by Rob Griffith
“Please be seated, Lieutenant Blackthorne, or would you prefer Mister? You have had a long journey I gather. Let me pour you a Madeira, you must be most fatigued,” he said, pouring two healthy glasses without waiting for an answer from me. He handed me the glass and sat opposite. He wore sombre grey with black stockings and a well kept powdered wig, he seemed to want to belie his relative youth by adopting the uniform of his father’s generation.
“Thank you, Mr Brooke. Mister would be preferable.” I said and took a mouthful of the wine to give me time to gather my thoughts. As is so often when one has a long story to tell it is difficult to decide where to commence, and what to leave out. Brooke seemed to read my mind, a disconcerting habit he would repeat on many other occasions.
“Mr Blackthorne, I think it is somewhat traditional to begin a story at the beginning, and to end it at the end. Your story ends with you handing me that packet of papers that you slipped back into your pocket while the clerk was waiting to show you into my office and which are now spoiling the cut of an otherwise well tailored, if unkempt, coat. Your story begins with you meeting Captain Wright. It would be helpful for me to know what occurred in between.” He sat back in his chair and waited for me to tell my tale, but I had other questions on my mind that needed answering first.
“Mr Brooke, you seem to have been expecting me?”
“Of course. We knew you were on your way ever since someone got word to us that you needed to be collected from the French coast.”
“I believe that message originated with Jean-Baptiste Dossonville,” I said hoping to provoke some kind of reaction.
“Indeed? That would explain much,” he said without any outward sign of concern that a French government official could request the assistance of the Royal Navy.
“Mr Brooke, you will forgive me if I say that I am unfamiliar with your world, the world of confidential agents, spies, or whatever you call yourselves. So perhaps, for the purposes of this conversation, you should treat me as a simpleton and explain yourself more fully,” I said.
“Yes, I quite understand. I will endeavour to enlighten you in good time, but first I really must insist on you telling your story, from the beginning and without omission if you please,” he replied, in the same measured tone but with the merest hint of steel in his voice, suggesting that I might not want to cross swords with him.
I took another sip of the Madeira, it was a good vintage, and I did as he suggested. I began my story as I began it for you, with that morning in Paris. True, I might have omitted some of the more amusing segments and I definitely withheld some of the more intimate moments with Dominique, and much that was said between us, but the tale was essentially the same. Brooke did not interrupt me. He refilled my glass when it was empty and lit the candles when the light became dim but otherwise he contributed nothing. When I was finished he held out his hands for the papers and, with only slight hesitation, I handed them over.
“Thank you. Are you sure that you told me everything?” Brooke said, meeting my eyes.
“Yes,” I lied, and did my best to return his stare.
Brooke stood and put the papers on his desk, where they sat with a plethora of reports, documents and letters. He picked something up from his desk and handed it to me. It was a cheque to the amount of forty pounds.
“A small token, Blackthorne. I’m sorry for the trouble we have caused you. Your country and your king are in your debt. One of the clerks will arrange for a carriage to take you where you wish.” He held out his hand to me again, I stood but this time I did not take his hand. I wasn’t quite ready to leave yet.
“Could I just ask if Captain Wright returned safely?” I asked.
“Yes, he did. Some days before you as it happened. He told me to express his gratitude to you, for assisting him that morning,” said Brooke, beginning to usher me out of his office.
“He’s already told what’s in the packet hasn’t he?” I said, not willing to be moved on like an child who wouldn’t go to his bed.
“Yes, the gist of it. The Admiralty and Horse Guards will still be glad of the details,” he said, examining me closely once again.
“You know you have a traitor amongst your ranks in Paris?” I said, hoping again for a reaction.
“Wright suspected as much,” he replied blithely.
“I think I know who it might be?”
“Pray tell,” he said, with a little more interest, looking like a lady eager to hear the latest gossip but wanting to appear above such things.
“It’s one of three men. Ferdinand Fauche, André Duprez or Jules Montaignac,” I said and then outlined mine and Dominique’s suspicions.
“Interesting. You have earned my thanks once again. Good day now. You must excuse me you have given me a lot of work to do,” he said shooing me away like an over-affectionate puppy.
“What will you do about the traitor?” I asked, thinking mainly of Dominique and Claude but also of my own hope that whoever had betrayed me would get what was coming to them.
“Mr Blackthorne, you have a choice; you can take the money and leave things be or you can ask me questions that you’d probably be more contented not knowing the answers to. The decisions that I have to make can be unpalatable to some, and too complex for others.”
“Answer my question!” I insisted, I was tired of being in the dark. Brooke looked out of the window and paused before answering me.
“Very well, if you insist. Your father did say you are often too curious for your own good.”
“My father? What the hell as he got to do with this?” Even the mention of my father had a habit of lighting my rather short fuse.
“I think it is time that I began from the beginning, don’t you?” said Brooke, gesturing for me to sit down again.
I helped myself to another glass of wine. Brooke held out his glass to be filled and we both sat back down in our chairs.
