Since Sybil and Dale were not to take part in the business of removing the chest, only Brockley and I set out when the time came, just before two o’clock in the morning. We left them sharing my bed, with their heads under the covers. Dale whispered: ‘Good luck!’ as we started for the door. Sybil did not.
The house was silent as we crept into the passage and turned along it to reach the attic stairs. I had charge of the lantern and I made sure that it did not cast any beam under the door of the women’s dormitory. We moved noiselessly, not even whispering to each other, round the corner to the foot of the attic stairs and then up them. There were two sharp turns that had to be stealthily negotiated. We trod with the utmost care. Not that creaks mattered much, for tonight was once again windy and the whole house was creaking. At the top, we halted and listened. The sound of several people snoring in different tempos and various keys came reassuringly from behind the door on our right. We turned left.
Once inside the relevant attic, I swept the beam round and found the chest, which had been left out on the floor. I found something else as well.
‘Rat droppings!’ said Brockley with distaste. ‘I’m glad I’m not a manservant here. The brutes probably get into the sleeping quarters as well.’
‘They have cats downstairs,’ I said, ‘but maybe they aren’t good hunters. I must offer the family one of Whiskers’ kittens. Or Diana’s.’ Whiskers was a notable huntress, and her progeny took after her. We had kept one of her daughters and named her Diana after the Roman goddess with legendary prowess at hunting (though there was nothing of the virgin about our Diana), and between them mother and daughter kept Hawkswood House very free from vermin.
We went over to the chest. There it was, looking innocent, its padlock back in place and fastened. I stooped to use my picklocks. ‘We’re moving the salt first, I take it?’ I said.
‘Yes. I’ll carry it. You light the way. I can handle the salt on my own all right,’ said Brockley.
He lifted it carefully out and then set it down and looked inside the wrappings. ‘Just to make sure this really is the salt, and that nothing’s been substituted for it.’
‘Do you think that’s likely?’ I whispered, in surprise.
‘No, but we’re dealing with some curious characters,’ said Brockley. ‘I don’t want anyone making worse fools of us than we already are.’
But the salt was there, as expected. Brockley swathed it again and carried it out to the stairs. I followed. As silently as possible and slowly, for the sake of caution, he carried it down the stairs, while I shone the lantern from behind to show him where to put his feet. Once we were down on the second floor, we took it to the Brockleys’ chamber, empty now because Dale was spending the night with Sybil in my room. We put it in the clothes press then once more set out for the attic, and a few minutes later we were standing beside the empty chest.
‘Right,’ said Brockley. ‘Now, this is a bulky, awkward thing, but if you light my way and we go slowly we should be able to manage.’ He stooped, pulled the chest towards him and pushed his fingers beneath it to lift it. And then he desisted and muttered something like a curse.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Although it’s empty, it’s still heavy!’ Brockley straightened up and turned to look at me. ‘I should have realized. It’s good solid timber and it’s awkward to grip hold of, too. If Frost’s groom moved this on his own with the salt inside, well, he must be a good many years younger than I am and exceptionally strong at that. This needs two pairs of hands.’
I stared at him in dismay. ‘I can’t hold one end of the chest and manage the lantern as well. I haven’t got enough pairs of hands.’
‘If only we had some light apart from the lantern!’
‘Wait.’ I was trying to think, taking my imagination step by step. ‘If I go down first, on my own, to the first turn and put the lantern there, it will cast some light upwards. Perhaps just enough. Then we can work our way down holding the chest between us. I’ll take the lower end of the chest and go down backwards, first. Then when we get to the lantern, we’ll have to put the chest down somehow, while I go down to the second turn and put the light there … Do you see?’
‘It won’t be much of a light.’
‘Let’s test that first.’
In fact, when we carried out a cautious reconnaissance on the attic stairs, we had a little luck – or perhaps it wasn’t luck but the result of a past householder’s common sense. There were hooks in the timber wall at both the turns, which looked as if they were intended to hold lanterns and had been placed where they would cast light both up and down, above and below the turn.
