“You’re very cool!” said Charles, half-laughing.
“It is so interesting. For this is where the two plots meet.”
“ ’Sblood! What is the other plot?”
“The Monmouth rising that I spoke of. Monmouth hath a large following: Russell, Essex, Armstrong, Grey, Sydney, Trenchard and a score of others. Monmouth, Russell and Essex seek only to rise and to force you to declare Monmouth the heir, but Sydney and Ferguson wish to kill you. Ferguson would murder Monmouth too if necessary. He is by no means a pleasant character. They hold meetings at the house of one Shepherd. Lord Russell has been there many times, and there has been much treasonable talk. All this I have from Rumsey, whom I hold, as he puts it, in a vice.”
Charles uncrossed his legs and sat upright.
“Who—is—Rumsey?”
Roxhythe opened his eyes rather wide.
“A creature of no account,” he said. “One of Monmouth’s followers.”
The King leaned back again with a sigh of relief.
“At last! Why have you him in a vice?”
“I know a waverer when I see one, Sir. I easily discovered him. I told him that I had ample proofs of his meetings with Rumbald at the Devil Tavern. I frightened him, and, perforce, he became my man. I have promised him his life, as a price of which he will turn informer when I tell him.”
“He will incriminate Russell?”
“He will incriminate anyone that I wish.”
Charles was openly admiring.
“You are wonderful, David!”
“It was really very easy,” disclaimed my lord. “But it will prove useful. The plot can be used as Shaftesbury used the Popish plot. You will gain power by it.”
“And be rid of those who seek to bring about the Exclusion. When do these men lodge their information?”
“There are still one or two minor details that we must discover if we are to trap Essex. In about a week.”
“Meanwhile I shall be murdered,” said Charles cheerfully.
“Not a whit, Sir. If you could but see these schemers you would laugh at the thought of their ever moving either one way or another. They fight amongst themselves; they waver, they hesitate. Monmouth is swayed this way and that. They meet to decide on some sort of action, and when they are assembled they bewail the fact that they cannot, after all, come to a decision as one of their number is not present. If one puts forward a scheme, the rest pounce on it and tear it to bits. Then they come to blows—or would, if Monmouth did not intervene. It is the wildest, silliest band of malcontents I ever was in.”
“It is because Monmouth is no leader of men. In battle, yes. But he has no fixity of purpose. A pity.”
“In this case, Sir, a good thing.”
Charles rested his head in his hand.
“I wish he were not acting thus against me. It—hurts, David—though I suppose I encourage him. I should never have accorded him the rights I did. It put higher ideas into his pate. … Does he trust you?”
“Implicitly. I have given him a little obvious advice and he imagines that I am wholly with him. Sydney mistrusts me, but Grey stands for me because I studiously agree with what he says. Rumsey assures the rest of my loyalty. They think to hold me in their hands on account of the Duke of York his hatred for me. It never enters their heads that I work for you alone.”
“I see. Does it irk you, I wonder?”
“Does what irk me, Sir?”
“The double part you play: delivering these men into my hands.”
Roxhythe’s eyes flashed suddenly.
“Sire, where you are concerned I have no pity.”
And so, at last Roxhythe having all the threads at his fingertips, started to pull them, so that the Great Whig Plot fell in ruins about its makers. Roxhythe worked still in the shadows, and so deftly did he play his part that his name was never mentioned. One by one he set his hapless tools to do his bidding, secure in the knowledge that they dared not refuse. Keyling and Rumsey disclosed all that they knew, but they were carefully coached by Roxhythe, and on every occasion they denied that Monmouth had ever countenanced the idea of assassinating the King or the Duke. Very skilfully was the betrayal done, bit by bit, till at last the network of information was complete, woven together by a master-hand.
Proclamation was issued, ordering the arrest of Monmouth and his chief followers: Grey, Russell, Ferguson and others. My lord’s work was well done, and so thoroughly that no loophole was left through which the incriminated men, save Monmouth, might creep. All that Roxhythe had striven for since first he joined Shaftesbury and Holles was accomplished. It had entailed endless toil, constant alertness of brain and unfailing perseverance. And now it was finished, the task that had been so colossal, and which, to any other man, would have seemed impossible. Step by step my lord had entered into almost every plot for over a year, and had gradually drawn those implicated into a cunning net whose strings were held by a relentless, merciless hand. My lord’s quick brain was moving all the time, linking each tiny plot into one whole, leading on the men he was tricking, until, by their actions, they gave him damning evidence against themselves. Not until the
