Most Secret

by John Dickson Carr

  Indeed, you will perceive that even for those times Blackthorn was considered a somewhat careless and demon-infested place. The village hanged a witch or two among our tenantry; but at Blackthorn they believed in witches, and regarded this as fair enough. Otherwise it was a lazy life. Nobody paid great heed to the weeds or nettles, or the fact that pigs would escape through the kitchens into the house; I can remember this occurring in my own time.

  When Buck Kinsmere returned after the Restoration, of course, they made some attempt to put a better face on it, because Buck Kinsmere was a great diplomat, and a fine soldier, and polished with the airs of court. Yet, beyond the few duties he would hold to, he seemed to take little interest.

  Sometimes he would assemble his household in the great oak library, which later was so much damaged by fire in sixteen-ninety-one, and he would offer up thanks for the safe return of Charles the Second, confusion to his enemies, and prayers for the soul of Charles the Martyr. The morning sun would just be touching the mullioned windows of the room, not lighting it greatly. My grandfather remembered him standing with his back to the hood of the tall stone fireplace, in his long curling hair and lace collar. His eyes would be shut, with one hand extended towards the windows, the gilt-edged prayer-book under his empty left sleeve; and the household all kneeling, silent, around him.

  Then sometimes he would take my grandfather into the main hall, to show him his pistols hung up on the wall, and his old breastplate with the rusty bloodstains upon it He would bid my grandfather never to forget two things: the loyalty he must bear to his king, and the memory of his mother who was dead. Buck Kinsmere said quietly that, when his son came of age, the boy must at length go to court among the noblemen, and that the inheritance from Roderick’s mother had made this possible.

  She must have been a clear-headed little lady, Mathilda Kinsmere. She had been Mathilda Depping, the shipman’s daughter; her father owned a stout fleet of merchant vessels which put out from the port of Bristol to trade in rum and slaves. When Edward Depping died, and she married my great-grandfather, Mathilda Kinsmere had the fleet sold so that there should be no taint of trade in the family; but she would not allow her husband to throw all her fortune as well as his own into the royal cause. Thus it came about that a part of this fortune, approximating ninety thousand pounds, was put into trust for my grandfather with Buck Kinsmere’s friend Roger Stainley, the head of the great Stainley banking house, which is known all over the world nowadays.

  Their destinies were to cross in singular fashion, because … but no matter for that, now. This inheritance was the precaution Mathilda Kinsmere took. You have seen her portrait in the Long Gallery, all stiff with lace after the Dutch style, with her red cheeks and merry eyes. But she died notwithstanding, of rust that got into a cut finger: she and Buck Kinsmere still loving each other so much that his was the worse heartbreak when he knew she had to go.

  Still!

  I do not wish to tell you of the ghosts and shadows you may find here, but of my grandfather growing up and going to London for his great adventure.

  He had a pleasant time of it at Blackthorn. His uncle Godfrey taught him the use of small arms, particularly the four-foot double-edged rapier and the new-style, much lighter cup-hilt—narrow of blade, without cutting edges but needle-sharp for play with the point alone. They used to practice on the bowling green, where it was shady. The serving-girls would run to the windows, and Dr. Harrison sit under a plum tree with his pipe and a jug of cold punch, to watch some pretty rapid fencing matches there.

  But what drew everybody round to shout, especially the men from the stables over the way, were the quarterstaff bouts. To see a whirl between two well-matched fellows, each with a seven-foot staff shod in iron, is a rare thing nowadays. When I was down from school once I saw Jem Lovell, the West Country champion (he was a Somerset man, though he settled in Devon), fight a Welsh challenger at the fair on Hanham Green; but today the sport has pretty well given place to boxing.

  There was small notion of social dignity at Blackthorn after Buck Kinsmere died; and, my grandfather having acquired great proficiency in the quarterstaff art, a circumstance occurred which brought him wide notoriety in the country.

  This fell out in the year 1669, when he was past his twentieth birthday: a genial, easygoing young fellow, with a knack of using long words in addition to his other accomplishments, and a nice eye for a wench.