“It commenced with the murder of two of our agents,” Brooke began. “They were found dead in Paris, this was back in February, and soon other of our missions began to go awry. We realised that we had a problem. When a clerk in the French Department of Marine, Duprez, obtained the invasion plans for us we knew at once that the French would stop at nothing to keep us from getting them back to London. By the by, don’t think Duprez is beyond suspicion because he stole the papers in the first place. They could be bait in a trap of Bonaparte’s own devising. So we needed a courier we could trust and one that wasn’t known to our other agents. We always planned for Captain Wright to give the plans to you. Unfortunately the traitor was one step ahead of us and almost caught you both before Wright could hand them over,” he said, as if he played with people’s lives every day, which he most likely did.
“So my meeting Wright that morning was pre-arranged?”
“More or less. The girl that you woke up with lost both her brothers in the revolution and was willing to do us a small favour of getting you in the particular place at the particular time. We hadn’t planned for the authorities to arrive before you met Wright but you and he improvised adequately.”
“How did you know I would be able to make it back to England?” I asked, thinking perhaps they had planned a better exit than the one I had ended up taking.
“We didn’t, but we didn’t have much choice. We needed a man with quick wits and courage, and who was already in Paris.”
“So the fact that I fell in with the very group you suspected was…”
“Just bad luck,” he interjected. “Still, you coped well with all that was thrown at you. We asked Dossonville to keep an eye out for you as well.”
“He’s on your payroll then?”
“No, not precisely. Dossonville takes our money but only serves us when it suits him,” he said.
“Do you think Mademoiselle Calvet will be safe?” I asked.
“Almost certainly not. Not until we have dealt with the traitor at least,” he said, sipping his Madeira and looking away for a moment.
&nbs
p; “How?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.
“Once we have identified him he will be killed.”
“Do you always treat lives so casually?”
“Casually? Do you think it is easy for me to sit here and read of treachery and death all day? It is not, sir. But how else can we fight the Corsican tyrant? He will have all of Europe in his hands unless he is stopped. We tried to kill him once, and we will try again, but do not think that anything that I do is casual.” The steel in Brooke’s voice returned tenfold and did indeed convince me that this was not a man to cross. The fact that the Alien Office had been involved in the attempt to kill Bonaparte by exploding a wine cask full of powder as he drove past on his way to the Opera both impressed me for the nerve of it and made me doubt their competence because although it had been close, it had still failed.
“I apologise,” I said. “I did not mean any offence, but consider things from my perspective. I have been shot at, chased across France and betrayed. It does not cheer me to find out that I was merely a small cog in a larger intrigue.”
“My dear Blackthorne, isn’t that all any of us are?”
“Perhaps, but I do not have to like it.”
“Good, a desire to see the wider ebb and flow of events is an asset in this profession.”
“You mentioned my father earlier. What part did he play?” I didn’t relish discussing my father but if I was to confront him about once again meddling in my life I thought that I had better know the facts of the matter. I let my anger bubble beneath the surface for now; relations between myself and my long absent father were no one’s business but my own. I promised myself he would feel my wrath later. He could not involve himself in my life only when it suited him. Brooke must have sensed something though because he chose his words with even more caution.
“We met at Almacks, and he mentioned your name and the fact that you were in Paris. He was concerned lest war break out again and you should be arrested. I asked his opinion of your character and upon his quite flattering reply I began to think that you might be suitable for what I had in mind. I made my own enquiries about you and decided to put the matter to your father. I believe that his Lordship said that the experience would do you good.”
“In future I would appreciate it if you did not discuss me with him.” I did my best to control my voice. If anything annoyed me more than my father interfering with my life when I was quite capable of frittering it away on my own it was my father being right.
“As you wish. There is one matter that I would like you to consider though.”
“Which is?”
“Working for the Alien Office on a more permanent basis.”
“Perchance I have been in France too long and have become unused to the English sense of humour. Are you in earnest?” I asked and, for the second time that day, laughed and then regretted it.
“Quite,” he said.
“Why do you think that after escaping from France with my skin barely intact I would volunteer for more of the same? Why do you think I would want to be a spy?”
“Because I think you are good at it. Because I think that you enjoy it.”
“You really do think that I’m a gullible fool. I intend to rejoin my regiment,” I said. I hadn’t up until that moment but it sounded good when I said it. I’d had enough of Brooke and his intrigues. I could exchange my commission for one in the militia regiments and never leave England’s shores again. I was exhausted and I had no appetite for any more adventure, intrigue or danger.
“I don’t really think that the strictures of the military life sit easily with you.” Brooke took out his watch and flicked it open. “You must forgive me but I have another appointment. Please consider what I have said.”
“I will.” I said, not intending to at all. I didn’t know for sure what I was going to do with my life but it did not include a badly paid job as a government agent, especially if my damn father was in favour of the idea. Brooke shook my hand again and showed me to the door.
“Thank you again, Mr Blackthorne. I wish you well.”
