by John Buchan
Sir Edmund looked up and down the street, pinched his chin and peered down the precipitous Savoy causeway. Whatever the burden on his soul he did not forget his duty.
“Show me,” he said, and followed her into the gloom.
Lovel outside stood for a second hesitating. His chance had come. His foe had gone of his own will into the place in all England where murder could be most safely done. But now that the moment had come at last, he was all of a tremble and his breath choked. Only the picture, always horribly clear in his mind, of a gallows dark against a pale sky and the little fire beneath where the entrails of traitors were burned — a nightmare which had long ridden him — nerved him to the next step. “His life or mine,” he told himself, as he groped his way into a lane as steep, dank, and black as the sides of a well.
For some twenty yards he stumbled in an air thick with offal and garlic. He heard steps ahead, the boots of the doomed magistrate and the slipshod pattens of the woman. Then. they stopped; his quarry seemed to be ascending a stair on the right. It was a wretched tenement of wood, two hundred years old, once a garden house attached to the Savoy palace. Lovel scrambled up some rickety steps and found himself on the rotten planks of a long passage, which was lit by a small window giving to the west. He heard the sound of a man slipping at the other end, and something like an oath. Then a door slammed violently, and the place shook. After that it was quiet. Where was the bloody fight that Godfrey had been brought to settle?
It was very dark there; the window in the passage was only a square of misty grey. Lovel felt eerie, a strange mood for an assassin. Magistrate and woman seemed to have been spirited away... He plucked up courage and continued, one hand on the wall on his left. Then a sound broke the silence — a scuffle, and the long grate of something heavy dragged on a rough floor. Presently his fingers felt a door. The noise was inside that door. There were big cracks in the panelling through which an eye could look, but all was dark within. There were human beings moving there, and speaking softly. Very gingerly he tried the hasp, but it was fastened firm inside.
Suddenly someone in the room struck a flint and lit a lantern. Lovel set his eyes to a crack and stood very still. The woman had gone, and the room held three men. One lay on the floor with a coarse kerchief, such as grooms wear, knotted round his throat. Over him bent a man in a long coat with a cape, a man in a dark peruke, whose face was clear in the lantern’s light. Lovel knew him for one Bedloe, a led-captain and cardsharper, whom he had himself employed on occasion. The third man stood apart and appeared from his gesticulations to be speaking rapidly. He wore his own sandy hair, and every line of his mean freckled face told of excitement and fear. Him also Lovel recognised — Carstairs, a Scotch informer who had once made a handsome living through spying on conventicles, but had now fallen into poverty owing to conducting an affair of Buckingham’s with a brutality which that fastidious nobleman had not bargained for... Lovel rubbed his eyes and looked again. He knew likewise the man on the floor. It was Sir Edmund Godfrey, and Sir Edmund Godfrey was dead.
The men were talking. “No blood-letting,” said Bedloe “This must be a dry job. Though, by God, I wish I could stick my knife into him — once for Trelawney, once for Frewen, and a dozen times for myself. Through this swine I have festered a twelvemonth in Little Ease.”
Lovel’s first thought, as he stared, was an immense relief. His business had been done for him, and he had escaped the guilt of it. His second, that here lay a chance of fair profit. Godfrey was a great man, and Bedloe and Carstairs were the seediest of rogues. He might make favour for himself with the Government if he had them caught red-handed. It would help his status in Aldersgate Street... But he must act at once or the murderers would be gone. He tiptoed back along the passage, tumbled down the crazy steps, and ran up the steep entry to where he saw a glimmer of light from the Strand.
At the gate he all but fell into the arms of a man — a powerful fellow, for it was like running against a brick wall. Two strong arms gripped Lovel by the shoulder, and a face looked into his. There was little light in the street, but the glow from the window of a Court perruquier was sufficient to reveal the features. Lovel saw a gigantic face, with a chin so long that the mouth seemed to be only half-way down it. Small eyes, red and fiery, were set deep under a beetling forehead. The skin was a dark purple, and the wig framing it was so white and fleecy that the man had the appearance of a malevolent black-faced sheep.
Lovel gasped, as he recognised the celebrated Salamanca Doctor. He was the man above all others whom he most wished to see.
