The Body in the Thames (45 page)

‘Tom!’ Bulteel sounded terrified. ‘What is happening? My house is full of ruffians.’

‘Can you let us out?’ asked Chaloner.

The door began to rattle. ‘No! He must have jammed it. I do not understand—’

‘Fetch Williamson,’ ordered Chaloner. ‘He is at the Savoy.’

‘I cannot! My cousin has just produced several barrels of something that looks like gunpowder, and I think he means to use
them. I must try to reason with him, before it sees him in trouble.’

Griffith would kill him, thought Chaloner. ‘He is not your cousin.’

There was a startled silence. ‘Of course he is!’

‘He has already confessed to deceiving you. Please! There is no time for explanations. Go to the Savoy. It is our only hope.’
Chaloner’s voice broke as he added, ‘Hannah and Thurloe are in here.’

Bulteel gulped, and Chaloner heard him scurry away. The spy leaned against the door and closed his eyes, his head pounding
with tension and worry. But it was not many moments before Bulteel was back.

‘I cannot get out,’ he squeaked, his voice shaking almost uncontrollably. ‘All the doors and windows are locked. I do not
understand what is happening!’

‘Griffith is in the pay of a deadly agent known as Falcon,’ supplied Thurloe. ‘A man who has blackmailed his friends, and
damaged his country.’

Chaloner had a small packet of gunpowder in his belt, for priming the gun, and an idea began to unfold in his mind. While
Thurloe regaled Bulteel with an account of Falcon’s misdeeds, he emptied it into the tin of greasy paste that Wiseman had
given him for his disguise. Then he smeared the mixture on the door’s leather hinges.

Enough light was filtering under the door for Thurloe to see what he was doing. Wordlessly, he handed Chaloner the tinderbox
he used for lighting his pipe. Chaloner struck a flame and touched it to the hinge. For a moment, he thought the leather was
too damp to ignite, but it flared suddenly, and began to burn. Chaloner blew on it, to coax it along.

‘You should have stayed away,’ Bulteel was saying. ‘You should not have interfered.’

Chaloner stopped blowing as the final piece of the
mystery snapped into place. He had encountered those words before – on a message attached to a corpse at his wedding.

‘It is you,’ he said in a low, shocked voice. ‘
You
are Falcon.’

There was a silence from the other side of the door, then a bemused laugh. ‘What?’

‘Griffith would not have left you running free inside the house if you were not involved,’ Chaloner went on, stomach lurching
at the implications of the realisation. ‘He would have killed you. So you pretend to be a victim, but your aim is to learn
how much we have guessed about you.’

‘Tom!’ cried Bulteel, hurt in his voice, while Thurloe and Hannah regarded Chaloner in astonishment. ‘What are you saying?’

‘It was your choice of words:
do not interfere
. The same as those pinned on Alden in St Margaret’s Church. White thought they were aimed at him. Perhaps he was right.’

‘You mean at your marriage?’ Bulteel sounded puzzled. ‘Hannah did not invite me, so how—’

‘You came to the church,’ countered Chaloner. ‘I saw you standing at the back.’

‘What is that burning smell?’ asked Bulteel, suddenly suspicious. ‘What have you done?’

‘And there is more,’ said Chaloner. ‘Hanse’s body was stripped, because his killer was looking for something – Clarendon’s
lost papers. The Earl misled me by saying they were stolen on Friday night, when Hanse had an alibi. But the killer knew the
truth, which is that they went missing much earlier, when Hanse was in Worcester House.’

‘Hanse probably did steal them, as I have said all along. But I do not see how that proves I—’

‘You know everything about Clarendon’s affairs, so you would have known exactly when the papers went missing. Moreover, you
were eager to have them back, not to protect your master, but because some of the documents you used to blackmail people were
among them. The Lady’s—’

‘Tom!’ cried Bulteel, distressed. ‘This is logic gone wild. But what is that smell—’

‘
Bulteel
is the blackmailer, too?’ asked Hannah, shocked.

‘Yes, ably assisted by Griffith, Kicke and Nisbett,’ replied Chaloner, blowing on the fire again. He sincerely hoped his plan
would work and the hinges would soon disintegrate, or he, Hannah and Thurloe were going to be trapped inside a burning cellar.

