The Ashes of London (38 page)

‘Who?’

‘The maidservant, sir, from Mistress Noxon’s in Three Cocks Yard.’

‘Oh – her. She’s not here now. Why?’

‘I have her cloak, sir. I wanted to return it. Where can I find her?’

He called his wife to answer that. She came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She was a big woman and in her presence her husband seemed to shrink.

‘She’s gone, sir,’ she said. ‘She was only here for a day or two, as a kindness to Mistress Noxon. She left on Saturday.’

‘When?’

‘Master Hakesby came for her in the evening.’

I stared at her. Then why hadn’t Hakesby mentioned this just now? ‘Are you sure it was him?’

‘Of course I am,’ she snapped. ‘When he enquired for Jane, I asked him if he was Master Hakesby, and he said he was. Mistress Noxon said he’d call for her, though we weren’t expecting him so soon.’ She glanced at her husband. ‘Jane was out when he came, remember, and when she got back she looked like she’d been rolling in the mud. I told her to make herself decent before she went to him.’

The man nodded at me. ‘The gentleman’s got her cloak. That’s why he’s looking for her.’

‘She wasn’t wearing it when she came back. Did she lose it somewhere?’ The landlady frowned. ‘Anyway, how did you know to find her here?’

‘They told me at Three Cocks Yard,’ I said. ‘Is that the Master Hakesby I know? The draughtsman? Grey-faced. Very thin, and not in the best of health?’

‘He looked healthy enough to me,’ the landlady said. ‘Tall man, bit of grey in his hair, but vigorous enough.’

‘Is he always like that?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps I saw him when he was ill.’

‘I don’t know, sir.’ She was growing tired of my questions. ‘Never saw him before.’

‘Big man like that, prime of life,’ her husband said, clinging to his grievance. ‘You’d think he’d have an appetite to match. All he had was a little pot of coffee. Close-fisted.’

‘He paid for it at least, I hope?’ his wife said.

‘Yes, but nothing over. He took up a whole booth for well over an hour, you know. Waste of space. It was Saturday, too, and the place was crowded.’

Saturday, I thought: the day of Sir Denzil Croughton’s murder. ‘Have you any idea where they went?’

The landlady put her hands on her hips and glared at me. ‘Why are you asking all this? If you’ve come from Three Cocks Yard, you’ll know Master Hakesby. He lives there, doesn’t he? So you can go back and ask him yourself.’

T
OWARDS EVENING
,
I
took a boat to Whitehall. The sky was overcast. There were neither stars nor moon. The river was something to be heard, felt and smelled rather than seen.

There were other boats on the water, their lanterns bobbing up and down, creating globes of light containing shadowy figures. It was raining hard and growing steadily colder. Passengers and boatmen had their hats pulled low and their cloaks pulled high.

At the palace, I walked across from the public stairs to the door of the King’s apartments. One of the guards had been on duty on my earlier visit. He recognized me. I asked him to send word that I was here by appointment to see Master Chiffinch.

He took up a sheet of paper. ‘You’re on the list. You can wait in the anteroom if you want.’

I paced up and down among the other people who were waiting – a restless crowd, all of us wanting something, none of us capable of settling to anything in case our name was called. Chiffinch kept me kicking my heels for nearly an hour.

At last a servant conducted me up to a small office with a view of the river. There was a guard at the door. Chiffinch was behind his desk, reading a letter, his fingers playing unconsciously with the wart on his chin.

I bowed low. ‘Your servant, sir. I have something—’

‘Be silent.’ He looked up. ‘I want to show you something.’

He stood up and led the way from the room. He locked the door and set off down the passage with me behind him. I heard the soldier’s footsteps behind me. At a brisk pace he took me across the Great Court, through the range with the guardhouse and across to the familiar lodgings in Scotland Yard where Master Williamson had his private office. We did not go upstairs, however, but to the door of a room on the ground floor. It opened off the anteroom where there were always two soldiers on duty. The door had a small opening at eye level, with a shutter across it.

Master Chiffinch stood back. ‘Open it,’ he said.

I slid the shutter across. I had a view of a room no more than nine feet square, dimly lit by a rushlight on the sill of a window placed high in the wall. A man was lying on the floor. His hands were bound in front of him. His legs were bound, too, but above the knee. I knew who it was even before the man looked up at me.

