“And did you steal a Letter of Marque held by the captain of the Helen on that occasion?”
“I did.”
“Passing it on to the same soldier?”
“Yes.”
“All under orders from Lonny McPherson?”
“Yes.”
“Why have you come forward to testify to this now, Mr. Ladner?”
“Because I think they’re going to kill me, sir.”
“Who?”
“Lonny . . . uh, Mr. McPherson, sir.”
“Why do you believe that?”
“Because of what they did to Tad.”
“Tad?”
“Tad Stocker.”
“Who is Tad Stocker?”
“He was my best friend in the crew. They were training him to replace me, sir. I was getting too old for the setup. They chased him into the Thames.”
William was suddenly drained to his bones and in danger of collapse. Swallow that, King’s Counsel! his mind exclaimed. He gestured to Sir Barnabas. “Your witness.”
Sir Barnabas looked to the lower gallery, where Lord Brummell was seated. Then he stood. “My lord. May we speak in chambers?”
The judge stared at Sir Barnabas curiously. “All right,” he ruled.
“And I ask leave for someone other than counsel to join us.”
Judge Raleigh looked perplexed. “Who would that be?”
“Lord Beau Brummell, sir.”
JUDGE RALEIGH’S CHAMBERS
“My lord,” Lord Brummell began, addressing the judge among the seated participants, “I find myself in an awkward position.”
“As do we all,” the judge said sympathetically. “But I scarcely know how you factor into this.”
“My lord, I met early this morning with our Prince Regent George in a private session. In that session, Prince George asked me to appear as an intermediary for the Crown, granting me some latitude to speak on his behalf.”
The judge’s eyes widened. “That’s . . . unusual.”
“I agree. Yet this case presents much that is unusual. As a loyal subject to the Crown, and being privileged to know the prince as a friend, I’ve kept Prince Regent George fully up to date regarding the particulars of this case. Yesterday I voiced my concerns to the prince about the testimony of Mr. Ivars and the direction the evidence has taken. It became clear to me—and Prince George shares this impression—that the matter of Captain Tuttle’s conduct and his guilt of the charge of piracy have become muddled at best. That perhaps there is even an element of injustice in continuing this proceeding.”
“It’s true we are in perilously strange waters, Lord Brummell,” the judge said. “This court recognizes the Crown’s deep interest in this matter as one of international importance. But to intervene in this fashion is unprecedented. What precisely are you and the Crown proposing, sir?”
“My lord, the prince and I believe there’s been too much doubt raised by the recent testimony to proceed with so serious a criminal charge as piracy against Captain Tuttle, carrying as it does the risk of hanging. We propose, rather, that the charges be dropped to minor trade offenses, punishable by fine or brief imprisonment. Dependent, of course, upon the captain agreeing to the return of the cargo to the French.”
“That’s a most generous resolution.” The magistrate looked to William. “What do you say, Mr. Snopes?”
William shook his head. “Wholly unacceptable, my lord.”
“How dare you, Counsel!” Sir Barnabas declared, taking to his feet. “Have you any idea the gift being offered you? I’m shocked the Crown would extend it at all. You must realize that your first mate and this guttersnipe Ladner have done nothing more than tell a story that lacks characters or even an ending. We’re left speculating that this Lonny McPherson fellow engineered the theft of a document—but to what end? To set up a legal charge which would return the cargo to the French? Who profits from that? Who are the masterminds behind this perverse canvas you’re trying to paint? I’ll crush Ladner in my cross-examination.”
“I know you will,” William agreed.
Sir Barnabas looked stunned. “You know? Then why are you turning down the Crown’s offer?”
“Because I have someone to fill the holes in Simon Ladner’s story. And he will identify everyone who was involved.”
“Who’s that?”
William turned to Judge Raleigh. “The defense wishes to next call Tad Stocker to the stand.”
In the abrupt silence that followed, William noticed, for the first time, that one of Sir Barnabas’s juniors had accompanied them into chambers, sitting in the back and writing notes on a small lap desk. With William’s announcement, Sir Barnabas gestured to the junior, who rose and hurried from chambers.
