Access to the Cheshire Cheese was gained, like Crane Court, through a narrow passage off Fleet Street leading to Wine Office Court, a location, as the name suggested, from whence licenses to sell wine were once issued. The nomenclature had been retained, if not the office. The interior of the tavern was a surprise, for with such a narrow entrance it would be expected that it be small and dingy. It was not small, with a number of rooms on the ground and floors above reached by fine-looking staircases, but like most bars it was gloomy, thanks to the ever-present fog of burning tallow and pipe smoke. As the night air was warm the large fireplace was dead, so at least the patrons were spared any billowing smoke from an unswept chimney. The room was sparsely populated, a few men either alone or in groups of two or three, tankards or glasses before them, the guttering candles on the tables bathing their faces in a shifting brown light. Flynt took a moment to study them, nerves alert for any threat, but sensing none. From somewhere beyond this small bar Flynt could hear the sound of a flute accompanying a woman singing a folk ballad about parting lovers. A ragged chorus of voices joined in with the melancholy lyrics at various intervals.
A man whose muscular frame suggested many years of manhandling ale casks and who wore his red hair long and unclasped was stationed behind the bar, both hands resting on the counter as he watched Flynt approach. Although he knew of its existence, Flynt had never before frequented this tavern, so being a stranger, and one dressed in the black of a puritan, albeit with a peacock feather in his wide-brimmed hat, he understood the man’s suspicion.
In a bid to be friendly Flynt ordered a glass of the man’s best brandy. The prospect of a penny or two profit seemed to dissolve, at least partly, the man’s wariness.
Flynt removed his hat and laid it and his cane on the counter near at hand. ‘You are the owner of this fine establishment?’
‘I is,’ said the man, his voice as rough as a badly cobbled street. ‘Matthew Goode at your service, sir.’ He set a glass filled with a generous measure of brandy on the counter and slid away with practised ease the coins Flynt had laid down. ‘You ain’t been in here before, has you?’
‘I confess it is my first visit,’ Flynt said, sipping the liquor. It wasn’t the finest vintage but it was pleasing enough to his palate. He drank mostly when he had to, such as in situations like this, when he found it necessary to somehow ingratiate himself. And nothing ingratiated a person with a tavern keeper easier than buying an expensive drink.
‘And what brings you here this night, sir?’
Flynt smiled, affecting a bashful air. ‘It was recommended that I pay a call to a certain lady who frequents the Cheese.’
Understanding dawned on Goode’s face. ‘You is here looking for business?’
Flynt nodded, still maintaining the aspect of a man embarrassed by his desires. Goode leaned forward, the prospect of turning further coin banishing whatever suspicions he had retained.
‘Which particular lady is it you seek? For there is a number of them what comes by here.’
‘I’ve been given the name Cheshire Sal, for I understand she takes a room above for her services?’
‘She do, and she be right popular with gentlemen such as you, her being clean and free of the flapdragon, so you has no fear of coming away poxed. Fine-looking woman, too, if a bit too proud for a whore. She don’t lie with just anyone and her charges reflect as such.’
‘Then she seems exactly what I’m looking for, for I’m also decided particular with whom I lie.’
‘She would most assuredly be what a fine Scotch gentleman like yourself is looking for, sir, on that you has my word.’ His expression changed, as if someone had recently told him that the purveying of liquor had been proscribed by law. ‘But alas, she ain’t here.’
‘She is elsewhere tonight then? Would you know where?’
Suspicion returned and Goode reared back a little as if to better focus. ‘You is right desperate for a tupping, ain’t you? There is other girls what can see to your needs just as expert as Sal and without the airs and graces neither, so it would save you some coin.’
‘She came highly recommended. And a fine, proud woman is what I like.’
Goode shrugged his reservations away once again, perhaps sensing that the opportunity to pocket Flynt’s cash was dissipating. ‘We all has our tastes but, as I says, she ain’t here.’
‘Will she be here later? I can wait…’
Goode’s head shook. ‘She ain’t been here for two or three nights since. This ain’t no buttocking shop, but I do lets the girls use the upstairs rooms because it’s better than tupping against a wall outside. I ain’t no cock bawd, you understand.’
The man would no doubt take a commission for every cull who was tupped in those rooms, so that did make him a pimp, no matter how much he protested. Flynt didn’t challenge him, for he needed whatever information the man had about the woman.
‘Does she fail to appear here often?’
Goode did not reply but instead served up a flagon of beer to a pot boy who had requested it. The boy seemed no taller than the jug as he tottered away holding it in both hands. Goode watched him for a moment then warned, ‘Spill any of that Stitchbank, lad, and it comes out of your hide.’ He turned back to Flynt. ‘You asks a lot of questions for a gent what just wants to dip his wick.’
