Andrew Swanston - The King's Return

‘Which marshes?’

‘That’s the problem. There’s marshes north and south and east. Essex, Lambeth, Kent. Could be any of them. No point in searching. You’d never find her. Better to keep asking around. Want me to carry on, Josiah?’

‘Yes please, ’Enrietta. Send word if you ’ear anything, won’t you?’

‘Of course I will, for you. And drop by if you want another chat. Or anything else. And bring Thomas. The Moroccan girl has proved very popular. Looks like he could do with some entertainment.’

‘There is one other thing, Henrietta, if I may,’ said Thomas. ‘It is not connected to Madeleine, or at least I do not think so.’

Henrietta peered at him over her glass. ‘And what might that be?’

‘When we were last here I happened to notice a young man in the courtyard. Arthur Phillips. Can you tell me anything about him?’

Henrietta’s enormous bosom heaved with laughter. ‘Arthur? I can tell you a lot about him. Such a pretty boy, the girls love him. Very regular customer, Arthur is. Plenty of money and unusual tastes.’

‘Unusual tastes?’

‘Takes more than one girl to make Arthur happy, and the younger the better. Trouble is, he spoils them for anyone else. Can be a bit rough, can Arthur. I only allow it because he pays well. Is that what you wanted to know?’

‘Yes. Thank you, Henrietta,’ replied Thomas, although it was the last thing he wanted to know. It was worse than he thought. Arthur Phillips led two lives. Charming young gentleman one day, dissolute rake the next. Thank God he wasn’t a traitor as well. Mind you, with plenty of money and a post in the Navy Office… Heaven forfend. He had enough to worry about without that. He would just have to hope that Lucy came quickly to her senses and went home.

Little was said on the way back to Piccadilly. Josiah was too tactful to ask about Arthur Phillips, and Henrietta’s news, or rather the lack of it, about Madeleine had been a blow. Not a word. Might be in the marshes. Any marshes. Might not be. Might be dead. No further forward and time passing. What now?

A familiar carriage stood outside the Carringtons’ house. Not bothering to enter as they had left, they let themselves in the front door and found Joseph in the sitting room with Mary and Charles. Mary was furious. ‘Thomas, what foolishness is it this time? Where have you been now?’

‘My apologies, my dear. It was selfish of me, I know. But I had to do something.’ He tried a smile. ‘And I needed the exercise.’

‘Absurd. I should have sent you home.’ Mary peered at him. ‘Sit down at once. You look half dead.’ Realizing that he felt half dead, Thomas sat. Mary turned to Josiah. ‘Why did you permit this, Mottershead? It was insane.’

Josiah’s face crumpled like a dead leaf and Thomas thought he was about to burst into tears. ‘Don’t blame the poor man, Mary. I gave him no choice.’

Mary raised an eyebrow. ‘There’s always a choice. You haven’t heard the last of this, either of you.’

‘We have had a reply,’ said Joseph, holding it up. ‘Like the first letter, it was pushed under the front door of my house. Whoever delivered it ran off without being seen. It’s from Madeleine.’

He read it out.

Dear Joseph, all my thoughts are with you, rest assured that I am well, try not to worry for me, fear not for my safety, or for my good health, remember me in your prayers, dear cousin may God bless you. Your cousin Madeleine

‘It is her hand,’ Williamson assured them, ‘and I suppose it proves she is alive and well. Or does it?’

Thomas examined the letter. ‘The hand shows evidence of her being under strain, which is not surprising. The paper is good quality. Is Madeleine in the habit of running her sentences together like this, Joseph? She uses commas rather than full stops.’

‘I think not. She’s careful with her correspondence. Could that also be the strain?’

‘Probably,’ replied Thomas thoughtfully. ‘However, may I make a copy? I should like to study it more.’

‘Certainly. Do you think it’s trying to tell us something?’

‘It’s possible. The form is odd. I’ll know by the morning.’

‘Meanwhile,’ asked Mary, ‘what should we do now?’

‘Nothing, I think,’ replied Joseph. ‘We await further instructions, as they directed. Send word if you discover anything, Thomas.’

When Williamson had left, Thomas took the copy he had made to his bedroom and put it on the writing table. The choice of words and the lack of proper punctuation suggested something hidden which he must find. As far as he knew, Madeleine did not have a knowledge of codes and ciphers and, anyway, she would not have had time to use one. The letter was in plain text. What might she have done to conceal a message in it? What would he himself have done? And what would she try to tell them?

For an hour, Thomas sat and stared at the letter, seeing nothing. Then Montaigne spoke. A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can . Thomas turned the letter over and closed his eyes. Among the letters and words, what ought he to see? He ought to see a message, disguised well enough to avoid being noticed by her captors, yet simple enough to reveal itself to him. She would have guessed that he would look for a message; he was a cryptographer.

Then it struck him. The lack of full stops and capital letters had a purpose. It was hiding something. He took a clean sheet of paper and wrote out the message with proper punctuation.

Dear Joseph,

All my thoughts are with you. Rest assured that I am well. Try not to worry for me. Fear not for my safety, or for my good health. Remember me in your prayers. Dear cousin, may God bless you. Your cousin Madeleine

The capital letters leapt off the paper. You clod, Thomas, he said out loud. There it is. Ignoring the words Joseph, I and God, the capitals spelt out the word DARTFRD and with the inclusion of the o of or , DARTFORD. Madeleine had cleverly avoided capital letters, which might have revealed the word to her captors, and she had told Joseph the thing he most wanted to know – that she was being held in Dartford.

Thomas knew little of Dartford except that the town had suffered during the war and from regular outbreaks of plague, and that it was noted for the marshes which stretched for miles along the river and were easily big enough to hide a cottage or a hut from searching eyes. Henrietta was right. They would find her in the marshes.

Taking the original message and his version of it, he ran down the stairs and burst into the sitting room, where Mary and Charles were sitting in front of an unlit fire. ‘I have it. The clever girl has told us where she’s being held. Look at the capital letters.’ He handed Mary the messages. She read them and handed them to Charles.

‘How ingenious of her,’ she said. ‘Dartford. An unpleasant place, I believe, surrounded by heathland and marshes and full of plague. A good hiding place.’

‘If she’s in the marshes, she’ll be hard to find,’ said Charles, ‘and even harder to rescue. It’ll be an easy place to guard and defend, even against a troop of militia.’

‘We’d better send word to Joseph. He did ask us to,’ said Mary.

‘Mary,’ asked Thomas, ‘in the circumstances, would it not be wiser to find her ourselves? Joseph is under pressure from the king and, to be frank, he might not respond as rationally as we might wish. His men all over the place would alert them at once and that would be bad for Madeleine.’ Master Phillips would have to wait.

Mary looked shocked. ‘Thomas, surely you must speak to Joseph first.’

‘If we ask him to wait until we find her, he’ll either refuse or agree. He’ll send them in or give us time to look. We might just as well start looking.’