The King's Return: (Thomas Hill 3) (Thomas Hill Novels)

by Andrew Swanston

  Thomas laughed. ‘Nicely put, sir. And now I must be on my way. Thank you for your company and for showing me the copying machine. Most impressive.’

  ‘Do call again at any time, Thomas. I’m usually to be found earning my daily crust in Cloak Lane. We will avoid Morland.’

  At exactly ten o’clock the next morning, Thomas walked briskly down a narrow lane running from Fleet Street to the river and knocked on the door of Madeleine Stewart’s house. It was a small, single-storey house in the middle of a row of larger ones with overhanging upper storeys in the manner of the previous century. Exactly the sort of house a single lady of modest means might live in with her housekeeper.

  The door was opened immediately and Madeleine emerged dressed to go out – a broad-brimmed bonnet on her head and a short cloak over her gown. In deference to the newly widowed Lady Babb, the bonnet and cloak were a dark shade of blue.

  She took Thomas’s arm for the ten-minute walk to Lady Babb’s house at the top of Ludgate Hill, where they found the old lady waiting for them in her mourning clothes – a black shawl over a black gown and a white cap.

  Madeleine sat beside her with Thomas opposite. She offered her condolences, introduced Thomas and explained that he would like, with Lady Babb’s permission, to ask her some questions about her husband. When Lady Babb asked why, Thomas told her that he fondly remembered Sir Montford from when he lived in Romsey. He apologized for disturbing her at such a time and said that he was in the employ of Joseph Williamson and had been given the task of gathering information about the recent murders to see if any connection between them could be established. It was vital that the culprit be apprehended before he could strike again.

  ‘Very well, Mr Hill,’ replied Lady Babb, ‘but you must speak clearly. My hearing is not what it was. I doubt if I can tell you anything to help you as my husband was an unexceptional man and what he was doing in that part of the city after dark I have no idea.’

  ‘Did he say anything about where he was going or for what purpose on the night he died?’

  ‘He merely said that he had business to attend to and would be late home.’

  ‘Was it his habit to be out late?’

  ‘No. It was unlike him, but I thought no more about it.’ She took a white linen handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. ‘I suppose I should have.’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear Lady Babb,’ said Madeleine, taking her hand. ‘You couldn’t possibly have foreseen such a terrible thing.’

  Thomas allowed her a moment to compose herself before he continued. ‘Lady Babb, did you notice anything strange or unusual about your husband’s behaviour in the weeks before his death?’

  ‘I have thought about this. Montford was a kindly man, not given to complaint or criticism. Yet he had started asking me about the cost of our household and pressing me to be less extravagant. He even suggested that we might manage with fewer servants. As you can see, we hardly lived in a palace.’

  ‘Was he a wealthy man?’

  ‘Comfortable, I should say, rather than wealthy.’

  ‘Do you know what his business interests were?’

  ‘He never talked of them. He inherited when his father died and, as far as I know, we lived on the income from the inheritance.’

  Thomas tried a few more questions, but the old lady was tiring and had nothing more to offer. ‘Just one more thing, Lady Babb, and we will leave you in peace. Did Sir Montford keep a journal or an accounts book of any sort?’

  ‘He did keep a journal. It’s in his study. He never told me what he wrote in it and I haven’t touched it.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  Lady Babb glanced at Madeleine. ‘It was his private journal. I don’t know if anyone else should read it.’

  ‘It might help us find his murderer.’

  ‘How? The coroner said he was attacked and robbed.’

  ‘Indeed he did, madam. But we would like to know why he was in Pudding Lane that night. Perhaps the journal will tell us.’

  Lady Babb dabbed her eyes again and looked at Madeleine. ‘The coroner did not ask to see it. Is it really necessary, my dear?’

  ‘I believe it might be important. But only with your consent,’ replied Madeleine gently.

  ‘Then with your word that it will be returned just as you found it, you may take it. Please take great care of it.’

  ‘Thank you, Lady Babb,’ said Thomas, rising. ‘You may rest assured that I shall take the greatest care of it and return it to you as soon as I am able.’