  Of his nimbleness with the quarterstaff Uncle Godfrey was especially proud. So it fell out that one night at a magistrates’ meeting Uncle Godfrey drank a bottle too many, as old gentlemen will do. He got up on the table and offered even money on his nephew to crack the skull of any man in Somerset within half a stone of his weight. Whereupon a visiting landowner from the Mendips instantly offered two-to-one odds on a promising carter of his village, and a match was arranged—under terms of the most absolute secrecy—to take place at Blackthorn.

  It so happened that this same carter (as the Mendip gentleman well knew when he made the wager) had been accustomed to drive twenty-odd miles every week in order to ogle a certain pretty dairy maid of our village. Which dairy maid was already—most reprehensibly, I grieve to say—a safe conquest of my grandfather, and well satisfied with the arrangement. Being informed of this fact did not please the honest carter. To the contrary, he swore by all his gods he would “smash yon yoong zur’s poll for ’ee, and lay ’ee down dead, look.” The J.P.’s felt themselves justified in expecting results of a tolerably lively nature. They had arranged for the presence of a small chosen group to watch the encounter on the bowling green: all very secret and orderly, as befitted their magisterial dignity.

  You will, no doubt, anticipate what occurred.

  On the appointed date, the whole countryside roundabout bore the general aspect of fair day. The good peasantry, still exulting in the free-and-easy reign of King Charles the Second, were full of what we should nowadays describe as “beans.” Having already wagered their shirts on this bout, they were out to see fair play. They came flocking in, horse, foot, and wagon, in their best clothes. They rang the church bells, shot off squibs, hanged unpopular characters in effigy, danced in the taverns, and generally fortified themselves for the occasion. They also contrived to catch a bailiff and hold his head under a pump.

  My grandfather, it need hardly be said, was immensely well-liked in the district. By nine o’clock in the morning he was down among them, settling the score for their beer, saluting the women, and inviting everybody to Blackthorn for the mêlée.

  The opposing faction—consisting of a strong body of Mendip backers—arrived drunk towards one o’clock in the afternoon. They marched up the High Street singing “Here’s a Health unto His Majesty,” and broke a number of windows by way of diversion. Certain delays ensued, due to the outbreak of sporadic fights, and the discovery of one unlucky fellow (suspected of having been an exciseman for the late Commonwealth’s tax on ardent spirits), who was chased as far as Kingswood and thrown into the pond.

  The bout took place at three o’clock, and was an epic. It lasted for an hour and twenty minutes, 8 1/2-foot staves bound in iron, without either the carter or my grandfather being able to land a blow that would stretch the other insensible. By this time they were both so furious, what with the futile whirling and cracking of quarterstaves, their own injuries, and the spectators’ goading yells, that they could endure it no longer. They flung away weapons and went for each other fists, claws, and teeth.

  This was the true battle. It shot and fizzed round the bowling green like a grounded skyrocket, the spectators buckling out to make way for it, and then closing in behind with howls of encouragement. It rolled away off the green, making the manure fly in clouds and scaring the very wasps out of the flower beds. It got up presently, danced a trifle, and reeled past the smithy (which stood where the summer arbour stands now). Here my grandfather stumbled on a wagon wheel, and they pitched forward into the dust again. The carter tore loose long enough to lay hold o
f a light hammer and throw it, which might have won the day for him; but it sailed through the forge window instead, and did no damage. Eventually the battle wound up in a horse trough over against the stables, both contestants being hauled out exhausted, half-drowned, and almost unrecognizable, when Squire Thunderman decided it was time to cry quits.

  After a consultation Squire Thunderman mounted to the stable roof and stood up against the gilt face of the clock in the tower, where he made a speech declaring all bets void. Uncle Godfrey followed him, being whistle-drunk by this time, and the politest man in Somerset always.

  “A few words, good people?” appeals Uncle Godfrey. “A few words, under favour and by your leave?”

  “If that be your desire, have at it,” says Squire Thunderman. “And yet the hour grows late. You will be short, sir?”

  “Oh, ay,” cries Uncle Godfrey, striking as much of an attitude as his years and weight would permit. “There need be no fear, dear brother-justice. I will be short; depend on’t.”

  True to his promise, therefore, the old gentleman held forth for less than an hour in the most graceful terms, thanking the spectators for their presence there and congratulating both sides: he invited everybody to drink his health in the dining room, as well as my grandfather’s for good measure; and concluded (in the course of a complicated oratorical gesture) by falling off the roof.

