Death in St James's Park (18 page)

Chaloner gaped his astonishment, sure
he
would not have noticed minute fragments of wood in a room lit only by the unsteady gleam of a lantern.

‘Then we had better find him,’ said Lamb, hauling a cudgel from his belt. ‘We cannot afford to have spies wandering around.’

Harper stood, and Chaloner knew he would notice that the door to the hidden chamber was ajar – he was obviously extremely observant – at which point Chaloner would be trapped inside with three armed men blocking the only exit. His only option was to seize the initiative. He burst through it with all the speed he could muster, punching the lantern from Smartfoot’s hand and plunging the chamber into darkness.

All that was visible once the lamp had gone out was the merest outline of the door to the corridor. Chaloner raced towards it, but Harper and Lamb anticipated his move, and positioned themselves to stop him, flailing blindly with their weapons as they did so. Meanwhile Smartfoot fumbled to light a candle, simultaneously raising the alarm with a series of yells.

Chaloner did not draw his sword. There was no point – he knew instinctively that the trio would be skilled combatants, and he could not fight them all at the same time. The knife he always carried in his sleeve slipped into his hand, and he lobbed it behind him, towards the window. Lamb immediately blundered towards it, but Harper did not fall for the ruse, and Chaloner winced when he felt a sword slash close to his face.

He surged forward, crashing
into Harper with his shoulder, knocking him off balance. Even so, Harper still managed to aim a blow, and Chaloner felt a slight sting as the blade nicked the tip of his thumb. Then Lamb arrived, and a lucky lunge in the blackness saw him grab Chaloner’s arm.

Desperate now, Chaloner resorted to gutter tactics. He kicked at where he thought Lamb’s knee would be, and heard a grunt of pain as his foot connected. Lamb’s grip loosened just enough to let him slither free. The papers he had stolen fluttered to the floor, but there was no time to worry about them. He shot into the corridor, where the guard had unlocked the door and was coming to investigate. Chaloner felled him with a punch, and raced into the main building.

Unfortunately, Smartfoot’s howls had alerted the spies who had been opening the post, too, and three came racing to see what was going on. All were armed, and they blocked the way to the front door, so Chaloner took the only other route available: the stairs. He tore up to the first floor, where he met the other two clerks. He bowled into them before they had gathered their wits, sending both flying. There was a corridor to his left, so he darted along it, but he knew the game was up – his earlier search had told him that all the offices were locked, and he would be caught long before he could pick his way inside one.

‘Tom! In here, quickly.’

Chaloner whipped around at the hissed voice, and was startled to see Dorislaus standing there. But it was no time to ask questions, and he was only just inside the room when thundering footsteps indicated that his pursuers had arrived. He closed the door fast.

The Anglo-Dutchman tapped on a
panel, which slid open to reveal a hole. Dazed, Chaloner wondered how many more cunningly hidden spaces the General Letter Office contained, and why whoever had built the place should have deemed them necessary. Outside in the hall, he could hear doors being kicked open as Harper and his cronies hunted for him.

‘Climb in,’ whispered Dorislaus urgently. ‘Hurry!’

Chaloner hesitated. Was it a trap? But the alternative was to brave eight armed and angry men – nine including the guard – so he scrambled through the opening, and found there was just enough space to stand upright. His confusion intensified when Dorislaus squeezed in next to him. There was not really room, and it was a tight and very uncomfortable fit.

‘You no longer work here,’ he said softly, as Dorislaus fiddled to close the panel. He was acutely uncomfortable, his natural distrust of the man filling his mind. ‘So why—’

‘Hush! Or we will both be caught.’

The panel had only just clicked closed when the door burst open. Through a crack in the wood, Chaloner watched Lamb glance around, see the room was empty and move on. Harper, however, stepped inside, and began sniffing the air. Chaloner held his breath and was aware of Dorislaus doing the same. Surely Harper could not
smell
them?

‘He came in here,’ the clerk said to Smartfoot, who had come to stand at his side. ‘There must be a priest’s hole or some such contrivance. Find it.’

Smartfoot obeyed with an alacrity that suggested Chaloner was not the only one who found the man unsettling. He began tapping on the panels, while Harper watched, his face unreadable.