  On their way out, Lady Babb fetched the journal and handed it to Thomas. ‘Here you are, Mr Hill. I trust it will help.’

  ‘Allow me a moment with Lady Babb, Thomas, if you please,’ said Madeleine.

  Thomas waited outside until she appeared, her cheeks flushed and her eyes red. ‘I knew she was uncomfortable about your taking the journal,’ she said as they walked down the hill. ‘I just wanted to reassure her that you could be trusted. You can be trusted, Thomas, can’t you?’

  ‘To keep my word, naturally. To discover his murderer, I don’t know. I’ll start on the journal today.’ Thomas escorted Madeleine home and returned directly to Piccadilly.

  Thomas started on Sir Montford Babb’s journal that evening. The pages were bound in soft black leather, the first entry dated 1 July 1656, so Sir Montford had been keeping it for nearly five years. Lady Babb had given no suggestion that there were any earlier journals.

  To Thomas’s relief the entries were in plain text, albeit with odd abbreviations and in Babb’s spidery, sometimes illegible hand. Penmanship was not a skill Babb had mastered and he had been less than careful to ensure that the ink was dry before turning a page. Numerous blots and splodges obscured what he had written.

  He had made an entry twice each week. Thomas did not try to decipher the illegible ones and concentrated only on those he could read with comparative ease. He chose a page at random. It was dated July 1658 and would do as well as any. But two hours later, having ploughed through a year of visits to friends and relatives, meals consumed, sermons listened to, tradesmen favoured with the Babbs’ custom and detailed records of the author’s health, Thomas wondered why the old man had bothered to keep a journal at all. Until his sudden death he had lived a wholly uneventful life and had held opinions on nothing. Other than his fondness for eels and his dislike of his cousin Prudence, he revealed very little of himself.

  The next day, unable to face four more years of cutlets, constipation and communion, Thomas did something he used to do when faced with a stubborn cipher. He started at the end. Without knowing what he was looking for, it would have been more sensible to have done so in the first place.

  The last entry was dated 16 April 1661, three days before Sir Montford’s death. It dealt with breakfast and dinner, the cancellation of an order with his tailor for a new coat and Lady Babb’s increasing deafness. The final sentence revealed that he was in despair about something he called ‘AV’.

  Working his way back through the year, he found no mention of Matthew Smith, Henry Copestick or John Winter and nothing to suggest any knowledge of activities at the Post Office. Not that he had really expected any. Life was seldom as simple as that. If there was a link between Babb’s murder and those of the others it would surely not reveal itself so readily. The only entries to catch Thomas’s eye referred to an investment in AV.

  The first mention of it was on 30 June 1660, when Sir Montford declared himself delighted with some recent news of the enterprise. A number of entries continued in similar vein until January 1661, when he had been disappointed to learn that he could not sell part of his interest in AV because he had been planning to buy a house in Cheapside which was available at a good price.

  By March, Sir Montford’s disappointment was turning to worry and in April almost every entry mentioned AV with increasing alarm. Thomas remembered Lady Babb saying that her husband had started complaining about the costs of the household. Whatever AV was, it had not turned o
ut well for the Babbs. Perhaps poor Sir Montford had been drowning his sorrows on the night he was murdered in Pudding Lane.

  Having followed the AV trail backwards to its first appearance, Thomas had had enough. Sir Montford had made an unwise investment, he had lost money, he chided himself for his stupidity and it might have led indirectly to his death. He had not discussed the matter with Lady Babb and there was nothing to be gained by troubling her further. He would ask Madeleine to return the journal to her.

  The Carringtons made a habit of spending an hour or two each morning in their sitting room, drinking coffee, reading the news sheets and exchanging views. It was a simple pleasure which plantation life in Barbados did not permit. That was where Thomas found them the next morning. The day was already warm and no fire had been lit, but the fireplace was still the focal point of the room and library chairs had been set on either side of it.

  ‘Well now, Thomas,’ said Charles in his cheerful way, ‘we’ve seen little of you these past few days. What have you been up to and how is the gout?’

