The Tavistock Plot Read online

  Roth glanced at Malcolm as they made their way in a hackney to the address Cranley had given them in Rosemary Lane. "What did you make of the company?"

  "They're actors." Malcolm reached for the strap as they rounded a corner. "Very good actors, which complicates matters. Possibly the most difficult group to investigate, next to a group of agents. Maybe more so."

  "And half of them are mixed in with the Levellers," Roth said. "At the risk of crossing lines we said we wouldn't cross, what do you make of the Levellers' activity?"

  "That there are things going on they aren't talking about. Possibly that they don't all know about. From secret societies to Radical protesters to the House of Commons, factions and secrets seem to be inevitable in any group over a certain size. And that size may be as small as four."

  Roth nodded. "Do you believe Carmarthen?"

  "I believe him when he says he loves Letty Blanchard to distraction. Which could have led him to do all sorts of things. And he's also an exceptionally good actor among a group of good actors."

  Roth frowned. "You think he's using his love for Miss Blanchard as cover for something else?"

  "He's a Leveller. Lewis Thornsby was a Leveller. There are all sorts of ways their paths could have intersected."

  "But you believe he loves Miss Blanchard."

  "I do. I could be wrong. But using romantic relationships as cover is one of the oldest tricks of an adept agent."

  Roth glanced through the fogged glass of the window. "We keep hearing that Thornsby didn't seem that serious about the Levellers. Everyone from his brother to his comrades seems surprised about his involvement."

  "Yes. And yet he seems to have stumbled into some very complicated intrigues." Not the least of which was that involving Kitty Ashford. Which Malcolm had yet to share with Roth. Or with anyone but Mel. Which was probably foolish. Still.

  "Some people do just stumble into tangles," Roth said.

  "It's certainly possible. Or it could be that Lewis Thornsby was more complicated than any of us thought."

  They had reached Rosemary Lane. The wind blew a length of bright cotton from a nearby stall into a mud puddle a few feet off as Malcolm swung down from the hackney. A boy about Colin's age, clad in mismatched boots and a coat two sizes too big, caught the cloth up and ran back to the stall. He scrubbed the mud with his fist and tacked the cloth to a peg next to a faded pelisse and a yellowing once white gown. A thin woman with a worn face who presided over the stall gave him a quick smile and returned to haggling with a woman with bright red hair over how much she'd give her for a blue velvet dress the woman was exchanging for a green dress that looked rather more worn. Similar scenes were going on at stalls and barrows all along that side of the lane. Another gust of wind sent greatcoats and pelisses, gowns and chemises flapping like pennants where they hung in front of shops. As Malcolm paid off the hackney driver, he caught more than one glance run over his greatcoat and beaver hat, both of which would fetch a tidy sum with Rosemary Lane's old clothes dealers. Roth picked his way round a faded square of carpet piled with boots and shoes and studied the sign that hung over the narrow building that was Number 17. A scarlet-bound volume and the faded words Hapgood's Novels and Books of Interest. "Interesting that Thornsby had the address of a bookstore. Perhaps the Levellers are using it to pass messages?"

  "Perhaps Mr. Hapgood is another Leveller?" Malcolm said. "Or perhaps Thornsby was merely searching for a hard-to-find book." His gaze moved to the floor above the shop. Narrow sash windows, a table visible behind one, a chair back at another. "It looks as though there are lodgers above."

  "You think one of the Levellers might lodge here?" Roth asked, scanning the windows.

  "It's a possibility. Which doesn't answer the question of how much Hapgood knows."

  Without further speech, they crossed the street and opened the door of Hapgood's shop. The musty, leathery smell of old books greeted them. The smell of Malcolm's favorite rooms since childhood. A smell he'd always associate with his boyhood visits to Raoul, either at hotels or in rooms Raoul had stayed at in Malcolm's grandfather's houses or at Dunmykel.

  The only sources of illumination were whatever wintry light the windows let in and two oil lamps, one set on a table in the center of the room, the other on a counter at the back. A man sat behind the counter, but at first all Malcolm could make out was the dark blur of a figure.

