SH01_Jack Frake Read online

  It had been easy to exact cooperation from Leith. There was the pair of silver candlesticks he had found elsewhere in Leith’s room in Trelowe and taken away with him. Inscribed on the undersides of their bases were Parmley’s brother’s initials. Pannell had dropped in one evening when the man’s inn was deserted, asked for a gill of brandy, and while Leith was busy with a glass and bottle, removed the items from an oilskin bag, and set them upright on his table. Leith gasped when he saw them, dropped both the bottle and glass, and collapsed onto the other bench, his head in his hands. Pannell sat down opposite him at the table, and took a pistol from his coat. “We won’t discuss the gin which was found in ankers of distinctly Dutch manufacture, Mr. Leith,” he said. “I know that they are Dutch, for I impounded hundreds like them in Essex. Now,” he said then, tapping a candlestick with the barrel of the pistol, “one would have thought that after these items were taken first from Parson Parmley, then from the original and deceased thieves and murderers — Mr. Oyston and Mr. Lapworth — they would have traveled far and wide in the market for such merchandise. They might have ended by gracing the mantel of a lord in London, or the boudoir of a chevalier’s mistress in Fontainebleau. Instead, here they are, still, and no more than a few miles from their original domicile, hidden under the floor of an untidy room in a common cloth sack, one coated with rat droppings. How did they come to be there, Mr. Leith?” He sat back on the bench, pistol still at the ready.

  Leith raised his head. “I bought them in Falmouth for a song,” he said with defiance.

  “From whom?”

  Leith pounded a fist on the table. “You had no right to search my place!” he cried.

  “Perhaps not,” said Pannell, shrugging and crossing his legs. “I grieve over my indiscretion. However, while the magistrate is sure to tweak my nose for my unwarranted action, he is sure to snap your neck.” He paused to grin in surprise at his own jest, and looked at Leith to see if it had registered with him. Leith’s expression indicated that he was not at the moment receptive to humor.

  Pannell grunted and went on. “Moreover, Mr. Leith, I have found a witness who places you, Oyston and Lapworth at the rector’s home that dreadful day. Oh, what a plum case the prosecutor will have! You alone, or you and your late partners, murdered the poor parson, and then you murdered them!” It was not true that he had found a witness, but his possession of the candlesticks lent, as he knew it would, credibility to his bluff.

  “It’s all a lie!” protested Leith, pounding the table again, furious with himself for having kept the candlesticks from out of all the loot he had disposed of — he had planned to sell them later if he needed to — and unnerved by Pannell, who had formerly impressed him as a slow-thinking man whom he could fool. He began to rise, but stopped when the Revenue man raised the pistol. “What witness?” demanded Leith.

  “Silly question, Mr. Leith. No, that person’s identity will remain a secret, until your trial.” Pannell had sighed. “Or, perhaps… forever.”

  It took some time for Leith to absorb the meaning of the man’s last words. Then his features relaxed, and he asked, “Forever?”

  “Forever — if you get me good and timely information about Skelly.”

  Leith sat up and frowned. “Why me?”

  “Because in the fraternity of dishonest and doubtful men in this community, I judge you to be the most worthy candidate for cooperation.” He reached over with one hand and toyed with one of the candlesticks, turning it around on its base.

  “I can’t do it!” said Leith. “I can’t spy on… those people or anyone else who knows ’em!”

  Pannell shrugged. “Would you care to name a substitute?” He smiled. “It hardly matters to me, though it needn’t be you that turns informer, Mr. Leith.”

  Leith said nothing. He sat straight, both his hands flat on the table. What Pannell was proposing was just as dangerous and risky as turning informer himself. Pannell knew that.

