‘He was hiding from another?’ said Seeker.
Bridlington nodded. ‘I am certain of it. He saw us and didn’t seem to care that we saw him. At last we came to the gates of Lincoln’s Inn, and I followed him into the gardens while Patience waited outside. Even there, he looked about him, haunted. I hid myself behind a tree and listened as he hailed the gardener’s boy who was locking away his tools for the night. I saw him thrust something, a paper, into the boy’s hand, and heard him tell him to deliver it to Mr Thurloe, as a matter of urgency. Then he turned and made quickly from the garden by another route. I was certain this paper must contain accusations about me, my association with Patience, lies about myself and Edward. I went by a back path and intercepted the gardener’s boy – Jed – whom I knew would know me from the many times I had had to visit the Inn on official business. I told Jed that Mr Thurloe had been called away, but that I would bring the letter to him. He had promised the man, though, that he would deliver it into Mr Thurloe’s own hand, and so I was forced to pretend I knew where Mr Thurloe was, and that I would bring him to him.’
‘And?’ said Seeker, knowing what would come next.
Bridlington’s response was barely audible. ‘I took him to Gethsemane. Handed him through the door to the crone, told him Mr Thurloe would be on his way.’
‘And the letter?’
His voice was full of bitterness. ‘Patience has it.’
‘She was there?’
‘No. When Jed and I left Lincoln’s gardens, I could see no sign of her, nor of the man she called Gideon Fell. I never saw him again, and I thought for then all was well, that she had forgotten about me. But she came to me over two weeks ago, telling me his body had been found, that you were on our trail, and that if I didn’t get her away she would tell you everything. I should just have killed her. It would have been over sooner.’
‘And what of those poor souls she kept like rats in a cellar?’
‘They wouldn’t have been at her mercy any more.’
‘They would have starved to death,’ shouted Seeker, his face level with Bridlington’s.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, you’ll have years enough yet to be sorry. Where is she now? Don’t even try pretending you don’t know.’
‘I took her to my uncle’s hunting lodge, in Berkshire. She thought I was going to come too, be with her, present her to my family. God!’ He laughed. ‘As well hang myself.’
‘Oh, I doubt you’ll hang,’ said Seeker, ‘though you deserve to. But back to the night at Lincoln’s Inn: did you see who it was that Carter Blyth – Gideon Fell – was running from?’
‘No.’
‘And the letter?’
Bridlington shook his head.
‘I never read it before Patience took it.’
Twenty-Nine
The Last Letter of Carter Blyth
The corridor outside Meadowe’s office was a fug of pipe smoke. The Under-Secretary did not look as if he had slept since last Seeker had seen him.
‘I haven’t,’ he said in reply to Seeker’s question. ‘Mr Thurloe has had me up all night, acquainting him with every piece of business he has missed. He is grilling Morland and Dorislaus as we speak, for fear the postal office has become slack in the weeks of his absence.’
‘Get to your bed, then, Philip.’
‘Oh, I intend to, but not until I have shown you this,’ said Meadowe, grinning broadly through his exhaustion. He signalled to a guard to open the side door to his chamber and there, triumphant, if spattered in mud, sat Andrew Marvell. Beside him, her hands shackled in front of her, was a bedraggled and furious Patience Crowe.
‘Well, Captain,’ said Meadowe, ‘I shall leave you to take Mr Marvell’s report, and to question his prisoner.’
Seeker overcame the urge to hang Marvell by his boots out of the window and took a minute to calm himself.
‘And where, Andrew, have you been?’
‘I have been fetching this,’ said Marvell, waving a hand in the direction of his prisoner.
Seeker looked at the woman he had been searching for, without success, for six days. She would keep five minutes longer. He opened the door back through to Meadowe’s now empty study. ‘A word, Mr Marvell, if you will.’
Marvell, affecting a bravado that took Seeker’s breath away, smiled through the grime on his face and followed Seeker through to Meadowe’s room. He had hardly closed the door behind him when Seeker rounded on him. ‘You have been to Berkshire? Goffe’s hunting lodge?’
