The Yellow Admiral (24 page)

'I should hate to see Aubrey yellowed.'

'So should I. I have a very real liking for him, as you know. It may not come to that.' Sir Joseph walked up and down the room. 'Melville has a kindness for him, too. So has your friend Clarence. Conceivably a shore appointment could be arranged - commissioner, say, even something civilian, which would put him out of the running for a flag, and then there could be no question of his being yellowed. Conceivably something hydrographical, with the possibility of recall: I know he is a famous surveyor...'

Blaine sat down, and for quite a long time they stared into the glowing fire like a pair of cats, saying nothing, each lost in his own reflections. At last Sir Joseph took the poker and delicately prised a splitting lump of coal in two: the halves fell apart with a gratifying blaze, and sitting back he said, 'You were in hopes of making my flesh creep, I believe?'

'So I was too. They are somewhat diminished by your recognizing my villain right away, yet even so you may still fall senseless to the ground. Don Diego does not sound a really formidable villain, does he?'

'I cannot say he does. My impression is that of a very expensive young or youngish man, much given to high play, uncommon high play, at Crockford's and Brooks's, eager to make political acquaintance and to ask indiscreet questions, apt to suggest deep knowledge and private sources of information. He is remarkably well-introduced and although you might think he was merely showing away when he names half a dozen dukes and cabinet-ministers, in fact they are perfectly genuine. Some may perhaps indulge him with oddments of more or less confidential information, which he retails, also in confidence, with an important air: they would do so because many people think him amiable, though foolish, and perhaps because he entertains so well. A busy creature, but not, I should have thought, of any consequence except to women with a train of daughters to marry and an appetite for high-sounding titles and a great fortune. Am I mistaken? Pray tell me what you know about him.'

'The titles, the fortune and no doubt the amiability are as genuine as his important friends in this country; but I think this appearance of harmless foolishness is assumed: though it may have been genuine enough some years ago, before let us say 1805. He is the only surviving son, begotten with enormous difficulty, after endless pilgrimages and offerings to countless altars, of a grandee, as wealthy as only a Spanish grandee and former viceroy can be, and devoted to him. His elder brother was killed at Trafalgar: Diego became the heir and I am told that he matured to an extraordinary extent. As far as service was concerned he preferred foreign affairs; but being extremely impatient of superior authority or restraint he induced his father to arrange for the creation of yet another branch of Spanish intelligence, with himself at the head. He is chiefly concerned with the naval side, his people having been traditionally sea-borne rather than horse-borne; but almost from the start he has been obsessed by the problem of double-agents...'

'Who is not?' asked Blaine, who had been listening with the closest possible attention.

'Who indeed? Early in his career he was given my friend Bernard as one of his chief assistants...' Sir Joseph nodded with intense satisfaction'... and between them they seized a good many people in French pay, who, in the usual fashion, were persuaded to name others, so that the French connection was virtually abolished. Of our men Diaz only caught Wailer - the result of a very gross indiscretion - and Waller would not talk: nor, obviously, did Bernard produce any others. He speaks of don Diego as a man with remarkable intuitive powers, naturally secretive but singularly winning when he chooses, persevering, hard-working and dogged to the last degree in his pursuit, but apt to launch into spectacular adventures without always weighing the possible cost. Though even the cautious Bernard admits that the burglaries he organized in Paris yielded astonishing results.'

'Oh, oh,' murmured Blaine, aware that the crisis was at hand.

'Will you look at these names?' asked Stephen, handing him a slip of paper.

Blaine ran through the list, muttering 'Matthews, Foreign Office; Harper, Treasury; Wooton...' Then quite loud, 'But Carrington, Edmunds and Harris - these are our people.'

'They are all men of standing?'

'Yes. Some of high standing.'

'They have all been unwise enough to play cards or billiards with don Diego. They all owe him more money, sometimes much more money, than they can easily repay. They all tell him what ministers, what important officials, like you, carry papers home. Don Diego's respectable lawyers in London, like his respectable lawyers in Paris, gave him the names of people, of concerns, dealing with private inquiries, with the collection - sometimes the forcible collection - of debts, and with the gathering of evidence, usually of marital infidelity. These people, if not directly criminal, are in touch with criminals who, if told what to look for, and if guaranteed their price, will nearly always bring the required objects or documents. On occasion don Diego goes with them: he justifies it by saying that only he can choose the essential papers. Perhaps so, but Bernard says it excites him, and he has known him to put on quite extravagant disguises.'

