Most Secret

by John Dickson Carr

  “Hear my verdict, dear madam. On the whole, it must be confessed, I have no great cause for complaint. I might wish, perhaps, you showed greater relish for my company …”

  “Do you show relish for my company?”

  “I show relish for nobody’s,” Harker informed her. “Herein I could read you a lesson, little one, save that in your weak good-nature you’d not heed it. If you would learn how to triumph on this earth, let all men see the utter contempt in which you hold them. Spit on them, elbow them, jostle them, kick them aside as you would kick a mongrel cur into the kennel, and they’ll fawn on you as mongrel curs ever do.”

  It was plain that tears had risen to Dolly’s eyes. But she did not speak.

  “I could also wish,” Harker pursued, “that in our more ultimate moments you showed greater transport of joy. I could wish you did not lie so like to a dead woman, betraying no sign of pleasure or even of life.”

  “Oh, fie! Am I a strumpet too, that I should counterfeit what I don’t feel?”

  “Yes, madam, you are a strumpet. What other word describes you?”

  Dolly, near sobbing, seized both arms of the chair.

  It had grown warm and stifling in the dark cupboard on the other side of the wall. Bygones Abraham glared at Kinsmere, who had lifted both fists, and Bygones enjoined silence by gripping his right arm.

  “Let us have none of this huffing, little one!” said Harker. “Your feelings count for nothing, as you must be aware. You serve your purpose, whether you lie quiescent or writhe in transports like Barbara Castlemaine herself; you’ll serve me in still another way ere this day be finished. Yes! You serve your purpose, and I would not be unkind. I don’t in the least dislike you, Dolly. Indeed, in my own fashion, I may tell you I feel a certain indulgence towards these vapours …”

  “How kind of you!” Dolly burst out. “Oh, God and damnation, how wonderfully kind!”

  “No huffing, I said. And none of your Coal Yard insolence, lest I be obliged to chasten it.”

  (“Let’s strangle him. Let’s …”)

  (“Sh-h-h!”)

  “And therefore,” continued Harker, “I will use you with all indulgence. Come, then!”

  He returned to the other side of the table. He sat down. Picking up a knife, he tapped its edge lightly against his empty goblet.

  “Come, then! Be open with me, Dolly, and you’ll find me understanding enough for any purpose within your comprehension. What’s amiss?”

  “Amiss?”

  Dolly’s fine shoulders were bent forward, elbows again on the table. The pink mouth trembled. Her face, hitherto a little flushed either from the heat or from some other cause, had grown rather pale.

  “Amiss?” she repeated, squirming in the chair.

  “What quells your peasant’s appetite, madam, and dries your usual thirst for strong drink? Why did you mutter to yourself, and all but refuse to accompany me here? In fine, where’s the trouble?”

  “ ’Tis because I am affrighted, Pem. Oh, Christ ha’ mercy, I am all but frightened from my wits!”

  “And wherefore frightened?”

  “I am a play-actress, Pem. Folk speak us fair and freely: ‘What does’t matter? She’s but an actress-harlot of the King’s House or the Duke’s House.’ We hear much of report and rumour, though sometimes ’tis hard to remember whence it came. Oh, Pem—bold, sweet Pem—what is this report of a design you’ve set your hand to?”

  “Design?”

  “A design,” Dolly bent farther forward, “against the king, against the ‘body politic,’ whatever that may mean. There’s report of vast subtlety (so ’tis named) of a plot here, of great and secret workings in the dark, of much I can’t fathom or let pierce my head at all. And that you have set your hand to this for gain, for coin or money or the rhino, since what else moves your heart or hath ever moved it in any fashion?”

  “Do you scorn money, Madam Landis? You, of all on this earth?”

  “Nay, I have never scorned it! But—”

  “‘Design.’ ‘Plot.’ ‘Against the king.’ ‘Against the body politic.’ These things be formless and shapeless, madam: as formless and shapeless as the reason in your own muddled skull. Can’t you speak plainer than such hazy maunderings? Can’t you put it into a word?”

  “If it were put in a word,” answered Dolly, “then I think the word would be ‘treason.’”

  “Treason!” said Harker, and struck the knife sharply against a glass.

