by John Drake
“My dear Mr Slym,” she said with a smile that would have buckled the knees of a bronze statue (given only that it were male). She held out one hand, and before Slym knew what he was doing, he was kneeling to take the pink, dainty fingers and kiss them reverently. He’d never done the like in all his life. But then he’d never met a woman like her.
She smiled again and he was stunned to realise how deep the harpoon had gone in. He was an intensely private man that ran his personal affairs with the same ruthless care that he applied to the dazzling blacking of his boots or the starching of his linen. Samuel Slym was forty years old and had thought that he was fixed in his ways, but now he was out of control.
In the same instant, in the same man, the heart soared to heaven, and the cold powerful brain filled up with doubt and fear. All the careful questions he had intended to ask were thrown into a jumble, and control of the interview passed irretrievably from him.
Lady Sarah noted all this and had to pinch her thigh cruelly with her left hand in order to stop the laughter that welled up within her. Her single imperfection in the art of bewitching men was a terrible desire to laugh at their ridiculous behaviour when the spell fell heavily upon them: the fatuous, wide-eyed wonder as if they were the first it had ever happened to, and the pathetic eagerness to please. But to laugh at that moment would shatter the magic like a wine glass dropped on stone.
“Do sit down, Mr Slym,” she said, indicating a chair, conveniently close to her chaise longue. Slym sat, noting the threadbare upholstery on what had been an expensive chair. “Now,” she said, “what have you to tell me? I have read your letter but I should prefer to hear everything from your own … lips.” The slight pause before that last word, and the relishing of it as she spoke it, put Slym in a further confusion. But the force of habit came to his rescue. He drew out his memorandum book and made his report, as many times before he had done to other clients.
“Ma’am,” said he.
“Ma’am?” she mocked.
“Ma’am?” he repeated.
“I have a name …”
“Ah! Yes,” said Slym, furious with himself for being capable of being played with like this. He was far too sharp not to see her game. But he was like a rabbit in a snare. The harder he fought, the tighter the hold. “Lady Sarah ...” said he.
“Lady Sarah,” said she, satisfied for the moment. “Do continue, Mr Slym, I await your report with no little anticipation.”
“You know from my letter of my interviews with Lieutenant Salisbury and the girl Kate Booth. I will therefore be brief and list the salient items.” He ticked off a list with his pencil: “One,” he said, “the man Fletcher is in London, having vowed never to go to sea again. He is trying to set up in business. Two — the girl Booth is in love with him and she believes he reciprocates this sentiment …”
“This sentiment?” mocked Lady Sarah. “You classify love as a sentiment, Mr Slym?”
“Ah!” said Slym, thrown off course. “Er, why, er … yes. A sentiment. What else?”
“Pray tell me, sir?” she said, and produced a pretty painted fan that she proceeded to flicker across her face. Slym bit his lip. They were alone in the room. He was being made a bloody fool of. But they were alone, and he dared to hope that …”God dammit!” he thought to himself. “Damn! Damn! Damn!”
“Three,” he said with emphasis, “and this is the most important of all — I suspect, though cannot prove, that the man Fletcher committed murder while aboard the Press Tender Bullfrog.”
“Tell me what you know,” said Lady Sarah. She’d stopped playing games for the moment, and Slym was surprised at the quick turn in her manner. “Tell me everything,” she said. Slym meticulously recounted every word of his conversations with Kate Booth. He had an excellent memory and gave a clear, pertinent account. He saw the bright joy shine in Lady Sarah’s eye at this deadly weakness in her enemy’s position.
“So,” she said, “you suspect that he threw this Bosun Dixon over the side?”
“Yes, ma’am … Lady Sarah,” he said. “He appears well capable of it. The girl Booth says he’s a giant. Enormously strong.”
“Is he?” said Lady Sarah. “I’d heard that from my son Alexander.” Her face darkened at the memory of the death of her favourite. “Alexander was an officer in Fletcher’s ship. But my son was killed trying to quell a mutiny.”
Slym paused before he spoke.
