The Parliament House

    'God bless you, Christopher,' said Sir Julius, taking his hand between both palms. 'I owe you everything. A thousand thanks.'

    'Save some of those for Jonathan Bale,' said the other. 'It was his sensitive nose that led us to the brewery. Oh, and Patrick McCoy must not be forgotten either.'

    'Who is he?'

    'The landlady's son from the Saracen's Head. He helped to capture Samuel Greene, the man who was sent after me.'

    'You should not have gone down that alleyway,' chided Susan.

    'I had to tempt him somehow.'

    'Not with your life, Christopher.'

    She spoke with such love and concern that he knew she had forgiven him his earlier mistakes. Christopher was reminded that someone else deserved a degree of gratitude.

    'My brother made his contribution,' he said. 'Henry not only educated me in the black arts of political life, he discovered that it was Maurice Farwell who penned that callous attack on you in the play, and who led the laughter when you entered parliament.'

    'Brilliana scourged him unfairly,' observed Susan.

    'I would not go that far. Henry did go astray at times. Your sister's harsh words were a sobering experience for him in a number of ways. But I must add one more thing in his favour,' Christopher told them. 'I needed an example of Farwell's hand to compare it with that in the letter sent about your visit to Cambridge. Within the hour, Henry had answered my plea.'

    'How?'

    'By going to the Navy Office. He reasoned that someone as important as a Privy Councillor must have had correspondence with the Surveyor at some time or another, so he went through the boxes of letters like a whirlwind.' He laughed. 'He not only found what he was after. Henry was so zealous at his task that his superior was very impressed. He actually commended my brother.'

    'Then I shall do so as well,' said Sir Julius.

    'Look for no commendation from Brilliana,' warned Susan.

    'Henry will not seek it,' said Christopher. 'He's content simply to share in the joy of your father's escape, and in the arrest of those who plotted against him.'

    'But why? That's what I never understood. Why did they conspire against him like that?'

    'I had to be silenced,' said Sir Julius. 'My voice was getting too loud in the Parliament House.'

    'That was not the reason, Sir Julius.'

    'What else?'

    'They thought you were the author of that pamphlet that created such a scandal. It attacked popery and unfettered power. When we discovered that copy in your study, I was convinced that you had actually written it. Is that correct, Sir Julius?'

    'Unfortunately, it's not,' replied the other. 'I'd have been proud to claim it as my work because I shared so many of its sentiments. But I've neither the wit nor the scholarship to produce something like that.' He smiled at Christopher. 'Since you have fought so bravely on my behalf, you deserve to know the truth.'

    'Lewis Bircroft? Was he the author?'

    'No - and neither was Arthur Manville.'

    'Then who was, Sir Julius?'

    'Bernard Everett.'

    Christopher gaped. 'Are you sure?'

    'He let me read it before it went to the printer.'

    'But do you see what this means?'

    'I think so,' said Sir Julius.

    'Well, I do not,' said Susan. 'What is its significance?'

    'A man was sent to shoot your father in Knightrider Street,' said Christopher, 'because it was supposed that he was the author of the pamphlet. It was Mrs Kitson who discovered that Sir Julius would be there that day and Erasmus Howlett who put an assassin in position at the Saracen's Head.'

    'Then Mr Everett was killed by mistake.'

    'But it was not a mistake,' said Sir Julius.

    'We know that now,' Christopher said, 'but they did not. How ironic! In hindsight, all the efforts they took to kill Sir Julius were quite unnecessary. Without realising it, they had already killed the right man.'