The Piccadilly Plot (36 page)

‘I told Hannah she was sly and untrustworthy, but she – like you – declined to listen. Why?’

‘She was dismissed for spying this morning. God knows who paid her to do it. Unfortunately, she had been sent packing before
I could question her.’

‘That is a pity,’ said Thurloe.

Thurloe talked all the way to St Paul’s, and his calm voice and rational analyses of the information they had gathered did
much to lift the dark mood that had descended on Chaloner. By the time they arrived, all that remained was an acute sense
of unease, arising partly from the fact that they had less than three days to prevent whatever catastrophes the Piccadilly
Company and their rivals intended to inflict on London, but mostly because he had finally come to accept the realisation that
it had been a mistake to marry Hannah.

He was fond of her – he supposed it might even be love – but they had nothing in common, and he knew now that they would make
each other increasingly unhappy as the gulf between them widened. But these were painful, secret thoughts, and he doubted
he would ever be able to share them with another person. Not even Thurloe, who was as close a friend as any. He pushed them
from his mind as they neared St Paul’s, and tried to concentrate on the task at hand.

Because it was Sunday, the cathedral was busy. Canons, vicars and vergers hurried here and there in
ceremonial robes, and a large congregation was massing. It was a fabulous building, with mighty towers and soaring pinnacles
that dominated the city’s skyline. Unfortunately, time had not treated it well: there were cracks in its walls, its stonework
was crumbling, and several sections were being held up by precarious messes of scaffolding. Ambitious architects – Pratt among
them – clamoured for it to be demolished, but Londoners loved it, and strenuously resisted all efforts to provide them with
a new-fangled replacement.

‘The exhibition is at the Mitre,’ said Chaloner, as they walked. ‘At the western end of the cathedral.’

‘The Mitre,’ said Thurloe disapprovingly. ‘Even in Cromwell’s time it was a place that catered to the bizarre. We should have
suppressed it.’

The tenement in question was sandwiched between a coffee house and a bookshop. Its ground floor was a tavern, while the upper
storey had a spacious hall that was used for travelling expositions. It was virtually deserted when Chaloner and Thurloe arrived,
with only one or two clerics poring over the artefacts, killing time before attending to their religious duties.

‘We are too early,’ murmured Thurloe. ‘But it does not matter – there is much to entertain us while we wait. I have never
seen a tropic bird. Or a remora, come to that.’

‘What is a remora?’ asked Chaloner.

Thurloe shrugged. ‘I imagine we shall know by the time we leave.’

Chaloner wandered restlessly, intrigued by some exhibits and repelled by others. The Egyptian mummy held pride of place, although
moths had been at its bandages, and some of its ‘hieroglyphicks’ had been
over-painted by someone with a sense of humour, because one of the oft-repeated symbols bore a distinct resemblance to the
King in his wig.

‘Apparently, the tropic bird has not survived London’s climate,’ reported Thurloe, having gone to enquire after its whereabouts.
‘I am sorry. I would have liked to have made its acquaintance.’

At that moment the door opened and Lady Castlemaine strutted in, a number of admirers at her heels. Immediately, the atmosphere
went from hushed and scholarly to boisterously puerile. The exhibits were poked, mocked and hooted at, and the situation degenerated
further still as more courtiers arrived. Soon, the place was so packed that it was difficult to move.

‘There is your brother-in-law,’ said Chaloner, nodding to where Lydcott was peering at the moon fish, a sad beast in a tank
of cloudy water that looked as if it would soon join the tropic bird and become a casualty of London’s insatiable demand for
the bizarre.

‘I cannot greet him,’ said Thurloe. ‘I am in disguise, and he is the kind of man to blurt out my name if I speak to him and
he recognises my voice. I shall attempt to engage the Janszoon couple in conversation instead, to see what I can learn about
the Piccadilly Company.’

He moved away, although he was not in time to prevent Margareta from informing the entire room that English curiosities were
‘a deal more meretricious’ than ones in Amsterdam.

‘She means “meritorious”,’ explained Thurloe quickly. ‘An easy mistake, even for native English speakers. She intended a compliment,
not an insult.’

‘I do not need interpolation,’ she objected indignantly. ‘My English is excellent.’

