‘No. But I went directly to Alderley’s lodgings to search more thoroughly. As you see, I found it. It was on the floor of Alderley’s bedchamber. But I was too late. Someone had been there first.’
Chewing steadily, Chiffinch picked up the box and examined it. He lifted the lid and said, in an even tone as if the words hardly mattered to him or anyone else, ‘Who forced it open? You?’
‘Of course not, sir.’ I did my best to look horrified, but I doubt I fooled him. ‘Besides, I came across the key in Alderley’s pocket when I searched his body on Monday. Why would I force the lock?’
He would not let it go. ‘The box was empty?’
I nodded.
‘So who opened it?’ His voice was suddenly harsh. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t you?’
‘On my oath, sir.’
He stared at me for a moment, sighed and took yet another grape. ‘Then who?’
‘Alderley had no need to force the lock. I believe it may have been done by the Bishop. I questioned a boy who had seen him.’
‘What boy?’ Chiffinch snapped.
‘The son of the carpenter who leases the lower part of Alderley’s house. He told me the Bishop returned on Monday evening. It was clear that the apartments had been thoroughly searched, and by someone who didn’t care to be discreet. Everything was left awry. The motive can’t have been robbery, or not robbery in the usual sense because many valuables hadn’t been touched. I can only think that the Bishop was looking for this box. When he found it, he stole whatever it contained.’
Chiffinch wasn’t looking at me any more. He had picked up the box and was tilting it this way and that, examining the design of the lid. He set it down on the table and took up the key.
‘Can you make out these letters, Marwood?’
‘No, sir.’
He put down the key, spat out some seeds, took another grape and popped it in his mouth. ‘Nor can I,’ he said casually. ‘Perhaps they aren’t letters at all. Just a pretty pattern signifying nothing.’
Chewing, he stared at me. His eyes were glassy and more prominent than usual. I knew he had given me a warning.
‘Keep it to yourself,’ he went on, speaking quickly and urgently, as if he had suddenly realized he was in a hurry. ‘If you happen to see my Lord Clarendon, there’s no need to mention that you’ve found the box. Not yet.’
‘Then what would you have me do, sir?’
‘Come and see me tomorrow evening,’ Chiffinch said, drawing the box closer to him and covering it with his hands as if to keep it safe. ‘Ask for me at the Privy Stairs at ten o’clock. In the meantime, say nothing and do nothing, unless you get a whiff of that Lovett woman and her whereabouts.’ He spat. ‘Leave me. Make yourself useful. Go back to Williamson and his scribblers in Scotland Yard.’
I was glad to get away from Chiffinch. It was only when I reached the open air that I realized that I had forgotten to tell him about the design for a chapel that I had found in the pocket of Hakesby’s cloak. Perhaps it was as well: the discovery didn’t resolve anything; it merely deepened the mystery. Better to wait until I knew more – either from Hakesby himself, if I could persuade him to talk, or from Brennan.
One of Lord Clarendon’s footmen intercepted me as I was crossing the Great Court on my way back to Scotland Yard. He must have known my face from my visits to Clarendon House because he said nothing to me; he merely bowed and handed me a letter. He stood back and waited, hands clasped.
I broke the seal and unfolded the letter.
Dear Mr Marwood
Gorse has disappeared. No one has seen him since last night. Will you sup with me this evening? I shall be at the Goat by Charing Cross at nine o’clock.
G. Milcote
Clarendon House
I folded the letter and put it in my pocket. Here was another complication. Gorse seemed straightforward enough in his way, but I had thought Milcote had been rash to trust him with our expedition last night. Had he gone of his own accord or had someone used force?
I beckoned the servant. ‘Tell Mr Milcote that I shall be there.’
Like the well-trained footman he was, he bowed again and walked smartly away without a word, without even waiting for a tip. How unlike my poor Sam, I thought, in all departments.
