The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  Surely you do not seek men out down here for pressing? For that other wicked trade?” He stopped. He touched his brow, eyes dropped. “Nay, forgive me, all trade is wicked to a degree, I do not mean to be gratuitous. What has happened?”

  Deb rose in William’s throat, but he crushed her back. Deb was his sorrow, and her own. Sam stood up and, with tacit permission, attended to the windows. From the grass outside a cooling, welcome breeze blew in.

  “We got left ashore,” he said. He almost made a jest of it. “Marooned by the King’s most gallant commander on the seven seas. We went to take some of those very men, those smugglers, but they had allies on shore of the most useful kind. A justice of the peace, and what we took to be the yeomanry. We were jailed, set free by our boatswain’s mate, bought horses, and we ran. William here was most displaced by it, head over heels — for the Hampshire men, he says, are almost honest!”

  He must not have realised what he’d said, for Yorke and Warren had been in Hampshire, and disappeared there. Will dared not speak, but Sir A, eventually, broke the silence.

  “Charles Warren was killed not far from Petersfield,” he said. “Do you not hail from Petersfield, young man?”

  Will nodded.

  “Not far from there, sir. Two miles.”

  “And you know smuggling men? How would that be? You do not deal with them, surely?”

  Sam, having got him in the mess, tried to pull him out. He explained about the Welfare and her mixed people. Smugglers had aided Will, in the troubles, a smuggler had saved his life. Will added that he knew their villages, their haunts, he sailed his own boat in their waters, often. He did not think them honest, but he had assumed they might be honourable men. He had not heard they had a brutal reputation. But now, of course…

  Sir Arthur Fisher sighed. The room was quiet for some little while, save for a hissing log and the breeze outside. Clouds were blowing across a fine blue sky, and Will thought of Deb, and desolation.

  “So why here in Surrey, Samuel?” asked Sir A. “When you say you’ve run, you mean from your captivity, not your ship, I trust. Kaye is a foolish man, and venal I have heard, but he is not that bad, I will not allow it. Is he still out in the estuary, or the Downs, or what goes on? If he is back in London, should you not have gone back to the ship?”

  Sam glanced at Will, read hopelessness, and bit the bullet. He knew it would sound tawdry, but he would do it for his friend, who could not.

  “Sir,” he said. “It is that young maid we brought here. Deborah.”

  “Hah!” said Sir A. “Young men and their humours, like flies around a honeypot! But she is gone, sir. She and her poor companion of the teeth. The very night we took them in they fled, and stole an ass. I do not blame them, for they lived in fear, although we’d not have harmed them for the world. Good God, though. To risk your neck for a young doxy, Sam. Lieutenant Kaye would slaughter you!”

  “Not Mr Holt,” said Will. “’Tis I, Sir Arthur. But there is more than that. We know they ran away, for we met them in London in, I beg your pardon, sir, in a sort of gay house.”

  “Hah,” said Sir A once more. “Poor things, poor things, but what else could they do? But the smaller one, the little mouse thing, I can’t recall her name, she had no teeth. Surely, even in a London bawdy house…?”

  “Cecily is dead, sir,” Samuel said. It came out harsh, and Sir Arthur bit his lip. Sam made a gesture to his friend, a helpless sign, that they should not go on. He finished lamely, “We think the mountebank has stole her back, the other one, so we followed here. And now we find you with this dreadful news and worry on your mind. We are truly sorry for it, sir, both of us.”

  There was another moment’s silence, while Sir Arthur took all in, and pondered it. Then he raised his eyes.

  “Why here, though?” he asked. “The villain is a travelling man. You found them in a wagon in a wood, I thought?”

  “They said a magistrate had bought the teeth,” said Sam. “We thought perhaps… well, if the first set did not take… so Deborah…”

  “Please, sir,” said William, “we wondered, I wondered, if perhaps you’d found him out? The man who made the purchase in the first place.”

