IF YOU HAVE JUST OFFENDED THE MOST POWERFUL MEN IN ENGLAND, you have two choices. You could, no doubt, buckle on the breastplate of faith, raise the sword of truth and the shield of what-not, and stoutly face your foes. But if, like me, you took a more sensitive view, you’d see that all the regalia of righteousness would only weigh you down while you got on with the business of running away as far and as fast as possible. Which is why, on a warm day at the beginning of September, I found myself sitting in a tavern on the Falmouth quayside, with a glass of hock in one hand and a ticket for the New York packet in the other. I had cast off every encumbrance which might draw me home, and if the price of my safety was listening to pious Yankees drone on about liberty for a few months then I was happy to pay it.
Perhaps, had I been more sensible of my prospects, I would have paid for the voyage myself, and not accepted it on charity so willingly as I did. But I was fleeing in haste, and did not think to check the teeth of the mount that Mr Nevell – who worked for the Post Office – offered me. So much did I know.
I had been expecting him since I arrived there, and especially since that morning, when I had seen the packet leave her mooring in the harbour and warp her way out to the Carrick Roads. I could see her there now, straining on her anchor and ready to sail the moment the mails arrived. I drained the last remnant of my wine, and promptly poured a fresh glass. After three days sitting at the same table in that tavern, one wary eye on the door and another on the traffic outside the window, I welcomed any relief.
A motion by the door caught my eye, and my hand dropped to the pistol at my belt. A man stood in the threshold, blocking out the bustle of the taproom behind. Though not as tall as I, he had stooped to clear the lintel, and his face was temporarily hidden. He must have ridden hard to get there, for his wrinkled boots and breeches were plastered with dust and his brown hair was blown askew. Only the immaculate cloth of his claret-coloured coat remained untouched, though I do not know how he had preserved it.
His head came up, and I let go my pistol as a familiar pair of cool blue eyes met my own. His features were handsome, if slightly crooked, as though he were forever remembering some private amusement. It was a friendly face, though I knew it masked a hard and intricate mind, a precise mechanism which kept secrets as a clock keeps time. Springs would uncoil and gears revolve invisibly; only rarely, at the hours he chose, would the case crack open to reveal glimpses of its workings.
He slid onto the stool opposite me and stretched his arms, tipping back his head in a yawn. ‘Jerrold. I thought I should find you here.’
‘I’ve expected you these last three days.’
Nevell’s gaze rested a moment on the empty bottle beside me. ‘I trust you found sufficient entertainment.’
‘Precious little, when every minute I was glancing over my shoulder in the fear that some ruffian from London might be taking aim for me.’ Barely three weeks earlier I had turned up a man whom the government had hoped would disappear. For my pains, they had tried to kill me. Though the affair was concluded, I feared my role was not yet universally forgiven. Hence my haste to be away.
Nevell waved one of the servants to bring him a fresh glass. ‘Soon, Jerrold, you will have your escape. As I mentioned in London before you left, I have a slight errand that will take you safely away from your enemies for a time.’
‘Excellent. I trust you are not going to send me crawling down the cannon’s mouth?’
‘Quite the contrary,’ said he, with what seems in retrospect a scandalous dishonesty. ‘I have spoken with the Admiralty, and arranged that you will be seconded to the Post Office these next few months.’
‘What did my uncle say to that?’ My eminent uncle occupied a lofty seat on the Admiralty board, which he clung to despite the antagonism of the new ministry. It was he who had first dragged me into the navy, though I had since given him ample cause to regret it.
‘Your uncle did not discourage it.’
The thought of my uncle brought a sour taste to my mouth, and I hurried to quench it with wine. ‘If I am to be employed by the Post Office, what is the errand?’
‘You are to deliver a letter.’
I sat back, unamused. ‘It was an honest question.’
‘And an honest answer. It is a small note, a trifle, but too sensitive for the regular mails. You are to deliver it to a gentleman in America.’
Squinting, I lifted my glass and watched Nevell’s face distort and bend through its lens. ‘That is all? Deliver a letter?’ I was instantly suspicious.
Nevell gave a most charming smile. ‘The simplest of errands.’