I walked towards the archway leading to Scotland Yard, Mr Williamson’s complaints and the drudgery and routine of the Gazette. The court clock struck four before I reached it. I stopped abruptly. After a moment’s thought, I turned right and walked swiftly down to the public stairs from Whitehall. I took a boat downriver to the Savoy.
It was as if God had leaned out of heaven on a whim and touched me with a spell of madness.
When I reached Infirmary Close, I discovered that Sam had not yet returned from watching Brennan, nor sent word. Margaret, who let me into the house, was worried about him. I told her that he was a grown man capable of looking after himself, but if he returned drunk again he would feel the weight of my anger.
I swept away her reply with a string of orders: ‘Send for the barber directly – I wish to be shaved. Then set a pan of water to heat. I want a jug in my bedchamber as soon as it’s done. Bring out my best suit, and see that it is brushed and clean and all things neat. Also a Sunday shirt – the new one: make sure it’s pressed.’
She seemed to welcome the distraction. Before I went upstairs, she gave me a letter which had been brought from the Post Office. It was from Mr Fisher, Mr Williamson’s correspondent in Watford. He regretted that he was unable to help me. There were no itinerant preachers in the town at present, and talk of Jerusalem was confined to the parish church and licensed chapels, where it belonged.
No surprises there. I already knew that Watford was a blind alley. I threw the letter on the kitchen fire, where the pan of water was warming.
In my chamber, I locked Alderley’s satchel in my closet. If I ever found Cat, she might find its contents useful one day. I passed the next hour and a half washing and shaving, combing and dressing, adjusting and brushing, until at last I was able to gaze at the reflection of the undamaged side of my face in the mirror with something like satisfaction.
I turned the other cheek and looked at what I saw there. I shrugged. It would have to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I HAD HAD no occasion to visit Cradle Alley, the narrow street that ran from east to west in the City by Moorgate, for nearly a year. But I had not let that trifling circumstance prevent me from going there. About once a month, or every six weeks, I would found myself strolling down the street on my way to somewhere else that lay in quite a different direction.
The reason? Lady Quincy lived there.
In that time, Cradle Alley had gradually changed. The western half had burned down in the Great Fire. As the months passed, the ruins had been cleared, and the sites of the buildings marked out. One or two houses had already been rebuilt, and temporary huts had grown up among the ashes and the weeds.
The Fire had spared the eastern half of the alley, towards Broad Street, which was where my lady lived in a house that had come to her by her first husband, Sir William Quincy. The building was one of those big, half-timbered merchants’ houses which had been so common in the City before the Fire; it was larger than most, however, and in better condition. The upper storeys jettied over the street, and their old-fashioned diamond panes glittered in the light of the sinking sun.
I own I was nervous. My unnatural finery seemed suddenly inadequate for the task in hand, a pathetic attempt to make myself seem what I was not. The closer I came to the house, the slower my footsteps and the greater my sense of my own folly.
I knocked hard on the door to give myself courage. I waited for what seemed like an age. Then there was a rattle of bolts and the door swung inwards. I told the porter my name and asked him to enquire whether Lady Quincy was at leisure.
He summoned a tall manservant I remembered from previous visits, and whispered something in his ear. The servant went away.
I
waited in the outer lobby under the porter’s eye. It was very quiet. All I heard was my own breathing, which sounded unnaturally loud. Time crawled like the tortoise, and my heart raced like the hare.
In stark contrast to the street facade, the lobby was flagged with marble; an archway set between columns framed a view of the inner hall and the carved staircase rising into the upper storeys. The building had been extended and refurbished in recent years. Behind its old-fashioned frontage lay a richly furnished modern townhouse whose principal apartments faced towards the garden. It was rumoured that the King had paid for these alterations, and that Lady Quincy had been his mistress when the Court was in exile on the Continent, and even now she made herself useful to him in other ways.
The servant returned. ‘If you will follow me, sir.’
He led me to a small chamber on the ground floor and at the front of the house. He stood aside to let me enter. Then, without a word, he closed the door, leaving me alone.