  Pannell grimaced. “Why you, indeed! That should be obvious by now.” He angrily toppled the candlestick so that it almost hit Leith’s hand. “Listen to this fantastic arithmetic, Mr. Leith!” With his pistol, he knocked over the other candlestick, which rolled off the table to the floor. “There should be a truppence difference between the duty on tea at four shillings nine pence a pound, and what Mr. Rudge, the grocer in Gwynnford, charges for the same thing! But Mr. Rudge is charging, not five or six shillings, as is the custom elsewhere in the kingdom, but only three shillings a pound! That should represent a loss to him of at least one shilling nine pence. Mr. Rudge sells prodigious amounts of tea. His account books contradict his prosperity. They say that he paid the price reflected in the original purchaser’s paid duty, not including conveyance costs from Bristol. But that cannot be, for he sells his tea — and, I might add, his coffee, his peppers, his raisins, his tobacco, his candles, his brandy, his sugar — at an unconscionable loss! He is a fat, jolly gentleman with a merry wife and three charming children, and is a respected man in that town — when, by all that is right in God’s eyes, he should be in the workhouse, or at least accepting alms from the parish!”

  Pannell sat back and glowered at Leith. “A similar paradox surrounds the situation of most of the merchants in this immediate vicinity. They are buying contraband, Mr. Leith. They are regularly provisioned. I know by whom. I want to know how. Who speaks for them? Who acts as their carter? Who is their middleman?” He suddenly leaned forward, raised the pistol and jammed the barrel hard against Leith’s forehead. He cocked the hammer. Leith’s eyes widened in paralysis as the Revenue man’s bulged in anger. “Miracles occur here daily, Mr. Leith, but no one boasts of performing a single one!”

  Leith could only gulp.

  Pannell left the inn that evening, taking the candlesticks with him, and leaving instructions on how to contact him. They had had many meetings since then. At each one Leith told him about a planned landing of contraband. And in every instance, Pannell and his men, armed to the teeth, and once even accompanied by a party of dragoons, were too late. This had gone on for months.

  Leith could not breach the code of silence about the “free-traders” in Gwynnford or any other nearby town. He had been able to report only hearsay and rumor. He had always been on the far receiving end of whatever contraband he managed to buy for his inn, and so he was not sure whether he was kept out of the circle of information by rules of the Skelly gang, or for the same reasons Pannell had approached him with his blackmail. He did not like it that Pannell had summoned him this time for a meeting here, at the Sea Siren. Customers would see them together, and would think the worst.

  “You must not wait for information, Mr. Leith,” said Pannell. “You must ferret it out. You must exhibit some discreet curiosity.”

  “It ain’t possible to do that!” said Leith. “You’d find me stuffed down a well if I went about direct-like askin’ how to talk to Skelly!” He tried to drink his ale, but could not. “Look, Mr. Pannell, sir, all I can tell you is what I hear. And all I hear is where smugglers’ batmen and tubmen are supposed to gather for a landin’, and I have to practically use an earhorn for that information! People stop talkin’ when I’m clearin’ a table or servin’ ’em!”

  “There was no one at Tallant last night, Mr. Leith,” said Pannell. “We rode up and down the shore for miles in each direction, but all we found is what we always find, the usual leavings.”

  “It were Tallant, that’s all I heard,” pouted Leith.

  “Well, it is tiresome, isn’t it?” Pannell squinted at the man. “Next time we meet, please omit news of rendezvous. I can collect these tidbits from other places. Employ your imagination, Mr. Leith, before I am tempted to employ mine.” He rose, said “Good day to you, sir,” and left the Sea Siren.

  Isham Leith sat quietly for a long time, thinking, and trying to remember something he had overheard one of the patrons of his own inn say and which might be important to Pannell. Or something he had seen.

  A large form appe
ared at the edge of his vision. “Is something wrong with the ale, Mr. Leith?”

  Leith glanced up. It was Hiram Trott, who studied him with a supercilious look. “What?”

  “Something wrong with the ale? You and Mr. Pannell didn’t hardly touch it.”

  “Nothin’s wrong with it!” Leith lifted his tankard and took a long draught from it.

  Trott glanced at the front door. “You and that Revenue chap friends?”

  “No!” said Leith. His mind fumbled for an explanation. “He’s makin’ trouble for me over my new place that ain’t even finished yet, that’s all! Says he might take my license away, because he stopped at my other place last week and had some wrong beef for breakfast. Says it made him ill for two days.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” replied Trott. “Unfortunate. That’s never happened here.” He paused. “And then he goes and treats you to an ale for all the misery you gave him! Forgiving man, I’d say.”

