The Baltic Gambit

by Dewey Lambdin

  He still slept in late, but he didn’t stay out quite as late in the A.M.S as he had the first week. Fear of her, he concluded. So he haunted the Madeira Club’s library, which contained rather a respectable collection of books, and the Common Room, with its cheery fireplace and comfortable leather sofas and chairs, was a grand place to read up on all the latest editions. Mind, none of them particularly salacious or interesting; all followed the modern concept of Edifying, Uplifting, and Useful, or completely unworthy to the nineteenth-century gentleman. And damn Priestley, Bentham, and the whole lot of Reformers, Lewrie stewed as he found most of them hard slogging.

  He was all but nodding over a book as mystifying as any done by Milton when a club servant ahemmed into his fist and handed Lewrie a note.

  “Ah? Hmm,” Lewrie said as he opened it, fearing that Theoni’d run him to earth at last, and wondering why there was nothing on the outside of the folded-over paper to show who had sent it. “Christ!” he muttered once he had it open, for it was from Zachariah Twigg.

  My dear Capt. Lewrie,

  A matter has just yesterday arisen which, I am sure, will prove to be of the greatest interest to you. Should this note find you in your lodgings, and not absorbed in your amusements, do, pray, join me at my club, Almack’s, for dinner at One of the clock. My man will await your prompt reply.

  Yr Obdt. Servant

  Twigg

  It was worse than Theoni finding him, worse than Eudoxia dashing into the Common Rooms nude, with her father and his lions in hot pursuit and out for Lewrie’s blood. It was Twigg, damn his eyes!

  When’d he ever call me “dear”? Lewrie cynically thought; And he just had t’get at least one shot in, ’bout my “amusements.” Oh, this could be hellish-bad. Who does he want me t’kill? And Almack’s; he couldn’t remember if that particular club was Tory or Whig, and if it was, did it really say anything about Twigg’s personal politics? At least Lewrie knew that Almack’s set a splendid table, and Twigg would be footing the bill, so . . .

  “Pen and paper, please,” he told the club servant, “and I think there’s a messenger laddie waitin’?”

  “There is, sir. I’ll fetch them directly,” the servant said.

  “So pleased to see you, again, Lewrie,” Zachariah Twigg said in what could be mistaken for a pleasant tone, almost purring with social oils, as it were, as he extended a long-fingered, skeletal hand to be shaken. “So pleased you got off. And, have been granted some time to re-acquaint yourself to the joys of London life. Cold enough for you?”

  “Thankee for your invitation, sir,” Lewrie replied, civil enough on his own part, but still wondering whose throat those fingers had strangled lately. “Not as cold as it was last week, no, but still chilly.”

  He felt like gawking at his plush surroundings, for he had not been inside any of the grander gentlemen’s clubs in London, except for the Cocoa Tree, or one of the others that featured the hearty sort of revelry and gambling open to non-members, and folk of both sexes after dark. He felt like a “Country-Put” yokel just down from somewhere very dreary, and shown into Westminster Cathedral, for Almack’s was a grand establishment indeed, done in the finest, and subtly richest, taste.

  “Something warming, perhaps, Captain Lewrie,” Twigg suggested as they strolled into a large library with many sofas and chairs. “A brandy for me, Hudgins.”

  “Yes, sir. And for you, sir?” the distinguished-looking older servant asked in a fair approximation of a courtly Oxonian accent.

  “Kentucky whisky,” Lewrie requested, a brow cocked in fun, just to see if Almack’s stocked such spirits.

  “Would Evan Williams suit, sir?”

  “That’d be splendid,” Lewrie replied, impressed even further.

  “A quiet corner, over there, ah,” Twigg said, pointing out one grouping of furniture near the tall windows at the far end of the room. The tall and cadaverous Twigg led the way, swept the tails of his coat clear, and took a seat on one end of a sofa, while Lewrie settled for a wing-back chair nearby.

  “Cold, that’s the bugabear, Lewrie,” Twigg said in a petulant, business-like rasp. “Enough cold to keep the Danes’, Swedes’, and Russian fleets laid up in-ordinary, and unable to sail. The Thames here in London is already thawing below London Bridge, and the rest of the river is open to shipping. The passages into the Baltic are free of ice, and time is of the essence.”

