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

by Susanna Gregory

  ‘Ireton, Kirby and Treen attacked the wrong two men the night Smegergill died,’ Chaloner said to Greeting, when Hodgkinson had gone to see if the coast was clear. ‘They were ordered to ambush an old musician and his younger companion, and be sure to kill the latter. But their victims arrived early, and they made a mess of the attack. I believe the real target was you. Not me, and not Smegergill.’

  Greeting gazed at him. ‘Me? I do not believe you.’

  ‘Your coachman was probably bribed to make you get out of his carriage early, forcing you to walk the rest of the way. And Smegergill’s unanticipated decision to forgo your consort’s official transport led to a case of mistaken identity. You were carrying documents that night, and Ireton was charged to steal them. What were they? Something you were commissioned to deliver to Williamson?’

  Greeting’s face was white. ‘This cannot be true,’ he said shakily.

  ‘Spying is a dangerous game, Greeting. People die all the time, especially those who work for Williamson – he considers them a readily disposable asset. You can keep his confidence if you like, but bear in mind that he will not be equally loyal to you.’

  ‘It was music,’ said Greeting in a low, frightened voice. ‘Just music. I tried to tell you.’

  Chaloner frowned. ‘You mean the strange tunes you said Smegergill and Maylord had been practising? It was their music you were carrying?’

  ‘I think so. L’Estrange was at the Charterhouse concert that night, and Williamson told me to collect papers from him and take them to White Hall the following day. L’Estrange gave me a pouch, and I peeped inside when I got home. It was just music.’

  Chaloner was confused. Had L’Estrange exchanged letters for tunes, because he knew the courier was going to be intercepted in St Bartholomew’s churchyard? ‘Presumably, you delivered the pouch to Williamson the next day. Was he surprised to see you? What did he say when he opened it?’

  Greeting gazed at him, then raised an unsteady hand to rub his eyes. ‘What have I embroiled myself in? I have no idea whether he was surprised to see me, because his face is always impassive and impossible to read. He took the package, inspected it briefly, then threw the whole lot on the fire.’

  Leybourn’s house was in darkness, so Chaloner let himself in through the back door. The surveyor kept his worldly wealth under a floorboard in the attic he used as a study, but before Chaloner could start up the stairs, he heard someone coming down them. Not wanting to be caught, he slid into a cupboard, taking refuge among brooms, rags and a brimming bucket of slops that someone had shoved out of sight and forgotten about. The stench in the confined space almost took his breath away.

  He was expecting to see Leybourn or Mary, heading to the kitchen for a drink. But it was neither, and he frowned when he recognised Kirby. Over the Hector’s shoulder was Leybourn’s money sack.

  Chaloner was tempted to make a commotion, so Kirby would be caught red-handed, but he was not sure what excuse he could give for being in his friend’s house in the depths of the night. Mary would certainly make hay with the fact that he had broken in, and he did not want to put Leybourn in a position where he was forced to choose between them again. He followed Kirby outside, and accosted him as he cut through the graveyard of St Giles without Cripplegate, careful to keep his face in shadow and his voice soft enough to be anonymous. He had reloaded the gun he had confiscated from Greeting – the musician was a danger to himself with it – and he pointed it at Kirby as he called through the trees.

  ‘Put the bag on the ground and raise your hands above your head.’

  Kirby leapt in alarm. There was enough light from the street for him to see his assailant was armed, but he quickly regained his composure. He was braver than Treen. ‘What if I refuse?’

  Chaloner cocked the gun. ‘The sack goes on the ground with or without your cooperation.’

  Slowly, Kirby set it down. ‘Come to a tavern with me,’ he said wheedlingly. ‘There is no need for rough tactics. We can share the contents over an ale, and both be happy.’

  ‘Walk away,’ ordered Chaloner. ‘And do not look back.’

  But Kirby was not ready to relinquish such a large fortune without making some sort of stand. ‘You will not shoot me,’ he blustered. ‘If you want the sack, you will have to come and get it.’

