Sea Change (8 page)

'Would it surprise you to know that Sir Theodore was arrested by order of Parliament on Monday the twenty-third and consigned to the Tower?'

It did surprise Spandrel — very much. 'The Tower. Why?'

'Because the chief cashier of the South Sea Company, Mr Knight, fled the country the same day that you left: Sunday the twenty-second. It's all up with the South Sea. And with its directors. Mr Knight, incidentally, is reported to have fled... to Brussels.' Cloisterman gave a wan smile. 'These are deep waters, Spandrel. And the currents are treacherous. A man could easily drown in them.'

'I am drowning.' Spandrel reached out instinctively to clasp Cloisterman's sleeve, but Cloisterman stepped smartly back and the chain snapped taut. They looked at each other warily across three feet of fetid cell-space. 'Is there nothing you can do to help me, sir?'

'Very little.'

'But even a very little... might be enough.' 'I doubt it.' Cloisterman's expression softened marginally. 'Yet I will' — he gave a little nod that seemed intended to afford Spandrel some small comfort — 'see what I can do.'

With the proverbial celerity of bad news, word of his old friend's demise had already reached Sir Theodore Janssen. All the other reverses he had suffered in recent weeks had been anticipated and, in one way or another, allowed for. This, by contrast, was a blow he had not expected to receive. Death might call on men of his and de Vries's age at any time, of course. But murder, in the supposed safety of his own home? It could scarcely be credited. Yet it had happened. The report was not to be doubted. Ysbrand de Vries was dead. And amidst the sorrow Sir Theodore felt at the loss of the very last of his youthful contemporaries, he was gnawed also by an anxiety he dared not fully explain even to his loyal valet and prime informant, Nicodemus Jupe.

Today was the anniversary of the execution of King Charles I. As a mark of respect, Brodrick's Committee of Inquiry was not sitting. But tomorrow they would resume their work, fortified by whatever Blunt and Joye had told them. Sir Theodore's judgement was that by now they knew the worst. But knowledge was not proof. They might find that commodity rather more elusive. Nor were they alone in mat. The news from Amsterdam had left the hunters and the hunted on dismayingly equal terms. And the news from Amsterdam was about to become more dismaying still.

'It's been confirmed, sir,' said Jupe. 'Mijnheer de Vries's killer was Spandrel.'

'It stretches credulity that the man should be capable of such a thing.'

'Yet it seems he was.'

'And this happened on Friday evening?'

'Yes, sir. At about ten o'clock. The weapon was a knife. Spandrel broke into the house and slew Mijnheer de Vries in his study.'

'I have lost a good friend, Jupe. I wish to know why.'

'Perhaps Spandrel isn't the fool he seemed to be.'

'But still a big enough fool to be caught in the act. There is something wrong here. Very wrong.'

'Do you wish me to make any specific inquiries... about the despatch-box?'

'No. That is...' Sir Theodore thought for a moment. 'How is the committee expected to proceed?'

'Rumour has it that Mr Brodrick will tomorrow set a date for them to report to the House of Commons. Within a fortnight, it's believed.'

'So soon?'

'A stiff wind's blowing, sir, no question.'

'Then we must take in sail. I want you to go to Amsterdam, Jupe. As soon as possible. Establish the facts — the true facts — of Ysbrand's death. And find the despatch-box. It must not fall into the wrong hands.'

'And whose are the right hands, sir?'

'Pels's Bank is a safe lodgement for the time being. But you understand, Jupe?' Uncharacteristically, Sir Theodore grasped his valet's wrist. 'It must be found.'

'Yes, sir.' Jupe's eyes met his master's. 'I understand.'

Evelyn Dalrymple, charge d'affaires at the British Embassy in The Hague, regarded the visitor to his office with measured caution. He had learned by occasionally bitter experience to hear out all those who claimed his attention on matters affecting the dignity of the Crown. Most were time-wasters, naturally. But the few who were not were unlikely to be correctly identified by his subordinates. Some, indeed, might be deliberately turned away in an attempt to embarrass him. In the Ambassador's absence on extended leave, Dalrymple had to be on his guard. The doubters and the enviers were ever alert for some slip on his part, however minor, that could be exploited to discredit him.

