The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries)

by Buckley, Fiona

  “Well, I’m damned! It’s a lady! Are you looking for someone, mistress? What brings you here?”

  “My dog ran away!” I said. As a spur-of-the-moment liar, I thought, I was undoubtedly improving. “I’m looking for it. It’s a little white lapdog. I didn’t mean to disturb anyone. I’m so sorry.”

  “What do you mean, disturb anyone? No one’s asleep yetawhile. If you’re looking for a dog, what’s its name?”

  I tried frantically to think of a name in a hurry, and saw a thistle near my feet. “Thistle!” I said.

  “Thistle! Of all the funny names. What you want to go calling a dog Thistle for?”

  “He’s got a rough coat. Thistle!” I called. “Thistle! Thistle!”

  We pursued the absurd hunt for a nonexistent dog for some time, all along the path. The baker insisted on coming with me. I thanked him graciously and seethed beneath the surface. At last I gave up, said that I must have been mistaken in thinking that Thistle had run into the alley. I would return to my lodgings, I said, and see if the dog had run back there ahead of me. As I set off for the inn, the baker stood in the mouth of the alley, staring after me.

  I had done my reconnoitring, all the same. I had identified Mew’s back garden, and I had observed that he didn’t seem to possess a dog, although one of his neighbours did—it had barked as we passed. I had seen, too, that the path was lamentably neglected and that quite a few people used it as a convenient dump for rubbish. Several heaps of old fabric and various items of thrown-out furniture lay along the verge. There was a cracked stool and a battered truckle bed and some old wooden boxes of various sizes. If I needed an impromptu ladder, the means were to hand.

  I had also ascertained that to reach the path I need not go through this alley. Two others came out on to the same path, so that I could keep well away from the bakery.

  Once back in the Antelope, I did a little prowling on the ground floor to familiarise myself with it and then went to my room. My meal arrived and I forced the pie and the plums down my gullet, but I cut the half-chicken in two and secreted it in my hidden pocket. I had other uses for that. Then I rested until the darkness had fallen completely, and I even dozed a little. The night before had been disturbed, and the one to come would be worse.

  • • •

  When the time came to set out, I had to shake myself into action. I was unwilling to leave the safety of the inn, and there was no doubt that I was tired, but I overcame these weaknesses and made myself set about leaving the Antelope.

  The front door, of course, was heavily barred at nightfall and couldn’t be unbarred without making a noise, while the spitboy and a couple of other servants slept in a room off the kitchen, which made it difficult to leave by way of the kitchen door. But my prowlings had taken in the parlour where I had dined with Brockley and Dale. Memory had told me that it was promising, and memory hadn’t lied. The parlour was at the front of the house and had a low window. This had a bolt, but it was small and the room was well out of earshot of anyone sleeping in the house.

  Having lit my lantern from the candles in my room and then blown the candles out, I crept downstairs. The parlour was quiet and empty. Kneeling on the window seat, I slid back the bolt and peered into the dark street; then I hitched up my skirts, and climbed quietly out. Reaching in to retrieve my lantern from the seat, I pushed the window almost shut behind me and hoped that no lurking robbers would notice the weakness in the inn’s defences.

  In the darkness, the world was hushed. A few houses showed a gleam of candlelight but no one was about. Most people fear the dark to some extent: night is when ghosts and murderers walk. Even indoors, in rooms with lamps and candles, the corners have shadows, and sometimes the shadows have curious shapes. The doorways of Peascod Street were like black mouths, and the sound of an owl made me jump. My breath was uneven with nerves as I made my way along the road, and I trod with care, for my lantern was not bright and at first I could hardly see where I was going.

  Presently, the moon, which was only just past the full, came out from behind a patch of cloud. Aided by this, I found an alley, not the one I had used the first time, and went round into the path at the rear. However, the blanched moonlight cast such dense black shadows that it was of little use for seeing fine detail. Holding the lantern up, I moved warily along the back fences. I found Mew’s fence, but the neighbour’s dog began at once to bark. I threw one of the chicken pieces over the fence, and to my relief it wasn’t one of those over-trained guard dogs which won’t take food from strangers. It fell on the chicken with a growl of pleasure and I set about a close examination of the fence.

