A Masterpiece of Corruption Read online

  Almost without our noticing, the dampness in the air has made up its mind to become rain and the wind has made up its mind to throw the rain in our faces. I pull my own cloak about me before replying.

  ‘But these are general dangers,’ I say. ‘There is some very specific plot that the Sealed Knot is hatching and that Hyde has been asked to approve. If I fail to kill Cromwell, and I assure you I mean to fail, there is another already in place and eager to take up the cause: a man with a hatred for His Highness. I think it may be somebody close to him. Ripley said: “You also have access to the Lord Protector’s household”. So this other assassin, whoever it is, would seem to be able to enter the court freely. He may be somebody you know and trust.’

  Probert considers this, while the cold rain drips down my neck. Lincoln’s Inn has dissolved into a shadow of itself. He rubs his shoulder again and sighs. ‘I must ask for further instructions. It may chance that you have discovered nothing we do not already know. Or it may chance otherwise. I must speak to Mr Secretary Thurloe or his assistant, Mr Morland.’

  ‘Not Morland,’ I say.

  Probert looks at me oddly. Morland is, after all, a senior official. I saw him often when I worked for Mr Thurloe. Why should he not know of something that touches the Lord Protector in this way? Probert clearly suspects that I have not told him everything. But he lives in a world in which the whole tale is rarely offered up without the immediate prospect of torture. He does not press me.

  ‘I shall speak only to Mr Thurloe if you wish,’ he says, rubbing the rain from his face with a large palm, then wiping his hand on his cloak. ‘Meet me here tomorrow, under this elm, at the same hour.’

  ‘And if Ripley finds me and asks me what progress I have made?’

  ‘Say that the cousin who was to give you a post at court is sick and that it will take longer than you thought to find employment there – or any other reason for delay that you choose to give him. Say that you will write to him when you are able to gain admission, but do not say there is no hope. While he has expectation of your victory, he will not unleash his reserve divisions – whoever the man is.’

  ‘I have no cousin,’ I say.

  Probert slaps me a little too heartily on the arm. ‘You must learn to lie a little, Mr Grey. There are times when too much truth can kill a man stone dead!’

  Morland might have made much the same observation – if he and I were on speaking terms. I have, as I say, worked for Mr Thurloe, and indeed for Mr Morland himself. Morland is a clever man who places a high value on cleverness. He is a good-looking man who places a high value on good looks. He places little value, if any, on loyalty. I know him better than I would like. I cannot prove he is a secret Royalist, but if anyone within Mr Thurloe’s office might betray me, it is Morland. He will betray me, however, only if it is to his advantage, and he will take his time to decide if that is so. In that sense he is less dangerous than my father, who may betray me out of ignorance, or my landlady, who may betray me out of love of ancient titles and Brussels lace. Perhaps it is my landlady whom I should fear most.

  ‘Will says you made him run an errand for you this morning. He says it was snowing. His shoes and hose are still wet.’

  My landlady is less than pleased. Will was supposed to be laying fires and cleaning pots. I am sorry for the state of his footwear, but his alacrity to accept my commission is now explained.

  ‘Rain mixed with a little sleet,’ I reply. ‘There is no snow as yet. I needed to send a message to Mr S. K.’

  I have already discovered that Mr S. K. may take liberties that I may not. Mistress Reynolds readily cleaned my muddy boots when I returned from Gray’s Inn, for example. She hopes that my Royalist friend Mr S. K. – to whom she sometimes refers hopefully as His Lordship – will visit me soon. She hopes I will apprise him of the merits of her daughter.

  ‘Well,’ she simpers, ‘just this once. But next time, please ask me before you give orders to the servants.’

  She speaks as if she had armies of footmen to command. The only other servant is in fact a witless girl, whose duties are vaguely specified but always onerous. She lives in the darkest recesses of the kitchen and is rarely allowed anywhere else in the house. I fear that if I gave her a message to carry, she would drop it and break it, as is her custom with most useful things that come her way.

  ‘The gentleman with much lace about him who delivered the letter to me the other day – you have not seen him since?’ I ask.

