The Piccadilly Plot (25 page)

‘The Queen’s failure is rather more serious than mine, though,’ Hannah went on. ‘So I am toying with the notion of acquiring
a baby, and passing it off as hers.’

‘Please do not,’ begged Chaloner, recalling uncomfortably that there was a rumour about that very possibility. ‘Royal surgeons
will need to be present during the birth, and—’

‘Surgeons can be bribed.’

‘If they can be bribed, then they are likely to be treacherous. They will betray you.’

‘I will not recruit anyone dishonourable,’ declared Hannah, in the kind of statement he had once found endearing but that
now made him wonder whether she was in complete control of her wits.

‘Your plan will see the Queen accused of treason.’ Chaloner hesitated, but then forged on – Hannah should know her mistress
was in danger. ‘Letters have been found
that implicate her in a murder. Obviously, she is innocent, but it shows that someone is keen to harm her.’

Hannah paled. ‘Who has been murdered? And who found these letters? Do not tell me – Hyde! That treacherous little beast! He
told his father and the Earl ordered you to look into it. Am I right?’

Chaloner nodded. ‘We know the Queen is innocent of wanting Pratt dead, but—’

‘But others will not care whether it is true or not,’ finished Hannah angrily. ‘They will use it against her, regardless.
You must exonerate her immediately.’

‘I shall try my best. Hyde discovered these messages in her apartments. Do you know how they might have arrived there?’

‘It would not be easy,’ replied Hannah, still livid. ‘But
you
might see how it was done if I show you her quarters. Meet me there tomorrow … No, I shall be busy tomorrow. Come the day
after – Saturday – late in the afternoon. And dress nicely, Tom, because she might be there.’

Back in Tothill Street, Chaloner burned the ripped-up letter on the kitchen fire. Then he took a bowl of Hannah’s stew, but
the reek of charred garlic was so strong that it made him gag. He poured it on the flames, leaping back in alarm when something
in it produced a great billowing blaze that almost set him alight. There was bread and cheese in the pantry, along with a
jug of milk, so he took them to the drawing room, and started to work on the cipher he had found in the Crown.

Unfortunately, he was no more alert than he had been that morning, and it was not long before the letters blurred in front
of his eyes. He tossed down the pen,
feeling the need for the restorative effects of music. His best viol was at Long Acre, but he kept another one in the cupboard
under the stairs at Tothill Street. There was no Hannah to complain, and no female servants to make disparaging remarks, so
he went to retrieve it.

As he played, the tensions of the day drained away. He closed his eyes, allowing the music to take him to its own world, and
did not hear the knocking at the door until it was loud enough to be impatient. He was alarmed – that sort of inattention
saw spies killed.

‘Are you deaf?’ demanded Surgeon Wiseman, when Chaloner opened the door. ‘I have been hammering for an age, trying to make
myself heard over your private recital.’

‘What do you want?’ asked Chaloner, resenting the return to Earth and its attendant problems.

‘To bring you some news,’ said Wiseman, equally brusque as he pushed past Chaloner and made for the drawing room. He sat,
and warmed his hands by the fire. ‘About Cave’s funeral.’

‘Has a date been set?’

‘Yes,’ replied Wiseman. ‘It took place on Tuesday – two days ago.’

Chaloner regarded him in surprise. ‘But I thought it was to be the “social event of the month” with music by the Chapel Royal
choir and the Bishop of London presiding.’

‘So did everyone else. But it was discovered this evening that he was quietly buried in St Margaret’s churchyard on Tuesday
morning. It might have gone unrealised for longer, but the curate who conducted the ceremony happened to mention it in passing
to the Bishop. Needless to say, a lot of people feel cheated.’

‘Who arranged for him to be buried? I thought he had no family.’

‘We all did, but we were wrong – he had an older brother named Jacob. However, I cannot imagine what possessed him to shove
Cave in the ground with such unseemly haste.’

‘Can you not? The ceremony planned by the Chapel Royal choir would have cost a fortune – an expense that Jacob would have
been obliged to bear.’

‘Cave was comfortably wealthy. He probably had enough money to cover it.’

‘But he might not, and the fact that he never mentioned Jacob to his friends means they were not close – no one wants to be
bankrupted by the funeral of an unloved sibling. Besides, if Cave did have money, I imagine Jacob would rather keep it for
himself.’

