Clive always struggled to keep up with Jerry when the coffin maker walked at full tilt. Those legs could stride as fast as Clive could jog!167 Clive had never seen Jerry run. Apparently, with legs like that, he didn’t need to. And this was Jerry moving like his life depended on it, which, in a manner of speaking, it did.

“Jerry! Can you slow down just a little! It’s getting windy!”

“Nope! Tick-tock, Clive! You said it yourself: we’ve only got maybe 12 hours left ’til the rent is due!”

“At least tell me where we’re going!”

“I told you! We’ve got a code to crack posthaste! There’s only one man in all of England who can help us now!”

“But... who?”

“The postmaster general. Well, he was.”

“Postmaster? I thought you were taking me to some kind of spy or something!”

“He was a spy. THE spy. Spymaster to Cromwell himself, in fact.”

“Was?”

“He’s retired.”

“I’m surprised he wasn’t arrested!”

“He was.”

“Oh. I guess he escaped? Can’t keep a good spy down, right?”

“He was pardoned, actually.”

“Oh. That’s... surprising! But why is some retired spymaster going to help us decode Phil’s ledger? Can I remind you that we have no money?”

“You have no money. I’m rolling in it.”

“Not funny, Jerry.”

“We won’t need it. He owes me.”

“Owes you for what?”

“I helped get him the pardon.”

“Seems like everyone in London owes you for something or other...”

“And I intend to keep it that way!”

Clive hopped around in front of Jerry in an attempt to slow him down. “Jerry, I have to ask something – you’re going to think me crazy but–”

Jerry swerved but Clive was faster.

“Jerry...”

“Yes, Clive?”

“Jerry. Have you ever met the King?”

Jerry snorted derisively, sidestepped Clive and continued on his way.

Clive shrugged and changed tack. “So where is this spymaster?”

“Lincoln’s Inn.”

“With the lawyers?”

“He used to be one.”

“Had a lot of jobs, hasn’t he?”

“Yep.”

Jerry clearly wasn’t in the mood for talking. Clive gave up on trying to match Jerry for walking speed, and started to jog along beside him.

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Turned out Jerry’s speed was well merited, for they had a ways to go. All along Thames Street, then right up to St. Paul’s, a left along Ludgate and over the short bridge that spanned the immense open sewer formerly known as the River Fleet, and then into Fleet Street proper. From there it was a right into Chancery Lane, with Lincoln’s Inn upstreet on the left.

A wall separated the chambers and residences from the street, but the gatehouse was unbarred and unguarded, and Jerry went right on in. The tunnel opened upon a large square with an ancient-looking oak at its centre. The wind whistled here, and leaves danced maypoles around the tree trunk.

Unlike Clive, Jerry seemed to know exactly where he was going. “There’s a good theatre near here,” he said conversationally, as he marched up to a sturdy looking door to one of the townhouses, “Used to be a tennis court until his nibs had other ideas. Tennis my ass!” He rapped smartly on the wood, then seemed to remember the bell pull and gave that a yank for good measure. “I saw the Siege of Rhodes there. Bloody awesome! Emptied every other playhouse in the city, sure as pox! Ran and ran, it did! Why I reckon Rhodes fell more times in a month than a goodwife’s drawers do in a year!”

After a time (and some subsequent and less than patient banging and belling), an elderly housekeeper answered the door. Jerry had quiet but insistent words and the housekeeper disappeared, to be replaced but a moment later by a round faced man with keen intelligent eyes and grey at his temples, holding a candle.

“John!” cried Jerry. “How nice to see you!” Before the man had a chance to answer, Jerry was past him and into the house.

Clive followed, awkwardly proffering his hand. “Clive. Clive Hucklefish.”

The gentleman considered the hand. “Huckleash?”

Clive sighed. “Fish.”

“Never after dark, son! John Thurloe. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Yes, yes, we all know each other now!” Jerry really wasn’t messing around. “John. I need your help with this.” Jerry hefted the ledger. “It’s in code and we’re on the clock!”

John blinked. “Is that–”

“Yes.”

“You mean the–”

“Yep.”

“Well, I’ll do my best! And you need it–”

“Tonight.”

“The whole book?”

“No. Clive?”

Clive opened the book for Thurloe to look at. “We just need the location of a single grave. The occupant is one Elman Squatcherd.”

“Well, there could hardly be two with that name!” Thurloe smiled dryly. To Jerry, “And that uver thing?”

Jerry nodded.

Clive looked at Jerry. “What other thing?”

Jerry ignored him. “Can you do it?”

Thurloe raised the candle to the ledger. “It looks like a fairly standard substitution cipher. Coffins, gravestones, crosses, skulls... each represents a letter, I’ll wager. Shouldn’t take too long to figure. The hard part will be skimming the book for the information you need – we don’t have time to decode all of it, not in the window you’re–”

“Can you do it?” Jerry snapped again.

John caught his breath. “If I use the cipher to encode just the letters you’re looking for, I should be able to skim the pages and find a match within an hour or two – once I’ve worked out the cipher, of cour–”

“Great!” said Jerry, pushing Thurloe before him into an adjoining drawing room, “You better get started, then!” Before Thurloe could so much as squeak, Jerry had slammed the door behind him.

Jerry leant against the wall, and breathed out.

Clive joined him. “Are you sure he can do it? You said he was a lawyer and a postmaster – before he was a spy?”

“A postmaster IS a spy, Clive. Who do you think is reading all those letters people send? The recipients? No, John Thurloe has seen the demise of more codes than I have maidenhoods. If anyone can do it, it’s him. It’s why, I suspect, the King keeps him around...”

“You said you helped get him his pardon. How did you do that?”

“Thurloe was Cromwell’s man through and through. He never wanted the monarchy back. He was destined for the axe when ol’ Charlie Mark II took back the throne.”

Something tapped against the front window. Leaves, most likely. Jerry took a look anyway.

“So how?”

Jerry could have sworn he’d seen something large move outside. But a lot of things were moving in this wind. “I happened to be banging his maid at the time – pretty little thing she was too! She let slip one day during pillow talk, that he had a false ceiling in his chambers, here in Lincoln’s Inn. That was where he kept all the coded letters he’d intercepted and cracked. John had always been good to me – turned a blind eye when I was doing the ’elp during work hours. I just made sure the letters found their way to the King’s Yeomen. When the King saw what he’d been doing, he got the point. Eye for talent has Charlie. Thurloe’s an old man, and now he’s on best behaviour. An acceptable risk, if you ask me. And, in return for that favour, I gets mi own codemaster general!”

Clive shrugged. “Well, he seems harmless enough...”

Jerry snorted, “They always do. But up there–” Jerry tapped his temple, “Busy busy little minds! I don’t trust the intelligent: far too many of them are female.” Turning on a d, Jerry grinned and slapped Clive heartily on the back. “Why I likes you so much, I guess!”

Clive grinned, genuinely plussed. “Thanks, Jerry!”

“No worries.”

“So what now?”

“Best get some rest. It’ll be a few hours before we get a result. There’s a comfortable couch169 through there, somewhere, if I recall.”

“What about you?”

“Nah, I can’t sleep like this: too excited! Besides, someone’s got to keep an eye on the postmaster...