[Master Mercurius 03] - Dishonour and Obey

by Graham Brack

  I explained these thoughts to Arlington, who turned them over in his brain for a while.

  ‘Then may we conjecture,’ he asked, ‘that Mr Wevers was killed on his way to the appointment? Which may, therefore, be no appointment at all, but only a ruse to ensure that his whereabouts at a particular time would be known.’

  There are times when I feel a complete dolt, and this was one. I had been wondering how the killer could have been at the Savoy Hospital at seven o’clock, killed Wevers, moved his body and rejoined us without being noticed, but he need never have been at the hospital. All he needed to know was that Wevers was going to be walking from St Martin’s to the Savoy shortly before seven o’clock. He could even have killed Wevers on his way to join us; at the most it was five minutes’ walk to Laurel’s chosen tavern and even less to the White Cat.

  We busied ourselves in inspecting the contents of Wevers’ chest. Arlington lifted them out onto the bed and we checked each item in turn for hidden documents. When the chest was empty, Arlington sighed. ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

  I was surprised because there were two things I had not found. On the voyage, Wevers had been reading a small New Testament very like my own, but I could not see that anywhere. More to the point, if Wevers had been a spy, I should have expected him to have some kind of writing case so that he could make his reports. It seemed unlikely that he would take a chance on being able to borrow paper and ink wherever he went.

  I knew from one of my previous enquiries that almost any bodily fluid will serve as ink, particularly if secret writing is required. Urine is readily available, and the writing will appear if the paper is heated; but that still requires paper and a nib.

  ‘My Lord,’ I said to Arlington, ‘may I borrow your staff a moment?’

  Arlington handed over the tall staff he carried as a token of his office. I placed one end on the floor beside the chest and marked the top of the chest with my thumb. I then repeated the measurement with the rod on the base of the chest.

  ‘My word!’ Arlington gasped. ‘That is an unusually thick base to a chest. Do you suspect that there might be a secret compartment?’

  I certainly did. ‘It would be inconvenient if the whole contents of the chest had to be emptied any time that Wevers wanted to access it,’ I offered, ‘so let us suppose that it slides out.’

  We dragged the chest forward so that we could see all sides. It seemed to me that the mechanism could not be too delicate because Wevers could not risk it springing open when, for example, it was being loaded aboard ship. Logic suggested that there must be two actions needed, buttons to be pressed simultaneously or some such arrangement.

  The chest was of wood with a leather top held in place by brass studs. The studs themselves were evenly spaced, and the leather covered the whole top except for the hinges. We worked the lid a few times and saw nothing obvious at first, but then it came to me.

  With the lid open as far as possible, you could see, just below the mid-point of the back edge of the chest proper, an iron shield. It looked like a maker’s mark or some similar badge; but why put it on the inside, where nobody would see it? After a bit of experimentation, I found that it would slide upwards by a thumb’s length or so, and that it appeared to be connected to some sort of rod. That iron rod locked the secret drawer and prevented its coming open accidentally. With the rod lifted, I pressed on the lower back rail of the chest and was rewarded with the sound of a spring pushing the drawer out. I carefully slid it forward, and Arlington and I looked at the contents.

  There was a small handgun with a flask of powder and some lead balls, all wrapped in oilcloth. A stylus which would serve as a nib was inserted down the spine of a notebook which proved to include a list of symbols and names, and obviously served as a codebook. Arlington, for example, was BP — perhaps for Black Patch? — whereas the Duke of York was the letter E inside a circle. I was a capital letter L with a crossbar through the stem, converting it to a cross — a holy man from Leiden? — but the most interesting thing we saw was a letter written in Dutch.

  It commanded Wevers to deliver the “encouragement” in the enclosed pouch — which was no longer enclosed — to an Englishman described only as Delphi who had provided useful intelligence to the United Provinces during the late war. Delphi was being instructed to make contact, the letter continued, but given the roundabout route such an instruction would take, it was possible that he would not receive it until after Wevers was in London. Wevers was to ask him some questions about the large ships now in building on the Medway, the supply of information having dried up over the last six months.

  Arlington and I looked at each other.

  ‘Well, Master Mercurius,’ Arlington finally said, ‘this explains a lot!’

  There was a measure of suspicion attached to anyone Dutch, with the result that finding time to myself to gather my thoughts was not easy. However, I hit on the brilliant idea of going to the chapel, safe in the knowledge that the chances any Englishman would be going there must be quite slight.

  I knelt in an attitude of prayer, but I confess that my thoughts were not particularly holy. In fact, they were decidedly infernal, because I was trying to think who Delphi might be. Whoever he was, it was likely that he had betrayed his country and would not want to risk that fact becoming known. He would have had good reason to kill Wevers.

  On the other hand, if that was the motive, it had no connection to the planned marriage and therefore the rest of us would be safe. Wevers would be the only one who could identify Delphi, so he was the only one at risk.

  Ah, I reasoned, but then Wevers did not know who Delphi was, so all Delphi had to do to stay safe was not to make contact with Wevers.

