‘What?’ Rupert leapt up to snatch the documents from Clarendon’s hand. He scanned them quickly. ‘French and what seems to be Dutch. Where did you get these?’
‘From Jones’s house in Garlick Row,’ replied Chaloner. ‘Hidden in a harpsichord.’
Rupert was white, although whether from rage or horror was difficult to say. Williamson was impassive, and the Earl looked confused – clearly he had not been told about the guns.
‘You speak French and Dutch,’ said Rupert, brandishing the papers in Chaloner’s face. ‘So tell me, have you read these?’
‘Of course,’ replied Chaloner. ‘Or I would not have known they were important.’
‘He makes a valid point,’ said Williamson quickly, as Rupert girded himself up for a tantrum.
‘What do they say?’ asked the Earl curiously.
‘They are designs for a new kind of cannon,’ replied Chaloner, speaking over Rupert, who began to claim they were nothing. He forged on, suspecting he would be safer once the matter was in the open. ‘Iron ones that have been “turned and annealed”. They will be cheaper, lighter and safer than brass.’
He glanced at the Prince, wondering whether he would have the decency to confess that the invention was his, and that his chief interest in the matter was fiscal.
‘How interesting,’ said Williamson in the silence that followed.
‘I have done what you asked and learned the Fifth Monarchist’s plans,’ said Chaloner, when no one added anything else. ‘Nothing will be gained from letting them progress further, so I suggest you arrest the leaders without delay.’
And spare ten thousand farmers, tradesmen and labourers from showing their hands, he thought. Men and women who wanted no more than reasonable taxes and a fair legal system.
‘No,’ said Rupert, and Chaloner saw a flicker of annoyance in Williamson’s eyes at the presumption – such decisions were the Spymaster’s to make. ‘We want to snare the entire movement, not just a few officers.’
‘Why?’ challenged Chaloner. ‘The foot-soldiers are nothing, and will slip back into oblivion once the ringleaders have gone. They will be no trouble.’
‘I disagree – they have tasted treason, which is a heady cup,’ argued Rupert. ‘They can never be trusted again, and we must purge the country of the lot of them. We will arrest no one yet, but let the matter run its course and strike nearer the time. You will continue to earn their trust, and produce a list of every man, woman and child who dares to move against us.’
‘But—’ began Chaloner.
‘Do as I tell you,’ snapped Rupert. ‘And say nothing about these documents to anyone. Do I make myself clear?’ Then he hesitated, uncertain for the first time. ‘Have you heard anyone talk about Hackney Marsh or Temple Mills during your enquiries?’
Chaloner was tempted to remind him that Snowflake hailed from there, and that Rupert had discussed the place with her at the club, claiming to know her father. When Snowflake had first mentioned the conversation, Chaloner had assumed that Rupert had lied, to inveigle himself into her good graces. Now the mystery had thickened and Snowflake was dead, he suspected it had been the truth. He regarded the Prince narrowly, thinking that if Rupert had been complicit in her murder, he would pay the price, member of the royal family or no.
‘Yes,’ he replied carefully. ‘A young woman I know came from there. She was friends with Ferine and was stabbed three days ago. I plan to ride there tomorrow to visit her family.’
‘Do not go,’ ordered Rupert. ‘You have more important matters to attend here.’
He stalked out, taking the reports with him. The Earl, disconcerted by the Prince’s sour temper, went to the table to pour himself more wine. Williamson took the opportunity to whisper to Chaloner when his host’s back was turned.
‘He is right. Any malcontent escaping this purge will race to join another revolt at the first opportunity. We cannot afford to be merciful to people who seek to destabilise our country.’
‘Yet their demands are not unreasonable,’ Chaloner muttered back. ‘And arresting them will win the sympathy of the entire nation. Then there really will be trouble.’
A short while later, Chaloner walked down Clarendon House’s drive, weary now and ready for bed. It was still raining, a light, airy drizzle carried by a gusting breeze. His hackney had gone, so he resigned himself to walk, no pleasant task in the wet and pitch dark.