Marvell nodded, beaming.
Seeker took a moment to calm himself again. ‘Would you be good enough to enlighten me as to how you knew where she was and why you chose to go there alone?’
‘Well . . .’ Marvell sat back, happy at having the chance to tell his story. ‘It was when I was left minding Bridlington. When word spread about what the Rat had disclosed about him and Patience Crowe, none of the clerks could believe it – she so plain and of such little account, and he such a fop, with such airs because of his high connections, all the bragging he had done, the seeking to curry favour by making free with his uncle’s largesse. And then I remembered.’
‘Remembered what?’ said Seeker, his impatience building.
‘The hunting lodge he bragged of – General Goffe’s hunting lodge in Berkshire, some way past Windsor. I knew the general could not be there, and it seemed to me an ideal location, not too far from London, to hide someone, or some people, away.’ He cast his eyes down. ‘I had in truth hoped to find those children, but unfortunately all I found was that dreadful Crowe girl, who will tell me nothing. But still, it is better than nothing.’
Seeker found his anger subsiding. ‘Yes, it is. And we have found the children.’
Marvell’s face brightened.
‘I will tell you of it later, Andrew, but in God’s name – to go off like that, telling no one where you went, on the trail of a matter that has already resulted in the death of one of our best and most experienced agents!’ He shook his head. ‘It is a wonder I am not talking to a corpse.’
‘Would you talk to a corpse?’ queried Marvell, interested as ever by the idea and not noting the sarcasm.
‘To yours, I would. For yours I would make an exception. Never do something so foolish again. Such unregulated behaviour is not our way of operation and can only result in death, discovery or both. You have set back the reputation of good Yorkshire sense a decade at least in these corridors and done yourself no favours.’
Marvell’s face had fallen completely now, all triumph and light gone from his eyes. ‘But I at least brought you Patience Crowe.’
‘Indeed, and it would have been a cold day in Hell before anyone else here had thought of that, but such a rash act must not be repeated. I think Mr Thurloe must soon send you back to your young charge at Eton, where you can write your poems and steer clear of mischief.’
‘Oh,’ said Marvell, now thoroughly disappointed. ‘You will not be interested in the letter, then, nor the Black Friar’s robe?’
*
‘Yes, it is certainly his hand.’ Astonishment and admiration contended with one another for control of Thurloe’s features as he surveyed the letter Seeker had just had Andrew Marvell hand to him. ‘You found this in Goffe’s lodge?’
‘It was amongst the small parcel of belongings Patience Crowe insisted on bringing away with her. I took the liberty of searching through it before we commenced our ride back to London.’
‘Did you read it?’ enquired Thurloe.
Marvell coloured a little. That he had attempted to read the letter was very clear. He coughed. ‘The seal had already been broken, but I am not privy to that particular cypher.’
‘Hmm,’ said Thurloe. ‘Fortunately I am, or at least I recognise it. It looks to have been hastily set down, though. Wallis will be here in a moment, and the contents should become clear.’
The letter was addressed to Chief Secretary Thurloe, at Lincoln’s Inn, in a hand Thurloe had confirm
ed to be that of Carter Blyth, although less tidy than was usual. The cypher in which it was written was that they had agreed upon. ‘Blyth was supposed to contact me through the safe house,’ commented Thurloe as they waited for the arrival of Wallis. ‘He must indeed have been in some very immediate danger, to have tried to contact me so directly at Lincoln’s Inn.’
Wallis arrived, Marvell was dismissed to wait in the clerks’ room, and warned to say nothing of the business being conducted in the Chief Secretary’s room, and Thurloe and Seeker waited in silence while Wallis, a cypher book to hand, to which he only once or twice had to refer, rendered the letter in words they could comprehend. The last words transcribed, he left. Thurloe picked up the pages Wallis had handed him, scanned them once or twice nodding to himself, once raising an eyebrow in surprise, but making no comment as he handed them then to Seeker.
