by L. C. Tyler
‘If I had made an appointment to see him this evening, what advice would you have for me?’
‘Don’t keep the appointment. This may be my business, as you have pointed out to me many times, but it is no business of yours. If there are things I have not told you, it is for your own good.’
‘How is Roger Pole?’ I ask. ‘I hope that he is bearing his captivity well.’
The Colonel looks a little uncomfortable and says: ‘We have a small problem there. Roger Pole has . . . left. Early this morning.’
So much for his alibi then. So much for his word as a gentleman.
‘The clothes of the departed are my perky-seat,’ says Mistress Mansell.
‘Didn’t the Colonel pay you for laying out Mr Henderson?’ I ask.
‘That’s my business, not your’n,’ says Mistress Mansell. ‘Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. Maybe I told him the going rate for the job, and maybe I told him double. But the dead man’s clothes belongs to me.’
‘I wish only to compare the button I have with the buttons on his doublet.’
‘Why’s that then, boy?’
‘I think a button I found in the meadow was one of his.’
‘That so?’
‘I’d just like to see the doublet,’ I say. I take a sixpenny piece from my purse and hold it up.
‘Worth something to you, is it?’ she asks. I realise that I have shown my hand too soon. ‘That’ll be five shilling if you wants to see his clothes,’ she adds.
I stand up as if to go.
‘All right, sixpence it is then,’ she says quickly, to avoid losing her chance of taking money from an idiot. ‘But I’ll have it now, like.’
I give her the coin and sit down again while she vanishes into a small back room. Her fire is smoking a great deal, and my eyes are watering. She seems used to it, as she is to the smell of damp that pervades her cottage even on a hot day. The aroma of dinner bubbling away in a pot on the fire is also far from appealing – good root vegetables from her garden ruined by a few scraps of half-rotten meat. She returns after a while with an untidy black bundle that is unwrapped into a doublet and a pair of breeches.
‘You’re lucky as I’ve still got ’em. I was going to Saffron Walden Saturday. Sell ’em there. They’ve cleaned up nice, they have. Nobody’d know the last owner had his throttle cut. Not unless you look careful, and hopefully I’ll be back here by the time they do that. And I always tells customers I comes from Thaxted, just in case. You got that button, boy?’
I unwrap my button in its turn and hold it up against the doublet. It is the same size and pattern as those in place, and there is a button missing from the doublet at the point where Henderson’s ample midriff would have exerted the greatest pressure on the fastenings. I check the small piece of thread hanging from the doublet against the small piece of thread hanging from the button.
‘Happy now, ducks?’ asks Mistress Mansell.
‘I think it matches,’ I say.
‘Anything else, boy? You can see his shirt for thruppence,’ she adds, keen to strike another easy bargain.
‘I could buy his shirt outright for less than that,’ I say.
‘Not from me, you couldn’t.’
‘Did he have a hat?’ I ask.
‘No hat that I ever saw,’ she says. ‘Do you want to buy one?’
‘I have one already.’
‘Looks like you’ve slept on it.’
‘I’m happy with it as it is.’
She feigns surprise, but not much – after all, she doesn’t have a hat to sell me. But she does have one last trick in her pocket.
‘And then I’ve got this’n,’ she says. She takes a small wad of paper from her placket and holds it aloft. It is not unlike the one that I found in Henderson’s boot. ‘Sewn into the hem of his doublet, that was. I always checks the hem, because sometimes dead folk leaves their gold there, and it’s a horrid shame to bury money in the cold dirt.’
I reach out my hand, but this proves a mistake. I have indicated that it too might have a value.
‘Paper that is,’ she says. ‘With words on it.’
‘What does it say?’ I ask.
‘How should I know that, boy?’
I shrug. ‘Keep it,’ I say. ‘Sell it in Saffron Walden.’
‘Half a crown,’ she says. She’s heard a rumour that others can read, even if she can’t.
‘Let me see it,’ I say.
She unfolds it awkwardly and then holds it out just beyond my reach. There are blocks of letters in groups of four. I see: ‘PIEX NECT FEWS RRMB SUGE’. Then she snatches it away again.
