by John Buchan
CHAPTER 10. THE MARPLOT
At a little after six o'clock on the evening of Saturday, 12th October,in the year 1678, the man known commonly as Edward Copshaw came to ahalt opposite the narrow entry of the Savoy, just west of the Queen'spalace of Somerset House. He was a personage of many names. In theregister of the Benedictine lay-brothers he had been entered as JamesSingleton. Sundry Paris tradesmen had known him as Captain Edwards, andat the moment were longing to know more of him. In a certain secret andtortuous correspondence he figured as Octavius, and you may still readhis sprawling script in the Record Office. His true name, which wasNicholas Lovel, was known at Weld House, at the White Horse Tavern, andthe town lodgings of my lords Powis and Bellasis, but had you asked forhim by that name at these quarters you would have been met by a denialof all knowledge. For it was a name which for good reasons he and hispatrons desired to have forgotten.
He was a man of not yet forty, furtive, ill-looking and lean toemaciation. In complexion he was as swarthy as the King, and hisfeverish black eyes were set deep under his bushy brows. A badly dressedperuke concealed his hair. His clothes were the remnants of old finery,well cut and of good stuff, but patched and threadbare. He wore a sword,and carried a stout rustic staff. The weather was warm for October,and the man had been walking fast, for, as he peered through the autumnbrume into the dark entry, he mopped his face with a dirty handkerchief.
The exercise had brought back his ailment and he shivered violently.Punctually as autumn came round he had these fevers, the legacy of ayear once spent in the Pisan marshes. He had doped himself with Jesuits'powder got from a woman of Madame Carwell's, so that he was half deafand blind. Yet in spite of the drug the fever went on burning.
But to anyone looking close it would have seemed that he had more totrouble him than a malarial bout. The man was patently in an extremeterror. His lantern-jaw hung as loose as if it had been broken. His lipsmoved incessantly. He gripped savagely at his staff, and next momentdropped it. He fussed with the hilt of his sword.... He was a coward,and yet had come out to do murder.
It had taken real panic to bring him to the point. Throughout histattered life he had run many risks, but never a peril so instant asthis. As he had followed his quarry that afternoon his mind had beenfull of broken memories. Bitter thoughts they were, for luck had notbeen kind to him. A childhood in cheap lodgings in London and a dozenFrench towns, wherever there was a gaming-table and pigeons for hisfather to pluck. Then drunken father and draggletailed mother had fadedfrom the scene, and the boy had been left to a life of odd jobs andfleeting patrons. His name was against him, for long before he reachedmanhood the King had come back to his own, and his grandfather's boneshad jangled on a Tyburn gibbet. There was no hope for one of his family,though Heaven knew his father had been a stout enough Royalist. Ateighteen the boy had joined the Roman Church, and at twenty relapsed tothe fold of Canterbury. But his bread-and-butter lay with Rome, and inhis trade few questions were asked about creed provided the work weredone. He had had streaks of fortune, for there had been times when helay soft and ate delicately and scattered money. But nothing lasted. Hehad no sooner made purchase with a great man and climbed a little thanthe scaffolding fell from his feet. He thought meanly of human naturefor in his profess he must cringe or snarl, always the undermost dog.Yet he had some liking for the priests, who had been kind to him, andthere was always a glow in his heart for the pale wife who dwelt withhis child in the attic in Billingsgate. Under happier circumstances Mr.Nicholas Lovel might have shone with the domestic virtues.
Business had been good of late, if that could ever be called good whichwas undertaken under perpetual fear. He had been given orders whichtook him into Whig circles, and had made progress among the group ofthe King's Head Tavern. He had even won an entrance into my LordShaftesbury's great house in Aldersgate Street. He was there underfalse colours, being a spy of the other camp, but something in him founditself at home among the patriots. A resolve had been growing tocut loose from his old employers and settle down among the Whigs incomparative honesty. It was the winning cause, he thought, and he longedto get his head out of the kennels.... But that had happened yesterdaywhich scattered his fine dreams and brought him face to face withterror. God's curse on that ferrety Justice, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey.