'So did poor Cummings,' said Blaine.

'He may do so on Friday, when they mean to visit you,' said Stephen.

'What joy! Oh what joy!' cried Blaine. 'Let us instantly put the names of half the Spanish cabinet and all their top intelligence people on our pay-roll.'

Stephen uttered his rare discordant creaking laugh and said, 'It is tempting, sure: but think of the possibilities of holding him, caught in the act, seen by undeniable witnesses, in possession of stolen property obtained by breaking and entering a dwelling-house by night. It is capital, without benefit of clergy: and he has no diplomatic immunity whatsoever. Tyburn tree, with perhaps the indulgence of a silken halter, is all he can expect. From the extreme embarrassment of his government, from his family's anguish - to say nothing of his own uneasiness - what concessions may we not expect?'

'My heart beats so that I can hardly speak,' said Sir Joseph, whose face had flushed from deep red to purple. 'Tell me, my most valued friend and colleague, how this is to be accomplished?'

'Why, by means of your good Pratt the thief-taker - the excellent intelligent Pratt who did so much for us when poor Aubrey was taken up for rigging the Stock Exchange, the best of allies. He quite certainly knows these "private inquirers" and their even less presentable associates - he was born and bred in Newgate, you recall - and once he is clear on the moral side and his own immunity he will arrange matters according to local custom and local rates, which he knows to the last half-crown. This may cost an elegant penny.'

'It could not possibly cost too much,' said Blaine, and laying his hand on Stephen's knee, 'Of course you are perfectly right about Pratt. Why did I not think of him before?'

Sir Joseph Blaine's library, where he worked at night on official papers and where he kept those he often referred to in an elegant mahogany cupboard, with files arranged alphabetically, had two looking-glasses at the far end: rather long looking-glasses in black frames; and the bottom inch or so of their back was unsilvered. They did not really suit the room, being rather modern and even flash, but this did not worry the bearded man busy with the lock on the mahogany cupboard, by the desk. He had never been in the room before - he had never seen the mirrors, nor the specimen-cases with their wealth of beetles, nor the perfectly enormous bear that stood against the wall with one paw out to receive a hat or an umbrella, under a stuffed platypus, to the left of the desk.

'Oh do get on with it,' muttered Stephen Maturin, watching through a hole in the wall exactly behind the unsilvered glass as the man gently, silently tried skeleton keys by the discreet light of his dark lantern. Sir Joseph, also standing in the darkened passage behind the corresponding hole to the other glass, felt the rising strength of a sneeze and to master it he contorted his purple face, pressed his upper lip and closed his eyes. When he opened them again the man had opened his dark lantern a little and from the files he drew a fat document.

At this the bear flung off its head, drew a crowned truncheon from its bosom, and in a shrill, squeaking voice said, 'In the King's name I arrest you.'

The room was filled with light, with people running: Dark Lantern was pinned, handcuffed, and in the struggle his foolish beard fell off.

'I will not appear,' said Stephen, shaking Sir Joseph's hand. 'May I inflict myself on you for breakfast?'

'Do, do, my dearest fellow,' cried Blaine, laughing for joy. 'What a coup, what a coup, oh dear Lord, what a coup!'

Chapter Eight

It was indeed the most glorious coup, the completest thing: the other intelligence service gazed at Sir Joseph with admiration, respect, unspeakable envy, and did their very utmost to gather any scraps of credit that might be lying neglected - a vain attempt if ever there was one, for Sir Joseph, though a mild and even a benevolent man in ordinary life, and charitable, was perfectly ruthless in the undeclared civil war that is so usually fought, with all the outward form of politeness, between agencies of this kind, and he gathered every last crumb for his own concerns, his own colleagues and advisers.

