A Murder on London Bridge (38 page)

Hannah shot Chaloner a triumphant look, pleased he should hear this categorical denial for himself. When the Duke went to rescue Lady Castlemaine from Phillippes, Hannah ambled casually towards Chaloner and pretended to choose one of the glasses from his tray.

‘Christ, Hannah!’ Chaloner breathed, horrified by her performance. ‘A little discretion, please! You will not learn anything by charging at the situation like a wild bull.’

She grimaced. ‘I know the Duke – if you dance around with him, you will never have an honest answer. But do not worry: he will not take my questions amiss. Look! Here come some friends of Surgeon Wiseman’s. I shall ask
them
if they are in the market for an uprising.’

‘No!’ Chaloner was aghast, but then saw mischief twinkling in her eyes and knew she was teasing him. He did not smile back: the situation was far too nerve-racking for humour. He moved away abruptly when Wiseman’s colleagues expressed a desire for wine, then stood in a corner, pretending to clean the tray under his goblets while he listened to five merchants discuss interest rates and index linking.

‘You?’ came a low voice behind him.

Chaloner turned cautiously. It was Father Stephen, hiding behind a curtain in a way that would have been amusing under other circumstances.

‘God save me, but you are brave!’ breathed the priest. ‘When the Earl said he was sending someone to meet me, I did not think he meant you would come
right inside
. I thought I would have to go out, and perhaps scour the gardens for you. It is very good of you to accommodate me.’

Chaloner had no idea what he was talking about. ‘We try to oblige,’ he said vaguely.

‘Here it is.’ Stephen looked around furtively before sliding a piece of paper into Chaloner’s pocket. ‘Now go. If you are caught with that, it will mean both our deaths.’

Chaloner supposed all would become clear when he read it.

‘One more thing.’ The priest caught his arm as he started to move away. ‘I was wrong and you were right about Shrove Tuesday: something dire
is
in the offing. From what I understand, it will involve the Drury Lane theatre – I keep hearing mention of
The Indian Queen
.’

Chaloner regarded him sharply. Was that why so many members of Somerset House had been in attendance the other day? They had been assessing the venue for a massacre?

‘Perhaps I should stay and try to find out more,’ said Chaloner. It was risky, because the servant he had punched was going to be found soon.

‘If you do, you will be wasting your time. The plotters will not discuss it tonight, not with all these strangers present. They will wait until they are alone again. Now go, before you are caught.’

Leaving Somerset House was much easier than entering it. Still in his stolen uniform, Chaloner walked boldly through the main gate, nodding greetings to the guards as he went. All smiled back, and he heaved a sigh of relief when he was out in the street. He only wished Hannah was with him, and sincerely hoped she would not get herself in trouble with more reckless questions.

Supposing he had better deliver what Father Stephen had given him to the Earl, he walked to Worcester House and broke in through a side door. In the darkness of the hall beyond, he saw the barrel of a gun waving in his general direction. He dived away, whipped out his dagger, and only his last-minute recognition of Leigh’s neat little silhouette prevented the Sergeant at Arms from losing hand and weapon at the same time.

‘Lord!’ breathed Leigh, lowering the gun when Chaloner identified himself. ‘I thought you were one of the Dowager’s horde – that her copious amounts of wine had encouraged one to venture over for mischief. Perhaps I should scout around the grounds, to make sure all is secure. Will you stay here, and guard the door until I come back?’

When he had gone, Chaloner lit a lamp and took the paper from his pocket. He was bemused to see it was a list of fireworks, all with names like Scarlet Rockets, Purple Fountains, and White Candles. Calculations were written in both margins, but they meant nothing to him.

Leigh’s inspection did not last long, so it was not many moments before Chaloner was knocking at the door to the Earl’s parlour. Clarendon was sitting at his desk, looking pale and out of sorts.

‘I thought I told you to visit Somerset House,’ he snapped. Then his eyes widened as Chaloner stepped into the halo of light cast by the lamp. ‘Is that the Dowager’s livery you are wearing?’

‘Father Stephen asked me to give you this.’ Chaloner handed over the folded paper.

