Out of the corner of his eye, Hoare kept Sir Thomas in view. What was the knight-baronet's part in this? How had Mr. Goldthwait come to arrange this matter in what must be Sir Thomas's townhouse, opened when he came up to Town to attend Parliament? Was the host looking more than a little displeased with the proceedings? His likeness was among the ones Hoare had brought as his womenfolks' ransom, so he must be involved in this affair-and not on the side of Britain. He could well be the "Ahab" of the ciphers. If so, it appeared from his demeanor tonight, he-though the owner of this house and therefore his host-was clearly the junior of the two kings used as code-name in the ciphers, and was discomfited with the rank.
"We shall become better acquainted, Captain, than we are now," Mr. Goldthwait said in that gratingly friendly way of his, "for we shall be working together for a long, long time. At least I hope so, for the sake of all parties involved. So perhaps Sir Thomas would be kind enough to offer us refreshment. Do take a seat."
Sir Thomas jumped, but rose awkwardly and went to a castered mahogany sideboard before a bank of neatly arrayed bookshelves, where he reached for decanter and glasses.
"I would find it distasteful to accept either Sir Thomas's directed hospitality or your own," Hoare said, without accepting the proffered chair. "I do not consider this a social occasion."
Mr. Goldthwait shrugged, and gave Sir Thomas an intimate wink. "Then it will be just you and I to enjoy your port, Sir Thomas," he said.
"I do not know you as a gentleman, sir," Hoare whispered, "nor do I wish to. And… while Sir Thomas and I have our differences, I am astonished to see a man of his station-a gentleman, beyond dispute-engaged in what I have begun to believe to be a matter of treason. Once again, be so kind as to bring my family to me, and we shall take ourselves off, leaving your bloody portraits behind."
Mr. Goldthwait seated himself and steepled his hands below his face. His voice remained affable.
"That is not the way I choose to proceed, sir," he said. "Your people shall be returned to you when you have won them… or earned them. The decision, like the power, is mine."
"I do not understand, sir."
"My meaning should be clear, Captain Hoare," Mr. Goldthwait said. "During the past year or so, you have put me to considerable trouble and inconvenience. First, you interfered in the work that Edward Morrow was doing for me, and caused his demise at a time when he was just getting into his professional stride as my aide. I did not have bombs planted in His… current… Majesty's ships out of mere pleasure, you know. I have responsibilities, and a mission."
Hoare realized that, unknowing, he had just taken a chair himself. So there went his posture of standing, defiant. Ah, well, there would be worse to come, if he was not mistaken. But what was this about "current" majesty? Oh, of course. The reference would be to the bee in Sir Thomas's bonnet. But Mr. Goldthwait was still cataloguing his shipful of grievances against Bartholomew Hoare.
"And then, there was that matter of HRH the Duke of Cumberland, the plan I had laid to bring him into alliance with me, and your breaking up of that plan. Unforgettable, sir, and difficult to forgive. I am sure that Sir Thomas will share my view of that matter."
Mr. Goldthwait glanced across at their host. If Hoare read the knight-baronet's expression properly, Sir Thomas was far from being at one with his colleague at this particular moment. After all, Hoare reminded himself, Mr. Goldthwait had seduced Walter Spurrier, the ringleader of the Nine Stone Circles plot, from allegiance to Sir Thomas to a similar fealty to John Goldthwait, Esquire-a mere gentleman, and a dubious one at that. That could hardly sit well with "Sir Tom."
Worse from the knight's viewpoint would be the certainty that Mr. Goldthwait's aim in inveigling Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, had been to get his participation in overthrowing the rest of the duke's own family, beginning with fat Farmer George himself and going on to Wales, Kent, Clarence, and the rest. All told, an unpalatable crew, but none quite as unsavory as Ernest, Duke of Cumberland. Since Sir Thomas had his own strong views on the subject of coronal legitimacy, conflict in the cabal was certain.
But Mr. Goldthwait was still expounding.
"In short, Captain Hoare, you are in a large though intangible debt to both Sir Thomas and myself. Matters of pride as well as pence are concerned. A debt principally to myself, of course-although, if I understand Sir Thomas correctly, he, too, has suffered indignity at your hands."