  “On suspicion only,” said Sir Arthur. “Suspicion only. There are tales, but with the maidens gone, well, what could one do, in any way? Tony named a man, but he is of great respect, whatever one’s opinion. And powerful, whose house is like a castle, almost fortified. Forgive me, but your story sounds like slander not like fact, like romance not firm sense. I’ll wager that the maiden is not there, you have no proof, do you, of any kind? And if she were, and had been carried back, surely it is far too late by now, even if one could gain entrance?” He stopped, but neither of them spoke. He moved a hand, the fingers long and bony, in a gesture of regret. “Oh young man,” he said, “I’m sorry for it, but you’d best forget her, hadn’t you? We live in troubled times, but some cases are less terrible than others. Hers may be hopeless, or it may be not, but at least we have no inkling that she’ll die for it. Be brave, sir, and forget her.”

  *

  From Tony, later on that day, they did get more information, but it was as depressing in its details as Sir A’s had been. He named Wimbarton as an almost certainty, and confirmed that tales had flown around the parishes that Mistress Amelia, or Milady as she madly styled herself, had got new teeth, then rotted, and was in her dying days. No hints had emanated that the mountebank was back, although there had been some activity in the past few days with Jeremiah leading horsemen in a search. It was Jeremiah, his man Fiske, and their band of ruffians he was most strong about. They were unhung desperadoes to a man, and kept the house impregnable. If the maiden was there, he said, she was there until it suited them, and no one else.

  The interview with Sir A had terminated abruptly when Mrs Houghton had bustled in uncalled, tutted at her master’s state, and driven Sam and William to have a wash then breakfast. They had gone over both aspects of their trouble at length, but reached no conclusion as to what they should or could do, or attempt. Behind it all, and brooding, was the question of the Biter and Lieutenant Kaye. If he chose to, he could make life extremely hot for them for this action, and sometime soon, whatever, they must return on board and face it.

  Sir Arthur had made it known that he would see them later, and try as they might they could get little information that might lead them to believe they could help Deborah. The nearest was the exact location of the Wimbarton estate, which Sam wheedled from a younger girl by a combination of charm and browbeating which left him not exactly proud. Even she, though, reported on the house as if it were a fortress, and probably haunted into the bargain. When called to luncheon they were clean, depressed, and not seeing at all which way the day would go. It was a long affair, with their host in brooding mode, discoursing at length on Charles Yorke’s past, the possibility that he might be saved, and his helplessness at what to do immediately. Although Sam and William added little to the conversation, they both sensed that it was heading somewhere, as if Sir Arthur had been thinking something through, searching for a fixed direction. However, it was not until the maids had cleared away, and hot chocolate and biscuits had been brought, that he revealed his hand.

  “Young man,” he said to William. “Or Will, I must learn to call you Will now you and Sam are friends. I have been thinking, and I have a thing to ask. First though; correct me if I have it wrong. You know Hampshire well, do you? Especially round where you live, you know the wood paths and the secret ways?”

  Will felt his stomach hollowing, but he nodded, dumbly. The old man’s face was so stricken, so torn with anxious hope.

  “Ah, you do, you do, of course. And you know the smugglers of thereabouts, and their ways. And you are an honest man, and brave.” His voice had dropped to just above inaudible. Will wet his lips.

  “I shall not beat about the bush,” said Sir Arthur, more normally. “Charles Yorke is missing and I am quite prepared, almost prepared, to think h
im dead. Now he was going under cover, for the Customs House in London, and it has taken all his colleagues, all those men, this time to find poor Warren’s corpse. In a word, there is no chance in hell that they will find a culprit, because I have it on authority of the highest that it was fortune alone that led them to Warren, he was stumbled over by a farmer’s boy. No information, no hints, no intelligence either bought or gathered. Wherever my own Charles is, sir — he will remain there. Unfound, unsaved, unshriven or unburied. That cannot, shall not, be.”

  He looked at both of them, and both bravely kept his eyes. The hollowness inside Will Bentley’s stomach grew.

  “You can guess what I am driving at, I think,” Sir Arthur said. “I know both of you hate this trade, these men, as much as I do and Sam, at least, knows Yorke. What I would ask of you is that you become my spy, or spies, and follow in their footsteps for a while. If Charles lives you may find him for me, if he is dead, knowledge brings its own relief of sorts. I wish you to divest yourselves of Navy personality, and become my spies. Only for a little while, for if you discover nothing, what’s the point? Just a few days, enquiring of the people that you know, searching out the secret ways. Please, Will. Will you do it for me?”

