Fire, page 9
‘Thank you … John,’ she says.
Was I wise to make that promise? Well, I’ve done it now and, as Hubert has pointed out, it’s usually safer to keep promises than break them. And, as Sir Felix explained to anybody who would listen, he wouldn’t have had much opportunity for treason anyway.
‘It is my pleasure, Aminta,’ I say.
CHAPTER
10
The sun is rising again over the smoke-blackened corpse of London. Like the gentleman we viewed yesterday in a palace cellar, it stretches thin, carbonised fingers up into the sky. And, like the corpse, I suspect it still clutches a gold coin or two, hidden from our sight. There are already stories of gangs that haunt the ruins, digging dangerously at night in smoking and abandoned cellars for whatever treasure was left behind. For the moment, however, there is an eerie stillness to the scene. In what is left of the once bustling streets, nobody moves. No cat prowls. No rat scurries. No dog pisses on the warm masonry. Even the birds dare not land on their old perches for fear of scorching their wings.
Lord Ashley and I stand on Whitehall Stairs, on the river side of the Palace, waiting for a wherry to carry us across. The only bridge in London is still smouldering gently at its northern end.
‘Your master Arlington seems to doubt the possibility of there being a Catholic plot,’ he says.
‘Not the possibility, my Lord, just the advisability of there being one at the moment. He is quite aware that these things happen. A few years ago, the country seemed united in welcoming King Charles back to the throne. But since then his Majesty has succeeded in convincing many people that some other king, or no king at all, may be better. In his role as his Majesty’s spymaster, Lord Arlington receives constant reports of plots by the Catholics or the Dutch or the Fifth Monarchy Men or disaffected Republicans.’
‘We must take such reports seriously,’ says Lord Ashley. He painfully straightens his back and turns towards the river, where a boat is approaching us.
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘That is, in essence, my job. But, when investigated, few of the plots reported to us prove to be more than an overheard conversation in a tavern on a day when there is little else to report. An agent with nothing to tell us is an agent that we are paying needlessly, and our agents know that as well as we do. Lord Arlington will require a lot more evidence than he has now before he feels that it is worth spending money investigating this further—quite rightly.’
‘Your loyalty to Arlington does you credit,’ says Lord Ashley, turning to face me again. ‘But we both know that there are other reasons why Arlington might not wish to discover a plot. He and his faction have strong Catholic sympathies.’
‘I must protest, my Lord …’ I say.
‘Then do protest, by all means. I won’t stop you. When I say your loyalty does you credit, I am paying you a great compliment, Mr Grey. There is little enough loyalty at the court in these days. Arlington lost no time in unseating old Sir Edward Nicholas and sending him into retirement, even though Sir Edward had served the King devotedly, and largely unpaid, all through his time in exile. Arlington and his faction would like to see Lord Chancellor Clarendon gone, even though Clarendon has been as loyal a servant of the Crown as any man this century. I know because Arlington has asked for my help with this design more than once. But at the same time I know that Arlington would bring me down tomorrow if he could find a way to do it. Gratitude is rare nowadays, Mr Grey. I admire you for being prepared to stand by a man who is as wrong-headed as your master. I mean that. It is not my intention to make you break any confidences or to be in any way disloyal.’
‘Thank you, my Lord,’ I say, as loyally as I need to.
‘It is the least I can do for the only truly honest man I have met in a long time,’ says Ashley, though as a courtier his opportunities for meeting honest men will have been limited. ‘Well, here’s our boatman. Do not let him charge you more than sixpence. It’s a corrupt and deceitful age in which we live.’
‘Another visitor for Mr Hubert?’ asks the guard. ‘Considering he’s a murdering Papist, he has many friends.’
‘He has had an earlier visitor?’ I ask, surprised. ‘Who was that?’
‘I think he said his name was Smith. A man carrying a basket, in any case, and a neighbour of Mr Hubert’s. Do not worry, sir—we checked the basket and it contained nothing but food and drink, which we also checked carefully. The cheese was excellent.’
