‘He has always said that when he left Cobbold Hall, he paused to speak to Jarvis,’ Walsingham said ruthlessly. ‘Then someone broke into your house at Hawkswood just after one of your dogs was poisoned. If it was deliberately poisoned and its death wasn’t an accident. You say the other dog wasn’t poisoned but didn’t bark at the intruder and that this proves it was someone it knew. Well, possibly, but that someone wasn’t necessarily Roland Wyse! There must be a fair number of people that the dog would recognize. That doesn’t prove that it was he who fed venom to your dog! Or that anyone did. Yes, dogs were poisoned in Hertfordshire, when a squad including Wyse went there in search of priests, and it seems that he supplied the poison. But quite a few of my staff know how to obtain venom for dealing with guard dogs. Some of them have actually had to do it and therefore could be said to have experience in that unpleasant task. It’s evidence of nothing at all.’
‘Something killed those mice!’ I protested.
Walsingham uttered a dismissive snort and Humphrey Johnson remarked: ‘Mice aren’t very big. Was the wine strong?’
‘Yes, fairly. It was a good wine. But …’
‘Perhaps the mice just died of poisoning by alcohol.’
‘I think Humphrey feels as I do,’ said Walsingham. ‘Wyse isn’t popular but that doesn’t make him a murder suspect.’ The secretary cleared his throat. ‘Yes, Humphrey?’ said Walsingham.
‘I can’t see him as a criminal,’ Humphrey said. ‘Just an ambitious fellow who hasn’t got quite what’s needed to achieve his ambitions. He tries to buy favour, you know. Presents for all at Christmas and he tips too well in taverns. But it doesn’t really work. He works, I grant you – wants to get on. But he panics if things go wrong. Remember, sir, when he mislaid the report on that Hertfordshire house? He ran about like a beheaded hen until he found it. He was sweating in case he lost his job, but all he’d done was put the thing in the wrong file.’ I remembered that according to Christina Ferris, her father had said that Wyse was panicky because he had had difficulty in tracking Edward Heron down. ‘I don’t like him,’ said Johnson. ‘But as a cunning criminal – no, I don’t think so.’
Brockley had said he looked like an assassin. Maybe he hadn’t quite got what was needed to be an efficient assassin, I thought. I did not however repeat Brockley’s comment. It wasn’t evidence.
‘I take your point, Humphrey,’ Walsingham was saying. ‘Look, Mistress Stannard, nothing you have told me adds up to anything definite. I have great respect for you but I do find this attempt to point a finger at one of my staff a little annoying, even when the man concerned is not my favourite personality. Well, I am no favourite myself with quite a number of people. Wyse does in fact have much ability and time may mature him out of his faults. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have much work on hand. There have been a number of reports of Catholic sedition, in widely scattered places. If I had my way, I would simply declare Catholicism itself illegal. I and my family were in Paris during the Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve and we feared for our lives. But the queen will not have it. I am forced to use the new legislation against proselytizing as my best weapon. I need to have these reports followed up and …’
‘Please,’ I said, ‘would you tell me just one thing. When that cipher letter, the one found on Jarvis, was decoded by Wyse, did anyone check his work afterwards? He gave you the key.’
‘Of course it was checked, and by me! Once in a while I like to carry out such tasks in person, and decoding that cipher was good mental exercise. The decoding that Wyse did was correct in every respect.’
‘Do you still have the original?’
‘Yes, I took charge of it when he brought it back to me along with the clear version.’ He pulled out a drawer from his desk and took a folded document from it. ‘Here it is.’ He handed it to me. ‘Do I read you aright?’ he asked. ‘You want to check the decoding yourself?’
‘Yes, if I may. I can sit in the other room with the clerks so as not to disturb you. It may be a slow business – it’s a complex key.’
‘Yes, that’s what foxed my other clerks. I tried to speed matters up by telling them to make copies so that all three of them could work on it at once. They did so but none of them broke the code. Very well, you may sit in the outer office and test Wyse’s work and mine, but you’ll be wasting your time. You’ll find—Yes, all right, come in, what is it?’