He had not taken many steps along Piccadilly before the sound of someone skidding warned him that he was not alone. He reached for his sword, but too late: someone crashed into him, knocking him from his feet, although he could tell by the way his assailant staggered that it had not been intentional. He struggled to his knees, but was hit a second time from behind.
There followed a desperate struggle. As he flailed with his sword, Chaloner sometimes glimpsed the shadowy outlines of his assailants, but it was too dark to count them, so he had no idea how many he was fighting. The dense blackness worked to his advantage, though: it meant his attackers struck each other more often than him.
Yet he was losing ground even so. There were too many opponents, and each time he fell or was knocked down, it was harder to rise. He lunged with his blade, only to meet empty air, which made him stumble. A unlucky punch completed the rest, and he went down again, this time falling a good deal farther than he should have done. With alarm, he realised he was slithering into one of the great ditches that ran along the edge of the road.
He reached the bottom, and immediately began to scramble upwards, disliking the notion of being trapped in such a place, but it was difficult to gain his footing. Then he heard a punch and a grunt. The fight was still in progress, as his assailants had yet to discover that he was no longer there.
It was his chance to escape. Paddling silently through icy, calf-deep water, he headed away from the skirmish. When he felt he had put enough distance between him and his attackers, he clambered out. He listened intently, but the only sounds were the patter of rain and the whisper of wind in the trees. He waited until he was sure he had not been followed, then cut across the open fields towards Tothill Street. It was a muddy, miserable journey, but he arrived eventually, letting himself in through a window at the back lest someone was watching the house from the road.
Inside, the place felt cold and abandoned, and Joan had placed sheets over the furniture, stopped the clocks and set mouse-traps in every corner. He washed in the dark, unwilling to light a candle lest it was seen.
Feeling better in a clean shirt and an old woollen jacket, he raided the pantry for food. Not surprisingly, nothing perishable had been left, but there were several bottles of pears and a jar of pickled eggs – ones that had been prepared by Joan, rather than Hannah, and so were edible. He washed them down with the dregs of some wine he found in the cellar, and went to bed.
Chapter 10
Chaloner slept poorly that night, starting awake at every creak and groan. In the end, he gave up, and sat staring out of the window. It was roughly two hours before dawn and the day was Monday, which meant he had less than a week to learn what Jones was plotting and stop it. He began to make plans.
Rupert’s question about Temple Mills told him that he needed to travel there immediately, not only to speak to Snowflake’s father, but also to determine why the Prince had forbidden him to go, although he thought he already knew the answer to that.
He shaved quickly, then donned clothes that were respectable enough for visiting bereaved parents and suitable for riding – a doublet with flared skirts for warmth, a laced shirt and breeches for elegance, sturdy boots, and an oiled overcoat with a felted hat. He slipped out the house via the window, but his wits were sluggish from lack of sleep and he felt the need for a dose of Farr’s medicinal coffee. He walked briskly to Fleet Street, arriving so early that Farr was still in his nightclothes, yawning and snuffling as he stoked up the fire and set water to boil.
‘There is a message for you,’ Farr said, handing over a scrap of pa
per that had been ripped from the bottom of a newsbook. ‘A nice naval gentleman left it.’
It was from Captain Lester, and urged Chaloner to visit his lodgings by White Friars’ Stairs as soon as possible, no matter what the hour. Chaloner set off at a run, coffee forgotten. He arrived to find lights blazing and the house thronged with people. Lester was in the parlour, dressed in sea-going clothes and surrounded by a seething horde of sailors, victuallers and port officials.
‘Tom!’ Lester gestured that everyone was to leave the room, and it was testament to his natural authority that they went quickly and quietly. ‘Your house was closed up, so I was reduced to leaving a note at the Rainbow. Swiftsure sails with the tide, so I am frantically busy, but there is someone I want you to meet before I go.’
‘Who?’ asked Chaloner curiously.
‘Jeffrey Dare, who had command of London when she went down. He rents the rooms on the top floor. Did you know that the ghouls at Court will start travelling east today, to watch her being weighed? They hope to see corpses, no doubt.’