"Bats," Hoare thought he heard Sir Thomas mutter.
"Now, sir, I have the opportunity to indulge myself, for a pleasant interlude, in a bit of innocent merriment, at a modest expense of your own self-esteem. So I propose a pleasant evening at cards.
"You do play, sir?" Mr. Goldthwait assumed an expression of anxious hope. "Sir Thomas will stand arbiter for us, won't you, sir? Come, I'll take no denial."
This continued jovial tone of his sent a grue down Hoare's back. He hesitated, while Mr. Goldthwait watched him intently, unable to suppress a gleam of private glee. He was a cat, crouching over its prey in hopes that it would escape to be recaptured over and over again, until its heart finally gave out and it died, dishonored and besmeared.
Between them Sir Thomas Frobisher sat in a near squat, his protruding eyes switching between John Goldthwait and Bartholomew Hoare, back and forth, back and forth.
"I love to gamble, Captain Hoare," Mr. Goldthwait said, "especially when I can control the odds-as, of course, I do tonight. I always win, I must warn you. At the end of play, I am never, never out of pocket."
Now Hoare confronted Hobson's choice. In order to recover his Eleanor and his Jenny, he must take up John Goldthwait's challenge. In doing so, he would be violating his pledged word never to play again. True, he had given the word to himself alone, and no one else would know, but there it was. He would spend the rest of his life as a man who knew he had stripped himself of honor. He knew he would do it, of course.
He had done it before, and most casually, most lately when he had left Walter Spurrier in the forepeak of Royal Duke to drown alone in his own spew.
Hoare knew this would not be the last of it. Supposing he were to win back his wife over the cards, blackmail would almost certainly ensue, and worse. It was not Goldthwait's way, he was learning, to do away with his opponents entirely, but, cat-fashion, to use them, to turn them into his agents-in-place as well as his instruments of pleasure. Hoare would become the other's tool, a repeating infernal machine in fact, which lurked in the navy's viscera and exploded from time to time whenever John Goldthwait thought it would best serve his purposes. The prospect turned his empty stomach.
"I'll do it, sir," he whispered, even more softly than was his wont.
He heard a sigh, but in the library's darkness, relieved only by scattered tapers and the table lamp, he could not tell which man had produced it. Did it come from Mr. John Goldthwait, and if so, did it reveal relief or disappointment? Or was it from Sir Thomas Frobisher's wide lips, and if so, was it one of surprise at Hoare's boldness or of vengeful excitement at his impending downfall? Never mind. The die was cast-or rather, Hoare thought wryly, the cards were on the table.
Not yet.
"We'll ask Sir Thomas to furnish the cards, then," he said, and Mr. Goldthwait did not chide. "I'll have none of yours," he went on, "and I have none of my own, even supposing you fool enough to let me use them if I did."
For the first time, he now addressed Sir Thomas directly, deliberately loading his whisper with respect.
"Can you oblige us, Sir Thomas?"
"Yes," was the answer, tout court. Going to the sideboard, the knight-baronet pulled open a drawer and removed a small packet, wrapped and sealed.
"Simply as a precaution, Sir Thomas," Mr. Goldthwait said, "may I ask that you supply us with a fresh deck upon demand by either player? I'm certain you'll understand, Captain Hoare, and agree."
Hoare nodded.
Sir Thomas returned to the drawer and took out what was probably the balance of the packets.
"Pray
tell me, Sir Thomas, the source of the cards you happen to have in such surprisingly ample supply," Hoare whispered.
"They are French in origin, sir." Sir Thomas's bass voice was courteous and quiet, but chilly. "I procure them, however, from Brooks, as you can see by the seal on each pack. They cost me a guinea apiece. Will that provide you with sufficient proof that they come honest to the table?"
Hoare, of course, had never entered London's leading gambling shop, but he knew its reputation. Every gentleman did, more often than not to his own considerable cost. With respect to honesty in play, Brooks' famous scruples were as high as a vestal virgin's. He nodded acceptance.
"What game do you propose, sir?" he asked.
Mr. Goldthwait appeared to debate within himself. Whether he did so actually or in simulation as part of his game, Hoare could not guess.
"Piquet, I think," he said at last.
"Piquet, sir?" Hoare whispered.
