‘There is your brother-in-law,’ said Chaloner, nodding to where Lydcott was peering at the moon fish, a sad beast in a tank of cloudy water that looked as if it would soon join the tropic bird and become a casualty of London’s insatiable demand for the bizarre.
‘I cannot greet him,’ said Thurloe. ‘I am in disguise, and he is the kind of man to blurt out my name if I speak to him and he recognises my voice. I shall attempt to engage the Janszoon couple in conversation instead, to see what I can learn about the Piccadilly Company.’
He moved away, although he was not in time to prevent Margareta from informing the entire room that English curiosities were ‘a deal more meretricious’ than ones in Amsterdam.
‘She means “meritorious”,’ explained Thurloe quickly. ‘An easy mistake, even for native English speakers. She intended a compliment, not an insult.’
‘I do not need interpolation,’ she objected indignantly. ‘My English is excellent.’
‘It is excellent,’ said Lady Castlemaine, regarding Thurloe coolly. ‘Which means she knew exactly what she was saying — and it was nothing polite.’
Thurloe bowed to her, then took Margareta’s arm and ushered her away, aiming for the giant’s thigh-bone, an object that clearly had once been part of a cow. Janszoon followed, and so did the three guards. Chaloner thought the couple was right to ensure that someone was there to protect them, given that they seemed unable to speak without causing offence.
‘What an extraordinarily ugly creature,’ said Lydcott, glancing up at Chaloner and then returning his gaze to the moon fish. ‘Do you think God was intoxicated when He created it?’
‘Is Fitzgerald here?’ asked Chaloner. God’s drinking habits were certainly not something he was prepared to discuss in a public place. Men had been executed for less.
‘No — he came last week.’ Lydcott turned to him suddenly, his expression earnest. ‘Thurloe says the Piccadilly Company is being used to disguise some great wickedness engineered by Fitzgerald, and I have been thinking about his claims ever since. Indeed, I spent most of last night doing it.’
‘And what did you conclude?’
‘That he is mistaken. I admit that I am sent more frequently than anyone else to fetch refreshments, but I cannot believe they use the opportunity to plot terrible things. He is wrong.’
‘Have you ever heard them discussing an event planned for this coming Wednesday?’
Lydcott shook his head. ‘Not specifically. Why?’
‘It might be a good idea for you to leave London,’ said Chaloner, suspecting Thurloe’s gentle wife would be heartbroken if anything were to happen to her silly brother. ‘For your own safety.’
‘No,’ stated Lydcott emphatically. ‘For the first time in my life I am involved in a successful venture, and I am not going to abandon it just because Thurloe dislikes Fitzgerald. Besides, if he is right — which I am sure he is not — then staying here will allow me to thwart whatever it is. It is still my business, so I have some say in what happens.’
Chaloner doubted it. ‘It is too risky to-’
‘Pratt is coming our way,’ interrupted Lydcott. ‘We had better talk about something else, because he has invested a lot of money with us, and I do not want him to withdraw it, just because my brother-in-law is a worrier. Pratt! Did you find the key you lost?’
‘What key?’ asked Chaloner in alarm.
‘The one to Clarendon House,’ replied Pratt, reaching inside his shirt and producing it. He glared at Lydcott. ‘And it was not lost. It was mislaid — dropped between two floorboards.’
‘What if you had lost it?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Would you cut a copy from the Earl’s?’
‘Certainly not! More keys mean decreased security. I argued against there being more than one in the first place, but the Earl overrode me. Still, it is his house, so I suppose he has a right to two if he wants them.’
‘I am sure he will be pleased to hear it,’ said Chaloner.
Pratt and Lydcott did not stay with Chaloner long — they went to talk to the Janszoons. Thurloe bowed and left quickly, unwilling to risk being unmasked by his foolish brother-in-law. Chaloner retreated behind the tank holding the eel-like remora to watch the gathering, noting that two other Piccadilly Company members had gravitated towards each other, too — Harley was with Meneses.
Lester had also arrived, apparently hoping for an opportunity to further his investigation. Chaloner winced when Thurloe homed in on him, and could tell by the bemused expression on the captain’s face that he was being interrogated with some vigour.
Meanwhile, a clot of Adventurers clustered around Leighton, listening politely as he pontificated. Swaddell was among them, but there was a distance between him and the others, and it was clear that he would never be fully trusted. He was wasting his time, and Chaloner thought he should cut his losses and return to Williamson.
Then O’Brien and Kitty appeared, at which point Leighton abandoned his companions and scuttled to greet them. O’Brien was all boyish enthusiasm for the exhibits, although Kitty’s eyes filled with compassionate tears at the plight of the hapless moon fish.
‘If you join the Adventurers, you will receive many invitations like this one,’ Chaloner heard Leighton whisper to them. ‘You will spend all your time in high society.’
‘That would be pleasant.’ There was real yearning in O’Brien’s voice. ‘But Kitty says we cannot join an organisation that profits from slavery. And she is right. It is unethical to-’
‘Mr O’Brien!’ The speaker was Lady Castlemaine, who swept forward with a predatory smile. ‘Do come and inspect the salamanders with me. You can tell me all about them, I am sure.’
‘It is astonishing how our wealth makes us instant experts with opinions worth hearing,’ Kitty remarked to Leighton as she prepared to follow. ‘Last year, when we had less of it, no one was very interested in what we thought.’
Leighton opened his mouth to respond, but Kitty had gone, leaving him alone. Chaloner started to move away too, but suddenly Leighton was next to him. The Adventurers’ secretary gestured to the remora, which floated miserably in water that was every bit as foul as that of the moon fish.
‘We should all take a lesson from this sorry beast,’ he said softly. ‘It ventured into a place where it should not have gone, and it is now a thing to be laughed at by fools.’
Chaloner was not entirely sure what he meant. Had he just been warned off? Or informed that the Court comprised a lot of idiots? He realised that one of the most unsettling things about Leighton was the fact that he was near-impossible to read. Was he dangerous, as so many people believed, with ties to the criminal world in which he was said to have made his fortune? Or was he just a clever courtier with hidden depths?
‘Is it dead?’ asked Leighton, still staring at the fish. ‘Or just pretending?’
‘Speaking of dead things, I understand you witnessed an accident,’ said Chaloner. ‘Newell.’
Leighton’s eyes bored into Chaloner’s with such intensity that it was difficult not to look away. ‘Apparently, the trigger needed no more than a breath to set it off, and he had a heavy hand.’
‘Do you think someone ordered it made so?’ asked Chaloner, recalling the conversation in the gunsmiths’ shop, where Leighton had gone to have his own weapon adjusted in just such a manner.
‘I imagine its owner did not want to be yanking like the devil while his life was in danger. But Newell was a professional soldier, who should have been more careful. Incidentally, Harley was so distressed by his companion’s demise that he hurled the offending weapon into the river. It was unfortunate, because now no one can examine it.’
He scuttled away, leaving Chaloner with a mind full of questions. Chaloner looked for Harley, and saw him studying a device that claimed to launch arrows so poisonous that the victim would be dead before he hit the ground. Fortunately, it was encased in thick glass, because the devil-eyed colonel looked as though nothing would give him greater pleasure than to snatch it up and launch a few into the throng that surged around him.