The Deception At Lyme m&mdm-6

by Carrie Bebris

  “May I retrieve my shoes?” St. Clair asked.

  “By all means,” said Sir Laurence. “They are evidence. The waistcoat should come with us, as well.”

  St. Clair crossed the room. As he put on his shoes and picked up the waistcoat, Georgiana watched, her face a confusion of disappointment.

  “Lieutenant?”

  He turned toward her, his expression unreadable. “Yes, Miss Darcy?”

  She took off his coat and held it out to him. “Take this, too.”

  * * *

  The Darcys spent the next day simply recovering from their trial by sea. Early the following morning, a note arrived from Captain Wentworth. He had news, and asked that they all—Darcy, Elizabeth, and Georgiana—come to his home posthaste. He further requested that they bring the artifact and Lieutenant Fitzwilliam’s diary.

  Anne Wentworth herself opened the door to them. “I am glad you were able to come directly. We are gathered in my husband’s study.”

  Darcy wondered who “we” comprised. He was kept in suspense by a brief stop in the sitting room, where Mrs. Smith sat alone, wearing a light shawl. When they entered, she was struggling to her feet with the aid of her cane, but sat back down upon recognizing them.

  “Oh!” She laughed. “When I heard the door, I thought you were the sedan chair, come early. I expect it this half hour.”

  “Are you quite certain you wish to go alone this morning?” Mrs. Wentworth asked. “As I said before, I cannot accompany you just now, but am happy to do so later.”

  “No, no—this is my usual time, and I can see you are busy today. I will forgo seabathing this week, with Nurse Rooke visiting her sister in Bath, but I want to sit on the Cobb and take in the air. I will be fine—the chair men will help me to the bench, and come back for me when I specify. Do not give me another thought. You are so good to me, Anne—I wish I could be of more use to you in return, but I can at least be of minimal trouble.”

  “Very well, then. But the housekeeper has gone to market, so I will wait with you to let in the chair bearers.”

  “I can manage that, too, though I may be slow.”

  They compromised on Mrs. Wentworth’s assisting Mrs. Smith to a settee in the front hall, where she could wait within easy distance of the door. When Mrs. Smith was moved, the Darcys and Mrs. Wentworth proceeded to the study.

  A uniformed Captain Wentworth and another naval officer—an admiral, by the stripes on his cuffs—were already seated at the round table, but the admiral rose upon the ladies’ entrance. Another officer stood facing the window, and turned upon the Darcys’ arrival.

  “Lieutenant St. Clair,” Georgiana blurted.

  Darcy, too, was surprised. He had not expected St. Clair to be at liberty until after his court-martial—if then.

  “Miss Darcy.” He studied her, searching for something. “You look well,” he said finally. “I hope your health has not suffered as a result of your ordeal?”

  “No, I—my health has not suffered.”

  “I am glad to hear it.”

  Georgiana’s emotional state, however, had certainly been affected. She had not spoken of either Lieutenant St. Clair or Sir Laurence since disembarking the Black Cormorant, and when Sir Laurence had called yesterday to enquire after her, she had declined to see him, pleading fatigue. Darcy did not know what thoughts were presently somersaulting through her mind, but from her expression—hopeful but guarded—he expected she was struggling to understand how any human being could take one life and save another in the same hour. Darcy, too, was having trouble reconciling the man who yesterday had rescued them at great personal risk with what he had learned about St. Clair both before and after the event.

  “How is it that you are here?” she asked. “I thought you would be in gaol, or wherever it is that the navy keeps men awaiting court-martial.”

  “It is a long story, one that the admiral will explain, and that I wanted you to hear.”

  Captain Wentworth introduced the Darcys to the man at his side, Admiral Croft.

