The Earl nodded. ‘He says that hiring ex-Parliamentarian agents may make folk question my loyalty to the King. And he is right – I have many enemies at Court, and one might well use my employing of you to harm me.’
‘But none of them know about my past,’ objected Chaloner. ‘Unless you have told them?’
‘I have not,’ said the Earl firmly. ‘Do you think me a fool, to provide them with ammunition? And Williamson knows better than to tell them, too, because he is afraid of your mentor. Cromwell’s old spymaster may have lost his government posts and a good slice of his wealth when the Royalists returned, but he still wields enough power to make him dangerous.’
Unfortunately, though, the fear in which men had once held Thurloe was beginning to wane as time passed. Chaloner was not worried about what that meant for himself, although the prospect of an unleashed Williamson was not something he relished, but about the repercussions for his friend. There were those who thought Cromwell’s chief advisor had no right to be living in peaceful retirement, and should suffer a traitor’s death.
‘Greene, sir,’ Chaloner prompted, supposing he would have to prove his loyalty yet again to the Earl and the new government – and keep proving it until he was fully trusted. It was a miserable situation, because there was little about the Earl or the work that he liked, but he needed to earn a crust, and no one else was lining up to hire him.
The Earl pursed his lips. ‘When Greene came slithering out of the Painted Chamber, just as you and I happened to be walking past, he behaved very suspiciously.’
‘He was frightened,’ said Chaloner reasonably. ‘He had just found a dead senior official, and then the Lord Chancellor accused him of murder. I would have been frightened, too.’
‘But you would not have tried to run away. You would have stayed and explained yourself.’
‘He panicked – it could happen to anyone under such circumstances.’
‘Rubbish,’ declared the Earl, with a note of finality that told Chaloner any further debate would be a waste of time. ‘But I told Colonel Turner that I want this killer – whether it is Greene or someone else – behind bars by Twelfth Night. He assures me that it will be done. What will you promise?’
‘To do my best. I will not lie to you, or make pledges I may not be able to fulfil.’
The Earl stared at him for a moment. ‘Very well. Go and do your best then, and let us see where it leads. However, I see no point in continuing to watch Greene – he slipped past you to murder Vine, after all – so give up the surveillance and concentrate on other leads instead. And incidentally, these deaths do not mean you can forget about the previous task I set you.’
Chaloner regarded him blankly. ‘What previous task? Finding out what the Lord of Misrule plans to do over the next ten days?’
The Earl grimaced in distaste. ‘You had better not waste your time on that nonsense! No, I mean the King’s missing statue. He remains grieved by its loss, and I would like to be the one to hand it back to him. You will be busy, because I give both these enquiries equal status.’
The Earl of Clarendon was not normally a stupid man, and Chaloner could not help but wonder whether there was more to his dislike of Greene than he was willing to share. It would not be the first time he had been less than honest with his spy before sending him off on an investigation, and Chaloner knew from bitter experience that this could prove dangerous. But such subterfuge was the Earl’s way, and Chaloner had come to expect lies and half-truths, so he resigned himself to fathoming out the mystery without his master’s cooperation. It was a wicked waste of his time, especially given that he had two other enquiries to conduct, but it could not be helped, and there was no point in wasting energy by railing against it.
‘He is in a bad mood this morning,’ said Bulteel, following the spy down the stairs with some letters to post. ‘His gout must be aggravating him.’
‘He is always in a bad mood,’ Chaloner replied tartly. ‘So goutiness must be his permanent state.’
‘Do not be too hard on him,’ said Bulteel quietly. ‘He is under a lot of pressure, what with the bishops demanding new laws to suppress nonconformists, the Court popinjays clamouring for war with the Dutch, and people muttering that the Queen – the wife he chose for His Majesty – is barren.’
‘How is your family?’ Chaloner was loath to discuss the Earl’s concerns, because he and Bulteel held diametrically opposite views on most of them. Bulteel tended to accept whatever the Earl told him, whereas Chaloner had seen enough of the world to make up his own mind.