“Lady Sarah,” said he, “I am sorry to be the one to bring you this news. The girl Booth had it from Fletcher himself. Your son did not die in fighting mutineers. That was a fiction invented by Captain Bollington of Phiandra because he believed your son was trying to murder Jacob Fletcher for the Coignwood inheritance. Bollington wanted no scandal to spoil his victory at Passage d’Aron. The truth is that your son was killed aboard the prize-ship Bonne Femme Yvette. It was Fletcher that killed him.”
Slym’s flesh crept and his hair stood on end at the howl of anguish Lady Sarah let out. It was an animal sound of rage and grief. Tears flooded down her cheeks, she leapt to her feet, she ground her teeth, she clenched her fists, she stamped and cursed and threw over the furniture of the room. The servant girl appeared at the door, in fright and shock at the din, and ran for her life with a footstool shattering on the door behind her, and a tirade of filthy abuse ringing in her ears. Slym’s whole life had been spent among the lowest creatures in the land. But even he had never heard such putrid obscenity and vicious curses as his beautiful companion poured out.
“Well, bugger me blind!” said he when the torrent finally ceased.
He glared contemptuously at Lady Sarah, where she sat panting and besmeared with tears, twisting the cushions of the chaise longue between her fingers. “I’ll not ask you to pardon my French, missus, ‘cos I’ve never heard the like of yours, not from a pair of Billingsgate fishwives on Saturday night!” He stood up, tucked his memorandum book into his pocket, carefully replaced his pencil in its neat little silver tube with its cap on a fine chain, and put that away too. He brushed imagined dust from his coat, and flicked at his boots with a handkerchief.
“Lady Sarah,” said he, “I ain’t particular in who I work for. Leastways, I didn’t think I was, but I’m a straight man, and always have been. But you and your family, why you’re too rich a brew for me, what with your plots and double-dealing. You’ve been trying to murder this Fletcher, haven’t you? And what about your doings up in Lonborough? It was either you or your other bleeding son that shot a man dead in Coignwood Hall. But that’s not all. I didn’t — no, I wouldn’t — believe what that prick-louse Salisbury said about you. Not from him, I wouldn’t! But judging from the performance you’ve just given, missus, I think that dancing the blanket hornpipe with your own sons is the least you’re capable of!” She never even blinked at this. Instead the vestiges of the enormous temper-tantrum drained away as she saw the great mistake she had made and set about retrieving what she could. There was still a very important part for Slym to play in her plans.
“Poor boy!” she said with bitter sarcasm. “Are you then disappointed in me? Have all your plans of self-betterment been dashed? Have you then given up all hope of becoming a gentleman, moving in society with a great lady on your arm?”
The stab went home. Slym had never guessed that she knew so much of his secret desires. He stopped in his tracks on his way to the door.
“And who are you to pass judgement on my private life, Mr thief-taker Samuel Slym? What are you but a hangman’s pimp? How many poor souls have you sent to be strangled and piss their britches with their mothers hanging on their legs to end it quicker? And have you ever wondered whether any of them were actually guilty? And guilty of what? Stealing a loaf of bread when they were starving?”
“Bah!” said Slym. “I don’t bother with cheap trash like that. You know the sort I bring in. Those that nobody else dares go after!”
“True,” she said, “but only because those have the highest prices on their heads; so do not gi
ve yourself airs. And do not you dare to think yourself better than me!” She stood and walked towards him. She walked slowly, swaying her hips, and stopped an inch from him. She looked up into his eyes. “Do you think I do not know what you want?” she said.
Slym struggled with himself. It was the same battle he’d been fighting ever since he’d first met her. He knew exactly what she was. He’d guessed it early on, and the facts he’d uncovered had only served to underline what was written in his mind. But … but … the temper and anger were gone. If anything, she looked more enchanting than before. Her long dark hair was fallen out of its pinnings and hung in curls about her face and shoulders. By accident or artifice, her gown was slipped from one shoulder and the little buttons at the neck were parted so the thin material gaped open, half-revealing the plump breasts within.
