Two Hundred Lost Years

by James Philip

  Melody had spread cream and jam on her scone.

  She invariably ended up plastering both the jam – in this case, strawberry – and cream around her face.

  Like she cared?

  “Is there anywhere a flimsily constructed biplane can hit a battleship that would actually ‘hurt’ it?” She inquired, genuinely curious.

  “No, not really. Maybe if you dive down a funnel or something like that…”

  “Oh…”

  “But if a couple of them had hit the destroyer the King and Queen were on board at the time,” the man shrugged, “that might have been different.”

  “Okay,” although Melody did not know where this was going it did no harm to listen.

  “Their Majesties were not supposed to be on HMS Cassandra that morning,” Albert Stanton explained. “They were supposed to be on the bridge of HMS Lion. As I understand it the plan was changed the evening before, that was, after the Wallabout Bay disaster. So, whoever tipped the terrorists off about the original Royal schedule had no opportunity to tell anybody about the change of plan that night. Everybody in 5th Battle Squadron knew about the change of plan but the people on the Mayor’s Staff and the Chief Constable’s Office in Manhattan only found out in the small hours of Empire Day morning. Presumably, that’s why the CSS pulled in so many people who worked for the City Council last summer. Because that’s where the leak had to be, don’t you think?”

  Melody had already worked this out for herself.

  She did not rise to the bait.

  “Where was HMS Cassandra when you were with Alexander Fielding?” She asked.

  “I don’t know. Probably still moored alongside Gravesend Pier while the King and Queen were returning from visiting the survivors from the dockyard outrage at the hospital in Flatbush.” Albert Stanton was trawling for a response. “I was only the first of three people Alexander Fielding flew over the fleet that morning,” he reminded the detective.

  Melody knew this, of course.

  The second man who had flown with the fighter ace from the Border War that day had died in a car crash last August. Apparently, he had a reputation for driving too fast and most of his friends refused to get into any vehicle he was behind the wheel of; so, there was hardly anything mysterious about him failing to take a sharp bend late one night when under the influence of alcohol.

  “Alexander Fielding made a good impression on you?” Melody asked.

  “I suppose he did. I guess he would be exactly the sort of fellow you’d go drinking with if you wanted a really wild time. That’s not really my bag but no, if what you are asking me is if I had him down as some kind of a nut job with a death wish the answer would have to be a pretty categorical no!”

  Chapter 13

  Thursday 14th July

  New Temple Gardens, Albany

  When Leonora Coolidge had discovered that the man who had secured her latest release from the Massapequa Prison for Women was none other than Lord John Ansty Shilton Murray, 13th Earl of Dunmore and 13th Viscount of Fincastle. KCB, KC, PC, the former Chief Magistrate of New York it might briefly, have been possible to knock her over with a very small feather. However, her surprise had quickly morphed into a new and terrible outrage which, albeit with lesser venom, was shared by her fellow former detainee, Maude Daventry-Jones.

  To then find themselves in receipt of a peremptory summons from the very man they had been jailed for hounding only days before was the last straw!

  Predictably, they were both in high dudgeon that morning.

  John Murray had been lost in thought gazing out of the first-floor window of his borrowed chambers when he heard the commotion in the outer office.

  He correctly divined that his visitors had arrived.

  Young people have no decorum these days!

  New Temple Gardens had been a tranquil setting for the solicitors and barristers serving the needs of the colony for over a hundred and fifty years; a natural oasis of calm in the ever-growing colonial capital which was much more to his liking than the cold, high-rise efficiency of the modern buildings housing the colony’s civil administration either side of nearby Clinton Avenue.

  In John Murray’s formative years in New England the heavens above the city would have been quiet, unsullied by the constant racket of near and far aero-engines and the atmosphere significantly less fouled by the exhausts of the cars, lorries and busses which now seemed to fill the streets. When he was a boy the main obstacle to safely crossing a street was not rushing motorised traffic but avoiding stepping in the ubiquitous, not to say copious, deposits of horse manure underfoot, and the need to keep an eye half-open for the occasional tram as it trundled sedately down the wide, tree-lined colonial boulevards of the capital.

  With a heartfelt sigh he got to his feet, tried not to wince as his lumbago – a condition he attributed to a slipped disc which he had suffered shortly after his return to the colonies some years ago - snatched hurtfully at his lower spine.

  He moved to the door.

  His visitors were clearly on the war path.

  “Please come into my office, ladies,” he commanded testily.

  Lashed by the veteran KC’s most uncompromising court room voice the two young women were momentarily silenced. Their lips moved but no sound came forth.

  The former Chief Magistrate groaned inwardly.

  Leonora Coolidge and Maude Daventry-Jones were staring at him much in the fashion of the bereaved mothers of Herod’s child victims two millennia ago.

  John Murray turned to his clerk, a harassed elderly man whom he had loaned, like the chambers, from an old friend from his Cambridge days, a decent fellow, one of the few who had not kept his distance from him since he resigned the Chief Magistracy. Given that there had been no forewarning of his departure everybody automatically assumed there must be a scandal brewing.

