by Graham Brack
‘Let us then move on. When that failed, what was your next plan?’
Coleman looked up, appearing astonished. ‘I had none, Master. Having no access to the Princesses, I thought perhaps I might seek to influence their stepmother, the Duchess, but she said that she could not counsel them against their father’s instruction. And the Duke would not argue with his brother the King.’
‘But then you heard of our party and some Englishmen going out into the city. Whom did you tell?’
‘Nobody, Master. I did not know of it.’
‘You didn’t tell Mr Paston, or Captain Hallow, for example?’
‘Paston was away in Norfolk. Who is Hallow?’
The man was telling the truth, I was sure of it. I said that I had no further questions for him, and bade him tell me all he wished in an act of confession, which is a secret between a man, his priest and his God.
And that’s why I’m not going to tell you what he said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I was told that half a million people lived in London then, and so far as I could see most of them could have been suspects. Any one of them could have walked up to Wevers in the street and stuck a dagger in him without warning or even a motive; but I was fairly sure that I knew the two people who had combined to make that happen. I lacked any connection between them, even of the most suppositious type, and there was the small difficulty that in one case the evidence steered me away.
I returned to Whitehall, acutely aware that I had missed dinner, and contemplated stopping at an inn or chop house to rectify the loss, but when I arrived at the gate I discovered dinner was still being served, a consequence of the King’s highly irregular hours.
I tried to slip in unnoticed but failed dismally, being immediately hailed by His Majesty across the room.
‘Ho! Mercurius!’
When His Majesty spoke, all other voices were stilled, of course, so I made my way to the great table and bowed in greeting.
‘No ceremony, Mercurius! Come up here and tell me what you’ve been doing. Arlington, shift along.’
There followed a comic moment as each person in turn to the King’s right made the next person move until eventually someone was compelled to shift to another table.
‘Your Majesty, I…’
‘Get some wine and food first, man. I can recommend the duck.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘And that gammon is excellent.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘And there’s a baked pike somewhere.’
‘Thank you, sir. I’m well supplied now.’
‘Jolly good. Well, let’s hear it. Don’t dither!’
I explained that I had seen Coventry, Pepys and Coleman and recounted the discussions there just as I have done in these pages.
‘You’ve seen Coleman? How is he?’
‘Miserable and frightened, Your Majesty.’
‘Excellent. Exactly how I’d want him to feel.’
The Duke of York was not in company with us, but I doubt Charles would have said anything different if he had been.
‘My brother knows I mean business this time. There’ll be no more dismissing a man then finding him another post in his household. Isn’t that right, Arlington?’
‘Indeed so, Your Majesty,’ Arlington said.
I took the opportunity to ask my next question in front of the King, which I thought might help me to get a truthful answer from Arlington. ‘Might I have another interview with Morley?’
Arlington looked uncomfortable. ‘He has been allowed to leave,’ he said.
‘Why do you want to talk to him?’ asked Charles.
‘Because he is the leading suspect in the murder of Wevers. He was, after all, the last person we know who, by his own admission, saw Wevers alive.’
Charles chewed slowly on a chicken leg. ‘He’s right there, you know, Arlington. Why did you let Morley go, eh?’
‘Because you ord—… I will see if we can find him again,’ Arlington replied. ‘At least we know where he will be when his salary is next due.’
‘Where’s that?’ I asked.
‘Why, at the Treasury Chambers,’ Arlington replied. ‘They’re behind the King’s laboratory where you were the other day. All the King’s servants are paid there.’
‘May I ask when they are paid?’ I enquired.
‘It varies. I approve the list by the third Sunday of the month, then they are paid on different days according to their employment to ease the workload of the treasury. So, for example, the gardeners and masons attend on Monday, the household staff on Wednesday, and so on.’
We would have left before the next pay-day, but at least I could leave a request for his arrest, I supposed. Fortunately, the King, who was much more highly regarded than I was, had a better idea.
‘Arlington, you must know how to find him, in case we have a job for him.’
‘I don’t, Your Majesty, but Mr Coventry will.’
Coventry was two places to the left of the King, so he was summoned to move one place closer.
‘Coventry, I want you to get a summons to that fellow Morley to present himself here to Mercurius.’
‘Your Majesty, if his appearance becomes known, it renders him useless to us.’
‘I know that, Coventry, but if the man is a murderer he’s useless to us anyway, because he’ll be dangling from a gallows.’
‘Perhaps if Master Mercurius were to give us a list of questions, we could ask on his behalf,’ Coventry said.
‘I’m afraid it’s his appearance that matters to me. I want to know if people recognise him,’ I answered.
‘Well, that’s plain enough, Coventry. Get the man here. He can meet Mercurius in private somewhere. Mercurius, you’ll undertake not to share any information about him if he’s not the murderer, won’t you?’
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
I thought that clinched matters, but Arlington was still vexed at having a spy unmasked. Judging by their performance during our recent war with England, perhaps he did not have many good ones.