‘Fear not. We can ask Hubert about him,’ Ashley whispers to me as we are led across the courtyard. ‘But what the guard says is very likely to be true. Smith is simply a friend of Hubert’s and nothing more. You’d starve in here if you had nobody to bring you food. Hubert has lived in London. We should not be amazed that his neighbours are a little concerned for his welfare.’
Hubert looks up as we enter his cell. I am of no greater interest than I was before. When I introduce Lord Ashley, Hubert simply nods and says: ‘Yes, of course.’ He seems unimpressed that my companion could save him or help condemn him to the gallows. He clearly feels he has already told me all I need to know, but he is at least prepared to consider my enquiry about Mr Smith.
‘That is correct,’ he says. ‘My neighbour came both yesterday and this morning. It is allowed.’
‘You have many friends who visit you?’ I ask.
‘I still have two friends. He is one of them.’
‘Where does Mr Smith live?’
‘Close to my shop.’
‘I’ll ask after him,’ I say.
‘If you wish,’ says Hubert generously. ‘But his house has been burnt to the ground. He told me. I do not know where you would find him now. Perhaps outside the City. He has a red face.’
‘Red?’
‘Bright red, but only half of it. The other half is like yours, but without the scar. I would rather have a half-red face than a scar.’
‘Did you tell him why you are here?’ I ask.
‘Yes. He knows. I have killed Mr Peidloe.’
‘Did that trouble him?’
‘No. I think he was pleased. Why not?’
I exchange glances with Ashley, who simply raises his eyebrows. Hubert has one of the two chairs in the room. I offered the other to Lord Ashley, but he scorned to sit in spite of the discomfort that I see he is still in. We are both therefore standing, looking down on Hubert, an arrangement that Hubert seems to find perfectly acceptable.
‘Now then, Mr Hubert,’ says Ashley, ‘you claim to have started the fire. Where exactly did you start it? You just need to tell the truth—you understand that, don’t you? You know you can trust me.’
I look at Ashley. I too wish to know the truth, but I am not sure that Hubert does understand what will happen to him if he continues to admit to murder and arson. I wonder therefore if Ashley’s reassurance is playing fairly with him. But, as Aminta said, my Lord Ashley can be ruthless in his search for the truth. Hubert, never having met Ashley before, simply smiles at him. I fear he may be about to dig his grave.
‘Yes, I know that,’ Hubert says. ‘I can trust you. I have already told you that I shall tell the truth, just as you ask. It was my doing. I started the fire at the King’s baker’s in Pudding Lane. Then I shot Monsieur Peidloe in the back.’
Well, this is more circumstantial than his last confession.
‘Are you certain?’ I interrupt. ‘You said nothing before about shooting him in the back. Why are you remembering these details only now?’
‘You did not say you were interested in how I shot him,’ says Hubert. ‘But now you do, and I tell you that is how it was.’
‘So,’ says Lord Ashley very carefully, ‘Mr Grey is right. You should say only what is true. And you are telling us that you started the fire, yes?’
‘Yes. I started it. With Monsieur Peidloe. Surely you know that?’
‘Of course. I just have to ask so that we are certain what you are telling us. Then you went with Mr Peidloe to Westminster?’
‘We did not get there,’ says Hubert. ‘I killed him. Hard by St Paul’s. You know that too, I think.’
Lord Ashley smiles at this rebuke. ‘Please remember, Mr Hubert, that I do not necessarily know what you have told Mr Grey or the magistrate at Romford. However, I understand what you are saying. You killed Mr Peidloe.’
Hubert nods. ‘I asked him for money. He would not give it to me. Perhaps I became angry. He took out a coin, and said that was all I would receive. I shot him in the back with the coin still clasped in his hand. I did not remember before but I do now.’
Lord Ashley turns and looks at me. Telling us that Peidloe was shot in the back might be a lucky guess, but I agree that it would be remarkable if Hubert had invented the small detail of the coin in his fist.
‘Did Mr Peidloe say who he worked for?’ I ask.
‘Worked for?’
‘Who told him to burn London?’
‘I cannot tell you their names.’
‘But you know them?’ I ask
There is a very long pause.
‘No,’ he says.
‘Were they Catholics?’
