Murder on High Holborn (Exploits of Thomas Chaloner)

by Gregory, Susanna

  ‘Well, well,’ came a voice from behind them. It was noisy in the tavern and Chaloner had not heard the approach of John Scott. Chaloner frowned: his old associate was appearing in some unexpected places. ‘This is an interesting gathering – Manning, Sherwin, Chaloner and Leving.’

  ‘You had my note, then,’ said Manning with a patently false smile. ‘Telling you to meet me here? You were supposed to arrive before Leving, so that I could explain certain developments.’

  ‘Funnily enough, it never arrived,’ said Scott flatly. ‘However, I saw you and Sherwin on High Holborn, so I decided to follow. And what do I find? Negotiations under way without me.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ cried Manning, rather too vehemently. ‘Nothing would have been discussed without you, as you know perfectly well.’

  ‘Do I?’ Scott turned to Chaloner, who was wondering what was going on. ‘I am surprised to see you here. I thought you had secured yourself a nice post with the Earl of Clarendon – one that pays enough to let you enjoy Temperance North’s costly brothel.’

  ‘He was dismissed,’ said Leving before Chaloner could answer for himself. ‘And he has other interests now. Such as protecting me from danger.’

  This was news to Chaloner, although Scott did look dangerous at that particular moment, and he could see why Leving and Manning were nervous of him.

  ‘A bodyguard?’ Scott regarded Chaloner with rank disdain. ‘Well, I suppose a man must eke a living where he can.’

  Before Chaloner could ask questions that might tell him what was happening, Sherwin woke with a noisy snort.

  ‘Ale,’ he slurred. ‘I need ale.’

  ‘I had better take you home,’ said Scott. ‘And it might be wise not to venture out again unless I am with you. As I have told you before, Manning is unequal to protecting you, should you fall foul of certain people.’

  ‘Home to the Pope’s Head?’ asked Sherwin brightening. ‘Good! They have ale there.’

  ‘He is safe with me,’ objected Manning, stung. ‘I have a sword and I know how to use it.’

  ‘With your chilblains?’ asked Scott archly. ‘You can barely walk, let alone fence.’

  They were still squabbling as they bundled Sherwin outside, neither casting so much as a glance at the two men they were leaving behind. When they had gone, Chaloner turned to Leving.

  ‘I think you had better explain what that was about.’

  ‘I wish I could,’ said Leving ruefully. ‘But I have no idea.’

  He might have done, if he had read the letters, thought Chaloner sourly. ‘Then tell me who they are. And do not say Fifth Monarchists, because Scott is no religious fanatic.’

  ‘All I know is that Sherwin has some valuable information – information that Jones is keen to acquire and that Scott and Manning are keen to sell him.’ Leving lowered his voice. ‘But a few of the Fifth Monarchy leaders are due to meet in a private house in a few moments. Shall we join them? I can introduce you as our new gunpowder expert, and you can ask them these questions.’

  As Leving led the way back on to High Holborn, Chaloner was tempted to drag him down an alley and interrogate him vigorously. Unfortunately, he suspected it would be a waste of time – that Leving had nothing much to tell. Indeed, he could not help but wonder whether Williamson had been duped, and that while Leving had no doubt leapt at the chance to save himself from the noose, he had exaggerated his importance in the rebels’ fraternity.

  Suddenly, Leving turned to face him, his expression serious. ‘Do not mention the letters at this meeting, by the way. Jones told me to deliver them secretly, and I suspect his cronies know nothing about them.’

  ‘You mean there are rifts within the leadership?’

  ‘Oh, yes! The Fifth Monarchists are a very argumentative crowd: Atkinson is a romantic dreamer with his head in the clouds, while Strange and Quelch have their heads in the sewers. No one disagrees with Jones, though. You will understand why when you meet him.’

  He began walking again, and approached the curious island of cottages called Middle Row. He aimed for the largest, an attractive brick-built affair with unusually clean paintwork, polished windows and decorative pots in the porch. It looked like the home of a respectable maiden aunt, and was certainly not the kind of place Chaloner would have associated with rebels.

  ‘They use this for small meetings,’ explained Leving in an undertone as he knocked on the door. ‘But they hire a hall in the Talbot for bigger ones, which can attract two or three hundred people. Of course, that is only a fraction of their total. I heard Jones tell Strange only yesterday that the movement has at least ten thousand supporters.’

  ‘Ten thousand people represents a serious uprising,’ said Chaloner worriedly. ‘The Northern Plot did not involve a quarter as many.’