“Dr. Oates!” he cried. “There’s bloody work in the Savoy. I was passing through a minute agone and I saw that noble Justice, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, lie dead, and his murderers beside the body. Quick, let us get the watch and take them red-handed.”
The big paws, like a gorilla’s, were withdrawn from his shoulders. The purple complexion seemed to go nearly black, and the wide mouth opened as if to bellow. But the sound which emerged was only a whisper.
“By the maircy of Gaad we will have ‘em!...
A maist haarrid and unnaitural craime. I will take ‘em with my own haands. Here is one who will help.” And he turned to a man who had come up and who looked like a city tradesman. “Lead on, honest fellow, and we will see justice done. ‘Tis pairt of the bloody plaat... I foresaw it. I warned Sir Edmund, but he flouted me. Ah, poor soul, he has paid for his unbelief.”
Lovel, followed by Oates and the other whom he called Prance, dived again into the darkness. Now he had no fears. He saw himself acclaimed with the Doctor as the saviour of the nation, and the door of Aldersgate Street open at his knocking. The man Prance produced a lantern, and lighted them up the steps and into the tumbledown passage. Fired with a sudden valour, Lovel drew his sword and led the way to the sinister room. The door was open, and the place lay empty, save for the dead body.
Oates stood beside it, looking, with his bandy legs great shoulders, and bull neck, like some forest baboon.
“Oh, maist haunourable and noble victim!” he cried. “England will maarn you, and the spawn of Raam will maarn you, for by this deed they have rigged for thaimselves the gallows. Maark ye, Sir Edmund is the proto-martyr of this new fight for the Praatestant faith. He has died that the people may live, and by his death Gaad has given England the sign she required... Ah, Prance, how little Tony Shaston will exult in our news! ‘Twill be to him like a bone to a cur-dog to take his ainemies thus red-haanded.”
By your leave, sir,” said Lovel, “those same enemies have escaped us. I saw them here five minutes since, but they have gone to earth. What say you to a hue-and-cry — though this Savoy is a snug warrin to hide vermin.”
Oates seemed to be in no hurry. He took the lantern from Prance and scrutinised Lovel’s face with savage intensity.
“Ye saw them, ye say... I think, friend, I have seen ye before, and I doubt in no good quaarter. There’s a Paapist air about you.”
“If you have seen me, ‘twas in the house of my Lord Shaftesbury, whom I have the honour to serve,” said Lovel stoutly.
“Whoy, that is an haanest house enough. Whaat like were the villains, then? Jaisuits, I’ll warrant? Foxes from St. Omer’s airth?”
“They were two common cutthroats whose names I know.”
“Tools, belike. Fingers of the Paape’s hand... Ye seem to have a good acquaintance among rogues, Mr. Whaat’s-you-name.”
The man Prance had disappeared, and Lovel suddenly saw his prospects less bright. The murderers were being given a chance to escape, and to his surprise he found himself in a fret to get after them. Oates had clearly no desire for their capture, and the reason flashed on his mind. The murder had come most opportunely for him, and he sought to lay it at Jesuit doors. It would ill suit his plans if only two common rascals were to swing for it. Far better let it remain a mystery open to awful guesses. Omne ignotum pro horrifico... Lovel’s temper was getting the better of his prudence, and the sight of this monstrous b
aboon with his mincing speech stirred in him a strange abhorrence.
“I can bear witness that the men who did the deed were no more Jesuits than you. One is just out of Newgate, and the other is a blackguard Scot late dismissed the Duke of Buckingham’s service.”
“Ye lie,” and Oates’ rasping voice was close to his ear. “‘Tis an incraidible tale. Will ye outface me, who alone discovered the plaat, and dispute with me on high poalicy?... Now I come to look at it, ye have a true Jaisuit face. I maind of ye at St. Omer. I judge ye an accoamplice... “
At that moment Prance returned and with him another, a man in a dark peruke, wearing a long coat with a cape. Lovel’s breath went from him as he recognised Bedloe.
“There is the murderer,” he cried in a sudden fury “I saw him handle the body. I charge you to hold him.