Sir,
I write in haste and fears this may never reach you. My investigations amongst Harrison and the Fifth Monarchists continue, and although I have found no evidence as yet of plans for an attempt on the Protector, I must warn you that I have great fears that someone closely connected to him – Major-General Goffe’s own nephew, Marcus Bridlington, who is in your employ – has involved himself with these people at the place called Gethsemane. He is embroiled in some way I have yet to discover with Goodwill Crowes’ daughter, Patience, a truly vicious, dissembling girl. I will continue to observe them.
Of more immediate import: I am certain that real danger emanates from the house of Lady Anne Winter. The man who masquerades as her steward is an assassin, and I have tonight discovered a secret chamber in her house which I can only suspect to be envisaged as a safe haven for Royalists of a very high order. The women of the house are busy at a workshop, manufacturing disguises from old costumes, one of which – an old Black Friar’s robe – I was able to obtain, as proof, before I was forced to flee the place for fear of discovery.
I can write no longer, for I fear I am followed and watched and will soon be discovered. In the name of his Highness the Lord Protector,
Carter Blyth.
‘He was right about that last, at least,’ said Thurloe when Seeker at last looked up from the paper.
‘Aye, more’s the pity,’ said Seeker. ‘But he near enough had Lady Anne to rights, too. Bridlington was where he got things wrong. I suspect he believed Marcus was involved with the Crowes and Harrison at the behest of Major-General Goffe, and that was why he didn’t trust anything to the usual networks.’
‘Because he thought them compromised from the bottom to the top,’ agreed Thurloe. ‘But it was the matter of these disappearing children Bridlington was caught up in?’
‘Yes,’ said Seeker. ‘Blyth obviously hadn’t realised that, even when he began looking for the children himself.’
‘But his murder, Seeker – we are little further on with that.’
‘No,’ conceded Seeker, ‘but I am in hopes we will learn more when we have spoken to the children. Whatever sleeping draught Drake gave them will have worn off soon. I must get to Gethsemane.’
‘I hardly think those children will be of much help in explaining to you the murder of Carter Blyth. It is doubtful they even knew of his existence.’
‘I think one at least may be of help in explaining the matter of the Black Friar’s gown Blyth removed from Lady Anne’s to show you, the one that he was found in.’
Thurloe’s eyebrows reached high on his forehead. ‘You are going to have to enlighten me, Seeker.’
‘I think Mr Marvell might put it better,’ said Seeker, opening the door and summoning the weary and bewildered poet back into the Chief Secretary’s office.
‘Tell Mr Thurloe about the costumes, Andrew.’
And so, revived, Marvell did. ‘It was in our search of the underground chamber in Anne Winter’s house, when we came across a vast array of costumes. They were left over from the time of the theatre companies favoured by the Stuarts and their court. The costumes were stocked and inventoried according to the plays for which they were most used. A degree of duplication of course occurs, but it is possible to trace each costume if one is thorough.’
‘Which you were, I’d wager,’ said Thurloe, his interest piqued, liking the unwrapping of the puzzle.
Marvell nodded, pleased. ‘There was a note of costumes for use in a play by Christopher Marlowe – The Jew of Malta. It said, in what Mr Dorislaus has confirmed to be William Davenant’s hand, “All characters provided for”, but there was only one set of Black Friar’s robes to be found anywhere in that chamber.’
Thurloe leaned towards Seeker, his eyes bright. ‘And there are two Black Friars in that play, are there not, Damian?’
‘I would not know, sir, but Marvell insists it is the case.’
‘And Marvell is right. Go on.’
Almost blushing at the unaccustomed praise, Marvell continued. ‘The girl who helped Anne Winter prepare those costumes is one of the children currently sleeping sound and under guard at Gethsemane.’
Thurloe sat back and thumped his fist on his desk. ‘Then saddle your horse, Seeker, and wake the child!’