Bulteel blinked at the abrupt enquiry. ‘Well, we would like to provide our little son with a sibling, but I fear for my future employment. Haddon has only been here a few months, but the Earl already prefers him to me – he is taking over duties that should be mine.’
‘But that is why he was hired,’ Chaloner pointed out. ‘You were overwhelmed, struggling to keep up, and Haddon is meant to be taking some of your work. The Earl expects you to be grateful, not nervous.’
‘Well, I am nervous,’ snapped Bulteel, uncharacteristically sharp. ‘This job is important to me. And I do not like Haddon, anyway. He smells of dog and is always smiling at people. It is not natural.’
‘Right,’ said Chaloner, not sure what else to say. Haddon did smile at people, but no more than was necessary for normal social intercourse, and the spy had not noticed any particular odour of pooch. He changed the subject before the discussion went any further – he did not want to take sides when he had to work with both secretary and steward. ‘I do not suppose you have heard any rumours about these murders, have you? About potential culprits?’
‘I am afraid not,’ replied Bulteel. ‘All I know is that neither victim will be mourned by his kin, although London will be a poorer place without them. They were good men.’
‘You knew them well?’
‘No, but I wish I had – they were gentle and kind. And Vine funded a hospice for stray dogs. Perhaps that is why they were killed – the Court is so full of vice that decency is considered a fault.’
‘Is Greene the kind of man to despise goodness?’
‘I do not know him well, either, but I would not have thought so. He is very devout, by all accounts – attends church most mornings, and does charitable work in Southwark.’
‘Then what about the missing statue? There must be some gossip regarding its whereabouts?’
‘Not that I have heard. Colonel Turner has been told to make enquiries, too, but I would rather you were the one to find it.’
Chaloner shrugged. ‘It does not matter which of us succeeds, only that the King has it back. He is said to be very distressed about its disappearance.’
Bulteel was silent for a moment, then began to speak. ‘Turner is a danger to your future. And Haddon is a danger to mine. You and I have worked together before to our mutual advantage, so what do you say to renewing our alliance? You tell me if Haddon confides any plot that might prove detrimental to me; I tell you anything I hear about the statue or the murders. Agreed?’
‘Very well,’ said Chaloner, confident that the steward would confide nothing of the kind, so betraying one colleague to another would not be a quandary he would ever be obliged to face.
Bulteel smiled. ‘Good. And to seal our agreement, I shall go with you to the Shield Gallery. Turner should be gone by now, because we both know there is nothing to find – you have already looked.’
‘So why should I go there with you now?’ asked Chaloner warily.
‘Because I have been thinking about the theft, and I have a theory. It involves keys.’
The ease with which the thief had entered the Shield Gallery on the night the statue had gone missing was something that had troubled Chaloner from the start, and he was more than willing to listen to Bulteel’s ideas on the subject. The secretary had a sharp mind, and might well have an insight into how the crime had been committed – and Chaloner needed all the help he could get now he was in competition with anothe
r investigator. He nodded assent, and they began to walk in that direction.
The Shield Gallery was a long hall, so named because trophies won during tournaments in the nearby Tilt Yard had once hung there. No such chivalrous pursuits took place now, though – Chaloner thought there was more likely to be a tally of sexual conquests pinned to the walls.
The gallery was on the upper floor of an Elizabethan section of the palace, and at one end was a large, mullioned window that overlooked the river. On the ground floor, directly beneath the window, were the so-called Privy Stairs, which were basically a private wharf for the King and Queen. It was convenient for them to jump into a boat there, because the Queen’s quarters were through a door in the gallery’s northern end, while the King’s lay to the south. The gallery was handsomely appointed – its floor was tiled in black and white granite, and paintings by great masters hung along its length, interspersed with sculptures on plinths.
