‘I do not want your money, thank you,’ he said, smiling pleasantly at them. ‘The Earl would not approve of me accepting bribes. Do you believe Newburne died of eating cucumbers? Honestly?’
Muddiman shrugged, clearly disappointed with his response. ‘There is no reason to think otherwise. Of course, he had more enemies than stars in the sky, so it would not shock me to learn one of them had elbowed him into his grave.’
‘Enemies like you?’ asked Chaloner innocently.
‘No, not like me. If I had killed him, I would have done it discreetly, and there would be no Lord Chancellor’s spy sniffing around the case.’
‘You bought three cucumbers from the market in Covent Garden the day before Newburne died. I do not suppose one of those ended up inside him, did it?’
Muddiman smiled, although there was a glimmer of alarm in his eyes. ‘I wondered how long it would be before someone gossiped about that in order to see me in trouble. I use cucumbers in a decoction for wind, but I certainly would never eat one. Nor would I expect anyone else to do so.’
‘Tell me how you lost control of the newsbooks to L’Estrange,’ said Chaloner, abruptly changing the subject in an attempt to unsettle him. ‘It happened recently, I understand, forcing you to resort to handwritten news.’
His tactic worked, because Muddiman’s expression was decidedly uneasy. ‘My newsbooks were popular and lucrative, but success attracts envious eyes. Have you ever met Spymaster Williamson?’
‘Once or twice.’
‘He was jealous of my financial success, so he lobbied for me to be dismissed and L’Estrange to be appointed in my place — L’Estrange shares the newsbooks’ profits with Williamson, you see, whereas I kept them all for myself. But Williamson badly misjudged the situation. I have spent years in the business of newsmongering, and it did not take me many days to establish a list of men willing to pay for a weekly letter that contains good, reliable news.’
‘How long a list?’
‘I sell to about a hundred and fifty customers, each of whom pays a minimum of five pounds per annum. Some give me as much as twenty pounds.’ Muddiman’s expression was smug. ‘I make more than a thousand pounds a year, while the newsbooks manage less than two hundred.’
‘Our success has stunned Williamson,’ added Dury. ‘But it should not have done. L’Estrange’s publications are rubbish, and our newsletters have flourished, at least in part, because of them — people subscribe to us because the newsbooks are so dismally bad. Williamson has lumbered himself with a worthless editor and publications that are a national joke.’
‘I imagine he is not pleased,’ said Chaloner. It was a gross understatement. Williamson was shockingly greedy, and would be furious to think of a thousand pounds going into Muddiman’s pocket.
Muddiman grinned. ‘He is livid. Of course, I understand his sense of loss: money is important, and it is certainly all I want from life. Yet I have learned that the best way to get rich is by maintaining decent standards in my work. L’Estrange has not understood that lesson, despite Brome’s valiant efforts, and his purse and Williamson’s are suffering the consequences.’
‘We have told you all we know now,’ said Dury, standing and stretching languorously. ‘And I have a report to write about the northern rebellion — to tell folk what really happened up there. You should be wary of pursuing this Newburne business any further, though. There are some things that even the Lord Chancellor’s spies should not risk, and tampering with Butcher Crisp is one of them.’
‘Why?’ asked Chaloner. ‘What do you think he might do?’
‘Anything he likes,’ replied Dury. ‘Stay away from the man if you value your life. Just go back to White Hall and tell your Earl that there is nothing about Newburne’s death to investigate.’
Chaloner left the Folly feeling that he had learned very little, except that Muddiman and Dury might well have dispatched Newburne, and that the feud over the newsbooks was more bitter and complex than he had first realised. He was about to visit Newburne’s friend Heneage Finch, when he became aware that he was being watched — the plum-faced apple-seller was regarding him with more than a passing interest. He recalled thinking earlier that the man stood out as not belonging, and the feeling intensified when he saw he was making no attempt to hawk his wares.
The trader was a hulking fellow, who wore good riding boots below a scruffy coat. His knuckles were scarred from fighting, but there was a copy of The Intelligencer poking from his pocket, suggesting he had acquired a modicum of education. He did not carry a sword, but there was a long dagger at his waist, and a bulge near his knee suggested there was another in his boot. All told, he was a man of strange contradictions — and he was no more an apple-seller than was Chaloner.
‘How much?’ Chaloner asked, to ascertain whether the man knew the going rate for his goods.
The fellow regarded him appraisingly. ‘Good coffee, was it? What did you talk about with those fine gentlemen in there?’
Chaloner was startled by the ingenuous interrogation. ‘I do not see that is any of your affair.’
‘You want an apple? Then answer some questions.’
Chaloner held out his hand, and was presented with a somewhat wizened specimen. He started to eat it anyway, despite the fact that it was brown in the middle and maggots had been there before him. It had obviously been discarded by a more reputable merchant, and had been retrieved from a refuse pile to provide the man with a cover. Chaloner had done much the same himself in the past, although he hoped his disguises had been rather less transparent.
‘What do you want to know?’ he asked.
‘Who are you?’ asked the apple-seller. ‘And what did you want with Muddiman?’
The apple-seller was clearly someone’s spy, so Chaloner opted for honesty. A number of people already knew who he was and what he was doing, and if he lied and was later found out, it might cause needless trouble. ‘The Earl of Clarendon ordered me to investigate the death of Thomas Newburne.’
The apple-seller jerked his head towards the coffee barge. ‘I would love to tell you Muddiman or Dury had a hand in it, but I have been watching them for weeks — ever since L’Estrange was given power of the newsbooks — and I know for a fact that they are innocent.’
‘You work for Williamson,’ surmised Chaloner. He supposed he should have guessed; the Earl had already told him that the Spymaster would commission his own agents to find out what had happened to the solicitor. ‘Are you looking into Newburne’s death? What is your name?’
‘My name is unimportant. And my remit is to watch Muddiman and Dury — nothing else.’
‘Why them?’
The apple-seller sighed impatiently. ‘Because the newsbooks are important. They are the way the government communicates with its people, so they need to be protected from dangerous enemies like Muddiman and Dury. That is what I am doing.’
Chaloner was bemused. ‘But Newburne was employed to work on the very newsbooks you are paid to safeguard. His death might be a hostile move against them.’
The man stared at him in a way that suggested the idea had not occurred to him before. It did not say much for the efficiency and cunning of Williamson’s secret service. ‘I suppose it might,’ he conceded reluctantly. ‘Muddiman and Dury had nothing to do with it, though. I watch them day and night.’