by Graham Brack
‘I was wrong, of course. He knew whether he had been, but he did not know whether he should admit that he had been there in the persona of Morley. Anyway, I became convinced that for some reason Lord Arlington was attempting to frustrate my enquiries and that an impostor had been substituted for Morley. And I was even more convinced when the interview ended and I ran out to the garden and looked in through the window, because I could see then that the person behind the screen was none other than Captain Hallow.’
Charles looked sharply at Arlington as if to say that he had bungled badly in allowing that to happen.
‘This was a considerable annoyance to me, as you may well imagine,’ I continued. ‘How could I complete my investigation if the very person charged by Your Majesty with assisting me was impeding my search for the truth? I stopped sharing my discoveries freely with His Lordship, fearing that he would put new obstacles in my path. I despaired of bringing my efforts to a successful conclusion. But I have come to realise that I was mistaken. What possible motive could Lord Arlington have for interfering with my enquiry, particularly because he would be defying Your Majesty in doing so?’
Charles nodded enthusiastically as if it was completely unthinkable that Arlington would do a thing like that. Kings expect to be obeyed; they do not anticipate that their trusted ministers should do otherwise. Arlington simply looked relieved that I was not going to allege malfeasance against him.
‘But if there was no deception,’ I said, ‘then I could see only one conclusion. Captain Hallow and Morley were the same man. And I see from Lord Arlington’s face that this is indeed so.’
‘God’s wounds!’ exclaimed the King. ‘Is it, Arlington?’
‘It is, Your Majesty,’ Arlington replied. He had the look of a man who would much rather be tending to his garden at Euston, and expected shortly to be doing just that. All day, every day.
‘Well, why didn’t you say so, man?’ thundered Charles.
‘I did not know that there was any suspicion attached to him, Your Majesty. I thought he was only wanted as a witness, but if his identity were revealed, as it now has been, he is of no further use to us.’
Charles was not accustomed to whispering, and as a result he did not do it very well, so when he tried I could hear him quite clearly. ‘Have we paid him a lot?’
‘Above a hundred pounds a year, Your Majesty, I believe.’
Charles shrugged. ‘At least there’ll be a saving there,’ he muttered.
I waited for permission to continue.
‘Are you done, Master?’ Charles asked.
‘Not quite, Your Majesty. I have three more things to treat of.’
‘Dear God,’ murmured Charles. ‘It’s longer than one of Compton’s sermons.’ He waved to me to continue.
‘Those three matters are these. Who was the accomplice? Who is Delphi? And why would Hallow want to kill Wevers anyway? We have already heard that Hallow was employed by this country as a spy, but he was also taking money from my country. I expect that if Mr Coventry had known that, his employment here would have ceased. After all, a man cannot serve two masters.’
‘Ha!’ cried Charles, suddenly sitting upright. ‘That’s in the Bible, isn’t it?’
‘Your Majesty is well instructed,’ I said, and I meant it. Many of my undergraduates would not have recognised a quote from Matthew chapter six, verse twenty-four. “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.”
‘But why should this become known?’ I asked. ‘Wevers did not know who Hallow was. He knew of Apollo and Delphi, perhaps, but not their identities. He would inevitably discover who Delphi was if they met, but he need never have found out about Apollo.
‘I said earlier that I was not convinced that Delphi existed. Perhaps Hallow had invented him and was pocketing the fees paid to both Delphi and Apollo, but then why complicate the picture by concocting such a person?’ I looked around and saw that the man I wanted had been found and was standing at the back under guard. ‘Then it became clear to me. There is a man here whose character has been under a shadow, and I hope to lift it. The obvious suspect for the identity of Delphi was a man who previously worked for the Admiralty but who, a few months past, moved to a new post at Trinity House. Is that not so, Mr Dawkins?’
Dawkins attempted to rush forward but was stopped by a blow from a guard’s truncheon which dropped him to the floor.