But so glorious a coup could not be exploited to the full without a grave expense of time, and it was long before Dr Maturin was called before the Committee to be told that the Chilean proposals, as they were put forward in his minute of the seventeenth, had been read with considerable interest, and the preliminary discussions and even the first material preparations could go forward so long as it was clearly understood that at this stage His Majesty's Government was in no way committed to any agreement, that the whole undertaking was to be conducted privately, in a vessel that did not form part of the Royal Navy but only in craft hired for hydrographical purposes by the appropriate authority or authorities, and that any contribution should not exceed seventy-five per centum of the very, very considerable sum left by Dr Maturin in South America at the end of his last journey It was agreed on both sides that this was a merely tentative understanding, one that could be put in motion at the time thought proper by both sides or that could be relinquished by either on reasonable notice.

During this period he was staying at the Grapes, an agreeable old-fashioned inn, a quiet place in the Liberties of the Savoy, where he had a room of his own the whole year round, and where his two god-daughters, Sarah and Emily, lived with his old friend Mrs Broad. They were as black as black could be - he had brought them from a small Melanesian island, all of whose other inhabitants had died of the smallpox brought by a whaler - and their hair was naturally frizzled; but they gave no sign of being foreign, uneasy or ill at ease as they ran about the lane or fetched a hackney-coach from the Strand. They had picked up English with extraordinary ease and very early in their voyage from the Pacific (a long, long voyage with a long, long pause in New South Wales and Peru) they had perceived that it possessed two dialects, one of which (the racier) they spoke on the fo'c'sle and the other on the quarterdeck. Now they added variations on a third, the right Cockney as it was spoken from rather above Charing Cross down the river past Billingsgate to the Tower Hamlets, Wapping and beyond. This they picked up mostly in the streets and at their primitive little school in High Timber Street, kept by an ancient, ancient priest, a Lancashire Catholic who called them thee and thou and taught reading, writing (in a beautiful hand) and arithmetic, and attended by children of every colour, as Mrs Broad observed, except bright blue. Theirs was a busy life for they not only learned cooking (particularly pastry), shopping in the City markets with Mrs Broad, and turning out rooms with almost naval thoroughness with Lucy, but fine sewing too, from Mrs Broad's widowed sister Martha. Furthermore they often ran errands for the gentlemen who stayed at the Grapes, or fetched a coach; these services were rewarded, and when the rewards reached three and four-pence, the sum exactly calculated for the expedition, they treated Stephen to a pair-oared wherry from their own Savoy steps to the Tower, where they showed him the lions and the other moderately wild beasts kept there time out of mind, and then fed him raspberry tarts from a little booth outside.

'If you had seen Emily thank the keeper for his explanations and beg him to accept this sixpence, I believe it would have touched your heart,' said Stephen, by the hall fire at Black's.

'Perhaps,' said Sir Joseph. 'I have heard that there is good in children. But even a greater example of affectionate attention would not tempt me into the wild adventure of begetting any. I do wish, my dear Stephen, that now you are as rich as a Jew again you would take a post-chaise like a Christian, rather than this vile coach: you will be huddled in with all and sundry, bumped about in an odious promiscuity, pushed, snored upon all night, suffocated, and then put out at your destination a little before dawn, for God's sake!'

'It is quicker than the mail-coach. And I have paid for my ticket.'

'I see you are set upon it. Well, God be with you. We must be away. Charles, a coach for the Doctor, if you please. How I wish these bags may all arrive at Dorchester' - pushing one crossly with his foot - 'At least I shall go to the Golden Cross with you, and make sure they are taken aboard.'

Through Sir Joseph's care the bags did reach Dorchester and the King's Arms in the thin grey light, the faintly drizzling Saturday morning. The guard put them down, thanked Stephen for his tip, and bawled into the courtyard, 'Hey, Joe: show the gent into the coffee-room. Three small trunks and a brown-paper parcel.'

The other inside passengers had been much as Blaine had described them, and one had an unfortunate way of jerking out his legs in his sleep. However, the King's Arms gave Stephen a famous breakfast, smoked trout, eggs and bacon, a delicate small lamb chop: the coffee was more than passable, and humanity returned like a slowly rising tide. 'I should like a chaise, if you please, to take me to Woolcombe as soon as I have finished,' he said to the waiter. 'And I could wish to be shaved.'