‘We can do it,’ said Brockley. ‘We’ll get the chest to the top of the stairs. Then you go down and hang the lantern above the first turn and come back, and we’ll move the chest down that far. We can rest it on the stairs at the first turn, while you move the lantern down to the next. I think it will work.’
So far our night’s adventure had been easy, but this was not. We did have light, but there were still misleading shadows. Furthermore, not only was the width of the stairs narrow but they had narrow treads as well, and in these restricted circumstances the chest seemed to grow in size and bulkiness, tilting wilfully and slipping a little because my fingers were sweating. I had thought that Dale would have had sweaty fingers, but I seemed no better. We descended gingerly one step at a time, with a certain amount of whispered acrimony.
‘It’s leaning to the left, straighten it up … My left, madam, please!’
‘I can’t! My thumb’s caught against the wall … Ow!’
‘Don’t make such a noise! Hoist it up a bit …’
‘It won’t … Yes, got it! Now it’s steady … Oh, God, where’s the next step down …?’
‘Don’t lurch! I’m being thrown off balance.’
‘I’m not lurching on purpose! Brockley …?’
‘What is it? Why have you gone rigid?’
‘I’m sure I heard something!’ I whispered. ‘Up the stairs, behind us.’
For a few breathless moments we stood absolutely still, but there was no sound beyond a creak as a gust of wind swept round the house. And then, distant now because we were almost at the first turn, there came a faint snore and after that a scuttle of rodents’ feet.
‘That’s what you heard, rats and snores. Here’s the turn. Put your end down, madam, and move the lantern.’
‘There’s no point in addressing me as madam while you’re giving the orders!’
‘Just do it, madam!’ said Brockley through his teeth.
Eternity passed, punctuated by more irritable phrases, and muffled complaints of caught fingers and bumped elbows while feet wavered nervously in search of shadowy treads.
But then, at last, we were down, carrying our burden out on to the passage. The next part was much less difficult because we were able to use the front stairs to get to the ground floor, and they were wide and fairly shallow. As we passed our rooms, Brockley had slipped into his to fetch a second lantern. It was easy enough to place lanterns in strategic places, and now we had two.
We reached the entrance hall without incident, set the chest down and then went softly back to fetch the salt. Candlelight showed under the door of my room, and as we carried the salt out into the passage Dale and Sybil peered round the door. ‘All’s well,’ I said softly before they withdrew.
‘If only nothing dreadful happens now!’ I whispered to Brockley.
‘We should be all right. I can manage this on my own. And you can light the way … madam,’ said Brockley and grinned, and once again, it was there, the secret rapport that we had so carefully, though not always successfully, hidden from Dale. For one long moment, in the lantern-light, our eyes met and things that might have been quivered in the air between us. But only for a moment. The past was the past, and the present had set the pattern for the future. We set off on the final stage of our exhausting expedition.
We carefully avoided going near the kitchen door. The spitboy was asleep in the kitchen, but Gladys had warned me that people could sometimes wake up after one of her potions. ‘If they want to ease themselves, like, or there’s a big enough noise.’
Instead, we carried first the salt and then the chest through the great hall and let ourselves out through the door at the garden end. The rain had ceased and the sky had cleared, but there was no moon tonight to help us. However, out of doors there was still some natural light and we could manage without lanterns. As we came through the great hall, I had held mine up for a moment and seen that the silver clock on the wall showed the time as twenty past two. We put the lanterns out and left them by the door. Then we carried the chest across the terrace and down to the lawn, and through the wet herb garden to the side gate. I stayed beside it while Brockley went back for the salt. We returned it to the chest and then carefully, quietly, I eased back the bolts on the gate. It swung open and Brockley stepped outside. In a low voice, he called: ‘Master Stagg!’
Nothing stirred. The side gate opened on to a path which led away across a meadow to join a lane at the far side, making the shape of a T. From where we stood, we could just make out the hedgerow that was the boundary on the far side of the meadow. There was no sign of anyone at all.