Chiffinch reached over my shoulder and closed the shutter. ‘Samuel Witherdine,’ he said in a low voice, too low for the soldiers to be able to make out the words. ‘Discharged sailor. Cripple. Bankrupt. The other day, he was asking questions in Alsatia about a certain Master Coldridge. His wife serves Newcomb the printer, with whom you have many dealings and in whose house you lodge. What a curious coincidence, Marwood.’

‘Sir,’ I said, feeling the sweat break out under my shirt, ‘this is not what it seems.’

‘The question is, how would it seem to the King? His trust has been betrayed. The son of a traitor is a traitor in his turn. Like father, like son.’

‘That’s not true.’ I turned to face him. ‘As God’s my witness, sir, I’ve not betrayed the King.’

‘Then what have you done?’

‘My father is not himself. His wits go astray, and his legs follow them. He wandered into Alsatia last week, where he fell and hurt himself. The Witherdines rescued him and brought word to me.’

‘So? This is not to the point, Marwood.’

I would have given everything I owned to know what Sam had already told Chiffinch. I couldn’t risk being caught in a lie. ‘My father had a story that he’d met Thomas Lovett in Alsatia, and that it was Lovett who had made him fall.’

‘You didn’t think to tell me this?’ Chiffinch said.

‘Because what my father says is not to be trusted, sir. But I asked Mistress Witherdine to enquire after Lovett in Alsatia. It turned out that her husband had seen a man answering his description in the Blood-Bowl Tavern. He lodged nearby for a few days, using the name of Coldridge. He left the same day my father wandered into Alsatia.’

‘Alsatia is but a stone’s throw from Bridewell,’ Chiffinch observed.

‘Yes, sir. Where Sneyd’s body was found in the Fleet.’

‘Another former comrade of Lovett’s.’ He poked me hard in the chest, forcing me to step back. ‘Dear God. I cannot believe you thought this not worth mentioning to me.’

‘There seemed little purpose in telling you, sir, as Lovett had already gone. And besides …’

He poked me again. ‘What?’

‘My father,’ I blurted out. ‘I feared you would bring him for questioning, that you’d put the worst construction on his meeting Lovett and see it as a conspiracy between them. I knew it would be the death of him.’

‘Ah,’ Chiffinch said softly. ‘So we come near the truth at last.’

He brought me back to his office. He said nothing on the way. He was a man who knew the power of silence. He did not speak again until his door was closed and he was seated at his table.

‘You’re lucky in one thing, Marwood. Witherdine told the same story, in essentials at least.’

‘Sir, Witherdine is quite innocent of any wrongdoing,’ I said. ‘Nothing he did was in any way against the King’s interests or contrary to the law. I pray you to release him. Whatever you do to me.’

He flicked his eyes towards me and then looked away. ‘How I dislike men who make a sacrifice of themselves for others. Let us see what else you have for me first. You saw Mistress Alderley?’

‘Yes, sir. We talked of Sir Denzil Croughton’s murder on Primrose Hill. And the behaviour of the mastiff.’

Chiffinch nodded. ‘Who did not attack the killer.’

‘There was one other detail – a grey cloak found near the body. I brought the cloak away with me. I have it at my lodgings still.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s mine, sir.’

‘God’s body!’ Chiffinch said. ‘Your cloak? You’ll drive me stark staring mad if you go on like this. Of course it can’t be yours. Unless you were up on that hill yourself. Explain yourself.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Sometimes I feel I may be going mad myself, sir. I haven’t seen that cloak for weeks. There’s only one way I can explain all this – the dog’s behaviour and the cloak. Catherine Lovett must have been on Primrose Hill.’

Then at last I told him everything, beginning with the night that St Paul’s burned down and the boy–woman who had bitten my hand, and ending with the man who wasn’t Hakesby at the coffee house. The one thing I left out was God’s Fiery Furnace. My father was involved enough already. I didn’t want to make it worse.

There was one way to make sense of at least some of this. Jane, the maidservant who had worked at Three Cocks Yard, must have been Catherine. And, if the man who had collected her from the coffee house wasn’t Hakesby, who else could he have been other than Thomas Lovett?

