‘Will the execution not take place, then?’
The guard shrugged. ‘Dillon says not, and I have told my mother not to bother going. She hates it when she waits for hours and a hanging is cancelled. Dillon is a decent gent – generous with what he gives us – so do not squander too much of his time. Let him finish his reading.’
Instead of being shown into the bleak interview room, Chaloner was conducted to Dillon’s cell, where the condemned man was not studying, but playing with a roll of silk. The chamber was larger than the rooms Chaloner rented in Fetter Lane, and the remains of the meal on the table was fit for a king. Dillon looked up as he entered, hat shading his face.
‘I am a gentleman, so entitled to be hanged with a silken rope,’ he explained with a chuckle. ‘Hemp, which is used for the common criminal, tends to stick, but silk slides easily, and I am assured it will strangle me all the sooner. The guards were kind enough to let me twist the noose myself.’
‘What about the book?’ asked the warden conversationally. ‘Finished it yet?’
‘No, but I am not in the mood for words. This vicar will make sure it goes back to the man who lent it to me, and I shall purchase my own copy before I sail for Ireland.’
‘If you are so sure of rescue, then why bother with the noose?’ asked Chaloner, when the guard had gone.
‘It gives me something to do, and I was never one for sitting idle. Fitz-Simons told me hanging is painless, because the rope pinches the nerves in the neck and deprives the victim of all feeling.’
‘It does not look painless to me.’ Chaloner disliked the spectacle afforded by public executions, but he had been unable to avoid them all. It was not a way he wanted to die himself.
‘You are trying to unnerve me, because of your friend Manning. You blame me for his death.’
‘You may learn about betrayal yourself tomorrow, when you find your salvation does not materialise, and that Fitz-Simons was mistaken when he said hanging does not hurt.’
Dillon regarded him with dislike. ‘I have nothing to say to you.’
‘Sarsfeild is dead,’ said Chaloner harshly. ‘Fanning is dead.’
Dillon grimaced. ‘I know – and both were strangled. But they were different from me.’
Chaloner sighed. ‘I have spent the last week trying to learn what really happened to Webb, but I am no further forward, despite my best efforts. And whatever you may think, I do not want to see an innocent man choke. Have you considered the possibility that your master cannot help you – that he has tried to secure your pardon but has been unsuccessful?’
‘No,’ said Dillon. ‘I trust him with my life.’
‘If it is Lord Clarendon, you will be disappointed. He would have worked through the law to release you, not promised some dramatic reprieve on a white charger. Thurloe may still be able to help, but he needs information – information only you can provide. Surely you can see it is sensible to devise a second plan to save yourself, lest the first one fails?’
Dillon regarded him impassively. ‘What makes you think I am in Clarendon’s pay?’
‘You were seen in Worcester House with him, very late one night.’
‘I visit the homes of many powerful men, but that does not mean I work for them.’
Chaloner was losing patience. Newgate made his hands shake, his heart pound and his stomach churn, and if Dillon did not want his help, then he did not see why he should subject himself to more of it. He tried one last time. ‘I need the answers to two questions if Thurloe is to earn your acquittal.’
‘Thurloe,’ said Dillon meditatively. ‘I betrayed him when I changed sides during the Commonwealth, yet he refuses to abandon me now. Why?’
‘Because he is a good man. His principles baulk at seeing someone hang for a crime he did not commit, and he cares for all his people, even the treacherous ones.’
‘Yes,’ mused Dillon softly. ‘He always was the best of us. Very well. Ask your two questions.’
‘Who killed Webb? And was his murder anything to do with the Castle Plot?’
Dillon was silent for so long that Chaloner stood to leave.
‘I did not stab Webb,’ said Dillon softly, glancing at the door to make sure he would not be overheard, ‘but I was there when it happened. I distracted him while Fanning delivered the fatal blow. I was following orders.’
Now Chaloner was not sure whether to believe him. ‘Willys said you and he were roaring drunk in the Dolphin tavern on the night of the murder, and incapable of killing anyone. And Thurloe said you were a Quaker, vehemently opposed to violence. As Manning can attest.’
‘It was Willys who was drunk. He was face-down on the table when the message came. It offered me a respectable sum for sullying my hands with Webb’s blood – hence my comfort here in Newgate – but I would have dispatched the man for no payment at all.’
‘Why?’
‘You think me shallow, with no conscience, but you are wrong. I am a Quaker, although perhaps not a very good one, and I deplore slavery. It was a pleasure to play a role in murdering that monster – a man who made himself rich on the proceeds of forced labour.’
‘You were seen at the Guinea Company dinner, although you said you were not there–’
‘Fanning and I left early, because I could not bear to be in the same room as Webb. When Webb tried to stop us, I told him what I thought of his ship and its cargo, and we argued. Then I went to meet Willys at the Dolphin and the note arrived. I left Willys slumbering, sent word to Fanning to meet me, dispensed with Webb, and returned to the Dolphin to put Willys to bed.’
‘You are housed in luxury here, but Fanning was not. Why? Did your master pay him less?’
‘Our master did not pay him at all – I did. I could not kill Webb on my own, so I enlisted the help of a trusted friend. So, now you have an answer to one of your two questions.’
Chaloner did not think so. ‘You and Fanning may have been the means by which Webb was killed, but you have not told me who ordered his death.’
‘You will find out at my “hanging” tomorrow, when my master shows his hand. And in reply to your second query, the answer is no: Webb’s murder was nothing to do with the Castle Plot.’
‘Was Sarsfeild involved?’
‘You said two questions, but I feel like talking, so you are in luck. Sarsfeild had nothing to do with killing Webb – I have no idea who he was. He said he was a confectioner, so God knows how he came to be on Bristol’s list. Fanning and I killed Webb; Sarsfeild is unjustly convicted.’
‘Was Sarsfeild part of the Castle Plot?’
‘I answered that query when you came the first time; if he was, then I never met him.’
‘You had already answered my questions about Webb, too, but now you have changed your mind.’
Dillon clapped his hands in delight. ‘You do not know whether to believe me! So, I shall have to prove to you that I was instrumental in ending Webb’s miserable life. Have you seen his body? If so, you will have noticed deep grazes on his knees. They came when Fanning stabbed him and he stumbled forward. I could not know about such wounds, if I had not been there, could I?’
There had been scratches, Chaloner recalled, and Dillon was right: it was a detail only the killers would know. He glanced at the door, seeing shadows move under the crack at the bottom. Had the guard reported the presence of an unknown vicar, and he and his colleagues were massing for an arrest? He turned back to the gloating face in front of him, hurrying to finish and be gone before he ended up in some filthy hole, to be strangled like Fanning and Sarsfeild.
‘Did you kill Webb’s coachman, too, and hide his body in his own room?’
Dillon grinned in a way that made Chaloner wonder whether he was entirely sane. ‘Fanning did. We needed Webb on foot if we were to kill him on The Strand. It was all a bit of a rush, but we managed. However, Fanning’s nerves have since proved weak, and my master left him to stew a little too long – long enough that he asked May to stage a rescue with poisoned wine. I told him my master had the matter in hand, but he did not share my faith. And he was ready to bleat about what we had done. I imagine that was why he was killed.’