Under False Colours (5 page)

'I might.'

'Well what is the cargo? I must know ...'

'Of course, Mr Gorman,' Drinkwater said reasonably. 'A few stand of arms, greatcoats and military boots ...' Drinkwater watched the tiny, reactive muscles round Fagan's eyes. Leaning forward over the candle they showed clearly, twitching even as Fagan lowered his eyes in dissimulation.

'You'd be wanting something on account?' Fagan did not wait for an answer. 'I'll give you ten guineas now, against your written receipt, I've pen and paper to hand ...' Fagan rose and disappeared up a narrow staircase hidden behind a door. In a few minutes he was back. He threw the guineas on to the table and produced a pen and inkwell. The gold gleamed dully in the candle light. Drinkwater stared at it. It was a bribe, designed to disarm him for the next question. He took up the pen and dipped it.

'And where would these military boots be bound, Cap'n Waters?'

Drinkwater did not look up as he carefully wrote the receipt. 'To Russia, Mr Gorman. There's a great demand for English armaments and military stores in Russia.' He passed the receipt across the table and laid down the pen, looking directly at Fagan. 'I shouldn't wonder if the Tsar ain't considering some trouble, but that's no concern for the likes of us, is it now, Mr Gorman?' He stood and took up his cane. 'Do you bring the balance to Davey's chandlery at noon and I'll have a deed made out in your favour.' He put his hat on and held out his hand. 'I hope you profit from the venture, Mr Gorman.'

Fagan rose and took Drinkwater's hand. The Irishman seemed withdrawn, as though inwardly meditating. 'Until noon then ...'

In the alley Drinkwater gave his cane a half-twist, ensuring the blade was ready for use against footpads; then he turned and made his way past Davey's chandlery. Fagan would be watching him, and he must not betray his intimacy with the chandler, though to use his premises as a rendezvous would not excite suspicion. He had until noon and before then he had to meet Solomon.

Again the air in the alley was wonderfully fresh, and he walked with a lighter step. He was not gratified merely at being out of doors again, nor of having, as Dungarth had eloquently put it, baited the eagle, but because he no longer had to dissimulate. Nathaniel Drinkwater was not cut out to play games in brothels, nor to be a spy.

August 1809

It was not, Drinkwater reflected as he waited for an answer, a duty normally expected of a senior post-captain, to be waking up Jewish merchants in the middle of the night, notwithstanding the usefulness of the race both to the officers and the men of His Majesty's navy, or, in the matter of high finance, to His Majesty's government. However, in the event, there were mitigating and somewhat personal circumstances that encouraged him.

He had made the journey from Wapping to Spitalfields without mishap or interference, if one excepted the invitations of the score or so of raddled drabs too caried to work under the roof of a respectable house. He had passed a few roistering jacks, a brace of kill-bucks slumming it down from St James's, two decrepit parish Charlies and the sentinels outside the Royal Mint.

Drinkwater heard the heavy bolts withdrawn and the door opened a trifle.

'Captain Waters, Mr Solomon.'

'Come in, come in.' Drinkwater felt the Jew pluck his sleeve. A lamp illuminated the hall and a faint odour of unfamiliar cooking filled the air.

'I apologize for the lateness of the hour, Mr Solomon.'

'There is no need, Captain, it is as arranged. Pray follow me.'

Solomon's study lay off the hall, a comfortable, book lined room, with a large desk on which sat piles of ledgers, and an exotic landscape in oils above a fire of sea-coal.

'As you see,' Solomon said, indicating a chair, 'I was working. Please be seated. You will find a glass and decanter beside you.' He held up his pale hand at Drinkwater's query. 'No, I do not indulge.'

Drinkwater sipped the claret. After the raw rasp of gin, the rich Bordeaux was revivifying. 'You have no idea how excellent this is, Mr Solomon,' he said.

'Would you like a bath, Captain? It will not take long to arrange. You will want hot water for a shave and his lordship has sent fresh clothes for you.'

'I fear I stink a trifle.'

'A trifle, Captain, but you have been successful, yes?'

'Indeed. The bait was well swallowed. If I mistake not, the news will be in Paris within the week. And you and the ship?'

