Page 26 of Linenfold (The Alice Chronicles #4)

He shrugs. ‘I asked Cranley in a roundabout way but he declared he didn’t hold with “pagan charms”. I asked Jackson. He’s my uncle’s most trusted man, but he just looked blankly at me. So unless my uncle left the other piece with someone in France, I’ve no idea where it might be.’

‘Who had a key to the box?’

‘There are two. One he always kept with him, the one you saw me take from round his neck. For the past two years I’ve held the other.

’ He reaches into the neck of his shirt and draws out the key on the plain lace she saw before, followed by a fillet of silk with a second key dangling.

‘I’ve worn it at all times. Now I’m wearing both. ’

‘May I ask why he gave you a copy key?’

‘I turned eighteen the year before last. Uncle publicly made me his deputy in the household and privately passed the copy key to me for safekeeping. It was about the time negotiations started with France for the marriage contract, when the proposed Spanish match for Charles was falling apart. I was with him on his journeys between London and Paris. Uncle was nothing if not a careful man. He was taking precautions.’

‘Didn’t Master Cranley as his secretary have a copy key?’

‘Cranley scribed for Uncle in general contractual matters. He is a confidential clerk up to a point, but he rarely saw what was in the box. In negotiations of this magnitude, you can imagine it carried some highly secret notes and letters. Even I didn’t see some of them.

My uncle would keep his own notes on meetings and proposals and they went in the box for safekeeping.

He didn’t want Cranley put under pressure, be forced by outsiders to speak of such matters. ’

‘Outsiders?’

‘Anyone who had an interest in knowing the English negotiating position. Cranley is … he is a conscientious and meticulous man and does his job well as far as that goes. But there are times when a degree of dissembling is necessary in vital negotiations and Cranley could not …’ He pauses.

‘You could say he is too honest. Or too na?ve, perhaps. Not worldly enough for such a task.’

‘Yes, I see. Does Master Cranley know you hold a copy?’

‘No. he believes there is only the one key.’

‘That protected you as well, of course,’ she says. ‘From those curious outsiders.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ He gets up to throw a fresh brand onto the fire, and lingers several seconds, staring into the flames.

‘And Master Cranley,’ she says. ‘How did he accept your seniority when you became deputy in the household?’

Philip gives her a sideways grin as he returns to the table. ‘There was an awkward period for a while until he chose the stance of wise counsellor to the youthful.’

Which Alice takes to encompass the condescending tone the secretary uses, My dear boy , and the like. She indicates the two pieces of writing on the table. ‘It must have been important for your uncle to go to such lengths. Whatever I can do to help, I hope you will tell me.’

‘I shall be glad to talk things through with you, to discuss ideas,’ he tells her.

‘I feel I can trust you.’ His face hardens as he continues, ‘My uncle will be avenged, be in no doubt of it. This could be my fault, so quite apart from the loyalty I feel towards him, it’s imperative that I discover his killer. ’

‘From all I hear, the coroner appears to lean towards misadventure,’ she says. ‘And I never said that.’

‘He’s a fool,’ Philip’s face registers disgust. ‘He doesn’t want clues, doesn’t want the truth. He wants to accuse the first person he thinks he can frame and if he can’t do that, give up. When he was questioning me, he even seemed to blame you in some way. Why would he do that?’

Alice gives a wry smile. ‘Sir Malcolm and I have a short but turbulent history. He would very much like to see me convicted of some misdemeanour, or better still, a felony, so that he can get rid of me altogether.’

‘Why, how have you crossed him?’

Alice is reminded of a rancorous exchange in this very parlour not so many months ago. ‘After my husband’s death, I prevented Sir Malcolm taking something that was not his to take. And ensured he can never reach out for it again.’

‘It heartens me to hear it,’ he says.

‘My Lord,’ she asks, ‘why should anyone—?’

‘Please, don’t call me that,’ he says. ‘I used it in a fit of black humour to put the coroner in his place, but I don’t feel comfortable with the title while this hangs over my head. Master Sewell if you please, before our households, but if … if others are content with Philip , I too am content.’