  Thus amicability was restored, and all went right merrily until well into the following morning. Indeed, my grandfather liked this carter for his fight, and discovered him to be a most excellent fellow; shaking hands with him warmly, and saying, “By God, man, I am thy brother!” He also made him a present of a fine team of greys, feeling a trifle guilty about that dairy maid; and would have handed him the girl, too, if she had permitted it; and so passed the day.

  You now have some notion of the calm pastoral life Roderick Kinsmere led, and of the elements that went into his making. It will not do to dwell on this, since there are mighty things a-brewing in the great world beyond Blackthorn gates. The time has come to speak of him—some eight or nine months after his fight with the carter—when he must pack his saddlebags and ride up to London to claim his inheritance.

  From the strongbox in the library he took the letters his father had written for him years ago, notably a letter to His Grace the Duke of Buckingham at York House, one of the most powerful noblemen at court; and also from that strongbox he took the fine sapphire ring. His uncle Godfrey presented him with a letter to Mr. Roger Stainley, a pouch full of money, and a new sword.

  All the tenantry had assembled to see him go, lined up deep before the old grey house. Under pretext of addressing parting injunctions to his nephew, Uncle Godfrey did not lose the opportunity of holding forth to them at considerable length.

  The old gentleman stood on the steps under the arched doorway out there, carved with heraldic beasts as you see it now, and wiped a vinous tear from his eye as he exhorted. Uncle Godfrey bade him to be of good cheer; to remember the manners of his father, and his father’s famed civility; to reflect on and hold dear the ancient Kinsmere name, its honesty and its worth; and manfully to smite in the eye any ill-disposed thus-and-so who doubted it. Uncle Godfrey further counselled him (rather unexpectedly) to remember that flesh is but grass, and man travelleth a weary road throughout his life, and liveth but to die; and after some minutes of this vein he had got both himself and the tenantry into such a depressed frame of mind that he fell back overcome.

  During the harangue my grandfather sat quiet on his horse, with his hat off out of politeness. But he refused to be cast down; he could taste the air of springtime and see the green meadows warm under the sun. So he replied that he would strive to remember all this advice; he bade everyone good-bye, and rode down from the house with the tenantry cheering behind him, in a very tolerable good humour with himself and with the world. Mingled in the cheers he could hear the bells of Keynsham Church ringing far away, and the friendly pigs honking by the roadside; and this was in the green month of May, being the Year of Our Lord one thousand six hundred and seventy, and the tenth since the return of Our Sovereign Liege Charles the Second.

  II

  BUT NOW I MUST tell you of London, of its masks and fashions, of its squalor and glitter, as my grandfather first saw it all those years ago.

  They caught the highwayman Claude Duval one night in January, at the Hole-in-the Wall in Chandos Street: as they catch knaves, almost always, whose tongues clack too freely in public. Claude Duval was the graceful cutthroat who played the flageolet on Hounslow Heath; who stopped the coach, and danced a coranto with the lady on the smooth turf in the moonlight before he relieved her husband of much booty.

  But they took away his own money pouch and pistols, clapping him into Newgate. Then arose a great uproar and to-do; ladies in vizard masks came tearfully to visit him. Claude was a hero. Claude postured with ease in the dock at the sessions house, speaking up mighty jocosely to the red-robed judge above the bar, who felt his own importance when he fitted on the black cap.

  And then one raw morning the great bell boomed at St. Sepulchre’s. They put Claude into a cart, with the sheriff going before and the javelin men around; they presented him with a bunch of flowers as the procession moved out along roads that ran two and a half miles through the countryside to Tyburn gallows. A vast crowd saw Claude turned off after an affecting last speech, but his honours had only begun when his legs ceased to twitch.

  Wailing their lamentations, his admirers arrayed him in finery, put him into a mourning coach, and set his body to lie all night in state at a tavern near St. Giles’s, with eight wax tapers burning about the bier and eight black-cloaked gentlemen in attendance. This, then, was at the turn of the year, at the beginning of the second decade in the reign of King Charles the Second; and Claude with his dancing master’s airs might have been put up as a model for the time, like the status of King Charles at the New Exchange.