A knock on the door to the clerks’ room had interrupted us. The clerk who now entered in response to Walsingham’s irritable summons was a gangling young man with intelligent dark eyes and longish dark hair that flopped into them. I liked the look of him, but Walsingham glared at him.
‘I didn’t wish to be disturbed and when, Master Wentworth, are you going to the barber to get your hair cut? Or do you propose to start curling it with tongs? Now, what is it you want?’
‘A report from France has just come in, sir; we can expect a new wave of priests from the Continent at any moment, it seems. I felt you should see it at once.’ Young Master Wentworth, apparently unperturbed by Walsingham’s tone, came up to the desk and placed some papers in front of his master. His glance lighted on the letter in my hand.
‘Is that another enciphered message that will need decoding, sir? Master Wyse isn’t here but I’ll gladly tackle it, and so will the others, and perhaps we’ll have more success this time. We couldn’t break the Jarvis code but I think we learned a good deal, trying.’
‘That is the Jarvis code,’ said Walsingham. ‘It’s the original. Mistress Stannard wishes to examine it for herself.’
Master Wentworth, interested, gave the letter a closer glance and then stiffened. ‘But, sir, it isn’t.’
Walsingham and I both stared at him and at his desk, Humphrey, who had resumed his work, paused, quill in hand. ‘What do you mean?’ Walsingham demanded.
‘I made the copies of the original for us clerks to work with, sir. I did all three of them. I worked from the original, of course, but then gave it back to you, and you kept it, if you remember, and passed it to Roland Wyse to tackle, when he returned. But I recall it very clearly. I know what the first few letters were and these are different. May I?’
He held out a hand and I gave him the letter. He felt it with his fingertips and studied the text minutely. ‘The paper is the same texture, and the hand that wrote this is the same, or so I think, but the letters aren’t. The first ones are certainly different, and there’s this paragraph halfway down, where I know there was an amusing sequence of letters in the first line … a trifle rude, in fact … just a minute. I still have the copy that I used when I tried to decode it. May I fetch it?’
Walsingham’s expression was alert. ‘I think you’d better.’
Master Wentworth departed, his long legs crossing to the door in a couple of strides. He reappeared almost at once, paper in hand. ‘Here’s my copy. You can see for yourself.’
The paper he had brought was creased from folding, but he put it on the desk and smoothed it with a firm hand. He put the so-called original beside it. Walsingham and I almost bumped heads as we leant to compare them.
Master Wentworth was right. The texts were not the same. In fact, the copy that the clerks had tried to interpret was shorter by four lines.
I said, ‘But …’ And stopped.
‘I gave the original to Roland Wyse to work on as you say,’ said Walsingham slowly. ‘I can’t say I examined it in detail or memorized any part of it. He brought back what he said was the same original, along with the clear version. He must have switched a false original for the real one. It’s the only explanation. I don’t think he knew there were copies. I don’t recall ever mentioning them to him; I just said some of my clerks had each tried to decode the letter and failed. In which case …’
I said, ‘If the code turns out to be the same, may I have the privilege of deciphering a copy of the genuine original?’
I sat in the clerks’ room, where a space had been made for me at the end of a table a
nd stared in disbelief at the text I had uncovered. The result was making my head spin. When I rose to take it to Walsingham, I found that my limbs moved stiffly, as though I were a puppet, pulled by strings.
The helpful Wentworth knocked on Walsingham’s door for me and said through it that Mistress Stannard had finished her task and wished to present it. Walsingham called me in.
‘You’ve managed the decoding?’ he said as I entered.
‘Yes. But …’
‘But?’
‘You’re going to find it unbelievable,’ I said, looking at the papers in my hand. ‘You’re going to think I’m playing some mysterious and horrible game, but I’m not. Please check my work, or have it checked, if you so wish. If the cipher letter I’ve been working on is a true copy of what was found on Jarvis’s body, then it really does say what my translation says.’
‘Give them both to me,’ said Walsingham.
I walked over to his desk and handed my work over to him. He studied it in silence, while I waited. Humphrey Johnson was still busy at his desk. Walsingham called to him. ‘Come and look at this.’
