Jack Frake (27 page)

“Or down it,” replied Jack Frake with a grin. Skelly’s orders to his couriers were that they were never to reveal to anyone the true location of a nocturnal landing.

“Yes, of course,” sighed Hiram Trott. “Well, here are our orders. Mine, Mr. Rudge’s, Mr. Cary’s, and Mr. Embry’s.” He handed the boy several sheets of paper.

Jack Frake glanced at them. “We can get you most of it, and more than enough salt and pepper. But we’re short of pommard. They say the French vineyards have had a bad year.”

“Spanish will do,” replied Trott placidly. “Whatever you and Mr. Skelly can manage.”

Jack Frake folded the orders and put them in a leather bag slung over
his shoulder. He offered a hand to his former employer. “I’ve got to go and take orders in Clegg,” he said.

Trott playfully squeezed the boy’s hand. “Clegg, is it? Seems I recall a fib you told me once about your being from Clegg,” he said in mock admonishment. “And how is Mr. Claxon?”

“Down with the chilblains,” said Jack Frake.

“When can we expect to see some goods?”

“Soon. We’ll send word.”

“I see you’re still wearing that hat I gave you a while back,” noted Trott, pleased. “It’s looking a bit tatty, though.”

“That’s because I’m simply a poor boy on his way to Portsmouth to apprentice himself in the shipbuilding trades,” said the boy with a laugh.

“Seems I’ve heard that line before, too.” Trott opened the door and waved once as Jack Frake dashed back out again. He closed and barred the door, then, with a roar of a yawn, shuffled back to his own room.

A
T THE SOUND OF THE FALLING LATCH ON
T
ROTT’S DOOR
, F
RANCIS
A
UTT
sat up. It was not the rap on the back door that had awakened him, nor his employer’s heavy tread through the tavern; he knew that tread too well and feared it. Nor was it the hushed voices.

It was the name of Jack Frake.

Autt touched the jagged scar that ran from beneath his left ear and ended somewhere on his cheek. Jack Frake had given him that scar with a hoe, many years ago. He blinked in thought. He had heard talk around Trelowe and Gwynnford about the disappearance of Cephas Frake’s son. He remembered thinking with pleasure then that the Skelly men who had taken him probably had tossed him over the cliff and into the Channel. But here he was, working with the gang! And there had been some trouble between the boy and Isham Leith, who was married to Jack Frake’s mother now. Francis Autt pondered these and other related matters for the rest of the day, and so excited was he with his discovery that he dropped several dishes and, at one point, began to sweep out the main fireplace with his bare hands before he checked himself. One mishap followed another, and his mind still echoed with Trott’s exasperated bellowing at him. While Francis Autt’s memory was remarkable — faces, events, and even conversations stuck in his mind with the randomness and stubbornness of objects pressed into tar — his capacity to think seemed mired in the same substance.

As Henoch Pannell had resorted to blackmailing Leith to play informant, Leith was compelled to hire his own informant. Hiram Trott was the town merchants’ go-between; of that, he was now certain. It was with great self-restraint that he had stopped himself from running off to tell Pannell. It was important information, but he preferred to hand the Commissioner a richer prize. However, for this purpose he was faced with two obstacles. The first was practical; he could not run his own business and also spend time watching Trott. The second was that he knew that Trott disliked him enough not to risk careless talk or behavior in his presence.

But a day following his observation of the meeting of Trott and the youth on the pony under the tree on the moor, he happened to be in the Sea Siren at the invitation of Gerald Hollings, the town brickmaster, for a few gills of ale to celebrate a minor business transaction. He made another observation; Francis Autt was stealing Clarissa’s gratuities. And also sneaking quick nips from patrons’ unfinished drinks.

The next day he managed to corner Autt as the latter was on an errand to the coal seller’s and browbeat him into spying on Trott. He dangled the incentive of a golden guinea in front of the man’s eyes, and promised to pay him as much as Trott was paying him. “You keep a sharp ear out for talk about runnin’ goods, ’specially if Trott’s doin’ the talkin’. If you think somethin’s brewin’, lie doggo and see what’s up. Keep your mouth shut and mind your own nose. And leave off takin’ the wench’s coin, or I’ll box your ears if Trott don’t. I’ll see you every day about what you hear.” He did not tell Autt the real reason for his curiosity about Trott. “I got a secret agreement with him and the freetraders,” he explained, “and I just want fair dibs on the next big run. I think I’m bein’ cheated. You help me learn when this big run is, and I’ll make it worth your bother.”

