Murder on High Holborn (46 page)

Chaloner might have smiled at the notion that he was so well paid that ‘small fortunes’ were nothing to him, but he was too disgusted with himself. Handing over a readily identifiable object had been stupid, and he should have known better. Bitterly, he recalled Jones’s odd willingness to trust him, and the way he had prevented Quelch from causing him harm. He had been used.

‘If you knew I was a spy, why did you not stop me?’ he asked sullenly.

‘Because you were doing exactly what I wanted – working against these foolish fanatics. And if your list of names is incomplete, you will find a full one in my lodgings.’ Jones smirked. ‘Have you decoded the documents I gave you for Manning? I know you will have made copies.’

‘So that is why they were in cipher,’ said Chaloner. ‘If you had written them normally, he would have read them and thrown them away. But you wanted him to keep them, so they would incriminate him when you betrayed him. And he has kept them, of course – being a greedy man, he would never destroy anything that might work to his advantage.’

Jones inclined his head. ‘The code I used was a complex one, to keep him busy. Did it defeat you, too? Do not worry if so. I have left plenty more damning documents for you to “discover”.’

‘One letter told Manning how to leave Britain,’ recalled Chaloner. ‘It proves that you do not believe the Last Millennium is at hand, or escape would be irrelevant. And you recommended the United Provinces as a refuge.’

‘Why should that matter?’ asked Atkinson hoarsely. His face was pale, and he was clearly appalled by what he was hearing.

‘Because he is in their pay,’ replied Chaloner coldly. ‘The fine Dutch chairs in his house represent part of the reward he has accepted for Sherwin’s secret – a far richer one than he gave Manning. He has negotiated with the French, too, as the papers in his harpsichord attest.’

‘You took them, did you? I might have known. But pleasant though it is to review my brilliance, we must make haste. Light the fireworks, Chaloner.’

‘Wait!’ cried Ursula. ‘You cannot betray our members to Williamson! He will execute them, and they are only folk who would rather have Jesus in White Hall than a debauched King.’

‘They are lunatics,’ declared Jones. ‘Thank God my association with them is at an end!’

‘But why?’ breathed Atkinson, shocked. ‘Is Chaloner right to say it is for money?’

‘
Making
money,’ corrected Chaloner. ‘Manning said Jones wanted the formula for gunmetal, and lost interest once he had it. The truth is that Jones never cared about the cannon – he wanted Rupert’s iron to manufacture
coins
.’ He prodded one of the ‘buttons’ with his foot. ‘From these.’

‘But how?’ Atkinson was wide-eyed with shock. ‘You cannot just establish a mint and start churning the stuff out. It requires special machinery.’

‘It does now,’ said Chaloner. ‘But coins used to be made with dies, and the Tower has recently sold a batch of them. Jones has left some in Ursula’s house, knowing he will not be able to return to his own home after today—’

‘I bought three,’ interrupted Jones smugly. ‘Rupert’s iron makes
excellent
shillings.’

‘No one will accept them,’ warned Chaloner. ‘They will look too different.’

‘Will they?’ Jones tossed him one. It was old, worn and dirty grease obscured parts of the inscription; Chaloner had no idea if it was real. ‘You see? Rupert’s metal makes money that looks and feels exactly like the real thing, especially when rubbed with a bit of grime.’

‘But you are not a greedy man!’ whispered Ursula, stunned. ‘Not the author of
Mene Tekel
.’

‘No,’ agreed Jones, and suddenly his bragging manner became earnest. ‘But the Northern Plot taught me that outright rebellion is not the way to achieve my objectives. So-called disciples make promises they fail to keep, and the thing stutters to a standstill after a few heady days.’

‘So what will you do instead?’ asked Ursula in a small voice.

‘Two things. First, I shall mint enough money to flood the country with my pamphlets. Your sister might be able to publish what she likes, but
I
cannot – the presses are too expensive.’

‘And second?’ asked Chaloner.

Jones smiled. ‘Money begets money, as any rich man will tell you. These coins, along with payments from the French and the Dutch – the reports you found were copies: the originals have already been sold – and the five hundred pounds from Taunton will make for a tidy sum.’

‘You plan to keep it for yourself?’

‘Some, perhaps. But the lion’s share will go towards funding a
proper
rebellion, with horses, weapons and professional troops. There will be no more amateur bungling for me, and this despotic regime will crumble when I appear with an army at my heels.’