‘It is excellent,’ said Lady Castlemaine, regarding Thurloe coolly. ‘Which means she knew exactly what she was saying – and
it was nothing polite.’

Thurloe bowed to her, then took Margareta’s arm and ushered her away, aiming for the giant’s thigh-bone, an object that clearly
had once been part of a cow. Janszoon followed, and so did the three guards. Chaloner thought the couple was right to ensure
that someone was there to protect them, given that they seemed unable to speak without causing offence.

‘What an extraordinarily ugly creature,’ said Lydcott, glancing up at Chaloner and then returning his gaze to the moon fish.
‘Do you think God was intoxicated when He created it?’

‘Is Fitzgerald here?’ asked Chaloner. God’s drinking habits were certainly not something he was prepared to discuss in a public
place. Men had been executed for less.

‘No – he came last week.’ Lydcott turned to him suddenly, his expression earnest. ‘Thurloe says the Piccadilly Company is
being used to disguise some great wickedness engineered by Fitzgerald, and I have been thinking about his claims ever since.
Indeed, I spent most of last night doing it.’

‘And what did you conclude?’

‘That he is mistaken. I admit that I am sent more frequently than anyone else to fetch refreshments, but I cannot believe
they use the opportunity to plot terrible things. He is wrong.’

‘Have you ever heard them discussing an event planned for this coming Wednesday?’

Lydcott shook his head. ‘Not specifically. Why?’

‘It might be a good idea for you to leave London,’
said Chaloner, suspecting Thurloe’s gentle wife would be heartbroken if anything were to happen to her silly brother. ‘For
your own safety.’

‘No,’ stated Lydcott emphatically. ‘For the first time in my life I am involved in a successful venture, and I am not going
to abandon it just because Thurloe dislikes Fitzgerald. Besides, if he is right – which I am sure he is not – then staying
here will allow me to thwart whatever it is. It is still my business, so I have some say in what happens.’

Chaloner doubted it. ‘It is too risky to—’

‘Pratt is coming our way,’ interrupted Lydcott. ‘We had better talk about something else, because he has invested a lot of
money with us, and I do not want him to withdraw it, just because my brother-in-law is a worrier. Pratt! Did you find the
key you lost?’

‘What key?’ asked Chaloner in alarm.

‘The one to Clarendon House,’ replied Pratt, reaching inside his shirt and producing it. He glared at Lydcott. ‘And it was
not
lost
. It was mislaid – dropped between two floorboards.’

‘What if you had lost it?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Would you cut a copy from the Earl’s?’

‘Certainly not! More keys mean decreased security. I argued against there being more than one in the first place, but the
Earl overrode me. Still, it is his house, so I suppose he has a right to two if he wants them.’

‘I am sure he will be pleased to hear it,’ said Chaloner.

Pratt and Lydcott did not stay with Chaloner long – they went to talk to the Janszoons. Thurloe bowed and left quickly, unwilling
to risk being unmasked by his foolish brother-in-law. Chaloner retreated behind the tank
holding the eel-like remora to watch the gathering, noting that two other Piccadilly Company members had gravitated towards
each other, too – Harley was with Meneses.

Lester had also arrived, apparently hoping for an opportunity to further his investigation. Chaloner winced when Thurloe homed
in on him, and could tell by the bemused expression on the captain’s face that he was being interrogated with some vigour.

Meanwhile, a clot of Adventurers clustered around Leighton, listening politely as he pontificated. Swaddell was among them,
but there was a distance between him and the others, and it was clear that he would never be fully trusted. He was wasting
his time, and Chaloner thought he should cut his losses and return to Williamson.

Then O’Brien and Kitty appeared, at which point Leighton abandoned his companions and scuttled to greet them. O’Brien was
all boyish enthusiasm for the exhibits, although Kitty’s eyes filled with compassionate tears at the plight of the hapless
moon fish.

‘If you join the Adventurers, you will receive many invitations like this one,’ Chaloner heard Leighton whisper to them. ‘You
will spend
all
your time in high society.’

‘That would be pleasant.’ There was real yearning in O’Brien’s voice. ‘But Kitty says we cannot join an organisation that
profits from slavery. And she is right. It is unethical to—’

‘Mr O’Brien!’ The speaker was Lady Castlemaine, who swept forward with a predatory smile. ‘Do come and inspect the salamanders
with me. You can tell me all about them, I am sure.’

