The Gallows Murders

hailing the landlord, and grandly ordered the best the house could offer. Although thin and scrawny, and at least sixty years of age, Quicksilver ate like a horse and all the time asked me questions. Why had I summoned him? Did I have new medicines? What was he to do?
    I told him all about the Great Mouth and the Poppletons. Quicksilver listened intently, then sat back, rocking with laughter. 'Lord above, Shallot, they'll spend all their time on the jakes. And you put aniseed powder in as well? Their skins will be peppered with pustules.' 'How do you know that?' I retorted. 'You are a quack.'
    Quicksilver's face suddenly went stern. For a brief moment I saw another man behind those eyes. Do you know, I suddenly realised I knew nothing about Quicksilver: who he really was or where he came from.
    'Roger, Roger.' He waggled a finger at me. ‘I have never insulted you. I am not what I appear to be.'
    'Most men aren't,' I quipped. I glimpsed the anger in his eyes. 'I am sorry,' I apologised, and gave him my most winning smile. 'I truly am and, when you have finished, most learned of physicians, there will be four, not three coins.'
    I must have stirred memories in Quicksilver's soul: he leaned forward and hissed, ‘I have heard of you, Shallot, and your doings at court for the great Wolsey' He gave an icy smile. 'I, too, once worked in the shadows of the great ones: summoned at the dead of night to the Tower; taken to secret rooms to sit by the beds of princes to hear their confessions.' He drew back, as if he had said too much. 'But,' he shrugged, 'that's in the past.'
    I never questioned him further. If you live in the shadowy world, as I do, you never ask questions. Take poor Kit Marlowe, killed over a meal. Kit, with his angelic face, mocking mouth and merry eyes. He'd never tell you who he really was. He's twenty years in his grave and already the debate has begun. Was Marlowe a spy? An assassin? Was he an atheist, a Lutheran or a Papist? God knows. The same is true of Will Shakespeare: he's dabbled in enough secrets to provide matter for a thousand plays.
    Old Quicksilver's manner had now changed. Eager for mischief, he waited for my orders. After I whispered to him the plot, he crowed with laughter, clapped his hands and solemnly promised that, by tomorrow, he'd be taking chambers at the White Hart.
    The next day, just before sunset, I walked into our village tavern. I looked around but there was no sign of Quicksilver. I cursed and hoped the thieving bugger hadn't taken my gold and hopped back to London as fast as he could. I sat by the inglenook with my pot of ale, then in comes the Great Mouth's steward, eyes round as saucers, hands all a-tremble. He grasped his tankard, digs his face into it, and then declares for all to here:
    'Good sirs, pray for Mistress Poppleton and her family.' His voice sank to one of those dramatic whispers so beloved of playwrights like Jonson. 'All the farting,' he exclaimed. 'Running like greyhounds for the jakes, their skins covered in pustules and blisters.'
    The plague?' one yokel asked. They say there's a terrible sickness in London!'
    The steward, an inveterate gossip who deeply relished his moment of glory, just shook his head.
    (Oh, my little chaplain's asked a question: why wasn't I recognised? The noddle-pate! When I worked for the Poppletons, ‘I’d been disguised.)
    ‘No one else has caught it,' the steward trumpeted, 'Lord save us. The house stinks like a kennel.'
    ‘You say pimples and pustules?' A voice rang out from the doorway leading to the stairs. Quicksilver stood there in his best fur-trimmed robe, a pair of spectacles upon his nose. His hand tapped the seal (counterfeit, of course), which proclaimed him to be a member of the Guild of Physicians in London. 'Pimples and pustules?' he repeated, sweeping into the taproom. 'And bowels just like water?'
    ‘Yes, sir,' the steward replied, tugging at his forelock and glancing at the landlord.
    This is Dr Mirabilis,' the landlord declared in a hushed voice. 'A physician of London, patronised by the great Cardinal himself. On his way to see relatives in Norwich.'
    Oh Lord. I fought to keep my face straight and stuck my face into my tankard. Quicksilver, of course, acted the part, and old Marlowe would have given his left hand to have seen it. The tavern's best chair was pushed up, and he sat down on it like a king on his throne, looking severely over his spectacles at the steward. 'Pimples and loose bowels,' he