  “Well, Miss Darcy,” Admiral Croft said after the formalities had been exchanged, “I hear you had quite a time of it the other day. I am glad you are still with us.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Your brother and his wife are here at my request, for I believe they possess information vital to the navy, but as St. Clair said, you are here solely at his.” He motioned them into seats at the table, upon which was spread a map of the West Indies and the Spanish American coast. Mrs. Wentworth took the chair closest to her husband; Elizabeth and Darcy the next two. Georgiana sat to Darcy’s right, beside two empty chairs. St. Clair remained standing near the window.

  Admiral Croft also remained standing. “Before I begin, you all must swear to keep secret anything you hear in this room today. In return, I give my assurance that you may speak with full latitude—do not fear that anything you reveal will be used against you or reflect poorly on family members connected with the navy. Further—” He looked at Lieutenant St. Clair with an expression of respect. “I vouch for the character of this young fellow. Whatever accusations have been fired at him or whatever suspicions you may harbor, you can speak as freely before him as you would to me or Captain Wentworth.”

  They all gave their promises.

  “Thank you.” Admiral Croft again looked at the young officer. “There are many whose lives will depend upon your secrecy.”

  Georgiana’s gaze followed the admiral’s. “Including Lieutenant St. Clair?” she asked.

  “Actually,” the admiral said, “this gentleman is not Lieutenant St. Clair.”

  Thirty-One

  “Well, now, you shall hear something that will surprise you.”

  —Admiral Croft, Persuasion

  “He is Captain St. Clair,” Admiral Croft continued, “and has been for three years. However, none outside the Admiralty know his true rank because he is working for us on special detail, one best performed by an officer who is—or appears to be—a lieutenant.”

  All eyes were suddenly upon the newly acknowledged captain. Having spent years of his life deliberately deflecting attention, he now shifted self-consciously under so much of it, all at once.

  “Congratulations, Captain,” Wentworth said.

  “Thank you,” St. Clair replied, “but pray, do not congratulate me prematurely—I have not yet successfully completed my assignment.”

  “You will, my boy,” the admiral said. “We are finally traveling under full sail.” He turned to Darcy. “Captain Wentworth tells me that you recently received a diary belonging to your late cousin, who served with St. Clair on the Magna Carta.”

  “I did.” Darcy glanced at St. Clair. “It was in his sea chest.”

  “He says that it holds information about a pair of gold artifacts found aboard, and that you have one of them. Captain St. Clair and I would like to see the artifact—and the diary.”

  Though Darcy trusted the admiral—primarily based on his connexion to Captain Wentworth—he had not yet heard enough to surrender the pendant and Gerard’s journal without reservation. “You have said that those at the highest level of the Royal Navy are behind Captain St. Clair’s assignment. Might I ask why two small figurines hidden in a sugar cask on a ship years ago warrant such present attention by the Admiralty?”

  “Because we are talking about a hoard of gold,” St. Clair said, “hidden in hundreds of casks, aboard multiple ships, over a period of years.”

  “Captain St. Clair has been investigating a smuggling ring,” the admiral said, “one that has been using Royal Navy ships to transport gold from the West Indies to England. The thieves, unfortunately, include numerous naval officers and seamen, along with corrupt revenue men and private individuals.”

  “And my cousin happened upon this?”

  “Yes.” St. Clair came forward and stood behind an empty chair, resting his hands on its back. “Though at that time, we were just beginning to learn of it ourselves. I initially became aware
of something illicit going on in the region during my first tour of the West Indies, when I was aboard the Claudius. On a voyage between Central America and Jamaica, I noticed that our waterline was higher than it should have been for the weight our ship was carrying—the weight written in the manifest, that is. Our cargo was heavier than what had been recorded, enough to make the ship sit lower in the water than it ought.”

  “You monitor weight that closely?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Weight and its distribution are serious matters on a vessel of any size. They affect balance, speed, and maneuvering,” St. Clair explained. “Yet when I brought the discrepancy to my captain’s attention, he dismissed it as an arithmetic error and said we were almost to port, so I should not concern myself about it. I left the matter alone as far as the captain knew, but I wondered whether what I had observed might be evidence of smuggling. This was not a great leap—the practice is widespread, and we had spent one night moored off an uninhabited part of the Costa Rican coast for reasons the captain never made altogether clear—but I had no idea what the contraband was, or who among the crew was involved. On that same voyage, we had one crewman kill another over a gold figurine that was obviously beyond the means of either of them to have purchased. The killer claimed they had found it, but never revealed where before he was hanged. At the time, I made no connexion between the incident and my smuggling suspicions.”