  Chaloner was tempted to make an end of him, but he had never enjoyed killing, even during the wars, and was loath to shoot a man in cold blood. On the other hand, he had no intention of fighting for Leybourn’s treasure. He aimed at a spot just above Kirby’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The henchman gasped his alarm at the sudden report, covering his head with his hands as twigs and leaves fell around him.

  ‘The next ball will be between your eyes,’ whispered Chaloner. ‘Walk away or die.’

  When Kirby had gone, Chaloner grabbed the bag and hid behind a tomb, waiting for Kirby to double back and try to catch him. The man was predictable, and came from precisely the direction Chaloner had anticipated. He watched him pass by on his futile errand, then headed south, where he kept to the smaller alleys, and the sight of the gun meant no one was reckless enough to stop him and ask what was in the sack.

  Because he was being careful, it took an age to reach home, and by the time he did, he was heartily sick of wind-blown rain. He was about to go through his front door, when he saw several people sitting in the tavern opposite. It was outrageously late, even for the Golden Lion, and instinct warned him to be wary. He crouched behind an abandoned hand-cart and waited. Eventually, one of the patrons stood and stretched. It was Giles Dury – again.

  Dury did not seem to be watching Chaloner’s house – at least not obviously so – and the Golden Lion was the kind of inn that conducted all manner of clandestine business, so the newsman’s presence might have nothing to do with the spy. But Chaloner was now responsible for Leybourn’s entire personal fortune, and could not put it at risk by returning to his own rooms to sleep. So he went to Lincoln’s Inn instead. Sinister shadows lurked there, too, although Chaloner was sure they had nothing to do with him. The Inn was home to several controversial lawyers and some of the country’s most rabid religious fanatics, so was often under surveillance. He did not feel inclined to walk through the front gate even so, and scaled the wall at the back instead. Then it was a tortuous journey through the wet gardens, and a forced entry through a ground-floor window. By the time he reached Chamber XIII and tapped softly on the door, he was exhausted. So, when Thurloe answered wearing a comical night-cap, Chaloner was too tired to stop himself from laughing. The ex-Spymaster regarded him coolly.

  ‘You are filthy and soaked through. What have you been doing? Robbing houses?’

  Chaloner nodded as he set the sack on the table. ‘Hopefully, Mary will leave Will when she learns he is destitute – and that it is not her friends who have the proceeds.’

  Thurloe’s eyebrows shot upwards. ‘Is this how you use the skills I taught you? To burgle your friends? Should I put my valuables under lock and key when you are visiting?’

  ‘When I am not visiting,’ recommended Chaloner. ‘If I am here, you can keep an eye on me.’

  ‘What do you intend to do with it? He will be distressed when he finds it gone.’

  ‘Mary will almost certainly order my room searched by Hectors, so we cannot leave it there. Will you put it somewhere safe? He can have it back when he comes to his senses. Or when he is too far under Mary’s spell for redemption, and we are obliged to give up on him.’

  Thurloe regarded him soberly. ‘Let us pray for the former. I will conceal it in—’

  Chaloner held up his hand. ‘What I do not know, I cannot be forced to tell.’

  Thurloe’s face creased in worry. ‘Do you think it might come to that? Perhaps you should just give it back. William will not think his savings worth your life.’

  ‘Then convince him – and Mary – that I had nothing to do with its theft. You will not be lying, because I really did not steal it. I intended to, b
ut Kirby was there first.’ Chaloner laid the gun on the table, next to the sack. ‘You had better keep this, too. No one followed me here, but I want you to have the means to protect yourself, even so.’

  Thurloe’s expression became pained as he told him how he had thwarted Kirby’s burglary.

  ‘You were with me all night,’ said Thurloe. ‘We have been discussing Newburne’s death and its various twists and turns, and then, since the weather is foul, I insisted you sleep here. You were never out tonight, so how can you have anything to do with the disappearance of William’s sack?’

  Chaloner woke on Saturday with the sense that time was of the essence, and that he only had two days left before the Earl dismissed him. It was a foul morning, with splattering rain carried on a gusting wind. Although it was still dark, Thurloe was already up, writing at the table in his bedchamber. He shared some thinly sliced bread and watery ale – old man’s food, though he was not yet fifty – which did little to alleviate Chaloner’s hunger.