  “Awh, he’s just a cockalorum, that’s why! Likes to see a bigger man squirm! If he weren’t a King’s man, I’d show ’im his place!”

  “Hmmm,” replied Trott, his hands busy with his apron, “I’m sure you would. He wasn’t a miser when he boarded here a while back. Always generous with his money. But then it weren’t his money he was spending, was it? Moved his custom to the Saucy Maiden down the street. Sorry to see him go. Could keep a keen eye on him then.” Trott smiled vaguely at Leith. “Well, enjoy your ale, Mr. Leith. Is there anything else I can get for you? A serving of beef, perhaps? Local product, mind you, none of that stringy Smithfield hoof you had the misfortune of serving Mr. Pannell.”

  Leith glared at the innkeeper. “I ain’t got the appetite, Trott. Oomph off.”

  “Very well,” sighed Trott. He picked up Pannell’s untouched tankard and left.

  Leith blinked, and turned to glance once at Trott’s retreating back. An odd feeling told him that he was close to remembering something he could give to Pannell. Something he had seen.

  Chapter 13: The Proclamation

  EARLY ONE CHILLY, MID-OCTOBER EVENING REDMAGNE RETURNED FROM A visit to Marvel and went directly to Skelly’s chamber. Skelly himself had the day before returned from a journey to Guernsey with a new stock of contraband, was busy scheduling deliveries to merchants, grocers and other tradesmen. Redmagne lay two newspapers on his friend’s desk, side by side, and pointed to the items he had circled in pencil. The man put his pipe aside, adjusted his spectacles and read them. An exquisite French porcelain clock ticked away the minutes. Skelly smiled after reading one of the items, and frowned when he finished the second. Then he sat back and pushed the papers away. “Call a meeting,” he said. “The men should know.”

  “Is everyone here?” asked Redmagne.

  “Most everyone,” said Skelly. “Mr. Claxon is out gathering some final information.”

  The meeting was held in the dining hall. Redmagne chaired it. Skelly sat near Redmagne at the head of the table and let him speak. It was some hours after the evening meal, but Skelly instructed Elmo Tuck and Jack Frake to serve the men tankards of their favorite brews from the battery of casks and ankers that lined one wall. The smoky hall was alive with half a dozen conversations. Jack Frake stood near the spit and the kettles with Elmo Tuck and waited.

  Redmagne rapped the table-top with the butt of his pistol. The men ceased their talk and turned to him. He held up a newspaper, a copy of the London Evening Auditor. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I returned not two hours ago after purchasing this publication — ”

  “Did you purchase it before or after calling on Dolly Fletcher?” asked one of the men. The whole hall laughed. Skelly grinned. Dolly Fletcher was the daughter of the mayor of Marvel, a staunch Whig and a spokesman for the “fair-traders” of the town. The affair between his daughter and the outlaw was known to almost everyone in the market town but the father, who thought that the charming man who sometimes sat down to tea with him was Brice Chandler, the son of a prosperous Bristol distiller.

  “I shall never tell,” remarked Redmagne pleasantly. “The honor of his lordship the mayor may be irreparably impugned.” He laughed again with the men, then continued. “I hold here news of significant literary import,” he said. “Our letter was printed.”

  The men exclaimed in surprise and delight. Weeks ago, Redmagne and the men had vigorously debated the issue of whether “God Save the King” or “Rule, Britannia” should be the country’s anthem. Redmagne managed to persuade the gang, first by argument, then, accompanying himself with a lute — for Redmagne could and often did sing and entertain the gang in the evenings — by performing each of the anthems, that the one was more appropriate than the other. He then composed a letter, made several copies of it, and posted it to a number of London newspapers.

