Half Moon, where the tavern’s poorer customers could buy their drinks at a hatch in the wall.
I nodded at the beer. ‘You’d rather drink good, strong ale, I’ll be bound.’
She grinned unexpectedly. ‘Who wouldn’t, master?’
‘Then you shall.’ I turned to Sam, feeling for my purse. ‘Fetch a jug of ale.’ I saw his face and took pity on him. ‘And a pot for yourself.’
He joined the knot of people at the hatch. I leaned against the wall. Miriam shifted uneasily under my gaze.
‘Drink your beer. Don’t let it go to waste.’
She seized the pot and swallowed what was in it as fast as she could.
I jerked a thumb in the direction of the roof of New Building. ‘I hear you work there.’
‘Yes, master. Clifford’s Inn.’
Sam was already returning towards us, dextrously managing his crutch, the jug of ale and a pot.
I said, ‘Who do you work for?’
Her eyes were on Sam. ‘Some of the gentlemen, sir. Staircase Fourteen.’
‘What do you do?’
‘Clean the chambers, make the beds.’
‘What else?’
‘I used to help with the staircase next door too. Thirteen. But that was before the Fire.’
That set my mind on another track. ‘Is there a connecting door between the staircases?’
She nodded vigorously. ‘It’s in the servant’s closet on Mr Gromwell’s landing. Between his door and Mr Gorvin’s.’ Alarm spread across her grubby face. ‘Is there something wrong? I never stole a—’
‘Nothing’s wrong. And here’s the ale.’ I motioned Sam to pour it. ‘What else do you do there?’
‘I empty the pots in the morning, and do the fires, and I bring up coals. I’m only there till dinnertime.’
I watched her bury her face in the pot of ale. I said, ‘And who are these gentlemen?’
I already knew the answers to this and earlier questions. Sam had bought the information at the cost of sixpence from the aged and infinitely corruptible porter at the Fetter Lane gate, including Miriam’s name and where to find her.
‘There’s Mr Moran, sir, and Mr Drury and Mr Bews. Mr Gromwell, Mr Gorvin and Mr Harrison.’
‘Are the gentlemen kind to you?’
‘I don’t see much of them, sir. They’re either asleep or out when I’m there. They all keep a man to serve them and look after their clothes, and give me my orders.’
‘What about Mr Gromwell? Be open with me. You won’t regret it.’
She glanced about her as if fearing we were overheard. She lowered her voice. ‘He’s rough in manner, sir. And he’s not a generous gentleman. He goes weeks without paying, sometimes. He’s got a temper, too. But he’s one of the governors of the Inn, so we have to mind our step with him.’
‘Tell me, about three weeks ago, when you cleaned his chambers, were they in any way unusual?’
Miriam looked blankly at me.
‘I mean anything about them that was out of the common way.’
She smiled. ‘Oh – you mean the day when the furniture was all arsey-turvey? Is that it?’
I smiled and nodded to Sam, who refilled her pot and then his own. ‘When was this?’
‘Three weeks ago, maybe?’ Miriam stared at me over the rim of her pot. ‘It was a day I had orders to go in early, make everything especially neat and clean. He had some new furniture coming, they told me. But when I came in next morning there was nothing new there. All the old stuff was still there – but all out of place – huddled against one wall. I reckon he must have got merry with his friends, and they fancied a change, and then they thought they’d have another bottle instead when they were halfway through. Or they were playing a game that needed the space. God knows what they get up to when they’re in their cups.’
‘Was there a brightly coloured carpet there? Or a couch?’
‘No. He never had anything like that.’ Miriam’s face brightened and she smacked her lips. ‘But I found a couple of sweetmeats in the hearth that morning. He must have thrown them away. Nothing wrong with them. I rinsed the ash off and had them for breakfast.’
‘Can you read?’
Miriam shook her head. ‘I leave that to the gentlemen.’
‘You see, I need a piece of Mr Gromwell’s handwriting. Anything will do.’
A doubtful expression crossed her face. ‘I couldn’t take anything from his room, master. More than the job’s worth … And it would be wrong, wouldn’t it?’