  But he was not stirred or taken aback. He merely surveyed her.

  “In plays on the stage,” said Dolly, “we talk much of this. We spout of it; we rant of it; we make fine speeches and lift our arms thus. But I never thought of it as real or true. In our own country, among our own people, that any man should so think and so behave—foh, it’s not possible!”

  “Possible or not, Dolly, where heard you this rumour? From whom?”

  “I can’t remember!”

  “You had better remember.” With his left hand he reached across the table to touch her shoulder, and she flinched back. “While you endeavour to do so, I will assist you with a hint. Does the word ‘Puritan’ convey meaning to your mind?”

  “Puritan?”

  “In the tiring room, where you dress or undress yourself for the play …?”

  “Stay, Pem! A canting sanctimonious fellow, crying out all manner of pious utterance, but most lewd with his hands when he can put a woman into a corner.”

  “Was he called Gaines? Was he called Salvation Gaines?”

  “Truly I think so! Yet—”

  “Mr. Salvation Gaines, who is by way of being a gentleman, hath employment as a scrivener at court. It is not surprising, madam, you should have heard of this design from Gaines. I told him to let fall a hint.”

  “You told him?”

  “And wherefore not? I have need of your service this day. You’ll not betray me; have no fear of that; and outside our circle there is no other person who knows or suspects.”

  “Our circle? Oh, in the name of all pity and decency, what is this gabble of ‘our circle’? What …?”

  Dolly Landis sprang to her feet. She flung her cloak back over the chair. She would have run from the Cupid Room, the watchers felt, if Harker, putting down the knife, had not also risen and taken her by the shoulders.

  “Madam, sit down.”

  Harker did not debate or argue. With icy indifference he threw her away from him. She stumbled, groped, and then huddled back into the chair.

  “For traitors, sweet strumpet, they provide a public gallows and a disembowelling knife and a quartering block. Here, I must take it, is the cause of this sore affright. Not for me or my safety, as would befit the loving friend you are not, but lest their lawyers and judges think you yourself concerned.”

  “ ’Tis a horrid thing, surely?”

  “I could wish you a pleasanter end. And yet you need not fear it.”

  “Oh, God ha’ mercy!”

  “No, Dolly, let me have mercy.” Once more Harker picked up the knife. “I am the one you need fear, and the only one. Now, my unskillful drab! Now, my dead-woman bedfellow! Let’s look a little at the design. As for Salvation Gaines and his part in this affair—”

  “Salvation Gaines!” Dolly, in tears and breast heaving, almost spat out the words. “By all that’s hyprocritical and clammy, Salvation Gaines! Is he so near a friend of yours?”

  “He is an underling of mine. D’you mark me well, woman?”

  “If I must!”

  “So be it, then!” said Harker, and continued to tap knife against glass. “Certain men at court—notably the head of the group, who commands us by virtue of his position are not content either with Charles Stuart or with Charles Stuart’s managing of public business.”

  “And you, dear Pem, are one of those not content with an ill king?”

  “Now, what a pox is this?” Harker demanded. “Shall I concern my feelings, one way or t’other, so long as I be well rewarded for what I do? L
et me tell you something of myself, little one. Not much; you are faint of heart and deserve little knowledge; but enough so that you may assist me without undue risk. Already you are acquainted with me as a man well-liked and well-received at court, having the ear of all and the indulgence of most. Do you know what else I am?”

  On the other side of the wall there was a kind of silent commotion.

  (“Now there,” Kinsmere said to himself, “now there, by crowns and continents, is a question should be answered in a loud, clear voice. Do we know what else you are, Captain Pembroke Harker?”)

  But Bygones Abraham had seized his arm in a wrestling grip. Bygones bent down himself to peer through the knothole and then, at Harker’s next words, urged Kinsmere back to it.

  “I am a King’s Messenger for foreign service,” Harker said. “Enough of vapours, madam; I’ll bear no more. Dry your tears and observe this ring.”

  From his waistcoat pocket he had drawn what was unquestionably a duplicate of the other two sapphire rings. After holding it out for Dolly’s inspection—she was too blinded to see—he returned it to his pocket.