I had never yet known Nevell to offer a simple errand, but I could hardly give him the lie directly. I opened my hand and laid it on the table. ‘I suppose you had best give me this letter.’
‘I regret I cannot. It is not yet in my possession.’ He pulled a watch from his pocket and snapped open the casing. ‘Listen, Jerrold. In two minutes you will leave this house and turn left along the quay. You will turn left again, into a steep alley which leads up the hill. You will see a naval officer walking towards you – his name is Beauchamp. Hail him with the greatest familiarity; insist that you and he were shipmates aboard the Bellona.’
‘But I’ve never sailed on the Bellona,’ I objected.
‘Lieutenant Beauchamp has. Engage him in conversation – tell any lie you like, but by all means keep him talking. And make sure that he does not look behind him.’
I realized that my mouth had slacked open, and took the opportunity to fill it with wine. Even when I had swallowed, all I could think to ask was, ‘How do you know this?’
Nevell stood and beckoned me to follow. ‘The fruits of a curious disposition. We must hurry, or we will miss our man.’
I had spent three days eager to be away from the tavern, but it was with the greatest reluctance that I left it now. Nevell’s impermeable good humour, I found, generally effervesced in inverted proportion to the depths of his dark schemes.
Outside the tavern, the quay thrived with activity. Bare-headed porters manhandled great piles of crates and boxes, while sailors rolled huge casks over the paving stones to thunderous effect. Brigs and sloops and small craft of every description jostled to reach the wharf, their yard-arms almost touching, so that a topman could have walked the entire length of the harbour without ever setting foot on deck. Further out in the broad bay, larger vessels lay at anchor where the white sails of attendant gigs and hoys flocked about them. Puffs of cloud mirrored their movement in the sky above, and a snapping breeze pressed me with the smells of salt and fish.
I turned left, and immediately jumped back. Amid all the bustle and noise of the dock, I had not heard the approaching rumble of wheels: now I saw a heavy wagon, with eight shire horses in harness, toiling its way past. A thickset driver rode alongside, flicking at the beasts’ backs with the tip of his long whip, while a quartet of militia men, muskets on their shoulders and eyes straight ahead, guarded the flanks and rear. Beneath a flap in the wagon’s canvas covering I saw the snub-nosed muzzle of another weapon lurking. Any brigand who accosted this wagon hoping for easy pickings would I suspected, be lethally disappointed.
‘Hurry,’ hissed Nevell in my ear. ‘Lieutenant Beauchamp will be here presently. Remember: the Bellona.’
I squeezed through the narrow gap between the wagon and the houses, trying to ignore the high wheels rolling past my ear and the hostile glances the guards shot at me. It was with some relief that I gained the opening of the alley which Nevell had described – though when I glanced around he had vanished.
I did not like this ridiculous scheme, and I liked it even less now that I was alone. For a moment I considered abandoning it outright, returning to the tavern and another bottle of hock. But there was something about Nevell, for all his bonhomie, which discouraged any thought of retreat. Besides, I could already see a figure in a blue coat hurrying down the stairs ahead. With the utmost reluctance, I climbed towards him.
I did not dare look at him until I heard him almost upon me. Then I raised my eyes, and even before I had had time to register his face I was babbling.
‘Beauchamp? Beauchamp! Is it you? The Bellona. Surely you cannot have forgotten me?’
My prattle served its purpose. He halted, and stared at me with undisguised suspicion. If he was a lieutenant, he must have come to the navy late, or found few friends in the Admiralty, or proved an even worse officer than I: his face was creased into middle age, and a grey streak ran through his dark hair. There was no welcome in his eyes, and my gaze hastily shuffled down. A brown leather satchel was clenched in his fist, so tight that the knuckles bulged through his sallow skin.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
‘Martin Jerrold,’ I stammered. His direct hostility unnerved me, and I struggled to follow Nevell’s instructions to keep him in conversation. ‘The Bellona. You were on the Bellona. I was on the Bellona. Beauchamp,’ I added, as though the name were a charm.
‘I served on the Bellona.’ The fingers around his satchel squeezed still tighter, so that the leather bulged between them. ‘But I confess, sir, I do not recall that you were there. What name did you give?’
