Swaddell’s instinctive struggles ceased abruptly when he felt the spy’s dagger against his throat. ‘Chaloner? Yes, it is you — I recognise your voice. What do you think you are doing, assaulting me like this? Let me go at once!’
‘I will consider it, when you have answered some questions.’
‘And what if I refuse?’
‘Do you really want to find out?’
Swaddell was silent, weighing his options. He strained briefly against Chaloner’s arm, testing its strength, then gave a sigh of resignation. ‘Very well. What do you want to know?’
‘Why were you with those people?’
‘That is none of your business.’
It was not an auspicious start, and Chaloner moved the dagger slightly, to remind him it was still there. ‘They are suspects for killing Chetwynd, Vine and Langston, so it is my business.’
Swaddell sighed again, impatiently this time. ‘Then why do you think I was there? I am also trying to find the villain who is killing government officials.’
‘Why? Williamson said he has ordered all his people to concentrate on finding the King’s statue.’
Swaddell grimaced. ‘Yes, he has, but where does that leave me? Vulnerable to accusations, that’s where — I am an assassin, and here are three men poisoned. How long do you think will it be before folk put these two “facts” together? To my mind, solving this case is a matter of self-preservation.’
‘You are afraid you will be blamed for committing these crimes?’ Chaloner was bemused.
‘It would not be the first time. And while Williamson is generous with his pay, I am not sure he can be relied upon to stand by me should certain matters come to light. You are a spy, so you understand what I mean. Thurloe would have denied knowing you, if you had been caught … breaking the rules.’
Chaloner was not sure whether to believe him. ‘And does “breaking the rules” entail dispatching the killer when you catch him? Is that why you attended this meeting?’
‘No!’ objected Swaddell. He sounded indignant. ‘I may be an assassin, but I do not spend all my time stabbing people — I have other duties, too. And if you must know, I infiltrated this group some weeks ago, because Williamson was suspicious of its combination of government officials, ex-Commonwealth clerks and wealthy merchants. He thought they might be plotting something dangerous.’
‘And are they?’
Swaddell made a disgusted sound at the back of his throat. ‘I have rarely met a band of men less interested in politics. All they do is pray, plan their next prayers, or debate whether the past ones were sufficiently devout. And occasionally, they talk about what is reported in the newsbooks.’
Chaloner frowned. ‘It is a religious assembly, then?’
‘It is — and tedious in the extreme. When Chetwynd was killed, I wondered whether one of these pious fellows might have done it, because Chetwynd was secretly corrupt, while they are all nauseatingly honest. So I have continued to attend their meetings, to see what I could find out.’
‘And what have you learned?’
‘Nothing!’ spat the assassin, clearly exasperated. ‘I have probed, hedged, blithered, done everything in my power to encourage the culprit to say something incriminating, but my efforts have gone nowhere. I am beginning to think these men might be innocent.’
‘What is the name of the person who did not remove his hat? Not Turner — the other one.’
‘He calls himself John Reeve, but it is probably an alias. I have bumped against him, spilled his coffee, sneezed at him, dropped my pipe in his lap, but even when I do glimpse his face, it is so plastered with pastes and paints that it is impossible to identify. He is not the only one to disguise himself, though. Chetwynd used to do it, and so does Hargrave, on occasion.’
‘Why, if all they do is pray?’
‘You tell me — I am damned if I understand. Now let me go. Standing like this is hurting my back.’
‘What happened to you on Tuesday?’ asked Chaloner, not relinquishing his hold. ‘Jones chased you with a sword, but then you disappeared.’
Swaddell had been trying to ease himself into a more comfortable position, but he stopped moving abruptly. ‘Were you following me?’
‘Why would I do that?’
It was no kind of answer, and Swaddell knew it, but he did not demean himself by asking for a better one. He winced when the dagger nicked his throat. ‘All right! I was trying to listen to what Jones and the others were saying, but I tripped over some rubbish. Jones heard, and came after me like a rampaging bull. The alley I ran down leads nowhere but the river, and I found myself trapped.’
‘Did you push him in the water?’
‘No! Basically, he was such a fat man that he could not stop once he was on the move, and he managed to knock us both in, although I seriously doubt it was deliberate. He sank like a stone, and I managed to climb out. I was sorry for it, but it was hardly my fault.’
‘I see,’ said Chaloner, not about to contradict him and reveal his own role in the incident.
‘The place is deserted at night,’ Swaddell went on. ‘So there was no one about to help me save him. However, it is a rough part of the city, so I do not recommend going there to confirm my tale. No, on second thoughts, do go. There are no ruffians to beat you to a pulp for poking around their domain. None at all.’
Chaloner processed the information. Perhaps Jones had careened on to the wharf too fast to be able to stop, but had Swaddell really been carried in with him? If he had, then it meant he must have been in the water when Chaloner had arrived, because not enough time had passed for him to have climbed out. Moreover, the train-band had been watching the pier hours later, which meant Swaddell must either have swum away, like Chaloner had done, or had waited for the tide to drop. The latter was unlikely, because the cold would have killed him. Or did Swaddell know the soldiers, and they had turned a blind eye when he had scrambled to safety?
The other alternative was that Swaddell had not fallen in the river at all. But then where had he gone? There were no other ways to leave the alley, and he had not been on the pier, because Chaloner would have seen him. The spy was about to demand a more honest explanation when it occurred to him that either scenario meant Swaddell would have seen or heard the train-band fighting with him. Did the fact that he had neglected to mention the incident mean he did not know it was Chaloner who had been doing the battling? Of course, he would know if Chaloner revealed his role by asking questions about it, and as the spy was keen for the train-band to assume he was dead, he decided that learning how Swaddell had extricated himself from his predicament was not as important as staying alive. He went back to the murders.
‘What have you learned about the three victims?’
Swaddell seemed relieved to be talking about something else. ‘Vine had a nasty habit of blackmailing people and Chetwynd seldom gave honest verdicts in the cases he heard, so neither were the saints they would have had you believe. And Langston was just as bad.’
‘In what way?’
Swaddell shrugged. ‘I am not sure, but there was something amiss. I suspect it has something to do with Hargrave and the Lea brothers, because I have seen them glancing at each other when Langston is mentioned. Everyone else leaps to say he was a virtuous man, but they do not.’
Chaloner was not sure what to believe. Some of Swaddell’s answers were plausible, while others were clearly lies or half-truths. ‘Perhaps you are the poisoner,’ he said. ‘And you have gone into hiding so you can continue to murder at will.’
He felt Swaddell wince. ‘There! You see? You cannot find the real killer, so who do you blame? The poor assassin! I knew it would only be a matter of time before fingers started to be pointed. Of course, I happen to have an alibi for all three murders, but has anyone bothered to ask about it? No!’