  "May I help you gentlemen?" the man asked in a deep voice.

  Malcolm threaded his way between bookcases and tables, wondering how anyone managed to see enough to examine the books that were offered for sale. "Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Hapgood?"

  "I don't know if it's a pleasure, but I'm Hapgood." He was a wiry, compact man, with thick, close-cut salt-and-pepper hair and a strong, blunt-featured face. He looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties. Less likely he was a Leveller. They tended to be young.

  Hapgood was seated on a high stool behind the counter, turning the pages of a book set directly beneath the lamp. He did not close the book as Malcolm and Roth approached.

  "We're looking for information about this gentleman." Malcolm pulled out a sketch Mélanie had done of Thornsby. "We thought perhaps he'd been to visit your shop."

  Hapgood pulled the sketch into the lamplight. "What's he done?"

  "What makes you think he's done anything?" Roth asked.

  "You gentlemen look as though you have more important things to do with your time than to go about asking questions without good cause."

  "He was murdered last night," Malcolm said.

  "Good lord. " Hapgood's brows shot up. He stared at Malcolm and Roth for a long moment. "And the two of you—"

  "Are trying to find out why he was killed and by whom," Roth said.

  Hapgood looked from Roth to Malcolm. "And you are—?"

  "This is Inspector Roth of Bow Street. My name is Rannoch. Malcolm Rannoch. I'm—"

  "I know who you are. I've read your speeches. There was one a couple of months back against suspension of Habeas Corpus that I particularly admired. Not that you had a prayer of stopping its suspension."

  "Thank you," Malcolm said. "And yes, I knew I didn't."

  Hapgood closed the book he had been reading. "It must be difficult, all that work and passion, only to see your ideas voted down."

  "My wife would tell you I have a fondness for taking a lance to windmills."

  Hapgood gave an unexpected smile. "My character reading may not be the most acute, Mr. Rannoch, but I'd imagine you're the sort who can tell a windmill from a dragon."

  "When the wind is southerly."

  Hapgood gave a grunt of acknowledgment.

  "Where have you seen the victim?" Roth asked.

  "In my shop. And above it. Mr. Montford has rented a room for the past month."

  "That's his name?" Roth said. "Montford?"

  "That's the name he gave me. What name do you know him by?"

  "Lewis Thornsby," Malcolm said. "When did you last see Mr. Montford?"

  Hapgood scratched his head. "Three or four days since. He's out a good deal. Did he have lodgings elsewhere in London under his own name?"

  "In Piccadilly." Malcolm felt something soft brush his leg. He glanced down to see a tabby cat winding itself against his boots. He bent to stroke the animal. "Did the supposed Mr. Montford tell you anything about his life?"

  "He'd been abroad for several years as a private tutor. His charge having gone off to university, Montford had returned to England to look for work. Or so he said."

  "You had reason to doubt him?" Roth asked.

  The cat jumped onto the counter. Hapgood scratched its ears. "Not until what you gentlemen told me just now." He regarded Malcolm and Roth with an unblinking gaze. "I'm very sorry to hear he met his death, but I must say I'm also curious as to his reasons for living a double life."

  "So are we," Roth said. "Did Montford ever receive visitors?"

  Hapgood frowned. The cat lay down on its side and began
to wash. "No one I noted."

  The cat batted at a fold of Roth's greatcoat. "What else can you tell us about Thornsby? Montford," Roth said, petting the cat.

  "Very little, I'm afraid. He kept to himself, and as I prefer to do likewise we didn't converse much." Hapgood rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I suppose you think I should display more grief at his death, but truth to tell, while I knew nothing ill of him, we weren't well acquainted."

  "Did he ever have ladies visit him?"

  "Not to my knowledge. Though he looked to be the sort of man who'd know how to be discreet."

  Yet there was something guarded in Hapgood's expression. Malcolm couldn't swear he was lying, but nor could he be confident the bookseller was telling the truth. At least not the entire truth.

  "We'll have to see his room," Roth said.

  "I assumed you'd wish to." Hapgood pulled open a drawer beneath the counter and produced a tarnished brass key. "Third door at the top of the stairs. They're at the back of the shop. The stairs, that is."

