“Those boys carrying the coffin – are they his sons?” John asked hollowly.
The man watching the funeral procession gave a curt nod. “Four sons he had, and three girls. And a wife.”
“Poor things,” Beth said, her heart heavy. Whether Sebastian Peters had been a conspirator or not, these boys were mourning their father. And maybe they’d be mourning their mother too, soon enough. In houses like these, with so many families crammed in together, the plague would spread like wildfire.
“Do we talk to ’em?” said Ralph reluctantly. “They might know something.”
Beth looked at the boys’ tearful faces. “I doubt it. And I think their fortunes have been bitter enough already.”
“That settles that,” John said. “We may as well forget about being able to look around inside Peters’ house too.”
“Too right. I’m not going inside a plague house, not for anything,” Ralph agreed. “If Strange wants to go poking around in a plague house, he can ruddy well do it himself.”
“So we’re back to where we started,” John sighed. “Nothing but a piece of paper to go on.”
“Let’s go back to the Four Swans,” Beth said. “Their landlord’s in a coffin, and they don’t even know it yet. Maybe there’s still some information to be had there.”
They made their way quickly and solemnly back through the streets to the tavern, but outside the pub Ralph stopped in his tracks. The drayman’s trap door, which led to the tavern’s cellar from the pavement outside, was open. That usually only happened when the draymen needed to drop the barrels down, but there was no sign of a delivery cart. Maybe they were late, or maybe the serving woman had forgotten to close and bolt the trap door.
Any which way, Beth could see it was an opportunity he couldn’t resist.
“You’re going down there, aren’t you,” she said with a wry smile.
Ralph grinned. “You two go on ahead. I’m going to have a nose around – Peters might have left some clues down there.”
With a quick glance back up the street to check there was nobody watching him, Ralph ducked under the window level and began to climb down through the trap door. He gripped the edge and lowered himself down until he was hanging by his arms like a monkey.
“Be careful,” Beth warned.
“I’m always careful,” Ralph panted. “But if I’m not back up in an hour, send out the search party...”
Beth looked at John. “Let’s go and deliver the ill tidings,” she said. “With any luck, they’ll all be too busy mourning Peters to give any thought to what might be happening in the cellar.”
They went inside and the doors swung shut behind them. John ordered more beer, and then quietly broke the news to Bella about her landlord. Word soon spread around the pub, and as the patrons began to eye the two of them curiously, Beth and John quickly moved to sit together in the darkened booth again. She crossed out the name Sebastian Peters, that she’d pencilled on the paper.
“I’m not certain announcing the landlord’s death to the whole pub was a good way of avoiding attention,” she said ruefully. “Everyone knows our faces now.”
“Perhaps we can make it work in our favour,” John insisted. “We’ve got something in common with everyone here now. We can talk to them about poor old Seb, and they won’t be so suspicious.”
His instincts proved to be right. The regulars were much more willing to talk now that they had something in common to talk about. All Beth’s money had gone, but John still had some silver that Strange had given them for expenses, so it was easy to keep the drinks coming in Peters’ memory.
When John offered to buy a drink for a man with straggly ginger hair and a notch-shaped scar in his upper lip, Beth’s ears pricked up at the name he gave: Robert Mott. Her eyes met John’s and he nodded, recognizing the same thing. RM – the fourth set of initials on the paper. His table was right near the booth, and Beth watched and listened closely as he began to talk.
“They don’t make ’em like Sebastian Peters any more,” Mott declared drowsily, wiping the beer froth from his stubble with the back of his sleeve. “If you hadn’t the money to eat, Seb would see you right ’til you could pay him back. A saint, that man was!”
Mott was blinking rapidly and his lips were trembling.
“You’ll have another?” John was already sliding the money across.
“Aye.” Mott seemed to come to his senses. “You’re all right, son. Good lad.” He drank deep and coughed. “Damn the plague. Rot its bloody bones. It’s took away my trade and now it’s took away the best man in London. A better man than that fool of a King...”
Beth’s ears pricked up as she sat listening, and she saw John’s eyes widen as a quick flash of fear shot through him. Did the man know something? Did he suspect then and was trying to trap them? Stay calm, John, Beth thought urgently.
Keeping his voice neutral, John asked, “What’s your trade?”