“This Tad is the friend Simon Ladner mentioned?” Judge Raleigh inquired. “I thought the Ladner boy said his friend had been killed.”
“He said that persons unnamed had chased him into the river, presumably intent upon killing him. In fact, the boy survived the attempt on his life. When we located him last night, Simon at first adhered to the story that Tad was dead. After a bit, he trusted sufficiently to confide in us. Only then did he tell us the truth and lead us to his friend. But Tad Stocker is very much alive.”
“And he will testify to what exactly?”
“That for the past two years, he’s been trained to replace Simon Ladner in this Letter of Marque scheme, before there was an attempt to end his life. He will testify who was behind it and the methods they used. He will, my lord, complete Sir Barnabas’s rhetorical canvas.”
“Everyone behind it?”
“Yes, sir. If the court will permit his testimony.”
William saw Lord Brummell out of the corner of his eye. Wonderfully dressed as usual. Spotless coat. Colorful cravat. All framing a face that was ghostly pale.
They all sat in silence for a long moment, the judge appearing desperately torn. William watched the clock with each second growing more concerned where the judge would turn.
The judge straightened. “Mr. Snopes, I realize that the evidence now emerging improves your case. However, I struggle with allowing more witnesses when you have deliberately declined the Crown’s offer, which could put this case to a just rest. If you persist in this decision, I’m forced, in these circumstances, to rule that—”
The door opened again. The scribing junior had returned. He passed a note to Sir Barnabas.
“My lord,” the prosecutor spoke up, looking to the judge, “uh, I should inform the court that, like Lord Brummell, as counsel for the Crown I’ve been reporting to the prince regent. This morning, Prince Regent George had the Lord Privy Seal present in the gallery. My junior has just returned from updating him regarding our discussions and has informed me by this note that Mr. Snopes has been requested at a meeting.”
“A meeting? In the middle of trial?”
“Yes, my lord. A meeting alone. Mr. Snopes has kindly been asked to attend to Prince Regent George at Carlton House.”
“When?”
“Immediately, my lord. Immediately.”
58
PRINCE REGENT’S STUDY
CARLTON HOUSE
LONDON
The prince regent was dressed splendidly, seated behind a massive desk in a room more than twice as large as William’s entire flat. He reminded William of Beau Brummell himself, which was not surprising. Even as divorced from social gossip as William was, he knew that Lord Brummell and the prince regent were friends. Enough so that Lord Brummell provided much of the prince’s fashion direction.
The most obvious difference between the two men was girth. Beau Brummell had retained his youthful stature. The prince regent had long since moved on.
“I’ve been kept closely informed of the trial, Mr. Snopes,” the prince regent said. “Even your detractors say you’ve done a marvelous job with little evidence.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, Your Highness, though that deficit in evidence is about to be rectified.”
“So I was told. I’ve no wish to delay trial longer than I must, so let me get directly to the point of my summoning you. I’m aware of your falling out with your father, Lord Snopes, and your rejection of the wealth and status he might have gifted you. As a result, I’m compelled to ask: are you a loyal subject of England?”
“I am.”
“Do you support the Crown?”
“I do, so long as it comports itself justly and fairly.”
“Not a Whig like your junior, Mr. Shaw?”
“You’re well informed, Your Highness. No. I’m not a Whig. I do not share Edmund’s objections to the Crown. Though I admit to ambivalence about some in England’s upper classes. Ambivalence which this case has only heightened.”
“I see. Very well, then. As a loyal subject, I must ask you to accept the offer I conveyed through Lord Brummell.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not? I can ensure your client spends no time in jail. The charges of piracy will be dropped. He will emerge a free man.”
“He will emerge a damaged man, with no reputation at all. My other clients, Lady Jameson and her father, will lose their ship and cargo, and so be bankrupt. There’s no justice in that, Your Highness.”
The prince regent settled deeper into his chair. “What do you believe you know that would justify a more generous offer?”