  ‘No. You were expecting him to return?’

  ‘I hope not – I mean, I’m not sure. Please inform me at once, however, if you do see him. And if he asks where I am, say that you do not know.’

  ‘You are very mysterious, Mr Grey.’ She prods me playfully in the chest, something she never did before I made the acquaintance of nobility.

  I try to smile but do not succeed. I hope that, after tomorrow, I can stop being mysterious in any way whatsoever. Thurloe will arrest Ripley and Brodrick, without my name entering the conversation, and all will be well again.

  My landlady’s report of snow was premature but prescient. A thin layer of white now lies on Lincoln’s Inn Fields, slowly melting as the day wears on and the sun takes the sharpness off the early chill. The air is damp and opaque. The antick turrets and crenellations of Lincoln’s Inn are just an outline against the fog, with here and there a smudge of candlelight brightening the daytime dark. All around me is the noise of London – the voices, the grinding of iron-shod wheels on the cobblestones – but muffled and far away. Strepitum Londinii, as Probert would doubtless remind me. A solitary, bedraggled leaf spins slowly downwards to join the snow-covered drifts that have gathered beneath the London plane trees. Then for a while nothing happens at all. I think I am under the right elm, but Probert is late and my cloak is becoming as water-logged as everything else.

  A shape emerges slowly and a dim shadow becomes a living person. But it is not Probert. A beggar approaches me with more optimism than is justified.

  ‘A penny, kind sir, to buy bread on a raw day?’

  I look him up and down. His clothes are as damp as mine but worn and patched. The brim of his hat is torn. But his beard is well-trimmed, as if he has a little pride remaining. I look over his shoulder in case I can catch a glimpse of Probert. Whoever this man is, I do not want him to see us together.

  ‘I have nothing for you,’ I say. ‘Be on your way, my good fellow.’

  ‘Just a penny, sir. Those who give also receive.’

  ‘That is good theology but poor accounting.’

  ‘You may receive sooner than you imagine, good sir. You might even receive something from me. For a penny.’

  ‘You have nothing I could possibly want.’

  The man edges closer to me. ‘If you are too mean to give a penny to a starving beggar, just put your hand in your pocket, Mr Grey, and pretend to pass me a coin. Even you must be able to feign charity.’

  I feel in my pocket and seize upon the first coin I can find, which I pass to him, almost dropping it in my haste. As I withdraw my hand I realise that he has placed a small wad of paper in mine.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he says. ‘That was most generous of you. Most generous. May God bless you and all your family.’

  I wonder what coin I gave him. By its weight, I fear it may have been half a crown. A penny, given freely and timeously, would have saved me two shillings and fivepence.

  He shuffles off into the gloom, a little richer than before. I look around me again to ascertain who may have seen this exchange, but he has chosen his moment well. The fog has closed in and such shapes as I see may be men or may be phantoms. I slip my hand into my pocket and wait while I count to a hundred. Two figures pass by, hurrying towards Lincoln’s Inn, but they do not even glance at me. They are thinking doubtless of the blazing fires and perhaps mulled cider in their chambers. I wait while the splash of wet leather soles on slushy snow recedes, then I take my hand from my pocket very casually, as if I had had the paper th
ere all the time. I open it and read it.

  Mr Probert sends his greetings to Mr Grey and asks that he attend upon him in Mr Thurloe’s office presently. There is more to this matter than meets the eye.

  He may be right. I stare into the mist. Nothing now meets my eye but the swirling vapour.

  Mr Secretary Thurloe

  There is no mist in Thurloe’s office, but he too stares ahead of him. It is as if he has not noticed we are there, though in fact we are, and have been for some time. I am allowed to examine his profile, the flowing black hair, the straight nose, the full lips. His linen collar is broad, falling over the glossy black stuff of which his doublet is made. My landlady, observing his clothes, would feel he had spent much money to little effect. Beyond him, through the window, I notice that the sun has finally broken through the morning mist. I can see Westminster Abbey, its roof covered in melting snow. Its towers are fragmented by the many angles of the small panes of glass in Thurloe’s window and by the lead strips between them. But everything, seen from this office, is of a slightly different shape than when viewed in the street below. This is where secrets are lodged, to be cherished or shattered, to be discarded or glued back together.