‘Jerrold. Lieutenant Jerrold. Surely you remember. The Bellona.’
This was madness: I had nothing to say, nothing to support this lie save the two names, and if I repeated them again he would doubtless knock me down for a lunatic. How had Nevell expected me to hold him in conversation?
‘Thrilling times we had, were they not?’ I gabbled. ‘Giving the Froggies a taste of our iron, showing old Boney he’d never get his way while old England was afloat.’
‘I do not recollect I ever fired a shot in anger aboard the Bellona.’
Over Beauchamp’s shoulder, in the steep alley beyond, I thought I glimpsed a movement. I remembered Nevell’s injunction – make sure that he does not look behind him – and tried desperately to keep my eyes from drifting and betraying the approach. Yet I could not hold Beauchamp’s gaze with my own, for fear my face would reveal the lie.
Though he did not understand the charade, Lieutenant Beauchamp had evidently tired of it. ‘I do not know who you are, sir, or what you intend, but I cannot think we were ever acquainted. You are in error, I fear. Now, if you will let me pass, I shall bid you good day.’
‘Enough of this poltroonery,’ I cried with desperate humour. ‘Of course you remember me. We—’
What lie I might have concocted next I do not know, for I was at my wits’ end. But at that moment the claret-coated figure I had so studiously tried to ignore rose up behind Beauchamp, one arm raised above his head. I broke off my gibbering, and must have shown some sign of shock, for Beauchamp began to turn.
‘What the devil …?’
With a deft flick of his arm, the claret-coated figure brought down something hard and blunt on Beauchamp’s neck. All colour drained from the officer’s cheeks; his eyes widened, then sagged shut, and he dropped to his knees. Only a firm hand on his collar kept him from toppling forward on his face.
‘You … You hit him,’ I stammered. I’ve never had any manly qualms about charging my enemy from behind, or planting a knife in his back, but even so this seemed a brute piece of infamy.
‘Of course,’ said Nevell. He squatted beside Beauchamp’s prostrate body, rifling through the fallen satchel with the practised manner of an expert. ‘How else could we have come by this?’
He pulled out a dark package, wrapped in oilskin and bound with thick twine. Three seals pursed the fabric together.
‘What’s in there?’
Nevell pointed to the knots. ‘How should I know? Somebody has evidently taken great precautions to ensure its privacy.’
‘I thought you were in the business of reading other people’s correspondence.’
‘And so I am.’ Nevell glanced up and down the alley. ‘But not, I think, in public.’
I looked back down to the body at my feet. The eyes were still closed, but the gentle swell of his chest proved he still breathed. ‘And the unfortunate Lieutenant Beauchamp? What will become of him? Surely you will not leave him here?’
‘Of course not,’ said Nevell, indignant. ‘That would lay him vulnerable to all manner of injuries.’
‘He might even be robbed.’
I had meant it as a joke, but no sooner had I spoken than I saw two men appear from a doorway a little way up the hill. Their broad shoulders barely fitted between the alley walls, and there was menace in their gait as they descended the stairs. Their eyes were shaded under the brims of their squat hats, and their rough-hewn cheeks were dark with grime and stubble.
Nevell showed no concern, but hailed them amiably. ‘Lieutenant Beauchamp has suffered an unfortunate accident. You had best rescue him and keep him safe until he revives.’
‘Best to bind ’im, sir?’ asked one of the ruffians.
‘A sound lock on the door will suffice. Keep him quiet until I return.’
The man touched the edge of his hat, then crouched down and lifted Beauchamp over his shoulder like a sack of peas. The officer moaned, but did not wake.
‘What now?’ I asked. I had an uncomfortable feeling that I could guess what Nevell purposed with the package, and whom he expected to deliver it in Beauchamp’s absence. For now, though, he kept hold of it, and briskly started down the stairs to the quay.
‘We must hurry. The mail coach will be here soon, and then the Adventure will be away. Time, tide and the mails wait for no man.’
As we emerged from the alley I saw that a small crowd had gathered on the quayside. Instinctively, I hung back, fearing that perhaps our violence on Beauchamp had been observed and reported. But they all had their backs to us, and were instead watching the wagon I had passed earlier, now unloading its cargo. The half-dozen soldiers who had escorted it stood vigilant, holding back the onlookers, while a sweating crew of stevedores hove away a great collection of strongboxes. They must have been well filled, for even the stout Cornishmen struggled to carry them down the stairs to the waiting boats.