  He promisin’ me a command? Lewrie thought with spurred hope, of a sudden; That’d be of great int’rest t’me, like he wrote!

  “I’ve met some other officers who know some who’ve served in the Russian Navy, sir,” Lewrie told him. “Frankly, they don’t sound so formidable . . . conscript crews, and all, and limited sailing seasons in which t’work their people up to competence. In the Baltic, at least.”

  “Quite true, yet . . . with the Russians combined with the Danes . . . as doughty fighters as the Dutch, and the Swedes with a very competent navy, things could get rather dicey, should they put to sea together. Their numbers would be daunting.”

  “So were the Spanish at Cape Saint Vincent,” Lewrie scoffed. “I think ‘Old Jarvy,’ and Nelson, put paid to them, despite their numbers.”

  “You know that Bonaparte is behind all this,” Twigg said with a sniff and a thin-lipped look of asperity.

  “Anything to take pressure off France, and force us to squander our own advantages far afield, aye,” Lewrie contentedly answered as he was handed a crystal snifter half full of amber bourbon, as Twigg got his own snifter of brandy from a silver tray. Both took a moment to swirl their drinks, study the “legs” of evaporating alcohol which resulted, and sniffed deep, as over a fine wine. Only after their first sips did Twigg continue.

  “It’s rather more devious than that, Lewrie,” Twigg pointed out. “Does this so-called Armed Neutrality no longer recognise our right to stop and search their ships for contraband or materials of war, denying the existence of a blockade unless there is a Royal Navy warship off every bloody little piss-pot of a port, and limiting their concept of contraband to weapons, shot, and powder, Napoleon gets everything that he needs but cannon, round-shot, and powder with which to rebuild his own navy, and equip an even larger army, to the detriment of every nation in Europe . . . including us. Do but consider all that is exported from the Baltic, Lewrie . . . ‘’

  Oh God, he’s lecturin’ his worst student! Lewrie thought with a silent groan; Hark t’this, stupid! . . . have ye the wits t’do so!

  “Flax, and woven linen for sails,” Twigg counted off with the fingers of his free hand, pontificating, as was his wont. “Pine timber for masts and spars, tar, pitch, rosin, and turpentine with which to maintain ships, not to mention fibres for ropes and cables.”

  Ye did mention it, didn’t ye, Lewrie scoffed to himself.

  “As well as the raw materials for gunpowder manufacture,” Twigg said on, almost running out of fingers by then, “and the wool for uniforms, the leather from Russia’s vast herds of cattle for boots, shoes, saddles, and harness, and soldiers’ accoutrement pouches and belts . . . ‘’

  “Swedish iron ore, aye,” Lewrie stuck in, hoping to trump him on one item, at least; or, hustle him along to his main point.

  “Em?” Twigg said, looking puzzled, for a rare once, and peering at Lewrie like he would at a talking cat. “Iron ore, yes. I must allow I had not thought of that, harumph.”

  Well, damme! Lewrie chortled in silence.

  “All good reasons to squash this pestiferous League of the North as soon as possible,” Twigg added, after another sip of his brandy.

  “West to east, sir,” Lewrie said, smiling, and crossing his legs with ankle upon knee. “The ice melts at Copenhagen first, and Karlskrona in Sweden, second. The Russian ports of Reval and Kronstadt thaw last, so . . . we should engage them in like order, as I’m sure that Admiral Nelson has already considered.”

  “You impress me, Lewrie,” Twigg said in genuine wonder (or what passed for it, at least). “It would seem tha
t you have not squandered your free time ashore in idle pleasures . . . not completely, hmm? You are, quite implausibly, still alive, despite running into the lovely Durschenko mort . . . her well-armed and tetchy father, more to the point.”

  “She seems t’be as well informed of my daily whereabouts as you seem t’be, Mister Twigg,” Lewrie answered, shifting uneasily, changing one leg to cross for another. “She knows I’m married, since Cape Town, and went nose-high and disdainful of me for it, yet . . .” He shrugged.

  “And the equally entrancing Widow Theoni Kavares Connor, she of the currant trade fortune,” Twigg drawled with a simper. “Oh, yayss.”

  He took a deep sip of brandy, smiling, and, for such an imperious fellow, almost mellowing to a soft chuckle of amusement. “I’m told that she, rather uncannily, is present wherever you go, as well, Lewrie.”

