‘And when that ‘appens,’ he said, wiping the soup from his mouth with his sleeve, ‘I’ll buy you a dinner. ‘Ow long are you going’ t’ be in London? An’ where are you stayin’?’
‘I was hoping to find hospitality at the Baptist’s Head in Crooked Lane,’ I answered. ‘I was told to go there by a man I met in Bristol, who’s a friend of the landlord.’
‘Oh, I know it all right.’ Philip Lamprey drank the rest of his ale. ‘Off Thames Street. Crooked Lane, that is. The Baptist’s Head… Now, let me see… ‘ He stared musingly into the depths of his empty cup and, taking the hint, I yelled for the pot-boy to bring us more ale. ‘That’s the place on the left-hand side as you goes towards the river. Very close to the water, it is. If I remember aright, one lot o’ windows looks out over the Thames.’ He scratched his sparse greying hair. Flakes of dead skin fell and settled on the shoulders of his threadbare jacket. He picked some shreds of meat from between the stumps of his teeth. ‘Not a big place. Not so big as the inn higher up the street, on the corner, but it’s got a name fer selling very good wines. Not fer the likes of me and you, o’ course. Only fer those as can afford ‘em.’
The pot-boy reappeared and grudgingly refilled our wooden cups from the big stone jug that he was carrying.
‘This other inn you mentioned,’ I said, after I had taken several gulps of my ale. ‘Would that be called the Crossed Hands?’
My companion nodded, wheezing and gasping, having swallowed too much far too fast. ‘Tha’s it.’ He knuckledhis watering eyes and blew his nose in his fingers. ‘Much grander place ‘n the other. Shouldn’t advise you to go lookin’ fer a billet there.’
‘I have no intention of doing so,’ I told him drily, but my grim smile was of course wasted on Philip.
‘Tha’s all right then. They’d only turn you away if you did. The landlord don‘t encourage our sort, by what I hear.‘ ‘What else do you hear?’ I asked; then, seeing his look of puzzlement, added impatiently: ‘About the Crossed Hands inn.’
Philip Lamprey shrugged. ‘Not much. Nothink bad, at any rate. Landlord’s called Martin Trollope, but I don’t know nothink to ‘is deprimunt.’ He hesitated. ‘We-ell … I did over’ear someone say once as ‘ow ‘e was a greedy bastard. Willin’ to do anythink fer money. But then, oo wouldn’t?’
My heartbeat faster. This wasn’t evidence, but at least it added fuel to my speculations that there was something suspicious about the Crossed Hands inn. I asked: ‘Is Crooked Lane far from here?’
Philip gave his throaty chuckle. ‘Lor’ luv you, no! I’ll take you there, if you like, when we’ve finished drinkin’.’ I accepted his offer gratefully, but when we finally reached Thames Street I recognized it as one of the roads I had walked along that morning. It stretched from the Tower, through the fish markets of Billingsgate to the Bridge, and was one of the busiest streets in London, so blocked all day long with carts and drays that even the nobles and their retinues, leaving the royal apartments in the White Tower, were compelled to wait, fuming and bad-tempered, until the road was clear. The cursing and swearing which constantly assaulted the ears had to be heard to be believed.
Crooked Lane itself was off that part of Thames Street known, so Philip told me, as Petty Wales; a narrow alleyway into which little sunlight filtered because of the overhanging upper storeys of the houses on either side. And there, on the right-hand corner, its sign of two crossed mailed fists, creaking slightly in the breeze — not, I was relieved to note, as I had imagined it in my dream — stood the Crossed Hands inn.
Chapter 10
The sign creaked slightly, as though its hinges were rusty, and close beside it I noticed the iron bracket which at night would hold a torch, lighting up the name of the inn; the light which had also illuminated the face of Clement Weaver on the last occasion his sister had seen him.
The lower half of the building was made of stone, but the upper half had a timber frame, with walls of wooden lattice work and plaster. The downstairs windows, which looked out on to Thames Street, had old-fashioned shutters, but some of those above were of horn, or covered with sheets of oiled parchment. The entrance was through an archway in Crooked Lane, and the inn was built around a central courtyard. Looking through, I could see all the midday bustle of arrivals and departures, of pot-boys and serving-maids hurrying to and from the kitchens with the dirty plates and knives used at dinner. A horse, a big grey gelding, tethered to the bar beside the mounting-block, champed impatiently at the bit, awaiting his owner.
‘You ain’t goin’ in there?’ Philip Lamprey queried in my ear.
I jumped. In my all-absorbing interest I had forgotten my companion, still dogging my footsteps, and who was now peering over my shoulder into the courtyard of the inn.
I wondered how I could shake him off. It seemed ungrateful to abandon him, but I salved my conscience by reflecting that I had bought him a meal in exchange for such information as he had been able to give me. Now, however, I needed to be on my own, with no curious stranger at my elbow. But there might be one more service he could render me.
‘Do you know this Martin Trollope by sight?’ I asked him.
He shook his head. ‘Naow! Only ‘eard of ‘im by repitation.’
I held out my hand in a gesture of farewell too marked to be mistaken.
‘I must be on my way. God be with you.’
He took his dismissal in good part, clutching my extended hand in his small dry one so firmly as to leave his fingermarks momentarily imprinted on my skin.
‘God be with you, too, friend,’ he rasped hoarsely. ‘If you’re stayin’ in London fer a while, we may meet again sometime. If you ever want t’ find me, I sleeps most nights in St Paul’s churchyard. If it ain’t pissin’ with rain, that is. On the other ‘and, if I’ve ‘ad a good day’s takings, I might be in one of the Southwark brothels.’ He winked. ‘Good sport there, jus’ s’long as you don’ catch the pox.’
It occurred to me that this must be the reason he spent some of his meagre income on bathing. The Southwark stews were probably not the most salubrious of places and he was afraid of becoming infected. Not that most people considered washing to be a remedy for anything: in fact, many held that immersing the naked body in water was positively dangerous. My mother had, however, never been of that persuasion, and had insisted on my taking regular baths from a very early age, even if it was only in one of the local streams, or standing shivering in the yard of a morning while she threw a bucket of ice-cold water over me.
‘I’ll remember that,’ I said, adding as an afterthought: ‘Where’s your pitch for begging?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t ‘ave a pitch. I jus’ asks where and when I can. But London ain’t that big. You may see me around.’
‘Big enough for me,’ I answered feelingly, and he grinned. Then, swinging smartly on his heel, some of the old military discipline showing in his step, he turned once again into Thames Street, where he was soon swallowed up by the crowd. I was left standing outside the Crossed Hands inn, not quite sure what to do next or where to begin the inquiries which I had so rashly undertaken. And I had my living to earn, as well.
The sun was high overhead, but there was still a nip in the air, and I recalled the frost of that morning. It would be sensible, perhaps, to make sure of a billet for the night by a warm fire, rather than embark immediately on any inquiries. Besides which, I had not yet made up my mind what form they should take nor how I should approach the matter. A chapman could hardly walk in and start asking questions about Sir Richard Mallory and the son of Alderman Weaver without arousing suspicion. And suspicion was the thing I most wished to avoid if I were to stand any chance of unravelling this mystery. It would be best, therefore, if I presented myself at the Baptist’s Head and made myself known to Thomas Prynne as an acquaintance of Marjorie Dyer, throwing myself on his hospitality for a corner to sleep in, where I should not be in the way of his guests.