Kempis, the fellow sitting on the other side of his desk, was an especially difficult case to assess. He was a tall, dark-haired Dutchman in his middle to late twenties, smartly though soberly dressed, who spoke the perfect English of a well-educated man, but nonetheless had about him a suggestion of humble origins. What he did and where he came from were subjects he had declined to expand upon. In one sense, this had pleased Dalrymple, since it suggested they would come rapidly to the purpose of the visit. In another sense, however, it had worried him. The reticent, he had generally found, were more troublesome in the long run than the loquacious.

'What can I do for you, mijnheer?' Dalrymple ventured. 'An urgent matter, my secretary tells me, affecting' — he added a lilt of incredulity to his voice — 'the good name of the King.'

'King George is Governor of the South Sea Company, I believe,' Kempis said.

'Honorifically, yes.' Dalrymple's heart had sunk at the mention of the South Sea. He had lost enough money of his own on that foredoomed enterprise to need no reminding of it. So had many Dutchmen, who had insisted on dragging their consequent resentments to his door. If Kempis were another, this was likely to be a painful discussion, best cut short. 'But that is the full extent of His Majesty's involvement.'

'As far as you're aware.'

'You claim closer knowledge of the subject?'

'Some detailed information has come into my possession, certainly. Believe me when I say, Mr Dalrymple, that its wide dissemination would have consequences of the utmost gravity for your political — and your royal — masters in London.'

'I must take leave to doubt that, mijnheer.'

'Please do. I am not trying to convince you. I only want you to communicate my request to the appropriate person.'

'And what is your request?'

'In return for the surrender of the article I have come by, I require the payment of one hundred thousand pounds in high denomination Bank of England notes.'

Dalrymple could not suppress a flinch of astonishment. 'I beg your pardon?'

'One hundred thousand pounds, Mr Dalrymple. A round plum.'

'Very amusing.' Kempis's dark-eyed gaze did not encourage the notion that he was joking, but Dalrymple felt obliged to pretend that he thought he was. 'This is not the kind of request I can—'

'Tell them I have the Green Book.'

'What?'

'The green-covered ledger, lately in the keeping of the chief cashier of the South Sea Company. I have it.' Kempis leaned forward. 'And I know what it contains. I know everything.'

'There, mijnheer, you have the advantage of me.' Like a duck on the waters of the Hofvijver, which he could see if he turned and looked out of the window, Dalrymple was now engaged in strenuous efforts to remain afloat, efforts he could not allow to disturb the placid surface of his remarks. He knew that Robert Knight was presently in Brussels, taking his ease at the Hotel de Flandre. He suspected that the Embassy there would already have applied for a warrant to arrest him. The Austrian authorities, however, could be expected to drag their feet about issuing one. They owed Britain no favours. Dalrymple knew nothing of green-covered ledgers, but he thought it safe to assume that Knight would have taken good care of his most sensitive documents. They were unlikely to be in the hands of an importunate young Dutchman. But he knew too little to be certain of that. The South Sea affair was riddled with many unlikelihoods, of which this would not be the most remarkable. Prevarication was therefore his only recourse. 'How, may I ask, did you arrive at your valuation of this information?'

'By asking myself what I would pay for its suppression were I the King's loyal minister.'

'I cannot imagine why you persist in mentioning His Majesty in this regard.'

'Then do not trouble to imagine. Simply convey my terms.'

'As they stand at present, mijnheer, I feel sure they would be dismissed out of hand.'

'That is because you do not know what the Green Book contains. But I do know. And so, of course, do those recorded in it. One could hardly forget such matters. I have some experience of book-keeping. The tale this book tells is clear and damning.'

'Perhaps you would care to show it to me.'

'Do you think me so foolish as to have brought it with me?'