Flynt had already palmed some coins and he placed them now on the bar top. ‘Then let this take the place of any further explanation of my interest.’
The coins vanished with equal dexterity as before. ‘Can’t say Sal not showing up here for work is a common occurrence, no. She’s got a few regulars, right popular she is, and they has been asking for her.’
‘Do you know where she lives?’
Goode’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who did you say your friend was what referred you to her?’
Flynt paused only momentarily. ‘Christopher Templeton, lives not far, in Crane Court. Do you know him?’
Recognition reflected in the innkeeper’s eyes. ‘A legal gentleman, ain’t he?’
‘Aye.’
‘Yes, he be one of Sal’s regulars. He must have been telling a lot of gents like you about her, because you ain’t the first to come here asking after her. Two brothers first off, maybe a week or two since, unpleasant-looking gents and not the type Sal would choose to lie with. And another, just this evening, in fact, stood in that very spot on which you stands.’
Given what Saint Roderick had told him about other men making inquiries, Flynt had half-expected to hear that they had been to the tavern, too. Even so, he stiffened at news of one being here so recently. He shot a glance around the room to further study the other patrons. Goode saw the move and barked out a laugh. ‘He ain’t here no more. He asked the same questions as you and then he left.’
Flynt turned back and dropped the affable appearance he had hitherto presented. ‘What did you tell him?’
Goode’s smile faltered as he detected the change in tone and stepped back a pace, his hand reaching under the bar. Flynt peeled back the fold of his coat to reveal his brace of pistols. ‘If you are reaching for a weapon, friend, think again, for I will drop you where you stand.’
Goode swallowed but his movements froze. ‘You ain’t here for no tupping.’
‘I’m not here for trouble, either, Mr Goode.’ Flynt kept his voice low and even, having no desire to alarm the patrons. ‘All I seek is information about the lady Sal and then I will be on my way.’ He slowly eased his left hand into his pocket and produced more coins. ‘And I will leave this behind.’
He carefully dropped the money onto the bar top, but just as Goode made to snatch them away, placed his hand over them.
‘The information first, if you please. Now, the lady – do you know where she lodges?’
Goode shook his head.
Flynt suppressed a sigh. ‘What do you know of her?’
‘Why do you seek her?’
‘I’m paying to ask the questions, not to answer them. Speak, man, what do you know of Cheshire Sal?’
‘I already has told you. She’s a whore and a choosy one at that. She don’t tup just anyone. She likes ’em clean and she likes ’em with manners, like your friend Templeton. Gentlemen, she likes, which is rich for a street drab like her. She uses one of the upstairs rooms, like other girls, when she has the bunce to pay for it, or the cull has. That’s where she’d meet your friend. He would wine her and dine her then tup her. Right sweet he is on her, though not sure she returns the favour.’
‘And that is all you know of her?’
‘That is the size and sum of it, and that’s the straight God’s honest. I don’t ask nothing and they don’t tell nothing.’
‘These other men, what did you tell him?’
‘Same as I’m telling you, though they didn’t threaten me with no barkers, not even the brothers and they had the look of those who would. The fellow tonight was a proper gentleman, he was, paid me my due and then left.’
‘Describe him.’
Goode laughed again, his initial shock at being threatened now worn off. ‘Didn’t pay no attention, did I? You know how many coves come and go in here in a single night?’
Flynt leaned forward. ‘Try.’
Sensing the menace, Goode took a step back. ‘Tall he was, like you, spoke proper well, wore decent duds, like yours. But he had manners, not like you. But what can I expects from a Scotchman?’
Flynt, used to such attitude to his homeland, let the insult slide. ‘Accent?’
‘I already says, spoke proper well, but he was London, I’d hazard.’
‘Hair?’
‘Kept his hat on, didn’t he?’
‘Any scars visible? Anything unique about his appearance?’
‘No scars what I could see, and he was hale and hearty. There’s maybe two dozen men just like him what come in here of an evening.’
‘And the men you thought be brothers?’
‘It were days ago, who can recall?’
Flynt tilted his head and Goode got the message. ‘Ugly creatures, they were, that’s all I can say. If they had spent any more time here, I would be worried about the security of my takings.’
Goode’s eyes dropped to Flynt’s hand as if willing it to raise. Realising there was nothing further to glean, the coins were revealed and Goode snatched them away. Flynt drained the last of the brandy from the glass as he looked at a stairway, briefly considering searching the rooms but rejecting the idea. He had already alienated the man, no point in giving him good reason to call for help. In any case, he believed he had told him everything he knew. Cheshire Sal wasn’t here. Like Templeton, she had vanished. Like Templeton, others searched for her. Flynt felt instinctively that she held the key to where the man had gone. The problem was that the city teemed with women who made their living on the streets and finding one in particular would prove difficult.
Unless you knew people who navigated those same streets every day of their lives.