Unlikely Spy Catchers (St. Brendan Book 2)

by Carla Kelly

  “Master Six, unless I have suddenly developed amazing sleight of hand skills – and I assure you I have not – no one is here to poison you. Are you always this suspicious?”

  “Only when my last view of you was an angry man kicking my ribs,” he replied.

  “Ah, yes, regrettable display of temper,” William Pitt said. He tossed off his drink and pushed his glass over for a refill. Ogilvie obliged. “I almost believed him, myself.”

  Able looked from one to the other, his lively brain strangely silent. Suddenly, a cosmic hand tweaked his head with thumb and forefinger and he sat back. “I believe I have been diddled,” he said, and knocked back his drink.

  “Let me tell you why,” the captain said, all snark and innuendo gone from his voice. “I have been following a tip Trinity House received from a source that will remain anonymous. I have been observing Henri and Madeline Turenne, that respectable émigré couple now currently residing in New Romney, Kent.” He pulled out a timepiece and examined it studiously. “Or they were. Quite possibly they are on their way to Portsmouth, courtesy of a Royal Marine escort.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “My sources tell me that in the past six months, the Turennes have been visited by, shall we say, questionable characters of French origin,” Ogilvie said. “New Romney is marshy country to be sure – my late wife would never have wanted to live there – but it’s so close to France.”

  Able let that sink in. Pitt obligingly poured him another drink.

  “I followed one of those visitors – a really unsavory-looking bloke, and uh, convinced him to relinquish a note I had observed Monsieur Turenne handing him before he left.”

  “Skulking in the bushes, sir?” Able asked, curious to know, but still not ready to forgive him for his rough treatment.

  “I skulk for Trinity House,” Ogilvie said simply. “That is all I will own to. The only thing that stubborn man would admit was that Gervaise had agreed to involve himself. He also admitted he was determined to cause more mischief, all for the glory of France. He would say no more, no matter how much persuasion we attempted.”

  “Do I want to know what happened to him?”

  “No, you do not,” Ogilvie replied in a kindly voice. He turned his attention to the prime minister. “That was when we at Trinity House felt it wise to inform you, Mr. Pitt. You know the rest.”

  “Except this: why not tell Addington?” Pitt asked. “He was prime minister until a week ago.”

  “It didn’t seem to us that he would be in power much longer, begging your pardon, sir,” Ogilvie replied, all complacence.

  “You decided to palm that note onto Gervaise and see what he would do with it,” Able said. “And that was why you Trinity Brothers specifically asked my Gunwharf Rats to patrol at St. Brendan’s.”

  Ogilvie gave a little bow from the waist up. “We have other uh, well, let us call them agents, watching the rest of the waterfront. There have been rumors about the hulks.”

  “And you made a big show of humiliating me why, precisely?” Able asked, still feeling no particular charity toward the round but solid fellow who sat next to him.

  “To put Gervaise off his guard,” Ogilvie said promptly. “I slipped him that note when everyone was trying to help you and your sweet wife and paying him no attention. I do hope Mrs. Six will accept my apology. Oh, I also included my own note with the planted missive, taken off that poor dead man.”

  “What poor…” Able stopped. “Oh, aye. The one who didn’t have any more information for you.”

  “Alas, no,” Ogilvie said with a sorrowful shake of his head. “In the note from me, which I am certain Gervaise has long since relocated to a safer place – perhaps the fireplace – I told him to be alert for a Frenchman to get in touch with him, and hand off that note when he found him.”

  “He really terrified Jean Hubert, when the note came his way, via a little boy,”

  Able said.

  No one said anything, although Captain Ogilvie gave Able several inquiring looks. “Do you have something to add, Master Six?” he finally asked quite politely, a far cry from the angry, fire-breathing man who had made Able’s life a misery that afternoon at Trinity House.

  “I am curious about something,” Able said. “Did you keep Sir B in the dark about Gervaise?”

  “We felt it best,” Mr. Pitt said.

  “He’ll take this hard. Gervaise has been his lifeline for several years now,” Able said. “I wish this could end differently.”