  Leving nodded sombrely before opening the door and stepping inside. Chaloner followed, entering a pretty parlour with a virginals in one corner and a flute on the windowsill. There were embroidered cushions on the benches, half-finished knitting by the hearth, and an impressive arrangement of dried flowers. Then four men trooped in carrying an assortment of plates and jugs. A woman walked behind them, herding them along like sheep.

  ‘Leving,’ blurted the first, stopping so abruptly that the others careened into the back of him, leaving a smear of cream on his coat and a dusting of cinnamon down his breeches. ‘And you have brought a guest, I see.’

  ‘I told you I would find a gunpowder expert,’ said Leving with a happy grin. ‘So here is Tom Chaloner, nephew of the regicide.’ He turned to the spy. ‘Allow me to present Roger Jones, our esteemed leader.’

  Chaloner was surprised to note that Jones was the man who had complained to Hill about the lack of reading material at the club – fanatical religious sects tended to frown on brothels.

  ‘I knew your uncle, Chaloner,’ said Jones, eyeing him intently. ‘He would have liked the merry debauchery at Hercules’ Pillars Alley. Is that why you frequent the place?’

  ‘No,’ replied Chaloner, although Jones was right: his fun-loving uncle would have adored the club. ‘It is owned by a friend of mine. What drew you to it?’

  Jones smiled, an expression that made his eyes seem colder than ever. ‘I went there for the Cause. I met a man who supports us – an influential person.’

  Chaloner wondered who among Temperance’s clientele was a Fifth Monarchist, and supposed he had better find out. It was one thing for tradesmen and labourers to hold lunatic views, but another altogether for powerful politicians, churchmen or military commanders to do it.

  ‘You know each other?’ asked Leving. ‘Good! It saves the need for more of an introduction, although I must tell you that Jones is a great writer of revolutionary tracts. He penned Mene Tekel, but is too modest to mention it himself. Have you heard of it? It has caused quite a stir.’

  Mene Tekel, or The Downfall of Tyranny was an incendiary underground pamphlet that had been published a few months earlier. It was a bald attack on the monarchy, and was thus popular with the more extreme kind of republican. Chaloner had tried to read it, but had given up halfway through, exasperated by its contorted logic and flowery language.

  ‘It has,’ agreed Jones, pleased. ‘However, it is nothing compared to the ones I shall compose when the Last Millennium is here. I have much to say about politics and religion.’

  Chaloner was sure he did.

  ‘Yet thou didst not cause stir enough,’ said the large man behind him, setting his plate of cakes carefully on the table. ‘Or the King would have abdicated in favour of Jesus.’

  ‘This is Nat Strange,’ supplied Leving helpfully. ‘A leading Fifth Monarchist.’

  Chaloner thought that Strange looked like a man with madcap beliefs – huge, red-faced, yellow-haired and wild-eyed.

  Strange scowled, and indicated the remaining two men. ‘Since thou makest free with my name, let me do the same for these: Richard Quelch, watchmaker, and John Atkinson, stockinger.’

  Quelch was a bald, bristling
man with bad teeth, while Atkinson looked more like a scholar than a rebel; there was ink on his fingers, and he had a shy, almost diffident air.

  ‘And Ursula Adman,’ added Leving, bowing to the woman who stood behind the men. ‘Her sister is Anna Trapnel, who was arrested for writing accounts of her visions.’

  Chaloner was familiar with Mrs Trapnel, who was hailed as a seer by her followers – and a woman with crackpot opinions by everyone else. He regarded Ursula uneasily, wondering if she was the type to fall on the floor and start railing about the Apocalypse. Ursula, however, was the picture of normality. Her clothes were of decent quality, although she was a little too plump for them, and her hair was curled into fashionable ringlets.

  ‘Anna would love to be here,’ she told Chaloner quietly. ‘But her gaolers refuse to release her, so she asked me to take her place.’

  ‘It is good of thee.’ Strange’s rough features softened into a smile. ‘Brave, too.’

  ‘And you make excellent cakes,’ added Quelch, taking one to prove it. ‘Your gingerbread-men … well, suffice to say that Jesus will certainly want a few when He comes.’

  ‘Yes, He will,’ agreed Ursula, without a flicker of humour. ‘They are the best in London.’

  ‘Chaloner would like to replace Scarface Roberts,’ said Leving to Jones with one of his vacant beams. ‘He has recently been dismissed by his employer, the Earl of Clarendon, for losing a lot of valuable jewels, and so he finds himself with time on his hands.’