  The baker’s presence had stopped me from doing this the first time, and what I found now was discouraging. Brockley had said that the fence looked ramshackle, and so it was, but at close quarters it wasn’t quite ramshackle enough. The gate was solid, and although the fence was breaking away from the post at one end, I still couldn’t squeeze through.

  Well, I had supposed from the start that I would probably have to go over the fence rather than through it, and I had seen how it might be done. My teeth expressed an inconvenient wish to chatter, but I quelled them and began gathering useful items from the thrown-out objects beside the path. One box was rotten and fell apart when I touched it, but I found one which was sound, and put the cracked stool on top. Despite the crack, I hoped it would bear my weight.

  As I stepped on to it, however the dog next door, his chicken finished, barked again and threw himself against the fence. I fumbled hurriedly for the rest of the meat, and tossed it to him. Once more, he pounced on it, and the barking subsided into low, muffled growls. I hitched myself side-saddle on to the top of the fence. It shook ominously but I swung both feet over together, and let myself down with an awkward slither because I needed a hand for the lantern and could only spare one to hold on to the fence.

  I crouched in the overgrown garden, wondering if anyone had heard me or the dog. Nothing stirred. No sudden candlelight showed; no one opened a window to stare out into the night.

  The moonlight now seemed too bright and so did my lantern. As I rose to my feet, they threw my shadow across the straggling grass, and the lantern danced, sparkling, in my shaking hand. If anyone did peer out, I would be horribly obvious. Lifting my hem, I ran forward, feet brushing through the weeds and thistles scratching at my legs, until I could shelter in the darkness close against the house.

  Here I leant against the wall, trembling, until I was sure that I had still not been discovered. Next door, the dog whined a little, but had evidently decided that I was a friend, for it didn’t bark loudly again. I turned to look for the window to the back room.

  At once I encountered a new puzzle. Mew’s premises were quite large. The back wall boasted a kitchen door, and three other windows as well. I had no idea which window was the right one, and when I tried the door, it was bolted on the inside, as I had expected.

  I shut my eyes, trying to visualise the interior of the shop. The door to the office had been . . . where? Behind the counter, yes, but there had been another door as well, further to the left, leading to some other room. Standing as I was now, facing the back wall of the house, those rooms would be to my right. The office window wouldn’t be the last on the right, then, but might be next to it.

  Crouching low, I edged along the wall. A gleam of red light from the furthest window alarmed me, but peering cautiously round the edge of the frame, I saw that it was only the glow of embers from a dying fire. I made out a cushioned settle and a backgammon table. Some of Mew’s living quarters were evidently on the ground floor. I had gone past the window I wanted, so I edged back. This window was utterly dark and I had to risk shining a light into it. I did so, with caution.

  Yes.

  This was the office. Now to see if I could get into it. I put the lantern on the ground, took out my little dagger and inserted the tip of it between window and frame, below the latch. The dagger’s silver hilt was embossed with a spiral pattern whic
h gave a firm grip, and the fine steel blade was razor edged, no less lethal for being small, but thin enough to slide easily into the crack and then to move upwards until it pressed against the latch. I pushed, hard. With a small scraping noise, the latch began to rise. Up . . . up . . .

  I felt the window yield. Keeping the blade in place with my right hand, I used the fingernails of my left to pull the window open. Then I was climbing over the sill, lantern once more held awkwardly in one hand, and skirts getting in the way. If I had to do much more of this sort of thing, I said to myself, half hysterically, I would go in for wearing breeches.

  I closed the window after me but didn’t latch it, so as to leave myself a quick way out. I stood still to listen. All was silent. I directed my light to the wallhanging. The door was there, mostly concealed behind the fabric, but with one edge just showing. Lifting the hanging aside, I found that this door too was bolted, but on my side. The bolt slid back as smoothly as if it had been lately oiled, and I opened the door.