'You are surely not implying that it would have been unsafe to do so, are you, mijnheer? This is the British Embassy, not a den of thieves.'

Kempis smiled, as if amused by the distinction. 'Mr Dalrymple,' he said steadily, 'will you present my request to your government?'

'Such as it is, I will.'

'That is all I ask. I will return here — shall we say one week from today? — for their answer. At that time I will specify how the exchange is to be made.'

'Exchange?'

'Of book for money. Time and place. Conditions. And so forth. It will have to be carefully managed.'

'If it is to be managed at all. I must say you seem remarkably confident of what answer you will receive.'

Kempis nodded in cool acknowledgement of the fact. 'Yes,' he said. 'I am.'

Somewhat against his better judgement, but adhering to the sound principle that it is wise to defer to other people's judgement in difficult cases, Dalrymple at once set about preparing a despatch for urgent transmission to the Secretary of State's office in Whitehall. It would take two days to arrive and another three or four days for a reply to reach him. A week should suffice for Kempis to have his answer. The nature of that answer would satisfy Dalrymple as to whether the man was an impertinent knave or an ingenious schemer. He could not for the moment decide which. And he would not have cared to bet on the outcome. He decided to take Kempis's advice and not trouble to imagine.

Imagination was one of the few indulgences left to William Spandrel, in his cell beneath the Stadhuis in Amsterdam. The days slipped slowly by, measured in the drift of light across the wall, in its strengthening and its weakening. Cloisterman did not return. Nor was Spandrel called for re-examination. It was as if he had been forgotten by all save the guards. His wounds healed, but the meagre diet of bread and ale sapped his strength. Only his thoughts roamed freely, back into his past and out across his uncharted future. Always they returned to the two questions he could not begin to answer. What was in the despatch-box? And why had de Vries been killed? Not for his money, it seemed. But there was a reason. There had to be. Spandrel's only hope of finding out what it was rested in other people. And that was hardly any hope at all.

Nicholas Cloisterman was perhaps the person upon whom Spandrel was relying the most. He had, after all, promised to see what he could do. Alas for Spandrel, he had decided in the days following his visit to the Stadhuis cells that what he should do, even if it was less than what he could do, was nothing. He was inclined to believe Spandrel's plea of innocence, but to involve himself in such a tangled affair unnecessarily would surely be folly. One did not thrive in the consular service by annoying the local authorities. If the Sheriff wished to persuade himself that Spandrel was an agent of the Marquis de Prie, so be it. Spandrel was a person of no consequence. Nobody would care if he lived or died; nobody, at all events, who might ever call Cloisterman to account. Reluctantly, therefore, though not very reluctantly, he dismissed him from his thoughts.

Such a dismissal did not prove as simple a matter as he had supposed, however. Friday morning found him, as was his wont, lingering over a cup of chocolate and a quiet pipe in Hoppe's coffee-house at the western end of the Spui canal, perusing a fortnight-old copy of Parker's London News. He was several paragraphs into a chronicle of the latest outrages of highwaymen on Finchley Common when an ostentatious throat clearance drew his attention to a lean, lugubrious fellow who was standing by his table and looking at him critically down an eagle's beak of a nose.

'Can I help you?' Cloisterman snapped.

'I hope you may be able to, sir. My name is Jupe. I am in the service of Sir Theodore Janssen.'

'Janssen, you say?' Cloisterman closed his newspaper. 'That's odd.'

"Why, sir?'

'Never mind. What can I do for you?'

'I was told I might find you here. May I... join you?'

'Very well. But I...' He drew out his watch. 'I have very little time to spare.'

'Of course. We are all pressed.' Jupe sat down. 'You are Mr Cloisterman, the vice-consul?'

'Yes.'

'I wonder if you can help me. I am making inquiries on Sir Theodore's behalf, concerning...' Jupe lowered his voice. 'Mijnheer de Vries.'

'Mijnheer de Vries is dead.'

'Indeed, sir. Murdered, so I understand. By a fellow-countryman of ours. William Spandrel.'