He had for some time had his eye on the man. The year before he had runacross him in Montpelier, being then engaged in a very crooked business,and had fancied that the magistrate had also his eye on him. Taught bylong experience to watch potential enemies, he had taken some troubleover the lean high-beaked dignitary. Presently he had found out curiousthings. The austere Protestant was a friend of the Duke's man, NedColeman, and used to meet him at Colonel Weldon's house. This hintedat blackmailable stuff in the magistrate, so Lovel took to haunting hispremises in Hartshorn Lane by Charing Cross, but found no evidencewhich pointed to anything but a prosperous trade in wood and sea-coal.Faggots, but not the treasonable kind! Try as he might, he could-get nofarther with that pillar of the magistracy, my Lord Danly's friend,the beloved of Aldermen. He hated his solemn face, his prim mouth, hiscondescending stoop. Such a man was encased in proof armour of publicesteem, and he heeded Mr. Lovel no more than the rats in the gutter.
But the day before had come a rude awakening. All this talk of a Popishplot, discovered by the Salamanca Doctor, promised a good harvest toMr. Lovel. He himself had much to tell and more to invent. Could he butmanage it discreetly, he might assure his fortune with the Whigs andget to his feet at last. God knew it was time, for the household inthe Billingsgate attic was pretty threadbare. His busy brain had workedhappily on the plan. He would be the innocent, cursed from childhoodwith undesired companions, who would suddenly awaken in horror to theguilt of things he had not understood. There would be a welcome fora well-informed penitent.... But he must move slowly and at his owntime.... And now he was being himself hustled into the dock, perhapssoon to the gallows.
For the afternoon before he had been sent for by Godfrey and mostsearchingly examined. He had thought himself the spy, when all the whilehe had been the spied upon. The accursed Justice knew everything. Heknew a dozen episodes each enough to hang a poor man. He knew of Mr.Lovel's dealings with the Jesuits Walsh and Phayre, and of a certainlittle hovel in Battersea whose annals were not for the public ear.Above all, he knew of the great Jesuit consult in April at the Duke ofYork's house. That would have mattered little--indeed the revelationof it was part of Mr. Lovel's plans--but he knew Mr. Lovel's preciseconnection with it, and had damning evidence to boot. The spy shiveredwhen he remembered the scene in Hartshorn Lane. He had blundered andstuttered and confessed his alarm by his confusion, while the Justicerecited what he had fondly believed was known only to the Almightyand some few whose mortal interest it was to be silent.... He had beenamazed that he had not been there and then committed to Newgate. He hadnot gone home that night, but wandered the streets and slept coldunder a Marylebone hedge. At first he had thought of flight, but therecollection of his household detained him. He would not go under. Onepompous fool alone stood between him and safety--perhaps fortune. Longbefore morning he had resolved that Godfrey should die.
He had expected a difficult task, but lo! it was unbelievably easy.About ten o'clock that day he had found Sir Edmund in the Strand. Hewalked hurriedly as if on urgent business, and Lovel had followed him upthrough Covent Garden, across the Oxford road, and into the Marylebonefields. There the magistrate's pace had slackened, and he had loiteredlike a truant schoolboy among the furze and briars. His stoop haddeepened, his head was sunk on his breast, his hands twined behind him.
Now was the chance for the murderer lurking in the brambles. It would beeasy to slip behind and give him the sword-point. But Mr. Lovel tarried.It may have been compunction, but more likely it was fear. It was alsocuriosity, for the magistrate's face, as he passed Lovel's hiding-place,was distraught and melancholy. Here was another man with bitterthoughts--perhaps with a deadly secret. For a moment the spy felta
certain kinship.
Whatever the reason he let the morning go by. About two in the afternoonGodfrey left the fields and struck westward by a bridle-path that ledthrough the Paddington Woods to the marshes north of Kensington. Hewalked slowly, but with an apparent purpose. Lovel stopped for a momentat the White House, a dirty little hedge tavern, to swallow a mouthfulof ale, and tell a convincing lie to John Rawson, the innkeeper, in caseit should come in handy some day. Then occurred a diversion. Young Mr.Forset's harriers swept past, a dozen riders attended by a ragged footfollowing. They checked by the path, and in the confusion of the haltGodfrey seemed to vanish. It was not till close on Paddington villagethat Mr. Lovel picked him up again. He was waiting for the darkness,for he knew that he could never do what he purposed in cold daylight.He hoped that the magistrate would make for Kensington, for that was alonely path.