Chaloner followed him upstairs, where a bandage-swathed man lay in a bed, his eyes full of haunted horror. Lester laid a hand in quiet sympathy on his shoulder as he addressed the spy.
‘The tale about candles igniting old cartridge papers is a nonsense. Something else happened on London, and we want you to discover what.’
‘I was in the crosstrees.’ Dare began speaking before Chaloner could point out that he had no authority to investigate shipwrecks. ‘Do you know where they are?’
Chaloner had spent enough time travelling by sea to know they were near the top of a mast, and their purpose was to stop it swaying too far from side to side. ‘Yes, but—’
Dare cut across him. ‘I was watching for shoals – the Thames Estuary is famous for them and I did not want to run her aground. Then there was a loud crack from starboard, followed by an explosion. We were going to take on more powder at Queenhithe, so the starboard hold was empty – it was the larboard magazine that ignited.’
‘You see?’ said Lester. ‘I told you it was sabotage, and Dare’s testimony proves it.’
Chaloner thought it proved nothing of the kind. ‘You were looking ahead when the blast occurred,’ he said gently to Dare. ‘Not to starboard or larboard. And everything must have happened very fast…’
‘It did,’ admitted the captain. ‘London sank in minutes. But I know what I heard, and we heeled so violently to starboard that our mainmast sprung.’
‘Let me explain it in lubberly terms,’ said Lester, when Chaloner looked blank. ‘Dare heard a crash on the right side of the ship before the explosion, but the powder was stored on the left. And the ship heeled to the right after the blast.’
‘I understood that much,’ said Chaloner. ‘But what does it mean?’
‘Obviously, that whatever set off the blast had nothing to do with the magazine,’ said Lester impatiently. ‘Which was locked anyway, so no one could have been in there.’
‘Then perhaps a cannon exploded,’ suggested Chaloner, still not quite sure what their ‘evidence’ showed. ‘I understand there were eighty of them.’
‘They were housed,’ said Dare. ‘And the crew were either manning the sails or on deck. No one was with the guns.’
‘How can you be sure?’ asked Chaloner. ‘There were more than three hundred people onboard, and you cannot verify the whereabouts of them all.’
‘Three hundred and twenty-seven,’ supplied Dare promptly. ‘And I can, actually. I sailed with that particular crew for more than a decade, and I knew them. None would have been meddling with a gun when we were sailing up the estuary. That leaves the visitors – the Admiral’s kin. And they were all on the quarterdeck.’
‘We cannot have civilians roaming unsupervised around warships,’ explained Lester. ‘They were all where they could be seen, with the chaplain minding them.’
‘The chaplain survived, too,’ said Dare with a bleak smile. ‘He visited me yesterday, and said he could account for all his charges. Ergo, there was no sabotage by crew or visitors.’
‘Then what?’ asked Chaloner. ‘A device rigged to explode with a fuse?’
‘Impossible,’ said Lester. ‘It would have been noticed – fuses stink. And our sailors know guns and ammunition anyway – anything suspicious would have been reported immediately.’
‘Then what do you think happened?’ asked Chaloner, becoming exasperated.
‘If we knew, we would not be asking you to find out,’ said Lester shortly. He turned to Dare. ‘Tell him what happened, Jeffrey. Start at the beginning.’
Dare nodded feebly. ‘We had been in the Royal Dockyard at Chatham for a refit, and should have left on the dawn tide, but there was a delay – some papers were not in order, and it took an age to resolve. I was champing at the bit all morning.’
Lester jabbed Chaloner in the ribs, prompting him to ask questions. Chaloner obliged only out of compassion for the man who lay picking miserably at the bedcovers. ‘What happened during that time? Were there any unexpected visitors or last-minute deliveries?’
Dare shook his head. ‘We were closed to everyone and everything except two chests for the Admiral. Commissioner Pett, who runs the shipyard, told me they contained Lawson’s viols.’
‘I doubt Lawson plays the viol,’ said Chaloner, unable to imagine any musical instrument in the hands of such a crude, unsophisticated man. Except perhaps a drum.
‘They were massively heavy,’ Dare went on. ‘The viols were metal, you see, so they would not lose their tone in the damp sea air.’
