The Cheapside Corpse (21 page)

‘Do,’ said Baron. ‘Your Earl may not be in a position to keep you much longer. That monstrous Dunkirk House will be his undoing, and when he falls, you will fall with him.’

‘Yes,’ sighed Chaloner. ‘I know.’

‘I control all Cheapside, from the Poultry to St Michael’s,’ Baron went on. ‘Seven churches, fifteen taverns, three coffee houses, forty-one shops, a hundred and eighty-three houses and twenty-two alehouses. All pay Protection Tax, which equals a lot of money.’

‘We also own seven houses in Bearbinder Lane,’ added Doe. ‘Tenements, which we lease to the working poor. It is all extremely lucrative.’

‘Bearbinder Lane,’ mused Chaloner. ‘I went there earlier, but it was closed.’

‘It is not closed now,’ said Baron. ‘Mother Sage does not have the plague, just dropsy, thanks be to God.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Chaloner, watching him closely, and wondering whether the searcher had been paid for a verdict that would keep the tenements open and working. ‘Because her neighbour DuPont definitely died of the plague. Dr Coo told me so, before he was murdered.’

The trio exchanged glances that were difficult to interpret. ‘We did not know that,’ said Baron eventually. ‘Was he certain?’

Chaloner nodded. ‘Quite certain.’

‘Do you think someone shot Coo so he would not be in a position to enlighten you?’ asked Poachin, addressing Baron. ‘There must be some reason why the poor man was so viciously gunned down.’

Baron shook his head. ‘If Coo had wanted to talk, he had plenty of time to do it. In fact, the question we should ask is: why did he
not
come to us with this information? I would have been grateful for it.’

‘He was very absent-minded,’ said Doe.

‘I will find his killer,’ said Baron, his eyes boring into Chaloner’s. ‘And then I shall dispense my own justice. Coo was a good man – kind to my family and my trainband. Moreover, I do not appreciate murder committed in my territory without my permission.’

Chaloner took that to mean that he did not mind it committed if his consent was sought first, and that there was probably a price attached. ‘What about DuPont – did you know him?’

‘Why all these questions?’ demanded Poachin suspiciously. ‘I do not like it.’

‘
I
do not mind discussing DuPont with a potential employee,’ smirked Baron. ‘He was French, and very charming. Women found him irresistible.’

‘They will not think so now,’ said Doe with an evil snigger. ‘He was shoved in the ground so fast that the priest barely had time to recite the committal. And now we know why.’

‘We should have been told,’ said Poachin worriedly. ‘Not knowing these things makes us look weak.’

‘Why do you think he walked across the city when he was carrying such a deadly disease?’ asked Chaloner, tending to agree. ‘He might have infected dozens of people along the way – people in
your
domain.’

Alarm flared in Baron’s eyes, although it was quickly masked. ‘Well, if he did bring the plague to Bearbinder Lane, it is under control now. The Howard house is safely shut up, the searcher diagnosed Mother Sage with a different fever, and any deadly miasma DuPont might have brought from Long Acre will have dissipated. We are safe.’

‘Coo did not believe that plague is spread by a miasma,’ said Chaloner. ‘He thought it is transmitted by tiny worms, which may still be in DuPont’s house waiting to—’

‘Rubbish,’ interrupted Doe. ‘Everyone knows it is carried in a stinking mist, and this talk of worms is a nonsense, designed to frighten the gullible.’

‘Why would Coo want to do that?’ asked Baron quietly.

Doe shrugged. ‘Who knows the thoughts of saints? However,
we
need not worry about the plague – not with all the Turpentine Pills we have been swallowing.’

‘Pah!’ spat Poachin. ‘They are not nearly as good as Red Snake Electuary. And every time
I
experience a worrying symptom, I put a dried toad on my chest.’

‘I shall use Mithridatum if I catch the plague,’ Baron informed them confidentially. ‘It has fifty-four separate ingredients, and with that number, how can it not be an effective cure? It is expensive, but no price is too high for the lives of me and my family.’

‘And your friends,’ said Poachin with an odd glance.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Baron flatly. ‘And my friends.’ Then he eyed Chaloner warily. ‘Are you sure
you
do not have the disease? Your voice was not so husky yesterday.’