‘No, no.’ I smiled at her, fighting an urge to scratch the savage itching of healing skin under my periwig. ‘I don’t want you to take anything. I just want to see what his handwriting looks like. Perhaps you could borrow something. Or bring me a paper he’s thrown away or left to use as a spill for the fire. Anything at all, as long as it has his writing on.’ I took a shilling from my purse. ‘Such a small service. And it will earn you this.’
‘Why do you need it, master?’
‘It’s a wager,’ I said. ‘That’s all. My friend and I have a wager about who wrote something, and when I know what Mr Gromwell’s hand is like, I’ll win.’
Her expression cleared. ‘Will this do then?’ She dug her hand into her skirt and took out a crumpled sheet of paper. Panic flared in her face. ‘But I can’t let you take it away.’
‘Of course you’ll have it back. I only want a sight of it. Just for a moment.’
The reassurance satisfied her. She smoothed out the paper and passed it to me.
‘Mr Gromwell’s man give it me so the porters let me in and out. It says I work for him and the other gentlemen. Like I said, he’s one of the governors, and you need to have a paper from one of them or they won’t let you pass through.’
I examined the pass while she drank, her eyes following my movements over the brim of her pot. It permitted her to come and go at Clifford’s Inn when serving the occupants of Staircase XIV. It was signed by Lucius Gromwell in his capacity as one of the Rules, the men who directed the affairs of Clifford’s Inn.
Gromwell. Lucius Gromwell.
I looked carefully at the writing. For a moment, the pain, the itching and the tiredness dropped away from me. Mr Williamson had kept both Sir Philip Limbury’s note to Hakesby and the poem that Cat and I had found among the belongings of Tabitha, Mistress Hampney’s maid. But their appearance was fresh in my memory. The three pieces of writing had been written at different times and in different circumstances. Nevertheless, they looked as if the same person could have been responsible for them all – though I knew for a fact that that was not the case: Limbury had written the note to Hakesby, and Gromwell had written Miriam’s pass.
Was it so very strange that their handwriting should be similar? The two men had been instructed from childhood by the same teachers: they had grown up together and they had been intimate friends at school and the university. They had probably learned their letters from the same teacher.
In that case, the handwriting of the poem stolen from Herrick – ‘Whenas in Silks My CELIA goes’ – could belong to either of them. As for the ‘L’ at the bottom of the poem, that might signify Limbury, as we had assumed until now, or – just as easily – Lucius.
I returned the pass to Miriam. Sam gave her the rest of the ale. It was strong stuff, and her face had grown flushed and her breathing more rapid. I held up the shilling. Her eyes fixed on it, like a cat’s on a mouse.
‘I’d prefer Mr Gromwell not to hear that we’ve talked together.’
She shook her head violently. ‘I won’t tell, I swear it. He’s got such a temper, sir. He’ll beat a servant as soon as look at her. Why, yesterday he struck the man that serves him, knocked a tooth out, and all because he was in a passion about the pain in his hand and the mad d
og, so he—’
‘What?’ I snapped.
At the harshness of my voice, she cowered like a dog herself.
I softened my tone. ‘I didn’t mean to speak so loudly, Miriam. What’s this about a dog? Tell me.’
‘The one that bit him on the hand. Down to the bone it was, his man said, and he bled like a stuck pig.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘The day before yesterday. Mr Gromwell feared the dog was mad, and he’d soon be mad too, and he’d run through the streets foaming at the mouth.’ She shivered with a sort of pleasure. ‘And he’d be screaming curses at respectable folks and biting them and making them mad too …’
The pleasure seeped away from Miriam’s face. ‘But he’s not gone mad yet, so maybe the dog wasn’t mad in the first place. Maybe it just hated him.’
Prudence was better than pointless self-denial, I decided, for everyone’s sake, not just my own.
So, to be on the safe side, I stopped briefly at an apothecary’s in Fleet Street and took a modest and carefully calculated dose of laudanum. Sam looked askance at me, or I thought he did. I snapped at him, telling him to keep his eyes and thoughts to himself, and left the shop in a cloud of righteous indignation.
