Philip Kerr - Dark Matter

“But will this work, sir? If you are marked for assassination, then perhaps Titus Oates knows your face.”

“I am not such a remarkable-looking fellow,” said Newton, “although I do say so myself. Besides, I seem to recall that Lord Ashley has a servant who wears an eye patch. As shall I. It will help to disguise me.”

“So I am to be an actor, then, as well as a clerk?”

“Yes indeed, Ellis. Just like William Mountford, is it?”

“With respect, sir, that is a poor example you choose. William Mountford, the actor, was murdered.”

“Was he?”

“Do you not recall it? Lord Mohun was tried for it.”

“I do recall it now,” said Newton. “And that he was not murdered for his acting, but for his association with a lady to which Lord Mohun objected.”

“I had better keep a pistol hidden in the coach,” said I, “so that if we are discovered, we shall be defended. For I believe your plan to deceive Oates and his Huguenot friends to be the most dangerous thing we have ever done.”

“We shall do all we can to protect ourselves. Mister Hall shall be our postillion. And he too shall be armed. God willing, we shall prevail.”

And, drawing up a clean sheet of paper, he wrote out the following message:

On Monday morning we bought my suit of clothes at the second hand, from Mister George Hartley’s shop in Monmouth Street, with the promise that he would buy them back from us when we had finished with them. I wore a silk suit, a pair of silk stockings, a velvet cloak, and a fine beaver hat that was trimmed with an ostrich feather; also a fine knotted cane with a silver head, a little sword with a gilt handle, a large mouchoir of scented silk, a silver periwig, a pair of soft, jessemy-scented gloves, a blue sash, and around my waist a large fur muff for my hands in which I did conceal a small pistol. It was as fine a set of clothes as ever I had worn, although I was somewhat discomforted by the information from Mister Hartley that my clothes had been stripped from the corpse of a dashing highwayman named Gregory Harris who had been hanged at Tyburn, and whose clothes had been sold by his executioner, as was the hangman’s perquisite. I completed my lordly apparel with a good deal of powder on my face, my wig and my coat, a little snuff box, and a few affected airs. In truth I felt like a most modish creature, the more so when Newton told me that I went as handsomely as any lord he ever saw. And my only cause of regret was that Miss Barton could not see me and declare herself of the same opinion as her uncle.

In the evening, at around seven of the clock, milord Halifax’s coach collected Newton and me from the Tower and drove us north up to Hampstead and the Kit Kat Club, which met at The Upper Flask Tavern in Heath Street. And while we drove through the town, people kept looking upon us, for the coach was very fine, with glass windows, two liveried coachmen and six black horses with their manes and tails tied with green ribbons that matched our livery.

At a few minutes before eight, our coach drew up outside the tavern in the village of Hampstead, which is a most fashionable part of London, being very high up on a pleasantly aired plateau. The Kit Kat was a most ardently Whig club that for a while was the most famous club in London, and its members included Mister Swift, Mister Addison, Mister Steele, Mister Vanburgh, Mister Dryden, Mister Congreve, Mister Kneller, Lord Ashley, and the same Lord Mohun who had killed the actor William Mountford, and who later killed the Duke of Hamilton in a duel. The club was lit up like a lantern and already noisy, so that I saw the wisdom of the club being here instead of in the City, for some of the younger members had a rakehellish reputation, and bonfires in Heath Street where the Pope was burnt in effigy were not uncommon.

For the quarter of an hour my master and I sat in the coach awaiting the arrival of the vile Titus Oates, and I began to worry that he would not come.

“Perhaps he suspects something is wrong,” said I.

“Why should he?” asked Newton, who looked most threatening with an eye patch. “For all of the conspirators believe that their cipher remains inviolate. He will come. I am certain of it.”

Even as he spoke, Mister Hall, who was acting as our postillion, saw a tall figure arriving up the hill and alerted us that our man was coming, so that we had but a little time to prepare ourselves for the dog’s arrival.

“Remember,” said Newton, “you are a Member of Parliament and the future Earl of Shaftesbury. You need never explain yourself. Much of the time your conversation will have to improve upon what he himself tells you. I shall assist you if I can, but I cannot presume too much or it will look suspicious. We must be exceedingly subtile with this fellow.”

When Oates came alongside the coach, Hall stepped down and opened the door, whereupon Oates, recovering his breath, for it was quite a walk from Axe Yard, bowed gravely.

“Have I the honour to address Lord Ashley?” he asked in his pompous, ringing voice, which reminded me of my choirmaster at school.

“This is His Lordship,” said Newton. “If you are Doctor Oates, come up, sir.”

At this, Oates appeared taken aback, and then looked at Doctor Newton for a moment, so that he seemed upon the point of going away again.

“Is there something wrong, Doctor Oates?” asked Newton.

“Only that I do not go by that name anymore, sir,” said Oates. “At His Lordship’s own suggestion.”

“If you prefer, we shall call you Doctor Davies,” suggested Newton. “But you need not concern yourself on this matter. I enjoy His Lordship’s complete confidence in this matter. As in all others.”

Oates nodded and, climbing aboard, sat down heavily and with evident relief. Hall closed the door behind him, and immediately I noticed how a strange, cloying smell did attach to the person of Oates; and after a short pause to allow Hall to climb up again, I rapped on the roof with my cane so that we should drive back to London. Outside I heard the coachman crack his whip and we started south, down Heath Street, toward the City.

“This is indeed an honour, milord,” said Oates, most unctuously. “I never met your grandfather, but from what I knew of him, he was a very great man.”

I yawned ostentatiously and dabbed at my mouth with my mouchoir as I had once seen Lord Halifax do when we were at the Treasury.

“And I am happy to be of service to you, as I was to him,” continued Oates. “Nay, not happy. Delighted and greatly honoured, too.”

“ Façon, façon ,” I said with a foppish show of impatience. “Do let us get on. And pray do not call it my service, Doctor Oates, for this matter is too desperate to be done only on my account. In truth, you see me quite unnerved by the gravity of our design. So much so that I came up to Hampstead to take the waters. But now I desire that you might put my mind at rest that everything is made ready. It’s not scruple of my conscience that made me write to you, sir, but want of confidence in our enterprise. I do swear I wish every Roman Catholic to the infernals, yet, mal peste , it’s a beastly nuisance, for I still fret that something will go awry. But you have been through this all before, Doctor Oates. You are our Achilles in this endeavour, and because I am so chagrin and disquieted these past few days, I would have your counsel. That is why I wrote to you and summoned you, sir.”

“Then be assured, milord,” said Oates, “everything is just as it should be. Mister Defoe’s pamphlet that will help to incite to anger all good Protestants is already printed and only awaits the proper occasion for its distribution.”