  It was the day of Maylord’s funeral, and Chaloner could hardly attend wearing his housebreaking gear, so he went home first. Remembering who he had seen in the Golden Lion the previous evening, he climbed into a neighbour’s garden to avoid using his own front door, and slipped up the stairs to his room without being seen. The tiny fibre that rested on the door handle was still in place, and so were the hairs in the hinges of his cupboard and chest, which would have told him if anyone had searched them. The cat was out, although a second dead rat by the side of the bed told him it had been around. He placed the new corpse next to the first one, thinking he would get rid of them later.

  The clothes he had worn the previous day were almost dry, so he donned them again, then looked in his pantry. There was no reason to suppose anyone had left him a gift of food, and there were so many people who wanted him dead that he would not have eaten it anyway, but Thurloe’s meagre breakfast had done more to whet his appetite than relieve it, and he was ravenous. The cupboard was bare except for the cucumber and spices – galingale and cubebs. They released a mouth-watering aroma, and served to make him hungrier than ever. He was not, however, desperate enough to resort to the cucumber.

  He knew he should report to the Lord Chancellor first, to let him know he was still on the case. He did not want to be dismissed because the Earl was under the impression that he was lying at home all day, waiting for answers to appear. Of course, he thought ruefully, as he jumped across a puddle that contained a drowned pigeon, answers were not coming at all, despite his best efforts, and he had more questions now than when he had started.

  When he passed the Rainbow Coffee House, he met Joseph Thompson, the rector of his parish church, who invited him inside to share a dish of chocolate. Chaloner accepted, although chocolate was a foul, oily, bitter beverage that few men could swallow without wincing. He and Thompson began a lively discussion about the political implications of the Infanta Margarita’s marriage contract to the Emperor, which had featured in Muddiman’s latest newsletter, although most other patrons said they did not care about foreign weddings. However, they all said they were looking forward to the next Intelligencer, because they had been told there was to be an especially large missing-horse section.

  ‘Perhaps it will mention the Queen’s distemper, too,’ said Thompson eagerly. ‘And more news about that dreadful earthquake in Quebec.’

  The men at his table scoffed derisively. ‘It will hold forth about phanatiques,’ said one.

  ‘It was probably phanatiques who caused the earthquake,’ said another, making his cronies laugh.

  It was raining hard when Chaloner left the Rainbow, and he thought about his investigations as he walked to White Hall. As far as Mary was concerned, his enquiries were complete. He had satisfied himself that she was definitely a felon – Bridges’ reluctant testimony proved that, and so did Kirby’s theft of the sack – and she only wanted Leybourn for his money. Now the surveyor did not have any, she would leave him and move to greener pastures. Of course, Leybourn also owned a pleasant house, a thriving business and a stock of books and valuable mathematical implements, but Chaloner did not think they would be enough to hold her. He was sorry his friend was about to have his heart broken, but knew it would have happened anyway, with or without his interference.

  Less satisfactory was his investigation into the murder of Newburne. What could he tell the Earl about it? That he was uncovering more information with every passing day, but that it made no sense? That he had started off with Muddiman as his prime suspect, because the newsletter-man had bought cucumbers at Covent Garden the day before Newburne had died, but that now his list of potential culprits included virtually everyone he had met and some folk he had not? For example, Joanna and L’Estrange were more intimate than was respectable, and Newburne might have tried to blackmail them. Meanwhile, Brome was an enigma, and Chaloner had no idea whose side he was on. Then there were hundreds of booksellers who wanted Newburne dead, and even the Army of Angels might have exchanged innocent lozenges for ones that were deadly. So might Newburne’s wife, or Crisp. The cucumbers or poison connected Newburne to Colonel Beauclair, Valentine Pettis, the sedan-chairmen and Maylord. And there was the music.

  And Maylord? Chaloner had no clue as to who might have smothered him, and nor did he understand the strands that linked the musician to the other cucumber deaths. The same went for Smegergill, although he was beginning to question his previous certainty that Ireton, Kirby and Treen were responsible.

