The Earl mulled this over. ‘My disputes with Vine and Chetwynd did turn nasty,’ he conceded reluctantly. ‘I was furious when they presumed to question my judgement. And I was angry with Langston for refusing to work for me, so yes, I had reason to dislike all three. But anyone who thinks I had anything to do with their deaths is a fool. Damn Vine! Why did he have to be a victim?’
Chaloner frowned. ‘Why do you single out him in particular?’
The Earl jutted out a defiant chin. ‘I do not want to talk about it.’
Chaloner would find out anyway, although it would save time if he did not have to. ‘I would rather hear it from you, than from one of your detractors, sir,’ he said reasonably.
The Earl eyed him balefully. ‘You really are a disrespectful rogue! No wonder Thurloe kept you overseas all those years — he would have been compelled to slit your throat, had you worked here.’
Chaloner was growing tired of the Earl’s reluctance to trust him. Why could he not be more like Thurloe? Not for the first time, the Spy wished Cromwell had not died, the Commonwealth had not fallen, and Thurloe was still in charge of the intelligence services. ‘Then I will ask Vine’s family-’
‘No,’ snapped the Earl. He sighed irritably, and went to close the door to his office. He lowered his voice when he returned. ‘If you must know, Vine was black mailing me.’
Chaloner regarded him askance. ‘I doubt you have ever done anything worthy of extortion.’
For the first time in weeks, the Earl smiled at him. ‘A compliment! There is a rare event — I was under the impression you consider me something of a villain. But your good opinion is misplaced, I am afraid. Vine knew a terrible secret about me, which he threatened to make public. He said he would hold his tongue only if I agreed not to build my home in Piccadilly.’
‘Did he think it too grand?’
‘Yes, but that was not his main complaint. Raising Clarendon House will necessitate the destruction of some woods. Nightingales sing in these woods, apparently, and he did not want their song silenced.’
Chaloner struggled to understand. He liked birds himself, and the haunting sound of nightingales was a source of great delight to him, but there were other trees nearby, and the ones that would be felled to make way for the mansion were something of a jungle. Then he considered the geography.
‘Did his objections arise from the fact that he could hear these birds from his house?’
The Earl nodded. ‘It took me rather longer to grasp the selfish rationale behind his demands, but you are right. He said it was a crime against God to render nightingales homeless, but the reality was that he liked them. His family hated him, and listening to these birds was the only thing that made being at home with them tolerable. And now I had better tell you what Vine knew about me — my awful secret.’
Chaloner doubted he was about to hear anything overtly shocking. ‘It might help, sir.’
‘It involves something that happened a few months ago, when the Lady was moving from her old rooms in the Holbein Gate to fabulous new quarters overlooking the Privy Gardens. To furnish them, she looted works of art from the King, from public rooms, and from any White Hall resident too intimidated to oppose her plunder.’
‘I remember. She put White Hall in a frenzy of chaos for about a week.’
‘One night, just before she moved in, I found myself with an opportunity to inspect her new domain alone. When I saw the beautiful things she had appropriated for herself, I was overcome with a deep and uncontrollable anger. I did something of which I am deeply ashamed.’
‘And Vine saw you?’
‘Yes. He was also taking the opportunity to admire what the Lady had accumulated, and was standing quietly in the shadows, so I did not see him until it was too late. Needless to say, he was shocked when I … did what I did. He said he understood the reasons for my uncharacteristically loutish behaviour, and promised to overlook the matter like any decent man — until the matter of the nightingales arose, and he threatened to tell everyone.’
Chaloner was silent, wondering whether the Earl was the kind of man to hire an assassin to prevent the revelation of an embarrassing secret. He would have said no a few months before, but now he found he was not so sure.
‘What did you do?’ he asked eventually.
The Earl lowered his voice to a whisper, and his eyes were huge with mortification. ‘I drew on the Lady’s portrait — the one painted by Lely. I gave her a beard and a moustache.’
Chaloner gazed at him for a moment, then started to laugh. ‘Really?’
The Earl glared at him. ‘It is not funny! We are talking about the King’s favourite mistress here, and that portrait cost a lot of money. I defaced it so vigorously that it is far beyond repair.’
‘You should have given her a pair of horns, too, and sketched in a pitchfork.’
That coaxed a reluctant smile. ‘I wish I had thought of it. But this unedifying tale tells you something new about Vine, this noble, upright man, does it not? That he was willing to resort to underhand means to get his own way?’
Chaloner nodded. ‘So Vine was a blackmailer and Chetwynd was corrupt, although they both presented godly faces to the world. I wonder what we will learn about Langston.’
‘Nothing,’ said the Earl firmly. ‘He really was a decent fellow.’
The short winter day was almost over, and dusk was falling fast. Chaloner was hungry, having eaten nothing that day except Bulteel’s cakes. Fortunately, the Earl was in one of his conscientious phases, and had been paying his staff on time, so the spy was currently solvent. It was not always so, which was another reason he missed working for the Commonwealth — Thurloe had paid regularly and well, allowing Chaloner to live respectably and even invest funds for the future. It had all disappeared at the Restoration when, for the first time in his life, he had experienced genuine poverty.
But he had money to spend that evening, so he went to New Palace Yard, on which were located three establishments called Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. It depended on their owners’ whim whether they were taverns, coffee houses or cookshops on any particular week, but it was usually possible to purchase victuals of some description, and he liked their dark rooms, worn benches and convivial atmospheres. He was heading towards them when he spotted some familiar faces.
Turner was sitting on a bench near the central fountain, stretching his long legs in front of him as though he was relaxing in the sun, rather than perching on a stone monument in the middle of winter. His trademark ear-string fluttered in the breeze. With him were the bandy-legged Tryan, and Hargrave with his scarred and shaven head. Neither merchant looked as comfortable as Turner, and huddled inside their coats. The bench was protected by an awning, and at that time of night, the trio were virtually invisible under its shadow. Intrigued as to why they felt compelled to meet in such a place, Chaloner eased his way behind them, aiming for a position where he could eavesdrop.
‘Of course I can read the contracts for you,’ Turner was saying amiably. ‘If they are anything like the ones I did last week, they will be easy.’
‘You are most kind,’ said Hargrave, scratching his scalp. ‘But are you sure it is no bother? I thought you were employed by the Lord Chancellor these days, to catch him a killer.’
‘I am,’ said Turner. ‘But I am perfectly capable of helping you at the same time.’
‘We would have lost a fortune in the past, without solicitors to safeguard our interests,’ said Tryan soberly. ‘It is a sad state of affairs when a man cannot trust a fellow merchant not to cheat him. We are indebted to you, sir.’
‘Lord, it is cold!’ exclaimed Hargrave, pulling his coat more tightly around him. ‘I rarely noticed bad weather when I had hair, and I should never have listened to Chetwynd — it was he who suggested I cut it all off, and have it made into a wig. But the damned thing has been nothing but trouble.’