Death in St James's Park: 8 (Exploits of Thomas Chaloner)

by Gregory, Susanna

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ said Freer soothingly. ‘It does not matter now.’

  ‘It matters very much,’ countered Gery in a hiss. ‘And it always will. You are a fool if you dismiss a man’s past allegiances.’

  ‘I hear you have been asked to investigate dead ducks in St James’s Park, Tom,’ said Morland before Freer could respond. He grinned nastily. ‘I hope you do not find it too taxing.’

  ‘Well, this is not St James’s Park,’ snapped Gery, as Morland had doubtless intended. ‘And the Earl specifically ordered you to stay away from the Post Office.’

  Chaloner regarded him coolly. ‘He did not forbid me to send letters to my family. Besides, Edward Storey is the royal Curator of Birds, and his house is near here.’

  ‘I do not believe you,’ said Gery immediately.

  ‘Actually, he is telling the truth,’ said Morland with a regretful sigh. ‘Storey lives next door.’

  ‘And why are you here, Gery?’ Chaloner went on an offensive of his own. ‘To apologise to Controller O’Neill?’

  ‘Apologise?’ Confusion flashed in Gery’s eyes. ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘Because the Earl charged you to explore unsavoury dealings here, but you failed to protect it from an explosion. Neither can be very pleased with you.’

  ‘My work is none of your affair,’ shouted Gery, outraged. ‘Now get out of my way and go and investigate your ducks. And stay away from the Post Office in future, because if I catch you here again, I will … I will …’ He trailed off, too incensed to form coherent words.

  ‘You would be wise to do as he says, Tom.’ Morland smiled sweetly. ‘You do not want Clarendon to think even more badly of you than he does already. He was telling me only today that you are insolent, disreputable and rebellious. Hardly attractive qualities in a retainer.’

  He turned to walk up the steps. Gery followed, still seething. Freer was last. The soldier winked as he passed, an unexpected gesture of support that Chaloner found heartening.

  Although he should have gone to visit Storey straight away, it would have been tantamount to following Gery’s orders, and the stubborn streak in Chaloner baulked at that notion. Instead, he went to stand next to Stokes, who was still gazing at the crater. There was no sign of the two Anglo-Dutchmen, and he assumed they had been driven away by the cold.

  ‘Do not have anything to do with that villain,’ Stokes said. ‘He was a spy during the Commonwealth, and was infamous for using bribery and corruption to get what he wanted.’

  ‘Morland?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘No, I am talking about Dorislaus, who was here earlier. Do not be fooled by his friendly nature, because it is an act – in reality, he is a liar and a rogue. Perhaps he was a spy too long.’

  ‘I see,’ said Chaloner, hoping no one thought the same about him.

  ‘Have you heard of this mysterious fellow called Bankes?’ Stokes went on. ‘He is interested in the General Letter Office, and has put it about that he is in the market for accurate information. Reports can be left for him at the Crown tavern or the Antwerp Coffee House, and if the intelligence is good, he has promised to pay very handsomely.’

  Knight had also mentioned Bankes, and Chaloner wondered how many investigations of the postal service were currently in progress – it seemed Bankes had one; there was Gery’s; Spymaster Williamson would certainly be exploring the rumours; and there was Chaloner’s own. Would they all fall over each other in their quest for the truth?

  ‘It is damned sinister,’ Stokes went on when there was no reply. ‘Why should anyone pay for that sort of thing? And what does he plan to do with what he learns anyway?’

  They were good questions, and Chaloner supposed he had better track Bankes down and put them to him. Idly, he wondered whether it was Bankes who had left the gunpowder-loaded cart in Post House Yard the previous day.

  He loitered with Stokes until Gery, Morland and Freer emerged from the General Letter Office, although none of them noticed him. Part of him was disappointed, as he would have liked Gery to know that he had been defied, but his wiser self was relieved – antagonising a man with the power to make life difficult for him was both foolish and pointless.

  He was about to visit Storey when a shiny black carriage drew up beside him. When it stopped, Controller O’Neill alighted, and turned to offer his hand to Kate. She leaned on him rather heavily, causing him to stagger. She issued a shrill shriek of alarm, and might have taken a tumble, had Chaloner not darted forward to steady her.