The Earl’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You have completed the mission already? But I expected to be up for hours before you returned –
if
you returned. I was not sure Stephen had the courage to go through with it.’

‘Go through with what?’ asked Chaloner icily. ‘The plan whereby he passed me an incriminating document in a room full of people, some of whom might have killed us, had we been seen?’

The Earl nodded, unrepentant. ‘I was not worried about you – you know how to handle yourself in such situations. So I invented a strategy that represented minimum risk to him.’

A strategy that was criminally reckless, Chaloner thought. ‘But you did not
tell
me I was supposed to collect something from him,’ he said, not bothering to hide his exasperation. ‘I was in disguise: he might have gone all night without recognising me.’

The Earl glared at him. ‘Do not criticise me, Chaloner, especially as I was following a rule
you
taught me – namely that one spy should never know the identity of another. I promised Stephen he would not have to carry this document out of Somerset House himself – that I would send a courier. All he knew was that he had to look for one of my most trusted officers.’

Chaloner rubbed his head, wishing his master would leave such matters to him. He was sure he could have devised something much less hazardous – for Stephen and himself.

The Earl tapped the paper when he did not reply. ‘This is a list of all the fireworks that will make appearances at the Dowager’s ball.’

‘Is that all?’ Chaloner was appalled. Father Stephen had risked his life for an inventory that could have been acquired much more easily.

The Earl smiled and beckoned him forward. ‘Not quite. Look at these formulae. The ones in the left-hand margin are recipes for common fireworks. Here you see one for a Purple Fountain – a cone-shaped creation that stands on the ground and releases a spray of mauve sparks.’

‘And the figures in the right-hand margin?’

‘They are what concern me. They are
adapted
recipes. Look at the Purple Fountain again. Now it contains half an ounce of copper sulphate and—’

‘Ten pounds of powder!’ exclaimed Chaloner, unable to help himself. ‘Christ! That will not be a fountain, it will be a volcano!’

‘Precisely,’ said the Earl, leaning back. ‘And here you see that twenty pounds of powder are to be used in a Red Rocket. I suspect that would render it somewhat heavy for flying. Do you agree?’

Chaloner nodded, staring at the numbers. ‘But I still do not understand. Are you saying the fireworks at the Dowager’s ball will be these adapted ones? That she intends to awe her guests with creations that will do rather more than produce coloured smoke and pretty sparks?’

The Earl was silent for a moment. ‘There is nothing to suggest that she, personally, is aware of any of this. Or that these modified fireworks have even been made. It may all be theory.’

‘Winter?’ asked Chaloner, hoping it was untrue – he liked the man. ‘He has been charged to generate the display. Are these his “theories”?’

‘Winter wants to be elected Green Man, so I cannot see him doing anything to jeopardise his prospects. The King will attend this ball, and His Majesty is unlikely to be impressed by Purple Fountains that blow great holes in his mother’s garden.’

Chaloner was growing confused. ‘But if you are sceptical about whether these inventions exist, why did you put Father Stephen through the agony of passing you the formulae?’

‘Because of a conversation I had with Phillippes, my dial-maker. I told him I was amused by the learned men of Gresham College weighing air, and to ingratiate himself, he responded by telling me some silly things
he
had done. One was increasing the amount of gunpowder in fireworks to—’

‘The incident in the Beggar’s Bush!’ exclaimed Chaloner in understanding. ‘It blew the landlord off his feet.’

Clarendon nodded. ‘Quite. Phillippes said all he wanted to know was whether more powder would make for a more spectacular firework, but his experiment demonstrated that the manufacture of these things is rather more complex than that. However, he then went on to say that the folk at Somerset House had howled with laughter at the tale, and that several – he did not know their names – had expressed an eager interest in his formulae.’

‘How about Father Stephen? Did
he
know who these men might be?’

‘No, but he admitted to knowing where the formulae might be kept, so I charged him to get them.’ The Earl tapped the paper with a chubby forefinger. ‘You will appreciate that I would rather this sort of information was
not
in the hands of men who would like to see me blown to pieces.’

Once again, Chaloner thought there were better and more reliable ways to have acquired the information, but he kept his opinion to himself.