  It was a noisy time, a posturing time, a time of jigs and of bludgeoning wit: a cruel, swaggering, credulous, clever time, for smoky London on its mud-flats. This New Exchange, on the south side of the Strand, made a shopping centre for the western end of town, waxing rich on my lord and my lady’s passion for gewgaws. Four galleries, inner and outward walk, upper and lower walk, held a clamour of damsels crying finery at their stalls. Very good gloves and ribands, sir; choice of essences, rings, clouded canes with silken tassels; the true wigs of Chedreux, sir, and our dusky Lower Walk very useful for assignations. In the courtyard pigeons fluttered round a statue of His Majesty’s self, looking stately in the dress of a Roman emperor.

  But for the finest knick-knack wonders, the trinkets of China which my lady must have or die of shame, they went further. They went into the darkest City, to Leadenhall Street, where the India House held its sales, its auctions, its raffles and tea drinkings. A prosperous time, this, for the fat merchant companies: for the Turkey Company, the Russia Company, the Africa Company, the newly formed Hudson’s Bay Company; most of all, for the great East India Company. Would my lady have a fall of Mecca muslin, woven with gold and silver? A dragon in speckled porcelain? A caged nightingale? Some gilded jars of snuff and pulvillio, or the stuffed sawfish everyone so much admired?

  It was all there for her. She had my lord’s purse, or somebody’s purse. On any day she could go rolling in her huge springless coach to the India House, where the raffle-wheel spun, and spices were burned in the fire, and opulence served tea out of cups like tinted eggshells.

  A season of prosperity, too, for the toymakers round Fleet Street, who could charm the most sober minds with a jack-in-the-pulpit or an ingenious climbing monkey. His Majesty the King much prized an artfully fashioned clock which was made to run by the motion of rolling bullets down an inclined plane; he would roll bullets for hours at a time. His Royal Highness James Duke of York—who not many years before had been putting bullets to a rather less domestic use, in the war against the Dutch—sat on the floor with a bevy of la
dies, playing “I Love My Love with an A,” or enjoyed the Cromwellian pastime of cushion pelting.

  Give us, cried fashion, all manner of toy wonders. Even the Royal Society, under the aegis of their silver mace, gravely played at science with clocks, barometers, vivisection, and chemistry. They exhibited mummies and the livers of vipers. They conceived plans for a steam engine, a housebreaker alarm, and a tinderbox that turned into a pistol; they injected sheep’s blood into a man’s veins, to see what happened, and puzzled their wits over His Majesty’s query about the fish in the water pail. Very remarkable grew the debates of the Royal Society at Gresham College, until they gathered up their flasks and loadstones to run westward before the roar of the Great Fire.

  The fire swallowed thirteen-thousand-odd houses in that year ’66, when Prince Rupert and the Duke of York were scorching the Dutchmen’s tail feathers at sea. Annus Mirabilis, Mr. John Dryden called it when he wrote the poem, in his natural enthusiasm and desire for preferment. Mr. Dryden even had the wondering fish raising their heads out of the water to contemplate the spectacle. And from this ruin a new town had begun to take shape. Kennels were no less foul, sewage as bad, and paved streets as few. The tanneries, the lime kilns, the soap vats still brewed a murk of oily smoke, raining soot flakes as big as your thumbnail and making a fog all the year round.

  But the new streets were raised and widened; the new houses were built of brick, not pitch-coated matchwood; and the plague of ’65 had been burnt out of every hole. Back crept the vintners to Three Cranes, the mercers to Paternoster Row; Cheapside once more raucously rang with the cries of ’prentices, and coaches rumbled again past the rails round the black-gutted stumps of Old St. Paul’s.

  In fine, none had fared better through evil days than those same merchants I was speaking of. Their tables grew heavy with gold plate, and four Flanders mares drew their coaches to the Royal Exchange. They were the aldermen of that powerful body, the Corporation of the City of London. As symbol of their pomp, my Lord Mayor rode to the feats at Guildhall in scarlet robe and black velvet hood, with the gold chain around his neck. His trainbands numbered twelve regiments of foot and two of horse; the corporation’s own poet laureate rhymed (somewhat optimistically) the splendour of his name in future ages. Hence your merchant-lords, watching the throng of bubbleheads who bought their gauds in such profusion, could scheme better bargains at Lloyd’s Coffee-House in Leadenhall Street, and drink the soot-black delicacy out of a dish.