  Ah, yes, I answered myself, but did Delphi know that Wevers did not know who he was, or might he have supposed that Wevers had been told that snippet of information? But then if Wevers had been told, Delphi might erroneously assume that others of our party knew it too.

  I quickly glanced over my shoulder to check that I was still alone. I am not exactly a coward, but I look forward to dying in my bed at a ripe old age. Being found slumped in a chapel with a knife in my back did not appeal.

  It was also preying on my mind that this had happened shortly after an attempt to disrupt the marriage negotiations by incriminating Preuveneers. Had the plotters decided that if one plot had failed, something more spectacular was called for? If not, must I ascribe the proximity of the two events to coincidence? The snag with that was that I do not believe in coincidence. And although I am not a Reformed minister — well, yes, I am, but in a half-hearted sort of way, given my Catholic ordination — it was not easy to shake off the idea that nothing happens by chance on God’s earth. Predestination is a very handy explanation for all kinds of things if you want it to be.

  You see, a coincidence is when two things happen in close proximity but you cannot see why they should be connected. This becomes more pronounced the rarer the events are. For example, if I say that every time I leave the university without my cloak it rains, that may simply reflect the fact that I often forget my cloak, and Leiden is a wet place; but if I say that I stopped walking along a path because a black cat suddenly stepped in front of me, and at that moment a barrel fell from an upper floor where I would have been standing, is that a coincidence? Unless black cats have ways of predicting what barrels do, I can’t see how they can be connected.

  However, if you believe that God intervenes in our lives, maybe coincidences are the way He does that. Perhaps He knows that I will stop if He sends a black cat to me. Since God is then the explanation for the apparent coincidence, there is no longer a coincidence.

  Anyway, if the attempt to incriminate Preuveneers and the murder of Wevers were not coincidental, that meant there was a guiding hand behind them, and until I knew who it was I could not see that I was any further forward. I had to try to discover if anyone had attempted to spare the silversmith from his fate, but I was fairly certain nobody would have d
one.

  I said a quick prayer, pushed myself to my feet and decided to return to my room to await Arlington’s summons which, he had assured me, would be issued as soon as the King had finished breakfast. I had no idea what I was going to do until that happened, sometime in the early afternoon, though.

  As it happened, someone had an idea about how to occupy me. I was sitting by the window in my room and had just opened a book when the door opened and Meg entered.

  ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, sir!’ she said when she saw me. ‘I didn’t expect you would be here.’ She placed my laundered shirt on the bed. ‘Is there somewhere else you’d like me to put that for you, sir?’

  ‘No, thank you. I’ll put it in my chest later.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  I had to confess I was impressed by her industry. I had only put that shirt out for washing that morning and already it was back, clean and well pressed.

  Meg showed no sign of leaving. ‘I’m sorry about your friend, sir. We just heard what happened.’

  ‘Thank you. I didn’t know him very well. We only met on the voyage to England.’

  Meg nodded. ‘Still, sir, if you need any consolation, please say.’

  I may have mistaken her tone, but I was fairly sure that by “consolation” she had in mind something other than an arm round me and a shoulder to cry on. I must own that in the aftermath of what had happened, I wondered if this would be one of those traps you hear about, where a man is seduced into taking a woman into his bed and suddenly the door is flung open and her “brother” accuses you of various kinds of dishonourable conduct and threatens to tell all manner of people what you have been up to unless you pay a suitable compensation for the loss of his sister’s virtue. You only needed a quick glance at Meg to realise that compensation for the loss of her remaining virtue couldn’t cost you more than a farthing or two at the outside, but I would not want to run the risk of exposure. Van Langenburg might have turned a blind eye, William of Orange would probably have regarded it as none of his business, and the Rector would probably not have believed it. What really worried me was what my grandmother would say in such circumstances. It did not bear thinking about.

  ‘Thank you, Meg,’ I said, ‘but I am bearing up thus far.’

  She dipped in a curtsey and left the room. I returned to my book, but only after making a mental note to push my chest across the door when I retired at night. I was less worried about heavily-muscled ruffians than about a young woman whose dress displayed more meat than I had seen away from a butcher’s stall.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was around an hour later that there came a knock at the door and a page announced that Lord Arlington was waiting to conduct me to the King.

  We met at the foot of the staircase and Arlington led the way.

  ‘I regret that His Majesty’s temper has not been improved by our discoveries,’ Arlington murmured as we walked along.

  Mistaking his meaning, I hastened to reassure him. ‘I am sure that my countrymen will not lay the blame for this at His Majesty’s door.’

  ‘And I am sure that His Majesty does not care a fig about that, if you will forgive my plain speaking. It is the prospect of his plans being thwarted that concerns him. He has been speaking with his brother, the Duke of York, about the matter.’

  Since the said Duke was having a loud and discourteous exchange with someone at the other end of the corridor, it was clear that the ill temper was not confined to the King.

  I suppose that this is as good a time as any to record my impressions of James, Duke of York, the King’s younger brother. These will, of course, be coloured by the recollection that he fought against my country, in particular at the Battle of Lowestoft where my brother was killed, and by the short space of time I was present in his company.