‘It is terror that makes him hoarse,’ declared Doe snidely. ‘But what shall we do with him? We can hardly let him go.’

‘Why not?’ asked Baron. ‘I want him to consider my offer of employment. There is always room in my retinue for men who respect my children and do not steal my money.’

Chaloner woke the next day feeling wretched. His nose was blocked, his eyes were gritty, his throat was sore, and the first thing he did was sneeze four times in quick succession, vigorously enough to wake Hannah.

‘Perhaps you should stay in bed,’ she said, trying hard to sound sympathetic, although he could tell it was an effort not to let her morning temper prevail and give him a piece of her mind for disturbing her. ‘Gram will look after you. Poor Gram. I wish we could keep him. Did you talk to Temperance about taking him in? I cannot imagine what use he will be to her, though. He is so
old
.’

‘That did not stop you from hiring him,’ Chaloner pointed out.

Hannah scowled, but remembered that she was in the wrong over their finances, so struggled to smile. Then she attempted to distract him with Court gossip, particularly chatter that was pertinent to her own situation and gave credence to her belief that she was a victim.

‘Do you remember Lady Carnegie – the woman who passed the Duke of York that shameful pox? Well, she borrowed nine hundred pounds from Backwell, but under Taylor it became
twelve
hundred in less than a month.’

‘I cannot hear properly,’ said Chaloner. He shook his head and blew his nose, but his ears remained plugged. Worse, his eyes were watery, so his vision was blurred, and his mouth felt as though it was full of cotton. How was he supposed to catch killers and hunt down curtains when half his senses did not work?

‘I could name a host of others with similar financial problems,’ Hannah went on. ‘And to make matters worse, the two million pounds voted by Parliament for the war is unlikely to be enough, so the bankers must provide more – which means the burden will fall on us, their clients. Men who wanted to fight are now saying that we should have exercised restraint. You were right all along.’

‘What have you done about the house?’ rasped Chaloner, unwilling to be mollified. ‘Have you found somewhere smaller to live?’

‘Not yet – virtually everyone at Court is trying to do the same, so it may take a while. You must be patient, Tom.’

‘Try telling Taylor that,’ retorted Chaloner. ‘And speaking of Taylor, do you have ten shillings? He wants it today, so you had better take it to him.’

‘I cannot – the Queen is entertaining the French ambassador, and she needs me with her. Besides, I only have five shillings, and as Taylor will be vexed by the shortfall, you had better go instead. He is less likely to frighten you than me.’

‘And less likely to trounce you,’ muttered Chaloner, although he took the proffered coins.

‘Do you remember me telling you about the Howard family? The milliners, who were shut up in their house on Bearbinder Lane with a sick maid? Well, word came late last night that they are all dead – mother, father, children, elderly relatives and servants. Seventeen people, all gone.’

If the pestilence spread, thought Chaloner grimly, such stories would become distressingly familiar. Had DuPont given the disease to the hapless maid? Baron had said that women had found him charming, so perhaps she had stopped to exchange greetings with him on his final, fatal journey. And as all the victims were unlikely to have breathed their last at the same time, he could only suppose that some were already dead when he and Silas had been at Bearbinder Lane the previous day, but the news had been suppressed by the survivors in the desperate hope that they might be allowed out to live another day.

‘If the plague takes hold, will you stay in London or will you leave?’ he asked.

‘I have not thought about it. Why?’

Chaloner swallowed hard, uncomfortable as always about revealing his private feelings. ‘Because my first wife … well, I should not like to lose another.’

‘I suppose that is your way of saying that you love me, although why you find it so difficult to utter those three small words is beyond me. Do you realise you have never once said it?’

‘No,’ replied Chaloner. He wished his wits were sharper. ‘I mean yes.’

‘I see,’ said Hannah, although there was a flash of amusement in her eyes, and he suspected she had enjoyed baiting him. ‘Shall I cook you breakfast? I begged eggs of some description – pigeon, perhaps – from the palace kitchen yesterday, and Gram found a cabbage.’

It sounded most unappealing, but she was insistent, and he did not have the energy to argue. She ran downstairs in her nightshift, while he rifled through his clothes in search of coins. He found another shilling, several pennies and five coffee-house tokens – small change was notoriously rare in London, so coffee-house owners produced their own, which comprised discs of metal or leather stamped with their names. They were accepted in lieu of money in many places.