Chaloner’s heart was thumping
hard, and he wondered whether he would have room to draw his sword when the panel opened, or whether he would be skewered where he stood. He could barely move with Dorislaus pressed against him. Was that what the Anglo-Dutchman intended? To keep him immobile while he was cut down? But why bother with such an elaborate charade? Why not just let Harper catch him?

‘How do you know he is here?’ asked Smartfoot, when he met with no immediate success.

‘Blood,’ said Harper softly, and pointed to the floor. ‘We injured him.’

Chaloner felt his jaw drop. It was the merest nick, and any drop he might have shed must have been very small. He was good at tracking people himself, but Harper’s skills were unnatural. Next to him, Dorislaus began to shake.

Smartfoot had reached the wall behind which they were hiding, and Dorislaus’s trembling intensified. Chaloner leaned on him, trying to keep him still. Dorislaus swallowed hard, and the sound it made was so loud that Chaloner was sure Smartfoot would hear. But whatever device operated the panel was too clever for the clerk, and he passed on his way.

Harper was unwilling to concede defeat, though, and ordered him to start again. Time passed, and Lamb and the spies came to help. Later still, more clerks arrived, grimly determined to succeed when informed that an intruder was hiding within. Then there was a flurry of activity in the corridor, and the door flung open to reveal Controller O’Neill. He was bristling with anger.

‘Why is no one in the
Sorting Room?’ he demanded. ‘It is well past six o’clock, and you should all be at work. Or do you want the post to be late again?’

‘We had an uninvited guest,’ explained Harper. ‘He came in here, and we are looking for him.’

‘In here?’ O’Neill eyed him warily. ‘Well, obviously it is empty now, so you can—’

‘This was once the home of wealthy Catholics.’ The softness of Harper’s voice was sinister, and Chaloner did not like listening to it. ‘There will be a priest’s hole.’

‘Then ask the fellow who works in this room to point it out to you,’ said O’Neill sharply. He had disliked being interrupted. ‘Random prodding and poking is unlikely to reveal it. Papists do not design these things to pop open for just anyone, you know.’

‘That will be Jeremiah Copping, sir,’ supplied the clerk named Rea. ‘But he was injured in the explosion, and his sister is looking after him at her tavern on Cheapside.’

‘The intruder is not here,’ said Lamb, throwing up his hands in defeat. ‘He must have escaped.’

‘He had better not have done.’ O’Neill scowled at Harper. ‘I employ you to mind our security, and I have not had cause to regret the appointment so far.’

There was an implied threat in the remark, although Harper did no more than incline his head, and it was O’Neill who looked away first. Then the Controller ordered the bulk of his clerks back to work, leaving Harper with just Lamb and Smartfoot. When they had gone, Harper lit lanterns and handed them to his henchmen, indicating that they should search yet again.

‘Did either of you see his face?’ asked Smartfoot, rapping on a wall with the hilt of his dagger.

‘How could we?’ asked Lamb. ‘He knocked the lamp from your hand before we knew he was coming. However, he is big and strong, because he all but broke my leg when he kicked me.’

‘You can repay him for that
when we catch him,’ said Harper. ‘And we
will
lay hold of him, because we shall not leave this room until we do. No spy eludes me and lives to tell the tale.’

There followed one of the longest, tensest and most uncomfortable days Chaloner ever recalled spending. When his henchmen were unsuccessful, Harper began to search himself, taking an age about it. The air in the hiding place grew hot and stale, and Chaloner’s lame leg ached from the enforced stillness, but he dared not move lest he made a sound that gave them away.

Harper came ever closer to their hole, tapping and pushing at every square inch of wall, while Lamb and Smartfoot sat on Copping’s desk and watched. Eventually, he reached the panel that concealed the lever, and Chaloner could tell by length of time he spent inspecting it that he had detected something unusual. It was an age before he eventually moved on.

‘Perhaps the blood was Copping’s,’ suggested Lamb, when even Harper was forced to concede defeat. ‘He came up here after he was injured in the blast, to collect his coat.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Harper, although there was doubt in his voice. ‘But we have wasted enough time. We should go to the Sorting Room.’

Dorislaus started to move after the trio had departed, but Chaloner stopped him, and it was quite a while before a silent shadow passed the door as Harper finally abandoned his vigil.

‘Why did he not find us?’ asked Chaloner softly, once he was sure it was safe to speak.