“My Slym,” she whispered, “I have things to tell you that you do not know. Things that bring the Coignwood fortune within my grasp. Soon I shall be the richest woman in England. I shall live in splendour and I shall enjoy the society of the noblest families in the land. I shall have estates in the country, a noble town house, a box at the opera, and I shall be received at Court.”
Slym listened, fascinated, as she pulled the strings that more effectively than any other most powerfully moved his heart.
“Mr Slym,” she said, “I offer you the entrée to that society. You will never have a better chance to become a gentleman. That is the second thing that I offer you.”
“The second?” said Slym, and the blood thundered in his veins. “And what’s the first?”
“This,” she said, and went back to the chaise longue. Without a word, she rearranged the cushions into a pile at the head end of the couch. Then she stood, stretching to her full height and slowly raised her hands to the shoulders of her gown. She tugged at something with either hand, and the whole thing fell cascading to the floor in a shower of muslin.
Slym realised that the thing had been prepared. Ladies’ gowns didn’t behave like that. She’d dressed for the occasion in something special and he was being very professionally seduced. But he didn’t care. He was gazing at the magnificent naked body, shining in the candlelight. She lifted her long hair in her hands and let it tumble back over her shoulders.
“Well, Mr Slym,” she said, “shall you continue to act in my interest, or shall you leave now? I will of course meet your reasonable expenses up to this evening …”
“Reasonable expenses be damned!” said Slym, and threw off his coat without even bothering to fold it. Then he dropped into a chair and tugged his boots off.
“I take it that you will be staying, sir?” she said, but Slym was busy with his waistcoat and shirt, which he had halfway over his head in his eagerness.
She smiled to herself and placed herself carefully on the chaise longue. The position was a favourite of hers, based upon Francois Boucher’s famous nude portrait of Louise O’Murphy, the sixteen-year-old Irish girl who’d been the mistress of Louis XV. Lady Sarah lay face down with the pile of cushions beneath her breast, so that her back sloped upward with her head erect. Her legs were parted and bent slightly at the knee, inviting the gentleman of the moment to enter her from behind, at the delicious junction of plump thighs and rounded buttocks.
Slym nearly choked when he saw that. He’d had his share of women, but his experience had been that of a man who gulps water after a week in the desert. A release of pent-up lust on the body of some Covent Garden tart. The sophisticated arts of the courtesan were beyond him.
Lady Sarah looked at his broad, square body. He was down to his breeches now, and knotted muscles bulged up and down his torso. He was not a specially tall man and was wide in the loins. He did not taper down to a narrow waist. But to her surprise, she found herself aroused. She hated slack bodies and fat bellies in men, and Slym was muscle and bone from top to toe. She liked that and was pleased to realise that the encounter might involve delight as well as duty. In any case, she’d not had a man for months. Not a proper man, anyway.
And Samuel Slym was a proper man. In more ways than Lady Sarah had expected, too. She was resigned to being rammed and boarded all at once, while Slym took his pleasure. But Samuel was a fastidious and discriminating man. He recognised the difference between a fine wine and a cheap one. And so gave the act the attention that it was due.
He took one rounded thigh in either hand and kissed her rump with fervour. He ran his lips up and down her thighs and he kissed steadily all the way up her back to the nape of her neck. Lady Sarah sighed in unexpected pleasure.
“Again, again!” she said, and Slym obliged until the urgent pushing of her buttocks against his body told him that the time was right to slide himself deep into her body. After that, it would be nonsense to pretend that either of them was in conscious control of what happened next. It was more like a wild feast by hungry savages. But over the next hour or two, a bond was forged between Samuel Slym and Lady Sarah Coignwood that was stronger than anything either had known before. For if ever a man and woman had been made for each other, it was those two.
*
Hours later, Slym and Lady Sarah lay together in her bed, having made their way there for greater comfort after their furious love-making. They were cosily at ease in each other’s company, and making plans.
“Do you think we shall learn more from Miss Booth?” said Lady Sarah.
“I don’t know,” said Slym, “we shall have to tread careful. If she guesses what we’ve got in mind for her Mr Fletcher, she’ll shut up tight.”