‘Pray do not hurt him!’ I exclaimed. ‘He is not such a villain as I thought. It is true that Dawkins supplied the information that Hallow sold to my country. But he did so not as a traitor, but in the belief that Hallow was authorised to have it as a Captain of militia. He used his military commission to go places where others could not go. Having gained the trust of Dawkins, he interrogated him for the information he retailed. Dawkins may, perhaps, have been too trusting; but he was not wicked.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ growled Charles.
‘The point here, Your Majesty, is twofold. First, Dawkins could not unwittingly supply any more information of interest to Hallow now that he had changed employment; and Hallow could see the payments from the United Provinces ending. He needed that money to live the life he wanted, particularly to pay his gambling debts. But if he allowed Wevers to meet Dawkins, Wevers would discover that Dawkins had never thought that he was a spy and that no more information would be forthcoming. Hallow therefore arranged a rendezvous that purported to come from Dawkins, but was actually an appointment with death that he proposed to keep. And he arranged for his agent in this palace to slip it under Wevers’ door.’
I was rewarded with another gasp.
Charles was indignant. With his heavy black eyebrows he was particularly good at being indignant. ‘There has been someone here working for this scoundrel!’
‘There has, Your Majesty.’
‘Name the man!’
‘By your leave, sir, let me first explain how they were identified. Many of us are people of habit. We do the same things in the same way day by day; so when someone does something different, we wonder why. When we came here, Wevers and I were assigned the services of a young maid called Meg. She had not been here long, a fact which was verified by Mrs Paston. Now, we men do not generally notice female servants.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ grinned Charles.
‘Leaving that aside,’ I said, not a little flustered, ‘we do not usually notice who serves us. But women do. They have much more to do with them, so if Mrs Paston did not recognise Meg, we may assume that she was newly arrived. So I went to the Treasury to ascertain when she first came, and I found that she came into service just two weeks before our party arrived. As one of the junior maids, she was assigned to the junior members of the party, Wevers and myself. It was a lucky chance that she was given Wevers to attend to, but she could have worked her mischief even if she was not, once she had been admitted to the building. With leave to go into Wevers’ chamber, she was able to search for anything that incriminated Hallow, though she seems not to have discovered the secret compartment in the chest. I found Meg in my room looking through papers, but she passed it off as tidying. But that was not her most suspicious action.’
Charles interrupted. ‘Master Mercurius, have you a deal more to say? For if you have, for God’s sake go away and write a book about it.’
‘Not much more, Your Majesty. I noted that on the morning after Wevers died, the laundry was taken from my room in the usual way. But when I looked in Wevers’ room, his laundry was still there. His bed did not need making, because he had not slept in it, but at the time when I looked in it was not generally known that Wevers was dead. So why had Meg taken my laundry, but not Wevers’, unless, I suppose, she knew that he would not have need of laundry any longer? How did she know he was dead before others did?
‘Then at the banquet I noticed another unusual matter. With so many candles and the fire blazing, it was a very warm ev
ening. The servants went about their business with their sleeves rolled up and, where possible, their shirts unfastened at the neck. Yet Meg was serving me wearing a large, old-fashioned collar. It covered her like a shawl. But she needed to, you see, because she only has one serving dress, like most of the servants here. And it had been splashed on her right shoulder with Wevers’ blood when she stabbed him.’
The gasps I had received earlier were nothing compared with what I heard now.
‘When we arrived, she made overtures of a very familiar nature to both myself and Wevers and was rebuffed. I do not think that they were genuine, certainly not in my case. She wished to give that impression. And I believe that she was lying in wait for Wevers by that alleyway. When he came towards her, she stepped out and made to kiss him. He may have tried to avoid the unwanted kiss, but he did not see the dagger she plunged into his breast. She gripped him tightly to her, disguising her true action, and then Hallow stepped forward and together they took Wevers into the alleyway and left him there. No doubt she was able to pin him upright against the wall or a fence while Hallow searched him and retrieved the purse. To a passer-by she would look like a whore with a client.
