The Cheapside Corpse by Susanna Gregory Page B

House. While he was there, he would question yet another suspect for Wheler’s stabbing – Baron had moved suspiciously fast to seize the criminal side of Wheler’s operation. Next on the list was DuPont: Long Acre had yielded nothing useful, so Chaloner would have to visit Bearbinder Lane, where the French spy had died. And finally, he had to find Coo’s killers.
    He crossed the bridge over the slimy streak of the Fleet River, then climbed Ludgate Hill towards the shabby splendour of St Paul’s. The cathedral close was busy, business brisk in the stalls that huddled against its massive buttresses. He was assailed by a range of smells as he passed – incense, back in fashion after the Puritan ban; cakes from a tray balanced on a vendor’s head; sewage spilling from a blocked drain; and a sweeter waft from the new grass growing over the graves in the churchyard.
    He soon reached Goldsmiths’ Row, a short but glorious jewel of a lane that ran between Bread and Friday Streets, parallel to and south of Cheapside. When he was a boy, his mother had taught him a rhyme about the beauty of this particular road, and as he walked along it, he understood why poets had been moved to wax lyrical. It was not quite as glittering as it had been in its Elizabethan heyday, but was still impressive – a line of extravagant houses, most plastered with gilt, interspersed with shops that sold some of the most expensive jewellery in the country.
    Taylor’s Bank was the largest and grandest of all, and bespoke old money and good taste. It comprised a large sales area at street level, leading to workshops and a sturdy vault below ground. The shop was opulent, with glass cases holding display after display of sparkling bijouterie – bracelets, necklaces, tiaras, chains of office. Many were works of art that would have taken months to create, and a glance into the workshop revealed artisans and their apprentices bent over benches, their faces taut with concentration.
    Chaloner stated his purpose to a servant, and was conducted to the next floor, which had several offices for clerks and a large chamber for Taylor himself. This was sumptuously appointed, and silver-rimmed mirrors filled it with reflected light. The banker sat behind an ornately carved desk, while two men hovered behind him. One was a younger version of himself; the other was a black-garbed physician with the biggest wig Chaloner had ever seen – the extravagant curls not only fell well past its wearer’s waist, but billowed out at the sides, so it appeared as though he was wearing a large sheep.
    ‘Thank you, Misick,’ Taylor was saying, as the medic proffered a beaker containing medicine. ‘I cannot afford to catch the pestilence when business is at such a critical juncture.’
    Misick, thought Chaloner. Coo’s colleague and
medicus
to the bankers, whom Temperance had recommended as a source of information on the murdered physician.
    ‘One can never be too careful, Father,’ said the younger man. His hair was brown where Taylor’s was grey, and he looked strong and fit, yet he lacked his sire’s charisma and his expression was obsequious. ‘Those who do not take preventatives will certainly die.’
    ‘It will not touch us,’ Misick predicted confidently. ‘How could it, when we all take a daily dose of my Plague Elixir – a potion that the Royal College of Physicians itself has endorsed?’
    Taylor glanced up and seemed to notice Chaloner for the first time. ‘Step away,’ he ordered imperiously. ‘I want a
private
word with my son Evan. Go on. You, too, Misick.
Back
, I say!’
    It was hardly polite, and Chaloner was tempted to say so, but Misick grabbed his arm and drew him to the far side of the room, obviously unwilling to incur the great man’s wrath. Chaloner tugged free, resenting the liberty, a movement that caused him to brush against the wig, which released a thick billow of white powder.
    ‘It is a remedy against fleas,’ Misick explained, while