It would have worked on a man less accustomed to hatred and dissimulation. But Braine spent his life being lied to. Not believing protestations of innocence was now an ingrained habit. He stuck his face close to Harry’s and positively bellowed. “It’ll be you that’ll answer, sir, upon my honour.”
“What is this unseemly display about?”
Only the dog had heard him enter, for it had raised its head slowly to look across the room. Arthur’s voice cracked out from the open doorway. Braine spun round to look as Harry’s eyes flicked over his shoulder. “Who the devil are you?”
Arthur’s voice was now like ice as his hand went out on his long walking stick. Harry had never seen such an aristocratic poise. “You dare to question me within these walls, sir. I find that exceeding offensive.”
“Mr Braine is a Preventative Officer,” said Harry.
The walking stick twiched abruptly, and there seemed an unusual moment of hesitation in Arthur’s demeanour, as though he was shocked. Yet he recovered quickly enough, and he couldn’t avoid the play on words which presented itself.
“With the customary manners, to boot, sir. If you wish to shout at the owner of the house, please do so from the very boundary of his property, not here in his drawing-room.” He looked down at the dog in the exciseman’s arms. “And there you may allow your creature to bark to your heart’s content.”
Arthur’s interruption had taken the heat off the confrontation, his visitor being stuck for a suitable reply. Harry had time to mollify him. With some effort he strove to be conciliatory.
“Calm yourself and sit down, Mr Braine.”
“To what purpose?” the older man growled, casting his eyes between them.
Harry waved the poster again, which assured his undivided attention. “Upon my honour, I had no hand in this. Yet I have a fair idea who did.”
“Your name is appended.”
“Without my permission, sir.”
“What is it, Harry?” asked Arthur.
“A piece of mischief perpetrated by our recent guest, Mr Wentworth.” He walked across to the centre of the room and gave the poster to Arthur, before turning back to face Braine. “Are you aware of what took place in the Channel, Mr Braine?”
“Course I am. The whole town is afire with the rumours.”
“Then let me lay some of them to rest, sir, and appraise you of the facts.”
Braine was persuaded to sit while Harry outlined what had happened, detailing the response of Mr Magistrate Temple and the unwillingness of the navy to take action. Arthur moved to join him by the fireplace, to see the exciseman’s face.
“And you were not there, Mr Braine, so we could not appeal to you.”
“You catches smugglers by putting your arse in a saddle, not a chair.”
“This is not a pothouse, Mr Braine!” snapped Arthur, looking up from the poster.
Harry spoke quickly, cutting off Braine’s response. “In truth, I was at a loss to know what to do then. My brother and I resolved to come home, leaving the solution of that problem to another day. But the young man Wentworth clearly felt that this was inadequate. He was much exercised by the recent threat to his person. He’s not a man accustomed to danger.”
“Then he should bide his tongue,” said the visitor sourly.
“How heartily I agree, Mr Braine,” said Arthur. “Much tedium would be avoided if he took that advice. Harry, does this have anything to do with what happened the other night?”
“Everything, Arthur.”
“And to think he slept through it all.”
Braine was looking from one to the other, utterly confused. Harry decided that matters should be dealt with one at a time, so he concentrated on what had happened at sea.
“I cannot see that he has accused you of complicity,” said Harry, indicating the poster, which Arthur still held in his hand, “even in the most jaundiced reading of the tract.”
“That’s not how they view matters in the town, sir. Why, they are practically saying we did murder …”
“Which would make you terribly unpopular,” said Arthur softly, before Braine finished his sentence.
Braine entirely missed the irony, taking the words at face value. “Who cares about being popular, in my office? But we all cares about staying alive.”
Arthur looked at the poster again. “It is this household which has suffered, sir. The same men who murdered this Bertles continued their depredations on land. They attacked this house, in strength, and it was only good fortune that led to their being discovered before they could do mischief. Surely this has not brought anything like the same threat to your person?”
