The Cheapside Corpse (4 page)

‘Perhaps you should buy them from someone else,’ suggested Chaloner, thinking of the blatantly felonious notice in his pocket, and sure the Earl would not approve if he knew what manner of ‘linen-draper’ his upholder had engaged.

‘Why should we, when we have paid for these?’ said Neve crossly. Then he noticed Chaloner’s less-than-sartorial appearance, and his eyebrows shot up. ‘Lord! If you intend to see him today, you had better come to my office while I sponge off your coat. And when was the last time you shaved?’

Chaloner ran a hand over his jaw, and was startled by the amount of stubble there. No wonder the likes of Gabb and Knowles had regaled him with details of their master’s dodgy dealings! He must look thoroughly disreputable.

He followed Neve down two flights of stairs – so as not to spoil the fine symmetry of the house’s façade, all the rooms allocated to the staff were below ground level – and through a maze of dim corridors to the upholder’s chamber. It was near the buttery, and smelled of bad milk. It was barely large enough for the desk and two chairs that were crammed into it, and every available surface, including the floor, was covered in plans and receipts.

Within moments, they were joined by Thomas Kipps, the Seal Bearer, a bluff, friendly man who, unlike most of the Earl’s household, did not care that Chaloner had sided with Parliament during the wars. He always wore the Clarendon livery of blue and yellow, and was never anything less than immaculately attired. His duties were minimal, and involved standing around at ceremonies with as much pomp and dignity as he could muster.

He took one look at Chaloner and called for soap and hot water. While Chaloner shaved and removed the more obvious dirt from his face and hands, Neve set about the mud-spattered coat with a damp cloth. Kipps perched on the table and regaled them with Court gossip.

There was a lot of it, because White Hall was a lively place with many flamboyant characters, and someone was always sleeping with someone else’s wife. Then there was the usual gamut of rumours – an imminent Dutch invasion, omens predicting disaster, and one that claimed bankers were embezzling their depositors’ money.

‘And are they?’ asked Chaloner.

Kipps shrugged. ‘Probably. They are a dishonest rabble, interested in nothing but making themselves richer. Personally, I consider them a curse, and wish them all to the devil.’

From that, Chaloner surmised that Kipps was in the same boat as Hannah apropos finances.

‘I doubt Satan will want financiers in the dark realm,’ said Neve acidly, pointing at Chaloner’s boots, to remind him to scrape off the mud.

Kipps laughed and turned to another subject. ‘Clarendon will be pleased to see you, Tom, but I doubt he will show it. He is irascible at the moment.’

The Earl was always irascible as far as Chaloner was concerned, and although the spy had proved himself loyal on countless occasions by saving his life, reputation, money and family, it was never enough. The Earl needed Chaloner to help him stay one step ahead of his many enemies, but deplored the necessity, and treated him with a disdain that bordered on contempt – he had awarded him the title of Gentleman Usher purely so it would look more respectable in the household accounts. The dislike was fully reciprocated, and Chaloner would leave the Earl’s employ without hesitation if another opportunity arose. Unfortunately, it was unlikely that one would.

‘He will be pleased,’ agreed Neve. He glanced at Kipps. ‘I was just telling Chaloner that he might be asked to speak to Baron – those curtains were ordered weeks ago.’

He stood back to assess his handiwork with the cloth. Unfortunately, even sponged clean, Chaloner’s travelling coat was not something that should appear in the august company of lord chancellors of England.

‘Baron is a scoundrel,’ averred Kipps. ‘You should never have done business with him.’

Neve was annoyed by the censure. ‘He was the cheapest, and the Earl told me to cut costs.’

‘He is only the cheapest if he actually supplies what he promised,’ Kipps pointed out caustically. ‘Have you heard of him, Chaloner? He was the chief henchman of a very corrupt banker called Wheler, but when Wheler was stabbed two months ago, Baron took over the criminal side of his operation. He is now known as the King of Cheapside.’

Chaloner raised his eyebrows. ‘I am sure the Earl’s enemies will be delighted to learn that he buys goods from felons.’

‘Baron is not a felon,’ snapped Neve irritably. ‘He has never been convicted of a crime.’

‘Not yet, perhaps,’ harrumphed Kipps. He turned back to Chaloner. ‘And if the Earl does order you to treat with the fellow, I recommend you take your sword.’

