‘The bird had them,’ replied Faith, looking angrier still. ‘What a waste of good butter!’
‘The kitchen is now out of bounds for the night,’ said North to Chaloner. ‘The turkey will forage in the yard in daylight, but it moves indoors when dusk falls, and no Christian soul can stop it.’
Chaloner wondered whether the bird’s near starvation had rendered it unusually aggressive, or whether it was common for turkeys to take over a house if they were not executed immediately. He struggled not to laugh at the situation. Faith detected his amusement, and became cool with him.
‘Have you eaten tonight? If not, do have some raisins.’
‘I am not hungry,’ lied Chaloner. She had made the offer from spite, knowing he hated raisins with a passion. ‘But I should leave. It is very late and I still have some work to do.’
‘Paid work?’ asked Metje, rather eagerly.
‘He means to practise his music,’ said North with a fond smile. ‘But choose something more cheerful than the sad piece you played yesterday, Heyden. It was so mournful, it made Metje cry.’
‘Did it?’ asked Chaloner, startled.
‘It reminded me of home,’ said Metje uncomfortably. She stood up. ‘Do not let us keep you, Thomas. I will see you to the door.’
‘You do not have to go,’ said Temperance. ‘Sit next to me and show me those coin tricks again.’
‘Coin tricks?’ echoed Faith. She looked uneasily from her daughter to Chaloner, making him wonder what she thought they had entailed. ‘What sort of coin tricks?’
‘Nothing too debauched. And now he needs to work,’ said Metje, elbowing him towards the door. He did not want to go: it was warm and comfortable in the Norths’ house, and the prospect of a cold, lonely garret was not an enticing one. But he bowed to the Norths, aware of Faith regarding Temperance in motherly dismay, and followed Metje into the corridor, closing the door behind him. A murmur of conversation began, and he could hear someone stoking up the fire.
‘I was in no hurry to leave,’ he said, watching her unbar the front door and feeling his stomach growl emptily. ‘There was no need to force me out.’
‘You should not waste time fooling around with Temperance when you could be earning money for the rent,’ she said sharply. ‘Go to your translating. I lit the lamp for you.’
‘Did you really cry last night?’
‘It was such a gloomy tune,’ she replied, looking away. ‘And I keep thinking about what will happen if our countries go to war. Everything is so horribly uncertain.’
‘I am sorry, Meg.’ He tried to touch her, but she pulled away from him.
‘Go to your translating, or Faith will think you are seducing her servants, as well as her daughter.’
Chaloner did not like leaving Metje when she was ridden with anxieties, and was angry with himself, feeling he was letting her down by failing to provide her with the security she craved. A feeling of inadequacy washed over him as he climbed the stairs to his rooms, and he decided he would locate Barkstead’s treasure, even if it meant a journey to Holland. Clarendon would then pass him to Williamson, who was said to be intelligent, so would see the wisdom of using experienced men to help avert a crisis with the Dutch. And he would learn who killed Clarke and watch Kelyng for Thurloe, since two sources of income would surely allay Metje’s fears.
‘Heyden,’ came a soft voice from the stairwell. ‘Is that you?’
Stifling a sigh of annoyance, Chaloner retraced his steps. ‘Did I disturb you, Mr Ellis?’
The landlord shook his grey head. ‘I wanted to make sure you were not a whore. I like your lamp, by the way. I might accept that in lieu of rent, should you find yourself unable to pay this week.’
‘Thank you,’ said Chaloner, hoping it would not be necessary. Metje would be furious.
He walked back up the stairs, wondering whether he could petition Clarendon for an advance on his pay. It was not something he liked to ask; no man wanted to be a beggar. However, he was not so engrossed in his worries that he did not realise something was amiss in his room when he started to unlock it. The hall outside was always draughty, but when he put his fingers to the bottom of the door, there was a veritable gale whistling under it. There was also no flicker of light from the lamp Metje said she had lit. Had Ellis turned it off? Standing well back, Chaloner opened the door slowly, then waited a moment before entering, alert for any indication that someone was inside.
But the room was empty, and the icy draught was the result of a smashed window. Shards of glass were strewn across the floor, and the lamp had blown out. He walked to the broken pane and looked into the street below, aware that someone might be lurking there to see what would happen when he returned and found the mess – someone with a gun. But nothing moved, and Fetter Lane appeared to be deserted, so he secured the shutters and set about rekindling the lamp. Then he searched for the missile that had caused the damage. What he found astonished him.
He had expected a stone, lobbed by the people who attacked the Nonconformist chapel – either because they had confused his house with North’s, or because he was known to be in the Puritans’ employ. However, it was no rock that lay amid the chaos of glass and splintered wood, but a black object that emitted the distinctive aroma of gunpowder. Someone had thrown a grenade. He studied it where it lay, turning it with the tip of his sword, and trying to determine why it had not exploded. He saw it was the creation of an amateur, who did not understand that the vessel holding the inflammable chemicals needed to break in order for its contents to ignite, and too sturdy a container had been used.
So, who had thrown it? Clarke’s killer, because he intended the murder to remain unsolved? Someone who did not want Barkstead’s treasure located? Kelyng, because Chaloner was Thurloe’s man, or Bennet, because Chaloner had made a fool of him? Or had someone intended to strike a blow at the Puritans – or worse, at Metje, because she was Dutch?
He dropped Sarah’s hat and wig on the table, but then shoved them behind the bed, not wanting Metje to question him about them, as Temperance had done. In an attempt to take his mind off his empty stomach, he drank a lot of water, then sat at the table and stared at the scrap of paper he had retrieved from Lee. It was less than the length of his ring finger and only half as wide; the whole document had clearly never been very large. He assessed the kind of writing materials used, holding it to the lamp to see whether heat might reveal secret marks – some spies still used lemon or onion juice. But there was nothing visible, and the paper was the cheap kind favoured by everyone. Assuming the original document was rectangular, Chaloner had the bottom right-hand corner of it.
The cipher comprised not only letters, but numbers and symbols, too – a system of substitution devised many years before Thurloe’s rise and fall. The order of the characters was fixed, but only the sender and recipient knew which letter corresponded to another, and although it was usually possible to break the code, it was a time-consuming process. It was especially troublesome when only fragments of words were available. But Chaloner was keen for answers, and was prepared to work all night if necessary. He found an old broadsheet with a blank back page and began.
He laboured until the church bells chimed one o’clock, when his eyes burned from fatigue and a headache gnawed at his temples. He sat back and rubbed his back, wondering what had happened to Metje. He returned to his task a little longer, then began to worry. She often missed one evening with him, but it was rare for her to forgo two in a row. Had the Norths become suspicious at last, and locked her in? Or had she fallen foul of whoever had lobbed the bomb as she had left North’s house to join him?