‘He’s not here yet,’ said Brockley, stepping back. ‘Or he’s given us up.’
‘We’re a little late,’ I said. ‘But I warned Eleanor that we couldn’t be precise about time. He said he would be here from two o’clock and that he would wait. He must have been delayed.’
‘I don’t like this,’ said Brockley. And then, with a horrid jerk in the pit of my stomach, I realized that I could see his face much too clearly. I turned to see why and discovered that a lantern was shining on us both.
‘Good evening, Mistress Stannard, Master Brockley. Or should I say good morning?’ said the voice of Giles Frost. He stepped forward. ‘Perhaps,’ he said politely, ‘you would care to explain the meaning of this?’ He pointed to the chest and then leaned down to flip the lid back. I had not padlocked it, thinking that Master Stagg would want to verify the contents. Frost lifted the wrapped bundle out, opened a fold of wrapping and peered at the salt. ‘Yes, indeed,’ he said softly, as he replaced it in the chest. ‘What can be the meaning of this?’
The question was rhetorical. I knew it, and knew that something dreadful was about to transpire. Brockley said steadily: ‘Master Stagg knows the meaning of this perfectly well. He is coming to receive these things, which belong to his niece Eleanor and which he says have been stolen from her. They are a bridal gift from Master Stagg himself.’
‘What a remarkable story!’ said a second voice, and Stagg himself appeared, emerging from the shrubbery and holding up another lantern. Other shadowy figures followed, resolving themselves into Barney Vaughan, Susie and the Hambles.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Frost affably. ‘You were quite right, Julius. It is amazing, but you were perfectly right.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I said sharply.
Frost, incredibly, said: ‘Julius warned me that you might attempt to steal this. He overheard you planning it, after he – somewhat carelessly, I fear – let you see it when you called at his workshop, where it was then being kept. I found it hard to believe but after all, Mistress Stannard, you have embarked on a most expensive project, to replace a big stained-glass window at the Hawkswood parish church. I can believe that you have need of extra funds.’
‘I’m not in the habit of ordering work I can’t pay for!’ I snapped. I wanted to say more, to end what was surely some frightful confusion but I couldn’t find the right words. My tongue was hindered because my ears were telling me things I couldn’t believe. And therefore couldn’t refute. I had never in my life been so bewildered. It was as if the very ground beneath my feet was dissolving into water and I was sinking, drowning, in its depths.
Brockley, however, still seemed to be in possession of his wits. ‘Master Stagg there,’ he said, ‘told us that the chest and its contents had been stolen and were likely to be found here. He asked us to search for it and his niece Mistress Eleanor desired it to be retrieved for her. She wanted no scandal because her betrothed would object very much to such a thing.’
Stagg, unbelievably, said: ‘Pooh! What a taradiddle!’
‘Because of Master Stagg’s suspicions,’ said Frost, ‘a watch has been kept on you. We know you have prowled about at night. Many a night, Mr Hamble and Barney here have been on guard to see what you were about. Then when Dr Lambert told me that he had found you in the attic, examining the chest, our suspicions hardened. And tonight, you were glimpsed taking wine to the servants. Very suspicious. I alerted Vaughan and the Hambles here, and Susie too. She has been on guard at her window – from which this side gate can be seen. Thank you, my dear; you performed your part excellently well. I had also instructed Dr Lambert to be on watch at his window, and he saw you creep out from the great hall. I was in the garden, and Barney was upstairs, hidden in the attic. He followed you down.’
‘I said I heard a noise!’ I managed to speak at last. ‘But we thought it was snoring and rats.’
‘One rat anyway.’ Brockley said, with meaning.
‘You watch your tongue!’ said Mr Hamble, and Mrs Hamble clicked hers in audible disapproval.