I ran Williamson to earth in the Middle Temple. He was dining privately with Mr Robarts, a man he often met on private business. He excused himself to his host and came out into the passage.
He led me to a deep window embrasure where we could talk unheard and largely unseen. I believe I made my report lucidly enough. I had measured the dose with great care: in moderation, I believed, the apothecary’s mixture sharpened my mental faculties as well as eased the pain to a point where it was generally tolerable.
‘Sir, this morning I recalled two facts that had slipped my memory. First, Gromwell’s Christian name is Lucius. Secondly, Chelling told me that one of his schoolfellows is a Groom of the Bedchamber. That must mean Limbury, surely.’
Williamson frowned at me. ‘Get to the point.’
‘We assumed that the “L” on the poem to Celia stood for Limbury. But perhaps it stood for Lucius. And two men with the same schooling may well write a similar hand. Gromwell and Limbury do – I’ve just put it to the test. And then today I heard that Gromwell has a dog bite on his hand, which could connect him to the wounded cur at the dead maidservant’s cottage in Lambeth. The dog with a stab wound in his side.’
‘What are you saying?’ Williamson said. ‘That Gromwell is the rogue in this affair? That he was Mistress Hampney’s lover all along?’
‘Why not, sir? He’s better suited for the part. And it would make sense for Limbury to keep his distance from Mistress Hampney. Gromwell was acting for him, of course, though perhaps he had no objection to marrying her, if he could contrive it, thereby killing two birds with one stone. After all, she had money, he needs it.’
‘And then he killed her when she would not do as he wished, and then killed Chelling when he threatened to unmask him. And the maidservant in Lambeth too – perhaps she tried to extort money from him as she knew he had been her mistress’s lover. The poem could be taken as evidence of that.’ Williamson hesitated, considering. ‘You may be right, but what use is all this to me? You’ve given me nothing my Lord Arlington can take to the King. Chiffinch is in a strong position – as strong as any man’s, because he knows the King’s secrets. So if I am to hurt him, the evidence against him must be as strong as steel.’
I had expected praise from Williamson. I should have known that was almost always a vain hope. Besides, men who devote their lives to the strange, skewed world of Whitehall are not like the rest of us. They live by different rules. Williamson was less interested in finding the murderer than in gathering ammunition with which to attack Chiffinch.
I tried another line: ‘Lady Limbury was at the Fire Court when the case was heard.’
‘I thought she hardly stirred from her house.’
‘There’s no love lost between her and her husband. She came solely to mock him when he lost his case. And afterwards they met outside the hall, and the quarrel went beyond all bounds.’
‘His passions outweigh both his understanding and his manners.’ Williamson himself was a man who never let his own passions outweigh anything. As for his manners, they knew their place in his scheme of things and, like a good servant, appeared only when required.
‘There’s more,’ I said. ‘My lady has a large birthmark on her cheek. She covers it with a veil, but Sir Philip was so angry he tore it away from her face.’ Even the memory of that scene made me uncomfortable.
‘A birthmark? That’s it, is it? I’d heard she was ugly as sin. Limbury wouldn’t have had her if she hadn’t been her father’s heir. Come to that, if she’d been unblemished, Sir George Syre wouldn’t have let her marry a poor man like Limbury, especially one with his reputation. But beggars can’t be choosers. Did she go back to Pall Mall afterwards?’
‘I don’t know for sure. She went off with her servants. The porter on the Fleet Street gate at Clifford’s Inn said she had a glass coach waiting for her, and she drove away as fast as she could. Four horses, and the coach was laden with luggage. They were going east. Towards the ruins.’
‘If she and Limbury have quarrelled, she’s probably going to her father’s. Where else can she go? He lives in Kent – Syre Place is beyond Seven Oaks, on the road to Tunbridge Wells.’
Williamson paused a moment to think. I watched the lawyers criss-crossing the paths below the window. I had come a long and uncertain way from my father’s death to the shabby Court intrigues of Williamson and Chiffinch.