“Bell founder,” Mott said gloomily. “Bells ringing all over London, ringing for the dead, and the man who makes ’em can’t make ends meet! I haven’t had an order in weeks! Nobody dares set foot in the city with the plague abroad.”
“It’s the same all over,” agreed John. “Money’s scarce.” Then, making it sound like an afterthought, he added, “Though there’s plenty being spent on fancy palaces and jewelled coronets...”
Mott looked at him with red, impenetrable eyes. Then, in a low voice full of venom, the man burst out “You don’t know the ruddy half of it!”
“Didn’t mean no offence,” John said hastily.
Mott sneered. “You’ve much to learn about the state of this nation, son. Where do you think the money for all them royal fripperies comes from? Out of the pockets of men like me!”
“Taxes,” John said, with a disgusted shake of his head.
“They’d tax the bread from out your mouth, this government would!”
“Where I come from, they still talk about the Ship Tax,” John said. Beth’s heart was in her mouth, praying that her friend’s gamble would pay off. Charles I had introduced the hated Ship Tax to pay for the cost of his Navy, and many people believed it was the spark that had ignited the Civil War. If Mott really were a Republican, this would flush him out.
But Mott didn’t answer at all. He just drank down his whole tankard of beer in one draught and held it out to John for another. Only when John brought a full tankard back did the man speak again.
“Restoration of the blasted monarchy,” Mott said, spraying saliva as he did. “All so the King can sit on a velvet cushion eatin’ quails while the poor honest working man has to go begging in the street! It’s a wickedness, Jack. New taxes. New regulations. Can’t trade outside of this district or that one without papers. Can’t sell without the King skimming the cream off the top. Can’t even wipe your nose without paying some fee to some bloodsucking leech.”
He’s deep in his cups now, Beth thought eagerly. He can’t even remember John’s name. He’s hooked him now. Time to reel him in.
“My father used to say the same,” John told Mott. “Promised us it would all be different when Parliament was in charge. He had such hope.”
Mott just looked at him glassy-eyed. Either he was drunker than they had realized, or he was trying to work out if John was a liar.
“He taught us all the songs,” John said, choking with feigned emotion. “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, is fallen! Babylon has fallen, to rise no more...”
It was the hymn Cromwell’s New Model Army had sung, celebrating the destruction of the monarchy and the death of the last King.
“Keep it down, you damn fool!” Mott snapped. “D’you want the whole street to hear you?” He leaned in and whispered low, “There’s a proper time and place for such songs and this is neither.”
“Babylon rose again, though, didn’t it?” John scowled. “Perhaps honest men could tear it down again.”
Mott was about to speak, then checked himself. “I’ve taken much strong drink,” he decided. He stood, swaying, holding onto the back of the chair for support. “I’m for my bed.”
“I’ll see you home,” John said quickly. “Where did you say your foundry was?”
“Whitechapel,” Mott said. “But I’ll walk alone. Don’t need no boy to help me.”
Crashing into several tables and knocking down a chair on his way to the door, Robert Mott stumbled out of the inn.
John rushed to Beth’s side the second he was out of sight.
“The man’s a conspirator, Beth. I’d bet my life on it! I found out where he works too.”
“I think you’re right. We have to search his house! But where’s Ralph? We’d better go and look for him...”
Beth headed out into the street and, to her relief, saw the cellar trap door was still open. She leaned down and peered into the gloom but there was no sign of Ralph. A moment later, she saw his pale face pop up from behind a barrel. “Psst!” he called. “Get down here, quick!”
“What is it?”
“Signs of conspiracy, or I’m a Turk!”
Ralph pulled a barrel over for them to use as a step, and the two quickly climbed down to join him in the cellar. Ralph pointed over to a far corner, where half-casks that once held beer had been pulled into a square. In the middle was another cask, where the melted stub of a candle stood.
“Chairs and a table,” Beth breathed. “A secret meeting place.”
“That’s not all,” Ralph said. “Look!”
On the wall behind, four familiar sets of initials had been scrawled darkly onto the brickwork:
SP
LB
JL
RM
“What are they written in?” John said, puzzled. “That’s not paint, is it...?”
“Not likely,” muttered Ralph.
A cold fist tightened around Beth’s heart. “It’s blood.”