Francis Autt was of that simple ilk that could be persuaded of the truth of anything. Blatant contradictions could sit undisturbed in his mind, and he would neither know them nor be bothered by them. He did not like Leith, for the man had made sport of him in the past. But he disliked Trott more. And, as Trott knew nothing of Autt’s relationship to Leith, Autt knew nothing of Leith’s relationship to Pannell.

“And not a word to Trott we know each other,” warned Leith, “or he’ll learn all about your filchin’ his daughter’s coin and he’ll beat you again or even throw you out. Winter’s comin’, remember, and you’ll want a warm place and your mum’ll want food on the table.”

That night, after the Sea Siren had closed its doors at midnight and the
Trott family retired, Autt crept out and made his way to Trelowe. Leith was not at his first inn, and Peter Leith, the brother, nearly swatted him for disturbing his sleep. Autt ran to the new inn, the Three Ewes, down the county road. This establishment was still serving patrons. Leith frowned when he saw Autt beckon anxiously to him from the door, then excused himself from his wife and hustled the scullion back outside. “What?” he asked with irritation.

Autt whispered his news: There was to be a contraband run on the night of the twelfth, west of Penlilly-by-Sea, up the coast; Trott would see that Pannell didn’t hang his ears at the Sea Siren; orders were taken from Trott, Rudge, Cary and Embry; no pommard, because the French vineyards had a bad year; Claxon was down with the chilblains; Frake was just a poor boy on his way to Portsmouth.

The information about Pannell’s “ears” was wrong, of course. As nature abhors a vacuum, contradictions tend to correct themselves in excited minds. One is either aware of the correction, or one is ignorant of it. Autt was ignorant of it, and Isham Leith was no wiser for it.

At first, Leith did not gather the full import of his spy’s information. Autt did not understand most of it, either. He stood shivering in the cold while Leith digested the words. Nor did he grasp Leith’s growing amazement, and then his jubilation when he was told to repeat as much of Trott’s and Jack Frake’s conversation as he could remember. “They talked low, but I could hear every word!” he said.

Leith laughed like a man who had just won a thousand guineas on a cock-fight wager. “By God, I’m saved!” he exclaimed. Autt at first thought that Leith was crying, but the innkeeper did a mad jig in front of him and then around him, hooting and whooping with joy. Autt said, as an afterthought, “I’d like to take a hoe to that Frake boy, and see how he likes it!”

“Never mind him!” said Leith, finishing his jig with a few friendly slaps on Autt’s dour face. “Francis, you’re a saint! You outdid my expectations! Now — get back to Trott’s before he misses you. Keep an ear open for more talk.” Then he frowned, and reached into his apron and gave the man two shillings.

Autt nodded several times in thanks and pocketed the money. “Can I have a swig of gin, Mr. Leith?” he asked. “My innards is cold from the walk, and I got to go back.”

“No trouble, Francis,” chuckled Leith, going to the inn door. “Wait right here. Not a word to anyone about this, now! Our secret, you see! You
down your gin, and off you go.”

As he went about his business with his patrons, Leith’s mind was preoccupied with Autt’s news and how he could get it to Pannell. The Commissioner, recently returned from quarter sessions in Falmouth, was due to leave again tomorrow on Revenue business in Fowey. Everyone in Gwynnford knew the Commissioner’s business; as he watched the town, the town watched him. The twelfth was tomorrow — today, realized Leith with a glance at his pocket watch — but he could hardly go and knock on Pannell’s door at the Saucy Maiden at this or any hour.

Leith cursed under his breath. He would need to risk it, even if it meant waiting until dawn outside the Saucy Maiden for the man to emerge. He must intercept Pannell before he left. He was not certain how the man planned to travel — by horse, carriage or packet.

When the last patron left, Leith barred the inn door, discarded his apron, and put on his coat and hat. “I got business in Gwynnford,” he said to his wife. “I’ll be back by daylight.” He rushed out the back door to the stable, where he quickly saddled his horse and rode off into the night on his own mission. At three in the morning, he rode into Gwynnford. He passed the Sea Siren and approached the Saucy Maiden. He saw no lights in any of its windows. He urged his mount into the alley and then back to the inn’s stables. Pannell’s and his agents’ mounts were gone. Leith cursed his luck.

But before he could panic, he heard several sets of hooves on the cobblestones of Jetty Street. They turned off Jetty into the mud of the alley.

Henoch Pannell rode into the stable yard at the head of a posse of tired-looking men. He frowned at the sight of the waiting figure on horseback, and held up the lantern he was carrying to better see the stranger’s face. He chuckled. “What brings you away from your wife’s warm side this cold morning, Mr. Leith?”