But Sir Edmund seemed to be possessed of a freakish devil. No sooner washe in Paddington than, after buying a glass of milk from a milk-woman,he set off citywards again by the Oxford road. Here there were manypeople, foot travellers and coaches, and Mr. Lovel began to fear for hischance. But at Tyburn Godfrey struck into the fields and presently wasin the narrow lane called St. Martin's Hedges, which led to CharingCross. Now was the occasion. The dusk was falling, and a light mistwas creeping up from Westminster. Lovel quickened his steps, for themagistrate was striding at a round pace. Then came mischance. First one,then another of the Marylebone cow-keepers blocked the lane with theirdriven beasts. The place became as public as Bartholomew's Fair. Beforehe knew it he was at Charing Cross.
He was now in a foul temper. He cursed his weakness in the morning, whenfate had given him every opportunity. He was in despair too. His casewas hopeless unless he struck soon. If Godfrey returned to HartshornLane he himself would be in Newgate on the morrow.... Fortunately thestrange man did not seem to want to go home. He moved east along theStrand, Lovel a dozen yards behind him.
Out from the dark Savoy entry ran a woman, screaming, and with her hairflying. She seized on Godfrey and clutched his knees. There was a bloodyfray inside, in which her husband fought against odds. The watch was notto be found. Would he, the great magistrate, intervene? The very sightof his famous face would quell riot.
Sir Edmund looked up and down the street, pinched his chin and peereddown the precipitous Savoy causeway. Whatever the burden on his soul hedid 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. Hisfoe had gone of his own will into the place in all England where murdercould 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, alwayshorribly clear in his mind, of a gallows dark against a pale sky andthe little fire beneath where the entrails of traitors were burned--anightmare which had long ridden him--nerved him to the next step. "Hislife or mine," he told himself, as he groped his way into a lane assteep, dank, and black as the sides of a well.
For some twenty yards he stumbled in an air thick with offal andgarlic. He heard steps ahead, the boots of the doomed magistrate and theslipshod pattens of the woman. Then they stopped; his quarry seemed tobe 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 rottenplanks of a long passage, which was lit by a small window giving tothe west. He heard the sound of a man slipping at the other end, andsomething like an oath. Then a door slammed violently, and the placeshook. After that it was quiet. Where was the bloody fight that Godfreyhad been brought to settle?
It was very dark there; the window in the passage was only a square ofmisty grey. Lovel felt eerie, a strange mood for an assassin. Magistrateand woman seemed to have been spirited away.... He plucked up courageand continued, one hand on the wall on his left. Then a sound broke thesilence--a scuffle, and the long grate of something heavy dragged ona rough floor. Presently his fingers felt a door. The noise was insidethat door. There were big cracks in the panelling through which an eyecould look, but all was dark within. There were human beings movingthere, and speaking softly. Very gingerly he tried the hasp, but it wasfastened firm inside.
Suddenly someone in the room struck a flint and lit a lantern. Lovel sethis eyes to a crack and stood very still. The woman had gone, and theroom held three men. One lay on the floor with a coarse kerchief, suchas grooms wear, knotted round his throat. Over him bent a man in a longcoat with a cape, a man in a dark peruke, whose face was clear inthe lantern's light. Lovel knew him for one Bedloe, a led-captain andcardsharper, whom he had himself employed on occasion. The third manstood apart and appeared from his gesticulations to be speaking rapidly.He wore his own sandy hair, and every line of his mean freckled facetold of excitement and fear. Him also Lovel recognised--Carstairs, aScotch informer who had once made a handsome living through spying onconventicles, but had now fallen into poverty owing to conducting anaffair of Buckingham's with a brutality which that fastidious noblemanhad not bargained for.... Lovel rubbed his eyes and looked again. Heknew likewise the man on the floor. It was Sir Edmund Godfrey, and SirEdmund Godfrey was dead.