‘Yes, of course. They are evil people. They killed my great-grandfather.’
I look at Hubert, sitting before us, quite expressionless. I think his madness may yet save him from the gallows, but equally it may not.
‘You realise,’ I say, ‘that if you continue to say that you set fire to London you will be hanged?’
Hubert looks at us both blankly. The prospect of hanging might worry some people, but not Hubert. I might as well have said that it would cost him tuppence.
‘Will I?’ He looks at me, then at Ashley.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It will not be pleasant for you.’
‘Pleasant? No, perhaps it will not be, but I cannot tell you,’ Hubert says. ‘I cannot tell you any more. I think you are trying to trick me, Mr Grey, but it will not work. I am safe without your help. Safe in the hands of the Lord. Please go now. I have nothing more for you.’
‘What do you think of that?’ asks Ashley as we cross the yard, towards the main gate of the gaol.
‘I still think he’s mad,’ I say. ‘He believes that God will save him and that allows him to lie without any danger to his person.’
‘It could still be the truth,’ says Ashley. ‘Perhaps he thinks a pretence of madness will save him.’
‘I agree that he might hope to escape by convincing a judge he was mad, but then why confess at all? He wasn’t caught in the act. Denying everything would be a much safer course of action.’
‘That is very true. But if he is wholly innocent, why does he know so much? He knew about the coin, Mr Grey. How could he, when we ourselves did not know until last night? And he knew Peidloe was shot in the back. How would he know that?’
‘I think his visitor may provide a clue,’ I say. ‘What if Peter Smith told him—about Pudding Lane, about how Peidloe was shot, about the coins in his purse? There’s something odd about Smith’s visits. He’s been burnt out of his home and ruined, but he has the money to buy food for a neighbour?’
Lord Ashley nods. ‘Such generosity is surely not unknown, even in these times? Still, let us assume that Smith did come here, under the pretence of bringing food, but with the real intention of telling Hubert how to reply to our questions. We must then ask how Smith would know the manner of Peidloe’s death, or about the coin in his hand, or even what our questions would be.’
‘At least three of us knew,’ I say. ‘Somebody could have told Smith.’
‘True. And there were more than three of us,’ says Lord Ashley. ‘In addition to you, me and Arlington, there was the guard at the door when we met. And we mustn’t forget the men who found Peidloe and carried him back. You are right. Before we jump to too many conclusions, we should indeed consider that there are several who would have known, and that one of them might have somehow discovered Smith was to visit Hubert, located him wherever it is he is now living, and told him what he needed to know. But what is more likely? That Hubert did indeed shoot Peidloe with the coin in his hand, having first set fire to the City, or that he has learned about it all by some tortuous route we can only guess at? Before this meeting I wasn’t sure, but now I think we should put Hubert before a judge and jury.’
I begin to feel sorry for Hubert, caught between Ashley and Arlington. I respect Ashley’s devotion to the truth every bit as much as I deplore Arlington’s desire to cover up anything that might be inconvenient for the King. And yet, it may be possible to reveal the plot, as Ashley wishes, without destroying this poor madman. Contrary to what he believes, I think Hubert is without a friend in the world.
‘If I could talk to Smith, perhaps I could find out more,’ I say.
Lord Ashley shakes his head. ‘I admire you, Mr Grey. What does it take to make you give up a lost cause?’
‘I never give up,’ I say. ‘It’s why Arlington pays me.’
As we leave the prison, Lord Ashley leans for a moment on his stick and says to the guard, ‘If a Mr Smith comes to visit Mr Hubert again, kindly ask him to go and see Mr Grey at Lincoln’s Inn.’
‘Mr Smith?’ says the guard thoughtfully. ‘Not sure I know anyone of that name.’
‘You mentioned him when we arrived.’
‘Smith? My memory’s not what it was, sir. Unless there’s something to ease it, of course.’
Ashley hands him a coin.
‘Ah yes, Mr Smith,’ the guard says. ‘Perhaps I do recall him—now I think a little more on the matter. A birthmark on his face perhaps? I’ll do as your Lordship requests. I am your Lordship’s and Mr Grey’s most obedient servant.’