The room was dimly lit. It was furnished simply, unlike the grand drawing room upstairs where Lady Quincy had entertained me on my visits last year. There was a desk, a chair, a stool and a heavy, iron-bound chest. A tall press stood against the wall with two locks securing its doors. The window was small and heavily barred. This was a place where valuables were stored and business was transacted.
I heard footsteps. The door opened. Lady Quincy came in, attended by her African page. I bowed.
‘I am sorry to keep you waiting, sir,’ she said. ‘Please sit.’
She sank gracefully into the chair, leaving me the stool. The boy took up his station at her shoulder.
‘Why have you come?’ she said, and her tone, though pleasant enough, increased the distance between us.
‘I have intelligence for you, madam. It has to do with our meeting at Whitehall.’ I let my eyes travel towards the boy standing by Lady Quincy’s chair. ‘Perhaps you might wish …’
‘Stephen,’ she said. ‘You may leave us. Close the door but stay within call. I will ring when I need you.’
He bowed, and slipped out of the room.
‘It’s not wise of you to come here unannounced. Have you news of my niece?’
‘She’s vanished, madam.’
‘It seems that she heeded the warning after all. Thank God.’
‘You have no idea where she might be?’
Lady Quincy was a clever woman, and her mind was busy. ‘I think, sir, you may know more than you are saying. Suppose you enlighten me.’
I had to trust her, at least partly, if she was to trust me. ‘There is news, but it’s not yet public knowledge, though it soon will be. If I share it with you, will you keep it to yourself until it is known by all the world?’
She stared at me. ‘How intriguing. Very well.’
‘I hope it won’t distress you to learn that your stepson is dead.’
Lady Quincy was sitting with her back to the window, and I could not see her face clearly, especially as the light outside was softening and beginning to fade. How could I ever have thought her ordinary? She radiated an allure which had no words to describe it.
‘How …?’ Her voice was scarcely above a whisper.
‘He has been found drowned. The circumstances are … mysterious.’
‘Are you saying he was murdered?’
I shrugged. ‘He was discovered in a pond near Tyburn. He was naked.’
She fired a fusillade of questions at me: ‘Who did it? Footpads? What was he doing up there by himself? When did it happen? Who knows of this?’
I replied to none of the questions. The silence lengthened. She sat with her fingers laced together on her lap and stared at me.
‘Why do you come here to tell me this?’ she asked.
‘Because Mr Chiffinch believes that Catherine Lovett was responsible for his death. There’s a warrant out for her arrest.’
She considered this and then gave a snort of amusement. ‘That makes it plain enough. The King must have an interest in it or Chiffinch would not trouble to have an opinion on the matter. Perhaps I should ask him.’
‘You’ll do as you wish, madam, I’m sure.’ I tried to take her off guard, saying in the same breath, ‘Tell me, why did you lend Alderley money? You didn’t think to mention it to me the other day.’
‘Why should I have done? What business was it of yours? Besides, I told you his affairs were prosperous. That was the important point. His paying off the mortgage, and the interest he owed me, was but a consequence of it.’
‘Was another consequence that he intended to marry?’
‘Marry? Edward?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it.’
‘You also told me he said that he and his friends would see your niece dead and he would dance on her grave. When I asked you who these friends were, you wouldn’t answer. Will you now?’
‘Perhaps he didn’t tell me who they were.’
It seemed to me that this strange conversation had become a dance with words, and for some reason she was allowing me to lead her, as the man does in a dance.
‘Let’s say that he did give you a hint about these friends,’ I said, ‘were they by chance connected with the Duke of Buckingham?’
‘You might very well think so, Mr Marwood.’ She smiled at me, which reinforced my awareness that there was nothing ordinary about Lady Quincy, and that the spell she exerted on me had not lost its power. ‘But of course I cannot say. I’m but a woman, you know, and nowadays I live quite retired from the world.’