  The faint sound of a baby’s cry drifted from the nursery. Mrs. Wentworth started and glanced at the closed door, but remained in the study while Mrs. Logan quieted her charge.

  Captain St. Clair continued. “Our next port after Jamaica was the Bahamas.” He leaned over the table and identified the islands for them on the map. “There, I was able to meet with Admiral Croft, whom I had always respected and trusted when he was my captain. When I shared my suspicions about the weight discrepancy with him, he said he had received reports of other suspicious cargoes, officers, and ships, and asked if I would quietly investigate them. I was appointed to the Magna Carta, and have continued the investigation ever since.”

  “Is not enforcement of excise laws the province of customs officials?” Darcy asked.

  “Primarily,” said Admiral Croft, “and we have been working in cooperation with them. The Articles of War, however, forbid His Majesty’s officers from receiving and transporting goods aboard naval ships for personal gain. The Admiralty, therefore, has a strong interest in identifying and prosecuting any officers or seamen involved in such misconduct.”

  Darcy looked up at Captain St. Clair. “So when my cousin came to you with the information that the cook had found gold idols in a sugar cask—”

  “That is when I first started piecing together what was occurring. Since then, gathering information aboard other ships and from other sources, I have gained what I believe is a comprehensive understanding of the operation, and in the past several weeks most of the remaining questions have been answered. We need to identify just a few more individuals, and then we can move forward with arrests and seizures.”

  “We want to perform them all at once,” Admiral Croft said, “so that the ringleaders do not have an opportunity to rally their forces. And frankly, until now the war has prevented the Admiralty from devoting more resources to the smuggling investigation. Now that Bonaparte is defeated, we can address other matters we had been forced to defer.”

  “What we did not anticipate,” St. Clair resumed, “was that private investigations undertaken by Captain Wentworth and you, Mr. Darcy, would overlap our efforts and in some cases interfere with them, by inadvertently alerting certain suspects to the fact that someone is examining their activities more closely than a guilty person wants. They are becoming nervous—which can be beneficial, because nervous people make mistakes. At the same time, they are getting desperate, which makes them unpredictable.”

  “You are speaking of my queries regarding my cousin’s death?”

  “Yes, and of Captain Wentworth’s enquiries on behalf of Mrs. Smith.”

  “Mrs. Smith?” Anne Wentworth exclaimed. “She barely has anything to live on. She cannot possibly be involved in smuggling.”

  “In her case, it is because of the smuggling that she has nothing to live on,” the admiral said.

  Mrs. Wentworth regarded him with confusion. “I do not understand.”

  “Here is what we have learned,” St. Clair said. “Some years ago, a naval ship needing to replenish its supply of fresh water stopped along the coast of Central America and sent a landing party onto shore. Deep in the jungle, they discovered more than mere water—they came upon a cave full of gold, a forgotten Spanish treasure trove of ancient artifacts once seized from the natives. They kept the discovery secret from the rest of their shipmates, planning to go back and retrieve it. The fortunes of war being what they are, and greed being the corrupting force it is, most members of the original landing party have died for a variety of reasons, but the story survived and eventually found its way to the ears of someone with the connexions to do something about collecting the gold. Over the years—impeded by not only our wars with the Americans and French, but also the revolutions still sweeping Spanish America—the cache has gradually been moved to Jamaica. That is what the extra weight was on the Claudius—large amounts being transported at once, loaded under cover of darkness. From there it has begun to be smuggled in small quantities aboard Royal Navy ships and transported to England.”

  “In sugar casks packed at Mr. Smith’s plantation,” Darcy finished.