“Everything.”
“Explain yourself.”
“I know how the scheme worked, who was involved, and how long it’s gone on.”
“Tell me what you believe to be the facts.”
“First, Your Highness, Captain Tuttle was in fact provided a valid Letter of Marque, from the office of the Lord Privy Seal.”
“Impossible. I never signed such a document.”
“That’s true, so I assume the document wasn’t strictly legal. But it was prepared in this house, in the office of the Lord Privy Seal, and authenticated with your seal.”
“How?”
“By a young girl employed in this house to care for your ailing father. Her name was Isabella Stratton.”
“And how did she manage to create such a document?”
“Given access to your house, it wasn’t difficult, Your Highness. What’s required is the proper paper and an ability to use another such document as a template and, most importantly, access to your seal. You have facsimiles of many Letters of Marque in this house issued during the late war with Napoleon, and Isabella was trained by a master of a London canon at picking locks to access them. Isabella prepared the Letters she required, sealed them, then secretly took them out of Carlton House late at night to her boss, who waited for her in St. James’s Park. From there they were carried to another messenger, most recently Tad Stocker, who took them to the office of a solicitor in Mayfair, where Tad slid them under the door.”
“You believe all this?”
“I do. In fact, it is my belief that Letters of Marque weren’t the only official documents prepared and secreted from this house under seal by Miss Stratton. Tad Stocker took a peek at some he carried. His reading skill was limited, but I’ve pieced together from his memory that there were corporate charters, taxation waivers, and at least one bill of divorce.”
“What do you believe was done with these documents?”
“They were sold. They were quite valuable for those who couldn’t obtain the Crown’s favor otherwise. The marketing of these documents has gone on for at least four years.”
The prince regent shook his head. “And the Letters of Marque, you say there was more than one?”
“At least two. But those papers weren’t sold. They were provided to captains eager to conduct trade in the Far East, foisted off as tickets to take cargo from French vessels, enabling the captains to avoid the cost of purchasing their own trade cargo. The ships were the Helen and the Padget. Their captains sailed to the Indian Sea, captured cargo, then returned—only to have that cargo and their ships impounded at the docks.”
“What good would it do the thieves to have the cargo impounded?”
“Because it was part of a process much more lucrative than simply selling a Letter of Marque to the captains. Rather than pocket a paltry sum for the Letters, this scheme gained the bosses thousands of pounds of tea plus the ships themselves. The bosses tendered the Letters of Marque with a meaningless commission agreement to the captains, then, when the ships returned to the London docks, arranged for soldiers and constables—most uninvolved in the scheme other than receiving handsome pay for silence—to immediately impound the ships and cargos. In that same moment, young Simon Ladner was poised to steal the Letters themselves, which represented the only evidence that the captains had been acting under a genuine belief that they had the authority of law.
“The crews were jailed belowdecks, where they couldn’t spread word of the impoundments, and the captains secretly imprisoned at Newgate, with the aid of bribes to the clerks there, silencing and isolating them as well. All reporting of the events by the London papers was suppressed. It was at that point that the captains were presented with their ultimatums: either agree to transportation or suffer a dangerous trial, followed by the trials of their innocent crewmen. The captain of the Helen accepted the offer. I’m sure I’ll be able to confirm that his indictment and guilty plea were taken quietly at court before he was shipped off—leaving the bosses of this scheme to sell the cargo and the ship, with a suitable share paid to the French Crown. Then they started the process again with Captain Tuttle and the Padget.”
“Wait there. Now you’re saying that King Louis shared in this scheme?”
“Why else was there no outcry among the French when the first ship, the Helen, was seized and sold? I have no immediate proof, but I believe the French Crown agreed to this arrangement to help fill its own empty coffers, which had been used up by Napoleon during the lengthy wars preceding reinstatement of the French king.”
William leaned back in his chair and scrutinized the prince regent. “But you know all this, don’t you, Your Highness? It’s written on your face. I haven’t surprised you a bit.”