That made Braine snort, for threats to an exciseman’s person were an everyday occurrence, and he appeared entirely uninterested in what had happened at the house.
“Let’s just say it comes at a bad time, sir. And the victim happens to be the wrong person, an awkward sod you might say. If Bertles has been done in, any hint that points to us will be believed. For it is known that we have cause.”
He looked at the two other men, who were obviously curious enough to allow him to continue. “Do you know what we do on a shingle coast when we find untaxed goods in someone’s cellar?”
Both Harry and Arthur shook their heads.
“Well, we takes shingle off the beach and fills it in. Stands to reason in a future search that a cellar full of shingle is not in use. Well, we did just that a few years ago, only to find that instead of bein’ mad at us, the locals were laughing.”
“Some bucolic joke, no doubt,” said Arthur, implying thin skin.
“Oh, yes,” said Braine, without humour, his eyes fixed on the flames. “One of our men had gone missing for a bit. We thought perhaps he was off chasing smugglers. Often happens. And he was young and keen, Charlie Taverner.”
Braine spoke softly, head down, as though not wishing to be heard, so he didn’t see Harry stiffen at the name. “Too keen, I reckon, the number of times he was nowhere to be found. Forever riding off somewhere, chasing hares …”
Then he carried on with his tale in a normal voice. “Chance comes up and there’s no time to inform another officer.” He raised his head and looked at Harry and Arthur in turn. “But it wasn’t like that, at all. We got information, from an unimpeachable source, saying that this cellar was full of contraband.”
“Was the information correct?” asked Harry.
“It was!” snapped Braine, as though that fact alone was enough to make him angry. “We cleared it out, arrested the owner, and filled the cellar in. Then, few weeks after, there was poster put up, just like the one in your hand, saying as how the excise had taken to fillin’ in their own. An’ the man who joked the most, the man responsible for that poster, was Tobias Bertles, though I can’t be sure that he himself had a hand in what happened.”
“What did take place?” asked Harry, who had a horrible feeling he knew the answer.
“They was laughing at us so much, we thought we’d missed summat. So we went back to that cellar and dug it out again.”
“And had you,” asked Arthur, coldly, “missed something?”
There was no humour in the laugh that followed, but there was evidence of tension in the way Braine stroked the dog’s ears.
“Oh! We had that. They’d taken young Charlie Taverner and bound him hand and foot, with a tight gag on his mouth, stuck him in there, and covered him over when we was halfway through. Then we came along and filled the whole—finished the job. Poor bastard must have heard the sound of our voices as we worked. No wonder they was laughin’.”
“Dead?” asked Harry.
Braine was looking at the fire again, as though the flickering flames held a picture of the event he had just described.
“Must have run out of air to breathe. That stands to reason. Mind, the rats had got through the stones and started on his eyes.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BRAINE HAD relaxed, like Arthur and Harry, now sitting back in his chair,
as though the telling of the tale exorcised some private Calvary. Sniff was now curled in front of the fire beside his empty saucer, whilst his master outlined the odds against the service in which he was employed. What he didn’t say, because he didn’t need to, was that he was a mere deputy. Someone else had the excise sinecure, and therefore most of the income, from his position. But that person would stay at home in comfort, content to let another risk his life for far less reward.
“Stands to reason you can’t prevent smuggling on a coast like this, not if’n you’ve got no ships of your own to speak of. To my mind these villains have got to be taken at sea. Once they’ve landed their cargo, it’s ten times as hard to find.” His eyes blazed angrily. “But what have we got? One cutter for the whole coast from Ramsgate to Rye.”
Harry felt the burn of hypocrisy as he listened to Braine’s tale of woe, and assumed that Arthur must feel the same. They were both purchasers of un-excised goods. Living in this part of the world, where the prosperity provided by war was temporary and tenuous, it was hard to see smuggling as a crime. Indeed the very title that the contrabandiers went by, the Honest Thieves, told you all you needed to know about the way they were regarded in the public imagination. He had never himself sat on a jury trying a smuggler, but he knew that people like Braine had no end of difficulty convicting them when the twelve good men were truer to their neighbours than they were to the law.
