The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction (35 page)

With a jerk the hidden door opened and Sir Henry cleared his throat before bellowing into the dark. “Come out from there.” There was no reply. “It will go better for you if we do not have to come in and take you.” Nothing stirred. “There is nowhere left to run. Come out!” Still nothing. There seemed little option but to enter. Sir Henry eyed the narrow gap and then looked down at his prodigious, sash-bound frontage.

“Perhaps you will allow me?” said Noyce.

The Justice did not need to hear the offer made twice. “Yes, yes of course. You are the priest hunter and I am sure you have seen more of these niches than many a Jesuit.”

Noyce could barely mask a smile as he ushered his companion out of the way and followed the candle and point of dagger into the void. Once inside, the candle flickered wildly. But there was light enough to illuminate a small box-like space just large enough to accommodate a crouching man of no more than medium stature. But there was no crouching man. The priest hole was empty.

Noyce took a moment to study the interior, noting the vent in the back wall through which the draught entered. At least, he thought, the occupant would not suffocate, but even with the door open he was beginning to find the atmosphere oppressive.

“Empty?” asked a disappointed Sir Henry as Noyce backed out into the hall.

“This has not seen an occupant for some time.”

“You are certain of that?”

“A man would leave behind some trace. We would smell him.”

Sir Henry sheathed his sword and dropping to his knees, peered into the hole. There was nothing in there, neither seat nor commode. “Zounds, there can be few torture devices in the Tower as bad.”

“It is strange is it not,” offered Noyce, “the lengths to which a man will go to avoid being disembowelled alive?”

Sir Henry closed the door and frowned. “There are times sir, when your sympathies would appear misdirected.”

Noyce was already walking away. “My work has made me a student of the human animal, that is all. Now, sir, shall we begin our search again? A house this size may have a dozen such places concealed within it.”

Sir Henry paused before following, taking the time to run his fingers across the edge of the secret door. He could not help but admire the skill required to conceal the join so well. To all but the most experienced eyes there was nothing out of the ordinary to be seen here. Noyce may be insolent, he thought, but the man clearly knew his business.

*

By noon the next day two more holes had been breached, and each was empty. The first was concealed beneath the floorboards of the vestibule, cleverly placed so close to the front door that it was almost outside rather than being buried within the heart of the house as might be expected. The second was in the pantry, concealed behind the heavy stone walls of the under-croft and with access provided by a hatch cut into the back of a high shelf. The priest hiding there would require the dexterity only to be found in a young man, and, from the size of the hiding place itself, Noyce could only assume the architect intended it for the concealment of a boy.

Despite the cupboards being bare, Sir Henry continued to be impressed with the priest hunter’s abilities, at one point comparing him to a terrier let loose in a rabbit warren, albeit a warren which lacked rabbits. By the time the third of the day’s discoveries was made – the largest of them all – inside a fireplace, the Justice began to worry that the birds had flown. Noyce paused only to enquire whether Sir Henry would prefer him to find birds or rabbits before continuing with his search.

*

“I want no more than twelve men remaining,” insisted Sir Henry, as he rode along the ragged line of men. It had been three full days since he first arrived here, at the gates to the house. Although Noyce had succeeded in sniffing out four hiding places, not one of them had produced a fugitive. He did not doubt that, given enough time, the man would find every secret space in the house. But further delay would not impress his superiors in London, and with every passing day so his own costs mounted. Noyce was right; it was an expensive business to keep soldiers in the field. He contented himself with the thought that if the fugitives were still bottled up, and pray God they were, then there was nothing that a dozen of them couldn’t do as well as a hundred.

The priest hunter was watching the activity at the gate from a window in the long gallery. He was pleased to see yet more men being sent away and, having won the confidence of the Justice, was looking forward to making his move before the evening was out.

The captain yelled orders to the men, who, with no great hurry, organized themselves into marching order and began to move off. Progress along the track was halted almost immediately by a party of riders approaching at speed. The men on foot stood aside as the horsemen cantered along the centre of the track without so much as a sideways glance.