Bedloe halted and looked at Oates, who nodded. Then he strode up to Lovel and took him by the throat
“Withdraw your words, you dog,” he said, “or I will cut your throat. I have but this moment landed at the river stairs and heard of this horrid business. If you say you have ever seen me before you lie most foully. Quick, you ferret. Will Bedloe suffers no man to charge his honour.”
The strong hands on his neck, the fierce eyes of the bravo, brought back Lovel’s fear and with it his prudence. He saw very plainly the game, and he realised that he must assent to it. His contrition was deep and voluble.
“I withdraw,” he stammered, “and humbly crave pardon. I have never seen this honest gentleman before.”
“But ye saw this foul murder, and though the laight was dim ye saw the murderers, and they had the Jaisuitical air?”
Oates’ menacing voice had more terror for Lovel than Bedloe’s truculence. “Beyond doubt,” he replied.
“Whoy, that is so far good,” and the Doctor laughed. “Ye will be helped later to remember the names for the benefit of his Maajesty’s Court... ‘Tis time we set to work. Is the place quiet?”
“As the grave, doctor,” said Prance.
“Then I will unfold to you my pairpose. This noble magistrate is foully murdered by pairsons unknown as yet, but whom this haanest man will swear to have been disguised Jaisuits. Now in the sairvice of Goad and the King ‘tis raight to pretermit no aiffort to bring the guilty to justice. The paiple of England are already roused to a holy fairvour, and this haarrid craime will be as the paistol flash to the powder caask. But that the craime may have its full effaict on the paapulace ‘tis raight to take some trouble with the staging. ‘Tis raight so to dispose of the boady that the complaicity of the Paapists will be clear to every doubting fool. I, Taitus Oates, take upon myself this responsibility, seeing that under Goad I am the chosen ainstrument for the paiple’s salvation. To Soamersait Haase with it, say I, which is known for a haaunt of the paapistically-minded... The postern ye know of is open, Mr. Prance?”
“I have seen to it,” said the man, who seemed to conduct himself in this wild business with the decorum of a merchant in his shop.
“Up with him, then,” said Oates.
Prance and Bedloe swung the corpse on their shoulders and moved out, while the doctor, gripping Lovel’s arm like a vice, followed at a little distance.
The Savoy was very quiet that night, and very dark. The few loiterers who observed the procession must have shrugged their shoulders and turned aside, zealous only to keep out of trouble. Such sights were not uncommon in the Savoy. They entered a high ruinous house on the east side, and after threading various passages reached a door which opened on a flight of broken steps where it was hard for more than one to pass at a time. Lovel heard the carriers of the dead grunting as they squeezed up with their burden. At the top another door gave on an outhouse in the yard of Somerset House between the stables and the west water-gate... Lovel, as he stumbled after them with Oates’ bulk dragging at his arm, was in a confusion of mind such as his mean time-serving life had never known.
He was in mortal fear, and yet his quaking heart would suddenly be braced by a gust of anger. He knew he was a rogue, but there were limits to roguery, and something in him — conscience, maybe, or forgotten gentility — sickened at this outrage. He had an impulse to defy them, to gain the street and give the alarm to honest men. These fellows were going to construct a crime in their own way which would bring death to the innocent ... Mr. Lovel trembled at himself, and had to think hard on his family in the Billingsgate attic to get back to his common-sense. He would not be believed if he spoke out. Oates would only swear that he was the culprit, and Oates had the ear of the courts and the mob. Besides , he had too many dark patches in his past. It was not for such as he to be finicking.
The body was pushed under an old truckle-bed which stood in the corner, and a mass of frails, such as gardeners use, flung over it for concealment. Oates rubbed his hands.
“The good work goes merrily,” he said. “Sir Edmund dead, and for a week the good fawk of London are a-fevered. Then the haarrid discovery, and such a Praatestant uprising as will shake the maightiest from his pairch. Wonderful are Goad’s ways and surprising His jaidgements! Every step must be weighed, since it is the Laard’s business. Five days we must give this city to grow uneasy, and then... The boady will be safe here?”
“I alone have the keys,” said Prance.
The doctor counted on his thick fingers. “Monday — Tuesday — Waidnesday — aye, Waidneday’s the day. Captain Bedloe, ye have chairge of the removal. Before dawn by the water-gate, and then a chair and a trusty man to cairry it to the plaace of discovery. Ye have appainted the spoat?”
