He approached with his usual stealth, and was unimpressed when Sergeant Wright and his White Hall soldiers did not notice him until he was standing next to them. Several were rubbing sleep from their eyes, while others reeked of ale. He doubted they had done much in the way of surveillance, and the best the Earl could hope was that their presence had been a deterrent to thieves.
Wright was regaling them with a story of his courage during the civil wars, when he had single-handedly defeated an entire regiment of Parliamentarians and had come close to dispatching Cromwell in the process. They looked bored and disbelieving in equal measure as they huddled around a brazier, waiting for a pot of ale to warm through.
‘Did anything happen last night?’ asked Chaloner, cutting into the tale. He was normally tolerant of men who embellished the truth about what they had done during those uncertain times, when both sides had had their flaws and no one wanted to admit to backing the loser. But there was a difference between exaggeration and brazen lies.
The dough-faced sergeant regarded him frostily, disliking the interruption. ‘No.’
‘You saw and heard nothing?’
‘I said no,’ snapped Wright. ‘Obviously, the villains knew we were here and dared not strike. We are not foppish Roundheads, who would not know what to do if a robber came up and bit him.’
His men sniggered obligingly, and Wright preened, revelling in the role of wit.
‘So the Earl’s supplies are all present and correct?’ pressed Chaloner, rather flattered to hear himself described as foppish. He would have to tell Hannah.
‘Of course,’ replied Wright, with calculated insolence. ‘Where else would they be?’
Chaloner grabbed his arm in a grip that was not only painful, but was difficult to break, and marched him to where the materials were piled. The soldiers watched uneasily, but made no effort to intervene.
‘Count the bricks,’ Chaloner ordered, releasing Wright so abruptly that he stumbled.
Wright’s small eyes took on a vicious cant, and he reached for his knife. Chaloner smiled lazily as he did likewise, and Wright promptly turned to do as he was told, unnerved by the spy’s calm confidence. He was soldier enough to know who would win that confrontation.
The sergeant finished his inventory with some consternation, then started reckoning again. Chaloner waited patiently for him to finish. He had not needed to count to know the pile was lopsided in a way that it had not been the previous day.
‘Some are gone,’ Wright breathed, appalled. Then his expression hardened. ‘You took them when we were in the tav- when we were patrolling the back of the house. To get us into trouble!’
‘I assure you, I have better things to do.’
‘We could not be everywhere,’ another man bleated. ‘It is a huge site, with gardens as well as a massive house. That makes it easy for thieves. It is not our fault!’
‘How long were you here before you went to the Crown?’ asked Chaloner, not bothering to point out that he had done it for a week on his own.
‘Of course we visited the Crown!’ snarled Wright. ‘That is where Mr Pratt the architect lodges, and we are hired to protect him. We did both duties.’
Chaloner tried another tack. ‘Then how many men guarded Pratt, and how many stayed here?’
‘It varied,’ replied Wright tightly, leaving Chaloner to suspect that most if not all had elected to sit in the tavern. No one was wet and cold, as he had been the previous morning, indicating none had been outdoors for very long.
‘I am telling Clarendon that you pinched his bricks,’ declared Wright, eyeing Chaloner defiantly. ‘You did it for malice, because we are better guards than you. And then you sold them.’
Chaloner did not grace the accusation with a reply, confident in the knowledge that the Earl would not believe it. Clarendon might have a generally low opinion of his intelligencer, but he had never doubted his honesty.
‘He did not steal them,’ said one of the others. ‘Look at his clothes — they are too clean.’
Wright swallowed uneasily. ‘Maybe they are just mislaid, then. We will search the site. You lot look, while I stay here and keep the fire going.’
Muttering resentfully, the guards shuffled away, although Chaloner knew they were wasting their time. He had conducted a thorough search when he had first returned from Tangier, and there was no indication that the missing supplies were being stored in the house or its grounds.
‘We will find them,’ predicted Wright confidently. ‘So you had better not go braying to the Earl about them being gone, because it will not be true.’
‘I have no intention of telling him. He does not react well to bad news.’
Wright glowered, but said no more.
‘It is curious, though,’ said Chaloner, more to himself than the sergeant. ‘These thefts started after the walls and roof were finished — when the bulk of the building was completed, and the materials available were considerably reduced. Moreover, it is easy to pilfer items that are stacked outside, but some — like the planks yesterday — disappeared from inside the house.’
‘Supply and demand, mate,’ shrugged Wright. ‘Maybe the villains had no market when the house was in its early stages.’
Chaloner supposed he would have to explore the city with a view to learning who else’s home was being made from fine bricks and oaken planks. It would not be easy, but it represented a lead, and he decided to follow it as soon as he had a free moment.
* * *
It was not long before Pratt arrived, his gloomy assistant Oliver in tow. Reluctantly, Wright confessed that a number of bricks were gone, although he was careful to reiterate that he could not be expected to monitor such a large site and protect the architect with only ten men.
‘Chaloner managed,’ Oliver pointed out. ‘Well, he did not have Pratt to mind, too, but-’
‘And he was just as ineffective,’ interrupted Pratt angrily. ‘Is no one in London capable of doing his job? I have been invited to submit a design for rebuilding St Paul’s Cathedral, but I do not think I shall bother. Not if it entails labouring amid thieves and men who cannot deter them.’
‘Ignore him, Chaloner,’ said Oliver kindly, once the architect had stalked away. ‘He is in a bad mood today, because a lot of carousing in the Crown kept him awake last night. He is thinking of going to stay with a friend in Charing Cross tonight, just to get some sleep.’
‘I found the Crown rather tame, personally,’ said Wright, thus indicating the probable source of the disturbance.
Supposing he had better ensure the rest of the house was in order, Chaloner walked with Oliver towards it. Yet again, he was seized with the notion that it would bring the Earl trouble. It towered above them, as grand as anything owned by the extravagant kings of France, and the doors in the showy portico would not have looked out of place on a cathedral. Pratt was in the process of opening them with a key that, not surprisingly, was identical to the Earl’s.
‘Is it a good idea to have all the locks on the same key?’ asked Chaloner, sure it was not.
Pratt scowled. ‘Do not presume to tell me my business. And anyway, all the locks are not on the same key. The strongroom has one of its own.’
‘Have we told you about the strongroom?’ asked Oliver, his morose visage breaking into what was almost a smile. ‘It is designed so that no air can get inside once the door is shut. In that way, if there is ever a fire, its contents will be protected. It might even save lives, because Clarendon himself could use it, to escape being incinerated.’
‘Yes, but only if he does not mind being suffocated instead,’ Chaloner pointed out.