“There is just one thing you can tell me. What was the name of the girl that I woke up with that morning?”
“I think that ladies appreciate discretion above all else, especially one of the former French aristocracy. Shall we just leave it at that?” Henry Brooke said as he smiled and closed the door.
As I said, in the first chapter of this volume, I never did find out her name.
The line of émigrés had gone. I stood alone on the doorstep to the Alien Office, wondering what to do and where to go. As a rule I have often wanted to get drunk but have seldom needed to get drunk. That evening was one of those exceptions. I had a thirst for something stronger than Madeira.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The One Tun Tavern in Jermyn Street had the benefit of only being a short walk away, and having one of the few landlords that hadn’t at one time or another seen fit to show me the door. It was also known for its popularity with the sporting fraternity, or The Fancy as they preferred to be known. Now I had never been a member of The Fancy, I never had the cash to bet the sums that the gentry did for one thing, and also had never acquired the taste for watching two men bludgeon each other to death. A good game of cards was a much more civilised way to rob some poor dim-witted tulip of his money and if there was a thing you could always count on in the One Tun it was finding some idiot up from the country with a wad he wanted to lose.
As soon as I walked in a part of me felt at home; the sawdust on the floor congealed with a week’s worth of spillages, the fug of tobacco smoke hiding the ceiling, and the smell of sweat, beer and vomit was offensive only for a moment until I once again became acclimatised to the atmosphere of a true London tavern. There were a few faces I recognised but fortunately few who recognised me. The celebrated pedestrian Captain Barclay sat with a gaggle of cronies singing sporting songs and doing their best to drink the place dry. This was some years before Barclay’s famous wager of a thousand miles in a thousand hours for a thousand Guineas but even so, his fame was already such that there was always a small crowd around his table.
I fought my way to the bar and nodded to the landlord, Bill War, a former pugilist who bore the scars of his trade.
“Hello Bill. Brandy if you please,” I said.
“Well, well, Mr Blackthorne. It’s been a while,” he said, looking around the tavern behind me. I knew who he was looking for and I had checked when I came in that I didn’t owe anybody there a penny.
“Just got back from France,” I said.
“Happen to bring any gelt with you Mr Blackthorne?” he said, his west-country accent broader than I remembered.
“Don’t worry Bill, I’m in funds,” I reassured him, waving the cheque beneath his misshapen nose. He looked at it doubtfully before finally agreeing to pour me my drink. I thanked him and turned to look at the punters in the tavern, like an eagle looking for its prey. I spotted mine in an instant. He was on the edge of Barclay’s crowd, standing up, sipping his drink slowly, laughing at jokes a moment after everyone else and mumbling the words of the songs. He did not belong there. I walked over and started chatting to him. I could patter the flash as well as one of The Fancy and after a couple of glasses we sat at a table near the back and I borrowed a deck of cards from Bill. He handed them over with a look that said that he would brook no trouble in his tavern and I got the message that any cheating would be severely dealt with. Which was fine with me, I knew I wouldn’t have to cheat, or at least not so much that there was a chance of me being caught.
I returned to the table after suitable protestations of intending to play an honest game. We played whist and the wagers on the hands were small at first, and I let him win. I didn’t cheat. I just didn’t play my best. His confidence increased and when I had him hooked I raised the stakes and after a couple more hands my poor victim was handing over his purse. He could afford it, his father owned half of Norfolk, and so I saw it as merely anot
her form of taxation on the rich, one that went far more directly to the needy.
I left the casualty to whimper home and went over to the bar to talk with Bill. I asked for another brandy and as Bill handed it to me he bid me to lean closer to him.
“Mr Blackthorne, it be none of my business but Mr Oldfield and Mr Bennett have heard that you are back in town. I would not be quite so sociable if I were you.” He wandered off, polishing a glass as he went and my blood turned to ice.
Messrs Oldfield and Bennet were the proprietors of one of the less salubrious gambling hells I used to frequent in Bury Street. The two of them had a personal as well as business relationship, if you know what I mean. Their predilection led many to suppose that they were a soft touch but I had learnt to my cost that they were not gentlemen to cross. The tender ministrations of one of their lackeys had been instrumental in my flight across the Channel. I had hoped they might have forgotten the seventy guineas that I owed them, but apparently not. I looked around the tavern again, this time as the hunted rather than the hunter and I decided it had better not be long before I left. Oldfield and Bennett must have eyes everywhere to know so quickly that I was back in town. Needless to say I had another couple of drinks, promising to myself that each brandy would be my last.
I supped the ball of fire and earwigged on the conversations around me. The buzz was much the same as in the Crown & Anchor; would the French come? Only in the One Tun the discussion was more about odds than strategy. I struck up a conversation with a girl who I had seen in there before and just kept on knocking back the brandy until I was well foxed and the money I had won ran out. I thanked Bill and left unsteadily. The cool air outside sobered me up, slightly, and I wove my way across Piccadilly in the direction of Golden Square, looking over my shoulder as I went.