  First, as to his laudable parts; I know of no man who doubted his personal courage. Quite apart from his military and naval careers, he had been very active during the Great Fire of London, as was his brother, organising bucket chains and supervising the destruction of buildings in the fire’s path to try to break the onward movement of the flames.

  Second, there was no doubt that he was utterly loyal and principled, at least in matters of religion. Despite his late father’s dying wish, he converted to Catholicism out of a conviction that no other church could save a man’s soul, and he resisted all threats and blandishments to return to the Church of England. He surrendered a number of offices of great profit rather than re-converting.

  However, in this we also see one of his great weaknesses. James was utterly unable to determine between causes worth dying for and those of no lasting import, and could be remarkably stubborn for no sufficient reason. This might not have been a problem, except that Charles’ courtiers could use the fact to their advantage. For example, Arlington and the Earl of Danby had won James’ grudging consent to the marriage of his daughter to William by reminding him that it was the will of the King; having a high view of the Royal Prerogative, James could not oppose his brother even when it was to his disadvantage. While Arlington still believed that James might be behind the obstructions we were encountering, Danby did not, for precisely this reason; that once his brother had declared his will, James had no choice but to acquiesce. Having said that, Danby allegedly said that “the fun would start when James became King” because he would expect the same obedience.

  I will add one other attribute that bears upon these events. James was not rated highly for his intelligence. At the Battle of Lowestoft, James was standing beside a man who was decapitated by a cannonball and was spattered with his brains; which, according to one writer, was the only time he was ever seen to have any brains about him. Charles had a certain cunning. I became convinced that this appearance of pleasure-seeking and devotion to women, feasting and the playhouse was true, but was exaggerated to serve the purpose of making others think that Charles was no threat. They discovered too late that he knew exactly how and when to strike. James, on the other hand, was the sort of man who might have held all the honours in a game of cards and still somehow managed to lose.

  I have mentioned the Earl of Danby, who was strangely absent at this moment. Danby was the King’s Lord High Treasurer and first minister, effectively the head of the government, and a staunch supporter of an alliance with our country. Danby’s view was simple; he loved trade, upon which the prosperity of the Kingdom would be founded, and he knew that the French had nothing to offer in that regard. We, on the other hand, had the spice trade and missions in China and India, and upon the coasts of Africa. If our navies worked together, we could interdict any other nation. King Charles had taken some convincing, but once Danby had persuaded him, the invitation to talk about a marriage had soon issued. I did not know it at the time, but Danby was keeping away in order to force Arlington and others who had opposed the idea to have to take the lead in prosecuting the proposal. This way, they would have a reason for not wanting it to fail — and if it did, Danby would be able to say that his idea was sound but it had been botched by these saboteurs. You had to admire him; I had thought the De Witt brothers were shifty and self-serving, but next to Danby they were but amateurs.

  Anyway, Danby had taken himself off to Yorkshire to attend to some urgent business on his estates. This, so Arlington claimed, was so that if the negotiations with us did not bear fruit, Danby could initiate some with France and protest long and loud that those with our country were nothing to do with him. There was also some certainty on the part of the French that, whatever rumours they may have heard, there could be no serious negotiations with us that would not involve Danby. In fact, Danby had cunningly arranged that the French knew nothing about our visit by inviting the French Ambassador to join a house party in Yorkshire which is, I understand, a distant part of the Kingdom cut off from all news of the court.

  Unfortunately, there was no way of approaching Charles’ presence chamber that avoided meeting the Duke of York, who was walking back and forth outside the
room arguing loudly with one of his secretaries. When he saw us coming, he desisted, and greeted us with an extravagantly courtly bow, which the secretary quickly copied. Arlington was well able to reciprocate, but I have ever been ungainly and my posterior bears the mark of many a doorknob from my attempts to bow well, so I returned the greeting in the German fashion, clicking my heels together and ducking my head abruptly.

  ‘Master Mercurius, I believe?’ the Duke said.

  ‘Indeed so, Your Royal Highness.’

  ‘I understand that you have been introduced to my daughter by the Bishop of London.’

  ‘I have, sir. She is a very accomplished young lady.’

  ‘Isn’t she?’ James responded, with every evidence of satisfaction. This was a little surprising, because most noblemen of my acquaintance can barely tell you how many daughters they have and take little or no interest in them until the time comes to sell them into marriage, but the Duke appeared as proud as any common man might have been.

  That appeared to have exhausted all useful intercourse between us, so James bowed once more and took himself off, resuming his discussion with the secretary further along the corridor.

  I started to speak but was silenced abruptly by Arlington. After a few moments, he removed his hand from my mouth.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I thought it might be useful to know what His Royal Highness was saying to that fellow Coleman.’

  ‘His secretary?’

  ‘Secretary to the Duchess of York. He is a fanatical Catholic, and all London knows he is in the pay of the French.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘I see,’ though in fact I did not.

  ‘The Duke was insisting to Coleman that anyone who is involved in any plot to prevent the marriage is doing him a disservice. I really believe that he does not know who it might be.’