‘You are a hypocrite,’ said Ursula, tearful in her anger. ‘You claim to oppose oppression and tyranny, yet you blew up a ship carrying three hundred sailors.’

‘That was to show the world that Fifth Monarchists are dangerous fanatics who must be eliminated,’ explained Jones impatiently. ‘We cannot have a perfect society with the likes of them roving around.’

‘But no one knows they were responsible.’ Chaloner wondered how Jones could not see that he was a dangerous fanatic himself.

‘They will when I write a tract about it.’

Chaloner thought about what James Pate had overheard Jones say the night before HMS
London
had been destroyed: that ‘it was a fine outrage for the Cause’. The words made sense now he understood what Jones aimed to achieve from the atrocity.

‘No,’ cried Ursula. ‘I am not listening to any more of this. You are a nasty, wicked man!’

She shoved past Glasse and ran at Jones, who turned his back on her contemptuously. But she had a blade, and his eyes went wide in astonishment as it sliced into him. His mouth opened and closed several times in mute disbelief before he collapsed to the floor.

There was a fraction of a moment when no one moved, but then Chaloner gathered his wits, and managed to do so more quickly than Glasse and his friends. He punched the tailor, knocking him senseless, and was whipping around to deal with the other two when Atkinson sprang into action. The stockinger also had a knife, and tears of rage sprung from his eyes as he flailed wildly with it. Chaloner was taken aback by the ferocity of the assault, but there was no time to ponder.

‘Quickly,’ he said. ‘We must stop the Sanhedrin from—’

‘Stay where you are,’ ordered Ursula.

Chaloner frowned in surprise at the harsh tone of her voice. ‘What—’

‘I said stay where you are,’ she snapped, and he gaped his disbelief when he saw the weapon she held. It was a knitting needle that had been sharpened to a vicious point.

‘Oh, no!’ he breathed. ‘
You
stabbed Snowflake! Wiseman said the weapon was no knife, but something long and—’

‘I have an alibi.’ Ursula removed the guns from Glasse’s belt and Chaloner was too stunned by his realisation to stop her. ‘I was sewing stockings with John, Old Ned and Maude in his shop.’

‘
They
sewed stockings.’ Chaloner was still gazing at her. ‘You went to a back room for silk, where no one knew whether you stayed or not. Maude
assumed
you were there – and I believed you when you told your tale – but you slipped out. You left the shop to kill Snowflake, and did not bother going back again. I visited you in your home later.’

He had a sudden vision of watching her knit by the fire. Had she used the murder weapon then, plying it in front of him and safe in the belief that he would never guess the truth? He turned to the stockinger for support, and was horrified when he saw that Ursula was not the only one who had grabbed weapons from the felled Sanhedrin. Atkinson had a pair of handguns, too.

‘We did what had to be done.’ Atkinson’s voice was low. ‘I was more sorry than I can say.’

‘Snowflake loved you,’ said Chaloner accusingly. ‘How could you?’

‘But she never loved the Cause,’ said Ursula quietly. ‘Indeed, she was going to tell you everything, and urge you to stop us. And do you know why? Because she finally tumbled to the fact that there will be no place for her vile club in the Kingdom of Christ. She wanted to save it by thwarting the coming of the Last Millennium!’

‘So you stabbed her while she was petting Lady,’ said Chaloner, still struggling to come to terms with what they had done. ‘It agitated him, and he injured you when you tried to calm him – you told me yourself that you do not like horses. And that is why you have been limping ever since. You did not slip in mud on High Holborn.’

‘We would not be having this discussion if you had killed him when I suggested,’ said Ursula crossly to Atkinson. ‘I told you he would be a problem.’

‘You arranged the attack outside Clarendon’s mansion,’ surmised Chaloner. ‘To prevent me from going to Temple Mills and learning what Snowflake had wanted to tell me – namely that Rupert had invented iron cannon. You feared the resulting fuss might deprive the Cause of them.’

‘I thought we had succeeded,’ sighed Atkinson. ‘I was astonished to see you in Prittlewell.’

‘So you suggested we ride back to London together, aiming to try again. When I declined, you sent me to listen to that deranged Fifth Monarchist in the tavern, to delay me until you could arrange an ambush. But I took a boat to Chatham instead. Did you wait long?’

‘Not really,’ replied Ursula coolly. ‘And we had another plan in play anyway.’