  Thomas hesitated. Of course he could trust the Carringtons, but Williamson had impressed upon him the need for secrecy. ‘Where the safety of the kingdom is concerned,’ Joseph had said portentously, ‘one must take not the slightest risk. Who knows where an enemy may lurk?’ Well, no enemy lurks around this fireplace, decided Thomas, and I need to confide in someone.

  ‘The gout is much improved, thanks to Streeter’s mixture. I’ve been doing the encrypting and decrypting they bring me and going about Joseph’s business as he instructed. And I’ve been reading Sir Montford’s journal.’

  ‘A good story, was it? Well up to Shakespeare’s standards?’ Charles was not much of a reader.

  ‘Not exactly. As far as I can tell, Sir Montford led a dull and blameless life. I wonder that he took the trouble to record it.’

  ‘No mistresses, no gambling debts, no secret confessions?’

  ‘Alas, none of those. There was only one unexpected thing.’

  ‘And what was that? He wasn’t a French madame in disguise, was he?’

  ‘No. Last year he made an investment in a venture he called AV. He didn’t say what it was and at first it seems he was delighted with it. Then earlier this year something went wrong, he couldn’t get his money out and he became worried and depressed. He didn’t tell Lady Babb about it and I think he must have lost it all. It might explain why he was in Pudding Lane the night he was murdered. Drowning his sorrows, perhaps.’

  ‘AV, did you say?’ asked Mary. Thomas nodded. ‘Have you heard of AV, Charles?’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ replied Charles thoughtfully. ‘We could ask Chandle, though. He knows what’s going on in the world of business and he’s done very well for us.’

  ‘So you tell me, Charles. I know little of such affairs, as befits a lady.’

  ‘Befits a lady? A lady who struck fear into the black hearts of the revolting Gibbes brothers, saved a wounded man’s life, rescued one Thomas Hill from certain death and who knows at least as much as her husband about matters of business. What nonsense.’

  ‘May I enquire how Chandle Stoner has been of service to you?’ asked Thomas.

  ‘Of course you may,’ replied Charles. ‘Thinking of making an investment yourself? Could do worse than take Chandle’s advice.’

  ‘Not exactly, Charles. Just interested.’

  ‘Well, Chandle has his fingers in lots of pies, so to speak, and he knows where there’s money to be made. We put a thousand guineas into an enterprise he recommended. He tells us our share is now worth five times as much and he expects it to go higher. Possibly much higher.’

  ‘And what is the enterprise, if I may ask?’

  ‘We swore not to reveal its name. Chandle prefers to keep his best ideas pretty quiet. Damned sensible if you ask me. We don’t want the whole world clamouring for a share.’

  ‘We can tell you it’s a mining venture in the Americas,’ said Mary, ‘but that’s all.’

  ‘Mining for what?’

  Charles laughed. ‘Gold, silver, emeralds, rubies, and plenty of them, by all accounts. Should keep a man happy in his old age.’

  ‘Isn’t that what I’m for, my dear?’ asked Mary.

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Charles cleared his throat. ‘Helped by the money, that is.’

  Thomas was intrigued. The Carringtons were not gambling types. They must think very highly of Stoner. ‘How did you meet Chandle Stoner?’ he asked.

  ‘He was recommended to us by James Drax, a man who knows a thing or two about making money.’

  ‘Indeed, and not a man to be taken lightly.’

  ‘Anything but. James did well from another of Chandle’s enterprises and suggested we contact him when we came to London.’

  ‘Which you did, and I’m delighted it has proved so successful for you. Do ask him if he has heard of an enterprise known as AV, won’t you? It may be something or nothing, but I’d like to know out of curiosity.’

  ‘I will, next time I see him.’

  Mary changed the subject. ‘Did you have a chance to converse with Madeleine, Thomas?’

  ‘Not really. The streets of London do not lend themselves to polite conversation.’

  ‘So at least you did not bore her with talk of that damned Frenchman,’ spluttered Charles.

  ‘If he was mentioned at all it was but briefly, as I recall.’

  ‘Good,’ said Mary. ‘A lady might not be all that interested in a man who speaks only of ancient French philosophers.’

  ‘And she might not be interested in an ageing bookseller with little hair and a sensitive nose. Are you match-making, Mary Carrington?’

