The King’s Evil. Andrew Taylor

a shallow flight of steps and unlocked the double door. I turned to see if the face was still visible at the window.

      ‘We are not overlooked?’ Milcote said.

      ‘I think someone was watching us from the house.’

      For an instant alarm flared in his eyes, but he suppressed it. ‘A window? Which one?’

      ‘At the end to the right, on the first floor.’

      ‘My lord’s private apartments are there.’ He smiled, adding with obvious affection, ‘He may be old, but he likes to know what’s what.’

      He pushed open one leaf of the door just wide enough to let us pass. I found myself in a room with brick walls, to which islands of old plaster still clung. It was lit by two tall windows, one facing the mansion and the other, at right angles to it, facing the other pavilion at the opposite corner of the garden. The flagged floor was uneven and stained with age. In one corner was a pile of planks and newly cut stones. The air was very cold.

      ‘The body’s downstairs in the kitchen,’ Milcote said, closing the door behind us and throwing the bolt across. ‘Through there.’

      In the wall to the left, a door led to a lobby containing a staircase with worn treads.

      I glanced up. ‘Where does it go to?’

      ‘The main apartment. After that, to the viewing platform.’

      I followed Milcote down to the basement. It was the same size as the room above, and much gloomier, for the two barred windows were small and set high in the wall. It had a large fireplace with two ovens beside it. There was no furniture of any sort apart from a wooden contraption tucked into a corner, with a pile of scaffolding poles beside it. It was almost as high as the barrel-vaulted ceiling.

      ‘There,’ Milcote said, pointing at the floor in front of the empty fireplace where a long shape lay like a vast boar hound across the brick-lined hearth. It was draped with a horse blanket.

      I took a step towards it but he caught my arm to stop me.

      ‘Have a care. The well is there.’

      Ahead of me, a yard or so in front of the wooden contraption, was a wooden disc about five or six feet in diameter. It was countersunk into the floor, which was why I hadn’t noticed it before.

      ‘I wouldn’t trust my weight on the cover,’ Milcote said. ‘Just in case.’

      I skirted the well and knelt by the body. I pulled back the blanket. My stomach heaved. I had seen too many dead bodies in the last few years. During the Plague they had been piled in the streets. But I’d never grown used to them.

      This was Edward Alderley: there was no doubt about it. His single eye stared up at me. The face was almost grey. The features were heavier than I remembered. His mouth was open, showing blackened teeth. He had lost his wig, and the dome of his skull was speckled with stubble. There were drops of moisture on his skin.

      I drew back the blanket to the waist and then down to the knees. A drawn sword was lying on the floor beside the body. The tip of the blade winked in the light from the lantern. The sheath, which hung from the belt by two thin chains, had entangled itself with the legs. The leather was black from the water.

      Death had made Alderley look ridiculous, as death is apt to do. Frowning, I touched his collar and then his coat.

      ‘He’s soaking wet.’

      ‘Didn’t they tell you?’ Milcote said. ‘The poor man fell in the well and was drowned.’

      I glanced at the cover. ‘But how? The cover’s on.’

      ‘It wasn’t over the well this morning. It was leaning against the wall.’

      ‘When did this happen?’

      ‘It must have been after Saturday afternoon. That was when work stopped. So between then and first thing this morning when the servant came to unlock the pavilion.’

      ‘Perhaps he was here on Saturday with the builders,’ I suggested. ‘And they locked him in by accident.’

      ‘It’s possible.’ Milcote shrugged. ‘But unlikely. The surveyor in charge of the works is a sober man, very thorough. He was on site on Saturday – I saw him myself.’ He hesitated. ‘Between ourselves, there’s some doubt as to whether the work will continue. Mr Hakesby is understandably concerned, as he’s already retained the builders.’

      I swallowed. ‘Did you say – Hakesby?’

      ‘Yes. The surveyor-architect. An experienced man, highly recommended.’ Milcote looked curiously at me, and I knew my face must have betrayed the shock I felt. ‘I’ll question him, of course, but I’m sure he would have ensured the well was covered up when he left, and the building secure. He has his own key.’

      ‘Yes,’ I began, ‘or I will talk to him myself.’ I tried to mask my confusion with a change of subject. ‘Who identified Alderley?’

      ‘I did. I was a little acquainted with the gentleman, and he’s visited Clarendon House in the past.’ Milcote hesitated. ‘But I had no idea he was here, or how he got into the pavilion.’

      I was about to ask how he knew Alderley when there was a hammering above our heads. Both of us swung round as if surprised in a guilty act. The sound bounced off the walls, filling the empty spaces between them with dull echoes.

      Milcote swore under his breath. He took the stairs, two at a time. I followed. He unbolted the door. I glimpsed a manservant through the crack.

      ‘It’s my lord, master. He wants to see you in his closet. And the other gentleman.’

      The old man sat by the window wrapped in a quilted bedgown. His bandaged legs rested on a padded stool. Clarendon was a martyr to the gout, Milcote had told me on the way up here, so much so that even the staircases in the house had been designed with exceptionally shallow treads to make them as easy as possible for him to climb.

      A brisk fire burned in the grate, and the room was uncomfortably warm. After the grandeur of the stairs and the outer rooms, I had not expected this closet to be small. It was full of colours and objects – paintings, sculptures, rugs, pieces of china, curiosities and books – always books, more and more books.

      My warrant from the King lay on Clarendon’s lap. He had insisted on examining it himself, even holding it up to the light from the window, as if the very paper it was written on held secrets of its own.

      ‘Marwood,’ he said. He looked half as old as time, but his voice was clear and hard. ‘Marwood. Was there once a printer of that name? Dead now, I think.’

      ‘Yes, my lord. My father.’

      Clarendon’s memory was legendary, as was his command of detail. His small eyes studied me, but to my relief he did not pursue the subject. ‘You’re from Whitehall, yes?’

      ‘I work for Mr Williamson on the Gazette.’

      ‘The Gazette?’ His face grew suspicious. ‘Does that mean that Lord Arlington has a finger in the pie, as he usually does?’

      ‘No, my lord.’ I heard a creak as Milcote shifted his weight beside me.

      ‘Did you see the King? Or the Duke?’

      ‘No – Mr Chiffinch gave me the warrant and sent me here.’

      Lord Clarendon sniffed. ‘Does Chiffinch often give you errands, eh?’

      ‘Sometimes – I’m also clerk to the Board of Red Cloth, and he’s one of the commissioners.’

      ‘We know what that means,’ Clarendon said tartly. ‘The Board does nothing for the salaries it receives. Its commissioners oblige the King in less official ways. And therefore so does its clerk.’ He turned to Milcote. ‘Well, George. We must cooperate, of course, which means we must give Mr Marwood all the assistance in our power. Was Alderley murdered?’