I was very angry by now, and also afraid. ‘I don’t understand any of this,’ I expostulated. ‘Master Stagg knows very well that he and his niece Eleanor asked us to find the chest and bring it out of Knoll House for them! Why he is now pretending otherwise, is beyond me. What is the point of all this nonsense, this denying of things that Master Stagg knows are true?’ I stared straight into his face. ‘How can you pretend that you and your niece didn’t ask us to do this for you, and why did you say you were not friendly enough with Master Frost to be able to visit his house? You know you said that. My maid Fran Brockley and my gentlewoman Sybil Jester know, too.’
‘Servants, dependants, all such people will naturally take their mistress’s part and accept what their lady tells them,’ said Frost dismissively. ‘I am happy to let Mistress Brockley be, though no doubt she will be questioned when this matter comes to court. As for Mistress Jester, for her I feel great pity, for I believe her to be a truly honest woman and tomorrow she must wake to realize what a wasps’ nest of dishonesty she has been living in. I intend to rescue her and protect her as far as I can from any unpleasant consequences. She has been taken advantage of in a most cynical and improper manner. I mean to look after her and give her the protection of my name. I …’
‘No!’
Susie’s outraged shriek cut across the darkness like the screech of an owl or a streak of lightning. She darted forward and seized Frost by the arms. ‘You promised me you hadn’t meant it when you said you meant to marry. You promised me! Only yesterday you said that all right, you’d thought of it, but the Jester woman had said no and you’d changed your mind! You swore that to me! You promised! And I’ve sat up at night, never mind how tired I was, keeping watch on these people for you. You …!’
‘Susie, Susie! What are you about, child? Is this the way a young maidservant behaves? Come here at once …!’
Mrs Hamble hurried forward and tried to drag Susie away from Frost. Susie held on, shaking his arms, crying aloud. The next words she screamed shook everyone. ‘You can’t throw me away! You can’t, you can’t, I’m carrying your child!’
Mr Hamble had joined his wife and between them they hauled Susie away from Frost. Then we heard exclamations from the garden and there were more lanterns waving and figures like ghosts in pale flowing garments running towards us, and the twins, their white dressing robes billowing over their nightgowns, were there.
‘What’s happening?’ Joyce panted. ‘We heard such strange sounds from our room. People hurrying about, voices calling … And then we looked from our window and saw lanterns. What’s going on?’
‘Susie, what’s wrong?’ Jane, gentle and compassionate, had gone to the frantic maid, who merely wailed all the more.
Into the uproar, I said again, and very loudly: ‘What is the point of all this nonsense, this denying of things that Master Stagg knows are true! What’s it all about? Why are you lying, Master Stagg? I want to know why!’
It was Susie who replied, in a voice in which hysteria was mingled with a wild laughter. ‘Stagg? His name’s not Stagg! I’ll tell you who he is …!’
She stopped, perforce, because Frost had reached out and grabbed her, slamming a hand over her mouth. ‘Be quiet, you silly wench!’
‘Silly wench is right! That’s just what she is!’ shouted Stagg. ‘She’ll make up any daft tale now out of spite, say anything with no sense to it. That’s what silly wenches do.’ He stepped forward, looked down into the open chest and then, in his turn, lifted the salt out and put back its wrappings. ‘Well, I’m glad to see this safe. It’s a pretty thing and I wouldn’t have liked Eleanor to miss it. Lovely workmanship. These little drawers work as smoothly as cream.’ He flicked at the drawers, which did indeed slide in and out with ease, and silently.
Inside my head a horrid realization exploded. I remembered how Walsingham had spoken to me of Simeon Wilmot, the leader of the gang who had kidnapped my son and tried to turn me into an assassin and been hanged for it. Simeon Wilmot, with the agile fingers – those unnaturally long fingers – that could flick through a deck of cards as if they were made of water.
Simeon Wilmot who had a half brother called Anthony Hunt. In my brain, Walsingham’s voice spoke. I have heard that this man Hunt has made threats against you. He apparently wants to avenge his brother.
The very first time I saw Julius Stagg, I had noticed how elegant his hands were. Those same elegant hands were testing the smoothness of the spice drawers now, before my eyes. Those tapering artistic fingers too were unnaturally long and very, very agile.