The men were talking. "No blood-letting," said Bedloe. "This must be adry job. Though, by God, I wish I could stick my knife into him--oncefor Trelawney, once for Frewen, and a dozen times for myself. Throughthis swine I have festered a twelvemonth in Little Ease."
Lovel's first thought, as he stared, was an immense relief. His businesshad 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, andBedloe and Carstairs were the seediest of rogues. He might make favorfor himself with the Government if he had them caught red-handed. Itwould help his status in Aldersgate Street.... But he must act at onceor 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 sawa 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 grippedLovel by the shoulder, and a face looked into his. There was littlelight in the street, but the glow from the window of a Court perruquierwas sufficient to reveal the features. Lovel saw a gigantic face, witha chin so long that the mouth seemed to be only half-way down it. Smalleyes, red and fiery, were set deep under a beetling forehead. The skinwas a dark purple, and the wig framing it was so white and fleecy thatthe man had the appearance of a malevolent black-faced sheep.
Lovel gasped, as he recognised the celebrated Salamanca Doctor. He wasthe man above all others whom he most wished to see.
"Dr. Oates!" he cried. "There's bloody work in the Savoy. I was passingthrough a minute agone and I saw that noble Justice, Sir Edmund BerryGodfrey, lie dead, and his murderers beside the body. Quick, let us getthe watch and take them red-handed."
The big paws, like a gorilla's, were withdrawn from his shoulders. Thepurple complexion seemed to go nearly black, and the wide mouth openedas if to bellow. But the sound which emerged was only a whisper.
"By the maircy of Gaad we will have 'em!... A maist haarrid andunnaitural craime. I will take 'em with my own haands. Here is one whowill help." And he turned to a man who had come up and who looked like acity 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, divedagain into the darkness. Now he had no fears. He saw himself acclaimedwith the Doctor as the saviour of the nation, and the door of AldersgateStreet open at his knocking. The man Prance produced a lantern, andlighted them up the steps and into the tumbledown passage. Fired witha sudden valour, Lovel drew his sword and led the way to the sinisterroom. The door was open, and the place lay empty, save for the deadbody.
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bsp; Oates stood beside it, looking, with his bandy legs great shoulders, andbull neck, like some forest baboon.
"Oh, maist haunourable and noble victim!" he cried. "England will maarnyou, and the spawn of Raam will maarn you, for by this deed theyhave rigged for thaimselves the gallows. Maark ye, Sir Edmund is theproto-martyr of this new fight for the Praatestant faith. He has diedthat the people may live, and by his death Gaad has given England thesign she required.... Ah, Prance, how little Tony Shaston will exult inour news! 'Twill be to him like a bone to a cur-dog to take his ainemiesthus red-haanded."
"By your leave, sir," said Lovel, "those same enemies have escaped us. Isaw them here five minutes since, but they have gone to earth. Whatsay you to a hue-and-cry--though this Savoy is a snug warren to hidevermin."
Oates seemed to be in no hurry. He took the lantern from Prance andscrutinised Lovel's face with savage intensity.
"Ye saw them, ye say.... I think, friend, I have seen ye before, and Idoubt 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 Ihave 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 goodacquaintance among rogues, Mr. Whaat's-you-name."
The man Prance had disappeared, and Lovel suddenly saw his prospectsless bright. The murderers were being given a chance to escape, and tohis surprise he found himself in a fret to get after them. Oates hadclearly 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 itat Jesuit doors. It would ill suit his plans if only two common rascalswere to swing for it. Far better let it remain a mystery open to awfulguesses. Omne ignotum pro horrifico.... Lovel's temper was getting thebetter of his prudence, and the sight of this monstrous baboon with hismincing speech stirred in him a strange abhorrence.
"I can bear witness that the men who did the deed were no more Jesuitsthan you. One is just out of Newgate, and the other is a blackguard Scotlate dismissed the Duke of Buckingham's service."
"Ye lie," and Oates' rasping voice was close to his ear. "'Tis anincraidible tale. Will ye outface me, who alone discovered the Plaat,and dispute with me on high poalicy?... Now I come to look at it, yehave a true Jaisuit face. I maind of ye at St. Omer. I judge ye anaccoamplice..."