“We has our successes, mind, as the goods in Bertles’s cellar testify. And we took another lot just yesterday, thirty hogsheads of best Genever gin. It all depends on our informers. If the source is unimpeachable, then we usually get a result.”
His craggy face, which had lightened for a moment, clouded again as he turned to gaze into the fire.
“Not that we ever get the true miscreant, mind. They stick up some shaver to take the blame, with a promise of a place in the gang once he’s served his time. If you looked at the contents of the gaols you’d reckon that smuggling was a game for lame-headed lads under eighteen.”
Braine looked up, his purple, craggy, unfriendly face creasing slightly. He must have realised by their silence that these two men had little sympathy for his troubles. They’d let him relate his tale without asking a single question. They were proper gentry, a breed he despised; for it was their greed that kept the smugglers in business. He hauled himself to his feet and looked down at a slightly abashed Harry Ludlow.
“I want them posters stopped, Mr Ludlow, and that done this very day.”
“You may set someone to take them down if you wish, Mr Braine.”
“Tried that,” he snapped. “They just keep appearing again.”
“They can only be printed in so many places,” said Arthur.
Braine glared at him. “Well, I ain’t got time to go searching out no printing press. I’ve got more important matters to attend to.”
“Like catching the man who murdered Bertles and his crew?” asked Harry.
The Preventative Officer looked him square in the eye, as if trying to make sure that Harry understood he was speaking the truth. It had the opposite effect to that intended.
“If he’s local, and landing contraband, I’ll do him for evasion. Far as I can see, smugglers killing each other only makes life easier.”
“He wasn’t local,” said Harry.
Braine, who had a stern countenance anyway, like some biblical prophet, now looked at Harry with added suspicion. But it had a stagey, unreal quality, which made him appear like the guilty party, rather than attaching that to his host.
“How can you be so damned certain?”
Harry ignored the implication of the look, the idea Braine was trying to convey, that he himself was somehow involved in the trade. He also wondered if he should answer. After all, Braine clearly wasn’t prepared to reveal if he knew anything. By his attitude to the posters he was positively discouraging further enquiry, and he had no interest in what had happened at Cheyne Court. But pride forced him to speak, for he would not have this fellow think that they’d survived by mere luck.
“Do you know the Kellet Gut, Mr Braine?”
He shrugged, as though it was of no account. “Course I do.”
That angered Harry, who was now certain that he knew more about the murderer than he was saying. “Well, whoever chased us in that ship didn’t. In fact I doubt he knew these waters at all. Otherwise he’d never have let me lead him south of the passage, landing him in a position where further pursuit was impossible. He would have borne up to cut me off and I wouldn’t be here to answer your impertinent questions.”
“Sounds like straw-clutching to me,” said Braine, his eyes narrowing at the unexpected rebuke.
“Do you know the man who killed Bertles?” asked Harry.
“How could I,” replied Braine, “since I didn’t see him?”
“Perhaps you don’t have to see him, Mr Braine. Perhaps he’s quite notorious. Not many people smuggle with a ship that size, let alone a fleet. His name could be common knowledge to the excise.”
“That may well be true, Mr Ludlow,” said Braine calmly. “And I dare say if we ever lay him by the heels, with proof to put before a judge, we’ll call on you, along with the other so-called passengers of the Planet, to witness at his trial. Now, if you don’t object, I’ll bid you good day.”
Braine picked up his dog and was halfway to the door before Harry could reply.
“One of the grooms could do it just as well as you,” said Arthur.
“No. It’s better I go myself,” replied Harry, stiffly. Providence had contrived to hand him an opportunity and he wasn’t about to let it pass.
Arthur wasn’t convinced, and for good reason. The idea of a man of Harry’s parts putting himself to a task that any number of his servants could perform was ludicrous.
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with looking at ships, would it?”