Chaloner was grateful for the warning. The Earl had a nasty habit of sending him into dangerous situations armed with only half a story, so he appreciated Kipps’s concern.

‘This is a peculiar headpiece,’ said Neve, picking up Chaloner’s hat and beginning to slap the dust from it. ‘It looks as though it is made of cloth, yet the crown is as hard as steel.’

‘It is steel,’ replied Chaloner. It was a gift from a Spanish lady he had once loved, and had saved his life on more than one occasion, protecting him from sly blows, and even an attack from a persistently violent gull. ‘I always wear it when I travel.’

‘Very wise,’ said Kipps. ‘Incidentally, Secretary Edgeman has just arrived with this month’s payroll. Claim yours now – he ran out of money last time, and some of us were obliged to wait two weeks before we were given what we were owed. There is a shortage of coins at the moment, because of the rumour about the bankers mismanaging their clients’ funds.’

‘It is probably untrue, but people are withdrawing their cash at a tremendous rate.’ Neve snickered spitefully. ‘The faint-hearted fools think it is safer under their beds.’

‘Then I imagine burglars will be pleased,’ said Chaloner. ‘Large sums of money under beds is always a boon for them. It is the first place they look.’

Kipps regarded him in alarm. ‘Really? I had better move mine somewhere else, then.’

For all his faults, the Earl of Clarendon worked hard, and was always either at his offices in White Hall, or the grandly named My Lord’s Lobby in Clarendon House, surrounded by papers that represented affairs of state. My Lord’s Lobby was a frigid, marble monstrosity with windows that looked out across what would eventually become a park, but that was currently an expanse of weed-infested mud.

The Earl had always been plump, even when he had shared the King’s exile on the continent and regular meals had not been guaranteed, but high office and a sedentary lifestyle had combined to make him fatter still. He was balding under his luxurious blond wig, and the profusion of lace at his throat accentuated rather than concealed his flabby jowls. He favoured a T-beard – a thin moustache on the upper lip with a tiny sprout of hair on the chin below – and even at leisure, he liked to wear the elegant robes that marked him as Lord Chancellor. It was a vanity that his many enemies loved to mock.

‘There you are at last,’ he said coolly, when Chaloner knocked on the door and walked in. ‘I was beginning to think you had abandoned me these last few weeks. What took you so long?’

‘The Hull rebels were not dangerous, sir,’ Chaloner explained, supposing the letters he had written outlining the situation had not been read, ‘but it still took a while to root them all out. Here is the sheriff’s report.’

The Earl tossed it, unopened, on to the table, where Chaloner suspected it would suffer the same fate as his missives. ‘Did you visit your uncle’s kin when you were in the north?’

Chaloner hailed from a very large family. His father had had twelve siblings, and his mother nine. Most had married, some more than once, so he had enough relations to populate a small village. However, none lived near Hull.

‘My uncle, sir?’ he asked cautiously, not sure why the question was being put.

‘The regicide,’ snapped the Earl. ‘Your namesake.’

This was a sore subject. Thomas Chaloner the elder had been one of the fifty-nine men who had signed the old king’s death warrant, which impressed diehard Parliamentarians, but that had earned his family the eternal hatred of Royalists. The younger Chaloner had been a teenager at the time, powerless to influence events one way or the other. However, he had never thought that executing a monarch was a very good idea, and deplored his kinsman’s role in the affair. His uncle had died in Holland several years before, but his radical politics still continued to haunt the surviving members of his family.

‘I have not seen my cousins in years,’ replied Chaloner warily. ‘And—’

‘They live in Yorkshire,’ interrupted the Earl, and added pointedly, ‘Near the alum mines.’

The Guisborough alum mines were the reason why the Chaloner clan had sided with Parliament in the first place. His grandfather had discovered rich deposits of alum – a mineral used for medicine and dyeing – on his land, and had turned them into a profitable business. This had attracted the envious attention of the old king, who had promptly decided to take them for himself. It was brazen theft, and the family had never forgiven the outrage, although Chaloner thought it was time the matter was forgotten – there was no point brooding over something that had happened so long ago and that was unlikely ever to be rectified.

‘Yes, they do,’ he conceded guardedly. ‘But the mines are nowhere near Hull.’