  Malcolm and Roth made their way past ranks of books and up the narrow stairs. The corridor at the stairhead held no illumination save the light from a window that faced the next house over. The window had been left half open, perhaps in an attempt to drive out the damp that pervaded the house and threatened the books belowstairs. A gust of cold air greeted them.

  They walked down the passage to the third door. Malcolm reached for the knob. Before he could turn it, the door swung open, and a dark figure hurtled through and knocked him to the floor.

  Chapter 13

  Malcolm slammed into the floorboards and heard Roth hit the ground. By the time he pushed himself to his feet, their assailant was climbing through the open window at the end of the passage. They reached the window in time to see a greatcoated figure dart out of the alley into Rosemary Lane. Too late to give chase. He'd be lost amid the barrows and stalls and sellers and shoppers and they hadn't seen enough to identify him.

  Roth leaned against the wall, handkerchief pressed to his nose, which was streaming blood. "I don't know whether to be relieved or sorry that Mélanie didn't accompany us."

  "Relieved because she didn't see the two of us bested by a single man, or sorry because if she'd been here it might not have happened?"

  "Precisely."

  "Are you all right?" Hapgood's voice came up the stairwell followed shortly by Hapgood himself. The cat trotted behind him.

  "There was someone in Montford's room," Malcolm said. "You didn't know he was there?"

  "If I had known of it, surely I'd either have warned you or attempted to delay you, assuming I was the man's confederate. He escaped?"

  "Out the window," Malcolm said. "Not our most shining moment."

  "Are you injured?" Hapgood asked with unexpected crispness.

  "Only bruises and a bloody nose," Roth said, voice muffled by the handkerchief.

  "And the damage to our pride." Malcolm looked out the window again. "Mud on the side of the building. That didn't come from his escape—he jumped. So it looks as if he climbed in. I doubt he's your confederate, Hapgood, unless you're singularly inhospitable to your confederates. You'd better see if you think anything was taken from Montford's room."

  Malcolm stepped through the open doorway into a room filled with the smells of citrus and sandalwood and some sort of spice. Cloves, perhaps, or cardamom. Blended with a subtlety that indicated expense. Different from the cedar shaving soap scent in Thornsby's rooms in Piccadilly. Changing his scent in a different persona implied a degree of finesse that suggested Thornsby may have been very different from the guileless young man he had seemed on the surface. A lamp had been left lit on the chest of drawers. The room was scrupulously neat save for the writing table drawer, which had been pulled from its tracks and set on the tabletop. A search by a professional, interrupted in midstream.

  Hapgood entered the room after Malcolm and surveyed the scene. "I can't swear to what might be missing from his personal effects. The room looks as I remember. But I was only in here once." He glanced at the drawer that had been removed from the desk. "Do you think whoever searched the house is likely to come back? There's a very pleasant young woman who rents the room across the hall. Sings at the King's Theatre. Lovely voice. I don't like to think of any harm coming to her."

  "I'd advise you to use extra caution in locking up," Roth said. "And to warn the young lady. I can assign a patrol to keep watch on the house."

  "I'm obliged to you." Hapgood scooped up the cat, who had jumped up on the bed and was kneading the blanket. "If I can't be of further service, I'd best return to the shop. I know it doesn't look like it, but I do have customers every now and again."

  Malcolm surveyed the room. A trunk at the foot of the bed, a shaving kit on the chest of drawers. The leather looked to be good quality. "How's your nose?" he asked Roth.

  Roth took the handkerchief away from his face. "Seems to have stopped bleeding." He stared at the bloodstained handkerchief for a moment, then stuffed it into his greatcoat pocket.

  "Papers or clothes?" Malcolm asked.

  "I'll take the papers." Roth struck a flint to the taper on the writing table. The clean smell and pristine white indicated beeswax rather than tallow.

  Malcolm opened the doors of the wardrobe. The garments that first met his eye spoke of Mr. Montford the former-tutor-in-search-of-employment. Coats of sturdy, slightly scratchy wool, well made but several years out of date, cut for comfort more than fashion, different from the fashionably cut Bond Street attire Thornsby had affected. A single greatcoat, beginning to wear through at the elbows.

