As Beth saw who was waiting inside at the address Strange had sent her to, a sudden rush of emotions went through her: surprise, delight, excitement. On the other side of the glass, she saw Ralph and John look at one another and grin, beckoning her to come in.
“It’s so good to see you again! Where have you been?” John Turner exclaimed, clearly overjoyed to see her. He seemed for a moment as though he was going to take her in his arms and hug her like a gallant hero, but instead he took her hand awkwardly and then let it go again with a lopsided smile. Beth returned it warmly. It was good to see her friends and fellow spies again – they’d had a handful of smaller assignments from Strange over the past few months, but lately it had been almost ominously quiet on that front. And when they weren’t working, Strange had advised them not to spend too much time in one another’s company, lest their cover be blown. Still, in spite of not seeing each other often, the three of them had grown close, and now had a strong bond that Beth held dear.
“I’ve been in Oxford!” Beth replied. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when we have more time.”
“How’s your health?” John asked hesitantly. “You’ve been well, I hope?”
“Huntingdon says I’m blooming like a spring rose,” Beth laughed.
Ralph Chandler chuckled. “Use your eyes, John! Does she look like she’s had the plague?”
“It doesn’t hurt to ask,” John muttered.
“Well, I see you two are both fine and healthy!” Beth said. “Thank goodness. And your sister, John? How’s Polly?”
“She’s well,” John said. “As well as she can be, I mean. She’s being looked after.”
Beth understood. Polly had two withered legs and couldn’t walk without help – if John had thought she was in the slightest danger, he wouldn’t have left her side. After the horrors of her walk over, Beth was suddenly feeling as light as a dandelion seed. John and Ralph were safe. None of them had the plague. Sweet relief washed over her.
“I tried to find you,” John continued breathlessly, “but I didn’t know where to start. The plague is just everywhere, and at first Strange wouldn’t help at all...”
“You know why he wouldn’t as well as I do,” Ralph put in. “We’re not meant to spend too much time together unless we’re working on a case. You never know who’s watching.”
Beth noticed Ralph was still dressed in the same grubby clothes he’d been wearing when she first met him. Knowing him, he probably sleeps in them too, she thought fondly.
“Well, we’re working on a case now, so let’s make the most of it!” she said with a smile. “Strange said you would brief me on what we’ve found out so far.”
Ralph jerked his thumb towards the back of the little house. “Papers are all on the kitchen table.”
“Strange said a spy was killed?” Beth said, as John led the way through to the kitchen. It was drab and functional, completely cheerless. No pictures on the walls, not even so much as a looking glass, she observed. This was clearly not a house where anyone stayed for very long.
Ralph nodded. “Jeffrey Tynesdale. “He was good – one of Strange’s best. Nobody expected him to get offed. It fair rattled old Strange when Tynesdale got his skull split.”
Beth pursed her lips disapprovingly, and began to study the papers spread out on the table.
“Can I fetch you some water, Beth? You must be parched!” John said. He flushed a little. “I mean, I’m getting some for myself anyway, so—”
“I’ve got something better than water,” Ralph interjected proudly. He rummaged in a sack and set three dark bottles down on the table. Each one was stoppered with a cork and sealed with a blob of scarlet wax. “It’s medicine,” he said, seeing the dubious looks on John and Beth’s faces. “What did you think it was, liquor?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you,” John retorted.
Ralph rolled his eyes at them both. “Not when I’m on a job for Strange. This is a herbal infusion. Culpeper says there’s nothing better for protection against the plague.”
Of course, Beth thought. Ralph’s landlord was a master herbalist by the name of Walter Culpeper, and he had seemed to know what he was talking about from her brief encounter with him all those months ago. She twisted the stopper from her bottle and sniffed. A powerful acrid scent like burning phosphorus left her nose tingling. This will not be pleasant, she thought.
“We should have a toast,” she said brightly, holding her bottle up.
“What shall we drink to?” John said, opening his own and grimacing as the smell hit his nose.
Ralph stood. “Here’s a health to His Majesty, blessings on our enterprise, and swift ruin to all England’s enemies!”