Others being Juliana ? ‘Very well. Then under the same conditions I had better be Mistress Jerrard and Alice . What I wanted to ask is why anyone should wish to kill your uncle?’

‘I have no idea. All I know is that he was obsessed with the thought that we were being followed. And what did I do? Laughed it off. Come now Uncle, you’re tired , I said, you’re homesick . I feared he was getting old and losing his wits, seeing persecutors at every turn.’

‘Did he say who might be following him? Did he know when it started?’

‘He first mentioned it in Paris. He’d had a letter in London, he told me, but he didn’t tell me what it said.

“The sort of letter you destroy afterwards”, he described it.

I think it was that letter that sent us to Paris.

Something else I took no notice of. I was simply looking forward to Paris again, its people, its gaieties.

They’re somewhere out there , he said to me while we were there.

He called them “they”. When he became vexed at the delays on the return journey, I thought only to soothe him, pass them off as things that happen when you travel.

I might as well have patted him on the head and said, Next it will be things that go bump in the night, ha ha!

’ Philip sighs, and she watches the remorse cloud his eyes.

‘Things did go bump in the night. Now I see why he was in such a hurry to get back to London.’

‘Would he have been any safer there? From all I hear it’s a dangerous place.’

‘He would have felt safer. His own house. His own servants around. Too late now.’ He stirs. ‘Well, this won’t solve the riddle of the torn sheet.’ And he draws the two pieces towards him again. ‘What do you think?’

She turns her mind likewise from pointless contemplation of what might have been. ‘I think it will be useful to guess at the incomplete words.’

‘This one, for instance? I don’t know many words beginning with CY,’ he says. An idea strikes him. ‘Cymbelline. He was a king, wasn’t he? It doesn’t begin with a capital, though.’

‘What about cygnet ?’

‘Here’s another thought. Is cygnet an alternative for signet as in signet ring.’

‘Like a pun. Why not? Philip, we should write down these ideas.’ But he is already reaching for the quill and a fresh sheet of paper . ‘Cygnet-signet . What else?’

Alice gives thought. ‘Cypher?’

‘I like that,’ he says. ‘It has to do with riddles and mysteries, which is exactly what we have here.’

They work around the possibilities for several minutes, going through the fragmented phrases in attempts to prompt fresh words.

After several minutes, he says, ‘Let’s leave that.

What about where lamb and raging …? Isn’t there something in the Bible about a lamb lying down with another animal? ’ he asks. ‘A leopard, is it?’

‘The leopard lies down with a kid. It’s a wolf that dwells with the lamb. A raging wolf? I don’t think of wolves as raging.’

‘A raging leopard?’

‘Perhaps.’

He writes again, then, ‘Let’s go back to her cruel shields on hardened raft lest cy…’

‘What if that’s cygnet after all?’ she wonders. ‘The swan, the raft , cries its cygnets on its back. And the cruel shields are the wings of the swan? They look a bit like shields when they’re raised to protect. Lest the cygnets be harmed.’

‘I once saw a man caught by a swan’s wing,’ he says, remembering. ‘That was cruel, if you like. It felled him. Cygnet ’s a possibility.’

‘And maybe also an allusion to protecting a signet ring?’

He smiles. ‘This feels like we’re making progress.’ He busily scribbles. When he is done, ‘What about robber-king ?’

‘Who is a robber-king?’

‘I could name a few.’ He gets up and crosses to the hearth to nudge back a brand that has rolled off the fire, and throws on a couple more logs, settling them in place with the poker. ‘In my view the whole lot of them qualify for the title Robber-king. And to quote yourself, I never said that.’

‘Well, let’s start with the probabilities,’ Alice suggests. ‘Let’s assume we’re dealing with England and France? That’s two kings to start with. Did your uncle ever state his opinion of Charles or Louis?’

Philip lays down the poker and returns to the backstool.

‘Between you and me, he didn’t like Charles, he despised him for his unfeeling treatment of the Queen.

He clashed with Buckingham too, over the removal of her entourage, and the way the duke now hedges Her Majesty about with his own family.