As it was so close to the royal apartments, the chamber was usually kept locked. Bulteel opened it with a key, and Chaloner saw Turner had not been exaggerating when he had mentioned a leaking roof: there were puddles on the floor and water-stains on the walls. There was no sign of the colonel, although there was a lot of noise coming from Her Majesty’s rooms – squeals, giggles and bantering conversation. The spy was impressed: it was not easy for a man to inveigle his way into that Holy of Holies. But there was work to be done, and Chaloner had more important concerns than Turner’s silver tongue. He turned his attention to the matter in hand.
‘The statue was there,’ he said, pointing to the one plinth that was bereft of its masterpiece.
Bulteel ran wistful fingers across the empty marble. ‘Bernini captured the old king’s likeness to perfection when he carved that bust. Did you know it was one of the pieces Cromwell hawked, because he needed money to pay off his army? You, in other words.’
Chaloner was taken aback by what sounded like an accusation. ‘Hardly! I fought in the wars, but was never in the peacetime militia – I was overseas by the time the old king’s goods were sold.’ He frowned. ‘I did not know you were a connoisseur of art.’
Bulteel shrugged. ‘You have never asked. But I do like sculpture. When the King decided to reassemble his late father’s collection, I was one of those employed to make a list of what had gone, so the commissioners would know what to hunt for. I hope you find the Bernini, because it would be a crying shame if that disappeared into some private vault.’
‘Yes, it would, so we had better get to work. The Shield Gallery has four doors: one leads to the Queen’s apartments; one leads to the King’s; the tiny one in the corner leads to a spiral staircase that exits into a lane – we just used it to come here; and the last one leads to the Privy Stairs and the river. All are locked at night. What is your theory about keys?’
‘There was no sign of forced entry, which means the culprit had one. The King rarely uses his door – you can see from here that it is currently blocked by a chest. By contrast, the Queen uses hers a lot, because she likes to walk in here if the weather is damp.’
‘You think the thief is one of her ladies-in-waiting?’ Chaloner was amused. ‘She must be a very hefty one, then, because those busts are heavy.’
‘You are mocking me,’ said Bulteel reproachfully. ‘I was going to say that the ladies can be eliminated as suspects, because they would have stolen something more easily portable.’
Chaloner inclined his head to accept his point. ‘I know the thief did not use the Privy Stairs door, because that was barred from the inside. So, we are left with the one that gives access to the lane. Who has a key to that? You do, for a start.’
Bulteel held it up. ‘It is the Earl’s, and one of my responsibilities is to keep it for him. It was a duty he wanted me to pass to Haddon, but I prevaricated for so long that he has forgotten about it.’
‘Who else?’ asked Chaloner, not very interested in Bulteel’s machinations to foil his rival.
‘And there is your problem. I made enquiries, and was told they were issued to at least forty nobles – women and men – at the Restoration. Brodrick has one, for example. Perhaps he stole the statue, and intends to make it look as though his cousin is the thief, as one of his pranks as Lord of Misrule.’
Chaloner was troubled, because it was exactly the kind of jape Brodrick might dream up. Unfortunately, what sounded like harmless fun might have devastating consequences, because the Earl’s detractors would use it to question his probity – and England would not want a Lord Chancellor with accusations of dishonesty hanging over his head.
‘Is that why you brought me here?’ he asked. ‘To tell me Brodrick is the guilty party?’
‘Actually, no. I brought you here because I wanted you to understand that the thief is either a courtier or a high-ranking, well-trusted servant. It will not be a common burglar or some lowly scullion. It means you need to be careful, because the culprit may be powerful enough to do you real harm as you close in on him.’
Chaloner was thoughtful as he left the Shield Gallery. He had known from the start that the theft was the work of someone familiar with the palace, but he had been working on the premise that it was some greedy nobody. Bulteel’s theory made sense, though, and he supposed he would have to tread warily from now on.
‘What will you do now?’ asked Bulteel, breaking into his thoughts.
‘Go to discuss the problem with an old friend.’