  He arrived at White Hall, and found it in chaos. Servants rushed everywhere, staggering under the weight of furniture, heaps of paper, kitchen equipment, armfuls of clothes and the contents of the King’s scientific laboratory. The last time Chaloner had witnessed such alarm was during the first civil war, when the Royalists had won a number of battles and Parliament-loyal settlements had packed all they could carry in the face of imminent invasion. Then Cromwell had trained the New Model Army, and it had been Cavalier households that had faced the humiliation of enemy occupation.

  ‘What is happening?’ he asked a passing soldier, a rough fellow called Sergeant Picard.

  ‘The tide is coming in,’ explained Picard tersely.

  Chaloner prevented him from dashing off. ‘It does that most days. Twice, usually.’

  ‘Well, this time it is worse,’ said Picard, freeing himself impatiently. ‘It is predicted to be an unusually high one, and the river has already breached its banks around Deptford.’

  ‘Is the palace being evacuated?’ But Picard was gone, and Chaloner was left to make what he would of the situation.

  The frenzy reached new heights when it was discovered that one of the kitchens was on fire, too. Because White Hall comprised mostly timber-framed buildings, Chaloner ran towards the smoke to see what could be done to prevent an inferno. He and a competent military man, who said he was John Bayspoole, Surveyor of Stables, grabbed buckets and doused the flames between them, while scullions watched but could not be induced to help in any significant way. The blaze was not a serious one, so it was not long before they had it under control.

  Bayspoole wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve. ‘Everyone is so obsessed by the notion of flood that they forget fire is a far more serious hazard. And look at those cooks! They are racing to save their precious cakes, but there are horses waiting to be evacuated. Has the world gone mad, when a pastry is considered more important than a palfrey?’

  Chaloner watched the bakers dodge around them, bearing trays of tarts. They were still warm from the ovens, and their scent was enough to make a hungry man dizzy. ‘Did you know Colonel Beauclair?’ he asked, to take his mind off his empty stomach.

  ‘Owned a fine black stallion and a sweet bay mare. Died of eating cucumbers, apparently, although I suspect the real culprit was those green lozenges he was sent. The spy Hickes showed them to me.’

  ‘Sent by whom?’

  ‘Some acquaintance from his coffee house, probably. His horses went missing after h
is death, which was a damned shame, because I would have bought the black stallion from his heirs.’

  Chaloner frowned. ‘You think he was killed because someone wanted his horses?’

  Bayspoole nodded. ‘Of course. Horses are the only thing worth stealing, as far as I am concerned. You can keep your jewels and your fine gold, but horses … speaking of which, I had better go and make sure the King’s beasts are taken to St James’s Park, because no one else will bother.’

  He hurried away, and Chaloner resumed his walk to the Earl’s offices, deep in thought. Horses were a theme in the murders – Maylord had owned one, Beauclair was an equerry and Pettis was a horse-trader. Had Maylord been killed for his nag, too? But what about Newburne and Finch? They had nothing to do with horses. Or did they? Both had lived near Smithfield, which was famous for its livestock. And Crisp was the Butcher of Smithfield.

  Chaloner reached the Privy Gardens, and climbed the stairs to the Earl’s offices, but they were abandoned by everyone except Bulteel, who was working with the air of a wounded martyr.

  ‘Has the Earl threatened to dismiss you again?’ asked Chaloner, wondering why the clerk was always at his desk. He knew Bulteel was married, because the happy day had been the previous January, and Bulteel had given him a piece of cake. It had been very good cake, too, better than anything he had had since. He rubbed his stomach, and wished he could stop thinking about food.

  Bulteel sighed. ‘He says if I cannot find a more efficient way of managing his business, he will hire another secretary. But this is the most efficient system, and there is no way I can make it better.’

  ‘And I am a good spy,’ said Chaloner ruefully, ‘but he makes me feel as though I am more of a nuisance than an asset.’

  Bulteel regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you and I should join forces.’

  Chaloner smiled, always ready to forge new alliances. He was wary of trusting anyone at White Hall, but there was no reason why he and Bulteel should not assist each other from time to time. ‘All right. Do you know anything that will help me with Newburne?’