Philip Kerr - Dark Matter

“I should like to read that pamphlet,” said I. And then to Newton: “Why have I not seen it, John?”

“You have not seen it, milord?” asked Oates. “I was informed that Lord Lucas had shown it to you.”

I shook my head. “Perhaps he did show me something,” I admitted. “But I’m afraid that I lost it.”

“I have some more at my lodgings,” said Oates. “I could show you one now if you wished.”

“Yes, indeed you shall,” said I. “We will take the coach to your lodgings, Doctor Oates, and you shall fetch me one of these pamphlets of yours.”

Newton leaned out of the coach window and instructed the coachman that when we reached London we should drive to Axe Yard.

“And yet I am more concerned to know the mettle of our confederates, Doctor Oates,” I told him. “Lord Lucas will vapour most hotly about the men of the Ordnance and how they are loyal to him. But after all, a lot of these are Frenchies. What of good Englishmen? And when last I saw him I said to him à d’autre, à d’autre . Tell it to the others, my lord, but not to me. For I thought him all bluster and grimace, and his explanations did not convince me. But I have heard you are a man of much subtlety, Doctor Oates. My grandfather always said as much. Which is why I have met you à la dérobée , which is to say secretly. That is to say, Lord Lucas does not know that I am speaking to you. Nor does anyone else for that matter, and I would prefer if it were kept that way.”

“Your Lordship does me great honour,” said Oates, bowing his head and trying to stop the self-satisfied smile that did appear upon his enormous chin, which was quite as big as the rest of his face.

“Subtlety and integrity, Doctor Oates. You are a man to call a spade a spade.”

“Your Lordship is too kind,” smirked Oates.

“So I would know how many we really are, and not what Lord Lucas sees fit to tell me. And what are our chances of success.”

“We are not so many,” said Oates. “But we are enough.”

“Ods my life, Doctor, now you sound like Lucas. Not so coy, I pray you, or else I shall believe that this plot is mere fancy. The wise man builds his house not on sand but on a rock. So I would know who we may rely on, for I trust not men who have no names.”

Oates’s eyes narrowed and he stared out of the window for a moment as Hampstead became the manor of Tyburn, with its many dairy farms that supplied London’s milk and cheese, so that I almost believed he suspected something was amiss, and I placed my hand on the loaded pistol concealed inside the fur muff that lay on my lap like a dead spaniel. Instead he nodded with much thoughtfulness.

“Milord,” he said, most pleadingly, “it’s safer that you do not know. And yet I wonder why Lord Lucas should not have kept you better informed. ’Tis most strange.”

“Lucas is not a considerate man,” said I. “Indeed I may tell you in secret that I do not like him.”

“He is most impatient, and intemperate, it’s true,” agreed Titus Oates. “Why then, I will tell you as much as I know myself. Inside the Tower there’s him, Captain Lacoste, Captain Martin, Sergeant Rohan, and several men of the garrison: Cousin, Durel, Lasco, Devoe, Harald. Then, in the Mint there’s Mister Fauquier, the Deputy Master; Mister Collins, one of the assay masters, who did descend from Coligny, the great Huguenot admiral who was butchered by the French Catholics upon Saint Bartholomew’s; Vallière, who works the melt, Mister Silvester, the smith, and Peter Bayle, the victualler. That’s thirteen all told in the castle itself.

“Outside the Tower there are almost a hundred Englishmen in the barracks at Whitehall and at Somerset House; and among them several more Huguenots: Colonel Quesnal, Major Laurent, Major Sarrazin, Captain Hesse, Captain Popart, Lieutenant Delafons, and Sergeant Barre.

“Among the civilians there are perhaps a hundred more, including myself; Sir John Houblon at the Bank; Sir John Peyton; Monsieur Piozet, who’s pastor at the Savoy; Monsieurs Primerose, La Mothe, Chardin, and Moreau, who are on the grande comité français . In Soho there is Monsieur Guisard, whose father was burned for heresy, and Monsieur Peyferie, as well as several dozen hatmakers, buttoners, silk-weavers, drapers, chandlers, apothecaries and wigmakers in the City that do number at least six or seven dozen.

“Last of all, there’s Mister Defoe the pamphleteer, Mister Woodward the publisher, and Mister Downing, his printer; not to mention the several incendiaries who will help me to set the blaze at Whitehall, including young Mister Tonge, who knows much about raising fires.

“They are all good Protestants, milord,” declared Oates. “Therefore be assured that our chances of success are high.”

“For the conflagration,” said Newton, “will surely be blamed upon the Papists.”

“Aye,” said Oates, “for it is only what they would do had they sufficient opportunity.”

“Who would doubt such a thing after the Ailesbury Plot?” said Newton. “Or the insurrection of Sir John Fenwick?”

“And yet,” said I, “so many Jacobites have been arrested this year that I fear they are driven underground and we shall find fewer Papists than there are. Were not all Papists banished ten miles from London, last February?”

“Aye, milord,” said Oates. “But the measure was relaxed after only a month; and those few who were obliged to leave were soon back, like rats after the Fire.”

“Then pray tell me, Doctor Oates, how accurate are your lists of who is to be killed? We do not want any Papists getting away.”

“I’ll warrant none shall escape, milord,” said Oates, grinning most fanatically so that I saw how much he relished the bloody prospect that was plotted. “We shall begin with the Spanish Ambassador’s house in Wild Street, Covent Garden, that bestows a Roman Catholic aura upon that whole area. I expect to find papers there that were compiled for the Catholic Minister Apostolic in Flanders as to how many Papists there are in England and Wales, and their names. I do not think we shall slaughter fewer Catholics than Huguenots were murdered in Paris, milord.”

“It seems only appropriate that the number should be the same,” murmured Newton. “But when will it be done?”

“Fool,” said I, counterfeiting to Oates that I already had this knowledge, for I did not think it good that we should seem to know nothing. “I told you already. The damn fellow never listens, Doctor. Tell him.”

“Why, when the King returns from Flanders, of course,” said Oates. “What good is a Catholic plot to kill the King, if the King is somewhere else? It will all come out after this man Isaac Newton is murdered. For with his death, which will be blamed on the Catholics, the rest of their damnable plot will be revealed.”

“How is he to be murdered?” I enquired. “I have heard he is a mighty intelligent fellow, this Isaac Newton. He may yet outwit you.”

“I have not the precise details. But his movements are known to us. He will be assassinated in the street, and the blame put upon a notorious Roman Catholic who works in the Tower.”

“After the peace is concluded, then,” Newton said coolly, as if we were discussing the murder of some stranger.

“That is what we are waiting for, of course,” said I. “Let me die, but you are an ass, John. A mischief to you. Of course it will be after the peace, for when else will the King come back?” I glanced at Titus Oates and shook my head wearily. “Sometimes I wonder that I keep him in my service, Doctor, he abuses me so.”

We spoke again, and gradually and with great subtlety, we learned much of their plans, so that when the coach drew up in Axe Yard, which was between King Street and the cockpit in St. James’s Park, we knew a great deal except what was in the pamphlet which I now pronounced myself most eager to read.