  "Thornsby knew the value of dressing for a part," Malcolm said. "He may well have purchased this wardrobe in Rosemary Lane. Anything in the writing desk?"

  "A couple of letters from a Timothy Compton at Cambridge, telling Montford he'd never have been able to keep his head above water at university without the excellent preparation. Thornsby seems to have been a bit of an egotist in his forgeries. Very adroitly done, though. There's even a bit in Latin. Typical sort of undergraduate blather. At least, what I've always assumed to be typical undergraduate blather."

  "Self-consciously clever and convinced one has attained great maturity? It sounds like it. Anything else?"

  "Another letter, from Aunt Mathilda in Shropshire, detailing his cousin Susan's lying-in and cautioning him not to catch a chill in the dreadful London damp. Pens, ink, pen knife, writing paper. I'll try the chest of drawers."

  Malcolm carried the lamp over to the trunk. He lifted the lid to release a faint scent of lavender. Clean, starched shirts, neckcloths, and drawers with frayed seams. Waistcoats that were beginning to fade, one with cracked buttons, another with a torn lining. The trunk did not seem as deep as one might expect. Malcolm ran his fingers over the lining. The bottom snapped away.

  In the hidden compartment beneath were the possessions of Lewis Thornsby, young man about town. Coats of cassimere and superfine, a greatcoat of merino wool with a velvet collar. "So he could make a quick change here?" Roth asked, looking over his shoulder from the writing desk.

  "Presumably. Though you'd think he'd have been worried Hapgood or someone would see him coming or going," Malcolm said.

  No sign of papers. He ran his fingers over the lining of the false bottom and at last felt a telltale crinkle. He tugged at the silk lining and it came away in his fingers, loosely tacked to the frame of the trunk. Too loosely. Had the man whose search they'd interrupted been here before them?

  If so, he hadn't taken his discoveries with him. Beneath the lining was a stack of papers. "If you're finished with the chest of drawers, come take a look at these," Malcolm said, carrying the papers and the lamp over to the writing desk.

  "So far, my most interesting discovery is a bottle of excellent cognac." Roth joined him at the writing desk. The loose sheets of paper were creased, as though they'd been much folded. Malcolm spread the first out. A jumble of characters met his gaze, block capitals grouped together with
the odd number thrown in.

  "Can you break it?" Roth asked. This was not the first time he and Malcolm had examined a code together.

  "Not easily. I'll take them to my cousin Aline. She'll be quicker." Malcolm continued to flip through the papers. All were in code and appeared to be in Thornsby's hand, until at the bottom he found what appeared to be a laundry list—shirts, handkerchiefs, sheets, pillowcases—written in another hand, fastened with a metal clip to several more sheets of paper. The laundry list had been torn four ways across and then glued together.

  "What the devil—" Roth said.

  "Rescued from a waste basket," Malcolm said. "Spies are constantly sorting through debris. In Vienna, agents for almost every country spent hours piecing together the contents of diplomatic wastebaskets. I can't tell you how many times I was asked to decode papers which turned out to be no more than a bill from the bootmaker's or a menu for a dinner party. But if Thornsby saved this—"

  He removed the clip, carefully, so as not to damage the glued pieces, and examined the papers beneath. The contents of the laundry list had been copied onto the first paper. Beside it were a series of jottings in Thornsby's hand that Malcolm recognized as the notes of someone struggling to decipher a code. A rough table was sketched on the next paper. On the third paper, each line of the laundry list had been transformed into a place name and date. Lancaster, 3 November; Long Eaton, 21 November; Nottingham, 8 December; Clitheroe, 14 December; Rochdale, 22 December.

  "Apparently Thornsby decoded this," Malcolm said. "And thought it important. The question is why?"

  Malcolm found his wife sitting at the writing desk beside the fireplace in the Berkeley Square library, pen in hand.

  "You're home." In the midst of an investigation, not to mention rehearsals, that was something of a surprise.