‘Talk to her, Marwood,’ he said at last. ‘That’s the best thing to do. And do it soon, while the lady’s passions run high against her husband. Tell her Lord Arlington desires to help her. Fan the flames in any way you can and she may blurt out what she knows of this affair. Does she know of an intrigue between Chiffinch and her husband? Try to persuade her to talk to me. I can be her friend in this.’
‘She may be miles away by now.’
‘I think not. If she continues in her own coach, they must go by the bridge. The traffic is so bad in the ruins, and it will take them an age to reach it. Once they get there, it will take at least an hour to cross to Southwark at this time of day, probably longer. If you don’t catch her on the bridge, hire a horse at the Bear on the other side and go after her.’
‘Sir, we can’t be sure she is going to her father’s house. Surely we should—’
He waved my objections aside. ‘There’s no time to be lost, and this is the best chance we have. You must go at once.’ He found his purse. ‘I shall advance you five pounds in case you have to follow her into Kent. Spare no expense to find her.’ He blinked, and his familiar caution reasserted itself. ‘I shall need an account of what you disburse, of course, and to whom and where.’
I nodded, wondering where I could buy laudanum on London Bridge. There must be an apothecary there or in the neighbourhood. I didn’t need another dose now, but I would need more if I were riding down to Kent.
Williamson beckoned me closer. ‘If we have her on our side,’ he murmured, ‘and if she knows something of her husband’s scheming with Gromwell and Chiffinch, we may be able to persuade her to appeal to the King. If she could be persuaded to write a letter to him – a memorial about the business, petitioning him to intervene – that would carry real weight. Let her make the most of Limbury’s cruelty to her. The King is tender-hearted – he doesn’t like to see a woman cruelly used.’ He gave me a thin smile. ‘Even an ill-favoured one.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
‘Old Swan Stairs,’ I told the older of the two watermen. ‘As fast as you can.’
I scrambled to the stern and sat down. Sam followed me, surprisingly agile despite his crutch. As an old sailor, he was comfortable in small boats. The two watermen pushed the boat out from Temple Stairs and began to row, swiftly picking up their rhythm.
The tide was behind us, ebbing fast,
and we made good time downriver. The ruins of the city glided past us. At this hour there was plenty of activity, particularly along the wharves where gangs of labourers were clearing the rubble. Their shouts drifted across the water.
London Bridge grew steadily closer. Seen broadside from the water, the scale of it was even more impressive than it was from the land. It was about a hundred yards long, a straight, narrow street floating above the water. Though a fire – not last year’s but an earlier one – had destroyed the houses at the northern end, most of its length was covered with towering buildings, distributed into three irregularly shaped blocks. In the middle, a drawbridge crossed the central arch. It was occasionally raised for tall vessels when the water was calm enough to admit them. Houses and shops lined both sides, and over the centuries they had sprouted higher and higher, and wider and wider, so they now seemed impossibly tall and unstable, like plants run to seed.
The backs of the buildings overhung the river, just as their fronts overhung the roadway along the bridge. They were encrusted with closets and balconies and bay windows, many of them a series of afterthoughts added over the years.
The sun came out. The river stretched around us, a glittering and swaying monster, panting with the effort of trying to squeeze itself through the nineteen arches of the bridge. The massive piers blocked almost half the width of the river. Here at water level you felt the power of the tide, especially at times like this when, twice a day, it raged at the manmade obstruction of the bridge.
When the tide was ebbing or flowing hard, the river backed up against the partial obstacle of the bridge. With their splayed bases, the arches were narrow enough in the first place. To make matters worse, wooden starlings had been built out around them to protect the stonework from the impact of the water, which had the effect of constricting the flow still further, as did the waterwheels at either end.
Our boat was low on the water, the gunwale less than a foot above the surface. The wind was blowing briskly and the curls of my periwig were flying about my neck. I turned my head so the scars would not be visible to the others and pulled up the collar of my cloak.
The Fire Court Page 29