The Earl regarded him balefully, and Chaloner felt a stab of alarm. While he disliked working for the man, he could not afford to be dismissed, especially now that Hannah had debts to pay off. ‘They did not support the insurgents?’

‘Of course not! My family do not involve themselves in politics these days. We are all tired of rebellion, and none of us want more of it.’

‘Buckingham claims otherwise,’ said the Earl with a grimace. ‘But he does not like you, and I should have known better than to believe him.’

Chaloner’s last London-based investigation had caused the Duke some embarrassment, so he was not surprised that the nobleman had avenged himself with a few spiteful stories. ‘The sheriff has included a complete list of rebels with his letter,’ he said, nodding towards the table. ‘You will see that none of my family are on it.’

‘Good. I could not have kept you on if your kin were plotting to overthrow the government. Which would have been a nuisance, as there is something I need you to do for me.’

‘Talk to Baron about your last two pairs of curtains,’ predicted Chaloner heavily.

Neve had reported the shortfall before the spy had been granted an audience, and it had been impossible not to hear the angry tirade that had blasted through the closed door.

The Earl nodded. ‘I want them delivered tomorrow
at the latest
.’

Chaloner had a sudden vision of his flamboyant, accomplished uncle, and was glad he would never learn what his nephew was reduced to doing for a living. He would certainly be unimpressed, and perhaps even ashamed. It was not an easy thought to bear.

‘Are you sure it is a good idea to do business with Baron, sir?’ he asked, aiming to duck the assignment. ‘He is almost certainly a criminal.’

The Earl gaped at him, and Chaloner could tell his shock was genuine. ‘A criminal? No! Neve told me that he is a linen-draper.’

Chaloner pulled the card from his pocket, feeling it was ample evidence of the kind of operation that Baron ran. The Earl read it, then handed it back.

‘I suppose he does sound a little unethical,’ he conceded. ‘I should have known that three thousand pounds was rather too cheap for such fine quality material.’

‘Three thousand pounds?’ Chaloner was stunned. It was an enormous sum and not cheap at all – at least four hundred times what the average labourer earned in a year. ‘For
curtains
?’

‘They are brocade,’ said the Earl, as if that explained everything. ‘I suppose you had better visit the man, and make it clear that the purchase was made by my upholder,
not
by me. I shall deny any involvement with him, should anyone ask.’

‘Very well,’ said Chaloner, wondering how to do it in such a way that the villainous-sounding Baron did not immediately scent an opportunity for blackmail.

‘But before you offend him, make sure our order has been delivered in full. Those curtains go beautifully with my new carpets – red with a hint of gold.’

Chaloner regarded him askance. ‘It might be wiser to end the association at once, sir, before it causes you problems.’

‘But no other linen-draper has that particular shade, and my wife has set her heart on it. I
must
have them.’

‘As you wish.’ Chaloner was careful to keep his voice neutral, but was unimpressed that his employer should persist with the arrangement when it was clear that it should be terminated immediately. Moreover, Lady Clarendon was a sensible woman, who would place her husband’s political safety above the colour scheme in her Great Parlour, so it was almost certainly the Earl who was determined to have the things. And it was reckless.

‘I do wish, Chaloner,’ said the Earl sharply, as if reading his thoughts. ‘I cannot undo the fact that my household has done business with Baron, and my enemies will attack me for it anyway, so I might as well have what I have paid for.’

‘But it will be easier to defend yourself if you can claim that you renounced the association the moment you learned that Baron might not be entirely respectable.’

‘I have learned nothing of the kind, Chaloner,’ snapped the Earl crossly. ‘Or will you stand in a court of law and bear witness against me?’

Chaloner might, as he disliked the notion of lying under oath, but fortunately the Earl did not expect an answer, and only stared across the desolate, muddy expanse of his garden, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

‘I think you had better investigate Baron for murder,’ he said eventually.

Chaloner blinked his surprise. ‘Murder, sir?’

‘He was in the employ of a banker named Dick Wheler, who was stabbed to death. If I arrest Baron for the crime, no one can accuse me of anything untoward in my relationship with him.’

Chaloner suspected the Earl’s enemies would see straight through such a transparent ruse. Moreover, once in custody, Baron was likely to tell all and sundry about his dealings with the Earl, if not in an effort to wriggle out of the charges levelled against him, then for spite. The whole notion was absurdly flawed, but the Earl continued speaking before Chaloner could say so.