Susanna Gregory - The Butcher Of Smithfield

‘Is that what it means? My Earl said it was an obscenity.’

Leybourn laughed. ‘He really is a prim old fool! Did he tell you that Muddiman bought cucumbers from Covent Garden the day before Newburne died? And here you must bear in mind that Newburne worked for L’Estrange — the man to whom Spymaster Williamson gave Muddiman’s job as newsbook editor. Do not tell me that is not significant!’

Chaloner was thoughtful. ‘If Muddiman did kill Newburne, then he was careless to let himself be seen buying the murder weapon. Of course, that assumes it was cucumbers that killed Newburne. I know traditional medicine says they can be harmful, but they are not usually considered deadly.’

‘Newburne died at the Smithfield Market, while watching the dancing monkeys. Lord! I wish your Earl had given you something else to do. Newburne was loathsome, and only had one friend, as far as I know — a fellow called Heneage Finch. You can ask him what he thinks happened to Newburne. He lives on Ave Maria Lane, by St Paul’s.’

Chaloner watched him eat the knot biscuits. ‘You are getting fat.’

Leybourn almost choked. ‘And you are thin — sallow, even. Did they not feed you in France?’

Chaloner smiled at the transparent attempt to discover where he had been. ‘Not very well.’

‘Mary prepares a wonderful caudle of wine, eggs, barley and spices. Unfortunately, that is all she can make, so we are obliged to send to the cook-shop most days, and she does not like housework, either. But we are very happy together, despite her … domestic shortcomings.’

She sounded singular, and Chaloner’s interest was piqued again. ‘When were you wed?’

‘We are not wed , exactly.’ Leybourn sounded defensive. ‘But we live as man and wife, because when you are in love, you do not need the Church to sanction your devotion. You did not marry Metje, although she inhabited your bed most nights.’

‘I did not say-’

‘And I wager you availed yourselves of plenty of pretty … Danish ladies when you were abroad, too,’ Leybourn went on relentlessly. ‘Hoards of them, and not one escorted to the altar.’

Chaloner was taken aback by what amounted to an unprovoked attack. ‘Steady, Will,’ he said, ignoring the surveyor’s second attempt to find out where he had been. ‘I am not condemning you.’

‘Everyone else is, though,’ said Leybourn sulkily. ‘Well? Tell me about your latest love. I know you have one. I can tell.’

Chaloner’s brief but passionate attachment to the lovely Isabella — a Spaniard working for the Portuguese — had been blissful, but his false identity had been exposed when he had trapped the duplicitous duke, and he doubted he would ever see her again. It was a pity, and he raised his hand to touch the hat she had given him, with its cunning bowl of steel.

‘Who disapproves of your arrangement?’ he asked, declining to talk about her.

Leybourn sniffed. ‘Thurloe, my brother and his wife, most of my customers. But I do not care. Mary may not be as pretty as your Metje, but she is mine and she loves me dearly. You never have trouble securing yourself ladies, but it is different for me, and I intend to keep this one.’

‘Then I wish you success of it,’ said Chaloner soothingly. He watched Leybourn fling away the last of the biscuits, which were immediately snapped up by stray dogs. ‘And now I should pay my respects to Maylord before more of the day is lost.’

It began to rain as Chaloner and Leybourn walked from Westminster Stairs to St Margaret’s Church, a heavy, drenching downpour that thundered across the cobblestones and gushed from overflowing gutters and pipes. It enlarged the puddles that already spanned the streets, and Leybourn stepped in one that was knee-deep. Chaloner grabbed his arm to stop him from taking a tumble, although the near-accident did nothing to make the surveyor falter in his detailed description about a new and ‘exciting’ mathematical instrument.

‘I would love a Gunter’s Quadrant,’ he concluded wistfully, ‘but it is too expensive for the common man. I offered to borrow one for a few weeks and then write a pamphlet about it — I am well respected in my trade, as you know, and people take my recommendations seriously — but its maker is adamant: no money, no measuring stick. Will you break into his shop and steal it for me?’

Chaloner was not entirely sure he was joking. ‘He might be suspicious if you suddenly start producing books and publications demonstrating its use.’

Leybourn nodded thoughtfully. ‘I would have to modify it, pass it off as my own. Incidentally, have you visited St Paul’s Cathedral recently? You do not need to be a surveyor to see it is unsound, and I told the King today that he should close it before it falls down and kills someone. Christopher Wren submitted some brilliant plans for its rebuilding, but the clerics baulk.’

‘I would baulk, too,’ said Chaloner, making a dash for St Margaret’s porch as the rain came down even harder. ‘Wren’s design is nasty — like an Italian mausoleum.’

‘Rubbish! It is nothing short of brilliant. In fact, if you had any loyalty to your city, you would break into the old cathedral and set it afire. That would put an end to the clergy’s procrastination.’

Chaloner raised his eyebrows. ‘First, you encourage me to commit burglary and now arson. Do you want me hanged?’

‘Not unless you leave me some money in your will. Then I can buy myself a Gunter’s Quadrant.’

A verger conducted the visitors to the crypt, where Maylord was not the only dead citizen to have been granted refuge under its gloomy arches. A total of three bodies lay there, all neatly packed in wooden boxes, their faces decorously covered with clean white cloths. The verger explained that many houses in Westminster were small, and it was not always possible to have a corpse at home until a funeral could be arranged. It was all right twenty years ago, he sighed, because then you died one day and were in the ground the next. But in these enlightened times, ceremonies were grander and required more time to arrange. A funeral in London was a statement of earthly achievement, and no one wanted to be shoved underground without first showing off all he had accomplished.

‘Maylord,’ prompted Chaloner.

The verger removed one of the cloths. ‘He used to play the organ here when our regular man was indisposed, and he never charged us for it. He was a good soul.’

‘Do you know how he died?’ asked Chaloner, gazing at the man who had smiled a lot, even during the dark days of the civil wars. Laughter lines were scored around Maylord’s eyes and mouth, and Chaloner thought it a terrible pity that the world was deprived of his gentle humour.

‘Cucumbers,’ replied the verger. ‘Did you not hear? It caused quite a stir.’

‘How do you know it was cucumbers?’

‘They were on a plate in his room, and he was dead on the floor with a piece in his mouth.’ The verger regarded him suspiciously. ‘You said you were a friend, so how come you do not know?’

‘I have been away,’ replied Chaloner truthfully. ‘He wrote two days ago, asking me to visit him.’

‘Then it is a shame you did not come sooner,’ said the verger, rather accusingly. ‘You might have been able to help him. You know how he was always happy? Well, these last two weeks he was miserable and bad tempered. He snapped at the choirboys for fidgeting, and he told me to mind my own business when I asked him what was wrong. It was something to do with Court, I imagine. It is an evil place, and Maylord was the only decent one among the lot of them.’

‘But you do not know it was Court business for certain?’ pressed Chaloner. The verger shook his head. ‘Did he have any particular friends he might have confided in?’