'They expect you to arrive at any moment. You are to sail as a supercargo, sent, I have told the master, by the consigners. He is aware that certain high placed individuals have an interest in his cargo,' Solomon smiled. 'So prevalent is the practice of revenue evasion that the matter was easily arranged, as was your assumed status. The master, Captain Littlewood, has accepted the fact that the ship is cleared outwards at the Custom House in your name. You may make such private arrangements as you require once at sea.'

'That seems satisfactory. What news of the gun-brig?'

'Your man joined her at Harwich two days ago. She will be at the rendezvous by now. Will you sleep an hour while the water heats?'

'A moment more of your time, Mr Solomon ...'

'Of course, how can I be of service?'

Drinkwater stood and undid his waistcoat. 'Forgive me a moment ...' He turned away and drew from within his breeches a small baize bundle. 'I would appreciate your opinion, Mr Solomon, as to the value of this.'

He rolled the heavy nuggets of unrefined gold on to Solomon's desk where the light sparkled on the gritty irregularities of their surfaces. Drinkwater watched the Jew as he bent over the gold. His sensitive fingers reached out and he cupped them speculatively in one hand.

'Where did you acquire these?'

'From a dead man in California.'(See
In Distant Waters
)

'California?'

'A province of Spanish America.'

'What is your title to it, Captain?'

'A spoil of war, I imagine, though doubtless a law-broker would argue differently. It was found by an American citizen in a land claimed by Spain, Russia and Great Britain, somewhere beyond the rule of all but the most natural law — that of possession. I am not a greedy man, Mr Solomon, but I have obligations beyond my means, dependants I have collected in the course of my duties and for which the state bears the moral burden but which it has abandoned to my ingenuity. I offer you ten per cent of the value if you can dispose of them without fuss.'

From a drawer Solomon drew a small box and lifted out a set of hand held scales. He weighed the nuggets, nodding with quiet satisfaction.

'I think this
avoirdupois
will make your burden considerably lighter, Captain,' Solomon said wryly. 'It would be premature of me to mislead you, but upwards of two thousand pounds would seem possible. I see that surprises you, well, well.'

Drinkwater shut his foolishly gaping mouth. Solomon smiled.

'Now, an hour's rest, and then a bath.'

Drinkwater slept well, luxuriating in clean linen and down pillows. Later he broke his fast in Solomon's study. The Jew's quiet manner gave the impression that while his guest slept he had been busy, and, even as Drinkwater drank his fourth cup of coffee, Solomon bent industriously over papers and ledgers on his desk. From within the house came the noise of a banging door, a snatch of children's laughter and the sound of a family. The noises shocked Drinkwater with the pain of nostalgia and he tore his mind from the contemplation of such things. Beyond the windows, the raucous bedlam of Spitalfields market intruded. Drinkwater watched Solomon. He was deeply touched by the man's solicitude, the clean linen for his soiled body, the hip bath, warm towels and an apparently copious supply of hot water. Dungarth might have suggested the clean underdrawers, the starched shirt, breeches and stockings, but Solomon had attended to the details and Drinkwater was vaguely ashamed of his suspicion of the Jew.

From time to time a confidential clerk, a Hebrew like his master, came and went upon errands concerned with Solomon's business interests. After one of these Solomon looked up and, seeing Drinkwater had finished his breakfast, smiled and removed the spectacles from his nose.

'I trust you have had sufficient, Captain?'

'To the point of over-indulgence, Mr Solomon, but I think the bath the kinder thought on your part.'

Solomon inclined his head, then pulled out his watch. 'You will be wanting to leave shortly ...'

'There is one small matter that has just occurred to me.'

'Please ... ?'

'Would you be kind enough to advance a small sum against the gold?'

'Of course, but I have yet to advance you the money for contingent expenses.'

'No, this is a private request. Say twenty sovereigns?'

'Of course, Captain.' Solomon rose and from a fold in his robe, produced a ring of keys. Bending to a safe behind his desk, he drew out two purses. From the larger he took a handful of coins and placed twenty pounds on the table. The other he held out to Drinkwater. 'Two hundred and fifty Maria Theresa
thalers
, Captain, on account.'

Drinkwater took the purse and pocketed the coins.

'They have not the value of your specimen, Captain, but they are more readily negotiable.'

'Indeed they make me the more apprehensive, though I confess to a fit of nerves when confronted with the pimp last night. He would have had rich pickings even if he undervalued the sale. You wish me to sign a receipt?'