‘He’ll be praying for a swift and peaceful voyage,’ said Nevell, indicating a gentleman standing beside the wagon.
Whatever his business, he must have made a fine profit from it, for his entire body was swollen like a pigskin to an enormous girth, which the broad topcoat he wore did little to hide. One might almost have expected him to topple over from the sheer weight he carried were it not for the stout legs, thick as gammons, which supported his frame. His head seemed to tumesce from his shoulders rather than sit on them, twisting slowly back and forth as he watched the strongboxes with a prowling, proprietorial air.
For all that, I did not afford him a second glance. Instead, my attention lingered on the creature at his side: a young woman, probably not yet twenty, her form fine and dainty. Though her companion loomed over her like an ogre, she stood close beside him, a gloved hand resting on his arm in perfect intimacy. Her head was turned away from me so I could not see her face, but the ripe swellings of her feather-white dress, the elegant profile, and the golden hair which escaped her bonnet and danced in the breeze, proffered a tantalizing beauty.
‘If she’s his wife, he must be a good deal richer than he seems,’ I said.
‘If she’s his daughter, her mother must be a veritable angel,’ Nevell answered.
‘Or he’s been cuckolded.’
Utterly under her spell, I had stopped still to gaze. Now Nevell tugged me on. ‘You will presently have all the time you desire to admire her at close quarters. For now, every minute is precious.’
I dragged my eyes unwillingly away and followed him along the quay. I do not know where I had expected him to take me with the stolen package under his coat, but I had not thought it would be back to the bustling tavern where we had met.
‘A glass of wine to toast me on my way?’ I asked. ‘A stirrup cup?’
But Nevell shunned the taproom and instead climbed a flight of stairs to a thin corridor, lit at either end by grimy windows. Without hesitation, he strode up to a door and rapped a quick double knock, which after a short interval he repeated twice more.
The door swung in, opening on to a bedroom. It was humbly furnished – a bed, a wardrobe, a night-stand and a table under the broad window opposite – and there was a strange, singed smell in the air. Before us, holding open the door, stood a nervous-looking man with a stooped back and round spectacles. He wore no coat or hat, only a brown apron over his shirt; given a boot and a hammer, he might have been taken for a cobbler. Though he had a naturally retiring manner, ever shying away, he did not seem the least surprised to see us.
‘Mr Dawes, Lieutenant Jerrold,’ said Nevell.
‘How do you do?’
‘Mr Dawes is from the Secret Office.’
It seemed one could not turn a corner or enter a room in Falmouth without finding Nevell’s accomplices lurking there. Perhaps I should have wondered that so many of the Post Office’s secret agents were engaged on this business, and wondered more urgently how I could excuse myself from it, but there was little time for contemplation. Already, Nevell and Dawes were standing by the window, examining the package closely.
‘Sealed three times,’ said Mr Dawes, twisting it so that the sunlight picked out the crusted wax. ‘Three different waxes, three different seals, and more inside, I’ll warrant.’
‘Can you duplicate them?’ Nevell’s humour was gone now, driven out by cold imperative.
‘Then there’s the twine.’ Dawes gave no sign of having heard Nevell. ‘You couldn’t cut those knots – have to pick them apart. And perhaps …’ He fumbled in the pocket of his apron, extracting a bronze jeweller’s glass which he clamped to the lens of his spectacles and pointed at the cords.
‘What is it?’ I asked, craning my neck to see.
‘Look for yourself.’
I took the glass and pressed it to my eye. The world fell away, leaving only a writhing tangle of hairy ropes bulging before me.
‘What am I looking for?’
‘The heart of the knot, where the cords are pulled tightest. In between the strands.’
I peered closely, but could see nothing out of the ordinary. Frustration warmed within me as I felt Nevell’s and Dawes’ expectant gazes; I heard the clink of a chain, and the snap of Nevell opening his watch case. Still nothing.
‘There appears to be a small piece of wool caught in the knot,’ I said doubtfully.