  ‘Lost them?’ asked Quelch suspiciously. ‘How?’

  ‘On a ship,’ replied Chaloner. ‘When it sank.’

  ‘You mean you were careless?’ asked Ursula uneasily. ‘And you want to work with gunpowder?’

  ‘I was not careless,’ said Chaloner with unfeigned irritation. ‘I warned Clarendon that winter is not the best time to be delivering jewels and dispatches to Russia, but he refused to listen. The ship struck ice and went down before I could rescue them, although I tried.’

  ‘An unfair dismissal,’ said Jones softly. ‘It is certainly enough to make a man rebel.’

  Chaloner had no idea if he was serious.

  The Middle Row meeting was like no conspiracy that Chaloner had ever known. It was conducted around a large polished table loaded with Ursula’s cakes, all served on dainty plates. She supplied little silver forks to prevent savage use of fingers; Quelch, Strange and Leving struggled to ply them, but Atkinson and Jones were adept. Despite his unease, Chaloner was forced to concede that Ursula’s culinary skills were impressive, and wished Hannah’s were half as good.

  ‘How did you gain your knowledge of gunpowder?’ Atkinson asked conversationally, passing the platter of knot biscuits to Jones before taking one himself. Jones had eaten three already, but it did not stop him from having a fourth, devouring it with quick, nervous bites, like a squirrel. Or a rat, thought Chaloner, who had not taken to Jones.

  ‘In the wars,’ he replied. An exploding cannon had almost killed him at the Battle of Naseby, so he could say with perfect honesty that he had acquired first-hand experience of how deadly ordnance could be. ‘And then in Holland.’

  ‘What do you want him to blow up?’ Leving asked Jones. ‘You have never said, but the sooner he knows, the sooner he can go about making plans. Is there any more fruit pie?’

  ‘We shall tell him in time,’ said Jones shortly. ‘When we know each other a little better.’

  ‘He hates the Court,’ began Leving, then yelped when Chaloner kicked him under the table. ‘What did you do that for? It hurt!’

  ‘You have a big mouth,’ said Jones, smirking as Leving leaned down to rub his ankle. ‘He is warning you to keep it shut.’

  ‘Or we shall shut it for you,’ growled Quelch.

  ‘Leave him be,’ snapped Strange. ‘He does not need to hear thy threats.’

  ‘I do not,’ agreed Leving, hurt. ‘I am only trying to expedite matters. You want to know about Chaloner, so I am telling you.’

  ‘We shall ask our own questions, thank you,’ said Quelch curtly. ‘However, I think it is suspicious that he should appear with such fine credentials in our hour of need.’

  Jones bared his teeth at Chaloner in the parody of a smile. ‘You must forgive our caution, but we have learned to be wary of fanatics. Their unpredictability makes them dangerous allies.’

  Chaloner joined the general murmur of agreement, and had he not been so tense, he might have laughed at the notion that the Fifth Monarchists did not consider themselves extremists. The author of Mene Tekel was hardly a rational being, while Strange and Quelch were clearly hotheads. He wondered what had possessed Atkinson and Ursula, who seemed sensible, to join their ranks.

  ‘My sister dislikes fanatics, too,’ said Ursula. Then she sighed. ‘I wish she were here instead of me. She would be much more of an asset.’

  ‘Yes, but she cannot cook,’ said Strange, rather fervently. ‘We are happy with thee.’

  ‘Strange is led by his stomach,’ sneered Quelch, looking pointedly at his companion’s ample paunch, while Ursula preened at the praise. ‘But I am here for my conscience.’

  ‘Liar!’ spat Strange, nettled. ‘Thou hast no conscience, except that it serves thyself. Thou art naught but a low-born watchmaker whose timepieces are never accurate.’

  ‘Yes, they are!’ cried Quelch, stung. He addressed Ursula. ‘He thinks that being a Baptist pastor makes him better than the rest of us. Well, when King Jesus comes to reign it will not be Strange who stands at God’s right hand.’

  ‘It will not be thee, either,’ Strange snarled back. ‘The worst sins are swearing, pride, drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, whoredom, lasciviousness, stage-plays, popery and superstition. And thou didst commit every one of them in Hercules’ Pillars Alley on Sunday night.’

  Chaloner regarded Quelch with interest. The feisty watchmaker was certainly the kind of man to dispatch a fellow patron for some misguided religious principle. Could he have killed Ferine for devising horoscopes?