Solomon shook his head. 'It is better there is no record of such a transaction, Captain. A nosy clerk, a ledger left open carelessly ...' Solomon shrugged and waved his hand, 'you understand?'

'I think so.' Drinkwater paused, then asked, 'The man Fagan, he took the bait well enough. Will he report to Talleyrand?'

Solomon nodded. 'Yes, and Fouche too, that is why your disguise was necessary. Fouche might have smelt a rat had we not dissembled, now he will bring the matter to the Emperor's notice if Talleyrand does not.'

'So Fouche is also betraying his master?'

Solomon smiled again, a curiously knowing smile, like an adult distantly watching the tantrums of children. 'Napoleon has taught them all that ambition knows no boundaries. Do you recall Aristotle's epigram on the state of mind of revolutionaries? That inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, but equals that they may be superior.'

'He had a point,' Drinkwater agreed. 'So Lord Dungarth concludes Napoleon himself ordered the attempt on his life in which he lost his leg, and that this was intended not merely to destroy his lordship and to damage our Secret Service, but to serve as a warning to Talleyrand and perhaps Fouche?'

Solomon shrugged, spreading his hands palms upwards. 'To
discourage les autres
, perhaps ... but you are inclined to doubt the assumption, yes?'

Drinkwater's mouth twisted in a wry expression. 'I am not convinced. We blame Napoleon as the head of the body, but the cause may be elsewhere. Mayhap the heart ...'

Solomon's intelligent eyes watched his guest, though he did not press the point. Drinkwater's grey eyes were introspective.

'Well,' Solomon broke in on Drinkwater's thoughts, 'it is true that men are not always moved by logic in these matters, Captain, though the French can generally be expected to employ reason more than most; but passions and desires, even distempers, are powerful motives in all human activities. Napoleon is, after all, a Corsican.'

Drinkwater gave a short laugh. 'A follower of the vendetta, yes! So Dungarth
did
go into France to arrange for some such "accident" to befall the Emperor; well, well ...' Drinkwater recalled earlier attempts to dislodge Bonaparte. He remembered picking up the mysterious and half-mad Lord Camelford from a French fishing boat in the wake of the Pichegru conspiracy. A
quid pro quo
might also account for Dungarth's detached lack of vindictiveness.

'Who can say, Captain? I am not in his lordship's full confidence, but many things are possible among these shadows.'

The metaphor, intended by Solomon to turn the conversation away from speculation, failed in its purpose. Instead, it uncannily echoed Drinkwater's own theory, developed in the long months since he had first heard of the explosion of the fougasse beneath the earl's carriage.

'It is the shadow world to which I allude, Mr Solomon. That the Emperor himself, with all his preoccupations, made so clumsy and obvious an attack is unlikely, but perhaps it was done by someone wishing to incriminate Bonaparte.' He paused, catching Solomon's interest again. 'Like you, I flatter myself that I enjoy a measure of his lordship's esteem and confidence. Like you I see some corner of the affair. But unlike you here in London, I have been at a more personal risk, and if I am correct, the matter touches me.' Drinkwater caught the Jew's eyes. Solomon showed no reaction to the oblique and gentle goading. 'Did his lordship never mention a woman?'

Solomon's narrowed eyes betrayed the whetting of his interest. His stock in trade was not simply gold, nor bills of exchange, to say nothing of Northampton boots. Isaac Solomon traded as much in news, gossip and informed opinion; his was a business that turned on channels of intercourse denied to others, more obscure than those of diplomacy, but they were far more robust. They withstood the blasts of war, the impostures of envoys and the imposition of military frontiers with their
douaniers
and tariffs.

'You imply
dux femina facti
, Captain? That a woman was leader of the deed?'

Drinkwater smiled and nodded. 'Just so. 'Tis a theory, no more.' He did not admit that after the past week's almost unendurably squalid inactivity he felt himself electrified by the speed and stimulation of events overnight; nor that his theory, viewed objectively, was insubstantial as air. He too was as devoid of logic as Solomon's hypothetical protagonists. Besides, how did one explain to a man of Solomon's obvious intelligence, a hunch that had matured to conviction?

'Tell his lordship, when next you speak, that I am of the opinion that he fell victim to the malignance of a widow.'