‘May I make an alternative suggestion, Your Majesty? If we were to bring Morley into this hall, Mercurius’ witnesses could observe the crowd and tell us if they recognise anyone. That way, if they don’t, his appearance will not be revealed.’
Charles sighed. ‘I don’t mind how the thing is done, Arlington. Just have it performed so that Master Mercurius may complete his investigation.’
It was clear that we were coming very close to the end of the King’s attention span, so I dropped the subject. ‘Thank you, Your Majesty,’ I said.
‘You may leave us, Mercurius.’
I was not sure whether the normal etiquette was to take your half-eaten pasty with you or not, but it seemed unhygienic to leave it, so I kept it in my hands, rose and bowed. It was difficult to see where I was going to sit, because in the wake of my removal a lot of people shuffled along a place or moved from one table to another, but Van Langenburg caught my eye and indicated a seat opposite him.
‘Now you can tell me what you told the King,’ he smiled crookedly, ‘if you have no objection to speaking to the head of your delegation.’
‘Your pardon,’ I quickly replied. It would not do to fall out with him, especially if I had to return to The Hague with my tail between my legs and an incomplete enquiry. Who knew what he would tell William? I would probably finish up as a village schoolmaster in one of the West Frisian Islands, if there was one small enough to humiliate me adequately.
I hastened to explain to Van Langenburg what I had discovered. If all went well, I might be able to conclude my enquiry on the morrow whenever Morley showed up.
‘If only Arlington and the King had allowed me to interview Morley in person earlier instead of conducting that ridiculous charade, I might already have finished,’ I said.
Van Langenburg said something, but I did not hear it. My head was full of little bells indicating that the whole thing was suddenly clear.
I could not wait to get to my room and write out my argument so that I could be sure I had it straight in my head. Sometimes when I was teaching I liked to quote Proverbs, chapter nine, verse nine: “Give instruction to the wise and they will become wiser still”, but just at that moment another verse from Proverbs, chapter twelve, verse fifteen, was leaping out at me: “Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to advice.”
There was still one stumbling block, the one piece of evidence I needed to complete the chain. I needed a reason why someone would kill Wevers, and I could not think of one. I could think of plenty of reasons why others would do it, but not the person I believed must have done it. I had to discover that before I saw Morley, because then I planned to reveal all in a masterpiece of theatre. Not, you understand, because I was vain and wanted the applause of the audience, but because revealing the killer was going to be a lot safer in a large crowd with plenty of armed guards on hand. I had no doubt that he would kill me to silence me if he had to.
I could not sleep and struggled to keep my mind on any other work, so I said my prayers and then busied myself packing my chest for the journey home which, God willing, would come in a day or so. I was quite prepared to go and sit on the quay all night if it brought it any closer. I would even load the ship myself. It’s not that I did not know that I loved my homeland so much, but I had come to find England hateful to me.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The sun rose, and so did I. To the astonishment of the priest, I was in the chapel when he arrived for the first office of the day, and I breakfasted with some of the court officials and absolutely none of the courtiers or Dutch guests. So far as I know, King Charles had just gone to bed after an evening at the theatre. There was no play being performed, but he did not seem to find this an obstacle to his preferred type of entertainment.
As soon as I had eaten, I positioned myself in the Privy Garden and waited for the clerks to open the Treasury Chambers. I could not see the doors, you understand, because these rooms were at the rear of the building with access only from inside, but I could see the guards move into place whose purpose was to stop anyone attempting to make off with the King’s money.
The clerks looked up as I entered the counting house.
‘We’re not open for the Chapel staff today,’ said one with the maximum of disinterest.
‘Good, because I’m not one of them,’ I replied.
The clerk was taking more interest in me now. ‘Ah, you’re one of the foreign gentlemen.’
‘I am Master Mercurius of the University of Leiden,’ I introduced myself, ‘and His Majesty has given me permission to examine your records.’
‘He hasn’t told us,’ the other clerk at the table replied.
‘Does His Majesty speak to you often?’ I asked.
I had not anticipated this obstruction and was kicking myself that I had not obtained a letter from the King, or Arlington, or Coventry, or whoever would impress them.
‘He’s got a point there,’ the first clerk decided. ‘What did you want to see, sir?’
‘The payment records for the Royal Household, please.’
‘For how long?’
‘Let’s start with the latest and work backwards,’ I said.
The clerk opened a large book and turned it towards me. I ran my finger slowly down the list of names. As is often the case when I am researching, my mind was distracted by matters that seemed much more interesting than those I was supposed to be looking for. For example, I was shocked to discover that Charles paid his gardener nearly as much as I got from the University. Perhaps I should consider a change of career, I thought, though I had never been comfortable in the company of worms.
There were a lot of people employed there, and I was three-quarters of the way down the fourth page when I found what I wanted. I asked the clerks to find the comparable entry for previous months. It did not take long, and within a quarter of an hour I knew who had killed Wevers. I also had an idea why, and — without wishing to fall into the sin of pride — I was delighted that my revelation of the night before was correct. Now all I had to do was wait for Arlington’s men to bring Morley in.
