The Westminster Poisoner (25 page)

‘So, there are four suspects for Scobel’s murder: Symons and Margaret may have wanted to inherit his money sooner rather than
later, and the Leas might have objected to him rejecting their friendship.’

Thurloe wagged a finger. ‘You are jumping ahead of yourself. First, Scobel may not have been murdered – people do die of natural
causes, you know, even in London. And second, even if he was unlawfully killed, there is no evidence with which to accuse
anyone.’

‘Those four are the ones with the motives.’

‘The ones with the motives that you know about,’ corrected Thurloe. ‘The Leas are sly and self-serving, but I cannot see them
having the courage to kill, while Symons was very fond of his uncle. Scobel was a lovely man.’

‘Another saint,’ said Chaloner with a weary sigh.

Thurloe glanced sharply at him. ‘He
was
a saint, and I consider it an honour to have known him. He had a dog, which sat by his grave and howled for two weeks solid.
It would probably be howling still, if someone had not shot it. Did you never meet him?’

Chaloner shook his head. ‘But you mentioned him in your letters. Often.’

Thurloe had been an avid correspondent, and the friendship between him and his spy had developed almost entirely through letters
for the first decade of their acquaintance. He had written at length about all aspects of his life, his work, his friends
and his family.

‘Yes, I would have done,’ he said sadly. ‘I liked him enormously. And he
did
hold prayer meetings in his home, although I cannot tell you who joined him. He invited me, but I prefer to meditate in private,
so I never went. He gave thanks, mostly.’

‘Gave thanks for what?’

‘For everything – his success at work, his nephew, his friends, the food on his table. He sincerely believed thanking God
was a vital duty, and encouraged others to do the same. You look sceptical, Tom, but you must remember that he was rather
more pious than you. He went to church because he loved God, not because he did not want to be seen as a nonconformist.’

‘What did he look like?’ asked Chaloner, ignoring the dig. Religion was something about which they would never agree – Thurloe
was a committed Puritan, while Chaloner was not sure what he believed.

‘A short, fat fellow, bald as an egg, who sported a huge black beard. He refused to conceal his pate with wigs, because he
said God had made him hairless and he would never try to improve on His handiwork. Unfortunately, it made him look as though
his head was on upside down.’

‘Was he tedious about religion, then? Overly zealous?’

‘No. People attended his meetings because they wanted to be there, not because he forced them to go – he was devout, not a
fanatic. Incidentally, he foretold the exact time of his death. Did I write to you about that? It was eerie, and folk talked
about it for weeks afterwards.’

‘Not that I remember.’

‘He had a premonition that he would breathe his last on a specific date, and although we all told him that sort of thing was
for God to decide, he transpired to be right. He
did
die on the day he predicted.’

‘Do you think he knew someone was going to poison him?’

‘It did not occur to me at the time,’ replied Thurloe soberly, ‘but now I find myself wondering.’

*

It was mid-morning by the time Chaloner left Lincoln’s Inn. He stopped to collect his spare sword on the way to White Hall,
feeling naked and vulnerable without one. Most men wore them as fashion accessories, and rarely, if ever, drew them in earnest,
but Chaloner’s were working weapons, and he kept both oiled and well honed.

His cat padded to greet him when he opened the door, and he spent a few moments petting it. He was unimpressed when he found
dead mice secreted in several different places, but the cat purred when he glared at it, and the show of affection made it
impossible to stay angry. With a sigh of resignation, he went to the window and lobbed the bodies into the street below. He
aimed for, and was pleased when he hit, the sign of the Golden Lion opposite. He ducked back inside when one of the furry
corpses bounced off the board and ricocheted into a passing carriage. The coach bore the Muskerry coat of arms, and Chaloner
was almost certain it was Colonel Turner who reached across the female occupant and chivalrously removed the dead rodent from
her lap.

‘The man is insatiable,’ he remarked to the cat, then stopped abruptly. Haddon talked to his dogs as though they were people,
and the spy considered it a peculiar habit. He was appalled by the notion that he might be in the process of acquiring it
himself – that people might think
he
was short of a few wits.