London had not fared well in the recent gales. Trees had blown over, and several had fallen on buildings and smashed through their roofs. Bits of twig and broken tile littered the ground, and people were struggling to repair the damage with hammers and nails. The rhythmic clatter could barely be heard over the noise of the street – iron-shod cartwheels rattling across cobbles, the insistent hollers of tradesmen, and the jangling peals of church bells. The dying wind could barely be heard, either, although it made the hanging signs above doorways swing violently enough to be unsafe, and played a dangerous game with the creaking branches of some elderly oaks.
Many folk had marked the Twelve Days of Christmas by tying wreaths of holly, bay and yew to their doors. Most had been torn away, and sat in sodden heaps in corners, or blocked the drains that ran down the sides of the main streets. With indefatigable spirit, children were collecting them together, shaking out the water and filth, and pinning them back up again. Their noisy antics brought back happy memories of Chaloner’s own boyhood in Buckinghamshire, making him smile.
He walked along The Strand, then up Chancery Lane until he reached the building known as the Rolls Gate, next to which stood Rider’s Coffee House. Rider’s was not the most comfortable of establishments, because it was poky, dimly lit and badly ventilated. It did, however, roast its beans without burning them, so the resulting potion was better than that served in most other venues.
Chaloner was not overly fond of the beverage that was so popular in the capital; he found it muddy, bitter and it made his heart pound when he drank too much of it. It was, however, better than tea, which he thought tasted of rotting vegetation. And tea was infinitely preferable to chocolate, which was just plain nasty, with its rank, oily consistency and acrid flavour. That day, though, it was not coffee he wanted in Rider’s, but the companionship of the only man in London he considered a true friend.
He smiled when he opened the door and saw John Thurloe sitting at a table near the back. The place was busy with black-garbed lawyers from the nearby courts, all perched on benches and puffing on pipes as they discussed religion, current affairs and whatever had been reported in the most recent newsbooks. The spy was greeted with the traditional coffee-house cry of ‘what news’ as he aimed for Thurloe, but shook his head apologetically to say he had none.
Thurloe, who had run Cromwell’s spy network with such cool efficiency, was a slight, brown-haired man with large blue eyes that had led more than one would-be traitor to underestimate him. He was softly spoken, slow to anger and deeply religious. He could als
o be ruthless and determined, and his sharp mind was the reason why men like Spymaster Williamson continued to fear him, even after he had been stripped of his government posts. There were those who said the Commonwealth would not have lasted as long as it had without Thurloe, and Chaloner was inclined to agree, despite the man’s quiet and almost diffident manner.
As usual, Thurloe sat alone. At first, Chaloner had assumed no one wanted to hobnob with a man who had been a powerful member of a deposed regime, but it had not taken him long to learn that the choice was Thurloe’s. Would-be table-companions were repelled with a glacial glare, and now the regulars left him to enjoy his coffee in peace. But he beamed in genuine pleasure when Chaloner slid on to the bench next to him.
‘Tom! Where have you been these last few weeks? You told me your Earl was sending you to Oxford, to investigate a theft in his old College, but I did not imagine you would be gone so long. When did you come home?’
‘Last week,’ replied Chaloner, knowing he should have visited sooner. One reason he had not was Hannah, who had claimed a disproportionate amount of his time – and he found himself willing to let her. ‘I have been looking for a missing statue ever since.’
Thurloe raised his eyebrows. ‘The Bernini bust? That is unfortunate. Everyone is talking about how it was a perfect crime, because the thief left nothing in the way of clues. I suspect there may be some truth to these claims, because you do not look exactly flushed with victory.’
‘No,’ agreed Chaloner ruefully.
‘I do not suppose you visited our friend Will Leybourn on your way home from Oxford, did you?’ asked Thurloe, when the spy said no more. ‘To see how life in the country is suiting him?’
The Westminster Poisoner: Chaloner's Fourth Exploit in Restoration London (Thomas Chaloner Book 4) Page 5