  “As good an intelligence service as yours, I expect,” Lewrie said, rather morosely, and took time to sip his drink.

  “And, upon that head, I have news which shall astound you,” Mr. Twigg mysteriously imparted in a harsh whisper, leaning closer. “Ah! Hudgins, my dear fellow . . . is our table ready?”

  “It is, Mister Twigg,” the dignified major-domo assured Twigg. “The one you requested, in the alcoves, for privacy. You gentlemen are ready to dine?”

  “Yes, let us repair to our dinner,” Twigg decided, rising with the sudden, leggy spring a very large and lean grasshopper might flex. “I would have requested you dine me in at the Madeira Club, Lewrie . . . though I doubt you would wish my discovery revealed on your home ground. Good as the kitchen is at the Madeira, as excellent as are its wine cellars, still . . . it has become a rather dull establishment.”

  A-bloody-men! Lewrie thought.

  “Oh, good enough when first started,” Twigg allowed, “when the squirearchy down to London were its principal lodgers—but Good God!—now it is all Trade and all these ‘new-men,’ those self-made fellows in God knows what enterprises . . . and rigourously humourless, to boot! Such a commercial and grasping yet suddenly respectable lot.”

  “Good for cleanin’ up my father’s odour in London Society, his partnering with Sir Malcolm Shockley, in it,” Lewrie commented.

  “And yours, for lodging there,” Twigg could not help remarking.

  Ouch, and ow, Lewrie could only complain in silence.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Twigg, like all know-it-alls who held information that one must know, or dearly wished to know, maddeningly kept his secrets through their repast; though Lewrie thought it a hellish-good repast, and well worth the wait. The sliding doors to their private alcove room swept open to reveal yet another splendid course; a chicken soup laced with tangy tarragon, followed by roast squabs with green beans in lieu of a springtime asparagus, though dressed with a cheesy Hollandaise sauce. A bottle of pinot gris came with the first two courses, and remained just long enough to accompany the mid-meal salad of hot-house brussel sprouts and lettuce with a drippy-bacon dressing. Then came the main entrée, the sliced prime rib of beef with peas and frittered potatoes, all sloshed down with a fresh bottle (or two) of claret, and thickly sliced slabs of bread, buttered and toasted with garlic. White bread, and the recent law bedamned.

  Apple pie, a sauterne in counterpoint, then port, cheese, and sweet biscuits followed all that, and a silver pot of coffee was put upon the small sideboard to await their pleasure.

  “Now, to the matter at hand,” Mr. Twigg said at last, as those doors were swept shut at his gestured command, making Lewrie thank a Merciful God that the trivial chattering, entertaining as it had been, was over. “Your anonymous tormentor, Captain Lewrie . . . your wife’s tormentor, rather . . . my ‘Irregulars’ have smoaked out the identity of the author of those scurrilous letters.”

  “Who is it?” Lewrie demanded, perking up.

  “When you delivered to me two letters at your ward’s marriage in Portsmouth last year, or was it at my town home here in London? No matter the exact location, recall I did remark that the author of them was obviously a person of some means, possessed of a good, copper-plate hand, and the purse with which to purchase very fine, heavy bond paper.”

  Oh God, but he will prose on! Lewrie thought; Preen, rather!

  “Unfortunately, such fine writing paper is available throughout London, and many of the larger cities and towns,” Twigg said, frowning, “so until the unknown author sent a letter to your wife, insinuating your further adulterous doings, and was caught in the act, we had very little to go on, other than the clues unknowingly included in each of them . . . to wit, the proximity of certain suspected persons to you at the moment when you indulged your proclivity for the fairer sex, ahem.”

  Coming, so is bloody Christmas! Lewrie silently fumed, wishing he could lay hands on Twigg, take him by the lapels, and shake it out of him . . . assuming Lewrie lived after doing it, it went without saying, for, as he could attest, Zachariah Twigg, one of the Foreign Office’s master spies and cut-throats, was a thoroughly dangerous man.

  “I could, however, reduce the number of suspects to those who could have witnessed, or heard of, your doings,” Twigg archly related, “and, through the employment of my ‘Irregulars,’ discreetly surveill those in England.”

