Susanna Gregory - The Piccadilly Plot

‘It is a list of names, but it is in code, so no one can read it. My son gave it to me, and said it would protect me if his enemies come.’

She brandished it again, but the movement caused her to teeter, obliging Chaloner to grab her arm before she fell. He settled her in a chair, then turned his attention to the paper. On it were written about fifty words, all in cipher. Pen and ink stood on the table, so he began to make a copy.

‘Here!’ she demanded belligerently. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Saving your life. If this horde comes, and you are forced to give them the list, you can tell them there is a duplicate — one that will be made public should anything happen to you.’

‘Who shall I say has it?’ she asked blearily. ‘You have not told me your name.’

Chaloner smothered his exasperation. ‘That is the point! If they do not know me, they cannot order me to hand my copy over, too. They will have to leave you alone, or risk being exposed.’

Such a complex explanation took a while for Mrs Reyner to grasp, but when she did, she grinned. ‘Hurry up, then. But be warned — my boy said the code is impossible to crack, because it came from vinegar.’

‘Vinegar? Do you mean Vigenère?’

She snapped her fingers. ‘That is the man! Do you know him?’

‘No,’ said Chaloner, although his heart sank. The polyalphabetic cipher adapted by Vigenère was said to be unbreakable. He handed the scroll back to Mrs Reyner, reminded her what she should say if her son’s enemies came calling, and took his leave. It was time to visit his friend John Thurloe, who had a rare talent for decoding messages not intended for his eyes.

Chaloner took a hackney carriage to Chancery Lane, not because he was tired, but because he was bored with the journey between Piccadilly and the city. Unfortunately, he was not in the coach for long before it rolled to a standstill, and he peered out to see The Strand was in the midst of one of its ‘stops’ — carts, carriages and horses in a jam so dense that nothing was moving.

With a sigh, he clambered out and began to walk, dodging through the traffic until he reached Lincoln’s Inn, one of London’s four great legal foundations. He waved to the duty porter as he stepped through the wicket gate, then made his way to Chamber XIII. He tapped softly on the door, and let himself into the one place in London where he felt truly safe, a comfortable suite of rooms that were full of the cosy, familiar scent of old books, wax polish and wood-smoke.

John Thurloe was sitting by the fire. He was a slight man with large blue eyes, whose unassuming appearance belied the power he had wielded when he was Cromwell’s Secretary of State and Spymaster General. There were those who said the Commonwealth would not have lasted as long as it had without Thurloe’s guidance — he had run a highly efficient intelligence network, of which Chaloner had been a part. He had retired from politics at the Restoration, and now lived quietly, dividing his time between London and his estate in Oxfordshire.

‘Tom!’ he exclaimed. ‘Come in! It is a bitterly cold day, and you must be freezing.’

Chaloner laughed. ‘It is a pleasant morning, and I am hot from walking.’

‘Then you had better take one of these,’ said Thurloe, offering him a tin. ‘We cannot have you overheating. One of Mr Matthew’s Excellent Pills should put you right.’

Thurloe was always concerned about his own health, and declared himself to be fragile, although there was a strength in him that was unmatched by anyone else Chaloner had ever met. He swallowed all manner of cure-alls in his search for one that would make him feel as he had when he was twenty. Chaloner was sure they could not be good for him.

‘Good for slaying fluxes,’ he said, shaking his head as he recalled what he had read about the tablets in The Intelligencer . He did not mention the bit about expelling wind: Thurloe was inclined to be prudish.

‘If you will not accept a pill, then have a sip of this instead,’ said Thurloe, proffering a brightly coloured phial that declared itself to be Sydenham’s Laudanum.

Chaloner shook his head a second time, then watched in alarm as Thurloe drained it in a single swallow. ‘Easy! There might be all manner of unpleasant ingredients in that.’

‘Almost certainly,’ agreed Thurloe blithely. ‘But if essence of slug or tincture of quicksilver can restore the spark of vitality that has been missing in me since Cromwell died, I shall not complain.’

‘You will complain if they kill you. Quicksilver is poisonous. I know — I have seen it used.’

‘I doubt there is quicksilver in this. Indeed, it imparts a wonderful sense of well-being, and I feel as though I could raise mountains after my daily dose.’

‘Then do not do it in Lincoln’s Inn. Your fellow benchers would not approve.’

Thurloe gave one of his rare smiles. ‘It is good to see you, Tom. Is this a social call, or have you come to ask what I know about certain happenings in Piccadilly?’

Chaloner gaped at him. Thurloe had inspired deep loyalty among his intelligencers, and many continued to supply him with information, even though he was no longer active in espionage — fortunately, as it happened, because it was what allowed him to stay one step ahead of those who still itched to execute him for the role he had played in the Commonwealth. But even so, Chaloner was startled that the ex-Spymaster should know what he was currently investigating.

Thurloe smiled again. ‘It was a guess, Tom, based on logic. It is obvious that the Earl would order you to find out about his missing bricks, while he cannot be happy with what is happening in the Crown, a place that is virtually his neighbour.’

‘What do you know about the Crown?’ asked Chaloner.

‘Very little, other than that it rents rooms to a group that calls itself the Piccadilly Company. Word is that Spymaster Williamson is trying to probe their business, but with no success. Perhaps his failure is because Swaddell is no longer with him — he has gone to work for the Adventurers.’

‘The Adventurers?’ asked Chaloner, startled. ‘You mean the wealthy but inept aristocrats who have declared a trading monopoly on Africa? Why would they need an assassin?’

‘I do not know. However, it is not they who meet in the Crown, and whose gatherings are so carefully guarded that no one can eavesdrop. The Piccadilly Company worries me.’

‘I searched their parlour last night and found this.’ Chaloner handed him the singed paper.

Thurloe took it. ‘It looks like a substitution code. You should be able to break it yourself. It will not be difficult, merely time-consuming.’

‘Apparently, the Piccadilly Company has some deadly enemies. These are their names.’ Chaloner passed him Mrs Reyner’s list. ‘They are written in Vigenère’s cipher.’

Thurloe frowned. ‘This represents more of a challenge, so I suggest I tackle it, while you work on the document from the Crown. It will take me too long to do both, and I am busy with an errant kinsman at the moment — one of my wife’s brothers, who has always been recklessly wild.’

‘Do you need help?’

‘I can manage, thank you. Besides, you will have enough to do if you plan to break through the secrecy surrounding the Piccadilly Company.’

‘I think they might have something to do with what happened to Teviot in Tangier.’ Briefly, Chaloner outlined all he had learned and reasoned, including about Reyner’s murder.

‘It sounds as though you are right to make a connection between the massacre and the Piccadilly Company,’ mused Thurloe when he had finished. ‘But I cannot imagine what it might be.’

‘Do you know anything about them? Rumours about their plans? The identities of their members? I know some of them — for example, the three scouts and Harley’s sister Brilliana. But “Mr Jones” is probably an alias, and I suspect the same is true of “Margareta and Cornelis Janszoon”. They are the Dutch couple who attended a meeting in the Crown yesterday.’