‘It is,’ says Ashley as we emerge into the street again, ‘a grasping and corrupt world. Fortunately we both understand how it works. That always helps, I find.’
Though I had thought Arlington had expressly approved Lord Ashley’s accompanying me, there seems to be no aspect of the visit that is not wholly my fault.
‘Ashley is not to be trusted,’ says Arlington. ‘You said: Hubert is mad. That is clear to you and to me. Why could you not persuade Ashley to accept one simple fact? That man simply wishes to make trouble for me and for the Duke and for the King. I begin to suspect he is a secret ally of that pompous ass Clarendon. If so, he and Clarendon can fall together, for all I care. Not that I predict a long career for my Lord Ashley, whatever he does. He is, in spite of considerable competition, the most hated man at court.’
It is difficult to see how Lord Ashley’s improbable alliance with Clarendon, if true, would inconvenience Clarendon’s sonin-law, the Duke of York. But I do not think that logic plays much part in Arlington’s denunciation. He hates Ashley almost as much as he hates Clarendon. Lord Ashley couldn’t buy a new piss-pot without Arlington questioning his motive for doing so.
‘I think, my Lord, that he merely wishes to discover the truth.’
‘Truth!’ Arlington spits this foul insult back at me. ‘What would Ashley know about the truth? You are aware, I suppose, that he fought for Parliament during the war? One day he was fighting for the King in Dorset; the next he was fighting against him. He didn’t discover he was a Royalist again until he fell out with Cromwell. Ashley has principles only when it suits him to have principles.’
I am not sure that his conversion to Republicanism was as sudden as Arlington implies. But there is no doubt that he fought for Parliament, and was for a while a member of Cromwell’s Council.
‘He has been consistently loyal to the State, my Lord. It is just that the State has had different masters over the past few years.’
‘That thought is very close to treason, Mr Grey.’
I suppose it is. Should I also tell him how much better his Parliamentary predecessor, John Thurloe, was at running an intelligence operation? Thurloe lives in obscurity in Lincoln’s Inn now. I see him sometimes, grey-haired and defeated, walking in the gardens because he has nothing else to do. One day that will be Clarendon. One day that will be Arlington.
‘I bow to your greater knowledge, my Lord,’ I say.
‘You’d be very wise to do so,’ he says. ‘Unless you share Hubert’s desire to have your guts ripped out by the public hangman. So, what did Ashley ask Hubert? I hope you took notes.’
I nod. ‘He enquired mainly about Peidloe’s death, as you would expect. He stressed that Hubert should trust him.’
‘And did Hubert trust him?’
‘He thinks Ashley is his friend,’ I say.
Arlington smiles for the first time. ‘Proof, if any were still required, of his madness. Ashley will have him hanged if he can—being Ashley’s friend won’t save him. What else did Hubert have to say for himself, apart from his strange delusion concerning my Lord Ashley?’
‘Hubert knew that Peidloe was shot in the back.’
‘He didn’t say that before. Still, it had to be one or the other—back or front.’
‘He also knew about the coin in Peidloe’s hand …’
Arlington’s jaw drops visibly. ‘But he can’t possibly …’
‘Of course, somebody else may have told him all of these things.’
‘Obviously,’ he says. ‘But who? You mean Ashley?’
‘I was with Lord Ashley,’ I say. ‘It would have been impossible for him to have done it without my knowing. But there was a man who visited Hubert in gaol. He’s called Smith. He may have coached him on all his answers—for example that the fire began in Pudding Lane—that is well known. But I am not sure how Smith could have found out about the coin. Do you have a Mr Smith working for you?’
‘Not at present. Not under that name,’ says Arlington thoughtfully. ‘But men of that type rarely work under their own names. And Hubert still claims to have done this himself?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘The man is determined to have himself hanged,’ says Arlington. He seems to like Hubert a little less than he did.
‘Of course, I don’t believe him,’ I say.
‘Nor do I.’ Arlington sits there for a moment, staring into mid-distance and tapping his finger against the table. ‘Could it have been Hubert you saw on the night of the fire? If it was, it’s better we know so that we can decide what to do about it.’