  The men clamored for Redmagne to read it. He folded the paper and read: “Sir: On the occasion of the late invasion of this country by the Young Pretender, and before the folly of attempting to revive a long-expired throne, buttressed by nothing but vanity and vaporous French support, was forcefully taught the Pretender at Culloden, the correspondent was disconcerted to hear ‘God Save the King’ sung with fervor, first by the cast and audience at Covent Garden last year (where he was privileged to be entertained by another of Mr. Handel’s splendid oratorios), then elsewhere throughout the nation. Far be it from the correspondent to discourage patriotism, but he was under the impression that Mr. James Thomson’s brisk, stirring ‘Rule, Britannia’ had the distinction of being our anthem, and not the nutmeggishly sweet musical apotheosis of a sovereign. We may be so bold as to further point out that the words of one anthem oppose those of the other. ‘Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks,’ is quite a distinct sentiment from ‘Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame,’ and ‘Britons will never be slaves.’ It is more than idle tea-table conjecture which compels this correspondent to ask: By what politics, or by what tricks, shall Britons not be slaves, and at the same time not disturb the precious repose of the sovereign? We must own that Parliament does well enough a job of ‘scattering’ the liberties of Britons without the King’s help! We would do well, in fact, to adopt instead an anthem for Parliament, with which that nest of ‘haughty tyrants’ could then smugly convene and adjourn its proceedings, and which would of necessity include the words, ‘Confound their liberties, belittle their miseries’.”

  The men laughed and cheered when they heard the words of Skelly’s pledge parodied in the letter.

  Redmagne grinned, and continued. “While we confess that the lyrics of ‘Rule, Britannia’ ever more seem to be about a nation we hardly recognize, they and their melody are still to be preferred over the servile, fawning well-wishing to a sovereign who is as insensible to our state of liberty as we Britons are to the polish of his shoe buckles or the luster of his chamber pot. If Britons are to be free, they should reconsider the import of each anthem, and choose either a psalm of supplication, or a celebration of pride. Your most devoted servant, Skellicus.”

  Again the men cheered, and Redmagne handed the newspaper to one of the gang members to pass around. Skelly smiled and asked Tuck to serve the men another round of drinks. His visage was pleasant, but Jack Frake noted a glimmer of sadness in it.

  “‘Skellicus’! Everybody knows who that’s supposed to be! Can you imagine the volume of hot correspondence ignited by that letter?” asked Chester Plume, the bookkeeper. “Why, the publisher might even be called to apologize in the Commons!”

  “For printing someone else’s letter?” asked William Ayre, the former cattle drover. He was only a few years older than Richard Claxon, and was the gang-member still confused by the number and identity of Fredericks involved in the War of the Austrian Succession.

  “They’ll think the publisher wrote it,” explained Plume. “They’ll do that, you know, just to stir up talk, and get up circulation and sales, and pretend others wrote it.”

  Henry Naughton, Skelly’s pilot, rose and proposed a toast to Redmagne. “You neve
r know when or where the Skelly gang will strike next!” he laughed. “At sea, on land, or on the front page!”

  When the toast was completed, Redmagne held up a copy of another newspaper, the Marvel Weekly Mercury. His expression became serious. The men knew that he had some sobering news to convey. He tapped the upheld paper with a finger. “On page one here you will see this large advertisement, in between the modest advertisement for Hutt’s Bookstore in Falmouth — the first in any of the West Counties, I should point out — and the barely readable one for the return of six cows missing from Mr. Moore’s pasture. It is the desire of His Majesty that the gentleman to my right” — he folded the newspaper and read from it “… surrender his person within forty days of the publication of this proclamation in the official Gazette, or within forty days of the publication of this proclamation in a public place in the vicinity of the subject’s depredations, for the purpose of attainting said offender of numerous capital and civil felonies. He shall forfeit his life for the same offenses should he surrender, or is apprehended, after the expiration of the term of this proclamation. Further, any person who either harbors or aids said offender after the expiration of said term, and is himself not found guilty of other felonies, capital or civil, shall be transported for seven years… ” He lowered the newspaper, and said, “That concludes the billet-doux from our sovereign.” Then he handed it to the man nearest him. “Please read it and pass it along, Mr. Greene, so that each of you may see with your own eyes.”