  “So do I,” Mr. Pitt said. “War doesn’t play favorites.”

  “Is there more?” Captain Ogilvie asked briskly, leaving Able to wonder if he ever had a sympathetic thought for anyone.

  “Quite a lot, actually,” Able said. “I suggest we go upstairs now, where others can hear it.”

  “After you, Master Six,” Ogilvie said with a little bow as he stood up.

  “Oh, no, after you, sir,” Able said, equally affable.

  William Pitt uttered a most un-ministerial snort and led the way up the stairs to the assembly room. The three men were joined by four beefy-looking Royal Marines, who planted themselves outside the door.

  Gervaise, I feel a little sorry for you, but only a little, Able thought as he followed the prime minister into the room, where ten Elder Brethren sat. He glanced at Sir B’s valet, who stood in his usual place behind the captain at the table. The young man appeared calm, either innocent, or a spy who had no idea what was heading his way.

  I wish it were the former, Able told himself, as his attention turned to his former captain and mentor. Sir B rested his cheek on his palm, weary of body and soon to be sick of soul. One man will miss you.

  Grace Croker sat quietly next to Jean Hubert in an out-of-the-way corner, her eyes on Sir B. Able saw the love and uncertainty.

  William Pitt gestured to a chair toward the end of the U-shaped circle. “Master Six? As you can see, we are not all assembled this late night, but we have enough, should any business need our approval. Please seat yourself here.” The prime minister directed his attention to the other side of the U, where Sir B sat.

  “Captain St. Anthony, you requested this meeting. I received the message three hours ago from a muddy post rider,” the prime minster said. “Would you care to tell us what is going on down there in Portsmouth? Your dispatch was brief and unsettling.”

  “We have knowledge of possible misadventure toward the Royal Navy’s new block pulley factory, which is scheduled to begin production in a week,” Sir B said. He nodded in Able’s direction. “Master Six can tell you everything we know.”

  All eyes turned in Able’s direction. He braced himself for his usual workhouse doubts and fears to crowd in, but they didn’t. His brain was calm and silent, too. Oddly, he could almost smell Meri’s lavender talcum powder. He was in charge.

  In a quiet voice he told the Brethren of prison escapees found in empty water kegs, and others drowned by dockworkers. He told of his wife’s near disaster at the dock, and the courage of his Gunwharf Rats as they stood the watch as directed. He indicated Jean Hubert, who sat close to Grace Croker, his eyes troubled.

  “My St. Brendan yacht crew and I rescued that man when he slipped from under a pile of corpses being taken off the prison hulks in our harbor.” He heard the gasps and low murmurs. “Sirs, it is possible to be that desperate. We at St. Brendan the Navigator School granted him a parole to teach…”

  “Good God, man, he is probably your spy!” one of the Brethren declared.

  “Then what better outcome than to watch him and see what he planned to do?” Able quickly countered. He saw Gervaise lean forward, intent, then glance at the closed door. “If we had sent him back to the hulk, what would we know of his possible target?”

  “Perhaps,” the Brother grudgingly admitted, although plainly he was n
ot convinced.

  “We decided that Lieutenant Jean Hubert, late commander of the sloop of war Calais, merely wants to lie low and stay out of trouble,” Able said. “He’s no coward, I assure you, but he has no interest in the fight. In fact, without his assistance, we would not be here tonight with our own accusations and solution to a serious matter about to happen on May 17.”

  He gestured to Jean. “Lieutenant Hubert, let us stand together and tell these men what you know is happening on board the HMS Captivity, one of the prison hulks.” Able looked around the table as he rose to his feet. The light was low, but he saw determination on the face of each man committed to this fight to the death between France and England. “You won’t like what he tells you, but I beg you, believe him. Jean?”

  — Chapter Thirty-nine —

  Grace Croker patted Jean’s hand. “Will they believe me?” he whispered to her.

  “I do,” she said quietly. “Able does.”

  Jean stood up and walked with what he hoped was confidence toward the strangely shaped table. No one looked friendly except Able. He decided to direct his remarks to the sailing master who had saved his life and had faith in him.

