Chaloner watched him walk away, shocked. He flexed his fingers. Surely, Lisle was wrong? He could not imagine life without his viol – and a trumpet would not be the same at all. Feeling somewhat low in spirits, he accessed Clarendon’s suite via a servant’s corridor, and tapped softly on a door that was concealed behind a statue. The Lord Chancellor opened it cautiously, and Chaloner saw it had been fitted with bolts and a bar since his last visit.
‘I came to tell you what I have learned about the man May shot, sir,’ he said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into his voice. The truth was that any investigation paled into insignificance when compared to what the loss of music would mean for his quality of life.
‘What man?’ The Earl seemed agitated, and Chaloner supposed he was not the only one who had been unsettled by bad news that day. ‘Do you mean that beggar? Forget him, and concentrate on Bristol. He is plotting something serious – I can sense it.’
Chaloner recalled what Temperance and Maude had told him. ‘Yes – there is a plan afoot to bring your “moral rectitude” into question. Have you met a woman called Rosa Lodge? She is an actress.’
‘Certainly not! Such persons are invariably ladies of ill repute, and I am a happily married man. I leave that sort of thing to Bristol. And, unfortunately, to the King.’
‘Have you found any petticoats among your belongings? Ones that do not belong to your wife?’
The Earl’s voice dropped to a prudish whisper. ‘There was some feminine apparel – an item of an intimate nature – under my pillow last night. I assumed Holles had put it there, to cheer me after an unhappy session with the King. However, I do not approve of lewdness, so I threw it on the fire.’
‘Temple hired this Rosa Lodge to accuse you of immoral acts. If any ladies request private interviews, you should refuse them.’
‘That will not be a problem. I have turned away three today already – I sent them to Colonel Holles. He has a kind heart, and will help them if he can.’
Chaloner was sure he would. ‘Some of these actresses are very good, though. And Temple seems very determined.’
‘So am I, Heyden – good and determined.’
Dusk had fallen by the time Chaloner had finished talking to the Earl, so he joined Holles in escorting him home to Worcester House. Because Clarendon disliked his crumbling Tudor lodgings, he had purchased land on the north side of Piccadilly with a view to building himself something rather better. Chaloner had seen the projected designs, and was astounded by the display of lavish opulence. It would be the finest edifice in the city, far grander than anything owned by the King, and was certain to cause jealousy and resentment. Tentatively, he had advised scaling down the plans, but the Earl had tartly informed him that he did not know what he was talking about.
As he and Holles left Worcester House, Chaloner happened to glance over at the candlelit windows of Webb Hall next door, and saw the unmistakably hulking profile of Johan Behn framed in an upper chamber. He frowned, trying to think of a good reason why the merchant should visit Silence after dark. Did he intend to take up where her husband had left off, and buy a ship to ferry sugar from the plantations? Chaloner wondered whether Eaffrey knew what her lover was doing.
Holles announced a desire to visit Temperance, so Chaloner went with him, curious to know why her establishment was so popular with powerful nobles. It did not take him long to appreciate the difference between a ‘gentleman’s club’ and a bawdy house. Professional musicians played the latest compositions in an ante-chamber – he was startled to see Greeting sawing away – and skilled cooks had been hired to provide guests with good food and fine wines. The girls were pretty and in possession of all their teeth, and Preacher Hill stood outside to prevent undesirables from entering. He would have repelled Chaloner, too, but Temperance intervened.
‘Thomas will always be welcome,’ she said, laying a hand on Hill’s arm. The preacher – doorman smiled, although the grin turned to a glower as soon as her back was turned.
‘Just behave,’ he snarled, as Chaloner passed. ‘If there is any trouble from you, I will … ’
‘Will what?’ asked Chaloner mildly.
Hill bristled. ‘Just behave,’ he repeated, before turning to vet the next customers.
While Holles made a nuisance of himself with a sadly misnamed lady called Modesty, Chaloner listened to the quartet, thinking with satisfaction that Greeting’s bowing was well below par. He stared at his bandaged arm, and hoped with all his heart that Lisle would be able to help him on Saturday. Before he became too consumed with self-pity, he went to sit near Maude, who was holding forth about the latest play at the King’s House in Drury Lane, and then listened to a portly gentleman describing plans for a new pheasant garden in Hyde Park. It was well past midnight before he left, slipping away quietly when Holles went moustache-down on the table and began to snore.
He lay on his bed in Fetter Lane, watching the stars through the window and thinking about his viol as he listened to the periodic cries of the bellmen. At five o’clock, he rose and spent an hour practising his bowing, muting the strings with his immobile left hand, so the noise would not disturb his landlord. Then he washed, dressed and set off for White Hall to spy on Bristol. He wore his best clothes and a wig of real hair, so he would be able to mingle with the upper echelons of British high society and not look out of place.
The King liked to ride in St James’s Park of a morning, and most high-ranking, early-rising members of the Court went with him. They took their retainers, and the palace’s many hangers-on went, too, so the monarch’s peaceful gallop was often carried out in the presence of hundreds of people. Unfortunately for Chaloner, it meant most courtiers were either riding with His Majesty or still in bed, and he could hardly eavesdrop in an empty palace.
Annoyed with himself for forgetting that there was little point in visiting White Hall before ten o’clock, he turned his attention to the other leads that needed to be explored. First, he wanted to visit St Martin’s Church, to ask whether the vergers really had collected a body – Fitz-Simons’s – from May. Secondly, he had to talk to Scot. And thirdly, he needed to go to St Paul’s Cathedral and ascertain why Webb was not in his vault, but in the Anatomical Theatre at Chyrurgeons’ Hall. He recalled Wiseman saying the faces of the dead were kept covered during the operation, and hoped it was true. He could not imagine Temple being very pleased to discover a fellow member of the Guinea Company was being chopped into pieces before his eyes.
St Martin-in-the-Fields was a sturdy building with a strong tower and lofty sixteenth-century windows, although it had been a long time since it had stood in any meadows. He found a verger, who informed him that he and a colleague had indeed been summoned to White Hall to collect a corpse, but when they had arrived, the body was nowhere to be found.
‘Someone stole it, probably as a practical joke,’ opined the verger. ‘And we had a wasted journey. May refused to recompense us for our time, though. Bastard!’
Chaloner took his leave, full of thoughts. Had Fitz-Simons staged a permanent disappearance by only pretending to die at May’s hands? Had he killed a vagrant to take his place in the charnel house? If so, then Johnson was complicit in the plan, because he held the keys to the shed where the impostor’s body was being stored. Did that mean Johnson would deny access to any surgeon who wished to pay his last respects and view the corpse? Or was the entire Company aware of what was happening, but was rallying to defend one of its own? The city companies were fiercely loyal to their members, and might well try to help Fitz-Simons out of trouble.