It was an hour before he accepted that he was safe in the bosom of the company. The man would not strike at him there. Nicholas was still a long way from Devon and there would be ample opportunities for a surprise attack on him during the journey. Lawrence Firethorn and the others were still inwardly cursing Israel Gunby and his two associates, but at least they had been visible rogues. The man who tried to strangle Nicholas had been a phantom, a creature of the night who was a natural predator. Nicholas knew his strength and could guess at his height from the feel of his body. A beard had brushed his head in the struggle. Beyond that, he had no information whatsoever about the man except that he brought a remorseless commitment to his work. He was not a person to abandon a task he had been set. The only way that Nicholas Bracewell could save his own life was by taking that of his assassin first.
‘Not arsenic, I think, for that bears no taste in acid form. And we have evidence that the deceased found the ale very bitter to the tongue.’ His sigh had a distant admiration in it. ‘The means of death was very cunning. The girl had never drunk ale before and would not recognise its taste. She must have thought it was always as sharp as that.’
‘So what was put into her ale?’
‘I could not say unless they held a post mortem and even then we might not be certain. There are so many poisons that will serve the purpose and she was given a lethal dose of one, no doubting that. She must have been strong and healthy to hold out against it for so long.’
Anne Hendrik was still brooding on the death of her visitor and its sad consequences. That morning, in search of elucidation, she called on the surgeon who had been summoned to her house when the girl’s condition had given alarm. He was a small, fussy, self-important man in his fifties with a grey beard that curled up like a miniature wave and bushy eyebrows of similar hue. He treated Anne with the polite pomposity of someone in possession of an arcane knowledge that can never be shared with those of lesser intelligence.
She tried to probe the mystery of his calling.
‘Can you tell me nothing else about her?’ she said.
‘I examined her for barely two minutes.’
‘Nicholas thought he smelt sulphur on her lips.’
‘Master Bracewell is no physician,’ he retorted with a supercilious smile. ‘Do not rely on his nostrils to give us a diagnosis here.’
‘He mentioned hemlock and juice of aconite …’
Sarcasm emerged. ‘Then you should apply to him for counsel and not to me. Clearly, he can teach us all in these matters. I had not thought some minion of the theatre would one day instruct me in my profession.’
‘He simply offered an opinion.’
‘Do not foist his ignorance upon me.’
‘Nicholas has seen victims of poison before.’
‘I see them every week of my life, Mistress Hendrik,’ said the outraged surgeon. ‘Husbands poisoned by wives and wives by husbands. Brothers killing each other off with ratsbane to collect an inheritance. Enemies trying to win an argument with monkshood or belladonna. I have watched arsenic do its silent mischief a hundred times, and I could name you a dozen other potions that scald a stomach and rot the life out of a human being.’ He looked aggrieved. ‘And will you tell me that Master Nicholas Bracewell is a worthier man than I to discuss these matters?’
‘Of course not, of course not …’
Anne had to spend two minutes calming him down and a further three apologising before she could get anything like guidance out of him. Surgeons were jealous of the high regard in which doctors and physicians were held, and it made them acutely conscious of occupying a more lowly station in the world of medicine. This member of the fraternity was especially prone to stand on his dignity. Only when his ruffled feathers had been smoothed did he consent to offer his informed opinion.
‘I look for three things in a corpse,’ he said briskly.
‘What are they, sir?’
‘Colour, position, odour. They are my spies.’ He plucked at his beard. ‘Her complexion told me much and her grotesque position indicated the agony of her death. The odour was faint but I could detect the aroma of poison.’
‘What did it contain?’ she pressed.
‘Who knows, mistress? Some deadly concoction of water hemlock, sweet flag, cinquefoil and monkshood, perhaps. I could not be sure. White mercury, even.’ He flicked a hand as he made a concession. ‘And there might — I put it no higher than that — there might have been the tiniest whiff of sulphur. Red and yellow sulphur, mixed together with the right ingredients, could leave that tortured look upon her face.’
‘How would it have been administered?’
‘In the form of a powder or a potion.’ He put the tips of his fingers together as he pondered. ‘It must have been a potion,’ he decided. ‘Powder would not have dissolved fast enough in the ale. It would have stayed on the surface too long. My guess is that the guilty man carried the poison in a little earthenware pot that was closely corked. A second was all he would need to empty his vile liquid into the girl’s drink.’ He signalled the end of the conversation by opening the door for her to leave. ‘That is all I may tell you, mistress. I bid you good day.’
‘One last question …’
‘I have other patients to visit and they still live.’
‘Where would such a poison be bought?’
‘Not from any honest apothecary.’
‘It was obtained from somewhere in London.’
‘Apply to Master Bracewell,’ he said waspishly. ‘He is the fount of all human wisdom on this subject. Goodbye.’
Anne Hendrik found herself back out in the street with only half an answer, but she had learnt enough to encourage her to continue her line of enquiry. She went straight off to seek an interview with the coroner who had taken statements from them when the unnatural death was reported. It was a typically busy morning for him and she had a long wait before he could spare her a few minutes of his time. When she identified herself, he opened his ledger to look up the details of the case in question. The coroner was a distinguished figure in his robes of office but a lifelong proximity to death had left its marks upon him. Slow and deliberate, he had a real compassion for the people whose corpses flowed before him as unceasingly as the Thames. Anne Hendrik’s request was both puzzling and surprising.
‘A post mortem?’ he said.
‘To establish the cause of death.’
‘We have already done that.’
‘Can you name the poison that killed her?’
‘No,’ he confessed. ‘Nor can I show you the dagger that murdered this man or the sword that cut down that one. Death scrawls its signature across this city every hour of the day. We cannot have a post mortem each time in order to decipher its handwriting.’
‘If it is a question of money …’