C
HIFFINCH ARRANGED THE
release of Sam Witherdine on Monday evening. I took him back to Fleet Street in a coach, and dropped him at the borders of Alsatia. Before we parted, I gave him the gold piece that Edward Alderley had left with me as a bribe on Sunday. I owed Sam much more than that for involving him in this affair.

I heard no more until Wednesday. During the morning I was on
Gazette
business in Scotland Yard. At midday, I left in search of dinner – I had a ticket now that allowed me to dine at Whitehall at a place set apart for clerks and higher servants.

As I came down the stairs from Williamson’s office, a man came out of the anteroom off the hall, where the soldiers were on duty. He was not in uniform or in livery but I knew him at once by his bearing and his pox-ravaged complexion. He was the servant who had showed me up to Mistress Alderley’s chamber in the house at Cradle Alley.

‘Master Marwood? You’re to follow me.’

I didn’t ask questions. We were within earshot of the soldiers and of a couple of clerks in the hall. I followed him outside. He led me out of the court, across the street to a set of lodgings built beside the Horse Guards Yard. I had never visited this part of the palace before. It had an air of seclusion about it.

Without saying a word, the servant took me through an inner courtyard and up a flight of steps to a small chamber, no more than a closet, overlooking the Park. No one was there. A fire burned in the grate.

He withdrew, telling me to wait. I stood at the window and stared at the trees and the people strolling up and down the gravelled paths below. I was not in the best of humours – to be frank about it, I was scared. All I wanted was for my father and me to be left alone, and for me to be able to make a living for us.

The door opened and Mistress Alderley entered. I bowed low. She was by herself. She closed the door behind her.

‘Master Marwood. You have not been honest with me.’ She sat down by the fire, leaving me standing, and went straight to the point. ‘Master Chiffinch tells me you knew a great deal about Mistress Lovett that you did not wish to confide in me. That she’s been living as a servant near the Strand, and that her father abducted her on Saturday.’

‘There were reasons, madam,’ I said, ‘and also I could not be sure of the identification until Monday – after I had the honour of seeing you last. Did Master Chiffinch also tell you that your stepson and his bullies waylaid me when I left you?’

She nodded. She did not look alluring today. She looked tired and anxious. I felt an unwanted and inconvenient tenderness for her.

‘Your stepson was spying on you. He gave me money to tell him if you sought another meeting with me.’

She flicked her fingers. ‘Edward thinks gold will solve everything. But he doesn’t matter now. I’ve been commanded to tell you something, and telling you here is safer than anywhere else.’

Commanded? I did not think she would have used that word if the instruction had come from Chiffinch alone.

‘It’s been decided that you should be trusted with the truth, so you may not blunder into it accidentally and make matters worse. You must not tell another living soul.’ She stared at me. ‘I warn you, if you do, both you and your father will be shown no mercy.’

‘Yes, madam,’ I said quickly. ‘You have my word.’ What else could I say?

‘When you saw the King in his laboratory last week, he talked to you about Thomas Lovett. Do you remember?’

‘Yes. He said Lovett was worse than a Regicide.’

For the first time she smiled. ‘Exactly. Do you know why?’

I shook my head. Then: ‘The King knew I had been with my father in the crowd when the late King was executed. He talked of that.’

‘You are quick, Master Marwood, and that makes it a little easier. The King has made it his business to know everyone who was there when his father was murdered, everyone who witnessed it, or as near as it can ever be established. Can you remember that day? You must have been little more than an infant.’

‘I remember it all. It was hard to forget.’

Mistress Alderley said, ‘Master Lovett was named among the Regicides for the part he played in arguing for the King to be tried and executed. He and others of his kind wielded great influence in certain parts of the army. But he did more, and he did it on the day itself. Think back.’

Worse than a Regicide?

I remembered the little gentleman on the stage in front of the Banqueting House. How the Majesty of England, who proclaimed that he ruled by the direct decree of God himself, had been reduced to a man in a waistcoat, with a nightcap on his head. I remembered the two executioners, the one with the axe who severed the King’s head from his body with a single blow, and his colleague who held it up to the crowd.