  ‘Those damned horses cannot stand still for a minute,’ grumbled O’Neill, although Chaloner had not seen the beasts move. ‘I should shoot them all.’

  ‘Not before I shoot your clerks,’ muttered Kate venomously. ‘Corrupt, every one of them.’

  ‘Watch your step, Wood,’ called O’Neill over his shoulder to the remaining occupant of the coach. ‘The nags are restless and may bolt.’

  The last passenger was Sir Henry Wood, an elderly fellow with an ugly face, thin hair and a grey beard. He gulped his alarm at O’Neill’s pronouncement, and Chaloner was sorry he should have been needlessly frightened. He offered his hand, which was seized gratefully.

  ‘Fanatics,’ he whispered as he scrambled out, fixing Chaloner with eyes that were a peculiar amber colour, rather like a wolf’s. ‘I cannot abide them. Can you?’

  ‘Er … no,’ replied Chaloner, when he saw that Wood was not going to release his hand until he had received an answer.

  ‘Look what they did to my house,’ Wood went on, whipping around suddenly to point at a very small dent on the door. ‘Fanatics!’

  ‘They did much worse to my poor clerks,’ said O’Neill ruefully. ‘The Alibond brothers.’

  ‘He is the Controller, you know,’ said Wood, speaking as though O’Neill were not there. ‘It cost him thousands of pounds to buy the job, but it is a burdensome responsibility. He should have asked the King for something better. Such as Master of the Revels. That would be far more fun than reading other people’s letters.’

  ‘I do not read other people’s letters!’ exclaimed O’Neill indignantly. ‘It would be—’

  ‘Of course you do,’ interrupted Wood. ‘You and Spymaster Williamson. And then you chew up the ones that are dull or treasonous, spit them out and use them for compost. Personally, I would never set foot in the General Letter Office. It is far too dangerous. Who are you?’

  The last question was directed at Chaloner.

  ‘He is Mr Chaloner,’ supplied Kate helpfully. ‘Married to Hannah, who invited my husband and me to her lovely house the other night. Monsieur le Notre was there and it was—’

  ‘Chaloner the regicide?’ demanded Wood. ‘I thought he was older. Or has he used magic to shed the years? If so, I would not mind sharing his secret, because I should like to look younger myself. So would my wife, although she is dead now, poor soul.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said Chaloner, and was flailing around for an expression of condolence that sounded a little more sincere when Wood was off again.

  ‘I cannot bear potatoes. Have you ever seen one? Nasty, malevolent things. But they are nothing compared to radishes, which are agents of the devil.’

  ‘Radishes?’ Chaloner had known that Wood was reputed to be eccentric, but no one had mentioned him being insane.

  ‘Terrible creations. But I had best be on my way. Thank you for the ride, O’Neill. It was kind of you, although you should invest in a proper carriage. I do not hold with sledges.’

  ‘It is not a sledge,’ objected Kate, startled. ‘It—’

  ‘Of course it is a sledge,’ snapped Wood. ‘There is snow on the ground, is there not?’

  ‘Well, yes, a light smattering,’ acknowledged Kate. ‘But—’

  ‘Then it is a sledge,’ declared Wood with finality. ‘Only sledges can glide across snow. It is a scientific fact.’ He turned abruptly and scuttled into his house; his next words were yelled through the door that he had slammed be
hind him. ‘Radishes will strike again with their barrels of gunpowder, you mark my words. And they killed my servant Joyce.’

  ‘Ignore him, Chaloner,’ instructed O’Neill with a long-suffering sigh. ‘He cannot help being odd, and the death of his wife has unhinged him even further.’

  ‘So has the shock of yesterday’s explosion, I imagine,’ added Kate. ‘I suppose he deserves our compassion, but it is hard to be patient sometimes.’

  ‘He will get himself skewered if he goes around making unfounded accusations, though,’ said O’Neill resentfully. ‘I have never read – or chewed – a letter addressed to someone else in my life, and I certainly do not allow spymasters inside my domain.’

  ‘And I am not a regicide,’ said Chaloner with a smile, thinking there was no harm in cultivating their friendship, objectionable though that might be, if he was to investigate the Post Office.