‘You might be right,’ acknowledged Wiseman. ‘Are you drinking
cold
milk, Chaloner? Surely, you know that is dangerous? Have you no wine? I shall accept a cup, if you do.’ He watched Chaloner
go to pour it, then resumed his report. ‘A lot of people are upset by what Jacob has done, including a woman named Brilliana
Stanley. And we do not want
her
annoyed, believe me. She is a very disreputable character.’

‘So I have heard.’ Chaloner decided to make use of the surgeon, as he was there. ‘Do you know a minister named Addison? I
need to talk to him, but I do not know where he lives.’

‘Tangier’s chaplain? He has taken rooms on The Strand, near the Maypole. Why? Surely you do not suspect him of being complicit
in Cave’s shameful send-off?’

‘It relates to another matter.’

‘Teviot’s fate?’ Wiseman shrugged at Chaloner’s surprise. ‘The Earl told me that you were looking into it, although it seems
unreasonable to expect you to find answers so long after the event. Still, I suppose Addison might have a theory; he is an
observant fellow. Incidentally, did you hear what happened in the Theatre Royal earlier today?’

Chaloner shook his head.

‘
The Parson’s Dream
is playing there. It is one of the bawdiest plays ever written –
I
was mortified, and I am an anatomist. But that is beside the point, which is that a Dutch couple were in the audience, and
misunderstood something said by the character Mrs Wanton, with rather embarrassing consequences.’

‘I do not suppose they were the same Dutch couple who revealed their shaky English in the Banqueting House yesterday, were
they?’

‘Very possibly. Unfortunately, people are not very forgiving of Hollanders with a poor grasp of our language, and the increasing
dislike for this particular couple will do nothing for the cause of peace. Fortunately, someone defused the situation before
they could be harmed.’

‘Who? And how did he do it?’

‘He escorted them outside before they could be assaulted. I believe their saviour was Fitzgerald the pirate. Or should I say
Fitzgerald the privateer?’

They were silent for a while, Wiseman sipping his wine and Chaloner pondering how Fitzgerald fitted into his various enquiries.
Eventually, the surgeon spoke again.

‘The Earl said you were looking into his stolen bricks, too.’

Chaloner wished his master would not gossip about his investigations. He trusted Wiseman to be discreet – for
all his faults, the surgeon was sensible of the fact that talking out of turn might endanger lives – but the Earl tended
to be loose-tongued with a lot of people.

‘You should accuse Oliver of the crime,’ Wiseman continued. ‘I do not like him. He hired me to cure his bunions, but then
refused to pay, just because my lotion made them worse.’

Mention of Clarendon House reminded Chaloner of something else he needed to do. ‘Do you recall inventing a substance for immobilising
broken limbs? You tried it on me once, and I thought I might have to wear it on my arm for the rest of my life.’

‘I have perfected it since then,’ said Wiseman coolly, not liking to be reminded of a venture that had been less than successful.
‘It now works extremely well. Why?’

‘May I have some?’

Wiseman regarded him suspiciously, but mixed him a batch from the supplies he carried in his bag. When it was ready, Chaloner
used it and the clay he had bought to produce an accurate mould of the key-impressions he had made the previous night. It
did not take long, and when he had finished, all that remained was to take the moulds to a forge and commission a copy in
metal.

‘Should I ask whose house you intend to give yourself unlimited access to?’ asked Wiseman.

‘No.’

‘Well, perhaps I am better off not knowing, anyway.’ Wiseman stood. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. The Earl wants you to go to Woolwich
tomorrow.’

Chaloner groaned. ‘He orders me to solve these mysteries by Wednesday, but then wastes my time by sending me on futile errands.
I might have had some answers today had he left me alone.’

‘Very possibly, but do not antagonise him by refusing to comply. Apparently, a new ship,
Royal Katherine
, is to be launched, and a lot of his enemies will be there. He wants you to monitor them.’

‘What does he expect me to do?’ asked Chaloner waspishly. ‘Sink it and drown them all?’

Wiseman raised his eyebrows. ‘Now there is an idea.’