  Both, in some ways, were aghast, but both could see the attraction it must hold. At best a long, long shot, at worst probably fatal. Each knew they could not refuse.

  “But the Biter?” said Holt. “You said yourself, sir, Lieutenant Kaye would slaughter us. It may not be entirely a jest, I fear.”

  He pooh-poohed it. There were ways and means, he said, there were people in the Admiralty and the Office. Lieutenant Kaye was — his lip curled in contempt — a booby and a fool from what he’d heard, despite his father was a duke. In any case, how long would it be before they were truly missed? In the end, checking the clock with great impatience, he called for quills and ink and paper.

  “We will have it on a proper footing, after all. Kaye might be troublesome but I have greater power in a fight like this. How long to London, if I give you good horses? Not many hours. You can go to Deptford if that is where she lies and give him letters to his hand. First to the Admiralty Office, where all shall be made good. I’ll write to Bobby Beaumont, and if Kaye cares to defy him we should have some capital fun, capital in the hanging sense, mayhap! Then, when you have cleared it all, back here and sleep, and off betimes tomorrow. Does that meet expectations?”

  Sam, for Will’s sake, mentioned Deborah. Was there a possibility, he asked, that they might ride that way?

  “Deborah?” asked Sir A, blankly. “What way?”

  “The magistrate’s,” said Sam. “Wimbarton’s. It could be that… well, just to — ”

  Sir Arthur’s eyes cleared with sudden anger.

  “Are you mad?” he snapped. “Just what, to rescue her? I have told you, there is nothing we can do. Who mentioned Wimbarton? Not Tony, surely? Charlie lies bleeding somewhere, in an unknown place, and all you think about is — ”

  He stopped, and touched his forehead and his eyes.

  “I am sorry, Sam,” he said. “Mr Bentley, my humblest apologies, that was uncalled for. But believe me, if she is at Wimbarton’s, there is noth — Look, maybe tomorrow. Maybe I could ride over. You must away now, it is getting late. Please ring the bell again. Where are my ink and paper?”

  They left a half an hour after that, and, by the young maid’s directions, went via the “fortress house” of Chester Wimbarton, just to see. The nearest they could get was to a road lodge, at a gate, with three men outside it who indeed were armed. They did not stop, or reveal their faces for too long, but passed along the way to London. William was in a kind of agony.

  In the coachhouse, about a mile away, Deb’s agony was just beginning.

  TWENTY

  The night before, when Wimbarton had won his point, thus saving Deborah her teeth, she had been awake already but was shamming. Through part-closed eyes she took in some of the scene, and thought she knew the thoughts that all were having. Wimbarton, a whip-like, sharp-like man, had changed his mind about the operation, and wanted her instead. More, he wanted his wife to leave them on the instant so he could have her now, and never mind the blood and bruises. The wife, she saw, had read this in his mind, and would not have it. Despite his exhortations, despite his wheedling, she was hard as adamant, and prepared to scream if need be, as well as argue. The mountebank, that evil fox she hated, was watching and pondering which way to make the greatest profit from her body, and to save his skin.

  Deborah’s hurt was terrible but she knew that Cec was dead and that was worse. The kidnap had been fierce from the start, but the moment she had realised it was Dennett the dread had almost overwhelmed her. Cec had become an ugly, bitter thing, laughed at by the harlots and ill-used by the men about the place, which filled Deb with a guilt she did not understand. Even the knowledge of her death was guilty, for she feared that in some obscure way she’d caused it; and worse, Cec had died attacking Marcus Dennett to defend her. The real dread though, was that she would have her teeth torn out in turn, so her death would surely follow, and so what? To end like Cecily would be a death itself.