“I’ve some news for you, sir.”

Pannell scowled at the man with a sardonic lift of his eyebrows. “Penlilly, Mr. Leith?” he asked. He shook his head. “Tardy again, sir.”

Leith was crestfallen with the man’s foreknowledge. “There’s more!” he said.

Pannell sighed. “Very well. Come up to my room. I have a private entrance here and no one will see you. I’m damp and thirsty, and refuse to talk out here.” He dismounted and handed the reins of his horse to a subordinate.

In Pannell’s room, the Commissioner lit a number of candles and poured himself and Leith drams of rum. He fell back into an armchair and planted his heels on a footrest. “Hard business, this night-riding. It nets but a few lonely law-breaking souls. Tonight, for example, we actually caught a man running wool out of the country. But, we let him go. Put a torch to his stash of wool, right there on the beach. His entire shearing for the season. He won’t try that again!” The Commissioner chuckled. “You should have seen the Dutchman hovering off the shore! Didn’t know what to make of that signal, I tell you! Then we saw his sail disappear.” Pannell dropped his head wearily on the back of the chair. “And tomorrow, I take a holiday from this business. Personal report to the Surveyor General in Fowey. Leave by mail packet after breakfast. Why do I tell you this? Well, you’re here, and why not? Everyone will know tomorrow anyway.”

Pannell finished his rum, then warmed his palms over the candle sputtering on a side table next to him. “Now, Mr. Leith. About Penlilly. What did I tell you about false alarms?”

“You mean, you’re not goin’ to Penlilly?” asked Leith. “It’s the Skelly gang!”

Pannell shrugged. “What for? We’ll find nothing but the residue of a run. These Skelly men are specters, Mr. Leith. Why, I’ll wager that when Skelly’s at last put in irons, he’ll somehow manage to walk through the prison walls!”

“But — ”

“No, no, Mr. Leith,” said Pannell, waving a hand in dismissal. “I appreciate your devotion in having ridden all this way to tell me, but we’re not going to bother with Penlilly.”

“Hiram Trott!” blurted Leith. “He’s the go-between for Skelly here!”

“Oh?” sniffed Pannell. “Well, I’ve always suspected him. But it’s so difficult to catch him at it.” He paused, then grinned. “Who was your informant? His scullion, Autt, I’ll wager.”

Leith nodded, disgusted with the precision of the Commissioner’s guesses.

“Thank you for the intelligence regarding Mr. Trott. But why should I place any importance on the rest of it?”

“Because, because,” began Leith, and then he bent low and almost whispered, as though he did not want to hear himself say it, “because it’s my wife’s son who was the messenger last night. He’s with the Skelly gang!”

“I see,” said Pannell after a moment. “I remember him from the old days at Trott’s. The little blighter who took on the Navy. Jack was his name, wasn’t it?”

Leith nodded again.

After a moment, Pannell said, “Tell me as much as the scullion told you.”

Leith repeated Autt’s hurried message, all but for the items about the French vineyards, Claxon’s chilblains, and Portsmouth.

Pannell’s reaction to the information was not as jubilant as Leith’s had been. Trott’s tipsters had worked fast Sunday afternoon, when the taverns reopened. The Commissioner’s agents in Gwynnford’s public houses had already reported word of the run on the night of the twelfth, of which this was the morning. But the nature of this same information, reported by Leith, perplexed him. He asked Leith if he or his informant could repeat the exact conversation between Trott and Jack Frake. Leith said he could not, and he assured Pannell that his informant could not, either. “He’s got sheep’s brains, you see,” explained Leith with apology, “and he gets things mixed up sometimes.”

And Leith misinterpreted Pannell’s silent musings. He waited for the Commissioner to go on.

Pannell smiled. He had heard the whispered talk about Leith. Rumors of smugglers and contraband runs were not the only pieces of gossip he gleaned from the town. A suspicion was forming in his mind. “Hmm,” he droned. “You’ve no fatherly attachment to the boy?” But before Leith could respond, he waved the question aside. “Never mind that. It’s none of my affair.” He sighed. “Still, the information is straight from the horse’s mouth. And it’s early information, too. Penlilly’s less than an hour’s ride from here. Altogether, very curious.” The missing parts of the intelligence tickled his mind. He rubbed his chilly hands together near the candle, and smiled again. “Hiram Trott,” he chuckled. “It will be a pleasure to include him in the catch, if there is a catch.” He studied Leith, but said nothing.