  ‘I? Certainly not. Although I can’t help feeling that you have much in common. Perhaps you should call on Miss Stewart again.’

  ‘Perhaps. I’ll give the matter some thought.’

  ‘As you wish, Thomas, but don’t take too long. Ladies can become disobliging if not attended to promptly.’

  CHAPTER 10

  MONTFORD BABB’S JOURNAL had revealed nothing and Thomas’s efforts to bring Joseph useful intelligence from the coffee houses and barbers’ shops of the city had so far proved futile. He resolved to try harder and spent the next two days in and around Fleet Street, Cheapside and Holborn, drinking numerous cups of Turkish coffee, listening to gentlemen in long periwigs earnestly discussing affairs of business and of the heart. And still learning exactly nothing which he might usefully report to an adviser to the king.

  The men who sat at the common tables in the coffee shops took little interest in politics or at least did not reveal their opinions in public. They much preferred to boast of their latest conquests, lay wagers on whatever took their fancy from horse races to the colour of the coat of the next man to walk in, and to press each other for advice on how to invest their money to best advantage. It was talk with which Thomas quickly became thoroughly bored.

  The barbers’ shops were no better. At Fossett’s he had his teeth painfully scraped and polished, at a filthy establishment on Ludgate Hill his nails were pared and his face shaved, and while sitting on an uncomfortable wooden stool in the shop of Samuel Gill (barber-surgeon) he allowed a little of his blood to be let. Blood letting was not a treatment in which Thomas had the least faith – it had never helped his gout – and he submitted to it only out of duty. Fortunately, Mr Gill’s knife had been sharpened that morning and his incision was neat. The bruising on Thomas’s arm would be gone in a day or two.

  When Thomas left Mr Gill to attend to the needs of his other customers – needs which he noted included treatment for the pox, the provision of opium imported from the east and tobacco from the west, and advice on the use of a range of devices designed to prevent a lady from becoming pregnant – he imagined himself, blood let, close-shaved, teeth cleaned and nails trimmed, to be as well turned out as any London gentleman. Yet still he had learned nothing. Josiah Mottershead might fare better in low taverns and alehouses but from coffee drinkers an
d pipe smokers there had been not a word worth reporting.

  Turning right down Fleet Street, Thomas set off for Piccadilly, thinking that a short sleep before dinner would be in order. He walked briskly, anxious to be away from the sounds and smells of that part of the city. The Fleet river carried a good deal of London’s effluent to the Thames, where with luck it was swept out to sea. Usually, however, the tide that came up the river ensured that the city’s waste matter remained where it was.

  On the corner of Bell Yard his progress was halted by a noisy brawl blocking the street. Such disturbances were common enough and he waited patiently for one man or the other to prevail and for the crowd to disperse so that he could continue on his way. Happening to glance behind him as he waited, he glimpsed a man ducking into a doorway. He was a short man carrying a stout stick. Why was Josiah Mottershead following him?

  Thomas elbowed his way through the crowd watching the fight and turned into a narrow lane, intending to double back until he was behind Mottershead. He would steal up on the man and demand to know what he was doing. Either Joseph Williamson did not trust Thomas or Mottershead was up to no good.

  Trying both to keep an eye out behind him and to avoid the piles of muck that lined the lane, Thomas did not see the hag who leapt out from the shadows and tore at his face with her nails. Taken quite by surprise, he stumbled backwards and tripped over a raised cobblestone. Lying on his back, dazed and bloody, it took him a moment to realize what had happened. He pushed himself to his knees and looked about. The woman had disappeared, leaving him with no more than a wound on his cheek and a pair of filthy breeches. He felt his pockets and found that nothing had been taken. Nor was there any sign of an accomplice. A mad woman escaped from the Bedlam, perhaps. He stood up and speedily retraced his steps. His plan had gone awry. He would face Mottershead another time.

  At the end of the lane, however, he ran straight into the little man. Josiah Mottershead was no runner but, stick in hand, he was doing the best he could along Fleet Street. His face was red and he was breathing hard. When he saw Thomas emerge from the lane he came to an abrupt halt. Hands on knees, he tried to regain his breath while Thomas stood and watched.