‘I do not fraternise with thieves,’ said Bulteel coldly. ‘And what are you doing in there? I can definitely smell smoke. You
had better not be—’

‘I do not care about the Court rakes – they make their own choices,’ Chaloner went on, to distract him. ‘But how could you
pick on Compton? He was a good man.’

‘It was his wanton sister who transgressed,’ muttered Bulteel. ‘Not him.’

‘And there is an admission of guilt!’ pounced Chaloner. ‘The family told no one about Penelope’s indiscretion. Only they and
the blackmailers knew.’

‘And you, apparently,’ Bulteel flashed back. ‘There is smoke oozing under the door. Do you want to choke to death? Stop whatever
it is you are doing, or—’

‘A rumour started that Clarendon did not know what was in his missing papers,’ Chaloner forged on. ‘He
blamed me for spreading it, because he said I was the only one he had told. But
you
knew, because you eavesdropped on us. In fact, you eavesdrop on a lot of people.’

‘You are despicable,’ shouted Hannah suddenly. ‘A monster, who preys on the vulnerable. I have never liked you, you treacherous
little snake, and I am glad I told Tom to reject your overtures of friendship. I cannot imagine why he wasted his time in
the first place.’

‘Because
you
cannot cook,’ Bulteel yelled, abruptly abandoning any pretence at innocence. ‘And he does not love you, anyway. How could
he, when you are both so different? You will hate each other within a year, and then he will be glad of loyal friends.’

‘He will never hate me,’ began Hannah, shocked by the outburst. ‘He—’

‘I despise you and everyone like you,’ Bulteel raged on. ‘People who think themselves superior to me. I am sorry Tom must
be sacrificed, but I am glad
you
will be blown to pieces.’

‘John,’ called Chaloner reasonably. ‘It is not too late to end this. We can—’

‘No!’ cried Bulteel. ‘I know you. You will hunt me down, and I will never rest easy again. Why could you not have left London
when I suggested it? Why could Clarendon not have dismissed you in revenge for the rumour I started about his lost papers?
Then you would have been safely away.’

‘You warned me against antagonising Kicke and Nisbett—’

‘They are malicious and unforgiving, but good at their work, which is why I hired them. But I did not want them to hurt you
– the one man in White Hall who has been kind to me.’

‘Then help me now,’ urged Chaloner. ‘Open the door and—’

‘I cannot! It is too late.’

‘Despite my reservations, Tom
is
fond of you,’ shouted Hannah. ‘And he always defends you against those who say nasty things. But how do you repay him? By
locking him in a cellar and threatening to blow him up! You are incapable of friendship, you loathsome little worm.’

‘I have friends,’ objected Bulteel, although there was pain in his voice.

‘Who?’ demanded Hannah ruthlessly. ‘And do not say Williamson, because he cultivated you for information, not affection.’

The hinges were burning merrily now. Unfortunately, the flames had not confined themselves to the leather, and were greedily
consuming the door, too. Chaloner coughed as smoke billowed over him. He indicated that Thurloe and Hannah were to lie on
the floor, where the air would be fresher.

‘Williamson has been cold and distant of late,’ said Bulteel. ‘I let him use Griffith as a spy, so perhaps bad things were
reported about me. Regardless, we are no longer close.’

‘Griffith plans to betray you,’ lied Chaloner, willing to say anything to open cracks in Bulteel’s defences. ‘To steal all
the money you have acquired, and leave you to answer charges of—’

‘I thought he might,’ interrupted Bulteel. ‘Men like him do not know the meaning of loyalty, and I am still angry about the
poem he wrote regarding Downing’s corruption. All my courtly training will have been for nothing if that scurrilous nonsense
sees him ostracised,
because
I
will be ostracised with him, as his so-called kinsman. I was livid when I read it.’

‘What did you do?’ asked Chaloner uneasily.

‘I slipped him some poison,’ replied Bulteel coldly. ‘He is upstairs, and when my house is destroyed, people will assume Falcon
died setting the explosion. And I shall be left in peace.’

‘Never!’ shouted Hannah furiously. ‘Too many people know
you
are the culprit.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Bulteel. ‘No one else has guessed, and you will not be here to put the matter straight. I shall visit
the Savoy shortly, and then my revenge will be complete. Everyone who has shunned and mocked me will be repaid in full. And
it serves them right!’

‘John, please,’ said Chaloner, shocked by the venom in his voice. ‘Do not do this.’

‘It is already done.’