  “Sir, all I ever wanted to do was sail my sloop in the service of France and harry your frigates,” he began. “We were captured near Saint Domingue and forced to strike our colors. We ended up in HMS Captivity in Portsmouth Harbor.”

  “Let me mention here that the Captivity is captained by Tobias Faulke,” Sir B said. He coughed politely. “Some of us remember him as the poor unfortunate who ran his ship aground in broad daylight near Falmouth.”

  Polite chuckles. They remembered.

  And here I am, about to betray a countryman, who, granted, is a nasty piece of work, Jean thought. Try as anyone might, word has ways of getting back home. I will never be allowed in France again.

  “Jean?” Able prompted.

  He nodded. “It is an ugly thing to betray a man.” He glanced involuntarily at Gervaise Turenne, and watched him flinch. “But I must tell you of Claude Pascal now.” Another glance at Gervaise showed him a man greatly, supremely relieved. He had plainly never heard of Pascal. Jean reached in his coat pocket and took out a handful of drawings, which he handed to Able. “Master Six, please share these with the men here.”

  He waited while Able smoothed his little drawings, stacked them neatly and sent them on their way, pencil sketches he had made of naked, giggling, insane rafalés; men slumped against the bulkhead with eyes sunk deep; a prisoner dumping a chamber pot from an iron-barred porthole; a starving man turning away from an empty soup pot.

  “I stood at my classroom window, stared into the harbor at the hulks and drew these from memory,” he said, as the drawings circulated. “There is a ship’s carpenter name of Claude Pascal, at least he claims he is a ship’s carpenter, but he is vague about which ship. He wormed his way into our confidence and anointed himself our liaison with your Captain Faulke,” he continued, trying and failing to keep the emotion from his voice.

  “If he is so troublesome to you, why did you and your fellow prisoners allow him any power?” asked one well-fed Brother.

  Jean bit back the comment he wanted to make, something about over-stuffed men sitting in a comfortable room having no concept of life aboard a British prison ship. He settled for, “Sir, one becomes amazingly apathetic on a diet of gruel and little else. It plays with the mind. Hope becomes practically an aphrodisiac.”

  The inquisitor sat back, not happy, but at least silent.

  “Claude Pascal held councils with us, and took our puny complaints to Faulke.” He couldn’t help the tears in his eyes. “Sometimes the result was better treatment for a day or two, but it was never much.”

  “You are prisoners,” someone said. “What can you expect?”

  “Obviously little,” Jean snapped, then reconsidered. He bowed in the direction of the questioner. “We are still men who love our country as you love yours, sir,” Jean replied. He gestured toward the sketches making their way slowly from hand to hand. “I am an artist, as you can plainly see.”

  “And a good one,” another Brother said. Jean heard the admiration, and it warmed him as nothing else could. Now to the hard part.

  “Claude Pascal began arranging escapes from our hulk. He made sure we funneled all our attempts through him, because he said he didn’t want the matter to get out of hand and arouse too many suspicions on deck.” Oh, this was difficult. “So he claimed. What he didn’t tell us was that he was in league with Captain Faulke.”

  He closed his eyes when the Brethren, nearly as one, shouted him down, their fists raised. He bowed his head and stood there in silence, feeling more alone than he had felt in years. Funny that he would think of the cheerful faces of the Gunwharf Rats in his classroom, some of them good artists, others painfully bad, but then, it wasn’t given to every human to know what to do with a pen. But they tried. The thought of being returned to another hulk and away from the youthful camaraderie he had come to cherish at St. Brendan hurt worse than no food, no bedding, no letters, no hope.

  “Come, come gentlemen,” he heard. “We need to hear this man.”

  “Mr. Pitt, will you insist that we believe him?” came a sneering question.

  “I insist that you listen with an open mind, even as I am doing,” came the quiet but forceful response.

  Jean took heart when Able moved closer beside him. Then suddenly Grace was there, too, crooking her arm through his.