  Tap went the knife against a glass goblet. Tap, tap …

  “Up to this morning I had believed there were but two of us. And I still hold the same opinion. A small complication of accident arose in the Great Court at Whitehall. But have no fear; I’ll resolve it! It will be all one to our plans, madam, and all one to you and me.”

  “Our plans? You and me?” Dolly burst out. “Lord, Lord, must I be drawn into your schemes as well as your bed? Is there no end to this business of you and me’?”

  “No end whatever, until it shall please me to grow weary. However! I spoke of a second King’s Messenger with a ring like mine. The man in question is not acquainted with my identity, although I know his.”

  “One of your malcontented group, belike?”

  “He is not, being a grotesquely loyal king’s man who can’t be corrupted. But he is a fool, and will pay dearly for his folly.”

  “Stop, Pem; for God’s sake, stop!”

  “Nay, attend to me! This other messenger is called Bygones Abraham: a gross fellow of low origins, once a common soldier, who has contrived in some measure to better his position. By only two things may you mark him out. He talks great nonsense in the most florid of ill-chosen words. And, though none might suspect it from his clumsy bearing, he is a noted swordsman.”

  Harker looked down at her steadily.

  “We ply our separate routes between Whitehall and Versailles, each carrying half of a dispatch writ on thick paper and heavily sealed over. The king pretends no knowledge of our existence. He meets us only in secret, in his private cabinet abovestairs from the Great Bedchamber. Who knows of this clandestine correspondence between Charles Stuart and King Louis the Fourteenth—in particular with a proposed French treaty which by every sign to be read is now afoot between them? Who knows, or suspects this, let it be asked? Apart from myself and perhaps the other messenger, not one living soul.”

  “Pem, Pem! You bleat of one who talks nonsense. And yet this is great nonsense, at all events!”

  “Do you indeed find it so, madam?”

  “Even I am aware,” Dolly screamed, “the king hath advisers and a council. If these are documents of state—ay, a treaty …”

  “They are not documents of state,” Harker answered; “and this treaty is of different sort. The king’s closest advisers (need I speak it?) are five men the first letters of whose names form the letters of the word ‘cabal.’

  “The ‘C’ of the Cabal is Sir Thomas Clifford. The first ‘A’ is my Lord Arlington. The ‘B’ is my Lord Duke of Bucks. The second ‘A’ is my Lord Ashley: our most cunning ‘little man with three names’—born Anthony Ashley Cooper, but a decade ago created Baron Ashley of Wimborne St. Giles …”

  Tap, tap went the knife. Tap, tap, tap …

  “Whereas the last name, Dolly, give us the ‘L’ for my Lord Duke of Lauderdale: a brutal fellow and a ruthless, but beyond doubt with wits in his head, who—”

  “Lord, lord, I understand not one word of all this!”

  “Patience,” said Harker, “you need understand very little. Now, it is remotely possible that Sir Thomas Clifford, being a Roman Catholic as well as a lover of France and monarchial principle, may have learned some details of the proposed treaty. The others—never. These others are united in their passionate hatred of Popery, or at least in their hatred and distrust of France. The king rides high; he may ride for a fall. If the others were to learn of what goes forward, and if all England came to know it as well

  There was a sharp crack as the knife edge smote the goblet. Glass pieces flew wide above a broken stem; Dolly Landis cowered back.

  “Habet!” Harker said.

  “The latest dispatch,” he continued, “will be sent this night. I had my information three days ago. I had it from none other than Rab Butterworth, Second Page of the Back-Stairs and assistant to the more notorious Will Chiffinch, First Page of the Back-Stairs and procurer for His Majesty. The man Abraham will be told late today.

  “On each occasion when dispatches are sent, Chiffinch and Butterworth thinking it only some trumpery affair of amorous notes or billets-doux, the custom is ever the same. At ten o’clock I present myself at the last door on the south side of the Shield Gallery. I scratch at the door. When it is opened, I pass in my ring to identify me. I am conducted abovestairs to the private cabinet. My ring is returned to me—this is most necessary!—together with half of a much-sealed cipher document in the king’s own hand.