  I had read the deeds correctly: this was the way into the basement. I was standing at the top of a flight of steps which led steeply down between stone walls, stained with damp. The lantern light glinted dully on the iron hinges of a door at the foot.

  To say that I didn’t want to go down would be an understatement. The mere thought of descending into the depths of the earth like that, alone, at night, filled me with cold terror. It was not simply the fear of being caught by Mew—at that moment, I would almost have welcomed the arrival of an outraged but human Barnabas Mew. What I felt was a deeper level of my fear of the dark. It was the ancestral dread of demon and ghoul, of things that crawl from ancient graves, and clutch from the darkness beyond the light of lamp or candle.

  If only dawn were near, I thought timorously. The faintest glimmer of light in the eastern sky would drive away the demons. If only there were just a little, tiny trace of greyness visible through the window, then I could dare the steps into the depths. I had only to wait for dawn . . .

  A tradesman’s household woke early, however. People would be astir before daybreak.

  I had to do this, for Brockley.

  I made sure that although the window was not latched, it would still look as though it were, if someone glanced at it across the room, by candlelight. I could not bear to shut the basement door behind me, but I set it just ajar, and the wallhanging hid the open edge. I put my lantern in my left hand and took my dagger in my right. If anything did grab at me from the darkness, I would stab first and ask questions afterwards.

  Down and down. The air was cold and dank. The door at the bottom was bolted, as the one above had been, but this bolt, too, slid easily back. I opened the door slowly and peered in, holding the lantern ahead of me.

  I saw nothing more alarming than a table with two branched candlesticks on it, furnished with candles. I crept forward, and put my dagger on the table. I picked up a candle, lit it from the lantern and then lit all the others. Light filled the room.

  The basement was large, maybe twelve feet square, lined with brick. It had a stone floor and a vaulted stone ceiling, quite high. The air was fresher here, and as I looked up, I saw a grating in the ceiling, and beyond it, even as I watched, an edge of cloud, faintly silvered by moonlight, glided away and revealed a single star.

  The grating was probably in the garden. The star, serene evidence of the open sky in the world outside, was immensely comforting. Feeling braver, I looked around me. The room was a workshop of some kind, with a small furnace set in one wall and a workbench along another. Various tools were arranged on it, very much as in Leonard Mason’s shed. Some hooped chests and two crates lay beside the opposite wall. A stack of something—logs, perhaps—occupied one corner.

  Putting my lantern down beside my dagger, so as to leave my hands free, I investigated the furnace. It was out, and had been raked clear, but it was faintly warm, and had been recently used. Straightening up, I noticed that what I had thought might be logs, was actually metal ingots, probably copper. They were smallish, only brick sized, but there were a lot of them. Then the candlelight picked up a brighter gleam behind them and I saw that at the back lay several bars of silver, and half a dozen or so of gold.

  This was evidence, hard, physical reality. An ordinary clockmaker might well need a small furnace, but he wouldn’t need all this metal, and Mew had specifically said he didn’t keep much in the way of raw material on the premises. I went to look at the crates. The word “tin” was painted on them both. Either Mew was making clocks for the entire nation, or else . . .

  Excitement made my pulses thud and I almost forgot to be afraid. I tackled the hooped chests. They were locked, but I was more confident with my lockpicks now. I had one open in less than a minute, and threw back the lid.

  Inside were leather bags, closed by drawstrings. I undid one. The bag was full of sovereigns, shining and new. I lifted a couple out and examined them, wondering. I had two sovereigns of my own on me, and I got one out and made a careful comparison before putting everything away again and turning to the workbench.

  Among the tools there were several hammers and a set of small steel cylinders, each with a pattern engraved on the circular face at one end. The patterns included, among other things, the profile of Queen Elizabeth. They were meticulously done. It occurred to me that I could guess now who had forged Matthew’s writing on that false letter.

  I had found what I expected to find, although I could still see no connection with Mary Stuart. Were there two sets of miscreants in or around Lockhill? A gang of coiners and a set of conspirators on Mary’s behalf? Just what—just which—had Jackdaw discovered?