"If you are familiar with it, of course," Mr. Goldthwait said in a kindly voice. "I would not wish to take advantage of a neophyte."
"I have played the game, sir."
"Then you remember the rules, I trust." Goldthwait proceeded to set forth his expectations, most of which were reasonable. To Hoare's secret pleasure, Sir Thomas objected to one of them. Irrespective of the personal animosity the knight-baronet might bear toward Hoare, he would serve impartially. Probably.
"And the stakes you propose, sir?" Hoare asked.
"Why, sir, the lives of your wife and daughter, of course," was the jovial reply.
"You hold them, I do not. What currency do you expect me to stake, then?"
"The likenesses, to be sure. Neither Sir Thomas nor I wish them to remain in your hands. Under certain circumstances, as I am certain you have become aware, they could be highly disruptive."
By now, Hoare was all but certain that the several unfamiliar likenesses in the portfolio included at least some of this pair's confederates. If so, Goldthwait was quite right, for Hoare-or his successor, if Hoare did not survive but the sketches did- would be able to catch enough of them to scotch their plot, whatever it was.
Just then he remembered Selene Prettyman's words about this man, back in Portsmouth, shortly before the denouement in the Nine Stones Circle.
"Do not play cards with Mr. Goldthwait, sir," she had said.
The odds did not favor him. Never mind: the stakes were too great. Play he must.
Mr. Goldthwait's smile was now both sweet and confident. "Mr. Pickering's creations are undamaged, I trust, and undiminished?"
"They are, sir."
"Word of a gentleman?"
Hoare did not dignify the question with so much as a glance of contempt.
"Well, then," Goldthwait said. "It is important to me that they not remain in your possession. I could take them from you now, of course, by force instead of in play, without recompense or return. But I choose otherwise.
"The likenesses of some of my people and Sir Thomas's as well are among them, as you will have astutely guessed. It would be most unreasonable of me to allow you to retain them in your possession; the identities must be privy to myself, and to Sir Thomas, of course."
At that, Sir Thomas uttered a croak of outrage. "Then it was you who destroyed the portrait I commissioned from Pickering at such great expense? You who burnt it, and my priceless port with it?"
From Sir Thomas's voice, Hoare could not tell whether it was the loss of his "portrait"-whatever it might portray-or the port that one of his guests was sipping with such evident enjoyment, that the knight-baronet missed the more deeply. Nor, at this juncture, did it seem important.
"Piffle," Goldthwait said.
"Well," the knight said in a surly voice, "thanks to you, sir, I must now pay the poor man for it, without having the pleasure of possessing it. You are in my debt for a hundred fifty guineas, sir."
A hundred fifty guineas, Hoare thought, would lift poor Pickering out of penury for good.
"When you come into your own, your… Sir Thomas," Goldthwait replied calmly, "neither of us will have to worry about a mere hundred fifty guineas.
"Speaking of guineas, Sir Thomas, I think that, as umpire, you are the only one of the three of us-friends-who is impartial enough to convert into nominal counters the prices of the various goods Captain Hoare and I bring to the table. More convenient than passing the goods themselves-or parts of them-across the board, don't you think? As well as being less messy? Certainly, none of the ton would stoop to soil his hands with anything so crass as silver, or paper, or flesh."
To this jibe, Hoare made no reposte. Under the circumstances, he felt himself hopelessly handicapped in any attempt to haggle with John Goldthwait, Esquire.
Sir Thomas went to the sideboard where he had stored the sealed decks of cards and withdrew a long rack of ivory counters, dyed in various jolly hues. He mumbled out their respective values, then, as he had been instructed, assigned values to Pickering's likenesses, counting out the markers in front of Hoare as he went and placing the sketches themselves tidily in a corner of one bookshelf. Hoare noted that the knight-baronet priced his own lineament, Goldthwait's, and those of several others considerably higher than the rest; Hoare's own, Thoday's, Selene Prettyman's would bring considerably less, while the double portrait of Mrs. Pickering and her Beatrice was a paltry affair.
"And now, Sir Tom, to set values on my stakes."
For this task, Sir Thomas deliberated at greater length. At last he returned to his treasure chest and took out another set of ivory markers, these cut into various suggestive shapes. After deliberating still further, he laid a small stack of high-value markers in front of Mr. Goldthwait.