Hannah was choking, and Thurloe struggling to breathe. Chaloner closed his eyes in despair.
He
had brought them to this terrible end. In a sudden fury at the futility of it all, he kicked the door as hard as he could.
But the flames had done nothing to weaken the hinges, and the door was sturdy. It did no more than shudder. Bulteel sniggered
on the other side.

‘You will never escape. There is no lock for you to pick, and you cannot break the wood.’

Chaloner slumped to his knees. ‘You will not get away with this,’ he rasped. ‘When you are suddenly rich from your crimes,
people will notice and ask why.’

‘This is not about money. It is about punishing the people who have been unkind to me. The English Court,
the aloof Dutch diplomats, Clarendon … I shall have the last laugh over them all.’

‘The cost of your vengeance will be war,’ gasped Chaloner, becoming dizzier by the moment. ‘Hundreds of lives lost, and untold
misery for many more. How could you—’

‘I do not care!’ shouted Bulteel. ‘Everyone sees me as a quiet mouse with no spine, but I am more powerful and determined
than any of them. I have recruited Hectors and dangerous men like Nisbett and Griffith, and I have kept them all under my
control.
Everyone
has underestimated me.’

The door was now a sheet of flames. Coughing almost uncontrollably, Chaloner forced himself to his feet and kicked it again.
Nothing happened.

‘Save your strength,’ jeered Bulteel. ‘I told you: you cannot escape.’

Chaloner kicked the door a third time, and something cracked. His eyes were streaming so badly that he could not see, and
every breath was like inhaling boiling acid. Then there was another crack, and he was aware of Thurloe next to him, pitting
his own strength against the burning wood.

There was silence from the corridor, and Chaloner knew Bulteel had gone to set his fuses. Thurloe kicked with all his might,
but although the wood splintered, it was nowhere near enough, and Chaloner saw they were going to be too late. Then he saw
Hannah, frightened but calm, and he felt his resolve strengthen. She was
not
going to die because he had made a bad choice of friends.

Fighting the giddiness that threatened to overwhelm him, he took several steps back, then hurled himself at
the door with every last ounce of his strength. It collapsed outwards in a spray of sparks and splinters, and he went sprawling
among them. Smoke billowed everywhere.

‘Run!’ he gasped, staggering to his feet. ‘Back door.

’ ‘It is locked,’ cried Hannah, reaching it and giving it a vigorous shake.

Still struggling to breathe, Chaloner dropped to his knees and inserted one of the tools he used for burgling houses, hoping
it was not a new lock that would take him longer to defeat, because he could hear a furious hissing that told him the fuses
were lit. Meanwhile, Thurloe picked up a chair, and in a display of power that belied his claims of delicate health, he swung
it at the front window. Glass flew, and the wooden frame cracked. Hannah went to help him.

The first explosion occurred upstairs. It rocked the house and sent a good part of the ground-floor ceiling crashing down.
Chaloner stared in horror at the mountain of rubble that lay where Thurloe and Hannah had been. But then he heard Hannah screaming
his name and Thurloe urging her to climb through the window. They were alive! At that moment, the lock sprang open, and he
staggered through the door and into the garden, racing for cover behind a shed.

It was not a moment too soon. The second explosion blew out all the windows, and Chaloner put his hands over his head as fractured
glass rained down around him. The third blast was more of a pop, but flames started to lick through a hole in the roof.

‘You should have stayed where you were,’ said Bulteel softly. Chaloner raised his head, and saw the secretary armed with a
gun.

‘Why?’ asked Chaloner, staring up at him. He no longer had the energy to bandy words.

‘Because it would have been a quicker death – I am not sure how cleanly these little things kill. It was a gift from Williamson.
One of a pair.’

‘You lost the other when you murdered Oetje. She was the spy you hired to watch Hanse.’

Bulteel grimaced. ‘Yes. And when I saw it tucked in your belt, I knew it was only a matter of time before you or Williamson
worked out who had owned it. But you were both slow-witted, and now it does not matter. You will die and I shall tell people
that Griffith did it, using a gun he stole from me. All my loose ends will be neatly tied.’

‘What will you do at the Savoy?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Kill someone else? Blow the place up?’

‘Nothing so dramatic.’ Bulteel indicated the parcel he carried under his arm. ‘I shall just circulate a few letters that discredit
Clarendon. There will be no peace without its main supporter, and I shall have my revenge on the man I truly hate – the one
whose treatment of me has been so cruel and disdainful.’