  Thurloe has not asked us to sit. It may be that we are not to be here long, or it may be that he has forgotten. Either is possible, for I know Thurloe of old. It was my mother, who has friends in the office of Cromwell’s spymaster as well as in the Sealed Knot, who once found me employment here and caused me to meet Morland. But my stay was brief. I am not a natural secret agent, for all that my mother considered it a safe and gentlemanly profession.

  Thurloe has greeted me as politely as I might expect. He now pushes a pile of secrets to one side of his desk as if to clear his mind.

  ‘Ripley and Brodrick?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘Brodrick we are aware of,’ says Probert, though whether for my benefit or Thurloe’s is unclear. ‘He is the Sealed Knot’s Secretary and an accomplished traitor. We do not, however, know anything about Mr Ripley.’

  ‘Sir Michael de Ripley,’ I say. ‘He claims to be a baronet.’

  ‘And you think he is one?’

  ‘He wore a great deal of lace. My landlady would have no doubt that he was a baronet at least – and she is a good judge of these matters.’

  Thurloe looks at me to see if I am joking. Thurloe never makes jokes. I’m not sure he understands what purpose they serve. His mouth smiles.

  ‘Many men wear lace,’ he says. ‘As for his antecedents … there was a Sir Everard de Ripley, who was in the King’s army during the late war. Prince Rupert led him into a hail of musket balls but did not lead him out again. We thought that his son had died at the Battle of Worcester. Apparently not. I wonder where he has been since?’

  I nod. A good friend of mine, Marius Clifford, also died at Worcester, the last throw of the dice for the Royalist party before the ignominious flight of Charles Stuart. My mother has never suggested Worcester as the place of my father’s death. I do not know why. For many it was a perfectly good place to die. As for Ripley, I suspect that, like many Royalists, he slips backwards and forwards across the Channel as he needs to.

  ‘And who is Sir Richard Willys?’ I ask. ‘We met in his chamber at Gray’s Inn.’

  Probert glances quickly at Thurloe. Thurloe frowns before speaking.

  ‘A former Royalist officer,’ he says. ‘Like many Cavaliers, he has given his word that he has abandoned his old allegiances and is now loyal to the Republic. He attends to the law, just as you do, but perhaps a little more profitably. He practises at Gray’s Inn. No harm in that. We – how shall I put this? – observe Sir Richard from time to time. And since he knows we observe him, he would not take the risk of using his chamber thus. Indeed, Mr Probert has recently informed me that Sir Richard is out of town at present. The porters at Gray’s Inn are easily bribed. They possess keys to all rooms. They would have known that one was empty and made it available to Brodrick for a small fee. That is all there is to be said on the matter. It is the identity of these other two persons that interests us – I mean the man they have mistaken you for, and the man whom the Sealed Knot had intended should murder His Highness.’

  ‘They have mistaken me for …’ again I pause before my tongue runs away and accuses my father of treason ‘… for an agent of Hyde’s, whose reasons for visiting England are unknown.’

  Thurloe looks at me, as if he thinks I have not told him something, as if I should clarify that statement. But I think my father would prefer it if I did not.

  ‘As to the man who will take over my task if I fail,’ I continue, ‘I have even less idea, but it would seem to be somebody now in London. Somebody close to His Highness. But he has been instructed to stay his hand until Hyde gives his approval.’

  ‘I wonder if he has received that instruction,’ says Thurloe. ‘An attempt was made on the Lord Protector’s life yesterday. Somebody cut through his saddle girth, intending that it should break while he was riding.’

  ‘His Highness is not hurt?’

  ‘No, God be praised. This person cut a little too far. Perhaps he does not ride horses himself – or perhaps he worked in haste, for the girth snapped as the groom tightened it. Of course, it may not be either of the men that Ripley spoke of. Or, then again, perhaps it is. This other courier or agent that you were mistaken for – you think he could be an assassin?’