"For the girl," he said.
Over his last evaluation, he procrastinated still longer. As Hoare knew well, Sir Thomas's feelings toward Eleanor were complex, and this showed. At last, he counted out markers in an amount that, as best Hoare could judge, was three or four times the value he had attributed to little Jenny. These, too, he placed in front of his associate.
"There," he said. The two piles, Hoare's and Goldthwait's, were quite unequal, and Hoare commented accordingly.
"Of course, Captain Hoare," was the reply. "After all, you hold only pieces of paper with markings drawn upon them. I, on the other hand, hold specimens of flesh and blood which, I believe, you treasure."
Since there was nothing Hoare could do, he did it. The charade must be played out, and on terms over which he had no control.
Each man placed a chip in the center of the table. Sir Thomas broke the seal on the first deck, shuffled the cards swiftly, and gave the deck to each player for him to cut. Goldthwait did so; Hoare shook his head and rapped the deck with his knuckles instead.
"A Yankee custom," he whispered in response to the puzzled looks of the other two.
Sir Thomas tossed a card in front of each player. Goldthwait's was the four of hearts, while Hoare's was the nine of hearts. Sir Thomas retrieved the cards and buried them in the pack.
"Pray deal, Sir Thomas," Mr. Goldthwait said.
In answer, Sir Thomas swiftly dealt three cards to each player, beginning with Hoare-the first two facing down, the third exposed. Goldthwait had the six of hearts, Hoare the five of the same suit.
"Your bet, sir," came Sir Thomas's voice.
Goldthwait tossed a low-value chip into the center of the table, and Hoare followed suit.
When each player had four cards face-up before him, Goldthwait had a king showing, while Hoare's highest card was a seven. Sir Thomas dealt the last card to each, facedown.
"You have the high card, Mr. Goldthwait. Bet your hand, sir," he said.
Goldthwait bet three small chips, and Hoare raised the bet. Goldthwait matched it.
"Declare your hand, Captain," Sir Thomas said.
Hoare complied, disclosing his winning hand. With that, Goldthwait gave a nod and gathered his cards, and the two passed them to the dealer. Hoare drew in his meager winnings.
S
o the night wore on, hand after hand after hand. Sometimes Hoare had a run of luck, sometimes Mr. Goldthwait. There was little talk, save Sir Thomas's flat, guttural declarations as the cards appeared. Arbitrarily, one or the other player might call for a fresh deck; the knight-baronet promptly complied. Once and only once, when Mr. Goldthwait echoed Hoare's demand before cards were dealt, did Hoare hear a muffled batrachian snort.
Another time, before Sir Thomas could deal the first card, Hoare intervened.
"Burn it," he whispered. Sir Thomas made to set it aside.
"No, sir," Hoare said. "Burn it, if you would be so kind." He felt in dire need of any petty victory he could achieve.
In a corner of the paneled room, a high clock ticked away the seconds, solemn and disregarded. Outside, over the sleeping city, the bells of a neighboring church tolled each hour. Each hour, unbidden, one of Sir Thomas's shabbier servants entered silently and replenished the fire before making sure his master and his guests were properly supplied with wine. By request, Hoare received coffee instead; although he was sparing in its use, he found his nerves drawing ever more tightly as the night wore on. Tonight, this was all to the good as far as he was concerned, for his vis-a-vis seemed tireless. Goldthwait smiled, bet, smiled, folded, smiled, won.
"I'll smile, and smile, and be a villain," Hoare recited to himself from some source that escaped him for the moment.
During one of their moves from labor to refreshment, Mr. Goldthwait appeared even more at ease than usual. Perhaps, Hoare thought, it was because he had just won several interesting drawings.
"I suppose you have noticed these chairs, Captain Hoare," he said.
Hoare nodded.
"They are in the nature of an award, or decoration. They are the same as those in my possession, which you may also recall. There are others."
Hoare remembered one other, which had lain, overset and ripped apart, in Mr. Ambler's lodgings.
"If you do well for me, you may become entitled to one," Mr. Goldthwait said.
"I should prefer to decline the privilege," Hoare whispered.
"Suit yourself, sir. Come to play."
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