Much Ado About Lewrie
Page 38
Dog buffers were real, unfortunately. In Georgian and Regency London there were the Canting Crews, a loose association of criminals of various specialties, the kings of which were the dashing and bold highwaymen, and they went down in prestige from there in a hierarchy, the dog buffers being so far down they were sneered at by almost everyone else. It was rare they used violence to seize pets, but it wasn’t unheard of. After all, what they did with the pelts and meat of the dogs they couldn’t ransom, and the snatch-and-run crimes they committed doesn’t take the sharpest knives in the drawer in the first place, and dog buffers would make bumbling criminals of today look like geniuses in comparison. I’m not saying they dragged their knuckles, but …
As for their trial at the Old Bailey … it would be enlightening to find and read a copy of Albion’s Fatal Tree, Pantheon Books, 1975, which showed how quickly English Society was to hang lawbreakers after swift trials that might not last two hours, and for an ever-expanding list of capital crimes added to each year when the threat of the death penalty didn’t seem to lessen the number of crimes. It did not help that when the condemned were carted to Tyburn to do their last jig in the air, massive crowds turned out to enjoy the spectacle, and those doomed to swing could have their fifteen minutes of fame, and shout not their innocence, but their bravado, whooping and cheering the mob on to delight and admiration.
That urchin girl, and the cart driver who showed no violence, didn’t get off all that easily, either, when they were transported for life to New South Wales. Have you read the cautions about Australian wildlife? Everything on that continent may be out to kill you! And, if you had no job skills other than picking pockets, snatching silk handkerchiefs, or stealing dogs, what sort of work could you expect to find Down Under? But, do remember, before we won the American Revolution, we used to get those sorts of people dumped on our shores here in America. Talk about an immigration problem!
As for Claude Lorrain’s The Embarkation of The Queen of Sheba that was the main ingredient in the forgery ring’s doings, let me tell you where that came from.
In 1969, when I was a senior at Montana State University in Bozeman (Go Bobcats!) from Spring Break on the campus was inundated with salesmen trying to sign soon-to-be-graduates up for gasoline cards, some early versions of credit cards (okay, I confess, I stole a rubber door mat for a credit card company from the entry of the 4 B’s Café and I still have it) and The Great Books from Harvard University Press. Like a halfway-educated fool, I went for The Great Books, which ran to over thirty volumes of the world’s best thought, poetry, speeches, etc. and with it, a ten-volume set of art of the world. Madame Pellatan is, you may have noticed, French, and in the volume on French art I found The Embarkation of The Queen of Sheba, which I very much liked for how the artist rendered harbour waters, and a brilliant, glowing sky. And, as Lewrie did, I liked it because it had ships in it, no matter if they’re not exactly Biblical.
Madame Pellatan, hmmm. When I first introduced her in A Fine Retribution, I had a feeling about her character. As we’d say up in Campbell County, “That woman just ain’t right.” I have no idea at this moment if she’ll ever turn up, again, or if she gets clean away.
London’s Police, the “Bow Street Runners,” well. I can’t think that they would have been as efficient back then as Scotland Yard is today. They had truncheons, and whistles were far off in the future, and might not even have had official uniforms yet. They patrolled the streets and might have gone into the criminal stews at some point, but that might have been a dangerous proposition. Look at their predecessors, the night watchmen and the “Parish Charlies” paid by the individual church parishes. They had guard posts, wooden booths in which they sheltered from the weather when not walking the bounds with a lanthorn, but were older fellows on the Poor List with their churches, and were usually found napping in their booths, making them vulnerable to being tipped over with the door face down, from which the poor old souls had no escape ’til dawn. If you can’t tip cows in London, “Charlie” booths will do. Could the new-fangled police find a way to hunt a criminal down and arrest him or her in the first place? And would they have had people on staff with the expertise to prosecute art forgeries? Your guess is as good as mine.
So … here’s Alan Lewrie, still ashore on half-pay, soon to be a father all over again, soon to give his daughter away in holy matrimony before she begins to show, and still can’t even catch cold with the powers that be at Admiralty. Has his son Sewallis turned into a merchant or a Commission Sea Officer? Will the developing relationship ’twixt Liam Desmond and Abigail at the Old Ploughman take another stalwart from Lewrie’s long-time retinue? Can Lewrie, Colonel Tarrant, Lt. Fletcher, and Peter Rushton’s brother, Harold, scotch the vainglorious plans of Commodore Grierson and Brigadier-General Caruthers on Sicily before disaster strikes?
What will life be like when King George is declared insane, and the Prince of Wales, who wanted everyone to call him “Florizel” takes the throne as Regent, annul his secret marriage to Mrs. Fitz-Herbert, a Catholic of all things, and be re-united with his Princess Caroline?
And what’s all this “Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights” folderol over in the United States? Aren’t they too poor and weak to complain about anything that Great Britain does? And how long would the American Navy last if they did? Might Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Bt., have even a wee part in that?
And will dirty nappies, spit-ups, toddling babes, and general mayhem round the house drive him to distraction before he sails again, at last? I’m going to go to Kinko’s, then to UPS, get some champagne, catch up on my laundry, and play with the cat. (Harry says hello, by the way—or he would if he would leave off licking my toes.)
Also by Dewey Lambdin
The King’s Coat
The French Admiral
The King’s Commission
The King’s Privateer
The Gun Ketch
H.M.S. Cockerel
A King’s Commander
Jester’s Fortune
King’s Captain
Sea of Grey
Havoc’s Sword
The Captain’s Vengeance
A King’s Trade
Troubled Waters
The Baltic Gambit
King, Ship, and Sword
The Invasion Year
Reefs and Shoals
Hostile Shores
The King’s Marauder
Kings and Emperors
A Hard, Cruel Shore
A Fine Retribution
An Onshore Storm
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DEWEY LAMBDIN is the author of twenty-four previous Alan Lewrie novels. A member of the U.S. Naval Institute and a Friend of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, he spends his free time working and sailing. He makes his home in Nashville, Tennessee, but would much prefer Margaritaville or Murrells Inlet. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Book One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Book Two
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Book Three
Chapte
r Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Book Four
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Afterword
Also by Dewey Lambdin
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
MUCH ADO ABOUT LEWRIE. Copyright © 2019 by Dewey Lambdin. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Maps by Cameron MacLeod Jones
Cover design by Lexi Earle
Cover art: Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula (oil on canvas), Lorrain, Claude (1600–1682) © National Gallery, London, UK / Bridgeman Images
Cover photographs: parchment © Tischenko Irina / Shutterstock.com; compass © rangizzz / Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-10366-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-10367-3 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250103673
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First Edition: May 2019