  “Precisely,” St. Clair said.

  “The admiral, Captain St. Clair, and I discussed part of this before you arrived,” Wentworth said to Darcy. “Apparently, Smith’s plantation was being used as a middle stage even before his trip to Jamaica with Mr. Elliot. The business they conducted while there refined the procedure and strengthened relations with the people they relied upon to perform that end of the operation.”

  “What happened after Mr. Smith’s death?”

  “Nothing at all,” St. Clair said. “The business has continued to run as profitably as it ever did. The estate has not been sequestered—that is a lie Mr. Elliot told Mrs. Smith to maintain control over the plantation and see the transport of the entire cache through to completion. Meanwhile, he has been embezzling its legitimate profits, channeling most of them into the smuggling operation.”

  “He has been stealing from a poor widow?” Mrs. Wentworth exclaimed.

  “Not any longer,” Admiral Croft said. “Captain Wentworth’s sounding has made officials both here and in Spanish Town look more closely at the estate. It may be seized while an audit is conducted, but Frederick and I will make the revenue men see the injustice of her situation.”

  “If the smugglers have so much gold, and most of Mrs. Smith’s money, why do they not simply build their own ship to transport it?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Because the British Navy rules the waves.” Admiral Croft, whose slow pacing had taken him round the table several times in the course of their discussion, reached the empty chair beside Captain Wentworth and sat down.

  “A private ship is more likely to be captured by an enemy vessel or privateer,” St. Clair said, “and those that do reach England are scrutinized by customs agents. Naval cargoes are subject to naval inspection—and we have identified plenty of dishonest workers paid to overlook violations—but nobody examines the personal possessions of naval officers.” He took the last remaining seat, beside Georgiana. “Now that the war is over, however, there are fewer naval ships crossing the ocean, and many of the corrupt personnel—from captains down—are no longer in a position to transport the gold. Also, the seas are safer than they were for merchant ships. So building a private trading vessel is precisely what our smugglers are doing at present.”

  “The Black Cormorant,” Elizabeth said.

  “You, Mrs. Darcy, may come work for me anytime,” said the admiral.

  “No wonder Mr. Elliot wanted Captain Tourner as his ship’s master,” El
izabeth added. “Tourner had for years already been smuggling the contraband for him and his mysterious partner.”

  Both St. Clair and the admiral regarded Elizabeth curiously. “How do you know about Mr. Elliot’s anonymous partner?” St. Clair asked.

  “Mr. Darcy and I overheard the two of you talking. You were trying to persuade him to hire you, and asked to meet with his partner.”

  St. Clair stared at her. “I thought he and I finished that conversation long before we met you and Mr. Darcy near the quay.”

  Elizabeth looked at Darcy in rueful realization. She had just betrayed their discovery of the Cobb’s odd acoustical properties.

  “You might as well tell them now,” Darcy said. “The knowledge could prove useful.”

  Elizabeth described the whispering effect, which they all found astonishing.

  “Well! If that is not the strangest thing I have heard this week, I do not know what is.” The admiral laughed and turned to St. Clair. “Instead of investigating the thieves, you could have just sat on the Cobb and waited for them to stroll along incriminating themselves.”

  “That would certainly be easier than extricating information from Mr. Elliot.”

  “Have you been able to determine the identity of his partner?” Darcy asked.

  “I have long had my suspicions,” St. Clair said, “but they were confirmed two days ago on the Black Cormorant.” He paused, then looked at Georgiana. “It is Sir Laurence.”

  “Sir Laurence?” she exclaimed, her astonishment echoed by all but the admiral. Darcy could hardly himself believe it, and for a moment thought St. Clair’s indictment was reciprocity for the baronet’s accusations against St. Clair. But then he recalled how well informed Sir Laurence had been about the merchant vessel on the day of its launch, how he had described it with such pride to Georgiana. Darcy had thought his sister’s suitor had wanted to impress her with his knowledge—now he realized the baronet had wanted to impress her with the ship itself.