She spotted Mathews at the far end to her right and marched toward him. He still carried the look of a well-groomed diplomat with his pressed suit and walking stick. In the incandescent light she noticed something not caught earlier. A pale, sullen cast to his skin, along with fleshy jowls.
“I enjoy returning here,” the older man said. “Queen’s College is impressive, but I always thought Pembroke turned out the best-looking, most talented men.”
A tight twist of his thin lips conveyed that he’d made a joke. About himself. Something told her that was a rare event.
“I should have known you were a Pembroke man.”
“Forty-two years ago I took my degree. Not much has changed here since then. That’s the lovely thing about this town. Always the same.”
She wanted to know about Eva Pazan.
“A disturbing thing you reported,” he said. “I failed to realize the scope and breadth of what is clearly afoot. The man who accosted you inside the chapel, we have dealt with his group before. They also confronted Blake Antrim earlier in the Temple Church.”
“Which you obviously knew, since you brought me there.”
“That is right. But we did not know they were aware of your involvement. The idea had been for you and me to observe Antrim, unnoticed. That means I have a security problem.”
“What is this group?”
“In years past they have not presented any major problems. The last time they became so brazen was before the Second World War, when Edward VIII abdicated.”
Every British citizen knew the tale of the king who fell in love with an American divorcée.
“What is this group?”
“It is called the Daedalus Society. Best we can tell it was formed at the beginning of the 17th century by Robert Cecil.”
“Pazan told me about him. He was close to both Elizabeth and James I.”
“He was responsible for James becoming king, with Elizabeth’s help of course. The Scot owed Robert Cecil his throne.”
“Should we not be searching for the professor?”
“No, Miss Richards, we should not. There are people who will deal with what happened, and have already been dispatched. Our task is to move forward. In this business, no one person can do it all.”
His rebuke came in a voice hard as steel, the tone daring her to challenge him.
“What do you want me to do?”
“The presence of this Daedalus Society complicates matters. I urge you to keep your wits about you.”
Your first and final warning.
Leave this be.
“I think I should be issued a firearm.”
Mathews fished beneath his coat, removed an automatic pistol, and handed it to her. “Take mine.”
She checked the magazine and ensured it was fully loaded.
“Don’t trust me?” he asked.
“At the moment, Sir Thomas, I don’t know what to think.”
“I would have thought the excitement you experienced mild, considering your past history.”
He was beginning to rub her the wrong way. “I do what I have to when I have to.”
“I have managed other agents with a similar attitude, most of whom are either now dead or no longer in my employ.”
“I didn’t ask for this assignment.”
“Quite right. I chose you, and I knew what I was getting, right?”
“Something like that.”
He nodded. “You have a healthy attitude, that I will grant you.”
She was waiting for him to tell her what was next.
“If you recall,” he said. “At the Inns of Court I told you about the two Henrys and Katherine Parr, and the great secret that passed among them. A sanctuary, perhaps the vault where the majority of the Tudor wealth was hidden.”
“This is about buried treasure?”
She caught his annoyance.
“Only partly, Miss Richards. And why do you sound so incredulous? That vault could hold a wealth of information. We know that secret passages connected then, and still do, many of the Whitehall government buildings. Something you surely are aware of.”
She was. Accessible today through coded doors. She’d once ventured down into one of the tunnels.
“Henry VIII used similar passages to access his tennis court and bowling alley at Whitehall Palace. We think there were other passages with different uses, ones his father either created or discovered. Ones that have remained hidden for five hundred years.”
Which made sense, as London was crisscrossed with tunnels, dug at differing points in history, new ones discovered all the time.
“Katherine Parr was duty-bound to pass that secret on to Henry’s minor son, Edward, but there is no evidence that she ever did. Twenty-one months after Henry died, Parr herself passed. We think she may have told the secret—not to Edward, but to someone else.”
“Who? The Cecils?”
“Not possible. Henry VIII died fifteen years before William Cecil rose to power with Elizabeth, and thirty years before Robert Cecil succeeded his father. No, Katherine Parr told someone other than the Cecils.”
“How do you know that?”
“Just accept that I do. Professor Pazan was asked to instruct you on Robert Cecil’s notebook and the various possibilities. The deciphering of that notebook holds the key to all of this. The Tudor wealth was never found, nor accounted for. In today’s market it would be worth billions.”
“And the Americans want our treasure?”
“Miss Richards, do you continually question everything? Can you not accept that there are matters here of the highest national security. To know what those matters may be is irrelevant to what is expected from you. I have some specific tasks I need you to perform. Can you not simply do as I ask?”
“I am curious of one thing,” she said. “SIS is charged with protecting against threats on foreign soil. Why isn’t the Security Service, MI5, handling this investigation? Domestic threats are their jurisdiction.”
“Because the prime minister has ordered otherwise.”
“I was unaware the prime minister could violate the law.”
“You truly are impertinent.”
“Sir Thomas, a woman died a little while ago. I’d like to know why. What’s curious is you don’t seem to care.”
She caught the annoyance on the older man’s face. He was clearly unaccustomed to challenges.
“If I did not require your assistance, I would join with your supervisors in terminating your employment.”
“Lucky for me I’m so valuable at the moment.”
“And lucky for you the situation has changed. Antrim has involved that ex-American-agent I mentioned to you before. Cotton Malone. He has gone out of his way to draw Malone into this fray. I need you to find out why. As I mentioned, the deciphering of Robert Cecil’s journal is vital to the resolution of this matter. Within the next few hours Antrim may well possess the means to do just that. Tell me, is he capable of capitalizing on his good fortune?”
“He’s not daft, if that’s what you’re asking. But he’s not overly clever, either. More devious and deceitful.”
“Exactly my assessment. His operation has not gone well. He is frustrated. His superiors are pressuring for results. Thankfully, time is short and what he seeks is difficult to find.”
Mathews checked his watch, then stared out into the quad. People hustled back and forth from the street toward the college.
“I want you to travel back to London,” he said. “Immediately.”
“Professor Pazan did not tell me what I need to know. She was on her way back inside to show me more of the coded pages.”
“Nothing was found in the dining hall.”
Why wasn’t she surprised? “Seems everything here is unexplained. I’m not accustomed to working like this.”
“And how many intelligence operations have you worked on?”