  “Forthwith I am off to Dover, with horses provided at posting stations along the road, and I take ship for Calais. The ring (that insignificant ring!) is my badge, my sign, my touchstone to open doors. It carries me to Calais, to Paris, to Versailles, and to Charles Stuart’s young sister, Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans, who is the go-between for the French king.

  “But what of our second messenger, the man Bygones Abraham, carrying the other half of the dispatch?

  “He is instructed in much the same way, though he shapes a different course for France. He waits upon the king at half past ten, so that neither messenger may see the other. Once he has received his half of the document, the rest of his journey is by water.”

  “By water?” Dolly exclaimed.

  “In the main, yes. A wherry at the private landing stairs bears him downstream to a sloop, the war sloop Saucy Ann, lying below London Bridge. The sloop weighs anchor for the Narrow Seas. And yet much time must elapse ere he need even leave Whitehall Palace on his mission. Do you know why?”

  “What this to me? Shall I know or care?”

  “You had better know. The sloop must wait for the tide, which is at a quarter hour past midnight. Even the wherry does not call at Whitehall Stairs until the quarter hour to twelve. Do I speak plain?”

  In the gloom of a cupboard grown ever more stifling, his back and legs cramped from bending to that knothole, Kinsmere glanced sideways at his companion. A tiny shaft of light through the knothole touched Bygones’s mottled face, and Bygones nodded confirmation of what had been said.

  Back went my grandsire’s gaze to the scene in the Cupid Room.

  “The man Abraham,” pursued Harker, “has therefore a full hour and a quarter between the time of receiving his half-document and the time of his departure at Whitehall Stairs. Therein, sweet strumpet, lies our most fortunate circumstances. Therein he finds his death, and we have him.”

  Sheer horror had seized on Dolly.

  “Finds his death? We have him?”

  “Come, madam! What choice is there? Be not troubled; your part in the business occurs elsewhere. But mine is with the man Abraham. If I am to gain his half of the dispatch, so as to present the complete and damning document to a plotter-in-chief who so much desires it, have I any alternative save to remove it from a dead body? Zounds, madam, this is only good sense! Will you try to be reasonable?”

  “Reasonable? Oh, God kill me!”
/>
  “Nay, dear drab, seek not so hard for surcease. It will arrive soon enough, I do assure you.”

  “I—I begin to hope it will.”

  “The man Abraham is a fool, as I told you.” Harker’s lip curled up. “The nature of his folly is a passion to be thought a gentleman. No gentleman, in this lout’s solemn belief, refuses even a challenge to fight.”

  “Yes?”

  “And so I challenged him: that he meet me (alone) in Leicester Fields at eleven o’clock tonight. He will be there, make no mistake, and with the half-letter upon him. From Whitehall Palace to Leicester Fields is but ten minutes’ journey on foot, the half of that by horseback. The man Abraham, in his conceit, will think he has ample time to kill or wound me and yet return to Whitehall for the wherry that awaits him at a quarter hour to midnight. He is a famous swordsman, as I freely grant …”

  “And yet you’d fight him?”

  “Now, why should I give myself the trouble of fighting him?”

  Dolly stared and stammered, colouring up in confusion.

  “But—but …!”

  “Tut!” interrupted Harker, with a gesture of such supreme assurance that it would have daunted anyone. “I could come fairly at him and kill him; am I not a master too? Yet where is the virtue to run needless hazard? If I am anything at all, I am a man of good sense.

  “No, madam! He shall have his deserts; ’tis so arranged. There are bullyrocks and bravos in plenty; two of these are already hired. They follow him from Whitehall towards Leicester Fields. In open ground beyond the Royal Mews they take him; they knock him on the head; they bury him deep. They may have his watch or the coins in his purse; I take the half of a cipher dispatch to give over to our plotter-in-chief for a somewhat richer reward.

  “Afterwards, Dolly? Mark well what I say!

  “I go abroad, in exactness as planned. I disappear, or seem to disappear, awaiting the issue of what happens. By the king it will be assumed that both loyal messengers have been robbed and slain. If the plotter-in-chief shall triumph over Charles Stuart, I still hold over him a threat of exposure such as he holds over Charles Stuart. If the king triumph, as may well be the case, I return in honour with some befitting tale for his ears. In either case my fortune is made; I triumph, as always; in no event can I lose.”