‘Then, when they were done, she removed the dagger and let him fall to the ground. Blood might dribble when the dagger was removed, but they had stepped to one side so that she was only slightly spattered at that point because the heart was not beating any longer. And finally she wrapped herself in her cloak to conceal the blood on her dress and went off to clean herself while Hallow continued to The White Cat to establish that he had been there all along. I think that perhaps that company was too rowdy and he feared that they might not recall his presence, so he later came to join Mr Laurel’s group and took a little wine with us.
‘It was Meg who stole Vlisser’s dagger; Meg who told Hallow of the planned entertainments; and Meg who took Wevers’ New Testament. She may have thought it was the codebook that Lord Arlington and I found; the two were similar in appearance, and since the Testament is in Dutch, Meg could not read it.’
Charles rose to his feet. ‘Is this woman here?’
The guards I had dispatched earlier dragged Meg forward.
‘What have you to say for yourself?’
Meg began to cry and simply shook her head. Arlington stepped forward with a candle and lifted her collar.
‘There are stains here, Your Majesty, just as the Master described.’
Meg pulled away from the candle’s flame.
‘That’s not the worst flame you’ll face, my girl!’ said Charles.
His words had the most terrible effect upon Meg, who screamed for mercy.
‘I can hang a man, but ’twere indecent to raise a woman in skirts up,’ said Charles. ‘Aiding a foreign agent can only be treason, the sentence whereof is to be burned alive at the stake.’
Meg threw herself on the floor, racked with sobs.
‘If I may, Your Majesty,’ I said, ‘I may bring forward one reason for mercy. I decided early that Meg had done the stabbing, but I did not know why. Then, when I saw the pay records of the court, it became clear. This is Meg Hallow; Captain Hallow is her brother.’
‘What!’ bellowed Charles, and turning to Hallow, asked, ‘You villain, is this true?’
‘It is, Your Majesty,’ Hallow said.
‘He told me that the Dutch gentleman was a spy,’ said Meg, who no longer sounded quite as common as heretofore. ‘In killing him, we were protecting this Kingdom.’
‘You should have known better than to trust the word of such a blackguard,’ pronounced Charles. ‘Whatever he claimed, you deliberately compassed the death of a man, and that’s murder. You won’t burn alive, perhaps, being strangled before the flames are lit, but you’ll still burn.’
Arlington bent over to whisper in the royal ear.
‘What? Oh, I suppose so,’ Charles murmured. ‘That’s all a matter for the judges to decide, and I shan’t influence them. But if they condemn you, don’t expect clemency from me.’
I stood despondent. My work was done, and it was to cost a man and a woman their lives; but that would not bring poor Wevers back to us.
‘Take them away,’ ordered Charles. ‘Master Mercurius, you have told a curious tale, and have earned our thanks for your diligence and intelligence in opening this mystery to us. But now I think we must quit this hall and attend to happier things. Let us all retire for an hour while refreshments are made ready. Master, I would speak to you in private.’
I bowed and made to follow.
‘Wait here ten minutes,’ said Charles. ‘After so long a discourse on your part, I badly need to use the privy.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
When I was admitted to Charles’ presence, he had removed his wig and was sitting with his feet in a bowl of perfumed water. ‘I feel a gout coming on,’ he explained. ‘And I am weary of spirit. Such treachery beneath my very nose! I am surprised that my ministers were not alert to it.’
Arlington had a face like a disgusted frog but wisely held his peace.
‘The sooner Danby is back to take the reins again, the better! Where is the man, anyway? Why desert me when I need him most?’
Because you need him most, I thought. It’s his way of reminding you of that. But I said nothing either.
‘You have earned our thanks, Mercurius. A stain on our hospitality can be erased. I want to show my gratitude. Arlington, have we got a bishopric vacant at the moment?’
‘Norwich, Your Majesty. But may I point out that Master Mercurius, while admirable in his faith, is not a minister of the Church of England?’
‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said Charles. ‘I’m Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Can’t I decide who is a member of the Church and who isn’t?’
‘It would be … irregular,’ Arlington said, but quickly added, ‘though no doubt within your powers.’
‘Well, I suppose it would only annoy my nephew if I pinch his best clergy,’ Charles conceded.
And that is how close I came to being appointed Bishop of Norwich. Of course, being a closet Roman Catholic might have caused me some scruples, and I am fairly certain that my bishop in the Low Countries would have taken the news very badly, but it might have been fun. When I found out where this place Norwich was, I discovered that I would have been the local bishop for the Pastons, which would have given me the opportunity to enjoy the company of Mrs Paston and confuse Mr Paston unutterably with my sermons; but it was not to be, and that is probably for the best.
‘Arlington, give Mercurius here some suitable reward. I leave it to you.’
‘If I may, Your Majesty,’ I said, ‘there is one thing I would esteem more than anything else as a reward.’
‘Name it,’ said Charles.
‘I may be thought too tender of heart,’ I said, ‘but I believed Meg when she said that her brother deceived her. It would be very hard to condemn a young girl when one who should have protected her has used her in this way.’
Charles was chivalrous by nature. He liked pleasing women. ‘I understand your feeling, Mercurius, but I cannot interfere in the workings of the courts.’
‘Indeed not, Your Majesty. And she will be convicted and sentenced. But Your Majesty can then show her mercy.’
Charles thought this over. ‘I’ll pardon her on the occasion of my niece’s wedding. How’s that? Arrange it, Arlington. Just make sure I don’t pardon her brother by mistake.’
‘There is a great demand for women as wives in our American colonies, Your Majesty,’ Arlington reminded him.
‘So there is. Well, let’s send the murderess there. She’ll feel at home among others of her kind. Should we brand her first, or will it make it harder to get someone to take her as a wife?’
‘Frankly, Your Majesty, they are so desperate for Englishwomen I do not think it matters one way or the other, but we may as well not take the chance,’ answered Arlington.
Dismissed while the King dressed again, Arlington and I walked to his su
ite.
‘Are you looking for a wife?’ Arlington asked. ‘The King has some unwanted mistresses and would be pleased to equip you with a house and a good living.’
‘Thank you,’ I replied, ‘but I do not think any woman should be compelled to live with me. I am most at home in a library. I am not ready for domesticity.’
Mind you, had I seen some of his discarded mistresses before opening my mouth, I might well have held my tongue.
In the event, when we sailed back to Holland I had a couple of things in my chest that had not come with me. One was a beautiful little Book of Hours from the King’s personal library, and the other was a casket containing gold coins. I am not going to say how many there were, but if you know the number of the Beast you would not be far wrong.
I did not tell William of my reward. He was a little put out to discover that we would not be receiving any more secrets from Dawkins. I had feared for that young man, but Pepys was able to shield him from retribution. On the other hand, William was pleased that Van Langenburg had successfully concluded the marriage negotiations. I had expected that he would be disappointed not to receive more cash in the dowry, but he brushed that off.
‘I don’t want money, Mercurius. I want men. Charles’ armies are worth more to me than any amount of money, especially if he is paying them. No, I’ll soon have them at my disposal and we’ll finally give King Louis a bloody nose. I’d better make the most of it before Uncle James succeeds and tries to undo the whole thing; but he can’t undo a marriage.’ William clapped me on the shoulder. He probably thought it was manly and playful, but it shook my teeth. ‘You’ve done well, Mercurius. I’m grateful. Bouwman has something for you outside. And now, farewell. Until the next time.’
There won’t be a next time, I thought. I’ll enter a monastery if I have to. I’ve had enough of your “little jobs”.
The “something” was a little brother for Charles’ casket. Taken together, I had the equivalent of around nine thousand guilders. [Van der Meer whistled as he wrote this down. He has been treating me with more respect since. I suspect he thinks there may be some left. I’m not going to tell him.]
