The Gallows Murders

those lads out who haven't got a woman.' 'And did you see Allardyce there?' I asked.
    'Oh, for the love of God!' Horehound snapped petulantly.
    'I went to visit him.' Mallow spoke up. The infirmary's a small, two-storey building. Allardyce was on the upper floor. I went up and left a small jug of wine. The door was open. Allardyce was lying on the bed. He looked like a soaked rag.'
    Benjamin drained his tankard and put it down on the table. "You have nothing to say?' he said again.
    They chorused their denials once more, so we thanked them and walked out of the tavern. 'A fine collection, eh, Roger?' Agrippa teased.
    'A motley group of moult worms,' I growled. ‘I don't like hangmen and that group in particular. Master, they are far too close, their answers are too smooth, well prepared. And, don't forget,' I added, 'that many of them had the education to write those letters, and enough accomplices in the city to assist their nefarious work. Perhaps everyone of them is guilty, and they all conspired to kill Undershaft and Hellbane because they objected.'
    I glimpsed the doubt in Benjamin's eyes. 'Though I confess, Master, where they got the seals from and how they were able to communicate when the Tower was locked and sealed is a mystery.'
    'Which brings us back to Spurge's maps,' Benjamin said.
    He was about to walk on but paused. 'Roger, why did you ask about the clerk of the stores?'
    I pulled a face. 'Master, I just wondered. Is it possible that Allardyce did not really die, but that his sickness and death was a sham? He leaves the Tower to act on behalf of his accomplice within?'
    Benjamin smiled. We'll go back to the Tower. Roger, seek out this old woman Ragusa: have a look at the sick room. Agrippa and I will seek out Master Spurge and demand to see his maps and charts.'
    When we reached the royal apartments in the Tower, Agrippa and Benjamin went down to see Spurge. I wandered across the green, past the great Norman keep. A soldier, lounging in the sunshine mending his harness, pointed out the way: I entered a deserted yard, the cobblestones cracked and overgrown with weeds. At the far end stood a small, red-brick building which had been built beside the wall. I went across, pushed open the door, and peered through the gloom.
    'Have you come to be milked?' a voice crackled out of the darkness.
    An old woman came forward, peering at me. By my own witness I am no beauty, but neither was she. Her hair, a dirty white, hung straggling down to bowed shoulders, her face was deathly pale. She had little black eyes and a thin slit of a mouth under a hooked nose. If I had been asked to name a witch in London, I'd have chosen Ragusa. She was dressed from head to toe in a dark, dirt-stained smock. I tried not to wrinkle my nose at the sour smell, which came either from her or the shabby little room in which she lived. She laughed at me and went back in. I heard a tinder spark as she lit a squat tallow candle. The room looked better in the dark. The rushes on the floor were soiled and looked as if they hadn't been changed for months. Tawdry rags hung on the walls, and in one corner was a cot-bed with a battered trunk beside it which served as a table. There were a few sticks of furniture, and shelves lined the wall, each bearing pots, jugs and small cups, all neatly labelled. The old woman followed my gaze.
    'Is it physic you need, Master?’ She whined, looking at me from head to toe. ‘Physic of the mind or the body?'
    ‘No, just some answers, Mother,' I replied.
    'Questions cost money too.' Her face cracked in a smile. I twirled the silver coin before her eyes. She went to grab it but I pulled it away.
    'What is it you want?'
    The clerk, Allardyce,' I said. ‘You tended him when he was ill?
    That's right, but there was little I could do for him. He came here on the Tuesday, he was dead by Thursday. Drenched in sweat, buboes in his armpits and groin.' Her thin, bony fingers clawed the air. There's no cure for that. I just gave him valerian drops to make him sleep and ease his pain.' 'And you are sure it was he?'
    The old woman cackled. ‘Why shouldn't it be? Who'd pretend to have the sweating sickness, take valerian, and then offer to die? Are you witless, man?' 'But it was Allardyce?' I asked. 'Of course!' she snapped. 'And you saw him die?'
    'Of course I did! I found him in the chamber upstairs.' She pointed to a flight of rickety stairs in the far corner. 'I heard a crash and went upstairs. He was half on, half