Susanna Gregory - The Piccadilly Plot

Chaloner’s legs were unsteady as they ran back the way they had come. There was only one place Pratt would be — the Lawyers’ Library, the room he had been using as an office. Behind them, Brinkes and his men were pounding on the doors furiously, sending hollow booms reverberating through the entire house.

Chaloner reached the library and paused to listen. The door was closed, but someone was murmuring within. Unfortunately, the voice was too soft to recognise. Then he saw a flicker of movement under the door — someone was coming to investigate the racket Brinkes was making.

It was too late to hide, so he whipped out Williamson’s sword and dagger and kicked the door open with as much force as he could muster. It flew against the wall with a resounding crack, and the person who had been about to open it stumbled back in alarm.

‘Janszoon,’ said Thurloe flatly, standing next to Chaloner with his own gun drawn. ‘And Margareta. Whose remit in this nasty plot is to whip up ill-feeling towards Hollanders in the hope of encouraging a war. Prynne was right to want you stopped.’

Chaloner stepped inside quickly, but there was no sign of Pratt or Fitzgerald. Margareta smirked, not at all discomfited to find herself at the wrong end of a dag. Chaloner was immediately uneasy, and edged to one side, so as not to come under fire from the peepholes again.

‘You are right,’ she said carelessly. ‘But I doubt you know why.’

‘Of course we do,’ said Thurloe disdainfully. ‘Your country owns the best shipping routes, but war will disrupt them. And that will be to the Piccadilly Company’s advantage.’

‘They are not Hollanders,’ said Chaloner, aware that Margareta had spoken without the merest trace of an accent. ‘I have known it ever since they refused to speak Dutch to me at White Hall last night. Moreover, no learner of English would use complex grammatical structures one moment, and make basic vocabulary mistakes another. Their ridiculous choice of names is another clue to their real identities.’

The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘There are many Janszoons in Holland. I researched it very carefully.’

‘So who are they, Tom?’ asked Thurloe. ‘More greedy merchants? Or pirates, perhaps?’

Chaloner pointed to the scar on the man’s face. ‘Whose cheek was cut in a public swordfight recently? And who was then given a hasty funeral — not to avoid an expensive send-off as we all assumed, but to explain why his “corpse” was removed from the charnel house within hours of his very public “death”?’

‘Cave?’ breathed Thurloe. ‘He is not dead and buried in St Margaret’s churchyard?’

Chaloner nodded, then turned to the woman. ‘And who was his lover, a manipulative courtesan who is also a member of the Piccadilly Company and sister to the dangerous Harley?’

‘Brilliana!’ exclaimed Thurloe in understanding. ‘It all makes sense now.’

When Brilliana gave a brief, cold smile, the pastes on her face cracked, revealing a glimpse of the beautiful but deadly woman underneath. ‘Well done. Unfortunately for you, your deductions have come too late to make any difference to what has been set in motion.’

‘It has failed,’ said Thurloe harshly. ‘Your brother is dead, and the Adventurers are still alive.’

‘My brother is not dead, so do not think you can frighten us with lies,’ said Brilliana coldly.

Chaloner looked around uncomfortably, unable to escape the conviction that something was very wrong. Why were they not more concerned at being exposed?

‘We should leave,’ he said in a low voice to Thurloe. ‘I do not like this.’

‘We should have guessed days ago,’ said Thurloe, ignoring him to glare at Cave. ‘You either paid or coerced Elliot to start a fight, so you could disappear and become Janszoon. You were good. Your “death” convinced Tom, and he is not easily misled.’

Guiltily, Chaloner recalled how he had berated Lester for not checking Elliot’s body. Now it seemed he had done the same thing with Cave, but with far graver consequences.

‘I confess I was alarmed when he tried to inspect my “wound”,’ admitted Cave. ‘But I stopped him, and then he was kind enough to hire a cart to take me to the charnel house. The original arrangement had been for Elliot to do it, but that changed when I was obliged to stab him.’

‘And then another Piccadilly Company member — or, more likely, Brinkes — collected your “body” later the same day,’ surmised Thurloe.

Cave grimaced. ‘He should have arrived sooner. I had to spend hours in that terrible place, in constant fear that someone would come and inspect me. He used the excuse that he was perfecting his disguise, but I think he did it for malice.’

‘Brinkes made himself look like Elliot,’ Thurloe went on. ‘And told Kersey that he lived in Covent Garden — where Elliot had rented rooms.’ He glanced at Brilliana. ‘And you claimed it was Elliot who had encouraged “Jacob” to give Cave a hasty funeral — to make Tom waste time looking for a man who was dead and buried.’

Chaloner glanced behind him again. Why did Cave and Brilliana seem so relaxed? Because they expected Fitzgerald or their master to rescue them? He looked hard at the spyholes in the panelling, but could detect nothing amiss. Cave smirked at his wariness, making him even more certain that something was about to happen.

‘Enough,’ he said softly, tugging on Thurloe’s arm. ‘We should-’

‘It worked,’ Brilliana said gloatingly, ignoring Chaloner and addressing the ex-Spymaster. ‘Everyone was so easy to deceive. Chaloner should have drunk the chocolate I provided, though — then we would not be having this discussion.’

‘You “die” in operas all the time,’ Thurloe said to Cave, freeing his arm from Chaloner’s hand. ‘I suppose you wore a sack of animal blood under your clothes, which gushed out when it was jabbed. That is how it is managed on stage, I believe. Then you both donned disguises, testing them on cronies at the Piccadilly Company first …’

‘They were impressed.’ Brilliana’s smile was smug with satisfaction. ‘And it gave us the confidence to step into that most auspicious of circles — White Hall.’

Chaloner was barely listening. Every nerve in his body screamed that something was wrong, although he could still hear the distant boom of Brinkes and his henchmen hammering on the Great Parlour doors, so he knew they had not yet managed to break free.

‘But why kill Elliot?’ Thurloe was asking. ‘He did what you asked.’

‘Barely,’ said Cave coldly. ‘Lester told him he would hang for murder if he “killed” me — an outcome that had not occurred to the fool, because I could see him having second thoughts before my very eyes. I was obliged to goad him to fulfil his end of the bargain by attacking Lester.’

‘Who was unarmed,’ said Chaloner, recalling the crowd’s murmur of disapproval. ‘I suppose you were afraid that Elliot would tell the truth about the deception to save himself from the noose.’

‘Yes.’ Cave touched a hand to his scarred face. ‘And I was angry because he hurt me. That was certainly never part of the arrangement.’

‘What is in this for you?’ Thurloe asked. ‘It means your old life is over for ever — your voice will be recognised if you ever sing in public again. There can be no going back.’

The besotted expression on Cave’s face as he glanced at Brilliana answered that question, although Chaloner could see just by looking that the devotion was not reciprocated. When he had outlived his usefulness, Cave would be dispatched, like so many others.

‘I am sorry, Chaloner,’ he said, and he sounded sincere. ‘I enjoyed singing to your viol when we sailed on Eagle . You have a rare talent, and it is a pity to silence it. But it cannot be helped.’