Susanna Gregory - The Piccadilly Plot

‘Yes,’ admitted Chaloner. ‘I do.’

‘Then continue to like him. Just do not trust him. That should not be difficult — you repel overtures of friendship from everyone else you meet. And I cannot say it is healthy.’

‘You trained me to do it,’ retorted Chaloner, nettled. ‘Besides, it means I am rarely disappointed when they transpire to be villains.’

‘Speaking of villains, you might want to watch Kipps, too,’ said Thurloe. ‘He professes a powerful dislike of Adventurers, but that does not stop him from hobnobbing with them.’

‘He is just friendly.’ Chaloner was becoming tired of Thurloe’s suspicions. Then a thought occurred to him. ‘Did you ever harbour misgivings about Hannah’s maid Susan?’

‘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?’