‘You need a key,’ explained
Dorislaus. ‘Without it, you can prod all you like, but the panel will never open. However, it did cross my mind that they might take an axe to it.’

‘You took a considerable risk by rescuing me.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Dorislaus shakily. ‘And had I known what it was going to entail, I might not have obliged. What did you do to make Harper so desperate to catch you?’

‘Nothing,’ replied Chaloner, still unwilling to trust Dorislaus, despite what they had just endured together. Perhaps a life of espionage had made him overly cynical, but he was not about to ignore the instincts that had kept him alive for so many years. ‘Who is he?’

‘He holds the title of Senior Clerk, although his actual remit is to keep the Post Office secure. It is because of him that no one will talk about what is happening. Any number of people have tried to inveigle answers, including Spymaster Williamson, but none have succeeded.’

‘You did not reply earlier when I asked what you were doing here. You are no longer a postal clerk, so you should not have been in Copping’s office.’

‘I will tell you, but not in this place.’ Dorislaus reached past him, and tapped something that caused a flap to pop open, accompanied by a rush of cold but musty air. ‘I dared not do this sooner. Harper would have heard, and then we would have been doomed for certain.’

‘What is it?’ Chaloner tried to see, but it was too dark.

‘A tunnel that leads to a building on Dowgate Hill. Follow me and no talking. It leads past other rooms, and Harper has ears like a fox. It would be a pity to be caught now.’

Chaloner followed the soft hiss of
Dorislaus’s breathing along a narrow passage to a flight of stairs. All was pitch black, and he was forced to feel his way, hands braced against the walls. They descended many steps before entering what felt like a tube in the bedrock.

‘Now we climb,’ whispered Dorislaus eventually. ‘Not much farther.’

His mind teeming with questions, Chaloner followed him up a series of ladders. He heard a key turn, and a door opened to reveal a scullery. Dorislaus checked the coast was clear, then walked quickly through it to a room that Chaloner recognised immediately. It was the Antwerp Coffee House. With cool aplomb, Dorislaus sat down and ordered a drink.

Although Chaloner’s inclination was to put as much distance between him and the Post Office as possible, he went to perch next to Dorislaus instead. He wanted answers, and the Anglo-Dutchman was going to provide them. He began with the most important question.

‘Why do you have keys to secret tunnels in the General Letter Office?’

Dorislaus grinned. ‘I have had them since I worked for Thurloe in the Commonwealth.’

Chaloner fell silent when the coffee-house owner came to fill two dishes from a silver pot with a long spout. Dorislaus was obviously a regular customer because the bowl of sugar was left – sugar was expensive, and the courtesy would not have been extended to a stranger.

‘His name is Edward Young,’ said Dorislaus, apparently reading Chaloner’s thoughts. ‘He is a sympathiser, and will give us an alibi, should one be needed.’

‘A sympathiser with what?’ asked Chaloner warily.

‘With Parliament, of course,’ replied Dorislaus, a little impatiently. ‘The Cavaliers have the Crown, and we have the Antwerp. It has always been that way.’

‘And do
they
have tunnels
that grant them access to government buildings?’

‘Fortunately not,’ smiled Dorislaus. ‘That particular passage is a closely guarded secret. However, I am surprised Thurloe did not mention it to you, given that you are investigating the place.’

‘Thurloe does not know what I am doing,’ said Chaloner sharply.

‘Oh, come, Tom! He is worried about what might be unfolding there, and you are his favourite spy. Of course he ordered you to look into it. Just as he did me.’

‘You are working for Thurloe?’ asked Chaloner sceptically.

‘Ask him, if you do not believe me. Unfortunately, I have been able to provide him with very little information, which is why I felt compelled to visit the place today – to see what might be learned by snooping. I knew it would be safe for me to use the tunnel, because Copping is still recovering from his wound, and his office is unoccupied.’

‘And what did your snooping tell you?’

Dorislaus looked pained. ‘Nothing, because the moment I arrived, you caused a commotion. As it seemed you were in danger, I thought I had better help. Thurloe will not want to lose you – it would be a serious setback to his investigation.’

‘His investigation into what, exactly?’

‘We do not know – Harper thwarts our efforts to find out. However, it must be something dire, or O’Neill would not have hired him. The services of such a man will not come cheap.’