‘The stockings.’ Chaloner was disconcerted to learn how hard they had tried to make an end of him. ‘It was not Sherwin’s claret that killed Manning, but the pins in the hose. They must have been dipped in poison.’

‘We should have insisted that you don them at once,’ said Ursula venomously.

‘Why
did
you go to Prittlewell?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Not to save the King.’

‘To witness his death,’ said Ursula coldly. ‘We were sure Jones would not pass up such an opportunity to strike – but he did not even attempt an assassination, and you have just helped us to understand why.’ She turned to Atkinson. ‘It is just you and me now, dearest. All the traitors have gone, and we shall stand together to welcome in the Last Millennium.’

Chaloner groaned. ‘So you are real Fifth Monarchists? Williamson recruited a—’

‘I volunteered to serve the Spymaster,’ said Atkinson, ‘as a way to learn what he was doing. He was so relieved by my offer that he trusted me instantly, and told me all about you.’

Chaloner had trusted Atkinson, too, although with hindsight he supposed he should have been suspicious of the stockinger’s failure to confide that he was in the Spymaster’s pay from the start. But the situation had gone quite far enough, and he could spend no more time talking.

‘Jones has sent the most fervent members of your sect to cause trouble elsewhere,’ he said urgently. ‘He aims to have them caught red-handed, to give the government an excuse for bloody reprisals. If you want to save them, come with me to—’

He stopped speaking when Ursula took a gun in both hands and levelled it at him. ‘I am sorry, but we are close to victory now, and no one can be allowed to interfere. My sister was quite clear on that point – she had a vision about the Kingdom of Christ, you see.’

‘I doubt there will be a place in it for killers,’ warned Chaloner. ‘Or for those who stand by and do nothing while atrocities are committed. Please! You know I am right. Help me to—’

‘All
our
crimes will be forgiven,’ said Atkinson earnestly. ‘Unlike yours. I cannot imagine a greater sin than betraying one’s friends. And so many of our so-called confederates have been doing it – you, Leving, Manning, Scott, Jones and his friends here, Strange, Quelch…’

‘
Quelch
berayed you?’ Chaloner was bemused for a moment, but then he understood. ‘He had a criminal past. I suppose Williamson found out, and threatened to expose him unless he agreed to spy. The fact that
you
know what he was doing probably means you are his killers. I thought Strange was the culprit, but Wiseman said that Quelch had been strangled by smaller fingers…’

Atkinson looked down at his hands. ‘It had to be done.’

‘It troubled you, though,’ Chaloner went on. Disgusted, he realised that he should have been more sceptical of Atkinson’s alibi for the time of Quelch’s death – Maude and Old Ned while they sewed stockings, but Ursula while he was in the back room. She had killed Snowflake and he had strangled Quelch, both sneaking out while Maude and Old Ned laboured away with their needles and thread on Atkinson’s behalf. ‘When you saw Quelch’s body in the charnel house, it shocked you into vomiting.’

‘A foolish weakness, for which I am ashamed.’

‘And Strange?’ Chaloner glanced at Ursula. ‘He was stabbed, like Snowflake.’

‘He started to make enquiries to prove his innocence, and discovered that
I
had been with Quelch the night he died,’ said Atkinson. ‘She acted to protect me.’

Chaloner turned to more urgent business. ‘Your fellow Fifth Monarchists are in grave danger. You
must
help me stop what Jones has set in motion before…’

He faltered as both Atkinson and Ursula took aim. Neither could miss at such short range, and if he died, so would hundreds more, rounded up and executed when the rebellion failed and Rupert discovered the list of names in Jones’s home. He used the only weapon he had left.

‘Would you kill a man without letting him make peace with God?’ he asked softly.

They exchanged a glance, and the guns wavered. Chaloner made as if to kneel, then hurled himself through the open door and into the fireworks trench. There was a sharp report, and he was sure he felt the shot zip past his face. It was followed by an explosion, after which something whooshed into the sky amid a spray of scarlet flames – the bullet had ignited a Red Rocket. Was this what Lambe had had in mind when he had forecast smoke, explosions and blood?

He scrambled to his feet and ran, clambering frantically over the canvas-covered packages. There was a second crack, and this time it was a Catherine Wheel that exploded. He cringed as he was doused in a cascade of silver sparks. Afraid they might set him alight, he threw himself out of the trench, hoping the smoke would conceal him from sight. His hopes were dashed when a third shot cracked into the ground at his feet.