‘It’s not words,’ I say, ‘just letters.’
She’s trying to work out whether letters are worth less on the open market than words. Normally, she sells badly laundered shirts and carefully checked doublets.
‘One and six,’ she says, marking it down as damaged goods.
I shake my head.
‘Penny then. Paper’s got to be worth a penny.’
I hand her a penny and stuff the sheet carelessly in my pocket.
‘So the button was his? From off of his doublet?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘It’s mine then now, ain’t it? One of my perky-seats.’ She holds out her hand.
I render unto Caesar that which is due unto Caesar. Her bony little fist closes on it. Even Ifnot wouldn’t be able to prise that tiny hand open again.
‘You’re trying to find out who killed Mr Henderson, ain’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘And Jem?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Then good luck to you,’ she says. ‘I’d like to shit on whoever killed the boy.’
‘We’d all like to do that,’ I say.
I wonder if she is about to tell me anything more out of the kindness of her heart. But these are not her standard terms of business. She gives me a twisted smile and trots off to the back room with her bundle newly folded. Rubbing my eyes, I grope my way to the door and step out into the mercilessly hot afternoon.
Once I am home, I open up the crumpled sheet of paper. It reads:
NUMBER 9 PIEX NECT FEWS RRMB SUGE OBYS NMEO HEIT HOUG ATDE EDTH GKIN VHAS GERY SOOD OUPP ERTH UREB ETTH DLEA HERS FIPO KTHE INOT ISBE HNGC EALL DNGE HBYT UEYO RNGE SONE MFOR TJRE SURN EHOM NSOO UIWO ELDR DMIN OYOU UFYO ORPR EMIS 472.
I think of the cipher that I found in Henderson’s boot but immediately see that it will not serve. This message has been coded in some other way, and I must start anew. But I have done this many times before.
When deciphering any coded message to which one lacks the key, it is necessary to go through a number of steps. With a simple substitution code, one counts the occurrences of each letter or number, then ranks them according to their frequency. If the message in is English, the most common should correspond to the letter E, the next two to T and A, the next to O and so on. Frequently found combinations such as TH, ER and ON can also be searched for. Doubled letters are likely to represent SS, EE, TT or FF. These simple patterns enable the code breaker to have a first pass at a solution, and often words will spring from the page as if by magic. If they do not, then it is a matter of trial and error. Close study and practice will still make a simple code deliver up its message within an hour or two. Henderson’s code used numbers for letters. Here, it would seem, letters are substituted for other letters. Strangely, E is the most common letter in the coded format – and my doubled letters are R, E, O (three times!), P, T and L. Of course, short messages yield more slowly to this type of analysis than long ones.
I struggle for an hour and make no progress at all. Perhaps it is not a substitution code after all. Is the grouping of the letters significant or a distraction? I look at the group that reads ‘GERY’ – which is, as you will have noticed yourself, an anagram of my name. Such things happen coincidentally, of course, but it is a coincidence that worries me a little. And something else worries me too. Like the stranger’s voice, these blo
cks of letters are unaccountably familiar. When I look at the page, words seem to spring at me, then fade away again. Another person’s eye cast over this might see immediately how it is put together. But I shall tell nobody of this for the moment – not until I am sure what it is and what it has to do with me.
I fold the paper up again and stow it away in my pocket. A supper awaits me.
At the Inn, and Afterwards
‘I thought that we would sup in my chamber,’ says Probert. ‘We may converse all the more discreetly.’
‘You are expecting others?’ I indicate the pickled pike, cold beef, lamb cutlets, pies, pease pudding and salads that are spread before us on the table.