He walked down the stairs, trying to summon the strength to face whatever was responsible for the foul smell that was emanating from the kitchen. He opened the door to be met by billowing smoke. Coughing, he hurried to open a window, although Hannah did not seem to have noticed anything amiss.

‘Here,’ she said, presenting him with a plate that contained something that was charred on the outside and oozed raw egg from the middle. Hunks of cabbage stalk were visible, along with hard black balls that transpired to be burned cobnuts.

‘Christ God!’ he muttered.

‘Eat up,’ said Hannah proudly. ‘You will not feel better unless you have plenty of good, healthy food inside you.’

‘No,’ agreed Chaloner ambiguously.

A shape materialised through the smog, and Gram appeared. ‘That looks nice,’ he remarked, eyeing Chaloner’s plate hopefully. ‘Is there any spare?’

Chaloner seized the opportunity to offload most of it, and was astonished when the page devoured the lot with every appearance of enjoyment.

‘Thank you, Hannah,’ said Chaloner, when the last singed crumb had disappeared and Gram sat back with a sigh of contentment. ‘I have never had a breakfast quite like it.’

Hannah beamed. ‘Perhaps we should do it every day.’

Chaloner’s first port of call was Clarendon House, to update the Earl on his progress. It was still early, but he knew his employer would be awake because it was Thursday, the day when the Privy Council met. Being conscientious, the Earl rose before dawn to prepare, although it was a waste of time, as no one listened to what he had to say anyway.

‘We shall discuss the current financial situation today,’ he said, when Chaloner arrived to find him at his desk. ‘Namely what will happen if the banks collapse and we cannot fund the war. Why did they have to choose now for a crisis? And how have they contrived to make themselves so unpopular?
Everyone
hates them.’

Chaloner agreed. ‘Debtors, the poor, depositors … and there are rumours that they are dishonest. However, part of the crisis came about because the King ordered them to donate a lot of money at very short notice—’

‘Do not blame him for the trouble, Chaloner,’ said the Earl sharply. ‘If they had not been so eager to make a profit from their investors by lending what had been deposited, they would have had more cash in their coffers. Of course, it is the investors who worry us most. Do you know what happens when they lose confidence in the places that store their money?’

‘Not really, sir.’

‘They demand it back, and when a lot of them do it, the banks cannot cope – they default, which frightens other depositors into making hasty withdrawals, and the whole foundation collapses. It was a “run” that destroyed Angier and Hinton recently. And if we want an example in history, then just look at tulips.’

Chaloner recalled what Shaw had told him. ‘Bulbs once fetched very high prices.’

The Earl nodded. ‘I dabbled myself, although I had the sense to withdraw before the market crashed. It caused economic chaos, and we do not want the same thing to happen again.’

‘Taylor will not be destroyed by a run,’ predicted Chaloner wryly. ‘He will simply refuse to give his investors their money, and none will be bold enough to press him.’

‘Yes, but he is part of the problem. While the other banks wobble, he grows stronger, and we are uneasy that one man has so much power. Backwell and Vyner might be greedy, but they are essentially decent. Taylor is not.’

‘No,’ agreed Chaloner.

‘Although I did see Backwell enjoy a very animated discussion with
Silas
Taylor the other day. Both were staunch Parliamentarians, so I hope they are not plotting insurrection.’

Chaloner blinked. ‘Is there a reason to suppose they might?’

The Earl flapped a plump hand. ‘It was a joke, Chaloner – a jest because it was odd to see a banker and a Keeper of Stores so deep in conversation. They were probably chatting about music.’

Chaloner was sure they had not been talking about music in the Green Dragon’s garden the previous evening, and hoped his old friend was not about to do anything reckless.

‘When did you see them, sir?’

The plump fingers were waved again. ‘I cannot recall. A week ago, perhaps? But never mind them. What did you come to report?’

He wrinkled his nose in distaste when Chaloner told what he had learned about DuPont and Wheler, and repeated his order to stay away from anywhere that might harbour the plague. ‘Which includes Bearbinder Lane
and
St Giles. This “Onions at the Well” business is a nonsense, and you should forget about it. Now what about my curtains?’

‘They are not in Baron’s house. He says they are still being made.’