Humphrey obeyed. And then looked up, eyes wide with shock. ‘This is beyond reason,’ he said.
‘Quite,’ Walsingham agreed.’
‘I know,’ I told them. ‘But that’s what it says.’
‘This,’ said Walsingham, staring at the decoded letter once more, ‘is apparently addressed to the Principal of the Jesuit seminary at Rheims. It thanks him for a recent payment, which has been safely received. The writer is happy with this generous reward and prays that the information he has provided will be of value. He hopes to be even more useful in the future.
‘The letter then goes on to say that when, as the writer devoutly hopes, a full-scale Jesuit mission to England is finally mounted, he recommends that the missionaries should avoid Dover and come in by way of other ports – Norwich, Hull, or Bristol. It states that details of safe houses close to those ports will be supplied in good time. These are already being assembled but this has to be done with great caution and secrecy as no breath of suspicion must attach to the writer. The letter is then signed. With my name.’
There was a moment of appalled silence, and then Walsingham said: ‘Ursula, did you let any of my clerks see this?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I’m relieved to hear it. There were three copies made of the original cipher, I believe. You have been working with one of them – this one. There are two others, presumably somewhere in the clerks’ room. Humphrey, please go and collect them and bring them here. And not a word to any of the clerks about this monstrous translation.’
Humphrey went out. Walsingham said, ‘If this were to become common knowledge, it would be the scandal of the century. I would never live it down. It could ruin me. You realize that?’
‘Yes, I do.’
He twisted round in his chair and looked at me directly. His dark eyes were hard and piercing but he had gone pale, for all that. ‘Do you believe that this is a forgery? Or not?’
‘Of course it is.’ I fumbled for the right words. ‘My lord Burghley has known you; the queen has known you; I myself have been acquainted with you for many years. If you had Catholic leanings, they would have been noticed. It’s almost impossible for a man in the positions you have held to hide these things. And I’m sure that all your income, from whatever source, is properly accounted for.’
‘I could still have a strongbox hidden under my bed,’ said Walsingham dryly. ‘I haven’t, of course, but that’s what would be said. Ah, Humphrey. Thank you.’ His secretary had brought the other two copies of the cipher. He held out a hand for them. ‘I shall destroy all these copies, personally. I imagine Wyse himself has disposed of the original. Humphrey, may I assume that you, like Mistress Stannard here, feel certain that this outrageous piece of correspondence did not emanate from me?’
‘You certainly may, sir.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve known you too long, sir. If you did wish to … encourage … er … Catholic missionaries, you would go about it quite differently. You wouldn’t be arresting them quite so enthusiastically, for one thing. And think of the plots there have been, where you could have given secret encouragement! Instead, you did all you could to bring the conspirators to justice. This’ – Humphrey put out a thick forefinger and flicked my translation disdainfully – ‘is crude. The work of a most unskilled conspirator, I would say. Your own name, put blatantly at the end, instead of using a code name! Acknowledgement of a payment, but no amount is mentioned. A poor sort of receipt! Talk of safe houses but only a vague promise of details.’
‘Thank you. My own feelings entirely. But,’ said Walsingham, ‘where in the world does Roland Wyse come into all this? Why did he replace the genuine original with a tarradiddle about an illicit loom?’
‘Trying to protect you, sir?’ suggested Humphrey.
‘Even though he loathes me?’ said Walsingham. ‘I’d have expected him to pounce on a letter like this with positive joy.’
‘So … none of this,’ I said wearily, ‘makes any sense at all.’
‘No. Although …’ Walsingham was frowning. ‘He did exchange the real original for a false one. Why? I do begin to think that the fact that Mistress Cobbold, Jarvis and Wyse all met in Jarvis’s cottage, just before two of them were murdered, may have some significance, though I can’t guess what. I can only say, Ursula, that I now agree that there are questions needing answers.’
‘Where would Wyse be by now?’ I asked. ‘Well on his way to Dover, surely.’