He left his garret and began to walk towards White Hall, mentally reviewing the connections that linked his three victims.
All were government officials, their corpses had been stripped of valuables, they had argued with the Earl, they had attended
Scobel’s prayer meetings
before
the Restoration, and they had met in John’s Coffee House
after
. Common acquaintances included Gold, Bess, Neale,
Greene, Hargrave, Tryan, Scobel, Symons, Margaret, the Lea brothers, Doling and Jones. There would be others, too, but these
were the names that kept cropping up, and which seemed worth exploring.

He turned his thoughts to the missing statue. Thanks to the Queen, he now had one lead to follow – two people had been invited
to buy it, which suggested the thief was getting desperate. Chaloner rubbed his chin. He knew the culprit’s reason for approaching
Greene, but why Margaret? She was a sculptress, but not nearly wealthy enough to buy stolen art and keep it hidden for the
rest of her life.

So, there were several things he needed to do: ask Margaret about the statue, question her husband about his uncle’s prayer
meetings, and visit John’s Coffee House to learn more about the nature of the gatherings that took place there. There was
also the ruby ring, but he had asked virtually everyone in White Hall about that, and had met with no success. He decided
he had taken that as far as he could, and although he would bear it in mind, he would not waste any more time on it.

He walked through White Hall’s main gate unchallenged, because the guards were busy watching Lady Castlemaine wave a handgun
at someone in the middle of the Palace Court. They were not the only ones taking the opportunity to gawk: the yard was fringed
with spectators. Careful to keep a wall between him and the weapon, Chaloner went to where Haddon was standing with his dogs.

‘She says she will blow out Turner’s brains unless he gives her what she wants,’ explained Haddon, seeing the spy’s questioning
look. ‘I dare not move from here, lest
she discharges her dag, and hits one of my darlings by mistake.’

Chaloner saw that the object of the Lady’s hostility was indeed the colonel, who looked particularly dashing that morning
in a dark green suit, red ear-string and a hat with a vast white feather that trailed down his back. When Chaloner glanced
across the yard, he saw the Muskerry coach, and wondered whether the sight of Turner in company with Muskerry’s wife was the
cause of the Lady’s wrath.

‘What does she want?’ he asked. ‘His romantic services? She does not need to threaten him with death for those – I suspect
they are available to anyone who asks. As long as she has teeth.’

‘The Lady has plenty of those, believe me. But she is after his hat. The feather belonged to an ostrich, apparently, and is
the only one of its kind in London.’

‘How does he come to have it, then?’ asked Chaloner curiously. A man who took work as a spy was unlikely to have money to
squander on fripperies, especially if he had twenty-eight children to support.

‘Bess Gold won it from Buckingham at cards, and I imagine it went from her to Turner in the usual manner,’ replied Haddon,
a little primly. ‘The Lady is extremely jealous, and so is making a fuss.’

‘It was a gift, madam,’ Turner was saying softly. He smiled at her, a sweet, gentle expression that saw the gun wobble in
her hands. ‘And thus an object to be cherished. You would not respect me, were I to hand tokens of affection away to anyone
who asks for them.’

He touched a brooch on his coat and treated her to a knowing wink, indicating Bess was not the only one who paid him the compliment
of extravagant presents.
Chaloner looked at the many baubles that adorned the colonel’s neck, wrists and fingers, and wondered how he managed to remember
what came from whom. He shook his head in grudging admiration: the gifts Turner received were far more costly than the tawdry
trinkets – like the coloured-glass crucifix – he dispensed to his swooning ladies.

‘But this is
me
,’ declared the Lady. Her face was bright with righteous indignation, and there was real malice in her eyes. Chaloner would
not have wanted to be Turner at that moment. ‘I shall have whatever I like. And I like that hat, so if you do not give it
to me, I shall shoot you and take it from your corpse. I shall need it if I am to go riding this afternoon. The hat I mean.’

‘For God’s sake, woman!’ bawled Buckingham, who was watching the proceedings from the safety of the gate. ‘Use another headpiece.
You have enough of the damned things.’

‘One never has enough,’ snapped Lady Castlemaine, rounding on him. He dived behind the door in alarm when the gun came around
with her. ‘Of anything.’

Chaloner laughed softly, and Haddon turned to him in surprise. ‘You think this is funny? We may be about to see murder committed
in front of our very eyes!’