'I know little of the matter, Mr...'

'Jupe, sir. Did I not say? Nicodemus Jupe.'

He had said. And Cloisterman had not forgotten. But he did not wish to imply that he was paying as much attention to this grave-faced emissary of the deep-dealing Sir Theodore Janssen as in truth he was. 'An Englishman called Spandrel is in custody, I believe.'

'I am told you have visited him in his place of confinement, sir.'

'You seem to have been told a good deal, Mr Jupe.'

'But not enough to satisfy Sir Theodore as to the circumstances of his old friend's death.'

'It is gratifying to know that Sir Theodore is able to spare a thought for a murdered friend in the midst of all his other... difficulties.'

'They were very old friends, sir.'

'And business partners of long standing, I'll warrant.'

'Since you mention business, sir, there's a matter on which I'd value your advice.'

'Oh yes?'

'Spandrel was engaged by Sir Theodore to deliver an article of some value to Mijnheer de Vries. Sir Theodore is naturally anxious to establish the whereabouts of that article.'

'Spandrel told me about the package. I wasn't sure whether to believe him.'

'You may believe him about that, sir. The question is: did he deliver it?'

'So he claims. If you're in doubt, ask de Vries's secretary — a fellow called Zuyler.'

'I would, sir, if I could. But Zuyler has left Amsterdam. As has the widow de Vries.'

'Really?' Cloisterman tried not to appear surprised. The fact remained, however, that he was. Spandrel had flung accusations of murder at Zuyler, mendacity at Estelle de Vries and conspiracy at the pair of them. Cloisterman had been inclined to regard this as the desperate talk of a desperate man. Now, he was not so sure. 'How long have they been gone?'

'I don't know, sir. The staff at the house were not very forthcoming.'

'Did they go together?'

'There again...' Jupe shrugged. 'Their destination was likewise not disclosed to me.'

'Do you think they took the package with them?'

'It's possible, sir.'

'No doubt you feel unable to disclose to me its contents.'

'They have not been disclosed to me, sir.' Was Jupe lying? Cloisterman's instincts told him that, if not actually lying, he was at least dissembling. Whether he had been told or not, he knew what the package contained. 'Sir Theodore entrusted the package to Mijnheer de Vries. Mijnheer de Vries is dead. Sir Theodore therefore requires the return of the package. He is entitled to insist upon it.'

'Then let him come here and insist.'

'That is not presently possible.'

'Quite. Let us turn, then, to what is possible. Spandrel has told all who will listen that Zuyler murdered Mijnheer de Vries and conspired with de Vries's wife to incriminate him. The Sheriff prefers to believe that Spandrel murdered de Vries, acting on behalf of a hostile foreign power.'

'Spandrel is no assassin, sir.'

'He does not seem to have the makings of one, does he? And now the two people he accused have left Amsterdam, with, you believe, the package he delivered to de Vries.' Cloisterman paused, expecting Jupe to confirm this last point. When no confirmation came, he frowned at the other man and said, 'What is the package worth, Mr Jupe?'

'Worth, sir?'

'Yes. What is it worth?'

'I have no way of knowing, sir.'

Cloisterman gave an exasperated sigh. 'In that case, neither you nor I can say whether Spandrel's accusations are likely to have any substance.' He picked up his newspaper and reopened it with a flourish. 'And there would appear to be nothing more I can do for you.'

In London, that same Friday morning, Dalrymple's despatch reached the desk of James, Earl Stanhope, His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Northern Department. It did not find his noble lordship in a receptive mood. Recent weeks had been a trial for him. He had known little and understood less of the whole South Sea affair, preferring to leave financial matters to the management of his principal political ally and First Lord of the Treasury, the Earl of Sunderland, while he concentrated his endeavours on the creation of a new and stable order of relations between the European states. All his achievements in that regard were now imperilled, however, by the embarrassment, bordering on disgrace, that the failure of the South Sea scheme had brought to the Government.