  I went to look at the chest of sovereigns again. They seemed fractionally lighter in colour than my own coins, but they were most convincing. It had taken great skill to judge the mix of metals so well, and to prepare such perfect dies. I assaulted the locks of the other chests and found that all were filled with bulging bags of sovereigns.

  Somewhere in the house above me, there was a sound.

  I froze, straining my ears. It had been a very small sound, perhaps no more than a piece of furniture creaking. I waited. Nothing happened. Someone had got up to relieve himself, perhaps. All the same, I looked affrightedly about me for a hiding place, an equivalent of Leonard Mason’s cupboard. That was when I saw what I had not noticed before: that opposite the door by which I had entered, shadowed by a recess, was another door.

  I blew out the candles, seized lantern and dagger and made for it. This door, too, was equipped with smoothly running bolts. Opening it quickly, I peered through the aperture, lantern raised and blade at the ready.

  This second room was very small, also with a grating—I saw the glint of moonlight at once. The lantern showed me the room’s interior: there was a table with a glass beaker and a jug on it, and then, as I moved the light, I saw a couple of brackets in the wall, where some kind of fitting—shelves or an oven, perhaps—had once been. A chain ran through one of them. My lantern followed the double chain down, past a padlock, to a truckle bed, where a man lay under a rug. The chain vanished under it and must in some way be secured to him.

  The man was awake and sitting up, peering narrowly at the lantern. His chin was covered in an unfamiliar stubble, and even by lantern-light, I could see that the rest of his face was grey tinged with strain. Gold freckles stood out on his skin. I could see, too, the reddened bump on his high sloping forehead. I shifted the lantern so that its light fell on my face.

  “It’s me,” I said. “It’s Ursula Blanchard.”

  “Madam!” said Roger Brockley.

  CHAPTER 19

  Ill-Assorted Conspirators

  “How did you get here?” Brockley demanded. “Are you alone? Madam, you shouldn’t have . . .”

  “Yes, I should. Help will follow, with luck. I left Fran with Dr. Forrest, the vicar, and gave her a note for him. If he does as he’s asked, we’ll soon have reinforcements. How did you get caught?”

  �
�Mew and Wylie heard next door’s dog. Wylie’s here—he did take a message to Lockhill, but he came back straight away.”

  “Yes, I know. He told them that Mew wasn’t coming. I think,” I added grimly, “that he delivered another message as well, but that was certainly the pretext for going.”

  “No doubt. I’d spent an hour,” said Brockley in an aggrieved voice, “hiding in the garden until the brute stopped barking, and much good it did me. You were mad to venture here! If you’ve sent for help you should have waited for it to come, and kept away yourself! How on earth did you get in?”

  “The way I suppose you did: over the back fence, through the window and down the stairs.”

  “Alone? In the dark?”

  “Yes.”

  Brockley had always treated me with respect, even when he was criticising me, but always, there had been in it a tinge of patronage: age to youth, worldly-wisdom to innocence; man to that natural inferior, woman. Now, in the lantern-light, I saw in his eyes another kind of respect: that of comrade to equal comrade. It was warming.

  “And I saw what was going on in the room next to this,” I said. “Did you?”

  “Coining, just as you suspected. I was running my fingers through imitation sovereigns when Mew and Wylie burst in on me. I fought, but Wylie hit me on the head with something. It knocked me right out for a while, and when I started to come round, with a splitting headache, the two of them were standing over me and arguing about whether or not to finish me off and drop me in the Thames.” Unexpectedly, at this point, Brockley stopped short. As if embarrassed, he turned his head away.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Is your head badly hurt?”

  “No. It’s better now.” He met my eyes again, his own curiously sad. “Have you got your lock-picks with you?” He pushed back his rug and I saw that the chain was run through another, which encircled his midriff and was fastened with a second padlock. “We have to get out of here,” he said. “Just set me free. I’ll talk while you work. Madam, I have something terrible to tell you.”