Brockley was also looking at them. Then he turned his head, put his mouth close to my ear and whispered: ‘Madam! Julius Stagg. Why did he choose that name? Think! If he’s really Anthony Hunt … Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Stag. Hunt. Staghunt!’
I gasped. I now saw the yawning pit to which I had been led step by step and into which I had now fallen. And now the tricks that had brought me here paraded through my mind like a cavalcade of demon horsemen.
Someone had broken that window in St Mary’s. Why? To give Master Stagg a way into my life, and then bring the chest and the salt to my notice? He had probably broken the window himself.
And then … I had not summoned Master Stagg to replace the window. He had presented himself. He’d said he had got the news of the broken window when he met an acquaintance from Hawkswood. That might well be genuine, but if he hadn’t met the acquaintance no doubt he would have invented some other excuse. Of course! said the second demon rider, leering at me.
How did he make sure I would see the chest in his workshop? Or come to visit it? He had invited me. All along, he had been guiding me towards disaster, this disaster.
And then he had pretended that the chest had been stolen, and Eleanor had wept. She was in it too, and I had been fool enough to pity her! Oh dear God, I had …
I wanted to retch. I could have evaded the trap if I had had more sense. If I had held to my first decision and simply told Stagg that we had found the chest and left the rest in his hands, then we would have been safe. But I had not. I had let Eleanor’s tears move me. And I had let that something in me, that unregenerate part of my nature, which had run me into trouble so often before, rule me again. I had heard the call of the wild geese, and like a fool I had followed.
But Brockley’s mind was running on a different track. He was glaring at Stagg and Frost. ‘My son Philip was part of the plot that Simeon Wilmot laid. Is his death part of this? Did one of you kill my son?’
Silence can be an expressive thing. No one answered the question or even attempted an answer. No one said ‘What’s all this about?’ or ‘Who’s this Philip and what’s he got to do with anything?’ No one spoke at all.
It was enough.
‘I see,’ said Brockley grimly. ‘So you did. Why? Did you want him to help trap us, and he said no and then tried to warn us? And did you realize he was about to do so? And watch him and find that he was setting out to visit us, and take steps to see he didn’t get there? Am I right?’
At that point, Frost did say the words which an innocent man should have spoken sooner. He said: ‘What on earth is this man talking about? Who is this Philip?’ But he had delayed too long. And Brockley, as Susie had done a few moments earlier, sprang.
Vaughan and Hamble dragged him off. Mrs Hamble, clicking a shocked tongue, started to hurry Susie and the twins away. All three were in tears and Susie was angrily resisting. As they departed through the herb garden, Frost said to Stagg: ‘We must remember that Mistress Stannard is half-sister to the queen and her children are the queen’s niece and nephew. We shall therefore have to act strictly within the law. This isn’t a case for a local constable; in the morning we will send word to Sir Edward Heron.’
‘Quite. He will be shocked,’ said Stagg sanctimoniously. ‘What a terrible thing, that a connection of Her Majesty should behave in such a tawdry fashion. Stealing a bridal chest, indeed! Shameful!’
‘What hypocrisy!’ Brockley muttered, in the grip of Vaughan and Hamble.
After that, there was no more talking. Brockley and I were hustled away and marched back to our rooms. We protested all the way and Sybil and Dale met us at the door of my chamber, candles in hand and wide-eyed with alarm. Sybil said: ‘Giles, what is all this about?’ and was told not to worry, he would see that she came to no harm, and if she wanted to know the whole story, no doubt I would tell it to her.
I was thrust into the room, and Dale was roughly shoved into the one she shared with Brockley. Then the doors were locked on us.
I sat down wretchedly on the side of the bed. Sybil set her candle down nearby.
‘What happened?’
‘I have been blind,’ I said. ‘I have been the greatest wantwit in the world. Julius Stagg is Anthony Hunt, and from first to last this whole business of the stolen chest has been a scheme to ruin and discredit me. Or possibly to get me hanged.’