Death in St James's Park (19 page)

‘You think O’Neill is at
the heart of it?’

‘I do. He conspired shamelessly to get Bishop’s job, and he is ruthlessly greedy.’

Others had said the same. ‘Are all the clerks involved? There must be sixty of them at least.’

‘No, it will be a select few, with the others intimidated into looking the other way.’

‘Do you think it has anything to do with Thursday’s explosion?’

‘It seems likely. I do not suppose you got into the disused wing, did you? I have tried twice now, but it is always locked and guarded. It might contain something to help us.’

‘Do you have any idea what?’ Chaloner wished he had not lost the papers he had grabbed.

‘None at all, I am afraid.’ Dorislaus was silent for a moment. ‘Do you know Mr Bankes?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Because he has been asking questions about the Post Office, too. But who is he, and why does he offer to pay for information? He is a worrisome mystery.’

Chaloner agreed: Bankes’s eagerness to buy intelligence about a state-owned institution was sinister. He changed the subject. ‘What do you know about the Post Office clerk who was arrested?’

‘Knight? That he was probably innocent of any wrong-doing. He had a reputation for honesty, although I am less sure about his crony Gardner.’

‘Then why were the charges brought against him?’

Dorislaus considered for a moment, then beckoned the coffee-house owner over.

‘I knew Knight well,’ said Young, sitting down and treating himself to a spoonful of sugar. ‘He would never have defrauded the Post Office. Those accusations are lies.’

‘Did he often come here?’ asked Chaloner.

‘No – he was a Royalist. I knew
him through church. Incidentally, he would never have hanged himself either, no matter how frightened he was. I believe he was murdered, and if I find out who did it, I shall put a noose around
his
neck.’

‘I have a feeling Tom intends to do the same,’ said Dorislaus. ‘What can you tell him to help?’

‘That he should speak to Jeremiah Copping, who knows more than most clerks about Post Office affairs. And if he declines to talk, track down a fellow named Bankes, who wrote Knight messages, demanding information. Knight showed them to me: they terrified him.’

‘What did these letters say, exactly?’ Now Chaloner had two reasons to interview Copping: to ask about the Post Office on Young’s recommendation, and the musician on Wiseman’s.

‘That Bankes would pay handsomely for any intelligence that Knight could provide. They were not threatening exactly, but I would not have liked to receive them. Incidentally, Copping knows Oxenbridge, too. Have you ever seen him? A more sinister fellow does not exist.’

‘But he and Copping are friends?’

‘Oxenbridge does not have friends,’ averred Young. ‘No more than the devil does. However, like Satan, evil follows Oxenbridge, and you could do worse than find out what he knows about this shameful conspiracy against Knight.’

*   *   *

Chaloner left the
Antwerp feeling he had squandered the best part of a day by hiding from Harper, and a glance at the sky told him it was far too late to beg interviews in Newgate or the Tower. He could, however, call on Copping and enquire after Bankes, Oxenbridge and the musician.

First, though, he had to make an appearance at church. A note was made of parishioners who failed to attend their Sunday devotions, and he did not want to be branded a nonconformist. He took a hackney to St Margaret’s, where he exchanged pleasantries with the sexton until he was sure his name had been written in the register, then escaped before evensong began. He disliked his parish church, perhaps because he had been married in it, amid a violent thunderstorm that many guests claimed was a bad omen. He was beginning to wonder whether they might have been right.

Outside, he was about to set off for Cheapside when he saw Roger Palmer. The nobleman’s shoulders were slumped, and he looked unhappy.

‘White Hall is a pit of ignorance,’ he said bitterly. ‘We were discussing the King’s next soirée, at which guests must dress as Romans, and I asked whether everyone would converse in Latin. Chiffinch and his cronies immediately started calling me a Pope-lover. But Romans
did
speak Latin, and I was only trying to enter the spirit of the thing.’

‘Will you go?’ Chaloner wondered whether Hannah was right and that the bird-killers would use it as an opportunity to claim another avian victim.

‘Certainly not,’ replied Palmer indignantly. ‘I detest White Hall and spend as little time there as possible. Oh, how I long for Venice, to be among men of culture and learning!’

‘Will you return
there after our war with the Dutch?’

‘No, I have been invited to be the British ambassador in the Vatican, a post that appeals to me greatly. I do not suppose you are free this evening, are you? I should like to assemble a few friends for music, but I find myself sadly short of suitable acquaintances.’