  O’Neill smiled back. ‘Well then, all is right with the world.’

  * * *

  As Chaloner crossed Post House Yard to Storey’s house, he was distracted yet again, this time by Spymaster Williamson, who had arrived with a team of minions to sift through the rubble in the hope of finding clues as to what had happened.

  Joseph Williamson had been an Oxford academic before deciding that the government needed his array of dubious talents. At first, his intelligence service had been embarrassingly inept because he had insisted on employing only Royalists, who were mostly novices in espionage. They had improved since and so had he, although his operation still fell far short of Thurloe’s. He and Chaloner had worked together in the past, although wariness and dislike persisted on both sides.

  ‘I hear you are investigating the dead ducks in the park,’ said Williamson, fixing Chaloner with an expression of haughty amusement. ‘Is it true?’

  ‘The King’s dead ducks,’ Chaloner pointed out.

  ‘Then I hope you find your culprit. We do not want “fowl” killers stalking our streets.’ Williamson chortled at his own joke, a curious sound that Chaloner had never heard before: the Spymaster rarely attempted wit. ‘However, I hope it will not interfere with your enquiries into yesterday’s explosion, a matter that is rather more pressing, as I am sure you will agree.’

  ‘Gery is exploring what happened at the Post Office, not me.’

  ‘Really?’ Williamson stared at him, humour evaporating. ‘I doubt he is equal to the task.’

  ‘The Earl disagrees.’ Chaloner wanted to end the conversation, uncomfortable discussing his master’s decisions with the nation’s Head of Intelligence. Moreover, being obliged to admit that he had been supplanted by the likes of Gery was galling.

  ‘So can I assume that you have decided to conduct your own inquiry, then?’ asked Williamson.

  ‘No, you cannot,’ replied Chaloner shortly. Was he really so transparent?

  ‘Of course you are. Why else would you be loitering in the Post House Yard? I do not blame you. Something untoward has been unfolding here for weeks, and your Earl might be accused of complicity if it comes to fruition. The Post Office is not usually a lord chancellor’s responsibility, but Clarendon’s enemies on the Privy Council have foisted it on him, and will use any trouble to do him harm. And if he falls, so will you.’

  ‘I am not investigating,’ said Chaloner firmly, afraid Williamson might mention it to the Earl, at which point he would be dismissed for certain. ‘Clarendon has forbidden it.’

  Williamson frowned his mystification. ‘I wonder if his wits are astray following the death of his son. Did he tell you about it? It happened when you were in Sweden. Young Edward died of the small-pox, like Mary Wood.’

  Chaloner had been told of the Earl’s loss, but it had not occurred to him that grief might be responsible for his master’s recent peculiar decisions. If so, the situation was worrisome, because the Earl was responsible for far more important matters than the deployment of his household staff.

  ‘Have you heard anything about what happened here?’ asked Williamson, nodding towards the crater. ‘I have spies in the Post Office, of course, but they have discovered nothing of value so far.’

  Despite his aversion to the Spymaster, Chaloner would far rather he solved the case than Gery, so he decided to share what he had seen and reasoned.

  ‘The gunpowder was on a cart, concealed beneath firewood,’ he began. ‘It was a sizeable vehicle, and a horse would have been needed to bring it here. However, the shafts were empty, so the driver had obviously led it away to safety. It was what made me suspicious.’

  ‘It was you who yelled the warning?’ Williamson nodded before Chaloner could answer. ‘Yes, of course it was. Your vigilance commends you.’

  ‘Whoever is behind the explosion did not bring the gunpowder here himself,’ Chaloner went on. ‘He hired someone else to do it – someone who is poor, and who baulked at sacrificing a horse.’

  ‘Not necessarily. He might have been fond of the beast.’

  ‘Then he would not have used it to transport explosives. Moreover, gunpowder is expensive, which means a considerable sum of money was invested in the attack. Would the culprit really risk failure just to save an animal?’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Williamson was trying to sound uninterested, but there was a keen spark in his eyes.

