Pickering nodded.
“He had been involved in the selling of Cornish lands that had gold in them, working with a surveyor and assayer, who was the priest Fr. Jackson under whose name Tregian ended being executed-if that was actually the man’s name. In fact my mother came up to town herself to talk to him-although I don’t yet know why. His daughter is in my mother’s service and came with her-bringing a copy of a survey of the areas in question.”
Carey paused to take a drink of brandywine. “She had it in her purse under her kirtle-she’s a Cornish girl and nobody there would steal it from her so she had no idea…Anyway, she comes up to town with my mother in the Judith of Penryn, she cannot find her father where he is supposed to be lodging, she goes with my mother shopping on London Bridge, and there she sees her father’s head on a spike.”
Now it was Pickering’s turn to tut.
“Understandably she screamed the place down, spooked her horse and gave Sergeant Dodd here some trouble to control the nag. In the flurry she thinks her purse with the survey in it was stolen, or at any rate, she didn’t have it any more when she got home and the cord had been cut.”
Pickering nodded. “If it was any of my people wot nipped that bung, I’ll have the survey back in your hands by tomorrow, Sir Robert,” he said in measured tones. “There’s no chance she might of sold the survey and then…”
Carey smiled and shook his head.
“Who would she sell it to? She knows no one in London, she’s only a country maid. Besides she has been with my mother the whole time she’s spent in London.”
“Hm.”
“And one other matter. A corpse fetched up against the Queen’s Privy Stair a few days ago, but in a state that showed it had been in the water considerably longer. The man had been stabbed but died of drowning-perhaps because he was wearing leg-irons at the time he fell in the Thames. It fell into my father’s jurisdiction, and at the inquest today a woman turned up calling herself Mrs. Sophia Merry, claimed the body as Mr. Jackson, and then almost held an illegal Requiem Mass for him this same afternoon. I want to know if any of the watermen saw him going into the water? He had the top joint missing from his left index finger.”
Pickering nodded again. “They might know. I’ll ask around, Sir Robert. Now. If…ah…if any of these Cornish lands was to be offered to me, just for argument’s sake, what would you advise?”
“Mr. Pickering,” said Carey with a shrewd look, “I would advise you not to touch it with a boathook.”
“Not even as an investment? In case…ahem…there was gold?”
“And what if there were? It’s Crown prerogative in any case. You would have to dig it up, refine it, and then share anything you made with the Queen’s Majesty. Or do it in secret and risk having the whole thing confiscated. And the land is in Cornwall, for the Lord’s sake, Mr. Pickering. What do you know about Cornwall? You wouldn’t even be able to understand what they said to you, nor they you. It’s at five day’s ride from London and there are no posthouses beyond Plymouth.”
“I could take ship…”
“Mr. Pickering, if you have bought any of these lands, I advise you to sell as soon as you can and buy any land at all you can lay hands on around the Blackfriars.”
“Oh yes?” Pickering’s beady little eyes were wide open. “I fort your father owned the lot.”
“Not all of it. And he’s not selling. Nor can I tell you what his plans are with my elder brother, however…At least if it’s in London you can go and look at the place.” Carey smiled confidingly. “Please don’t tell my father I mentioned it, though.”
Pickering nodded, eyes shrewd. “Well, that’s interesting. Thank you, Sir Robert. Can I offer you gennlemen any…ah…further entertainment?”
Carey hesitated and then regretfully shook his head. “I think I should return to Somerset House, Mr. Pickering, especially as my lady mother is in town and has…er…sources of her own.”
Dodd had to hide a smile at this one, as did Pickering from the slight clamping of his teeth. Both Carey and he stood to leave.
“I’ll send a couple of my boys wiv you, Sir Robert,” said Pickering with a wink. “We don’t want no more veneys in Fleet Street, now do we?”
“Indeed not,” said Carey primly. “Thank you.”
In fact, they took a boat, which turned up the minute Mr. Briscoe roared “Oars!” from the wharf, and got out at Somerset House steps, a highly convenient way of travelling. On the way, Carey seemed thoughtful.
“How is it that ye’re sae friendly wi’ the King o’ the London thieves?” Dodd asked for pure nosiness. “Ah wouldnae have thought…”
“Oh, it’s a long story, Sergeant. Long time ago too. When I was first at Court, before I went to Scotland, I…ah…somewhat over-reached myself at a London primero game…”
“Ay?”
Carey’s expression was rueful. “Yes. Lost my shirt, actually. Literally.”
Dodd’s mouth turned down. “Ay?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to let that bother me so I was heading for my lodgings as I…ah…was…”
“Wi’out yer shirt?”
“Nothing but my underbreeches, I’m afraid. It gave a couple of punks a terrible turn, I think. Anyway, Mr. Pickering caught up with me and gave me back my cloak which was kind of him. He said he liked the way I’d carried it off and as he had suspicions about the cards, he would take it as a compliment if I would allow him to buy me some temporary duds at a pawnshop he knew on a loan so as not to…er…frighten anybody.”
Dodd was enchanted at this picture. “Ay.”
“Of course, he wasn’t the King then, he was working for the man who was. We got talking over a few quarts of beer and I told him if he wanted to draw in the courtiers with money, he should set up a game which was absolutely clean, no cheating at all, guarantee it and charge for entrance. And make sure it was somewhere comfortable.”
Carey took his hat off to a lady wearing a velvet mask as she went past in another boat. She turned away haughtily.
“And whit was it about that boy in the terrible get up?” Dodd asked.
“Occasionally, if Mr. Pickering has a player in who wins too much but he can’t work out how, he asks me to check up on him,” Carey said casually.
“And was he cheating?”
Carey gave Dodd a warning look. “No, or I would have said so,” he said, “He was simply counting cards and playing by the odds. It isn’t cheating but it does give you an advantage. There’s an Italian book explains how to do it and I expect he’s read it. That’s what I’ve been teaching you to do, by the way.”
Dodd remembered about the Italian book and its notions about numbers. “Why did ye no’ tell Pickering about that?”
Carey looked amused. “What, and have him work out how I do it myself? I don’t think so.”
***
Back at Somerset House Dodd was hoping for his bed. But no, it seemed, despite both of them being weary and the hour a ridiculously late eleven o’clock, Carey had to speak to his parents if they were still up.
They were companionably playing cards together in the little parlour in the corner of the courtyard, with wax candles on the table and a little dish of wafers to dip in their spiced evening wine.
Carey bowed to his parents and his mother immediately stood up and hugged him, and then to Dodd’s horror, gave Dodd a hug as well.
“Letty told me how you helped her when she was such a fool,” said Lady Hunsdon. “What with Sergeant Dodd spotting the trap and giving warning and you helping her leave so quickly…She said you were both wonderful. Lord alone knows what trouble there would have been if she had been taken by that evil bastard Topcliffe. She isn’t really a Papist, she’s just a silly maid that’s been wrongly taught, but in Topcliffe’s hands…”
Hunsdon smiled fondly at his wife. One of the footmen standing by the wall came forward and brought up another small table while more wafers and wine arrived so that Dodd could do something at least about his aching belly. The pork pie he had had in the afternoon was long gone and Carey, being Carey, hadn’t stopped since then.