  He asked the other man if he would be so good as to: “Arrange for tea and coffee for the ladies.”

  To the ladies themselves John Murray repeated his previous injunction: “Please come into my room.”

  The former Chief Magistrate had not actually expected the women to respond to his invitation. In fact, he had gone so far as to engage a solicitor to make a less peremptory approach to each ‘lady’ individually. However, experience had taught him that the direct route occasionally served best, even in legal matters as proven by the presence, in somewhat feisty mood, of the angry daughters of two of the wealthier Long Island clans.

  John Murray noted with interest – of a purely professional nature because he was past caring about the corporeal aspects of such things – that both of the young women were dressed ‘to the nines’ and were wearing their full ‘war paint’. Possibly, he suspected, in the knowledge that their next port of call was the nearest newspaper office.

  Fair play to them.

  They understood the game and how to play it which was no mean trick to have mastered at their tender age, given their sheltered, absurdly privileged backgrounds.

  John Murray held up his hands in mock supplication.

  “I did not ask you here today to engender a new barrage of recriminations. Nor did I go out of my way to point out to the clerk of the lower court which despatched you back to that fetid hole at Massapequa that the court’s decision had contained one significant evidential omission and two separate documentation errors, just so that I might curry favour with you on account of past real or imagined injustices done to your persons. I intervened because I wanted to speak to you if it is at all possible, coolly and rationally to establish whether there might be sufficient common ground for us to stand united upon in the coming battles.”

  The women gaped at him in confusion.

  “Perhaps, if we all sat down,” Murray suggested, badly needing to rest his aching back.

  Leonora Coolidge and Maude Daventry-Jones – the wind spilling from their sails - pouted half-heartedly and daintily perched on the two chairs in front of the former Chief Magistrate’s borrowed desk.


  “Isaac Fielding, Alexander Fielding, William Fielding and the Indian, Tom Morris, or as he prefers to be known, ‘Black Raven’, have been assigned public defenders for their forthcoming trial in connection with a variety of high crimes and misdemeanours including attempted Regicide, conspiracy against the Crown, mass murder and numerous other heinous matters…”

  Leonora Coolidge interjected angrily: “All the ‘reputable’ gentlemen of the fine chambers hereabouts don’t have the guts to do the right thing!”

  “I consider myself to be a ‘reputable’ gentleman,” John Murray retorted tersely. “I will thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, young lady!”

  A knock at the door was the prelude to a middle-aged native American woman entering carrying a tea tray. She was grimly unsmiling and avoided eye contact before backing out of the room.

  Tea was poured, helping to calm emotions.

  “Let me be frank with you,” John Murray went on presently. “While it is likely that there are other conspirators at large in the community, or more likely, in exile who will never be brought to justice for their part in the Empire Day outrages; the Crown is determined to have its pound of flesh in respect of those it now holds prisoner at Fort Crailo. Moreover, there can be little doubt that both Isaac and William Fielding are guilty men. However, in respect of the charges against Alexander Fielding…”

  “Alex is innocent!” Leonora declaimed vehemently. “I should know! I was with him that day!”

  “Quite so,” the man conceded not hiding how vexed he was to have been interrupted in mid-flow. “I have communicated with all three men indicating that it is my view that whatever their crimes it is vital to the continuance of confidence in the colonial judiciary and for justice to be seen to be done for them to receive the best, most robust defence. Unfortunately, the father has categorically rebuffed my offer of representation. Likewise, William, whose mind seems to have been somewhat ‘weakened’ by his time in prison. However, Alexander has asked to speak to me in person before accepting my offer to undertake his defence…”

  Leonora Coolidge was speechless.

  Maude Daventry-Jones was wide-eyed.

  “Will they let you into Fort Crailo to speak to him?”

  “I am the senior practicing King’s Counsel in the colony, of course they will let me in!”

  Leonora had recovered her voice.

  “I want to come with you!”

  Chapter 14

  Thursday 14th July

  Somerset Avenue, New Brunswick, New Jersey

  Melody Danson had contacted the local police station and requested – as was customary during the conduct of ad hoc enquiries out of colony – the presence of a representative of the New Jersey Constabulary when she visited the registered address of Henry Howland and his daughter Jennifer.

  It was apparent as the car drew up outside the traditional wood-framed house overlooking the Raritan River with its forest of sailing boat masts, that the occupants had long gone. One glance over the flaking paint of the still neat picket fence showed that the garden, unlike all those of the neighbouring properties, had been allowed to run to rack and ruin. Brambles and grass nearly waist high cut off the house from a big shed with papered over windows. The house itself was securely locked up.

  Melody and the uniformed constable who had driven her out to the house knocked on the doors of the adjoining properties and discovered that the father and daughter who had lived at 17, Somerset Avenue, had moved out last July.