The prince regent stared back a moment longer. “That’s not entirely true. You’ve surprised me a bit, Mr. Snopes. But, yes, I’d learned much of what you’re relating already. However, I knew none of it when we began the prosecution of your Captain Tuttle. But on your visit to Carlton House, you so impressed the Lord Privy Seal with your vehement insistence of your client’s innocence that he requested, even demanded, to do his own investigation. I permitted it. He was able to learn of the marketing of other Crown documents and traced the source of the thefts to your young Miss Stratton, by then already deceased. Still, it wasn’t until the Padget’s first mate testified the other day that we were able to put some remaining facts in order, particularly about the Letters of Marque. Which is why the Lord Privy Seal was present in your courtroom today.”
“Then do you know who all was involved?”
“Please tell me your thoughts on that matter as well.”
William nodded. “A career criminal named Lonny McPherson chose from among his pickpocket canon Simon Ladner and Tad Stocker for their respective roles. Isabella was one of his group as well. Given where Isabella was found murdered, I suspect that Lonny had a role in that also—perhaps to keep her quiet on the eve of trial. Tad has told us that he delivered the documents to the office of Solicitor Mandy Bristol, who must have served as liaison between the captains and his investors—the real bosses in this.”
“And who were those real bosses?”
“Two persons deeply in debt and requiring cash. Lord Beau Brummell. And your daughter, Your Highness. Princess Charlotte.”
The prince regent raised his face until he was looking down his nose at William as though appraising a racehorse for a bet. “Why do you believe Lord Brummell and my daughter were involved?”
“Because Tad did errands and chores for Mandy Bristol and overheard the solicitor and Lord Brummell speaking about aspects of the plan during
a meeting at Mandy Bristol’s office—after Lord Brummell arrived secretly up a back staircase. Also, because Tad saw Lord Brummell and your daughter share a cab with Mandy Bristol to a social event only a week or more ago.”
“That’s scarcely proof enough of my daughter’s involvement.”
“There is more, Your Highness. Lonny McPherson told Tad on the night he nearly killed the boy that your daughter and Lord Brummell were in charge of the scheme.”
For the first time, William saw real concern appear on the prince regent’s face. That last statement was news to him. Or he suspected it but was crestfallen that William had proof.
“What is it that you want, Mr. Snopes?” he finally asked softly. “Money? A KC? Because I will tell you that if news of this got out, your junior and his Whigs might well succeed in toppling the Crown.”
“I know,” William said. “I thought long about that consequence. I confess I considered that there might be some justice in it. Yet after as much personal meditation and prayer as I could fit into a long and sleepless night, I’ve thought better of it. In fact, avoiding that occurrence is the reason I’ve shared this information with no one else.”
“No one?”
“Not even my clients. They know nothing more than has been testified to in open court to date.”
“Then what is it you want? I can have the charges of piracy against your client fully dismissed. Would that suffice?”
“That won’t do.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve sought?”
“No. Dropping charges will leave behind a mystery that will taint my clients and their families forever. I want the case to go to the jury for determination.”
“Impossible! Then you’d be forced to present the evidence you’ve shared with me to avoid a guilty verdict, and it would all be in the public realm!”
“No. I want your Lord Privy Seal to voluntarily take the stand this afternoon and testify that, after diligent search, he’s finally located the administrative record in his office which confirms that you did, in fact, issue a Letter of Marque to Captain Tuttle in November of 1816. Then I want Sir Barnabas, on behalf of the Crown, to rest his case—declining to make a final statement to the jury. I will make my own statement proclaiming Captain Tuttle’s innocence, after which Judge Raleigh will instruct the jury, based on the Lord Privy Seal’s unequivocal testimony, that it should find Captain Tuttle not guilty. The jury will certainly oblige. The captain’s reputation will be restored, as will that of Lady Jameson and her father. Particularly after you bring sufficient pressure on the London papers to make the acquittal and exoneration a headline story for at least a week.”
The Barrister and the Letter of Marque Page 34