“Who in God’s name is this?” asked Sir Henry, to no one in particular.

“I have no inkling sir,” said the captain, “but they look to be carrying enough armour to equip a small army.”

“I fear that is exactly what they are captain,” said Sir Henry, who had a dreadful sense of foreboding about the new arrivals. Could it be that news of his lack of success had already reached his superiors? Whatever the motive behind this unexpected development, the grim expression on the face of the lead rider did not bode well.

There were half a dozen of them on tall military mounts, all breastplates and thigh-covering tassets, though the man in front was marked out not by his armour, of which he wore none, but by the austerity of his dress, which lacked both collar and cuff. He pulled up his horse in front of Sir Henry’s mount and gave an eye to the house before speaking.

“You will be Sir Henry Bromely?”

“I am sir, and those are my men you just forced off the road.”

The newcomer cast a glance over his shoulder. “On their way home are they? Can we presume then that your task is complete?”

The colour was rising in Sir Henry’s cheeks; he had suffered enough impertinence over these past days. “Whatever my task might be I am hardly likely to report its results to persons unknown. Now who in blazes are you and what is your business here?”

The stranger did not even have the decency to look at him when he answered, for his eyes were fixed on the house again. “I am Jonathan Noyce, sir, officer of the king tasked with bringing his Catholic enemies to justice.”

Like bolted claret, the colour immediately drained from Sir Henry’s cheeks. “Jonathan
Noyce
? That cannot be. You are an
impostor
, sir.”

The man pulled a parchment from his satchel. “This is a Royal warrant, bearing my name and the king’s signature.” He held it out to Sir Henry.

“But you cannot be Mr Noyce.”

“Will you take the blasted warrant and examine it, sir. I am here to take over the search of the house. And your obstruction will go badly for you.”

Sir Henry took the parchment and unrolled both it and the uncomfortable memory of the time when Mr Noyce – the other Mr Noyce – had refused to let him examine his warrant. Unfortunately,
this
document appeared to be genuine, but it was difficult to keep it from rolling up again while he used one hand to rub his aching neck.

“It looks, sir, as though your endeavours are taking their toll,” observed the new arrival.

“There is many a draught in that old house,” replied Sir Henry, “and they are not good for the bones.” He looked up from the warrant and let out a curse at his own stupidity. “Hell’s teeth, the draught!” He tossed the rolled parchment back to Noyce and, without a “by your leave”, put spur to horse. He had not gone far before Noyce followed, beckoning his men to do the same.

*

Noyce’s arrival might have caused Sir Henry considerable discomfort, but his appearance was having an equally dramatic effect on the watcher at the window. From there, he could only guess at the nature of the conversation which had just taken place. No doubt the luckless Sir Henry had explained how the man known to him as Jonathan Noyce had fallen into his company two weeks previously, not long after learning from a local informant that refugee plotters might be hiding in his county. In turn, Noyce would have explained that, after spending weeks searching Holbeach and nearby houses, he too had received word that the notorious Nicholas Owen and two priests, all of whom were suspected plotters, had been run to ground at Hindlip Hall.

With the men fast approaching, the watcher turned and began to run along the gallery, glancing through the windows as he passed them. Armed with Mrs Habingdon’s information, which had already guided him to the four empty priest holes, his course was pre-determined. As though on ice, his boots skated across the boards and he turned into a smaller hallway before bursting through a door.

*

The pounding of feet, booted now, grew louder, striding across the floor in a fashion so determined that there could be little doubt about the final destination: his hiding place. All of a sudden, the ends of the earth seemed closer than Owen had imagined. With no weapon at hand he uttered a final prayer. But even now, as the light began to break in through the gap in the shifting timbers, it came to him that a locking device on the interior could prevent such an uninvited entry. But it was too late. There would be no more building projects. The enemy had breached his defences and he was about to be taken. He pressed himself against the back wall, determined to make his extrication as difficult as possible, and watched as the man who would be claiming bounty on him showed his face in the entrance.