‘Yes. With John Ryder as his superior officer.’ For once, I saw Walsingham look confused. ‘I can hardly put a man under arrest for not seizing an opportunity to damage me! I will send word to Ryder and tell him to put Wyse under surveillance. Though not, as I said, arrest. I’ll question him when he is back in London.’
‘Do you now feel that my doctored wine could have significance?’ I asked.
‘If it was doctored. Dead mice don’t prove that. But the tinkering with that letter … I’ll get a queen’s messenger on the road to Dover immediately, with word to Ryder. He’ll be easy to find – he’s on official business and his party is being accommodated at the castle. I can then leave it to him to decide whether he tells Wyse that he is wanted for questioning, or whether just to keep a discreet eye on him until they’re all back here in London. I shall instruct Ryder to finish the business in Dover, though. He might as well, after taking my men all that way.’
‘I can take the message to Ryder!’ I said. ‘I’d like to. Until all this is resolved, Roger Brockley is in danger.’
‘You will do nothing of the kind. This is work for a queen’s messenger. I am aware of your care for your servants,’ said Walsingham, ‘but I have never approved of involving women in affairs of state. Women have emotions that are too volatile.’ No wonder, I thought, Queen Elizabeth had sometimes thrown things at Walsingham. ‘Where is Roger Brockley now?’ Walsingham enquired.
‘Not in London,’ I said.
Walsingham produced his disconcerting smile. ‘You travelled alone?’
‘I’ve done so before,’ I told him.
‘You fear that I might send men to apprehend him. I do know that the warrant has been re-issued. I will let Brockley alone for the moment. I’ll try to get some sense out of Roland first. I suggest that you simply go home.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
NINETEEN
A Trace of Fragrance
‘We’re going to Dover,’ I said to the Brockleys when I rejoined them at The Boar. ‘I am certainly not going home. I want to talk to Ryder myself. Walsingham’s leaving it to him to decide whether he tells Wyse of the position he’s in straightaway, or merely keeps a watch on him until they’re all back in Whitehall. I want him to question Wyse at once – because I want to hear the replies! And if he manages to present us with a believable explanation of the extraordinary things he did with that cipher letter, something that will conv
ince Walsingham, something that makes Wyse look like an innocent and put-upon victim of circumstances, well, Dover is a port. You two can get away. And you will, at once. I’ll brook no argument.’
‘Oh, ma’am!’ said Dale, miserably.
‘I think madam is right, Fran. Though I must say,’ said Brockley, ‘that I’m finding it harder and harder to imagine any kind of reasonable explanation! Wyse will be hard put to it to invent one! We seem to have got into the realms of madness. Every new thing we discover makes the muddle worse.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Yet somewhere there has to be an explanation! Two dead bodies need some accounting for!’
‘Mistress Cobbold could just have been murdered by a prowler,’ said Brockley slowly, ‘and Jarvis by footpads.’
‘A prowler?’ I said. ‘In broad daylight, in her own garden, where people could have been wandering out to find her, or looking out of windows, or gardeners walking in? And just footpads to account for Jarvis’s death? He met Wyse and Mistress Cobbold, on the day of her death, and then Wyse tinkered with a cipher letter found on Jarvis’s body. No, there really is some thread connecting all these things but what it is, heaven knows. Heaven and, I think, Master Wyse.’
Brockley said, ‘Queen’s messengers ride fast. We may meet them all coming back. Then Fran and I will never get to Dover at all.’
‘I expect the enquiries into Ballanger’s loom may take a few days,’ I said. ‘Walsingham said he’d instruct Ryder to finish them before turning for home. But you’re right all the same, Brockley. We should set off forthwith.’
We worked out that by riding steadily, we could be almost halfway to Dover before dusk. The queen’s messenger, of course, would use the royal remounts provided on every main route and could travel much faster. He might even ride through the night, though I didn’t think the urgency was great enough to justify that. Wyse wasn’t fleeing. The messenger could have a night’s sleep and arrive in Dover next day in good time for dinner. We were taking our own horses all the way and couldn’t hope to catch up, but we need not be that far behind, just the same.
A Traitor's Tears Page 21