‘Others? They would go hungry if they came,’ he says. ‘I had intended this for myself alone but then remembered my invitation to you. However, thinking you were no great eater any more than you are a great drinker, I resigned myself to sharing it.’ He takes a clasp knife from his pocket, opens it and cuts himself a large slice of pie. Since no invitation comes from him for me to follow suit, I take my knife and, on my own authority, cut myself some beef. He neither condones my action nor objects to it. This is a matter of open competition rather than hospitality. Probert looks me in the eye and seizes upon the largest cutlet. I think he will swallow it whole, but his teeth deal dexterously with the flesh in small, rapid bites, and the bone is thrown over his shoulder. Before it hits the floor, he is already cutting into the second pie. I am still on my first slice of beef. Without saying a word, I get up, take the flagon of ale from the side table and fill a tankard for myself. I offer none to Probert. The rules of this contest are already clear. Probert looks up briefly and disdainfully, then scans the table and selects the pike as his next target. Most of it is transferred to his trencher at a single sweep. I take what is left of the first pie. It proves to be rabbit and well cooked and seasoned. I add some of the salad of cucumber and eggs, dressed with oil, but then realise that Probert will scarcely see this as eating at all. He is already throwing a second bone to the floor. This is fast work. I did not see him even pick the cutlet up. I want to ask him whether he normally eats meals of this size, but there is simply no time. He has seized a hunk of rye bread and is ripping it with his teeth. He has a cutlet in his other hand. I take a piece of bread and use it to scoop up some of the pike from its serving dish. I cram it all, bread and fish, straight into my mouth and chew. We eye each other up, our mouths still masticating, and both reach for the last cutlet. I get there first. Probert sneers and scrapes all of the remaining cucumber and egg onto his trencher. A small victory for me, I think.
We eat like this for half an hour, interrupted only by Nell’s arrival with a hot gooseberry pie, a trencher piled with strawberries and another with apples. Finally, I have to say: ‘Mr Probert, I can eat no more. The palms of victory are yours.’
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘that is very true, Grey. I have won. But to eat as I do, ab ove usque ad mala, you must accustom yourself to it. You cannot simply hope to sit down with me and outeat me at the first attempt.’
‘Do you always take meals like this?’ I ask.
He shakes his head. ‘Not always – merely when I can,’ he says. He munches thoughtfully on an apple. ‘Est modus in rebus. Now, Grey, to business. I fear that you believe me to be in the pay of Charles Stuart.’
‘Are you not?’
‘I was once an agent of the late, unlamented Tyrant. That is true. Later – being captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London may have influenced my thinking – I saw that the true path was to work for Parliament. I am now employed by Mr Secretary Thurloe, of whom you may have heard, and who has, as you know, heard of you. We are on the same side, Grey.’
‘That’s easy enough to say.’
‘Exactly. And I have said it. What proof can I offer you then? Would it help if I said that I knew you had been in correspondence with a mutual friend? A good friend of mine and a fortiori a good friend of Mr Secretary Thurloe’s. That is, by the way, where I discovered Dr Grahame’s opinion of you.’
‘You could have come across that information by foul means as well as fair.’
‘You are a difficult man to please, Grey. You make what should be a simple conversation very awkward. I like that. It shows promise. But we must get down to business. These summer nights are short. Do you intend to deny that you have written to Mr Samuel Morland, formerly also of Magdalene College, seeking employment as a cryptographer in Mr Thurloe’s department? Mr Morland looks favourably on your application and would look even more favourably upon it if I were to send him a good report of your abilities. So far, I can commend only your caution and admirable lack of trust. But I trust you, Grey. And together perhaps we can find out why Henderson died. And Jem too. The two deaths are linked, and if you wish to find Jem’s killer, then you must come with me in my search for Henderson’s.’
‘Was Henderson also working for Mr Thurloe?’ I ask.
‘Ah, Henderson! My beloved Henderson! He began as a Parliamentary spy, then became a Royalist one, then a Parliamentary one again. Double-dealing, you see, was his great joy and his supreme talent. Ad unguem factus homo. Those of us who choose espionage as a career do it because we take pleasure in deception. We enjoy knowing things that others do not know. But when that game palls, we can add a little nutmeg to our ale by turning all on its head and playing for the other side. And when that game too grows weary, as it will . . . But you see my point? So, was Henderson working for Thurloe when he died? Mr Secretary Thurloe thought so. I thought so. But only Henderson would have known for certain.’