“Mr Quick!” exclaimed Owen, scarcely able to believe his eyes. “Gads sir! I thought … I thought you were a priest hunter.”

“There hangs a tale,” said the breathless man in the aperture. “This is far too small,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment at the sight of the crouching man on the other side. “There is barely room for one in there, let alone the two of us.”

Owen had been holed up for so long, that the implication of this observation appeared to pass him by. “What of our friends?”

Quick tried to ignore the miasmic stench emanating from the freshly exposed hiding place. “Never mind them. We have enemies a plenty about to enter the house. We need another hiding place. As the house seems riddled with them I trust you can oblige?”

Owen nodded. “I was not far from trying to remove myself from here to there, when you made your entrance.”

“Then we must move quickly,” said the man, who for days had been known as Mr Noyce but was now answering to Mr Quick. After checking that the coast was still clear, he reached in a hand and pulled the hunchback from his refuge. “The silver, you have the silver?”

In response, Owen produced a bag, which he had some difficulty lifting. Quick took it from him and closed the hole behind them. As they moved off with Owen in the lead, it was obvious that days of confinement and immobility had taken their toll. He was limping along on stiff limbs, when a sprint was required. Quick, perhaps eager to live up to his true name, did what he could to help him along and speed their progress.

Quick served as crutch to his companion and struggled to keep a grip on the bag as they hobbled down the hall. At the top of the stairs they halted, the sound of raised voices giving away the presence of men in the vestibule below. But there was also a woman’s voice. It was Mrs Habingdon delivering a tongue-lashing. “Mr Noyce has been in my house for these three days past, prying into crack and crevice and now you tell me that
this
is Mr Noyce? Have you lost your senses Sir Henry, or are you incapable of telling one man from another? It bodes poorly sir for the execution of justice in this county, indeed it does!”

They did not wait to hear Sir Henry’s reply, and thanks to the ever resourceful lady of the house and her raised voice, knew better than to descend the stairs. “This way,” whispered Owen, gesturing along the landing. With the movement returning to his legs he guided them to the rear of the house to a more modest set of stairs. “For the use of the servants,” he said as they made their way down. Quick glanced out of a window and was perturbed to see any chance of slipping out through a back door denied them, as soldiers took up fresh positions in the rear court. On reaching the ground floor they disappeared down another flight of stairs and entered into the under-croft.

*

Sir Henry was the first to enter the room but Noyce, still unaware of the reason for the Justice’s agitation, was not far behind. Although in disarray, the bed-chamber was an elegant room, which was why Sir Henry had commandeered it on his arrival at the house. Garments lay scattered throughout, but in the absence of his man-servant and dresser – and Mrs Habingdon’s unwillingness to provide such – how could he be expected to keep the place in order? The drapes hanging from the beams of the four-poster were billowing like sails in the wind. Sir Henry drew his sword and approached the bed. He pulled back one of the drapes and let out a gasp.

Noyce lifted an edge of the thin wooden panel before letting it fall back on to the bed. With sword drawn Sir Henry climbed up on to the bed, cracking the panel in two as he set his feet upon it. At the head of the bed there was a hole in the wall, which had been exposed by the removal of the panel. Sitting a small distance back from the panel’s frame were sturdier timbers, sitting one on top of the other like the planks in the hull of a boat. These had been pulled aside to reveal a dark chasm through which a draught of cold air was blowing.

“Your room I presume?” said Noyce, as he kicked aside a large night-shirt while securing a view into the exposed hiding place.

Sir Henry was standing on his own pillows and peering into the darkness. He said nothing.

Noyce could barely disguise the contempt in his voice. “Then one of them was hiding less than an arm’s length away from where you have been resting your head at night.”

Sir Henry put a hand to his neck and replied bitterly, “That would appear to be the case. And thanks to this damned draught I can now barely move my head on my shoulders.”