  ‘Also, if he had delivered the stuff himself, he would have positioned the cart in a place where it would do the most damage to buildings and people—’

  ‘But it was in the middle of the square,’ mused Williamson. ‘Not only well away from the General Letter Office and its adjoining houses, but where there were the fewest bystanders.’

  ‘Quite. I suspect his hireling either did not care enough about the mission to risk being caught by driving closer, or had not bothered to familiarise himself with the way gunpowder works.’

  ‘Which the real culprit would have done, given the expense. Very well. What else?’

  ‘There was a musician who attracted a crowd of listeners, and who disappeared after the blast. You might want to find out whether his presence was innocent, or whether he enticed people to linger in the hope that they would be killed or injured.’

  Williamson nodded slowly. ‘Although that would be an unpleasant solution. It means someone left the powder not to destroy a building or disrupt the post, but to beget a massacre.’

  Chaloner said nothing. He had met plenty of people in London who would not hesitate to use such means to achieve their twisted purposes, and so had Williamson.

  ‘Anything else?’

  Chaloner nodded. ‘A man named Bankes has been buying information – about the explosion, and about the Post Office and London in general. Perhaps you should ask why he should be interested, and what he intends to do with the intelligence once he has it.’

  ‘Do you know where I might find him?’

  ‘No, but he can be contacted via the Antwerp or the Crown. It should not be too difficult to lay hold of him when he goes to collect his reports.’

  Williamson nodded his thanks, and returned to his men without another word. Seeing he was dismissed, Chaloner walked away.

  He knocked on Storey’s door, noting that someone had already started to repair the damage to the carved pelican – chalk marks showed where replacement legs would be sited. A plain maid in an unattractive bonnet answered, and conducted him to a parlour at the back of the house. As he followed, Chaloner realised that although the cottage looked modest from the square, it was unusually deep, and all the windows on the south side looked out on to the courtyard that was shared with the General Letter Office.

  Unfortunately, it was not an inspiring view. The flagstones were cracked and sprouted weeds, the sundial was broken, and the shrubs that had once been elegantly petite were now overgrown giants that blotted out the light. Directly opposite was the Post Office’s disused wing, a mournful display of sagging gutters, lichen-encrusted walls and windows with dirty shutters.

  Storey’s parlour was pleasant though, with a blazing fire and cushion-f
illed chairs. The walls were crowded with paintings, every one depicting a bird, while fowl also appeared in a design woven into the carpet, on the carved handles of the fire tongs, and etched into the coal shuttle.

  The Curator of Birds was chubby, clean shaven and white haired. He was entertaining a visitor already, and Chaloner stepped aside so that the maid could go in first and announce him – it was hardly good manners to join them otherwise – but she had disappeared, leaving him to surmise that he was not the only one cursed with unsatisfactory servants. The guest was le Notre.

  ‘Good Lord!’ the landscape architect exclaimed in French, as Chaloner stood in the doorway and attracted their attention by clearing his throat. It was impolite, but so was wandering through someone’s house on his own to hunt down shoddy domestics and inform them of their duties. ‘What are you doing here? Come to steal a clock, to replace the one you broke? There is a nice one on the table.’

  ‘I think Hannah would notice the difference,’ replied Chaloner in the same language.

  Le Notre laughed. ‘Blame O’Neill, as I told you last night. It will serve him right for holding such deeply offensive theories about Catholics. Do you think Palmer’s book will cause him to change his mind? Or is he beyond reason?’

  ‘I do not know him well enough to say.’

  Le Notre’s expression was difficult to read. ‘Yet you invited him into your home.’

  Chaloner shrugged, reluctant to reveal that it had been Hannah’s doing. It would be disloyal, and there was something about le Notre that set warning bells jangling in his mind, despite the man’s apparent affability. When he did not reply, le Notre stood suddenly and switched to English, his accent so thick as to be almost impenetrable.

  ‘Farewell, Storey. I will visit you again soon, and we shall resume our discussion about aviaries. Birds are a great ornament to any garden, although only from a distance. Close up, they are smelly, noisy and full of fleas.’

  With a bow so elaborate that Chaloner wondered whether it was intended to be a joke, le Notre departed, leaving behind a waft of strong perfume. Storey watched him go with an awe that verged on reverence, and barely listened when Chaloner stated his name and purpose.