With nothing more useful to do for the rest of the day, I decided to pay a farewell visit to mijnheer Biscop at the Dutch church, so I asked the clerks to give me directions to Austin Friars. It was a fine morning with no threat of rain, so I set out with, as they say, a spring in my step and the keen anticipation of the King’s satisfaction at my work; and if the King was satisfied, William would be satisfied too. And that was what really concerned me, because William had it in his power to make my life miserable. One cloud upon the horizon was the suggestion from Mary that I might be her chaplain in The Hague when she was married. I would have to sidestep that particular threat somehow by, for example, forgetting all the English I had so painstakingly learned. If that didn’t work, I could try making a lewd remark to one of her ladies-in-waiting, if I knew any such language, which I didn’t, but I could always ask the students in Leiden for some tips.
My route out to the east took me past the Stocks Market, where a deal of produce of all kinds was sold, and where I saw a statue of King Charles mounted upon a horse trampling some poor fellow. I wove my way in and out of the stalls, looking to see what was to be had. It was mainly meat and fish, but also some herbs and vegetables. I sauntered there listening to the noise and enjoying the business, and then I returned to the statue. Some passing fellow told me the man was Oliver Cromwell, in which event I assumed the statue was allegorical, as it assuredly never happened like that, though it would probably not be wise to say so to the King.
The market continued around the corner in Poultry, which was aptly named, since it was filled with chickens and ducks in baskets and cages. I walked in and out of the stalls, and stepped back into an alleyway to allow a cart to pass.
And that was when someone threw a sack over my head and knocked me off my feet.
I cannot narrate much about what may have happened after that until I woke up to find myself tied to a chair in an upstairs room somewhere. The sack had been removed but I was blindfolded. I guessed it to be upstairs because the street noise seemed to be below me.
‘Would you like a drink?’ a man asked. I knew the voice but could not put a face to it.
‘Yes, please,’ I said, ‘then I’d like to go home.’
‘Unfortunately, that won’t be possible for a while. If you weren’t a man of God you’d be dead by now, but I can’t kill a minister.’
‘I’m very pleased to hear that.’ I almost told him I was a man of God twice over in case it made me even safer, but I decided I could not rely on him to keep my secret.
‘So I intend to keep you here long enough to make my escape. A day should suffice, by which time I shall have disappeared from view. It’s sad that I shall have to find a new occupation, but I doubt that the powers that be will want to employ me once you have spoken to them.’
‘They won’t need me to speak to them. They know what I was thinking.’
‘Ah, if only that were true! But you see, I did a little snouting around last night and nobody knew what you were thinking. So, you see, if you can’t tell them I won’t be under suspicion.’
This was ominous. If I were in his position and wanted to escape a nasty death on the scaffold with the tantalising little extras that rulers like to throw in these days, I would kill me on the spot. Given a choice between killing one person and dying and killing two and getting away, the rational man has only one option. I decided to play for time. ‘I assume that your kidnapping of me is a confession of guilt,’ I said, ‘but what exactly would you like to confess to?’
He laughed. ‘Nothing at all. But I’ll tell you one thing I didn’t do. I didn’t kill Wevers.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’d worked that out. In a strict sense, you didn’t. But you know who did, and you set them to it.’
‘Careful, Mr Minister. I might not kill you, but I didn’t say I
wouldn’t hurt you.’
‘Are you a Catholic?’
‘No!’ he said scornfully. ‘I belong to the Church of England. Why?’
‘Oh, no reason,’ I lied. If he had been a Catholic, I might have tried suggesting that harming a priest is a mortal sin. Though, given what he had already done, I don’t suppose he would have lost too much sleep about it.
I heard a bell striking the hour. It was eleven o’clock, so I must have been knocked out for almost an hour. I was hoping it had been a bit longer so we would all be going to bed soon, when I could do some thinking and praying; mainly praying, because I could not see a way out of this on my own. Having said that, I had been praying for some divine help for a few days, and it was clear that my petitions were not getting to the top of God’s daily list.
I tried listening hard to see if I could get some clue to where I was. There was some street noise, but I could not hear any clear speech. It would have been really helpful if someone had asked which was the nearest church, for example.
Have you ever noticed that when things happen suddenly, you have difficulty sorting them into the right order in your own mind? On top of that, I could not see anything, so all I heard was noises, but suddenly there was a loud, close bang and a draught of cold air which led me to think that someone had opened the door. A number of feet could be heard running in, but they stopped some distance away.
‘Stay back!’ shouted my kidnapper, and it was clear from the retreating shuffle that they took his command seriously, whoever they were. There was some murmuring, then another set of feet coming up the stairs.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ someone said. ‘Put that knife down.’
That explained why everyone was very happy to stay back.
‘If you harm Master Mercurius, I’ll see to it that your execution is extremely drawn out,’ said the newcomer, whose voice I had just recognised. It was Samuel Pepys.
I need hardly add that the most pressing thought in my mind at that moment was that the promise of a slow, lingering death for my murderer was no consolation to me, but you have to make some allowance for the novelty of the situation in which Pepys found himself.