And he thought Louis should have fought harder for his sister’s rights.

He saw Louis as weak. He might well see both Charles and Louis as robber-kings.

’ As he writes the names, he asks, ‘What about that last line?’

She reads, ‘ … ld one’s devotee awaits the screen to stow in let’s say safe custody. At least that makes sense. But almost any word would fit before one’s ,’ she says. ‘I believe it’s a waste of effort to tackle that at present.’

‘You’re right.’ So joining up line ends to line beginnings, this is what we have.’ Philip reads out,

the chained limbs thus spread

her cruel shields on hardened raft lest cy … [cygnet?]

… lated and robber-king’s gross desires be consum … [consumed?]

join with end of faith where lamb and raging … [leopard?]

… ld one’s devotee awaits the screen to stow in saf … [safe custody]

‘This last line,’ she says. It could be old . There might be more letters before that, of course.’

Philip tries out, ‘Old? Old one’s devotee ? Cold? Gold? Bold?’

An idea is forming in Alice’s mind. ‘ Bald one, ’ she says ‘Yes, it makes sense.’

‘ Bald ? Not bold ?’

‘I’m not certain, but let’s assume something like The bald one’s devotee awaits . Didn’t you say your uncle was sympathetic to the Huguenot cause?’

‘Yes, what of it?’

‘The bald one’s devotee means a Huguenot.’ As Philip stares nonplussed, ‘What’s the Latin for bald one ?’

‘C alvinus . Of course! Calvin! The Huguenots are followers of John Calvin.’ He frowns, looking at her. ‘But you’re a woman.’

She gives a burst of laughter. ‘You’re so observant, Philip!’

‘No, I mean, how do you know Latin?’

‘I had no brother, so my father allowed me an education.’

‘Well, I must say, I’m glad you’re on my side. Who’s the Huguenot devotee, then?’

Alice shrugs. ‘The answer could be in the central strip. It could be someone your uncle knew. You may even know this person yourself. Think of all the Huguenot people you know.’

‘I don’t know any. All right,’ he says, ‘don’t look at me like that. I’ll give it some thought.’

‘There are the two Frenchwomen,’ she suggests. ‘They’re Huguenot.’

Philip shakes his head. ‘If they were awaiting this screen or whatever, they could have collected it and gone on their way to stow it. Couriers wouldn’t travel with their contacts. It’s too risky.’

‘That’s true.’

After a few minutes of silence while they both consider, ‘Philip, do you notice something about this passage that’s odd?’

‘Apart from the fact that the middle’s missing, you mean?’

‘ On hardened raft . Then this one, where lamb and raging wolf, leopard , whatever. And here, and robber-king’s .

There’s no “the” or “a”, and yet we have the chained limbs , her cruel shields , the screen .

Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Was your uncle in the habit of leaving out “the” in his writing? ’

‘Not that I ever noticed. What are you saying?’

‘I think this is verse. Verse but written continuously, without commas or line breaks, in order to conceal the fact, to prevent it being too easy to decipher. In which case, if we can work out where one line starts and ends, we shall be much closer to finding out what is missing.’

Philip looks at her. ‘Now I’m more confused than ever.’

‘This is just a thought but look at this part-word ending in lated .’

‘Yes?’

‘You have this other part-word consum . What if it is consummated ? What if those two are line ends? Something like, say, crenellated , consummated. ’

‘They rhyme! I follow you.’

‘So we have a line emerging after …lated . And robber-king’s gross desires be consummated. ‘And once we have a line, we know how the poem flows.’

‘We do?’ he says.

‘If I’m not mistaken, that’s a pentameter.’

‘No, you’ve lost me, Alice.’

‘Each line has five points of accent. And rob ber-king’s gross de sires be con sum ma ted .’

‘I see! I see!’ he declares. ‘Alice! You are a wondrous woman of wit and wisdom!’ Laughing, he pulls her to her feet, grasps her armpits to throw her up as though they are dancing the Volta, but with the swelling under her skirts between them, stops himself in time, instead planting a great kiss on each cheek, just as the door opens and Juliana Egerton walks in.