The following dawn was cold, wet and windy, so Chaloner dressed in clothes suitable for a day outside in foul weather, and
trotted down the stairs to spend an hour on the cipher before he left. He had left it in his pen-box, and was troubled to
note that it had been moved since the previous night.

He stared at it. The table had been polished that morning, because there were streaks of wax where it had not been buffed
properly. Had Joan or one of the maids knocked the box as they had worked, so the disturbance was innocent? Or had they looked
inside to see whether it contained anything interesting? Or, more alarmingly, had George?

Chaloner could see no way to find out – he doubted direct demands would yield truthful answers – and supposed he would just
have to be more careful in future. As it was raining, he could not take the cipher with him lest the ink ran, so he knelt
and slipped it in the gap between the wall and the skirting board. He stood quickly when someone entered the room. It was
Hannah.

‘What are you doing down there?’ she demanded. ‘I hope we do not have mice again. George told me he had poisoned them all.’

‘Perhaps he missed one.’ Chaloner did not like the idea of George in charge of toxic substances, and when
the footman marched into the room with a breakfast tray, he declined to take any.

‘Eat something, Tom,’ instructed Hannah brusquely. ‘You are already thinner than when you came home from Tangier.’

Chaloner refrained from saying that her cooking was largely responsible for that, because he could tell from her scowl that
her morning temper was about to erupt. He accepted a piece of bread, but spoiled the ale and oatmeal by ‘accidentally’ knocking
one so it spilled into the other; he did not want his wife poisoned by their footman, either.

‘Why are you awake?’ he asked. ‘It is not long past dawn – the middle of the night for you.’

‘Do not be facetious with me, Thomas,’ she snapped. ‘I have to go to Woolwich, because the ship named after the Queen is to
be launched today. We are travelling there by barge, God help us. The last time I went on one of those, I was sick the whole
way.’

‘Then perhaps it is as well the breakfast is spoiled. You cannot be sick with an empty stomach.’

‘Spoken like a man who has never suffered from
mal de mer
,’ retorted Hannah crossly. ‘Because if you had, you would know you could abstain from food for a week and still find something
to vomit.’

On that note, Chaloner took his leave.

As he left the house, it occurred to him that it was time he followed Thurloe’s orders and purchased a handgun. There was
only one place he knew where such weapons could be bought with no questions asked – given their potential for assassination,
the government liked gunsmiths to keep records – and that was from the Trulocke brothers
on St Martin’s Lane. Before he entered their shabby, uninviting premises, he bought a piece of meat, donned an old horsehair
wig, and covered his face with the kind of scarf men wore to keep London’s foul air from their lungs.

Outside the shop was a fierce dog, which snapped at the ankles of passers-by. Chaloner tossed it the meat, then stepped around
it when it leapt on the offering. It wagged its tail as he passed, and he wondered whether it remembered him feeding it on
previous occasions.

Inside, the place reeked of gunpowder and hot metal. It was also busy, and all three brothers were dealing with customers.
Like Chaloner, the other patrons had taken care to conceal their faces, but unlike him they did not appreciate that a disguise
was more than just donning a hat and a scarf. He recognised Secretary Leighton from his scuttling gait, and although Harley
knew to change his walk, his blazing devil-eyes gave him away.

Chaloner edged towards Harley. It was not a good place to accost the scout, because it would expose them both to recognition,
but he could certainly ascertain what the man was doing in a place where illegal firearms could be purchased. Unfortunately,
Harley’s business was just concluding.

‘It will be ready this evening,’ Edmund Trulocke was saying. ‘Come back at dusk.’

Harley nodded, and was gone without another word. Thwarted, Chaloner sauntered towards Leighton, pretending to inspect a nearby
musket.

‘Are you sure?’ William Trulocke was asking worriedly. ‘It will render the trigger unusually light. If you stick it in your
belt and touch it accidentally, it will blow off your—’

‘I am sure,’ interrupted Leighton shortly. ‘The damned thing is so stiff at the moment that I need both hands to set it off.
I need a much more sensitive mechanism.’

Trulocke nodded, and a vast amount of money changed hands. Leighton gave instructions for the finished product to be delivered
to his Queenhithe home, and left. Chaloner could only suppose that he was taking precautions to ensure he did not suffer the
same fate as his fellow Adventurers – Proby, Turner and Lucas.