Thirty
Threads
The morning was bright, but the shutters on the windows of the small almshouses were closed.
‘Grace says the sunlight would hurt their eyes,’ Nathaniel said as he walked quietly with Seeker towards the door.
Grace knew something of waking to a different world, thought Seeker. And Gethsemane this morning felt like a different world; it felt at last as if something good might be nurtured here.
‘I didn’t know. I didn’t know they were here. I would have helped them.’
‘I know you would have done, Nathaniel. But you have helped them. I could never have found them without the things you told me.’
‘M-my father didn’t know either,’ added Nathaniel, his eyes filling. ‘I am certain of it.’
Seeker stopped and looked into those eyes. ‘I think you are right, but we must be certain. You understand he cannot be freed until we are certain about all things?’
‘You mean about who killed Gideon too, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Do you think Patience killed Gideon?’
That question had been troubling Seeker for some days now. ‘I don’t know, Nathaniel, but I hope we shall soon find out.’
Seeker briefly looked in on the boys who were sitting up in bed, a little bewildered still, but beginning to understand, it seemed, that their ordeal might be over. He could wait until they were stronger.
At the door to the other small bedchamber, he hesitated, before knocking gently. Maria opened the door to him.
There was the smallest moment of hope, recognition on her face, before it closed down to him, to be replaced by a mask of civil indifference.
‘Maria,’ he said, reaching towards her.
Her body visibly tightened, she took a small step back. ‘Captain Seeker. Please do not tire the girls. They are not long wakened. I am going to fetch them some warmed caudle. I will be back presently.’
‘Maria,’ he said again, but she went past him, as if she had not heard.
The girls were indeed wakened. Pale against the crisp white linen of Gethsemane. Elizabeth Crowe had been a good housewife, for all her other faults. Bunches of herbs, that could not have been there before, hung from the low rafters of the room, giving the place a pleasant, fresh aroma, more redolent of a country parlour than an Aldgate sickroom. Nathaniel, he thought. It would have been Nathaniel.
In the cot to his left was Isabella, the girl from the Black Fox. Though still dulled a little from the effects of Drake’s draught, her large blue eyes hinted at something of the intelligence, the quick wit, all had spoken of her as possessing. Her dark hair, short black spikes against the white of the bed sheets, was dulled and dry from the neglect of the past few weeks, but it would grow in time, and its shine return. When she managed to focus and at last recognised him as her liberator of th
e previous night, she managed to smile. ‘Thank you.’ The smile and the words warmed him, goodness slowly beginning to wash over the evil that had been this place.
In the other bed, a smaller girl with similarly hacked straw-red hair and her mother’s jade eyes watched him warily. Her hands, on the coverlet, were slim and delicate, but the nails broken. The apothecary had applied a healing balm to the chilblains that weeks in the cold cellar had brought to her fingers. Liberty Wells had the fineness of Dorcas’s beauty, but not her strength. Even in health, he could see, she would never have her mother’s strength. A child such as this would have been broken, shattered and ground to nothing in the streets, had she not been found and taken in by Anne Winter when she had been. Seeker pulled up a stool and sat down by the bed of the young girl who had been denied even her own real name.
‘Charity,’ he said.
She nodded.
‘Do you know who I am?’
Another nod. ‘You found us. They say you are the Seeker.’
‘That’s what people call me. I serve the Lord Protector and you need have no fear of me. I want to talk to you about another man who was also in the Lord Protector’s service and who, I think, tried to be your friend.’
A flush of colour crept over the child’s cheeks and she looked at her hands, avoiding Seeker’s eye. ‘Do you mean Gideon?’ she said quietly.
‘Yes,’ said Seeker. ‘Tell me about Gideon.’
The child worked at her lip a moment. He could see her thinking. ‘It was when I was out on the streets one day, doing an errand for Lady Anne.’ Then Charity looked up. ‘Does she know where I am?’
The Black Friar Page 33