  “We teach with Jean Hubert,” Grace said, speaking distinctly, her chin up. “We believe him. As Englishmen, please give him your attention.” She looked around as Jean admired her right down to his stockings. “This is a long and weary war, and I doubt we are near the end of it. If it leeches out all your humanity, what good will we be when it is over? Jean?”

  “I was ordered to provide art lessons for Captain Faulke’s daughter, Ianthe,” Jean said. “I did not want to, until I was informed by the captain that when I finished each lesson, I would be allowed to eat a regular meal in the little pantry off the dining room. And so I taught her. I was hungry.”

  Jean took a deep breath and another. Grace tightened her grip on him. “One day I was finishing my luncheon in the pantry, when Captain Faulke and Claude Pascal came into the dining room and closed the door.”

  “How did you know who it was?” asked Captain Ogilvie.

  “Sir, it was the captain’s quarters, and Claude speaks with a lisp and a Bretonese accent. Claude distinctly told the captain that there would be an escape, the second one, in empty water kegs. He told him when the escape would be made.”

  He nodded to Able. “I do not have Master Six’s total recall of all conversations, but I can never forget what Claude said. ‘This, Captain, is your chance to alert the shore authorities and have those two men apprehended.’”

  “What did Faulke say to that?” Mr. Pitt asked.

  “He laughed and said it was perfect,” Jean told them. He tried to hide his bitterness, but he couldn’t. “He said most distinctly, ‘Three or four more of these escape attempts that I can alert the navy to, sir, might give me my own liberation from this damned scow.’”

  Jean heard the low murmur around him and continued. “I heard coins change hands.”

  Everyone was silent, listening. “That’s when it occurred to me that there was a deeper game going on, one that I do not believe Captain Faulke is aware of.”

  “Well? Well?” someone asked, and not patiently, when Jean could not speak.

  “Lieutenant Hubert?” Mr. Pitt inquired more gently.

  “I strongly suspect that Claude Pascal had been planted in the hulk by someone much higher up. Think of it,” he said, warming to the subject. “Most of us had come from one ship or other, and we knew each other in that way of navy men. You know what I mean, sirs.”

&n
bsp; He looked around and saw nods. They understood the fellowship of the fleet.

  “Claude didn’t seem to know anyone. One day he was in our midst, with his encouraging words, and plans for escape, and, oh, I cannot continue.”

  I have betrayed my own country, Jean thought. All I ever wanted was peace. God forgive me, if la belle France cannot.

  “We won’t know until the ringleaders in that house near St. Brendan’s are convinced to talk, but it appears that there are spies on the Captivity, with the sole aim of working us ill in Portsmouth, and using the hulk to do it,” Able explained, filling in the gap that Jean could not speak of. “Think of the ropewalk, the naval stores, the lumber. Jean?”

  “Captain Faulke and Claude Pascal finally left,” Jean said, resuming the narrative. “I waited a while to make sure it was safe, and opened the door on Ianthe Faulke, my little student, and sly. I…I don’t know if she told her father I had been listening, but I would not doubt it. At the first opportunity, I jumped ship in that pile of dead bodies.” He bowed and gestured to Able.

  The sailing master picked up the story, his own voice hardening when he told of his wife’s encounter with the murderers on the dock who knew full well which kegs contained the men trying to escape, and who drowned them as one little boy and Mrs. Six tried to stop them. “They attempted to interfere with my darling wife, then threw her in the water to drown. Thank God I arrived in time.”

  “My boys and I helm Sir B’s yacht in the sound,” Able continued, after a moment to gather himself together. Jean could only envy the steely resolve in his voice. “We discovered Jean Hubert nearly dead and rescued him. We told Sir B and our headmaster, of course. They agreed to grant Lieutenant Hubert a parole if he would teach at St. Brendan’s.”

  “What do you teach?” Mr. Pitt asked.

  “French, because it is a useful thing for any man in the fleet to know, as this war grinds on,” Jean said promptly. “I also teach art, which has evolved into basic mapmaking and charting.” He smiled at Able. “Courses have a way of changing to suit the needs, don’t they, Able?”