Chaloner knew he should refuse. Hobnobbing with a man shunned by Court was hardly wise, and he had a lot to do. But he had not played his viol in an age, and he liked Palmer. He nodded.

‘Come in an hour,’ said Palmer, smiling. ‘I live by All Hallows the Great on Thames Street.’

As there was not much he could usefully do in an hour, Chaloner abandoned his enquiries about the Post Office, and walked to St James’s Park instead. The short winter day was almost over, but Eliot was there, fussing lovingly around his bananas.

‘I like it here,’ the gardener said. There was a pipe clamped between his teeth, and he was the picture of ease and contentment. ‘But I prefer the Inner Temple. Have you seen my hellebores?’

Chaloner shook his head, and was sorry at the man’s obvious disappointment.

‘You must come when they are in bloom. You will not be sorry, I assure you.’

Chaloner decided to take Hannah. Or would she decline to go? Inspecting flowers was not her idea of a good time. It was not his either, but at least he was prepared to be open-minded about it.

‘I suppose you are here for the swan,’ Eliot went on. ‘I found it this morning. Storey was distraught, of course, and wept so bitterly that I had to take him home. Surgeon Wiseman prescribed a soporific, although it will do scant good – the bird will still be dead tomorrow.’

Chaloner stared at him. ‘Damn! I
thought there would not be another attack until Tuesday.’

‘Tuesday? Why then?’

‘Because that is when there will be a noisy soirée.’ Chaloner was dismayed. He had been grateful for Hannah’s suggestion, but now he saw he was wrong to have trusted it.

‘There was a rowdy occasion last night,’ said Eliot disapprovingly. ‘Lady Castlemaine decided to skate on the Canal by lamplight, and dozens of courtiers came to watch, trampling over the flower beds and jostling the shrubs. They were worse than cattle.’

‘So how was the swan killed, if so many people were milling about?’

Eliot pointed. ‘The courtiers retired to that pavilion over there for hot wine, and spent several hours cavorting. A herd of elephants could have been poisoned and they would not have noticed.’

He led the way to a potting shed, where it did not take long to ascertain that the bird had been poisoned. Chaloner stared at it unhappily, sorry to see such a magnificent creature limp and motley in death. He borrowed a pair of gloves and prised open its beak to peer down its throat. In it was more blood, along with a mass of what looked to be bread. He walked to the Canal, Eliot trailing at his heels. Near a few white feathers, where the swan had died, were some soggy crusts. He picked them up on the blade of his knife and sniffed them cautiously. He could only smell bread.

‘No!’ exclaimed Eliot, backing away suddenly as he understood their significance. ‘Surely the toxin was forced down their throats? No one would have used bread. It would be despicable – an unforgiveable breach of trust.’

‘The culprits
are
despicable,’ said Chaloner quietly. ‘And using doctored bread would have been a lot safer for them. Storey told me that his swans are not easy to handle.’

Eliot’s face was white. ‘But
this means that I
saw
the crime – with my own eyes. And I let it happen! Last night, after the Lady had finished skating, three fellows lingered here, and I saw one tossing crumbs … I thought he was being nice. It is winter, and food is scarce for birds …’

‘You could not have stopped them,’ said Chaloner, to ease his mounting distress. ‘And an attempt may have seen you dead, too. Can you describe them?’

‘No!’ The word came out as an anguished cry. ‘They were too far away, and it was dark. They wore gloves, though, because I recall thinking that the greasy bread would stain them. So Storey was right – the culprits
are
courtiers or men of rank. They must be – no one else was here.’

Chaloner was disturbed. Did it mean Storey’s list of suspects should be taken seriously after all? That Gery, Morland, O’Neill, Oxenbridge, Wood and Harper should be interviewed? His heart sank. None would be easy to question.

He gathered up the remaining crusts, using his knife to spear them. He was careful to collect the lot, partly so he could provide Wiseman with a decent sample when he asked him to analyse them, but mostly to protect the other birds. Eliot gave him an old plant-pot to carry them in.

‘Damn these villains!’ the gardener spat angrily. ‘Damn them to hell!’