  Quelch paled with anger. ‘I went there to do God’s work. Ask Jones.’

  ‘Neither of us enjoyed our time in that den of iniquity,’ stated Jones loftily. ‘There were no newsbooks or political pamphlets to read, and it was not easy to repel the attentions of those rapacious females. But duty called, so we had no choice but to endure.’

  ‘Was it worth the sacrifice?’ asked Ursula, humour dancing in her eyes.

  ‘We made contact with the necessary individual,’ replied Jones, so coldly that it extinguished the merry twinkle. ‘Now we must wait to see whether our labours bear fruit.’

  ‘Were you there when that courtier was murdered?’ asked Atkinson, in the uncomfortable silence that followed. Even Chaloner was unsettled by Jones’s icy tone, and it certainly stopped the sparring between Strange and Quelch. ‘My stepsister told me about it yesterday.’

  ‘I hope she does not think we were responsible,’ said Jones, narrowing his eyes. ‘And regrets distracting the porter to let us slip in through the front door.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Atkinson quickly. ‘She is quite committed to the Cause, I assure you.’

  ‘I cannot imagine why thou acknowledgeth her, Atkinson,’ said Strange unpleasantly. ‘If a member of my family turned to whoredom, I would disown her.’

  ‘Snowflake is not a whore!’ cried Atkinson. ‘She is a simple country girl who has lost her way. I tried to help her when she first arrived in the city, but she did not want to be a stockinger.’

  Chaloner struggled not to laugh. There was nothing of the ‘simple country girl’ about Snowflake, and he knew for a fact that she had marched up to Temperance and given a résumé of her talents that would have impressed even the most particular of brothel-keepers. However, he had not known that she had connections to the Fifth Monarchists, and supposed he would have to find out how many other men she had sneaked into the club behind Hill’s back – including, perhaps, Ferine’s killer.

  ‘You called this meeting,’ Jones was say
ing to Atkinson. ‘Do you have something to report? If so, I am sure Leving and Chaloner will excuse us while we talk privately.’

  ‘There is no need,’ said Atkinson, as Chaloner started to rise. Leving stayed where he was, evidently prepared to argue for his inclusion. ‘It was only to tell you that the Dutch Smyrna fleet has been seen near Scotland. Word is that an invasion is imminent.’

  ‘Good,’ said Quelch. ‘While the Dutch attack from the sea, we shall strike from within.’

  ‘The Dutch,’ mused Leving. ‘They will certainly benefit from a weakened Britain. Have you made contact with them, to ask for weapons and money to assist our revolt?’

  Chaloner cringed: Leving would not live long if that was his idea of discreet intelligence gathering.

  ‘No, we have not,’ said Atkinson crossly. ‘We may not like the King and his corrupt government, but we will never side with the Dutch against our fellow countrymen. Never!’

  ‘But we will be doing it for King Jesus,’ objected Quelch. ‘That makes it all right.’

  ‘Pass me another knot biscuit,’ said Jones loudly, thus ending the discussion. He smiled at Ursula. ‘Is it my imagination or is there more nutmeg in these than in previous batches?’

  While Ursula regaled him with the recipe, her fellow conspirators ate their fill, and when Jones declared the meeting ended, all nodded eagerly when she offered to wrap parcels of goodies for later. They had discussed nothing of import, but Chaloner suspected it was not because he and Leving were there – the conference had been called because Atkinson had wanted to sample Ursula’s baking, and the others had not minded an excuse to do likewise.

  ‘You see?’ asked Leving, as he and Chaloner walked away together, each with a neat package under his arm. ‘They trust you already.’

  ‘Hardly! And your gabbling did not help. Please do not do it again.’

  ‘I did not gabble,’ declared Leving indignantly. ‘What a horrible thing to say!’

  The day was drawing to a close, yet Chaloner felt as though he had made scant progress on either investigation. However, there was one thing he could do before going home to Hannah’s pickled ling pie – ask the parish priest about Ferine’s religious opinions. Unfortunately, a visit to the vicar told Chaloner that Ferine had never set foot inside his church. Instead, he was directed to St Dunstan-in-the-West, which tended to attract courtier types, being generally regarded as a fashionable sort of place. Chaloner was pleased. Its minister was Joseph Thompson, whom he knew well, and he knew exactly where to find him at such an hour: in the Rainbow Coffee House on Fleet Street.