‘I doubt it. From what I have read, Surinam is an unstable place, full of guns and knives.’
Scot took his arm, and guided him towards the now-deserted Anatomical Theatre, where Willys lay with his entrails neatly coiled on the side of the dissecting table. ‘You should collect your sword and daggers before you meet someone else you want to fight.’
Chaloner had no wish to confront anyone else that day, although he knew his business was not yet done – he still did not know who had murdered Willys, Sarsfeild and now Fitz-Simons. He saw Behn lurking near the gate, and wondered why he had not gone for dinner with the other guests; Behn did not seem like the kind of man who would willingly forgo a sumptuous feast. Chaloner was simply too tired to think about it, though, and it was with leaden legs that he followed Scot down into the grim dungeon. He looked around for his weapons, but they were not there.
‘Holles,’ said Scot irritably. ‘I saw his soldiers poking around after Lisle and Johnson were taken away. They must have stolen them.’
‘Did Wiseman succeed in convincing everyone that Willys’s body was Dillon’s?’ asked Chaloner. He leaned against a wall, and wondered when he had last felt so drained.
‘Yes, he did. He even had an answer for when Alice demanded to know why there were no ligature marks on the neck. He spun some yarn about skin not bruising under certain chemical conditions. Can you bring yourself to answer a few questions? I see now that the wicked mastermind behind Webb’s murder was Bristol–’
‘Not a wicked mastermind,’ said Chaloner. ‘A drunken fool who did something on the spur of the moment, and then declined to admit to what he had done. Poor Sarsfeild is the real victim in all this – Dillon and Fanning were killers, but the confectioner was not.’
‘Quite so,’ said Scot. He smiled kindly. ‘But you are exhausted, and I can see you do not want to indulge my idle curiosity today, so we shall talk tomorrow, when you are feeling more alert. What will you do now? Join the barber-surgeons’ dinner?’
‘I am going home – to play my viol,’ replied Chaloner, flexing his fingers. ‘And then sleep.’
‘You can play it all you like in Surinam. We will need something to entertain us in the evenings, because I understand there is not much to do once the sun goes down.’
‘I cannot go to Surinam,’ said Chaloner, not liking the notion of bowing solos for the rest of his life. ‘London and its politics are bearable with music, and Surinam is humid – my viol will rot.’
‘That is a pity. It is a chance for a new life.’
Chaloner nodded. ‘And it will also ensure that I never tell anyone it was you who wrote that letter to Bristol – the one with the nine names.’
A gale of laughter billowed from the Great Parlour, followed by a cheer. The barber-surgeons were showing their guests a good time, and a distant part of Chaloner’s mind recalled someone saying that watching dissections always gave men a good appetite. He regarded Scot with a mixture of disappointment and hurt, as the final pieces of the puzzle came together.
‘You said you left African House early the night Webb died – you wanted to make the best of Behn’s absence and be with Eaffrey. But Behn had quarrelled with Webb and stalked off in a sulk, leaving the dinner sooner than anyone had anticipated. So, you could not have been with Eaffrey, because he would have been there before you. You lied about that, and so did she.’
Scot gazed at him reproachfully. ‘Why would we make up stories about such a thing?’
‘Because almost immediately, I suspect Bristol regretted what he had asked Dillon to do, and sent someone to stop him: you. The landlord of the Dolphin recalled a second messenger asking for Dillon after the first note had been delivered. He said the man had a foreign accent, which put me in mind of Behn. However, you are skilled at disguises, and would never have gone on such a mission without donning one.’
Scot regarded him pityingly. ‘Go home, Chaloner, before you say something you will regret. You are tired, and do not know what you are talking about.’
‘And that is why you left the dinner early: to deliver Bristol’s second note. But Dillon had already gone, so you went to Webb’s home instead. Perhaps you were too late to stop the murder, or perhaps you decided it was in your better interests to let Webb die. Either way, you saw Dillon and Fanning kill him. Then you wrote that letter to Bristol.’
Scot sighed impatiently. ‘Why would I do that? My name was on the list, too.’
‘That is what May said when I accused him of sending it, and my answer to you is the same as the one I gave him: because it would have looked odd for it to be missing. And it was not your name, anyway. It was Peter Terrell’s, a man who can disappear today, if necessary, and be replaced by someone else. You risked nothing by including him.’
‘This is rubbish,’ said Scot warningly.
‘You used blue ink,’ Chaloner went on. ‘The same kind you used to send letters to Behn – Maude saw them. You were doubtless working for him in another of your guises, making sure his money-making ventures came to fruition. After all, there is no point in defrauding a poor man, is there?’
‘None of this is true. The messenger who went to the Dolphin was said to be a yellow-headed fellow. You can look among my collection of wigs – you will not find one like it.’
Chaloner was sorry. ‘I told no one the landlord’s description of the courier – and he swears I am the only one who has asked – so there is only one way for you to know about the fair hairpiece.’
Scot regarded him coldly. ‘Why would I write that letter to Bristol? What would be in it for me?’
‘Revenge for Williamson’s failure to release your brother. You encouraged Thomas to turn traitor and give evidence against his co-conspirators, expecting him to be freed at once. Yet Williamson declines to keep his side of the bargain, and Thomas is still in the Tower.’
Scot scrubbed at his cheeks, making the pastes on them blur and mingle. ‘All right,’ he said softly. ‘I did send Bristol the letter to avenge myself on Williamson.’
‘Why Bristol?’
‘Because he was the one who set a murder in motion, and it appealed to my sense of justice that he should be the instrument of its resolution. I made sure he received the note when he was with the King, so he would have no choice but to share its contents. But so what? Dillon and Fanning did kill Webb, and they have received their just deserts.’
‘What about Sarsfeild?’
Scot shrugged. ‘A casualty of war. Why did you meddle? You made life very difficult for me.’
‘And you reciprocated at every turn. You encouraged me to think Webb’s murder was something to do with the Castle Plot, when it was nothing of the kind. You told me several times that I should not trust Wiseman, in an attempt to make me waste time by investigating him as the killer. And then there was Fitz-Simons. I thought from the start that he had been killed to prevent him from talking to Williamson, and I was right. You shot him.’
Scot shrugged again. ‘Another casualty of war.’
‘When Fitz-Simons murmured that Terrell “is not what he says”, he meant more than I realised. Somehow, he had learned that you wrote Bristol’s letter. Perhaps he saw you deliver it, or perhaps he recognised the ink. Regardless, you could not have Williamson knowing what you had done.’
‘Blue ink,’ murmured Scot ruefully. ‘Using it was a stupid and unforgivable mistake on my part. I was obliged to send Fitz-Simons a few notes in his capacity as government informer. He attended Dillon’s trial – dismally disguised as a milkmaid – and I knew that as soon as the law-court started to make an issue of the ink’s unusual colour, he would associate it with me. I hunted him for days, and then he appeared at Westminster Abbey. I shot him.’