Dark Matter

After that terrible evening, Miss Barton was only infrequently at Jermyn Street when I called, and more often at milord Halifax’s house, in Bushey Park, so that she and I were almost never alone in each other’s company again.

Even now, thirty years later, it pains me to write about it. But this is small beer beside the main part of my story, which must yet be concluded; and I must relate how our spies and those of the Government kept close watch on Oates and the rest of the conspirators so that in early November, when it was given out that the King would return on November the fourteenth, the government was able to act in a most subtile way.

The very few copies of Mister Defoe’s pamphlet, with its supposed prophecy of Nostradamus, that had got into circulation had still managed to raise a great public stir among Londoners, and there was much talk of conspiracy against the King; and therefore it was plain that a move against any shade of Protestantism, no matter how extreme or malign, would have been a source of real provocation to the mob. And so the Government was obliged secretly to bring down a regiment of soldiers from out of the north of England that it could trust. This being done, one night close to the return of the King from Flanders, finally we did act against the conspirators.

One evening, early in November, Newton and I were playing drafts at his home in Jermyn Street, when he received an urgent letter from Lord Halifax. As soon as he read it, Newton was all purpose.

“Come on, Ellis, get your hat and cloak, the time has come to arrest these traitors. A search for Jacobites has been undertaken,” he explained. “Arrests are already being made. According to milord Halifax’s letter, the Tower has been put under a curfew, with many men arrested both inside and outside its walls. We have been detailed to arrest that vile creature Oates.”

“Sir,” I said, arming myself to the teeth, as they say, “will you not take a weapon yourself?”

“If I did, I think I would have more to fear from myself than any rogue we might meet tonight,” he said, declining my offer of a pistol.

We drove to Axe Yard, near St. James’s Park, and along the way we saw London given the aspect of a city in a state of siege. Trained bands of men marched up and down the streets. The guards had been changed at Whitehall and Somerset House, with cannon placed around the former. The Temple gates were shut, the great thoroughfares barricaded, so that I did begin to worry that Mister Oates, hearing and seeing the commotion, would escape us.

“Do not concern yourself about that,” said Newton. “He has been watched closely by Lord Halifax’s men these past few weeks, and it only remains for us to have the honour of bringing the principal conspirator into custody.”

“But will the mob permit the arrest of so many Protestants?” I asked.

“It has been put about that all those arrested are Papists,” explained Newton, “being either disaffected Englishmen or French spies, although the truth is that these are the same French Huguenots or Green Ribboners that have plotted to massacre London’s Roman Catholics.”

Which, I confess, did seem to me to be a most dishonest and Machiavellian way of governing a country.

Outside Mister Oates’s house, I removed one of my pistols from its holster and cocked it, before knocking loudly upon the door. By now I was an old hand at making an arrest, and had dispatched Halifax’s men to the back of the house, in case Oates still thought to give us the slip.

“In the name of the King, open up,” I called out, all the time pressing Newton back with my free hand in case any shots came forth. Finally, the door not being opened, Newton ordered the Treasury men to break in the door; and this being done, with a great deal of noise that did bring all the inhabitants of Axe Yard out of their houses, I entered the little house, followed, at a safe distance, by Newton and the rest. But the house was empty.

“I fear our bird has flown,” I said, coming downstairs, having inspected the upper part of the house. “These fools have bungled it. Either that or they have been bribed.”

Newton was examining the bowl of an old clay pipe most closely. “I wonder,” he murmured, scooping the contents onto a fingernail, and tasting these.

“Bungled it,” I repeated loudly, for the benefit of the Treasury men who were in the house. “For they would not dare to take a bribe.”

“Not flown, I’ll hazard,” remarked Newton finally. “Merely gone out.” He pointed to a handsome silver snuff-box that lay upon a table. “I do not think he would have left that behind if he intended not to come back.”

“Then we may wait for him here,” said I.

Newton shook his head. “All London is in a commotion,” he said. “He will soon guess that something has gone awry with his plans. He may yet hear something that makes him bolt. No, we would do well to pursue him before he returns here.”

“But how?” said I. “We know not where he has gone. Unless it be to Westminster Hall.”