“You think this fellow downstairs—?”
“I think he follows us, at the very least.”
“Mayhap I should have tête à tête with him. With my open, country-looking face—”
“No, no!” Daniel cried. “We must leave here at once. If we see him again at Edinburgh, it will be time enough to act. Quickly, Tuffley, tell the boy to bring our horses!”
And so, fleeing through the rear of the inn to escape the notice of the fanatic, Daniel and I set out northward again in the middle of the night, through a driving rain. Daniel stopped ever and again, listening for the sound of a follower’s horse, but none did we hear, and we reached Edinburgh late the following day without having seen or heard signs of pursuit.
Daniel led me at once to The White Swan, an inn in the northern part of the city, where the innkeeper, a rubicund Scot named McClain greeted him with a warm embrace — Daniel having stayed at this inn on his frequent trips to Edinburgh — and showed him to his finest and largest room. To me the innkeeper gave the smallest and dingiest, but it was ever so when I accompanied the famous Defoe on his political journeys, and I made no complaint.
After resting a bit from the fatigues of our journey, Daniel and I descended to the public room and were served fine beef and a mug of porter by a personable young serving-maid.
Besides ourselves, there were two others dining in the room — one a young man in square-cut clothes, with a reddish face, a scoop of a nose, and a wide, flexible mouth; the other an older man, with grey hair and beard and chill, grey eyes, precise in his gestures, looking like a merchant from Aberdeen or Perth. After the first look at Defoe and me as we entered, neither man gave us further attention — which was strange, I thought, since we had always found the Scottish inns such friendly places.
I could see that Daniel was disappointed that the man he had come to converse with, Rogers, had not yet arrived, and he kept constantly glancing towards the door.
Finally Daniel said: “He’s a master’s mate on His Majesty’s ship, Weymouth, which is now anchored in the Firth, McClain tells me. Rogers ought soon to be here.”
After dinner, Defoe ordered a tass of brandy, and as the maid served it, she accidentally tipped the cup so the contents ran all over the table.
Never have I seen an innkeeper in such a mountainous rage over so little. McClain, red in the face, his blue eyes blazing struck the serving-maid roughly on the cheek. She retired cringing behind the counter, and McClain mopped up the offending liquor with his towel, complaining to Daniel the while.
“ ’Tis muckle discouragin’, Mr. Defoe, to have your business ruined by sluts who have nae manners. If my own daughter was here now, that wouldnae happen. You remember my daughter, Mr. Defoe?”
“She had red hair,” Daniel said obligingly.
“Aye, that’s my Nan. She was a great help to her father she was, before she went away—”
I sat marvelling at what solicitation fame attracted to itself. If the serving-girl had spilled brandy into my lap, I was sure there would have been no great ado. Fame had its compensations, I reflected, although as I looked at Defoe’s anxious face, I knew it also had its grave penalties.
As the innkeeper mourned his lost Nan without replacing the tass of brandy, the door opened and a sailor entered. He was a large, crude-looking fellow with small eyes and a dark beard spotted with white; I judged him to be in his forties. He thrust his legs apart as if bracing them for battle, and looked belligerently around the room.
“Mr. Rogers?” Daniel asked, rising.
“Aye, my name’s Rogers,” the man said with a strong Scottish accent, advancing to our table. “Mr. Defoe?”
The sailor put out his hand, stopped when he saw the innkeeper staring at him, and asked harshly: “What business have you with me?”
The landlord shrugged and moved ponderously behind the counter the while Rogers sat down with us.
“You will stay the night here so we may talk?” Daniel asked eagerly.
“That was the agreement,” the sailor replied.
“And you are willing to give me your permission in writing to use any or all of the material you give me tonight?”
“Aye, for the price agreed upon in your letter.”
“Very well,” Defoe said, satisfied. “Take a room of your own now, and then we shall talk.” He motioned to the innkeeper placing a restraining hand upon my arm as I started to rise, and whispered that he’d rather speak alone with Rogers; so I remained where I was.
As Defoe and Rogers went out, with the innkeeper lumbering after them, the other two men, who now sat smoking before the fireplace, looked after Defoe. The blond young man seemed frankly curious, and the older one cast a side-wise look that was in no way friendly.
I went over to them and introduced myself, and in turn learned the bearded man was a wine-merchant from Liverpool, and the boy, a fervid young Scot, was returning to Aberdeen from an educational trip to the continent.
“And do you know the famous journalist Defoe?” I asked. “That was he who went just now upstairs.”
The boy, Alan McGregor, shook his head. “A distinguished gentleman, to be sure, but I dinnae ken him.”
“I do,” the merchant, Hector Masham, said sharply. “A conniving cheat who writes to suit his political master in Whitehall! Did you ken,” he said, addressing the boy, “that Mr. Defoe advocates in the Scottish press itself, that England and Scotland be united?”
“Na, na,” McGregor said, flushing with ire. “That will never-r-r be! The clans will rise and march again at the verra thought. Such a man as this Mr. Defoe is a wicked tool of the devil!”
I had hot words upon my lips when the inn door opened and another traveller entered, put down his bundle near the counter, and called to the serving-girl for an ale.
“And I want a room for the night,” he said in a voice that proclaimed his English origin.
The serving-girl nodded and drew his ale, and I said no more, but withdrew to the rear of the room to watch.
For the new lodger was the fanatical, brown-eyed man whom Daniel had noted the night before in the public room at Newcastle.
I was awakened in my chamber around the middle of the night by someone shaking me.
At first I could see nothing, but outside I could hear the rain sluicing down, and the wind thundering against the windows from across the Firth. The window lighted up with wild fire, then just as suddenly went black again; but in the flash I saw Daniel’s white face hovering over me.
“Tuffley, wake up!” he cried. “Something dreadful has happened!”
“I’m awake, Daniel,” I said.
“Listen, then. I talked with Rogers until very late. He told me what I wanted to know, and then you came to tire door and informed me the fanatic had come. I mentioned to Rogers that I feared I was being followed, and might be attacked in my bed again. He laughed and said he would change rooms with me. ‘Let them try it with me,’ he said. And so I agreed; I went to sleep in his room, and he stayed in mine. After a while I woke up with several more questions in my mind, and fearing that Rogers might be gone by morning, I went to the room to speak with him. The door was unlocked. I entered and found him strangled, and his neck broken.” Daniel shook me again. “Don’t you see, Tuffley? Whoever it was, thought I was in that room. If we hadn’t exchanged—”
I was up and had a candle lit by this time, and when I turned to Daniel he was sitting in his dressing-robe on the edge of my bed, deep in sober and somber thought. Finally he said, slowly, “If word of this gets back to my enemies in London, they’ll twist the story to make it appear as if I am the murderer. They’ll try to destroy what little reputation I have left by sending me to Newgate again. I cannot let them do that. My back is against the wall now, Tuffley, and I needs must fight. I must discover who murdered Rogers.”