‘Was it Phillippes who told you that Winter had been acquiring gunpowder?’ he asked, thinking about another piece of intelligence, the origin of which the Earl had declined to share.

The Earl nodded reluctantly. ‘But I did not want to tell anyone, lest he builds me a tide-ring that does not work in revenge. The information was irrelevant, anyway – we know now that Winter only wanted the powder for making the Dowager’s fireworks.’

‘Stephen confirmed that something terrible will happen on Shrove Tuesday,’ said Chaloner, changing the subject. ‘He thinks the Duke’s Theatre may be attacked.’

The Earl looked dubious. ‘I doubt there is anything in
The Indian Queen
to warrant violence. If
I
were a fanatic, I would choose a more noteworthy target. White Hall, perhaps. Or the Tower.’

‘Or the Bridge,’ said Chaloner, recalling what the Queen believed she had heard. Hundreds of people lived on the Bridge, so the carnage would be unimaginable, not to mention the disruption to commerce and the expense of repairs. ‘Are you sure these adapted fireworks do not exist, sir?’

The Earl regarded him uneasily. ‘Well, no, I am not
sure
. I just made the assumption that no one would do it, because Phillippes said it would be dangerous. And I thought we had just decided that Winter would not take the risk.’

‘Winter is not the only man who knows about explosives.’ Chaloner thought about the number of questionable people who had converged on the city – Lord Bristol, Herring and his iconoclasts, Will Goff the regicide, Luckin and the masked men from St Mary Overie. The list was endless.

The Earl regarded him in horror. ‘You think someone might actually have
made
these terrible things?’

Chaloner frowned as he studied the formulae again. ‘If these figures are correct, then we are talking about a huge amount of gunpowder. Such bulk will not be easy to conceal. You had better issue an order for the Bridge and the theatre to be evacuated while a search—’

‘I cannot!’ The Earl was appalled. ‘Do you have any idea of the panic it would cause? And if word got out that religious fanatics are stockpiling items that explode, there will be a bloodbath.’

He had a point. ‘Then what do you suggest, sir?’

‘
You
must locate this powder. You said yourself that there will be a lot of it, and if we can narrow the search to the Bridge or the theatre, it should not be too difficult to locate. Moreover, we have two full days to do it, assuming that its owners are saving it for Shrove Tuesday.’

Chaloner rubbed his chin. Could gunpowder be the reason for the sudden interest in Chapel House? But where could it be? He had searched the building thoroughly, and so had Leigh. Or was there a false wall or some such device that they had missed? Grimly, Chaloner saw he was going to have a busy night.

Chapter 10

When Chaloner left Worcester House, it was to find Hannah outside, waiting for him in a hackney carriage. She beckoned him in, and began to speak before he was properly seated.

‘Well, that was a waste of time!’ she declared in disgust. ‘I interrogated all manner of people I thought might want to do more than demonstrate peacefully, but no one would tell me a thing.’

‘Did you expect them to confide in the first woman who approached them, then?’ asked Chaloner. ‘That they would reveal all, just because you happen to enquire?’

Hannah glared. ‘Of course not. But if someone
is
plotting something big and violent, then he will need plenty of help to ensure all goes according to plan. Allies do not grow on trees, and he will be only too glad of loyal assistants, such as I was pretending to be.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Chaloner, ‘but not ones who storm up and offer their services at soirees. He will be terrified of betrayal, and it will take more than a few words at a party to make him trust you.’

Hannah sighed heavily. ‘Oh, well. I did my best. Are we going home now?’

‘I wish we could, but Father Stephen gave the Earl intelligence that suggests large quantities of gunpowder might be at large. I need to visit the theatre in Drury Lane, and then the Bridge, to see if I can locate it. It may be hidden inside a stockpile of fireworks.’

‘Gunpowder?’ Hannah was appalled. ‘Their plan involves blowing something up? But explosions are indiscriminate and violent! There will be untold killing if—’

‘Yes,’ interrupted Chaloner, not wanting to think about it. In his mind, he could still hear the thumps and crashes of the cannons at the Battle of Naseby. ‘Which is why I had better start hunting. I will take you to Tothill Street, and then I must go.’