  I think of my father, out there somewhere, plodding along the Dover Road on a tired, mud-caked horse, cloak pulled up around his face. Or perhaps striding through the streets of London, making for Whitehall or Gray’s Inn.

  ‘It was merely Ripley’s assumption,’ I say. ‘No more than that.’

  ‘Perhaps then it is the second man on whom we should concentrate,’ says Thurloe.

  ‘I agree,’ I say, with a certain amount of relief. ‘I’m sure you will find him out.’

  ‘No, Mr Grey, you will find him out.’

  ‘Me?’ I ask, though Thurloe’s meaning is plain.

  ‘You,’ says Thurloe, who believes that things can never be quite plain enough. ‘The Knot clearly trusts you. You have bought us time while we try to track down this man of theirs. But perhaps you can buy us more than time – names, dates, places. You have already unmasked Ripley. Who knows what else they will tell you?’

  ‘I had hoped,’ I say, ‘that you would simply arrest Ripley and Brodrick in a manner that placed no blame on me, so that I could return to the study of law at Lincoln’s Inn.’

  Thurloe nods encouragingly. ‘Unfortunately that will not be possible,’ he says. ‘We cannot arrest Ripley and Brodrick until we know what their design is. Arguably we have no grounds for arresting Ripley at all.’

  ‘Arrest Brodrick then,’ I say. ‘You know he is the Secretary of the Sealed Knot.’

  ‘The question would be,’ says Thurloe, ‘how we knew he was the Secretary of the Sealed Knot. The answer is, of course, that we have bought ourselves a member of the Sealed Knot – I obviously cannot tell you who that is. It is unlikely, however, that our source of information would wish to give evidence in open court. Nor would we want him to. He would be able to provide us with little further information once he had done so.’

  ‘They would kill him?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Just as they will kill me if they find I have informed on them?’

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘And if I simply decline to help you?’

  ‘You would be free to leave,’ says Thurloe.

  ‘And you could protect me from the Sealed Knot?’

  ‘I have many informants. I cannot possibly guard them all. Men who come here with information know the risks. Since you have worked here, you above all know that.’

  ‘But if I agree to go to the Lord Protector’s court, as I have promised Ripley I shall do?’

  ‘Ah, at court … That’s a much better idea. Yes, we could watch over you there.’

  ‘You appear to le
ave me with little choice.’

  ‘That was certainly my intention.’

  ‘Very well,’ I say. ‘I will go and I will ask questions. I shall see if any further intelligence slips into my hands. But that is all.’

  ‘Good,’ says Thurloe. ‘You must not communicate with us under your own name. We will call you …’

  ‘Mr Plautus?’ says Probert.

  ‘Mr Plautus,’ says Thurloe.

  I wonder whether I can at least ask to be Mr Cicero or Mr Virgil but it seems it is decided. This is to be a low comedy, not lyric poetry.

  ‘We shall find you an obscure post at court – perhaps as a cook or serving man. You will tell the Knot that your cousin secured it for you.’

  ‘I do not have a cousin,’ I repeat. ‘The Knot knows my family. It will be aware that I do not have a cousin.’

  Thurloe ignores this reasonable objection. ‘You will report back to them, as Mr Cardinal, from time to time, with harmless accounts of His Highness’s past movements. In the meantime you will continue with your real task – to uncover this assassin, or assassins. You shall report to me whenever you can.’

  I wonder whether to raise the delicate question of how the real courier might be stopped before he makes contact with Ripley. But much though my mother might enjoy the prospect of my father’s detention by the authorities at Dover or elsewhere, I must stay silent and hope that his mission is blameless and that he will avoid the Sealed Knot, as he was apparently instructed to do. No mention has been made of Samuel Morland, who might also betray me. Perhaps he is on business elsewhere. If so, that is well. I shall not ask, at any event. I do not wish to stir that hornet’s nest.

  ‘Iacta alia est,’ says Probert. ‘The die is indeed cast. You are a brave man, Grey. The life of a double agent can be exciting but very short.’

  ‘But I am not a double agent,’ I say. ‘I have never been a member of the Sealed Knot.’