Unseen hands snatched the parcel away, and I looked up in surprise.
‘Exactly.’ Dawes seemed unaccountably pleased with me. ‘A strand of blue wool tied into the knot. Undo the rope and the wool falls out, and the recipient will know of it.’
‘Ingenious,’ said Nevell. His open watch was still in his hand. ‘But as you have noticed it, you need only replace the wool when you retie the knot.’
‘Assuredly. But men who would employ such devices may have other tricks to play. It will take time to unravel them – and longer still to repair them.’
‘You have a quarter of an hour.’
‘Quite impossible,’ insisted Dawes, with implacable authority. ‘Even mixing the waxes and engraving duplicate seals would take half a day. And that would be at best a clumsy substitute.’
I failed to understand Nevell’s haste, and said so. ‘You have both message and messenger in your care. Why not just cut it open?’ Among the tools laid out on the table was a silver scalpel, and I reached to pick it up. Before I could touch it Nevell had seized my wrist and dragged it away.
‘It is imperative that the letter arrive untouched, in appearance at least.’ If he noticed my resentment at his brusque treatment, he ignored it. ‘Otherwise they will know they are observed and they will change their plans to thwart us.’
‘What plans?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Whose plans, then? Who are “they”? Lieutenant Beauchamp?’
‘I do not know that either.’
‘Then what …?’
Nevell glanced out of the window, then took me by the arm. ‘You may wonder that I am so abrupt, but every minute is essential.’
‘Then be candid with me. Do not drag me around like some blind dog on a leash. What do you know?’
‘Enough to make me anxious. You are aware, I presume, of the government’s unpopularity: they court prejudice by busying themselves too much emancipating negroes and Catholics, and show little stomach for waging war with the French.’
I nodded. ‘But I could read this in the newspapers, and a great deal more besides. I do not need secret letters to reveal it.’
Nevell continued undaunted. ‘When governments prove feeble, others step in. Power abhors a vacuum, Jerrold, and even more than that it abhors losing money. While this government dallies, merchants lose trade and markets. Meanwhile, the government antagonizes our military by threatening reform, and prosecuting generals for factional gain. I do not need to tell you that an illegitimate alliance between war and commerce would command a formidable power to advance its interests.’
‘How?’
‘In all sorts of ways,’ said Nevell inscrutably. ‘Precisely how, I cannot say. But there are disquieting facts. An entire fleet and a thousand soldiers have vanished from the Cape of Good Hope, contrary to all orders from London. Two more frigates are reported absent from their station in the West Indies, again without sanction. Meanwhile vast sums of money depart these shores in disguise: drafts from banks which do not exist, payments for cargoes which were never sent. And in the coffee houses of the Strand and Threadneedle Street, all manner of unlikely intercourse is observed.’
‘What do you imply? That a conspiracy is afoot? That thieves and mutineers lurk in dark corners, waiting to overthrow good King George and plunge England into desperate ruin?’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Nevell coolly. ‘But some facts are unanswerable. Most pertinently: that the men we are watching have written a letter too sensitive to be trusted to the mails.’
‘Perhaps they wish their business to remain private.’
‘Indeed, but why go to such trouble? They know that the Post Office will read their post, but they know equally that we would never abuse the confidences of commerce. Unless it concerns the nation’s enemies, our discretion is absolute. Legitimate military dispatches should be entrusted to the navy. So why bind this package up with snares, and send it by the hand of an anonymous officer, unless its contents are truly extraordinary?’
Whatever mechanism regulated Nevell’s passions, it had clearly been wound to a great tension: his usually composed face was flushed and wild. I could not match his enthusiasm, but I could at least suggest an answer to his question. ‘Why not ask Lieutenant Beauchamp?’
‘I will, when he recovers his wits. But I fear he will know no more of his errand than a dispatch horse knows what its rider carries. These men I have spoken of, they will have recruited a willing dupe, sympathetic to their cause and content to remain ignorant.’
‘They’ll be upset to learn he’s been robbed and locked away in Falmouth.’
Nevell leaned forward. ‘They would be – if they learned of it. But—’
He broke off. From under the window I heard the clatter of hooves and coach-wheels, then the squawk of a post-horn blaring its punctuality.
