The watermen slowed their progress. There were old pilings in this stretch, left from decayed wharves, and they nosed the boat gingerly toward Scammell’s landing stage. Water slapped on the boat. There was a brightly lit window just visible through the jumble of shadows and then the bow man reached out for the pier. Toby gave them the promised coin, climbed on to the jetty, then watched as the boatmen backpaddled silently into deeper and safer water.

He looked for the large, white-painted barge that had carried Campion away, but could see no sign of it. In the angle of the wharf and its pier, dimly lit by the light from the house window, he could see a small boat, its oars neatly stowed on its two thwarts, resting on the Thames mud. Dark water lapped a few yards beyond the boat’s bows, while from beneath the pier, the wharf, and all around, he could hear the rustle and scratch of rats.

A voice startled him, making him crouch and turn, but it was only the watch in Thames Street. “Eleven of the clock, and all’s well!”

He moved slowly, holding his scabbard in his left hand so it should not knock against the stacks of timber which lay between wharf and yard. The shadows were deep here, disguising the yard’s contents, but as he waited, looking and listening for any guard who might be left there at night, his eyes adjusted to the gloom. To his right was the house, brick built, with just one small lit window facing the yard. The large window, seen from the river, was invisible from where he waited. To his left were two tall sheds, one apparently stacked with uncut timber, the other filled with the mysterious shapes of half-built boats, racks of strakes and ribs, the everyday impedimenta of Scammell’s business. Against the far wall, next to the wide gates that led into Thames Street, there was a strange, small hutch. It had an opening, facing Toby, and in the opening he could see the deep glow of fire. For a moment he had thought that the fire belonged to a night watchman, yet there was no movement, and then a smell registered. Pitch. Of course!

He smiled, the vestige of a plan coming to his mind. The boat-yard must consume quantities of pitch, the thick, evil-smelling substance being used to caulk the finished boats, and Scammell would not let the fire die overnight. The vat of pitch would take too long to heat each morning, and so, overnight, it was placed on a great fire of sea coal, the source of the light on the far wall.

He moved again, this time toward the lit window, and for a few seconds he almost let his anger take over. He could see Campion, grotesquely held in the grip of a huge, leather-jerkined man. There was a second man, dressed in Puritan black, to Campion’s right, and a woman to her left. A third man, elderly and clothed shabbily in old vestments, faced Campion and the black-dressed man. A wedding.