Chapter XI
I cannot be troubled with your petty complaints at this time, sir,' said the smaller man. 'I have more important matters on my mind, and so should you, if your interest in bringing this matter to a successful conclusion is as important to yourself as you have been claiming.'
The host could not stifle a gasp of outrage.
'You do not dare, sir, to adopt that tone to me-not to me, above all.'
'Spare me your bombast for the nonce, sir,' the guest said. 'You have yet to achieve your objective, and hence to deserve the homage you believe will become your due. You need my help; you know that.
'Now, here is what we must do. The females are safe, gagged, and secured, as I directed?'
'Bound, sir, seated at opposite ends of my own bedchamber. In reasonable comfort. And guarded.'
'Bedchamber, eh? So you have… er… intentions with respect to one of them? Or both, perhaps?'
'Sir!'
'Pray step up and confirm that all is well. Oh, and while you are at it, make sure that the guard is firmly instructed to remain outside your bedroom door. Should the least hint reach my ears that either female has been interfered with, by anyone, the person or persons responsible will be subject to my extreme displeasure.'
'After what your men told us about their behavior toward the woman Agnes, I am surprised at your sudden missishness.'
'She was a servant. The females abovestairs are a different matter entirely.'
Hoare found the house at 18, Gracechurch Street imposing enough-little less than a mansion. The steps up to the high door were wide and marble, and the balustrades wrought iron with polished brass rails. The windows were as dark as those he had left behind at Dirty Mill. Hoare knocked sharply. After a short, endless wait, a small port appeared in the door, a darker spot in the black, and a cold neutral voice said, 'You brought support, I see. You were instructed to come alone, and warned of the consequences should you disobey. Good…'
'Wait!' Hoare's whisper was an agonizing rasp. 'A hired guide, and no more. I lose myself in London. Please…'
The craven sound of his own pleading voice revolted him, but it must have satisfied the doorman. There was a further wait. Then, 'Very good. A pleasure to see you again, sir.' The voice was no longer cold, but cordial. With the grinding of a rusty key, the door was opened and held for Hoare to enter. The entryway being dark, Hoare could not make out the doorman's features, but the voice was familiar.
'This way, sir,' it said. 'We can begin to carry out our little piece of business more comfortably in our host's library.' He opened the inner door, and the lamplight from within revealed his face. A small, lean, weary-looking man, he was Mr. John Goldthwait.
Without remarking on Hoare's startle, Mr. Goldthwait led him down a hall and past a graceful sweep of stairway, to a heavy walnut door, guarded by two persons. The one to larboard was Floppin' Poll, the dollymop who had taken part in the attack on the wherry bearing Hoare and Thoday down to Greenwich. The other, a swarthy man clad in a simple livery, must belong to the owner of the house. His shock of coarse black hair was unpowdered, his cheekbones prominent, his eyes slitted. He looked oddly familiar.
When the man gave him an unmistakable wink out of one of those slits of eyes, Hoare remembered. He had seen him on the box of a certain berlin, waiting at the door of Weymouth's St. Ninian's Church. He had identified him then as an Esquimau.
Mr. Goldthwait stopped at the door.
'Oh, I almost forgot,' he said, looking up at Hoare with a winning smile. 'The search. Pray raise both arms in the air.' He produced a small, plain pistol.
'I believe I have seen that pistol before, sir,' Hoare whispered. He had secreted it in his own little pinnace. In fact, come to think of it, he had not seen it since Nemesis had been searched and looted last summer, off Weymouth. Like his beautiful Kentucky rifle, it had flown.
'Perhaps you have, sir,' Goldthwait said dismissively. 'Never mind. I told you to raise your hands.'
Hoare obeyed. Mr. Goldthwait ran his left hand swiftly along both sides of Hoare's body, pausing suggestively at the bulge at his crotch. Hoare could not restrain himself from flinching. Floppin' Poll snickered.