“Is that such a bad thing?” He waited, but since nothing was forthcoming he carried on, partly in the hope of forcing a response. “I will most certainly enquire, though I doubt there’ll be much in Deal, for the navy will not chase French privateers and the locals lack the means. Besides, the ships are generally too small for what I have in mind.”
“Which is?”
“Doing what I set out to accomplish originally, which is deep sea privateering somewhere like the Bay of Biscay. That’s where the prizes come in from the Indies and the East, with cargoes worth the trouble. There’s not much profit to be gained from raiding the coastal trade.”
The look of dissatisfaction was now plain on Arthur’s face. His thin ginger eyebrows were knitted together. Never given to a humorous countenance, he now looked as though he had bitten hard on a lemon.
“Is there something more than your usual disapproval, Arthur?”
His brother-in-law shrugged, as if he was trying to dismiss the suggestion, but it didn’t quite come off.
“I shall not repeat myself, for I am as weary of expounding the argument as you are of listening to it. All I will say is that if it’s profit you’re after, you can make more in London than you can at sea.”
“As a tradesman?” asked Harry, mischievously.
“You know very well I do not refer to trade. Nor do I merely refer to money. I allude to power and the wealth and station that flows from it. The government is the source of all patronage. We stand well in the eyes of Pitt and Dundas, who are grateful for our support. You are in a position to claim a share of that. If you’d consent to undertake parliamentary duty yourself you could well secure some form of ministerial office. From there you could lay claim to a title. I assume that one day you will marry and produce an heir. It would be a fine thing for your son to begin life as an earl.”
“Or even better, a duke.”
“If your heir began life as the son of an earl, and had one tenth of your brains, he could not help but secure a dukedom.”
“I’m not attracted by titles, Arthur. Captain Ludlow will suffice.”
&nbs
p; Harry felt his mood lighten as he breasted each rise. The sense of freedom was immediate. From the top of the chalk downs, on horseback, he caught sight of Pegwell Bay, with the sea sparkling beneath a clear winter sky. The air was bitingly cold, the ground hard as a rock and slippery, so he dare not risk anything other than a gentle trot. He was in no rush to complete his journey. He would see the printer, call on Captain Latham and offer him dinner, perhaps even spend the night in the town if there was a room available.
And he was alone, at liberty to ask questions about his adversary. Harry had less faith in the law than either James or Arthur, though it was not a sense of incomplete justice that made him pursue the matter. The man who’d killed Bertles had come all the way to Cheyne Court to silence witnesses. Someone that determined didn’t sound as though he would let matters rest. For his own safety, and that of his family, it made sense to find out who he was, where he came from, and what it would take to see him standing in the dock on trial for murder. Perhaps, for all Wentworth’s gall in using his name, some information would come from those posters.
His first real sight of the anchorage lifted his heart. Here was a forest of masts, with not less than three hundred ships. Deal luggers and Dutch flutes aplenty. Indiamen East and West, coasters designed to carry coal or grain. Baltic traders, whose cargoes of timber kept the navy afloat, convoys assembling before setting off to all the destinations in the known world. And then there were the warships, their masts taller than any merchant vessel, with the flag of Admiral Duncan flying in the hundred-gun Venerable. By the time the smell of the sea had been replaced by the less appealing smell of the town, Harry was resolved to seek out a ship and return to sea, regardless of his brother-in-law’s opinion.
James sat with his attorney, looking at the papers he had passed to him. The voice of the lawyer, outlining his difficulties, seemed as dry as the parchment he held in his hand.
“I’m afraid the action looks indefensible, Mr Ludlow. There is a mass of evidence. Besides that, his cronies will swear the truth of what he says, even if it comes to perjury, just for a share of the largesse that will flow from his success. True, he will most certainly not get anything like fifteen thousand guineas. No judge will award such a sum. But he will burden you with his legal costs, for sure. So pursuit of the whole amount is something Lord Farrar can contemplate with equanimity.”
Hanging Matter Page 16