‘He had a ring with the royal coat of arms,’ I say.
‘Do you remember the good old days when we had theatres and plays?’ asks Probert. ‘The people on the stage were merely actors, but with a tin crown and an old velvet cloak lined with rabbit, they could appear to be King Henry the Fifth of glorious memory, or with a cushion shoved up the back of their doublet they could hobble round and be mad King Dick. Henderson missed his true vocation. I think he enjoyed playing a Royalist agent – but it was to be his final role. The curtain has come down.’
‘Why was his final scene played out in this village?’
‘Have you heard of the Sealed Knot?’
‘I have heard rumours of it. It is a secret Royalist organisation.’
‘Indeed. It was formed by some young men – silly boys too green to have fought in the late wars – to raise a rebellion that would restore the Stuarts to the throne. They report to Sir Edward Hyde, currently exiled in Bruges – or at least they used to. Now a faction, dissatisfied with the Knot’s inefficiency and Hyde’s supine inactivity, has formed itself into the Action Party, as they like to call themselves. To Lord Protector Cromwell, these squabbling little Royalists are all no more than gnats that buzz on a summer evening. But they must be swatted nonetheless, and His Highness sends the likes of me and Henderson to do the swatting.’
‘Their cause is hopeless,’ I say.
‘Not quite,’ says Probert. ‘You have grown up under the Republic. To you, being ruled by Parliament and by a Lord Protector is God’s natural order. And to others – those who have acquired cavalier property, for example, or who inadvertently signed the last king’s death warrant – a restoration of the monarchy would be very inconvenient. In any case, why should anyone wish to be an impoverished Royalist when the Republic can offer well-paid employment? Charles and his court are in despair, while his followers sneak back to London one by one to pledge allegiance to Cromwell. In ten or even five years’ time, few will remember a king as anything but a painted devil in a picture book. But should Charles Stuart return in the meantime at the head of an army, or should Cromwell die . . . We are not safe yet, Mr Grey.’
‘Henderson, then, was posing as an agent of the Sealed Knot?’
‘Exactly. He was to meet the secret Royalists here in this village, nominally to distribute amongst them warrants from Charles Stuart, titular King of the Scots, giving them commissions in the
Royalist army and the right to wage war in his name.’
‘And then?’
‘They would inform Henderson of their state of readiness. We would discover who they reported to and so on. That last point is a particularly important one. Mr Thurloe is convinced that a particularly important correspondent of the Sealed Knot resides in the village. A large fish in a small pond, you might say. A fish who is passing information to Hyde on activities both in Essex and beyond. Henderson hoped you might be able to put a name to this fish. He was told to ask for you.’
Pole, I think. Of course. What else is he doing in a village like this? As the secretary to a once-influential member of Cromwell’s inner circle and as a purported supplicant of the Lord Protector, he would hope to avoid suspicion. But who else can it be? And yet I find I cannot say it. I have promised Aminta that I shall help prove his innocence. And I have promised the Colonel that I shall be less free with my accusations. But I do at least now understand why Henderson should, on Mr Thurloe’s instructions, have been asking after me. And if my rider was his killer, then it is surely my rider who was a Royalist agent.
‘The night Henderson died,’ I say, ‘a stranger passed through the village. Though nobody admits to having seen him, his horse is still at the inn.’
‘Ah yes, I have heard of your imaginary horseman. He provides much amusement for the vulgar crowd. You should tell the story more often. You would gain a reputation as a rare wit.’
‘You also think I dreamt him?’
‘On the contrary. Strangeness followed in Henderson’s wake like scavenging gulls behind a ship at sea. A ghostly rider seeking the inn where Henderson was staying? Yes, that could have happened.’
‘You mock me, Mr Probert.’
‘Not at all. I am in deadly earnest. Henderson survived one night in the village, surrounded by members of the Sealed Knot, but then died shortly after this horseman arrived. I am inclined to think that he was sent by Hyde.’