“And good fortune to our ships at sea,” John added.
“Right. The ships an’ all.”
“I’ll drink to that!” Beth said with a laugh.
The bottles clinked and they drank the potion down.
“Blimey,” Ralph said with a cough. He shook his head like a soaking wet dog that had just jumped out of the river. “There’s potent.”
“Hate to seem ungrateful,” John choked out, “but are you sure that wasn’t poison?”
Beth couldn’t speak. The liquid had burned like fire going down, and now it lay in her stomach like a bar of hot iron. Her mouth was full of the taste of burdock and honey, with the smell of musty cellars. She prayed it was true that strong herbs repelled the plague, because if they didn’t, she was suffering through this for nothing. When she finally managed to talk again, she laid a hand on John’s arm.
“Actually ... I think I’d like some water after all, please!”
* * *
They spent the next hour sitting around the kitchen table, sorting through the notes that Strange had left them. One crucial scrap of paper sat in the midst of all the others; the evidence Strange had mentioned – the one that had cost Jeffrey Tynesdale his life. Beth yearned to look at it, but John told her Strange had said to go over the other documents first. Many of those were letters written by Tynesdale to Strange, laying out the course of his investigation in painstaking detail. John read the letters aloud while Ralph and Beth listened carefully.
It seemed Tynesdale had followed a trail of rumours across the city to the Four Swans tavern in Bishopsgate, only three streets away from where they sat now. He’d begun to visit the inn regularly, blending in like the professional he was, drawing no attention to himself. He spoke little and listened much.
His main target was a man called Martin Sykes. “‘I am becoming certain the man is a King-killer conspirator,’” John read. “‘When drunk, he talks much of the King’s failings – as he supposes them to be – to any who will listen, and though he speaks no treason openly, he glares about himself with such dark looks that I am sure he yearns to.’”
By the sound of it, eventually Tynesdale’s patience had paid off. By chance he overheard a conversation, “the voices too low for me to tell who spoke,” mentioning that Martin Sykes had been entrusted to bring a message to someone that night. Tynesdale knew then that he had to intercept that message and bring it to Strange at all costs.
“So how did Tynesdale die?” Beth asked.
“Coshed over the back of the head, not a stone’s throw from his own front door,” said Ralph. “We’re just lucky he got the paper to Strange first.”
“Do you think it was Sykes who killed him?”
“Seems likely. Once he found out the paper was gone, he’d have known something was up.”
“He must have lain in wait near Tynesdale’s house, knowing he would come back eventually,” John said. “Which means he knew where Tynesdale lived...”
“Someone was watching him, while he was watching them,” Beth said with a shudder. She reached for the scrap of paper. “Come on, boys. Let’s see what Sykes might have been willing to kill for.”
She unfolded the paper and smoothed it out on the table. All three of them craned in close to see what it said.
Down the centre of the paper ran a list of initials:
SP
LB
JL
RM
Below the letters was a strange pictogram. In the centre were two concentric rings, like the letter O within a larger O, and underneath that was a crude drawing of a lion’s head facing forward. Above the circles was an image that looked like a bridge in three parts, below which lay a wavy line.
At the very bottom of the paper were three words, all in capitals.
“Mors ad Regi,” John read aloud.
They all stared in silence for a long time.
Ralph was the first to speak. “What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t even sound like English.”
Beth didn’t recognize it either. “Maybe it’s a name?” she guessed.
Ralph slapped the table. “’Course it is. Must be two names, not one!” he exclaimed. “Morse and Reggie. They must be two of the men behind all this!”
Beth frowned, unsure, but she noticed John had turned pale. “Neither of you ever studied Latin, did you?” he asked quietly.
“What do you think?” Ralph scoffed. “Latin, indeed!”
“I was always too busy with the stage,” Beth said. “But you do have some Latin, don’t you, John?”
“You pick it up, doing the clerical work I do.” John rubbed his forehead. “It’s not a name at all. ‘Mors’ means ‘death’, and ‘ad Regi’ means ‘unto the King’.”
Beth swallowed hard – it was just what they had been dreading.
“Death to the King...”