‘The gun is not primed. She could not kill anyone, even if she wanted to, and Turner knows it. That is why he is not unduly
concerned.’

‘Be reasonable,’ came Buckingham’s voice from behind the gate. ‘Let the captain keep his hat.’

‘Colonel,’ corrected Turner, rather grandly.

‘Really?’ asked Buckingham. He did not sound convinced. ‘Under whom did you serve?’

‘Dear Lady,’ said Turner, ignoring him and focussing
his attention on the King’s fuming mistress. ‘Perhaps you will allow me to accompany you to your chambers, where we can discuss
this matter in private. I have something I warrant you will like a
lot
more than a hat.’

It was an offer no woman with teeth could decline, and the Lady permitted Turner to take the weapon and push it into his belt.
Then she strutted across the courtyard on his arm, head in the air and exuding a sense of wounded dignity. Seeing the crisis
had been averted, people began to go about their business again. One was Greene, who slouched towards the Banqueting Hall
with all the cheer of a man going to his execution. As their paths crossed, Lady Castlemaine nodded a greeting to him. Chaloner
frowned. The Lady had a reputation for slighting people she did not like, while she considered servants so far beneath her
that she never acknowledged their presence. And yet she had favoured the unprepossessing clerk from Westminster with a salutation.
Why? Was it because the Earl had taken against him, and any victim of the Earl’s was a friend of hers?

‘Turner will be trapped with her for hours now,’ Haddon was saying. ‘She has a voracious appetite for pretty men. And that
works to our advantage, because as long as he frolics, he cannot investigate.’

‘
Our
advantage?’

‘I have five pounds wagered that you will catch the killer before he does,’ explained Haddon, bending to pet his dogs. ‘The
Earl believes Turner will win. However, his preference for the colonel has nothing to do with who is the better investigator
– it is based on the fact that Turner is beginning to accept Greene as the killer.’

‘And the Earl wants a solution that proves
him
right,’ said Chaloner gloomily.

‘No – he wants a solution that is fast,’ corrected Haddon. ‘But I would rather the enquiry took longer and the real culprit
is exposed, so I am backing you.’

‘Then let us hope it does not cost you five pounds.’

‘It had better not, because I cannot afford it. Incidentally, you will find the Earl in a sour mood this morning, because
Brodrick played his Turkish-harem trick last night – our master arrived to find his chambers bedecked in billowing silk and
forty harlots. So, let us hope the Lord of Misrule moves to other targets now. Come along, precious ones. We do not want your
little paws chilled on these nasty cold stones.’

Chaloner had only taken a few steps towards the Earl’s offices when he spotted Barbara Chiffinch. He went to speak to her,
wondering what it was about her that Hannah so disliked. Barbara was married to Will Chiffinch, a courtier of infamous depravity
who was said to procure women for the King when his mistresses were unavailable. Barbara was not depraved, though, and led
a perfectly respectable life. It was said that she and her husband had not shared the same bed in forty years.

‘I have been looking for you, Tom,’ she said as he approached. She was a comfortable, matronly woman with grey hair, an ample
bosom and hazel eyes that glowed with intelligence. ‘Turner tells me your Earl has employed him as a spy. Have you been dismissed,
then?’

‘Not yet – but I will be, if I cannot catch this clerk-killer and locate the King’s stolen statue.’

Barbara was thoughtful. ‘There is all manner of gossip about both, but no one has any idea who the culprits might be. However,
I can tell you one place to go for clues: to Temperance North.’

Chaloner was puzzled. Temperance – a friend of his – ran a stylish ‘gentlemen’s club’ in Hercules’ Pillars Alley, near The
Strand. ‘What does she have to do with dead clerks and missing art?’

‘My husband patronises her establishment, and he was waxing lyrical about an evening he enjoyed there a couple of weeks ago,
when he said something odd. Apparently, Temperance had quizzed him about Bernini – the sculptor who carved the bust. She had
never expressed an interest in art before, and he was delighted with himself for feeding her a lot of bogus information.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘He told her Bernini is a Swedish hermaphrodite, whose hobbies include rope-dancing and keeping hedgehogs. But that is beside
the point – which is, what prompted her questions in the first place?’