‘There is no such thing as a metal viol,’ said Chaloner, adding ‘thank God’ in his mind.
‘I imagine it was wine,’ said Lester. ‘Sailors like a drink, and Lawson is no exception.’
‘Have you asked him about it?’ asked Chaloner of Dare.
‘God, no!’ exclaimed the captain. ‘I would not presume! He would demand my resignation, and I like being in the navy.’
‘Then is it possible that the explosion originated in one of these chests?’
Dare frowned. ‘I suppose so, but they were locked. As was the spirit store, where we put them.’
‘Where was the spirit store?’
‘Amidships. As I said, sailors like a drink, and will do anything to get one, so that room is guarded day and night – I ordered the chests stored there to prevent some nosy tar from poking around in the Admiral’s personal property.’ Dare’s expression turned troubled. ‘But I cannot get it out of my head that Lawson has some odd friends. Fifth Monarchists…’
‘I suppose they might have been to blame,’ acknowledged Lester. ‘However, he will have had nothing to do with it. He would never harm his crew.’
Chaloner hoped Lester’s faith was not misplaced, and that the ‘fireworks’ predicted for Easter Day would not entail the Admiral turning the Channel Fleet against the city.
‘Will you look into it, Tom?’ asked Lester. ‘I would do it myself, but I sail in a few minutes, and I may not return. It would give me great peace of mind if you were to oblige.’
Put like that, Chaloner could hardly refuse.
Chaloner accompanied Lester to the quay, where Swiftsure was already casting off her moorings. There was no sign of Lawson, and enquiries revealed that the Admiral had decided to hoist his flag on James instead. Chaloner was relieved beyond measure. He watched Swiftsure ease away from the quay, angry that a good man like Lester was about to risk his life because the selfish hedonists on the Privy Council wanted to steal Dutch trading routes.
He walked to Temperance’s club, to borrow a horse for the journey to Temple Mills. It was still before dawn, a time when the place was usually in full swing, but it was silent that morning. Temperance and Maude were in the parlour drinking coffee, neither able to adjust to the earlier opportunity to sleep. Chaloner shook his head when they offered him some: it was so thick that the sugar they added sat on the surface, unable to sink or dissolve.
‘Is it
too strong for you?’ Maude always teased him about his aversion to her brews.
‘No, I am afraid for my teeth,’ he said, then wished he had kept quiet when she and Temperance smiled and he saw that both had fewer fangs than he remembered.
‘There are not many men who can take it,’ said Maude comfortably, as though she had achieved something worthwhile. ‘My first husband had one sip and died on the spot.’
‘Then Tom cannot have any,’ said Temperance soberly. ‘We need him alive to solve these murders, because business will not return to normal until he does.’ She came to fasten the top button on his coat, and began to lecture him. ‘Remember: Snowflake’s father is Grisley Pate and he is a perfumer. And do not forget that he knew her as Consti.’
‘Have you learned anything useful since we last met?’ asked Chaloner hopefully. ‘About Ferine or Snowflake? You must have been asking questions and listening to rumours.’
‘How can we, when no one comes?’ asked Temperance bitterly. Then her expression softened. ‘Although Buckingham has promised to bring a few friends soon.’
‘And his sorcerer,’ added Maude. ‘He thinks Dr Lambe’s presence might attract a few more customers – people like having their fortunes told.’
‘Be careful,’ warned Chaloner. ‘Such activities are—’
‘Dear Tom,’ said Temperance fondly. ‘Always so respectable. However, I doubt Lambe’s antics will come close to competing with some of the entertainment we have staged here in the past.’
Chaloner was intrigued. ‘Why? What have you—’
Maude interrupted him. ‘Speaking of wild entertainments, the King is going to watch the ship London being raised. He made the announcement yesterday, so most of the Court has decided to go as well. Many will leave today, as the wet weather will make travelling difficult, and Prittlewell is a journey of some forty miles.’
‘Then you had better go now, Tom,’ said Temperance briskly. ‘You do not want to get stuck behind all those lumbering coaches.’
Murder on High Holborn (Exploits of Thomas Chaloner) Page 24