At that moment Prance returned and with him another, a man in a darkperuke, wearing a long coat with a cape. Lovel's breath went from him ashe recognised Bedloe.
"There is the murderer," he cried in a sudden fury "I saw him handle thebody. I charge you to hold him."
Bedloe halted and looked at Oates, who nodded. Then he strode up toLovel and took him by the throat.
"Withdraw your words, you dog," he said, "or I will cut your throat. Ihave but this moment landed at the river stairs and heard of this horridbusiness. 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 backLovel'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 andvoluble.
"I withdraw," he stammered, "and humbly crave pardon. I have never seenthis honest gentleman before."
"But ye saw this foul murder, and though the laight was dim ye saw themurderers, and they had the Jaisuitical air?"
Oates' menacing voice had more terror for Lovel than Bedloe'struculence. "Beyond doubt," he replied.
"Whoy, that is so far good," and the Doctor laughed. "Ye will be helpedlater 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 foullymurdered by pairsons unknown as yet, but whom this haanest man willswear to have been disguised Jaisuits. Now in the sairvice of Goad andthe King 'tis raight to pretermit no aiffort to bring the guilty tojustice. The paiple of England are already roused to a holy fairvour,and this haarrid craime will be as the paistol flash to the powdercaask. But that the craime may have its full effaict on the paapulace'tis raight to take some trouble with the staging. 'Tis raight so todispose of the boady that the complaicity of the Paapists will beclear to every doubting fool. I, Taitus Oates, take upon myself thisresponsibility, seeing that under Goad I am the chosen ainstrument forthe paiple's salvation. To Soamersait Haase with it, say I, which isknown for a haaunt of the paapistically-minded.... The postern ye knowof is open, Mr. Prance?"
"I have seen to it," said the man, who seemed to conduct himself in thiswild 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 littledistance.
The Savoy was very quiet that night, and very dark. The few loitererswho observed the procession must have shrugged their shoulders andturned aside, zealous only to keep out of trouble. Such sights were notuncommon in the Savoy. They entered a high ruinous house on the eastside, and after threading various passages reached a door which openedon a flight of broken steps where it was hard for more than one topass at a time. Lovel heard the carriers of the dead grunting as theysqueezed up with their burden. At the top another door gave on anouthouse in the yard of Somerset House between the stables and thewest water-gate.... Lovel, as he stumbled after them with Oates'bulk dragging at his arm, was in a confusion of mind such as his meantime-serving life had never known.
He was in mortal fear, and yet his quaking heart would suddenly bebraced by a gust of anger. He knew he was a rogue, but there werelimits to roguery, and something in him--conscience, maybe, or forgottengentility--sickened at this outrage. He had an impulse to defy them,to gain the street and give the alarm to honest men. These fellows weregoing to construct a crime in their own way which would bring death tothe innocent.... Mr. Lovel trembled at himself, and had to think hard onhis 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 thathe 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 suchas he to be finicking.
The body was pushed under an old truckle-bed which stood in thecorner, and a mass of frails, such as gardeners use, flung over it forconcealment. Oates rubbed his hands.
"The good work goes merrily," he said. "Sir Edmund dead, and for a weekthe good fawk of London are a-fevered. Then the haarrid discovery,and such a Praatestant uprising as will shake the maightiest from hispairch. Wonderful are Goad's ways and surprising His jaidgements! Everystep must be weighed, since it is the Laard's business. Five days wemust give this city to grow uneasy, and then ... The boady will be safehere?"
"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 thena chair and a trusty man to cairry it to the plaace of discovery. Yehave appainted the spoat?"
"Any ditch in the Marylebone fields," said Bedloe.
"And before ye remove it--on the Tuesday naight haply--ye will run theboady through with his swaard--Sir Edmund's swaard."
"So you tell me," said Bedloe gruffly, "but I see no reason in it. Thefoolishest 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. Lookye. This poor man is found with his swaard in his braist. He has killedhimself, says the fool. Not so, say the apothecaries.