  Twigg employed upwards of an hundred of his so-called Baker Street Irregulars, for his town-house upon that thoroughfare was the very centre of his spider’s web, the lair from which he directed minor spies to keep an eye on foreign embassies, even the friendly ones, and foreign individuals who kept too lively a correspondence with people on the Continent. Chamber-maids and street vendors, messenger lads, cooks, sweeps, and beggars, as well as an host of “Sharps” from London’s criminal element who could pick the right pocket, crack the right window or door in the dead of night or the light of day; copyists who could forge false information or duplicate hidden documents quickly, so the house-breakers could put the originals back where they’d found them with no one, any foreign spy, the wiser ’til some other of Twigg’s minions, recruited from the military (who could safeguard the innocent, or corner the guilty) either leave them bleeding in some dark alley, or simply spirit them away as if they’d never been, never to be seen again.

  “Sir Malcolm Shockley’s wife, Lucy, who was once one of those Jamaican Beaumans, came to mind,” Twigg simpered on, “for the first of these letters appeared soon after you ran into her in Venice in ’96, whilst she was on her honeymoon tour of the Continent with Sir Malcolm . . . and sporting with that Commander William Fillebrowne, who took your former mistress on. Tsk-tsk,” Twigg said with a twitch of his mouth. “A rather disreputable baggage, for all her beauty. As for Fillebrowne, well . . . he’s the spiteful sort. He proved that by throwing his possession of Phoebe Aretino in your face so tauntingly, yet . . . he’s been at sea since, and nowhere near any of your recent slips, so we could eliminate him.”

  “All this, and the King’s business, too?” Lewrie sourly asked. “Two jobs for the price o’ one, or something like that?”

  “If you do not wish to know, Lewrie . . . ,” Twigg warned.

  “Say on, then,” Lewrie surrendered with a long sigh.

  “I was able to place a maidservant in the Shockley residence, to keep an eye on her correspondence,” Twigg proudly explained, “with an assistant coachman, as well, able to report quickly, and, the most likely to be given the task of carrying any such letters. Lady Lucy, I have determined, is not your tormentor.”

  “Well, that’s a relief, I s’pose,” Lewrie said, going for the coffee, cream, and sugar on the sideboard.

  “Pour one for me, as well . . . noir, no sugar,” Twigg ordered. “For a time, I considered that the letters might have been a French ploy, ’til I realised that no matter the wrath of Guillaume Choundas . . . the Americans exchanged him home in ’99, did you know that? . . . there was no real advantage in it, not with you so junior and un-important in the greater scheme of things.”

  Demean me some more, I ask you. Please! Lewrie fume
d.

  “That Lombardian female spy they set upon you in Genoa, that Claudia Mastandrea, I therefore dismissed,” Twigg said with a pleased sniff as he sipped his coffee, “as I did your former mistress, Phoebe Aretino, for, though she may have prospered greatly the last few years, and could buy expensive paper, she is not as literate, nor possessed of a fine handwriting, as our culprit.”

  “Leaving . . . !” Lewrie pressed.

  “I even considered that your former ward, la Vicomtesse Sophie de Maubeuge, might have written them, if only to pique your wife and her interference in her early flirtations with that idiot neighbour of yours, Harry Embleton. To escape the dreariness of Anglesgreen for the delights of London . . . as she managed to do at last.”

  “Sophie? Never!” Lewrie was certain enough to declare.

  “Indeed, the young lady in question is sweet-natured and kindly . . . intelligent and commonsensical,” Twigg admitted.

  “Leaving . . . ?” Lewrie posed again.

  “Theoni Kavares Connor, Lewrie,” Twigg said with a triumphant smile. “The mother of your bastard.”

  “What? Why, the bitch!” Lewrie exploded. “Not three days ago, she was . . . well, it could have been embarrassing.”

  “I know of it, and it was,” Twigg archly declared, sniggering, quite enjoying watching Lewrie slowly twist in the wind. “Consider . . . the letters to your wife began in ’96, just after you rescued her from those Adriatic pirates, then bedded her on your passage back to Gibraltar. Did you blab your peccadillos, did you boast your older conquests to her?”

  “Christ, no!” Lewrie gawped. “Mean t’say, what gentlemen’d be that foolish?”

  Twigg looked down the length of his long nose at Lewrie as if he suspected that Lewrie was that sort of gentleman.

  Superior bastard! Lewrie fumed to himself.