'Hmm,' said the searcher. 'Well-hung. And long deprived, I see.' He continued the search down Hoare's legs.
'Very good, sir. And now…' He opened the walnut door. Upon sighting them, the library's occupant rose, as if reluctantly, from a Russia leather chair. One of three such chairs that surrounded three sides of a well-lit mahogany table, it was identical with the two in which Hoare and Mr. Goldthwait had sat, not so long ago, in the latter's apartments, and with the ruined one in the late Mr. Ambler's chambers. The fourth side of the table faced a warm, welcoming fire of clean cannel coal.
'Here we are, then,' Mr. Goldthwait said. 'You know Sir Thomas Frobisher, I believe. Our roy… er… eminent host.' His voice was loaded with ironic laughter.
'You brought the portraits, Captain? Yes, of course. I see you did. I trust you enjoyed their perusal, and that they suffered no damage while in your possession.'
'They are in the same condition, sir, as when I purchased them from the artist's wife,' Hoare whispered. 'Purchased them, I say, should you wish to pursue the manner of my acquiring them.
'Now, where are Mrs. Hoare and Miss Jenny? I wish… to have done with this business and begone.'
'Tsk, tsk.' Mr. Goldthwait made the sibilant little sound seem almost reproachful. 'Oh, not so fast, sir.' he said. 'The matter is just a wee bit more complex than you appear to believe.'
Hoare felt his heart grow cold.
''Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?' ' he murmured.
Mr. Goldthwait's eyes opened a trifle, only to that extent did he drop his armor of cordiality.
'I do not understand you, sir,' he said.
'Oh, I believe you do, Mr. Goldthwait,' Hoare whispered. For, upon the sight of the woman at the library door, the hard truth had dawned on him. The man before him was both the 'Saul' mentioned in those ciphers that had puzzled him so deeply, and the 'Sol' to whom Floppin' Poll had referred during her interrogation aboard Royal Duke.
Goldthwait shrugged. His smile returned.
'So be it, then,' he said. 'As I just said, the matter is more complex than you believe. As you shall learn shortly.'
Out of the corner of his eye, Hoare kept Sir Thomas in view. What was the knight-baronet's part in this? How had Mr. Goldthwait come to arrange this matter in what must be Sir Thomas's townhouse, opened when he came up to Town to attend Parliament? Was the host looking more than a little displeased with the proceedings? His likeness was among the ones Hoare had brought as his womenfolks' ransom, so he must be involved in this affair- and not on the side of Britain. He could well be the 'Ahab' of the ciphers. If so, it appeared from his demeanor tonight, he-though the owner of this house and therefore his host-was clearly the junior of the two kings used as code-name in the ciphers, and was discomfited with the rank.
'We shall become better acquainted, Captain, than we are now,' Mr. Goldthwait said in that gratingly friendly way of his, 'for we shall be working together for a long, long time. At least I hope so, for the sake of all parties involved. So perhaps Sir Thomas would be kind enough to offer us refreshment. Do take a seat.'
Sir Thomas jumped, but rose awkwardly and went to a castered mahogany sideboard before a bank of neatly arrayed bookshelves, where he reached for decanter and glasses.
'I would find it distasteful to accept either Sir Thomas's directed hospitality or your own,' Hoare said, without accepting the proffered chair. 'I do not consider this a social occasion.'
Mr. Goldthwait shrugged, and gave Sir Thomas an intimate wink. 'Then it will be just you and I to enjoy your port, Sir Thomas,' he said.
'I do not know you as a gentleman, sir,' Hoare whispered, 'nor do I wish to. And… while Sir Thomas and I have our differences, I am astonished to see a man of his station-a gentleman, beyond dispute-engaged in what I have begun to believe to be a matter of treason. Once again, be so kind as to bring my family to me, and we shall take ourselves off, leaving your bloody portraits behind.'
Mr. Goldthwait seated himself and steepled his hands below his face. His voice remained affable.
