‘I am flattered,’ said Chaloner, trying to be gracious. ‘But surely you know someone more worthy of this honour?’
‘Actually, no. All the other surgeons are awash with guests, but I cannot think of anyone they have not asked already. And I do not want them to think I do not have any friends.’
Chaloner thought that if he was the best Wiseman could muster, then the colleagues might have a point. ‘I hear your subject will be a hanged felon. I do not suppose his name is Dillon, is it? He is due to be executed on Saturday.’
Wiseman nodded. ‘But we keep their faces covered, so if you know him, you need have no fear. He will not be looking at you.’
It did not make the prospect any more appealing.
Still holding forth about what he promised would be a memorable experience, Wiseman escorted Chaloner to the gate and saw him off the premises. The spy walked along Monkwell Street until he reached a small, unnamed alley that bordered the northern extent of the barber-surgeons’ estate, and gazed up at the wall they had built to keep out intruders.
Normally, he could have climbed it with ease, but the splint interfered with his grip, and he was obliged to pick the lock on a neighbouring house instead. Hoping the closed door meant its owners were out, he made his way through the building and into the garden, at the end of which stood the surgeons’ fifteenth-century hall. Here the protective wall was lower, although scaling it was still an awkward struggle. Eventually he managed, and walked towards the Anatomical Theatre, taking care not to be seen. Ever cautious, he turned his coat inside out and wore it in the manner of a cape, then changed his hat for a simple black cap, tucking his hair underneath it, so he would look like an impoverished clerk to anyone who happened to spot him.
Johnson was poring over the corpse, doing something unspeakable with red wax, tubes and a pair of bellows, so Chaloner tossed a stone up at one of the windows and waited until the surgeon came out to investigate. While Johnson scratched his head in puzzlement, the spy darted inside and yanked the sheet away from the cadaver. He was startled when the face that gazed at him through half-closed eyes was not Fitz-Simons’s, but that of an older man.
The stain on the sheet came from an oddly shaped wound in the chest, which Chaloner recognised as being caused by a rapier – fluid had leaked from the hole during a recent washing. Pale circles around fat fingers suggested rings had been worn, and the well-fed body indicated it had been a man of wealth. Chaloner was almost certain – especially as he could now see the fellow had been dead for weeks rather than days – that he was looking at Webb. He gazed at the corpse in confusion, and wondered whether Temple knew he was about to be treated to the dicing up of a Guinea Company colleague.
There was no more to be learned by staring, and the theatre was no place to linger, so he left. Outside, Johnson was gesticulating at a cracked window, informing Reynell that a bird was responsible. Wryly, the clerk pointed out that it must have been a singularly heavy one. Chaloner could not leave the barber-surgeons’ grounds the way he had entered, because Lisle was now standing near the old hall, talking to Wiseman. He decided to leave through the main gate instead, knowing that as long as he moved confidently, no one was likely to stop him – guards tended to monitor who came in, not who went out. However, he was out of luck that day, because Johnson spotted him.
‘Hey!’ he bawled. ‘I do not know you. Come here at once, and give an account of yourself.’
Chaloner considered brazening it out, but it would be difficult to explain why he had changed his hat and cloak – and why he had returned in the first place. Plus there was the fact that the sheet that had covered Webb was now lying on the floor, and Johnson would want to know what he had been doing. All told, it was better to escape without being obliged to answer questions. He looked around, quickly reviewing his options. The guard on the gate had been alerted to the presence of an intruder by Johnson’s yell, so he could not go that way, and Lisle and Wiseman had abandoned their discussion and were moving towards him – one was sure to grab him if he tried to run past. So he headed south, to where Chyrurgeons’ Hall abutted on to grounds owned by the Company of Silversmiths.
Immediately, Johnson broke into a run. He was fast for someone with so large a paunch, and began to gain on his quarry. Chaloner scrambled over the wall to find himself in a yard full of sheds. An indignant shout told him that the silversmiths’ apprentices, who were playing dice around a brazier, did not appreciate trespassers on their property either. They came to their feet as one when he scaled a second wall, and he heard a furious commotion behind him when they laid hold of the pursuing Johnson instead. The surgeon’s garbled explanation earned Chaloner vital seconds, allowing him to vault across a third barrier, which led to yet another garden. The only way out was across a fourth fence, which he hoped would see him in the churchyard of St Olave’s Silver Street.
But another garden followed, and another partition, and he felt himself begin to tire. Each barrier was becoming more difficult to climb with his useless arm, and it occurred to him to give up. He changed his mind when he glanced back and saw the expression on Johnson’s face. The man would not be taking prisoners; he intended to exact justice on the ‘thief ’ with his fists and boots.
At last, Chaloner reached the graveyard and crawled into a tangle of undergrowth at the back of the church, breathing hard. Within moments, the first of the apprentices arrived and, as Chaloner had hoped, hared towards the gate that led to the street. Others followed, and the spy’s gamble that they would expect him either to claim sanctuary in the chapel or head for the nearest exit seemed to be paying off. Through the foliage, he saw Johnson heave himself over the wall, but instead of following the boys, the surgeon trotted to a shed at the bottom of the cemetery and produced a key. He opened the door, peered inside, then locked it again and waited for the apprentices to return.
‘Is he in the charnel house?’ asked one of the lads, arriving hot and gasping a few minutes later. He stepped past Johnson and put his shoulder to the door with the obvious intention of breaking it down, but the surgeon shoved him away.
‘No, he is not there. I have just checked.’
‘Who was he?’ asked the youth, hammering on the wood anyway. ‘One of your students?’
‘A burglar,’ said Johnson angrily. ‘I imagine he wanted to steal the Grace Cup.’
‘You mean that big silver bucket with the bells on?’ asked the lad keenly. ‘The one you shake when you want it filled with wine? It rings, and the servants come rushing to your aid?’
Johnson nodded. ‘We always get it out for the meals we enjoy after our dissections, and there is to be such an event this afternoon. That rogue must have heard about it, so came to try his luck.’
‘Did you get a look at his face?’
Johnson gestured to his eyes. ‘I do not see well. He had a brown cloak, though. Did you see him?’
‘He always kept his back to me. Do you want us to scout around for men with brown cloaks? It will cost you a shilling for every hour we are out.’
‘Here is sixpence,’ said Johnson. ‘And a crown is available if you bring him to me – quietly, though. I do not want to bother my colleagues with this.’
The lad tapped his nose, then went to tell his fellows of their good fortune. It was some time before Chaloner felt it was safe to leave his hiding place – and he turned his coat the right way out before he did so. He emerged carefully, then went to the shed and picked the lock, closing the door behind him in case anyone came back. The charnel house, used to store bodies until they were buried, had only one occupant, and Fitz-Simons’s name was written in chalk on a piece of slate at the end of a crude table. Chaloner pulled off the sheet, and was confronted with a face that was unfamiliar.