‘It is astonishing how our wealth makes us instant experts with opinions worth hearing,’ Kitty remarked to
Leighton as she prepared to follow. ‘Last year, when we had less of it, no one was very interested in what we thought.’

Leighton opened his mouth to respond, but Kitty had gone, leaving him alone. Chaloner started to move away too, but suddenly
Leighton was next to him. The Adventurers’ secretary gestured to the remora, which floated miserably in water that was every
bit as foul as that of the moon fish.

‘We should all take a lesson from this sorry beast,’ he said softly. ‘It ventured into a place where it should not have gone,
and it is now a thing to be laughed at by fools.’

Chaloner was not entirely sure what he meant. Had he just been warned off? Or informed that the Court comprised a lot of idiots?
He realised that one of the most unsettling things about Leighton was the fact that he was near-impossible to read. Was he
dangerous, as so many people believed, with ties to the criminal world in which he was said to have made his fortune? Or was
he just a clever courtier with hidden depths?

‘Is it dead?’ asked Leighton, still staring at the fish. ‘Or just pretending?’

‘Speaking of dead things, I understand you witnessed an accident,’ said Chaloner. ‘Newell.’

Leighton’s eyes bored into Chaloner’s with such intensity that it was difficult not to look away. ‘Apparently, the trigger
needed no more than a breath to set it off, and he had a heavy hand.’

‘Do you think someone ordered it made so?’ asked Chaloner, recalling the conversation in the gunsmiths’ shop, where Leighton
had gone to have his own weapon adjusted in just such a manner.

‘I imagine its owner did not want to be yanking like the devil while his life was in danger. But Newell was a professional
soldier, who should have been more careful. Incidentally, Harley was so distressed by his companion’s demise that he hurled
the offending weapon into the river. It was unfortunate, because now no one can examine it.’

He scuttled away, leaving Chaloner with a mind full of questions. Chaloner looked for Harley, and saw him studying a device
that claimed to launch arrows so poisonous that the victim would be dead before he hit the ground. Fortunately, it was encased
in thick glass, because the devil-eyed colonel looked as though nothing would give him greater pleasure than to snatch it
up and launch a few into the throng that surged around him.

‘I was sorry to hear about Newell,’ said Chaloner, watching him jump at the voice so close to his ear. ‘You must feel uneasy,
now you are the only Tangier scout left alive.’

Harley glowered. ‘Newell and Reyner were careless. I am not.’

Chaloner raised his hands placatingly. ‘I am not the enemy. And if you had let me help you last week, you might not be missing
two friends now.’

Harley sneered. ‘I am not discussing Teviot, so you had better back off, or your corpse will be the next Curiosity to attract
the attention of these ghouls.’

Chaloner was unmoved by the threat. ‘You threw the gun that killed Newell in the river. Why?’

Harley’s scowl deepened. ‘I should have kept it, to identify the bastard who gave it to him, but I was angry. The trigger
had been set to go off at the slightest touch, and not even an experienced soldier stood a chance. But
I am not discussing that with you, either. It is none of your affair.’

‘Perhaps we can talk about
Jane
instead, then,’ said Chaloner softly. ‘Carrying gravel.’

Harley stared at him, eyes blazing. ‘Do you
want
to die? Is that why you insist on meddling with matters that do not concern you?’

‘They do concern me,’ argued Chaloner. ‘I am interested in gravel. And fine glassware.’

‘Then buy a book about them,’ snapped Harley curtly. ‘And—’

They both turned at a shriek from the Lady, who had managed to slide her hand inside the case that held the ‘Twenty-foot Serpent’
to see whether it was alive. It was, and objected to being poked. Her fast reactions had saved her from serious harm, but
the creature had drawn blood. Harley escaped in the ensuing commotion, after which there was a general exodus as the Court
moved on to its next entertainment. It was not long before only those genuinely interested in science remained. They included
Kitty and O’Brien, so Chaloner went to see what they could tell him about Newell.

They were inspecting the ‘Ant Beare of Brasil’, a sleek creature with a long snout and three legs, although there was nothing
to tell the visitor whether all members of that species were tripedal, or just that particular individual.