*   *   *

It was dark when
Chaloner arrived at Palmer’s house, having stopped en route to deposit the pot and its deadly contents at Wiseman’s home. The surgeon had been out, so Chaloner had left a note explaining what he wanted. With luck, the poison would be rare – perhaps even some unusual Italian concoction like Palmer had suggested – and whoever had bought it could be traced. And Chaloner needed some good fortune, given that Leak had proved an effective dead end.

Palmer’s home was a modest affair, sandwiched between All Hallows the Great and All Hallows the Less. As both had churchyards, the house had leafy outlooks on both sides, albeit ones that involved a lot of gravestones. Chaloner knocked on the door and was admitted to a pleasant parlour with a blazing fire and tastefully understated décor. Most of the paintings on the walls were of Venice, all catching that city’s unusual light, bustle and colour.

Palmer had been telling the truth when he had claimed to have few ‘suitable acquaintances’ in London, because there were only two other guests. One was le Notre and the other was Bishop, uglier close up than when Chaloner had seen him across Post House Yard after the explosion. The ex-Postmaster carried his lapdog, and the thing reeked so badly that Chaloner could smell it from the door. Le Notre’s eyebrows went up when he saw Chaloner.

‘You do appear in some unexpected places! I thought your wife was the Catholic, not you.’

‘This is not a religious gathering,’ chided Palmer. ‘Just one for men who love the viol. Indeed, we shall talk of nothing but music tonight – but in English. Not all my guests speak French.’

He gestured towards
Bishop, who had been listening blankly to the exchange. Le Notre homed in on him, mischief gleaming in his eyes, and Chaloner saw he had a spiteful sense of humour.

‘You must be an aristocrat,’ he said in his thickly accented English. ‘They always have a dog to hand. Like Prince Rupert, and the yapping article that followed him into battle during the wars.’

‘I am nothing,’ declared Bishop gloomily. ‘Not any more.’

‘Oh, fie, Bishop,’ said Palmer kindly. ‘You have done very well for yourself.’

‘But I was Postmaster General until I was accused of corruption. The allegations were entirely false, of course. O’Neill’ – Bishop all but spat the name – ‘wanted the job for himself. However, it is he who is corrupt. The Post Office is filthy with abuses now.’

Chaloner’s recent visit suggested that Bishop was right. ‘How do you know?’ he asked, wondering whether the man might have heard rumours about what was unfolding there.

‘Because O’Neill’s profit margins are suspiciously high. He dismissed all the best clerks – men like Dorislaus and Ibson, who knew what they were doing – but their replacements are incompetent, so the place should be losing money, not making it.’

‘But you will go down in posterity as having devised the Bishop-Mark,’ said Palmer consolingly. ‘And the public loves you for it.’

‘It has certainly been a thorn in O’Neill’s side,’ said Bishop with a sudden smile that softened his features and made him seem younger and kinder. ‘It forces him to deliver at least some of the letters on time. Of course, I should not be surprised if he changes the dates.’

Chaloner said nothing.

‘I cannot imagine
that such an invention endeared you to the intelligence services, though,’ said le Notre, wide-eyed. ‘It will give them less time to sift, opening whatever catches their fancy.’

‘Do they still do that?’ asked Palmer, surprised. ‘I know it was managed with ruthless efficiency during the Commonwealth, but I rather hoped we Royalists were above it.’

‘No regime is above it,’ replied le Notre, while Chaloner struggled not to gape at the naivety of the remark. ‘Not even France. However, you may be right to voice reservations about O’Neill, Monsieur Bishop, because there are rumours of a plot unfolding there.’

‘You are very well informed for a foreigner,’ said Bishop with a frown. Chaloner was thinking much the same. ‘But you are right, as it happens. Unfortunately, none of my old clerks will tell me what is happening, and a fellow named Harper has been hired to prevent gossip. Not even Spymaster Williamson has managed to break through their conspiracy of silence.’

‘Would you like to be Postmaster again?’ asked le Notre. ‘If anything happens to O’Neill?’

Bishop considered the question carefully. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘I enjoyed it at the time, but O’Neill has soured it for me now. Besides, nothing will happen to him. He will cling to that job as long as there is breath in his body. He is too greedy to do otherwise.’

Le Notre turned suddenly to Chaloner. ‘You have cut your thumb. How did that happen?’

Chaloner struggled to keep the astonishment from his face. Why should le Notre have noticed such an insignificant scratch? Did he know about the scuffle with Harper? He forced a smile.