She rose to her feet in a rustle of grey silk. Automatically I stood as well. She held out her hand. It lay warm and defenceless in mine. I desired her more than I had ever desired anything in my life.
‘I’m glad we’ve talked,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we shall talk again one day.’ She picked up the bell on the desk. But she didn’t ring it. ‘Tell me – and I hope I’m not prying – how did you come by those scars on your face?’ She raised her hand and touched her own cheek, as if she were myself in a mirror. ‘Forgive me if this is a painful subject to you.’
I felt the colour rising to my face. ‘I was caught in a fire three or four months ago, madam.’ I gave her a stiff and unconvincing smile. ‘Believe me, it looks better than it did.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice had become gentle. ‘But it doesn’t much matter, you know. Anyone with eyes sees the man within, not the scars without.’
Lady Quincy rang the bell. When Stephen returned, she said, ‘Mr Marwood is leaving.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I REACHED THE Goat shortly before nine o’clock, still dazed from my interview with Lady Quincy. The tavern was by the Chequer Inn on the corner of St Martin’s Lane and the Royal Mews.
Milcote rose to his feet as I was shown into his private room. ‘I’m glad you could come, sir.’ He waved the servant away. ‘This business is driving me mad – it grows worse every day. And you’re the only person I can talk about this with. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering our supper.’
There was a bottle of wine on the table. It was half empty. He poured me a glass as I sat down on the bench opposite him.
‘You’re very à la mode this evening.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Is there a lady concerned? Your mistress? Should we drink to her?’
‘No,’ I said, thinking that these gallant gentlemen were all the same under the skin, their minds running naturally after women and wine. ‘But I’ll propose a toast if you wish. To a happy resolution to our troubles.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’
Milcote emptied his glass and reached for the bottle. He had acquired an air of strained gaiety. His face was flushed and his movements lacked their usual precision.
‘Have you heard the news?’ he said, glancing at the door to make sure it was closed. ‘Alderley’s been found drowned in a pond near the Oxford road, not far from Tyburn.’ He let out his breath in a rush and smiled. ‘They say he must have been there for a while. The corpse isn’t fresh.’
> ‘No. I don’t imagine it is.’
He lowered his voice still further. ‘At least it’s out in the open. My lord’s pleased. This deserves another toast, I think.’
‘What’s this about Gorse?’ I asked, when he was refilling our glasses.
‘The rogue’s fled. The steward told me after dinner. The last time I saw him was last night, with you.’
‘When he took the horse and cart back to the stable yard?’
Milcote nodded. ‘The watchmen said he attended to the horse and then he went back to the house.’
‘Does he sleep alone?’
‘No – there are three of them in the room, and he shares a bed with one of them. He was there in the morning – I’d given him leave to lie an hour longer than usual, so the others rose before him. They saw him there, fast asleep.’ He shrugged. ‘And after that, nothing.’
I frowned. ‘You mean he simply vanished?’
‘It would have been easy enough for him to leave, if he wished. No one admits to seeing him go, but there again, why should anyone have noticed? A servant about his business in his master’s house is unremarkable. Besides, my lord’s servants are cautious about what they say and do at present. They know enemies are gathering and they begin to look to their futures.’ He scowled. ‘Like rats leaving a sinking ship.’
I said carefully: ‘Gorse’s not where Alderley was, is he? Have you checked?’
It was warm in the room and Milcote’s forehead had become shiny with sweat. ‘No, not there. Thank God.’ He shivered. ‘The well was the first place I thought to look. My lord asked me the same question when I told him that Gorse had gone.’
‘Of course. And he must be worried by this – in the light of what Gorse knows.’
‘Yes. Especially after last night’s adventure.’
Milcote picked up the bottle, found it was empty and rang the bell violently for the waiter. He demanded another bottle of sack with more sugar to sweeten it.
‘I ordered his box to be searched,’ he said when we were alone again. ‘We found his muddy clothes in it, and his best suit gone.’
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