Then why theswaard, asks the coroner. Because of the daivilish cunning of hismurderers, says Doctor Taitus Oates. A clear proof that the Jaisuits arein it, says every honest Praatistant. D'ye take me?"
Bedloe declared with oaths his admiration of the Doctor's wit, and goodhumour filled the hovel; All but Lovel, who once again was wrestlingwith something elemental in him that threatened to ruin every thing. Heremembered the bowed stumbling figure that had gone before him inthe Marylebone meadows. Then he had been its enemy; now by a queercontortion of the mind he thought of himself as the only protector ofthat cold clay under the bed--honoured in life, but in death a poor pawnin a rogue's cause. He stood a little apart from the others near thedoor, and his eyes sought it furtively. He was not in the plot, and yetthe 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 ofcampaign with gusto. Bedloe was to disappear to the West Country tillthe time came for him to offer his evidence. Prance was to go abouthis peaceful trade till Bedloe gave him the cue. It was a masterlystratagem--Bedloe to start the ball, Prance to be accused as accompliceand then on his own account to give the other scoundrel corroboration.
"Attend, you sir," the doctor shouted to Lovel. "Ye will be called toswear to the murderers whom this haanest man will name. If ye be a truePraatestant ye will repeat the laisson I taich you. If not, ye will beset down as one of the villains and the good fawk of this city will tearthe limbs from ye at my nod. Be well advaised, my friend, for I hold yein my haand." And Oates raised a great paw and opened and shut it.
Lovel mumbled assent. Fear had again descended on him. He heard dimlythe Doctor going over the names of those to be accused.
"Ye must bring in one of the sairvants of this place," he said. "Somecommon paarter, who has no friends."
"Trust me," said Prance. "I will find a likely fellow among the Queen'shousehold. I have several in my mind for the honour."
"Truly the plaace is a nest of Paapists," said Oates. "And not such asyou, Mr. Prance, who putt England before the Paape. Ye are worth ascore of Praatestants to the good caause, and it will be remaimbered. Beassured 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 wego warily they will give us the slip, and we must fall back on lessergame."
"Le Fevre." Oates mouthed the name. "The Queen's confessor. I was spitupon by him at St. Omer, and would waipe out the affront. A dog of aFrainch priest! A man I have long abhaarred."
"So also have I." Prance had venom in his level voice. "But he is noFrenchman. He is English as you--a Phayre out of Huntingdon."
The name penetrated Lovel's dulled wits. Phayre! It was the one man whoin his father's life had shown him unselfish kindness. Long ago in Paristhis Phayre had been his teacher, had saved him from starvation,had treated him with a gentleman's courtesy. Even his crimes had notestranged this friend. Phayre had baptized his child, and tended hiswife when he was in hiding. But a week ago he had spoken a kindly wordin 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 hediscovered a scruple which bade him at all risks avert the killing ofanother. He perceived very clearly what the decision meant--desperateperil, perhaps ruin and death. He dare not delay, for in a little hewould be too deep in the toils. He must escape and be first with thenews of Godfrey's death in some potent quarter. Buckingham, who was agreat prince. Or Danby. Or the King himself....
The cunning of a lifetime failed him in that moment. He slipped throughthe door, but his coat caught in a splinter of wood, and the rendingof it gave the alarm. As with quaking heart he ran up the silentstable-yard towards the Strand gate he felt close on him the wind of thepursuit. In the dark he slipped on a patch of horse-dung and was down.Something heavy fell atop of him, and the next second a gross agony torethe breath from him.
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Five minutes later Bedloe was unknotting a coarse kerchief and stuffingit into his pocket. It was the same that had strangled Godfrey.
"A good riddance," said Oates. "The fool had seen too much and wouldhave proved but a saarry witness. Now by the mairciful dispensation ofGoad he has ceased to trouble us. Ye know him, Captain Bedloe?"
"A Papistical cur, and white-livered at that," the bravo answered.
"And his boady? It must be praamptly disposed of."
"An easy task. There is the Savoy water-gate and in an hour the tidewill run. He has no friends to inquire after him."
Oates rubbed his hands and cast his eyes upward. "Great are the doings ofthe Laard," he said, "and wonderful in our saight!"