It seemed cruel to let her go on, so Chaloner interrupted. ‘No trouble, just government business.’
‘Thank God!’ she breathed. Then she shot him a sheepish grin. ‘You must think me a goose! All worked up and talking like the clappers over nothing. We lost a colleague recently, you see, and it upset us, even though we did not like him very much. That is to say we did not dislike him, but …’
She trailed off unhappily, and looked longingly at the door that led to the back of the house, clearly itching to bolt. Chaloner felt sorry for her, thinking she was entirely the wrong sort of person to be employed in the devious business of selling news. He winced when the shouting from upstairs grew louder. ‘L’Estrange seems peeved.’
‘He is always peeved. Unless a lady happens along. Then he is all smiles and oily charm. If you want his favour, you might consider donning skirts.’ She blushed furiously. ‘I am not saying you look like the kind of man who likes dressing up in women’s clothing, because I am sure you do not, but …’
‘I never don skirts when I am in need of a shave,’ said Chaloner, taking pity on her a second time. ‘I find it spoils the effect.’
The comment coaxed a smile from her. ‘You should not let that bother you — it will not be your face he is looking at.’
‘You are Mrs Brome?’
‘Joanna. My husband is Henry. But I expect you already know that. Silly me! Henry is always saying I talk too much, but he is a man, and they do not talk enough, generally speaking. Unless they are politicians or lawyers, of course. Then they are difficult to stop.’
Chaloner was relieved when the door at the bottom of the stairs opened, and Brome returned. The bookseller’s face was flushed, and his wife rushed to his side with a wail of alarm.
‘It is all right, dearest,’ said Brome, patting her arm. He turned to Chaloner. ‘You have met my wife, I see. She helps me in my business. No one has a head for figures like my Joanna.’
Joanna smiled shyly. ‘I do my best. And everything needs to be accounted for, because a single missing penny might result in an accusation of theft. L’Estrange is very particular about money.’
‘It does not sound as though he is easy to work with.’
‘He is good to us,’ said Joanna immediately. ‘Well, he is good most of the time, and-’
‘It is all right, Joanna,’ said Brome quietly. ‘Heyden is from White Hall, so I am sure he already knows about L’Estrange’s … idiosyncrasies.’
Joanna heaved a heartfelt sigh. ‘Good! It is difficult to pretend all is well when Mr L’Estrange is in one of his moods, and I dislike closing the door and trying to distract customers with idle conversation in order to drown out his noisy rants. It feels duplicitous, and I am not very good at it anyway.’
‘We were delighted when he chose us to help him with the newsbooks,’ said Brome, seeming grateful to confide. ‘He said our shop suited him better than any other, because it is near all the booksellers at St Paul’s, and not far from his home. But he has such a black temper.’
‘Actually, he is a bully,’ whispered Joanna. She glanced nervously towards the stairs. ‘And neither of us were really “delighted” when he said he was going to use our shop from which to run his business. We like the money — he pays rent for his office and for our help with his newsbooks — but he is not someone we would befriend, if we had a choice. He is so … well, strong. And we are not.’
‘Yes and no,’ countered Brome. ‘He does not always get his own way.’
‘True,’ conceded Joanna. ‘We managed to prevent him from publishing that libellous attack on ex-Spymaster Thurloe last month. It took some doing, but he admitted we were right in the end — that there was no truth in the spiteful things he had written.’
‘I have no love for Cromwell’s ministers, but that editorial was pure fabrication, and would have made us a laughing stock,’ said Brome. ‘L’Estrange needs our commonsense and sanity.’
Chaloner did not think Joanna would be overly endowed with either, because she seemed rather eccentric to him. Then he reconsidered. Her gauche awkwardness was doubtless due to her shy and nervous nature, and he did not blame anyone for being fearful when the likes of L’Estrange was brooding upstairs. When she smiled at him, and he saw the sweet kindness in her face, he found himself feeling rather sorry for her. He smiled back.
‘He is in a foul mood today,’ Brome went on. ‘Unfortunately, he read that newsletter — the one addressed to Pepys — as soon as it arrived this morning, and it contains some of the stories we had planned to print in Thursday’s Newes.’
‘Again?’ asked Joanna, shocked. ‘But how? And what are we going to do? This cannot continue, because people will not buy the newsbooks if they are full of old intelligence.’
Chaloner frowned, not sure he fully understood the situation. ‘I would have thought printing would confer a significant advantage on you. Surely it is faster to print a hundred sheets than to handwrite them, like Muddiman has to do? How can he disseminate news more quickly than L’Estrange?’
‘Printing is a laborious process,’ explained Brome. ‘It involves hours of typesetting, and then, because compositors make mistakes, everything needs to be checked. Meanwhile, Muddiman employs an army of scribes. As soon as a letter is finished, a boy races off to deliver it, so news can be spread in a matter of minutes. We can flood the city with thousands of newsbooks, given time, but the newsletters are infinitely faster. The advantage is not as great as you might think.’
‘If you say the government clerks are not responsible for the leak of information, then what about someone here?’ asked Chaloner. He thought about Newburne, and decided ‘news-theft’ was an excellent motive for murder. Had the solicitor been selling L’Estrange’s stories to Muddiman, and been killed for his treachery?
Brome seemed to read his mind. ‘It was not Newburne. He was making too much money from L’Estrange to risk losing it.’
‘Is that why you are here?’ Joanna asked of Chaloner, suddenly displaying the same astuteness as her husband. ‘Someone at White Hall thinks Newburne’s death was not an accident, but connected to the news? Everyone has assumed the cucumber was responsible, but he did have enemies.’
‘He did,’ agreed Brome. ‘He was corrupt, and I do not think he will be greatly missed by anyone.’
‘His family will miss him,’ said Chaloner, supposing that even solicitors had them.
Joanna nodded slowly. ‘Yes, his wife is upset. However, if someone did kill him, the culprit will not take kindly to questions — and Newburne had some singularly unsavoury acquaintances.’
‘I have already told him all this,’ said Brome. ‘And in reply to your other observation, Heyden, no one here or at the printing-house would give our news to Muddiman. They would not dare, not with L’Estrange watching like a hawk and Spymaster Williamson looming in the background.’
‘That is true,’ said Joanna ruefully. ‘They would be too frightened, and I know how they feel. L’Estrange tends to draw his sword first and ask questions later, and between him and Williamson, our staff are thoroughly cowed into unquestioning obedience. Us included. Well, most of the time. We make a stand if he does something brazenly unwise, like that editorial on Thurloe, and-’
Brome steered Chaloner towards the stairs. ‘You had better not keep him waiting. We do not want a repeat of the ear incident.’
At the top of a flight of stairs that creaked, Brome opened the door to a pleasant office. Behind a large oaken desk sat the man Chaloner had seen squabbling with his rival in Fleet Street. His nose appeared even more prominently hooked close up, and the rings in his ears glittered. Because he looked so rakish and disreputable, Chaloner was astonished to see him holding a bass viol and bow.
‘You do not mind if I play while we talk, do you?’ he asked of Chaloner, waving a hand to indicate Brome was dismissed. The bookseller escaped with palpable relief. ‘I am beset by phanatiques on all sides and music is the only thing that gives me the resolve to do battle with them.’