  The argument the magistrate was deploying went like this: the maid was at death’s door and needed attention from the mountebank, immediate. The wife could do no good by being there, but could upset herself, exhaust herself, exacerbate her already weak condition. She needed rest, as much as possible, and the physician (ho, a promotion, noted Deborah) could give her a gentle potion, could he not? Deb almost opened her eyes full out at this audacity, but Milady’s snort erupted from the depths unprompted. The only potion Deb had got from him came in a wooden bottle labelled club, but at deadly poison Dennett was equally a dab. Wimbarton’s last try was that she needed sleep to make her fit before the morrow’s operation, while he needed to talk to Mr Dennett of business things. Mistress Wimbarton, looking like death on legs and smelling worse, had kept her spirit.

  “Sir,” she’d said, “we leave this room together or not at all. I have never had an ordeal yet I could not get through with brandy, and the maid is in far worse a state than I. Let Mr Dennett stay with her, and give her pills and potions until they pop out of her ears for all I care, and use her body in the way men do if that’s his bent. You shall not, sir, or I swear I’ll kill you. Just let him call us if she dies is all, so that he may pull her teeth then and seal them in my gums. If she recovers it shall be done tomorrow, I will not wait another day. And now, sir — go to bed.”

  Deborah, who knew a strong woman when she met one, knew also that the justice could not win, be his power never so great in theory. He was a horrible man, who looked very cruel and evil, and she took some strange comfort from that fact. The fight would go on until it reached an end, and all the time it did she had her teeth. She might run, she had proved good at getting out of scrapes by grabbing chances in her time, or something else might happen. She had a thought, a fleeting thought, of a young man on a charger. Last time she had been in these parts William had come, the knight in shining armour. She did not think this time he’d come again.

  In the end, with great bad grace, Chester Wimbarton bowed to the storm and took his canvas in. He threw a look back into the room, Deb noted through her lids, that told Dennett to keep her well and safe, and distinctly unmolested. The mountebank, who had always exercised great caution in that field with her, on the grounds that maids with child were little use to him after four months or so and precautions however keenly made could not be trusted, appeared to be in two minds whether to change his tack this time alone. Quite clearly she was bound to die in short order, or otherwise be concubine to the justice and therefore prone to falling pregnant, no blame attached to Marcus Dennett. He stood in front of her for some short while, then sprang his club out from his breeches’ slit. So Deborah — miraculously! — came back to consciousness, and made it clear she’d scream the household and the master instantly back around his ears if he so much as put a hand on her. To Denn
ett, discretion had always been the better part of lust, he made his living at it, so he put his prick away for later. He smiled rather friendly, and sat down on the bedside for a conversation, but Deb would not respond, only groaned and wriggled in discomfort, and put her back to him. Two difficult and most stubborn women in one night, the mountebank considered darkly. Then took himself to his pallet in the corner with his dreams.

  Next morning when she woke, Deborah felt herself all over and decided she would live. Her face all down one side was swollen, her right eye almost closed, and her whole head was tender to each probing finger. On her body, which Dennett must have covered with a blanket while she slept, there were areas of scrape and bruise, both hands were stiff and full of aches, while one knee would bend only by a gritting of the teeth. The teeth. She clicked them together, almost ground them, somehow to reassure herself. They are there, they are mine, please God I do not lose them. She thought of God a little while. Teeth were so important, the most basic of necessity especially for every woman, yet they were prone to rot, and damage, and disaster and He had willed it so. Why? She decided swiftly that she was bordering on blasphemy, so thought of her bowels and her bladder instead, both of which were full. She tried a groan or two — she must keep up her one defensive line — and Dennett was instantly awake. No use of privies in the outer world, as they were bolted in, so he showed her through a doorway to a cupboard-room, then made her use the leathern bucket after him, so he’d not have to bear her morning smells. She bore his own with stoicism, then washed with a pail of water that was there, unsurprised that Dennett had not bothered.

  When she returned his club was out again, and the sly smile was back upon his face, the foxy grin she’d grown to know and hate in the months since she and Cecily had sadly lighted on him. It was a small and ugly one, to her, but when she’d used that line to deflate his drunken lust once in the past, she’d got a beating for it. This time she eyed it in an almost friendly way, as if it were sad she’d have to turn him down. She did not think it likely under any circumstance, but there just might come a time she’d need his aid.