  Nobody had a forwarding address.

  That was sad, practically everybody said, because Henry and Jennifer had been ‘nice people’ and staunch supporters of the local amateur dramatical society. It seemed that for as long as anybody could remember Henry Howland usually won prizes for his roses, and in at least two of the vegetable categories at the annual New Brunswick Harvest Festival and Horticultural Association Show.

  Because she had a nasty suspicious mind Melody also asked if anybody had actually seen the father and daughter ‘moving out’.

  When she informed her uniformed companion, a typically sensible, long-service officer of the kind that no force could recruit or retain enough of, that nobody had seen the Howlands departure, he had frowned and gone back to ask the same question of all the people he had just spoken to.

  Then, they had broken into the house.

  And, just so that they could be certain, the shed also.

  There were no bodies and a few small personal belongings apart, it was apparent that such was their haste that the Howlett’s had taken very little with them when they left.

  That afternoon Melody had asked to be driven straight to the Long Island ferry and returned to the small office she had been given at Fort Hamilton. It was half-past-two on a thus far completely wasted day when she picked up the phone and dialled the CSS contact number supplied by Henrietta De L’Isle.

  “You should have informed us that you planned to visit Somerset Avenue, Inspector Danson,” the woman at the other end of the line informed her.

  “It is Detective Inspector,” Melody retorted angrily. “And who in Hell’s name are you? Or don’t you people have names?”

  “Of course, we have names!” The other woman replied, equally vexed. “This is Captain Sarah Arnold speaking. If you’d called me first I could have saved you a wasted visit to New Brunswick this morning!”

  “Well, we’re speaking now,” Melody said before taking a long, calming breath. “I wasn’t planning to get around to you for another couple of days but as we’re speaking when can I interview you?”

  There was a pause.

  Melody waited, patient now.

  “This evening? The CSS officer suggested. “Do you want to do this hardcore, or over a drink at a club I know at Bath Beach?”

  “Softcore is okay by me,” Melody agreed.

  “I’ll send a car for you at about seven. Will that give you enough time to read up the relevant parts of the prosecution file?”

  The other woman would know that Melody was already word perfect with her testimony but she would also understand that the professional courtesy – one serious operator to another - of taking nothing for granted would be appreciated.

  “That’s fine, Captain Arnold,” Melody confirmed.

  “I look forward to meeting you in person, Detective Inspector Danson.”

  Okay, that was an odd conversation!

  Fort Hamilton’s staff had put aside a second room, not much bigger than a broom cupboard on the second floor of the mansion for her to sleepover and keep a change of clothes. Infuriatingly, this room was at the opposite end of a long corridor from the nearest bathroom. Melody checked her watch. There was plenty of time to take a taxi back to her West Side apartment in Manhattan, bathe, to put on something that did not make her look like a bluestocking spinster and get back to Long Island in time for her assignation with the woman who had gone undercover as Isaac Fielding’s common law wife.

  Sarah Arnold was a trim brunette a few years Melody’s junior who, like her, had made a concerted attempt to smarten herself up for their encounter.

  The club – The Sunset Lounge – was aptly named at this season of the year with its western first and ground floor verandas bathed in the light of the setting sun as the evening drew in.

  The women found a table outside and sipped their iced fruit juices. The establishment had a three-page bar menu; mostly fried staples, chips with everything but with token Tapas and Cajun offerings sprinkled apparently at random down near the bottom of each page.

  Melody had grabbed a sandwich in Manhattan. When she was as wrapped up in a ‘case’ as she was with her present assignment, she often forgot to eat at all.

  “I’m sorry about this afternoon,” Sarah Arnold apologised, making a genuine effort to sound like she meant it which impressed the detective because she was not sure that she would have bothered in the circumstances. “We don’t have anything to hide…”

  Coming from the lips of a member of
the CSS this was inherently implausible and they both knew it.

  Sarah half-smiled.

  “Okay, we have a lot to hide but on this one we’ve been told that you get to see us as we really are. Warts and all!”

  Melody shrugged.

  They were grown-ups; they knew how this worked.

  “I’m here because I’m credible in front of the media; and I’m expendable if things go pear-shaped,” she admitted wanly. “Oh, and because the CSS will have something in its files to discredit me, if necessary? Right?”

  “We’re all expendable, Detective Inspector…”

  “Melody.”

  “Sarah,” the younger woman said. “And you know as well as I do that there’s nothing in our files…”

  “That’s illegal?”

  Sarah Arnold quirked a half-smile.

  “Okay. Let’s level with each other. Most women in your situation find an obedient husband. There must be hundreds of such marriages of convenience in the twin colony...”

  If Melody had thought the other woman was threatening her she would have walked out but that was not what was going on here. The other woman seemed…sympathetic.

  “Having a husband would cramp my style,” she retorted, more waspishly than she meant. She held up a hand in apology. “Besides, as strange as it might sound I take marriage more seriously than that.”