“Any ditch in the Marylebone fields,” said Bedloe.
“And before ye remove it — on the Tuesday naight haply — ye will run the boady through with his swaard — Sir Edmund’s swaard.”
“So you tell me,” said Bedloe gruffly, “but I see no reason in it. The foolishest apothecary will be able tell how the man met his death.”
Oates grinned and laid his finger to his nose. “Ye laack subtelty, fraiend. The priests of Baal must be met with their own waipons. Look ye. This poor man is found with his swaard in his braist. He has killed himself, says the fool. Not so, say the apothecaries. Then why the swaard” asks the coroner. Because of the daivilish cunning of his murderers, says Doctor Taitus Oates. A clear proof that the Jaisuits are in it, says every honest Praatistant. D’ye take me?”
Bedloe declared with oaths his admiration of the Doctor’s wit, and good humour filled the hovel; All but Lovel, who once again was wrestling with something elemental in him that threatened to ruin every thing. He remembered the bowed stumbling figure that had gone before him in the Marylebone meadows. Then he had been its enemy; now by a queer contortion of the mind he thought of himself as the only protector of that cold clay under the bed — honoured in life, but in death a poor pawn in a rogue’s cause. He stood a little apart from the others near the door, and his eyes sought it furtively. He was not in the plot, and yet the plotters did not trouble about him. They assumed his complaisance. Doubtless they knew his shabby past.
He was roused by Oates’ voice. The Doctor was arranging his plan of campaign with gusto. Bedloe was to disappear to the West Country till the time came for him to offer his evidence. Prance was to go about his peaceful trade till Bedloe gave him the cue. It was a masterly stratagem — Bedloe to start the ball, Prance to be accused as accomplice and then on his own account to give the other scoundrel corroboration.
“Attend, you sir,” the doctor shouted to Lovel. “Ye will be called to swear to the murderers whom this haanest man will name. If ye be a true Praatestant ye will repeat the laisson I taich you. If not, ye will be set down as one of the villains and the good fawk of this city will tear the limbs from ye at my nod. Be well advaised, my friend, for I hold ye in my haand.” And Oates raised a great paw and opened and shut it.
Lovel mumbled assent. Fear had again descended on him. He heard dimly the Doctor going over the names of those to be accused.
“Ye must bring i
n one of the sairvants of this place,” he said. “Some common paarter, who has no friends.”
“Trust me,” said Prance. “I will find a likely fellow among the Queen’s household. I have several in my mind for the honour.”
“Truly the plaace is a nest of Paapists,” said Oates. “And not such as you, Mr. Prance, who putt England before the Paape. Ye are worth a score of Praatestants to the good caause, and it will be remaimbered. Be assured it will be remaimbered... Ye are clear about the main villains? Walsh, you say, and Pritchard and the man called Le Fevre?”
“The last most of all. But they are sharp-nosed as hounds, and unless we go wiarily they will give us the slip, and we must fall back on lesser game.”
“Le Fevre.” Oates mouthed the name. “The Queen’s confessor. I was spit upon by him at St. Omer, and would waipe out the affront. A dog of a Frainch priest! A man I have long abhaarred.”
“So also have I.” Prance had venom in his level voice. “But he is no Frenchman. He is English as you — a Phayre out of Huntingdon.”
The name penetrated Lovel’s dulled wits. Phayre! It was the one man who in his father’s life had shown him unselfish kindness. Long ago in Paris this Phayre had been his teacher, had saved him from starvation, had treated him with a gentleman’s courtesy. Even his crimes had not estranged this friend. Phayre had baptised his child, and tended his wife when he was in hiding. But a week ago he had spoken a kindly word in the Mall to one who had rarely a kind word from an honest man.
That day had been to the spy a revelation of odd corners in his soul. He had mustered in the morning the resolution to kill one man. Now he discovered a scruple which bade him at all risks avert the killing of another. He perceived very clearly what the decision meant — desperate peril, perhaps ruin and death. He dare not delay, for in a little he would be too deep in the toils. He must escape and be first with the news of Godfrey’s death in some potent quarter. Buckingham, who was a great prince. Or Danby. Or the King himself...