There was more laughter, and Brome looked dismayed. ‘Damn this Wenum and his treachery! I am not a violent man, but I would like to punch him for what he is doing to us. Will you stop him, Heyden? I know L’Estrange told you not to meddle, but this cannot go on.’
‘Wenum is dead,’ replied Chaloner. ‘But he may have had connections to Newburne. And I am obliged to investigate him, because the Lord Chancellor ordered me to do so.’
‘Good,’ said Brome. ‘However, I recommend you do not tell L’Estrange. It would be a pity to lose you to his ready sword.’
Hodgkinson pulled a face when he tasted Haye’s beverage. ‘Try a pipe, Heyden. It takes away the taste of coffee, which is the only reason men smoke. If there was no coffee, there would be no need for tobacco.’
‘I disagree,’ said Brome, tearing his thoughts away from dead men and stolen news. ‘Tobacco has its own virtues, and its popularity is quite independent of coffee. Joanna likes a pipe on occasion, but she would never touch coffee.’
‘I bought a notice in The Newes last month,’ announced the fat apothecary. ‘I lost a bay gelding from near the pump in Chancery Lane, and was hoping an advertisement might see it home. Tom Wright got his beast back when he bought a notice, and so did Captain Hammond. But I am still waiting for mine to appear.’
‘You are just unlucky, Reeves,’ said Nott. ‘Not everyone who advertises is fortunate enough to have his property returned. The thieves must have taken it into the country, away from the influence of the newsbooks. Not everyone reads them once you get past Islington.’
‘We were talking about the relative virtues of coffee and tobacco, Reeves,’ said Brome, not wanting to discuss business when he could be relaxing. ‘Which do you prefer?’
‘Tobacco, of course,’ replied Reeves. ‘But we were talking about horses, which is far more interesting. Unless you have news to impart? And I do not mean foreign stuff, either. How is the Queen? The last I heard, she had distemper. My dog had that, and it was not pretty.’
‘You had better call it an “indisposition” next time,’ whispered Hodgkinson to Brome. ‘Reeves is not the first one to question your use of “distemper”. I know it is what the Court physicians told you, but they obviously do not know how to communicate with the general public, and you do not want to be responsible for the rumour that the Queen is a hound.’
‘She is a good lady,’ said Chaloner coolly, thinking of the small woman with the dark, unhappy eyes who had asked him to go to Portugal. ‘You should never write anything disparaging about her.’
‘William Smegergill is murdered,’ said Nott, addressing the room in general. ‘His brains dashed out, and then his head forced into a puddle until he drowned.’
‘Oddsfish!’ exclaimed Reeves. ‘That is an unpleasant way to go! I heard he had taken to playing strange music of late, and that Maylord did the same. On one occasion, they bowed a discordant harmony at Court, and the King was obliged to order them to stop.’
Nott tamped more tobacco into his pipe. ‘What an odd coincidence! L’Estrange has been doing the same thing. My shop is opposite, as you know, and I often hear him playing. For the last three weeks, he has been practising some very nasty tunes.’
‘Foreign jigs,’ elaborated Reeves darkly. ‘They are probably designed to bewitch us, so Dutchmen can steal our horses while we listen. Why do you think they have built themselves a navy?’
‘To develop trade routes to Africa, America and the Far East,’ replied Chaloner. He knew a lot about the Dutch, and their navy was an interesting subject to him. ‘They are expanding their-’
‘Rubbish,’ said Reeves, evidently not of a mind for erudite discussion. ‘They want our horses, and anyone who disagrees with me does not deserve to own one.’
Thurloe and Temperance had been right when they said no one at Newgate would know Mary Cade, and even the two shillings Chaloner had earned from L’Estrange did not buy him the information he had hoped for. It was not easy to part with funds that could have been spent on food, but he reminded himself that a few lean days were a small price to pay for his friend’s welfare. One warden, more helpful than the others, suggested he try the Fleet Prison, because it held mostly debtors, and the woman in the picture looked too well fed to be the common kind of criminal. Chaloner supposed it was worth a try, although he was loath to set foot in another gaol that day. Visiting Newgate had left him nauseous, and he wondered whether he would ever be able to enter a prison without the uncomfortable sense that he might never come out.
That evening, he played his viol, then sat at the table, studying the music he had taken from Maylord’s chimney. It made no more sense to him than the rest of his investigation, and when he attempted to play it, his landlord hammered on the wall to make him stop. He wondered why the old musician had kept such dismal compositions when the best place for them was on the fire. Chaloner might have put them there, had he been able to afford the fuel to light one.
He was too restless to sleep, mostly because he was hungry and there was nothing to eat. When he saw it had stopped raining, he went out, not with any specific destination in mind, but just to prowl around the city that was now his home. He glanced at the lamp-lit windows of the Golden Lion before he left, and was bemused to see Giles Dury there. The assistant news-monger was gazing absently into the street, and although Chaloner could think of no earthly reason why Dury should be watching him, he still slipped back inside his house and exited through the back door instead.
He wandered aimlessly, alert to the sounds of the night: the rumble of drunken voices from alehouses, the shriller babble of an argument in a coffee house, the distant howling of a pack of dogs, and the ever-present roar of water rushing under London Bridge. He went all the way to Cripplegate without anyone giving him more than a passing glance. When he arrived at Monkwell Street, he took refuge in the gate to Chyrurgeons’ Hall, standing so still that he was invisible to all but those with the very sharpest eyes. Leybourn’s house was lit in two places. The attic on the top floor had a lamp, and Chaloner could see his friend working there, snatching books from the shelves around him with a fierce concentration that said he was deep in one of his incomprehensible theories.
The second light was at the back, so Chaloner scaled a wall and dropped silently into the garden. He walked stealthily towards the kitchen and looked through the window. Mary sat by the hearth, and three men were with her, all drinking from Leybourn’s best silver goblets. Chaloner regarded them thoughtfully. They were the same three who had attacked him and Smegergill, and then who had chased him at the Rhenish Wine House: Nose, the leader, and his henchmen, the Scot and Fingerless. Mary had obviously not been boasting when she claimed to know dangerous people. Yet surely she could not have set her cronies after him that night? They had exchanged a few cool words by that point, but nothing to warrant murder. Or had she already identified Chaloner as a threat to her plans, and had decided to act promptly?
He could not hear what the foursome were saying to each other, and suspected they were keeping their voices low so as not to be heard upstairs. He looked at the door that led to the hallway and saw a piece of twine emerging from under it. He did not understand its significance until he heard the faint jangle of a bell. Immediately, the men rose and made for the back door. As they left, the Scot and Fingerless shoved Leybourn’s goblets in their pockets, although Nose left his on the table. None of them noticed Chaloner in the shadows. A few moments later, Leybourn appeared, yawning and rubbing his eyes. Mary insinuated herself into her arms, and he bent to kiss her.