Nevell swore. ‘The New York mails. Our time is up. Where is your sea-chest?’
‘Downstairs, in the parlour.’
Nevell thrust the package into my hands.
‘What am I to do with this?’ I feared I could guess the answer all too well, but still I prevaricated.
‘You are to deliver it to a Mr Tyler, in Pennsylvania.’
It might have been Mesopotamia for all I knew. ‘Who is he?’
Nevell shrugged. ‘I have not the least idea.’ He twisted the package in my hands, so that the underside was turned up. Printed on the oilskin in bold, black letters I read: Mr Tyler, M’Culloch’s Inn, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
‘You want me to deliver this to some far-flung corner of America?’
‘Of course – you work for the Post Office now.’
‘And then what?’
‘You must learn what you can of Mr Tyler and his scheme, then stop it.’
I felt familiar pangs of panic roiling in my stomach. ‘But if you do not know what he intends, why—’
‘Whatever Mr Tyler and his English correspondents purpose, it is evident that they are trying to stir up some mischief in America.’
‘Which is surely better than stirring up mischief in England?’
‘No.’ Nevell was leaning in close to me, hissing in my ear. ‘Britain depends on America like no other nation. We rely on her to supply the raw ingredients for our industry, and to buy back the goods we manufacture. Most of all, we rely on her merchant shipping to carry our trade, and to bring home the produce of our colonies. Without the income from that trade we would be unable to maintain our power, and the war would be lost. Our relations with America are already fraught with ill feeling; anything which might tip us into outright war would be ruinous to British interests and must be stopped.’
Nevell looked more agitated than I could ever recall having seen him. That alone should have been reason enough to refuse his errand, but he had turned away and was hurrying down the stairs.
‘How am I to stop it?’ I asked.
‘Act as the situation demands. Gain Mr Tyler’s confidence, learn the nature of his scheme and his English allies. You,’ he added, beckoning a servant loitering in the passage, ‘fetch Lieutenant Jerrold’s trunk from the parlour and bring it outside.’
He pushed through the door onto the quay, which now seemed more alive than ever. The mail coach had drawn up directly outside the tavern, its horses sweating in their traces, while long leather portmanteaus were carried to the waiting boats. Each required two seamen to lift it.
I caught up with Nevell on the edge of the quay.
‘This is madness,’ I pleaded. ‘They will find me out at once – I can hardly pretend to be Beauchamp.’
‘Better to be yourself,’ Nevell advised. ‘If they ask for Beauchamp, tell them he was unavoidably detained.’
‘But I know nothing of their business.’
‘No less, I suspect, than did Lieutenant Beauchamp. Do not be afraid to reveal your ignorance.’
That would certainly be the easiest part of my task. I was about to remonstrate further when I heard a voice beside me. ‘Take your boxes, shall I, sir?’ One of the sailors had sidled up to me and was waiting expectantly. He nodded at the two sea-chests stacked next to him. ‘Your boxes, sir? For the Adventure?’
I glanced at the chests in surprise. One was certainly mine, brought there by the porter from the tavern. The other, though almost identical, I did not recognize.
‘You may take mine,’ I said, feeling the fist of inevitability closing around me. ‘The lower one,’ I added, kicking it with my toe. ‘The other is not mine.’
He touched a knuckle to his forehead and hoisted the chest onto his shoulder. Looking down over the quay, I could see a jollyboat waiting for me at the foot of the stairs, the sailors already on their oars.
Nevell was still beside me, and I attempted one last bid for mercy. ‘This is bound to end in disaster,’ I pleaded. ‘I have not even the first idea what it is about.’ I pushed the package towards him. ‘You should take it.’
He shook his head, though he had the grace to don an air of regret. ‘I am needed here – and England will be no safer for you, with the enemies you have made. You are not in good odour with the government, but carry out this mission and they will forgive you a great many things.’
He put his hand on my shoulder and fixed me with his grey, impenetrable eyes. ‘I am relying on you absolutely. In America you will be beyond all reach of advice or assistance. Use your initiative, find out what scheme this Mr Tyler has concocted, and stop it dead.
‘All depends on you.’