Chaloner was keen to bring the discussion around to Fitz-Simons. ‘You are a member of the Company of Barber-Surgeons?’ he asked, watching Wiseman empty a packet of white powder into his concoction. There was a soft fizzing sound, as something reacted with something else.
‘Why?’ demanded Wiseman archly. ‘Do you doubt my credentials?’
‘I am making conversation.’
Wiseman carried the bowl to the table. His mixture looked like thick glue. Then he took Chaloner’s arm and began to bind it with strips of cloth and thin pieces of metal, pausing every so often to slather on his evil-smelling adhesive. Apart from the stench, it looked harmless enough, and Chaloner let him proceed in the interests of learning what he wanted to know. Regardless of what the surgeon said, the dressing would be off that evening.
‘I am the Company’s most celebrated member. Have you heard about our Public Anatomies – so called because we invite members of the public to watch the dissections of convicted criminals four times a year? There is one next Saturday, as it happens. Would you like to come? There is always room for a man disguised as an elderly Dutch upholsterer.’
Chaloner glanced sharply at him. ‘How did you–’
‘The skin on your arm – it no more belongs to a sixty-year-old man than mine does. I suspect you are Heyden, the Lord Chancellor’s henchman. He said you were recently back from Ireland, and it seems you have made a dramatic re-entry into Court life. Do not worry,’ Wiseman added, before Chaloner could think of a suitable lie or object to the term ‘henchman’. ‘I will not give you away, especially if you are here to oppose Bristol.’
‘Then you can help me do just that by answering some questions,’ said Chaloner, seizing the opportunity while he could. ‘Do you know a man called Richard Fitz-Simons?’
‘Why? Does he owe you money? If so, you are unlikely to be repaid. He does not own a large practice – and never will, as long as he disappears for months on end. In fact, he left a few weeks after Christmas, and only returned ten days ago. We were worried that he would miss the Public Anatomy.’
‘He will miss it,’ said Chaloner. ‘He is dead.’
Wiseman gazed at him. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked eventually.
Chaloner nodded. ‘And since Colonel Holles has already told me that you inspected the body of the man I believe to be Fitz-Simons, this news cannot come as a surprise to you.’
Wiseman frowned, although more in concern than annoyance at being caught out. ‘I saw something familiar in the shape of the body that was carried across the courtyard in White Hall, and I defied May by going to look. May does not seem aware that the beggar and Fitz-Simons are one and the same, though. Will you tell him? I hope you do not.’
‘Why was Fitz-Simons in disguise in the first place?’ asked Chaloner, declining to make promises before he had the whole story.
Wiseman stirred his glue, which was beginning to set in the bowl. His expression was pained, as if he was undergoing some kind of internal debate, and it was some moments before he spoke. When he did, it was hesitantly, and some of his arrogance seemed to have left him.
‘I have not mentioned this to anyone else, but you are the Earl’s spy, and it might do me good to share my burden. Fitz-Simons often vanished, as I said. In February, he claimed he was going to visit his mother in York, but that is untrue, because I know both his parents are dead. And then Johnson saw him board a ship bound for Dublin.’
Chaloner’s thoughts began to race. ‘Why there?’
‘I do not know for certain. However, he had a friend called Dillon – Irish, as is apparent from his name – who is currently accused of murder. Now, it seems strange to me that Dillon and Fitz-Simons left for Dublin before the Castle Plot started, and returned after it failed.’
Chaloner gaped at him. ‘You think Fitz-Simons went to join the rebellion?’
‘I would have said no – except for one thing.’ Absently, Wiseman, smeared more of his glue on the dressing. ‘There was a plan of Dublin Castle in his room – I saw it when I went to borrow some ink. It was a detailed diagram, and I have not been able to put it from my mind. Treason is a terrible crime of which to accuse a colleague … ’
Chaloner was thoughtful. Had Fitz-Simons taken part in the uprising? Was that why he had bought a gun from Trulocke – and why Trulocke claimed Fitz-Simons kept company with ‘dangerous men’? And was Dillon a rebel, too? If he had worked for Thurloe during the Commonwealth, then it was quite possible that he still hankered after the ‘Good Old Cause’. And if that were true, then Thurloe might be accused of treachery himself if he openly tried to secure Dillon’s release.
‘The plan of the castle was probably Dillon’s,’ Wiseman went on. ‘I saw him myself, walking about with large pieces of paper rolled under his arm. He is distinctive, with the hat that always covers his face.’
‘Do you think Dillon was accused of murder because he took part in the Castle Plot, then?’
‘It is possible,’ replied Wiseman. His relief at having shared his ‘burden’ was palpable, and his hauteur was returning fast. ‘What was Fitz-Simons thinking, to become embroiled in such dark affairs? I hope it does not bring the Company into disrepute.’
‘Did you know the man Dillon is said to have killed?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Webb?’
Wiseman nodded. ‘Although it is not an acquaintance of which I am proud. Webb was a vile fellow, who saw nothing wrong in a business that involves the selling of human lives. He owned a ship that transported sugar purchased from slave-driven plantations, you know.’
‘So, someone might have killed Webb because he was unscrupulous,’ mused Chaloner, thinking aloud. ‘And if so, then his death may have nothing to do with the Castle Plot. I am told he was stabbed on the way home from a Guinea Company dinner. I did not suppose you were there, were you? I know it is common practice for the city companies to invite auspicious guests to these occasions.’
‘Being auspicious, I have attended such feasts in the past,’ replied Wiseman without the flicker of a smile. ‘But I was not at that one.’
‘Did Fitz-Simons know the others who were sentenced with Dillon – Sarsfeild and Fanning?’
‘Not as far as I know, although it is possible. Hah! I have finished. What do you think?’
Chaloner’s forearm was encased in a rigid shell that carried the odour of boiled horse bones. ‘It is not very pretty.’
‘Surgery seldom is. Your limb is completely immobilised, which will facilitate clean healing. Come to Chyrurgeons’ Hall tomorrow, and I shall check it. You will not be able to remove it, so do not try – I added a secret compound that renders the material resilient to tampering by amateurs. As I said, only a qualified medicus – with special compounds and equipment – can do that.’
The moment the door closed behind Wiseman, Chaloner attacked the splint with a knife. He was horrified to discover that it was already rock hard, and all he did was blunt his blade. He tried smashing it on the Earl’s marble fireplace, but that hurt him more than the dressing, and he realised he would have to borrow one of his landlord’s saws when he went home. Abandoning his efforts, he began to review what he had learned about Dillon and Fitz-Simons instead.
Both men had been in Ireland at the time of the Castle Plot, and now one was dead and the other awaiting execution. May had killed Fitz-Simons as he had tried to tell Williamson that Dillon was innocent. What did that say about May? Or was the incident just how it had appeared: May had shot a man wielding a knife? And what about the anonymous letter received by the Earl of Bristol, which had incriminated Dillon? Was that someone’s way of making sure a rebel was hanged? And if so, then did it mean the two men condemned to die with him – Fanning and Sarsfeild – were also rebels?