“My dear Sam,” said Lady Sarah, “bring her to me in this house, and I promise you I’ll make her tell me everything she knows and then rack her brains to find more to tell!”
“Huh!” said Slym, and stroked her cheek. “My pretty! Yes, you would an’ all, wouldn’t you! All right. It’d save me days of pussyfooting with her. I’ll bring her across tomorrow. She’s at Wheeler’s Hotel in Denmark Street.” He frowned, and took Lady Sarah’s chin between his finger and thumb. “Just leave her in one piece, that’s all. And no marks that can’t be explained.”
“I’ll leave no marks,” said Lady Sarah, “but you take care to bring her after dark and in a closed carriage. Nobody must see her.”
“What about your servants?” he said.
Lady Sarah laughed. “They are mine to command. There’s the girl and Mrs Collins, that’s the woman who looks after my uncle. They’ll do as I say. I know things about both of them.”
“Oh?” said Slym.
“Oh, yes!” she said. “Mrs Collins procures abortions and the girl is her assistant. I could have both of them hung if I wished.”
“Huh!” said Slym. “A very proper house you keep, ma’am!”
“A very safe house,” she retorted.
“What does your uncle know?” he asked.
“Nothing. He’s in his dotage. He was broken by the death of my son, Alexander.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.” Slym felt the anger rising within her, as she thought how her elder son had died. He thought it best to change the subject.
“You said you had things to tell me, ma’am,” he said, “things about the Coignwood money …”
“Oh, yes,” she said, as one does when some happy thought is brought to the front of the mind. “But first I must persuade you to cease to call me ma ‘am.”
She rolled on top of him and raised herself on her arms so that the points of her breasts brushed softly across his lips. “Tell me, Sam,” she said, “just how intimate must our connection be before you shall call me by my name?”
“Sarah,” he said, with a smile.
“Sarah!” she said. “Well done! Now wait while I fetch my news.” She swung herself upright, threw back the bedclothes and walked across the bedroom. Slym shook his head in wonderment. He’d never met a woman so totally at ease in her nakedness.
“Here!” she said, and jumped back into bed with a newspaper. It was the Clarion of the North, Lonborough’s p
rincipal newspaper. The edition of 25th September 1793.
“How’d you get this?” said Slym. “D’you have it sent special?”
“Yes,” she said. “It comes down on the Mail and is delivered to me here, by courier.”
“Why take such trouble to obtain a provincial newspaper?” he said.
“Look!” she insisted, with the happy smile of a child perceiving some particular treat. “Read this article.”
Slym looked where she pointed. There between the personal advertisements (“One pound shall be paid to any person bearing news of a small lost dog, white in one ear, black in the other, which answers to the name …”) and the notices of local market days was a heavy-typed headline:
Bold and Iniquitous Attempt at the Murder of a Prominent Citizen by the Infamous Mr Victor Coignwood, Younger Son of the Late Sir Henry.
Slym sat up with a jerk. He held up the newspaper for a better light from the bedside lamp.
“My God!” he said, as he swiftly scanned the article. “He’s took! And he’s near dead to judge from this ...” And then, as he saw the contented smile on the lovely face of his companion, a cold shudder ran down his back. “Sarah,” said he, “‘tis your son. Your Victor! Why did you not tell me this? What the hell was he trying to do?”
She laid a hand upon his lips.
“Do not say ‘trying’, my love,” she said, “for that suggests failure. And my son has not failed.”
22
I’d seen the Channel Fleet before, anchored at Spithead, when Captain Bollington brought Phiandra in with the captured French frigate Thermidor following meekly astern of him. But that was the fleet at anchor and the ships asleep. To see them under way, out on the broad Atlantic and five hundred miles from the nearest land, was something else again, for this was England’s elite and the Navy’s pride. No other fleet in the world could match the Channel Fleet for seamanship and drill. Lord Hood’s Mediterranean Fleet might run them close, and the Dutch weren’t half bad seamen, and the Yankees had no fleet anyway, but it was beyond doubt that the Fleets of France, Spain, Russia and other still lower forms of humanity couldn’t be compared with them.